Talking White?

Often times well-spoken Black Children are teased by their Black peers for ‘talking White’ and in older circles Black teens and young adults are called names such as ‘Oreo’, ‘Booshie’ or ‘sellout.’ The accusers in most cases are socially, culturally and historically inept with field of visions that proceeds no further than the American pop-culture that perpetuates a stagnating identity of Black culture.

I partially blame the television shows of the early seventies such as Good Times, What’s Happening, and the Jeffersons which were the first television programs to not only showcase but build a market from the displaying the lower class of the Black Race. Then there were shows in the nineties such as Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire and In Living Color that featured characters that further perpetuated the stereotype of so called ‘sellouts.’  

The accusers have an attitude of which carries out a form of jealousy for their victims which in most cases have little or nothing to do with culture identity being that they themselves wouldn’t be able to tell you what is White or What is Black. Barely able to speak the English language in perfection and not being able to pronounce one syllable in the language of Western Africa really doesn’t give the accusers a supportive stance when accusing their peers of talking White.

What Black pride is there really to be embraced when everything that is affiliated with White is perfection and everything that is affiliated with an ignorant use of speech and the practice of dysfunctional habits are affiliated with Black?

Do these accusers not realize that White People talk in various ways? When living on the West Coast I was told that I talked like a Hillbilly for my Southern draw. In various places that I’ve visited outside of the South and even while dealing with clientele from other regions of the United States, my customer base can easily pinpoint what region of the United States where I am from. Being called names such as Country and Hick in joking manners in most cases break the ice in executing a transaction. One of my customers told me, “The Down Home accent sounds trusting.” 

Without any ability to speak the native tongue of any kidnapped West African tribe and being influenced only by the captive cultures then it is safe to say that it is all White language. The downhome accent of Southern Blacks mimics the same tongue spoken by the Southern Whites which is mainly the product of Irish Influence among other bad habits that are inspired by Irish influence which we will discuss in another post. Northerners speak with the pronunciation of the Southern British. If you were to take a Black Man from the Northern parts of England, give him dreads and put him in any Black neighborhood in the United States, he would easily be mistaken as a Jamaican.

    

I will end this post with this last paragraph. It’s all White language. English spoken in proper form or broken form is still ‘talking White.’ If cultural identity is the product of adopted imperfection then that says something about that culture. If you would listen and observe the way that so called, “White Trash” speaks versus the urban Black youth, then you will see just like the analogy of the Northern British Black Man being mistaken for a Jamaican makes a valid argument. For the White Trash and the Urban Black sounds the same give or take certain pronunciations. Culture doesn’t have a language nor pride in that culture should never embrace imperfections.