First day out on the presidential campaign trail, Senator Joe
Biden of Delaware unknowingly step on a racial landmine by depicting
his most formidable competitor, Senator Barack Obama, in the race
for the nation’s top job as “ articulate". The
reaction to his blunder has brought out political correct histrionics
by politicians and has also bought up historical baggage for many
African Americans.
A seemingly innocuous word, “articulate” however,
has become a loaded word today in our cultural lexicon. And depending
on the users’ tone, tenor, and intent, the word can be received
as a compliment. But when it is not, the word is unquestionably
a put-down suggesting a speech disability due to a person’s
race, accent, and even U.S. region where they reside.
For example, many African Americans are offended when whites
use the word “articulate” as a left-handed compliment
to express their astonishment by our masterful elocution of standard
English. And regardless of our varied class, educational and professional
backgrounds, Black English, pejoratively called Ebonics, is thought
to be our native tongue.
The word “articulate” is also far out of reach in
depicting folks with strong regional accents. And the regional
north-south divide on this issue of which accents sound pleasant
to the ears or are linguistically correct have created a cacophony
of completing opinions and very little middle ground. While many
southern accents, for the most part, are stigmatized and poked
fun of, nothing is more linguistically recognizable than the southern
drawl, associated with the deep South. It’s lengthening
of certain vowels has come to be derogatorily depicted as a slow
and lazy speech pattern attributed to the regions’ heat,
where people commonly say y’all instead of “you all”
in addressing a group of people.
Being a girl from Brooklyn, where a Brooklynese accent competes
mightily with New Jersey’s, I was shamed out of my accent
when I left home to attend an elite ivy-league college in New
England. And forced to adopted an acceptable accentless speech,
one free of regional characteristics, I began to sound like I
came from nowhere, but now I was perceived by my peers as “articulate".
There is a cadence to all accents that makes language musical
and colorful. And having one does not make you less articulate
than not having one.
But there is nonetheless a bias. And for Biden, Obama’s
isn’t associated with the group he identifies with. And
that’s where Biden messed up.
BC columnist, the Rev. Irene Monroe
is a religion columnist, public theologian, and speaker. She is
a Ford Fellow and doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity School.
As an African American feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector
of society that is frequently invisible. Her website is www.irenemonroe.com.
Click
here to contact the Rev. Monroe. |