The Black Commentator - What Defines Being “Articulate”? Biden Messed Up

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.