False accents, condescension and racism
Published Fri, Apr 27 2007 12:18 PM
OK, first of all, a lot of this comes from my memory of a conversation I heard on the radio this morning. I know I don't remember it exactly, so I'm not quoting anyone on the radio. Remembering that conversation and my reactions to it reminds me of my previous post. I heard the discussion, and I noticed something that I thought should be obvious. I tried to call in, but the lines were busy. Frustrating.
Anyway, the conversation was about Sen. Clinton's "southern" accent and the occasions when it appears. There are a lot of blog posts where bloggers note that it comes out most often when she is speaking to predominantly black audiences. WIStv has noted it as well, and asks if she'll bring it to Orangeburg.
Rush noted some articles about it, and that one of them specifically mentioned that her "southern" accent comes out when speaking to blacks. He played a soundbite of her with a horrible imitation of a southern drawl. He seemed to be saying that she was "pandering" to blacks when she did that.
The "program observer, who is black" noted that it was racist. I never did hear why.
I have to agree, but not for the reasons I heard on the radio. This is what made me want to call in. I think that these remarks go beyond pandering. The conversation on the radio turned discussion of "ebonics" and other languages, and how the attempts to use them were simply pandering to an audience.
I don't recall all of the details.
I think that this example of the use of a false accent is racist only in part because it's a transparent attempt to "sound like" the audience. What's worse is a Northern, white woman coming to the South and affecting a southern accent before a predominantly black audience is a bit degrading.
Consider the history. What one of our national sins is most closely associated with the South? Do I have to spell it out? A century and a half ago it was one of the many issues that divided our nation. That's right - slavery.
I don't think that this rises to the level of a deliberate, conscious effort to insult and degrade her audience when Sen. Clinton speaks this way to a black audience. I do think that it speaks to a different problem that our political class has. They're elitist (on both sides of the aisle). They look down on the rest of us (try writing to a congressman and parsing the response you get sometime when you disagree with them).
By going to a southern black audience and speaking with an obviously false southern accent, Sen. Clinton is more than simply "trying to sound like her audience". She may be trying to relate to them and have them relate to her, but to me it sounds more like a privileged plantation owner talking down to the house slaves.
I'm sure it's not deliberate. But it's still racist. And it points to the double-standards on the left. If this interpretation of her actions were to be presented in the mainstream, she could quite possibly rightly complain that her remarks or motives were misinterpreted.
Isn't it a shame that when a conservative politician makes an innocent remark, attempting to praise another politician of long service that the left pounces upon it as evidence of racism? Haven't a few Republican politicians been hounded out of office by the left over trivialities like this?
I don't like Hillary Clinton. I don't like her politics, her arrogance, or her condescending attitudes. Even so, every politician does some silly things, or commits one or another gaffe. We need to move past these things to the real issues.
The sniping has got to end.
Originally posted at Bloggers for Civil Discourse.
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David responded with:
 | "...to me it sounds more like a privileged plantation owner talking down to the house slaves.
I'm sure it's not deliberate..."
And that's exactly the point. Her tin ear combined with her elitist, anti-democratic, airheaded disregard for relational nuance (*heh*--I said "nuance" in a derrogatory comment about someone proud of her "nuanced" views *VBG*) is what makes her the John Kerry of the upcoming race. No lie is too bizarre, no unconscious disrespect too blatant, no egotistical certainty is too mountanous for her to embrace, to make her very own (she'll hug it and pet it and call it George...).
In her own little fantastict world, she's "relating" to someone, while the real world (what little there is left of it in the public arena) looks on and sees it for the mockery that it is. |
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