Posted on 01/11/2010 1:08:27 PM PST by Kid Shelleen
Listen and be the judge: Does Al Gore change his tone when he talks to African-Americans.
He's no rapping Bulworth, but we notice a sort of, well, difference in Al Gore when he's talking in front of a black audience. Sometimes, like during his primary debate against Bill Bradley, he just seems more animated. Other times, frankly, he just sounds like a white man trying to sound like a black man -- and sounding even whiter than any man should be allowed to sound, for all his efforts
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
I don’t like to be talked down to and think this whole talking down to someone’s level is such crap; it’s even taught in schools as a ‘social register’ or ‘non-standard English’ like it’s something good. People look at you like you’re slightly off your rocker if you try to remind them that they have less than 20 seconds to make an impression in business, from clothes to mannerisms to speech—especially for that ‘plum’ job. No one is served well by assuming they’re beneath you, when it’s obvious that the ploy is to serve you up on a stick.
I even knew a couple of people who actually turned up their twitty little noses at me at one point.
No, I didn’t slug them. It was tempting, though.
And can we ever forget the dialect switch of Ms. Hillary Clinton during her speech to the NAACP about the evil Repubs - “you know what Ah’m talkin’ about...”
Didn’t he play the white cop on Sanford and Son?
Even the hillary knows how to drop into dialect ...
My accent has always changed with the accent of the people I am conversing with. When I was young it was much more so than now when my ears aren’t so good. It was more than accent, though. I picked up languages quickly, and forgot them just as fast once they were no longer relevant. When I was young I could not hear another person’s accent once I was in conversation with him because my own became his after only a few words. Sometimes people thought I was mocking them but it was profitable when I was selling shoes in a Galveston Thom McCann in 1965. I could talk to the Mexicans easily and to the Negroes and to the Creoles and Cajuns of the neighborhood while the manager there was more limited.
Salon just now noticing?
You adapt, but intentionally speaking “Negro” or attempting to is just plain “talking down” to other ethnic groups.
Sickening!
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