AOC's Racist Speech

[*michaelsean*]

(04-11-2019, 10:15 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: On a serious note, my wife is black (and I'm white). Her general, day to day cadence is what most people would consider a "white voice."

For a few years, she worked at a car rental place and people would make reservations on the phone and then the person would arrive and say "I was talking to a woman named Dominique" and she'd say "I am Dominique" to which they'd occasionally seem confused and reply with some version of "Oh, is there another Dominique here?" obviously confused because they did not match her voice to her face. This happens in other scenarios as well.

See, there's this whole concept of assimilating into society that a lot of minorities feel compelled to do in order to fit in. My wife uses her "sterile" voice at work because it is seen as unprofessional to get "ebonic" in tone in the workplace. She often tells me stories about how she had to hold back certain phrases, sayings or expressions (or, on occasion, would let one slip and then have to explain to her co-workers what the phrase/saying meant, often awkwardly) to maintain her professionalism.

However, when she is hanging out with me, her friends (both black and white) or her sisters, who do speak with the generally "black" tonal patterns and qualities, she does have a subtle "sassy" or "ebonic" tone to her voice at certain points of the conversation. Not the whole time, mind you. But maybe when doing some sort of emphasis on something (I think we are all aware of the clap between words emphatic expression). It's a comfortability thing.

If I made a "white" comparison, I have a friend from Kentucky who says he used to have to stop himself from using the term "Y'all" in emails to our clients, because it also is seen as unprofessional. It's the same basic concept.

So, why is this relevant? Obviously, I'm aware AOC is not black (or at least, not the socially defined version of black), but this same idea of assimilation into the white society affects most minorities. She was born in the Bronx, after all. And, by all accounts, she is at least tangentially familiar with "the struggle" throughout various parts of her life.  So who's to say what we see here is not a tone she adopts when with her friends, in a more comfortable atmosphere, whereas the tone we often hear her speak in is her more sterile voice for professionalism?

Some may call it code switching (as Sunset brought up), but I just think of it as "oh, this person is comfortable enough around me to not feel like they have to self-censor."

Now, I don't know AOC personally. Maybe her common tone is her natural tone and this was pandering. I can't say. But I don't think it's unreasonable to give her a bit of allowance here, given her roots and ethnicity.

Now, if a white congressperson who grew up rich, in a mostly white suburb suddenly dawned an ebonic/ethnic tone while speaking to black people, that raises different flags, since there's no indication she has any relation to that upbringing. This points more definitively towards pandering. That is what you may perceive when you say "Imagine if a white Republican did that!"

I hope that clarifies the distinction, in the eyes of a liberal.

I commend you on a well thought out post.  It did not sound natural to me, but who knows?  There's a better chance that her's was natural compared to Hillary's I suppose.  

I get what your wife has to do.  I often have to curb my natural accent which includes telling customers to eff off and they are morons.

But as is often pointed out here,  Republicans are held to a higher standard that Democrats.  Or something to that effect.