For most people in the black community it seems to come as an insult if they are labeled as “talking white.” As African Americans, acting or talking white seems to be a derogatory term, in that it makes the individual feel as if he/she is trying to meet the expectations of the white culture, causing him/her to turn his/her back on his own culture. In a lot of cases this person’s speech may be frowned upon by others in the black community, as he/she may be considered a sellout or not really black.
My question to the large majority of those who use the phrase “you talk like you’re white,” is what does “talking white” mean? I’ve seen numerous instances in which I’ve witnessed an African American get tormented for “talking white,” and in most of these instances he sounded intelligent to me. I find it sad that most of the time that other blacks are criticized for talking white is when they are speaking intelligently, clear, and with little to no slang.
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The reason why this saddens me, is because I feel that our society has become so accustomed to “Talking white” being categorized as intelligent speech, where as “Talking black” has been categorized” as uneducated speech with a lot of slang. It’s as if we are giving whites more credit than they deserve, in that white aligns with intelligence and black aligns with uneducated behavior. This is far from the truth, in that I know many intelligent blacks and many unintelligent whites. It’s as if we blacks are always fighting to be equal to whites but are quick to condemn one another for any type of action that may level the playing field.
There shouldn’t be such a thing as “talking white” or “talking black” because you can’t pick a type of language category that every person in one race falls into. As a biracial person, I do not want to be labeled as talking white or black. There are many things that factor into the way a person speaks such as where they were raised, their level of education, who the type of crowd of people they are with on a regular basis. There are plenty of factors that influence one’s speech and the color of a person’s skin is not one.
words by: Giovanni Waters
