My favorite thing about introducing myself has to be the immediate response following my name: “Why you talk like that?” plus an outburst of annoying laughter. Mentally I respond, “Why do I talk like what? Intelligently?”
See, what pisses me off about this statement isn’t the fact that you acknowledge that I don’t sound like I am from Mississippi, but it’s the ignorant belief that my speaking intelligently is some how synonymous to speaking “white.”
What’s even more irritating is that this statement usually comes from black people. That is possibly one of the most degrading things a black person can say about their race. You’re pretty much saying that if someone wants to sound intelligent they have to speak “like a white person.” That’s NOT intelligent.
I will enunciate my words, and I will employ from my vocabulary words that best say what I wish to communicate. This does not mean I am striving to be white or that I think i am too good to be black or whatever excuses one may come up with today. What it does mean is that the places I plan to go in my life require me to speak well and the person I want to be requires the same.
And on the flip side, the places I plan to go require me to have an opinion. So during those occasions when I decide to vocalize my opinion is not the time for you to say, “There’s that trapped black woman trying to be freed.” What? Let me get this right — I speak white when I am speaking intelligently, and I speak black when I am passionate or sometimes loud bout my opinion. You guys don’t wan’t to let a sister make it? (I wonder how I would be “defined” if I neither spoke nor thought.)
I find it interesting that some African Americans do not want the term “black” to have a negative connotation within the White community, but are quick to associate being intelligent with being white and being “ratchet” with being black. We also seem to have difficulty when another black sister or brother gets a high position of power or excels in extraordinary ways. It’s socially detrimental that the black community can be quick to question if that person is really black.
We as black people have to stop doing this to ourselves. These misconceptions of what defines us as being truly African American has confined us within a shallow box, and it has created such division within our race that for some, the success of each other does not bring joy. We should find happiness in seeing one another thrive, because success is not given to us. If the African American circle can not support each other, then from whom do we expect to gain support?
The way I speak does not make me better than you. The way you speak does not make you more black than me. The way we beat each other down for these differences, however, is why they who think they are better than us say what they do.
Rachel Granger is a junior international studies major from Pearl.
