Don’t Gimmie that Blacktalk, Young Lady!

Posted by Jaki in The Opposite of Advice.

Here is the scene:

I’m at work.  My two coworkers were heading out for lunch.  A customer was walking up to speak to me but he hadn’t reached me yet.  I turn to my coworker and say something to the effect of, “Where ya’ll headed at?”  It’s important to note that everyone in this situation is a Black person.  The customer reaches my window and promptly proceeds to let me have it.

“‘Where ya’ll headed at?’” he fusses, “I know your mother taught you better than that!  That nigger shit is why people don’t take Black people seriously!”  With that, he begins a mini tirade that includes the ways in which speaking in slang is making Martin Luther King want to spin in a circle and Malcolm X just bitchslapped an angel.  Or something of that nature.  You see, there is a class of Black people who believe that speaking anything that “perfect” English only furthers stereotypes about us as a race.  Which would be a great argument except that the only thing that furthers stereotypes about us are the people who continue to see whatever they would like to see.  I can be a Harvard graduate with several degrees but when I’m staying on the bus stop with my family, I’m not allowed to use slang or I’m hurting the cause.  What cause?  My education doesn’t balance anything out because if someone wants to stereotype me, they will do it with or without my help.  The stereotype isn’t about the Black person.  It’s about the perceptions of the person who is viewing them.  Some people continue to believe that we can change how we are viewed if we just stop doing anything that could offend anyone but the problem is they are offended by our existence, not our actions.  Our existence makes us scary, strange, exotic and dangerous.  Disliking how we speak is a symptom of those misconceptions.  The same bullshit Bill “Coon” Cosby rhetoric about proper English and how the Black community needs to stop talking like gangsters.

Excuse me, Mr.customer.  Now it’s time for my rebuttal.  Someone lied to Black people. Someone told us if us as a people that if we speak in a way that isn’t the formal “proper” way that white people do it, we’re not worthwhile.  It was really pissing me off because he spoke to me as if I was probably too stupid to understand his points.  “Well, I went to one of those fancypants white private schools to study English as a language and those nice people told me that African American vernacular is a valid form of communication and expression.”  His face?  Cracks all up and through.  People get a little bit of book learning and forget that language is about communication and there are formal and informal ways to do it.  If I choose to speak in a culturally informal way to a Black coworker that I have a personal relationship with, I’m a nigger? Gitdafuckouttahere!

Mind you, I believe that all children should be taught the standard verbal and written language because there are times that knowledge will be immensely invaluable.  Writing a term paper, participating in a job interview or speaking to a supervisor are all correct places to be communicate formally.  I also understand that there are children who aren’t being taught these things and that is an issue that needs be addressed.  The problem I had was that this customer had a son standing there listening to this conversation.  He was taking in everything thing his father was saying.  The whole internalized racism that this man was spewing at me based on his perceptions of me from eavesdropping on one casual sentence.  I leaned in and looked at the father but I was really speaking to his son.  I said, “Don’t let white people tell you our language isn’t valuable.”

There is so much literature, music and art that wouldn’t have come about if we were scared to speak the way we feel.  Black people are amazing as a race.  We took a language we were never supposed to learn and made beautiful colloquialisms.  We created unique ways to turn a phrase that people still try to copy and adapt as their own.  Our languages of origin were taken so we took back.  We took ownership of English, stamped it and made our own personal haven to convey emotions that are otherwise inexpressible.  Many other racial minorities have a culture that dates back to their home country.  They have language they can learn and traditions they can follow.  Black people don’t have that.  We were from many African cultures that were forced together and had to learn to create something secret to hold us together under the weight of our oppression.  We have our voice.

Mr. Customer was not prepared to deal with someone who objected with his view of the world so he quickly finished his business and left.  The whole exchange would have been a lot more profound if my coworkers weren’t behind me whooping it up, chanting, “Where YOU at, SON!?  Where YOU at?!”  I’m pretty sure you don’t end a sentence with a preposition.  That is, unless you want to leave your point teetering off the edge so everyone knows where you’re coming from.

The Opposite of Advice |