How many times have you found yourself ‘Puttin on the white voice,’ when speaking with someone white or in a position of what you feel is of importance? Unconsciously, more Blacks than not will change dialect at post conversation in order to appear intelligible to whites; the question is why.

Why do we (Blacks) have to upgrade our natural dialect to accommodate the white crowd? Since when did our method of speaking become of lower standard to the King’s English and furthermore, does not meaning convey more than diction? In other words, if your point is of clear meaning, why try to whiten it up?

Some Blacks have a natural Euro-diction that places them inside the clique automatically while others have to work a little harder to attain that diction.

Mainstream standards proclaim that speaking proper English gives the speaker an advantage in certain circles of life and demands more respect, thus one should practice perfect diction. While that diction means nothing in the circle of Black conversation, it does make a difference around whites. Is this a good or bad thing?

It is a bad thing because it means Blacks have to adapt to white standards by shedding their natural, God-given character. It means that they set the standard for us and if we do not conform we can be shut out of the American dream.

It means that whites have no respect for Black people who have not ‘mastered’ a language that is not by nature our own language and will use that against us. It means that we live in a society that has not released the Black/white differences when adjusting for success.

Finally, it means that Black people who ‘Put on the white voice,’ have not come to the conscious reality that we are who we are and if they do not like it then it is too damn bad. If diction determines success yet meaning has no place, we live in a world that we will never fit into based on the shear shallowness of a truly ignorant people.

© May 2007 by CR Hamilton