A viral video by a young and well-spoken African-American woman about “speaking white” has sparked a lot of online debate, in some instances transcending politics.
For instance, I first noticed this video on the Facebook page of a friend’s mother, a Tea Partier, who wrote of:
I heard a commercial last night I couldn’t believe … horrible grammar and words I didn’t even recognize. The continual dumbing down of America. This girl says it all!!!
The video, originally posted on Live Leak, is a monologue by an anonymous woman blasting the idea that “sounding educated” or “using proper diction” is considered “talking white.”
The clip begins with the woman saying, “Alright, hear me out. There’s no such thing as talking white or speaking white. It’s actually called speaking fluently, speaking your language correctly.”
She continues, stating:
I don’t know why we’ve gotten to a place where, as a culture – as a race, if you sound as if you have more than a fifth grade education it’s a bad thing. There nothing actually wrong with that.
In other cultures, if you speak your language correctly and fluently, it’s actually admired. “Wow, this woman is educated, this man is educated. Where did you go to school?”
This person took the time and had the drive to “get it right,” to speak correctly.
I find that our culture is one that frowns upon personal evolvement. Think about that. I know it’s something we don’t like to talk about. But having proper diction doesn’t belong to the Caucasian race. That really gets under my skin.
Having proper diction is what you’re supposed to do. And I have to say, “if you speak only one language… and you don’t speak it correctly – that’s not cool.”
The video concludes by noting,
Let’s stop saying that this person talks white, acts white. Think about what you’re saying, because in the same conversation you are saying that “the white man is holding us down,” but you’re actually elevating this race by saying they are the only ones that are allowed to speak as though they are educated and that’s not right.
Think about it.
You can watch the video below as seen by over 7 million Facebook uses on this one post alone:
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