3 ms·

Honest question, since I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to ask this, but I'm curious where that line sits for you? To provide context while answerin

Honest question, since I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to ask this, but I'm curious where that line sits for you? To provide context while answering something you asked, I grew up in philly. I went to a city high school. I have (and most of the other white kids I associated with have) some parts of a philly accent, which I'm very aware I revert to when I, as you say, start partying/relaxing, but in my case it's because I'm relaxing the forced inflection of my speech, and my more natural way of talking comes out. The same thing happens if I talk to someone with a similar east coast manner of speech out of a natural desire to express similarity and establish comfort with the conversation partner. (to answer your, I imagine somewhat rhetorical, question about "do you drop into dialect... white friends", since the above is a thing sans-race) I can tell you authoritatively, although you may not believe me (or say I should stop anyway, which would beg other questions on my part), that there's no "deep opinion" of black culture or speech in that, in fact, the highschool was unfortunately VERY self segregating and most of the white kids didn't have enough interaction to form deep opinions. (which is part of why I'd be curious to ask now about the accent thing, since I know that ALL of the kids there, race aside, picked it up to some degree but it was never something that was discussed, since we just... didn't really talk.) I say this largely in the hope, if we ever talk and I accidentally let that show, that you would think better of me for it and not start to hate :) (the world already has plenty of that, as you point out from the insinuations you identify)

pessimizer 10y ago
> I can tell you authoritatively, although you may not believe me (or say I should stop anyway, which would beg other questions on my part), that there's no "deep opinion" of black culture or speech in that, in fact, the highschool was unfortunately VERY self segregating and most of the white kids didn't have enough interaction to form deep opinions. (which is part of why I'd be curious to ask now about the accent thing, since I know that ALL of the kids there, race aside, picked it up to some degree but it was never something that was discussed, since we just... didn't really talk.) I'd say the fact that one does pick up a dialect without much exposure to black people means that they do have a deep opinion of black culture - enough to imitate it without any social reason involving black people. They're trying to communicate something to the white people they interact with - what is it? I know white people who have grown up completely surrounded by black people, with black relatives, black parents, black children, and have a harder time straightening out their speech than I do because I've hung out with tons of white people since I was a teenager. It's different than a white person who was/is isolated from black people constructing some practised black affect. I bet I can tell Philly from dialect though. There's plenty of white people who have a natural accent close to a lot of black people. It's not really what I'm talking about.
- existencebox 10y ago
  Fair enough; your last sentence was a reasonable answer to my primary question, since I'm not sure I could differentiate natural vs constructed dialects (I'm tone-deaf enough to have trouble with truly foreign language accent identification) so I err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt that it's not malicious, however it seems you were referring to more obvious imitation which I can't speak to, and have to trust your judgement on. And to your middle question, self segregation of direct interaction doesn't necessarily limit exposure. We sat in the same cafeteria, went to the same classes, rode the same busses, so it seems natural that some aspects of speech cross pollinated out of peripheral immersion. Take "jawns" for example. I'm pretty sure I first started hearing it in... 4th, 5th grade? Had _no_ idea what it meant or the implications of using it, but used it because the people around me used it; nothing more sinister or subversive than that, frankly I don't think I had the social sophistication to motivate that sort of conscious mimicry at that age.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    > Take "jawns" for example. From what I read, the usage has become pretty cross-cultural there, and drifted away from the way "joint" is used in other places.

pessimizer 10y ago

> I can tell you authoritatively, although you may not believe me (or say I should stop anyway, which would beg other questions on my part), that there's no "deep opinion" of black culture or speech in that, in fact, the highschool was unfortunately VERY self segregating and most of the white kids didn't have enough interaction to form deep opinions. (which is part of why I'd be curious to ask now about the accent thing, since I know that ALL of the kids there, race aside, picked it up to some degree but it was never something that was discussed, since we just... didn't really talk.) I'd say the fact that one does pick up a dialect without much exposure to black people means that they do have a deep opinion of black culture - enough to imitate it without any social reason involving black people. They're trying to communicate something to the white people they interact with - what is it? I know white people who have grown up completely surrounded by black people, with black relatives, black parents, black children, and have a harder time straightening out their speech than I do because I've hung out with tons of white people since I was a teenager. It's different than a white person who was/is isolated from black people constructing some practised black affect. I bet I can tell Philly from dialect though. There's plenty of white people who have a natural accent close to a lot of black people. It's not really what I'm talking about.

existencebox 10y ago
Fair enough; your last sentence was a reasonable answer to my primary question, since I'm not sure I could differentiate natural vs constructed dialects (I'm tone-deaf enough to have trouble with truly foreign language accent identification) so I err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt that it's not malicious, however it seems you were referring to more obvious imitation which I can't speak to, and have to trust your judgement on. And to your middle question, self segregation of direct interaction doesn't necessarily limit exposure. We sat in the same cafeteria, went to the same classes, rode the same busses, so it seems natural that some aspects of speech cross pollinated out of peripheral immersion. Take "jawns" for example. I'm pretty sure I first started hearing it in... 4th, 5th grade? Had _no_ idea what it meant or the implications of using it, but used it because the people around me used it; nothing more sinister or subversive than that, frankly I don't think I had the social sophistication to motivate that sort of conscious mimicry at that age.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  > Take "jawns" for example. From what I read, the usage has become pretty cross-cultural there, and drifted away from the way "joint" is used in other places.