5 ms·

I'm happy you've never experienced this. I have. I am as white as fallen snow and had a very thick Southern accent. "What y'all gonna need to do is git yerse

I'm happy you've never experienced this. I have. I am as white as fallen snow and had a very thick Southern accent. "What y'all gonna need to do is git yerself..." That kind of thing. I trained myself out of it almost immediately after hearing someone, when they thought I couldn't hear, call me a "backwater hick" and dismiss an entire meeting's worth of ideas and discussion I had led...and others agree with that person. That wasn't the only time, but it finally clicked. I'm fortunate that I could work on that and tamp down my accent; other characteristics are more innate and cannot--nor should be required to be--"hidden from view." Even now, I will trip and slip in a "yuup" or "fixin' to" in a drawl and see the double-take on people's faces.

karaterobot 6y ago
Yep. Ask any open-minded, liberal person from the coasts to do an impression of a stupid person, and 9 times out of 10 they're going to put on a bad southern accent. It's a bias, unconscious or otherwise.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  Well they won't do a wealthy southern-peach accent, they'll probably do more of rural "trailer trash" imitation. I see it as classism more than racism, but it's there.
kortilla 6y ago
That’s so unfortunate. Southern accents are so cool. Now I know yer fixin to stamp out your past and I know we’ve met but we ain’t shook, but I hope you might could embrace it again some day. :)
- mandeepj 6y ago
  > That’s so unfortunate. Southern accents are so cool. Love southern accent. It's so cool.
gher-shyu3i 6y ago
Look at how other cultures solved this issue. Arabic has a dialect known today as Standard Arabic. It's what official documents, books, news, documentaries, etc. are written or spoken in. Arabic speakers in general are able to understand, but in case their dialects are significantly different, they can always switch to Standard Arabic to get the point across. Also, some people do pick up the local dialect in the country they're living or working in and attempt to speak it, it's not seen as somehow an inferior move or putting oneself down, on the contrary, it's showing a form of flattery.

karaterobot 6y ago

Yep. Ask any open-minded, liberal person from the coasts to do an impression of a stupid person, and 9 times out of 10 they're going to put on a bad southern accent. It's a bias, unconscious or otherwise.

zug_zug 6y ago
Well they won't do a wealthy southern-peach accent, they'll probably do more of rural "trailer trash" imitation. I see it as classism more than racism, but it's there.

kortilla 6y ago

That’s so unfortunate. Southern accents are so cool. Now I know yer fixin to stamp out your past and I know we’ve met but we ain’t shook, but I hope you might could embrace it again some day. :)

mandeepj 6y ago
> That’s so unfortunate. Southern accents are so cool. Love southern accent. It's so cool.

gher-shyu3i 6y ago

Look at how other cultures solved this issue. Arabic has a dialect known today as Standard Arabic. It's what official documents, books, news, documentaries, etc. are written or spoken in. Arabic speakers in general are able to understand, but in case their dialects are significantly different, they can always switch to Standard Arabic to get the point across. Also, some people do pick up the local dialect in the country they're living or working in and attempt to speak it, it's not seen as somehow an inferior move or putting oneself down, on the contrary, it's showing a form of flattery.