This week on the Randi Rhodes Show an unexpected brouha occurred over Randi's attempt to poke a little harmless fun at Oprah Winfrey's Obama speach because during the speech, Oprah slipped into a "black-cent" just as Hillary Clinton had done some months ago before the NAACP and at a black church.
Randi thought it was ridiculous - that it was Pandering.
Some in her audience disagreed, saying for example that they themselves used two different dialects and accents depending on who they were speaking to and where.
That's when all hell broke lose and Randi accused them of being anti-White Racists for even thinking that way.
I was pretty annoyed with Randi's claims when I heard them, unfortunately I've been incredibly busy this week and didn't have time to post a response - until now.
On the issue of "Pandering": No, Oprah was not pandering by speaking with the accect she used since that clearly wasn't the manner that her audience would most likely speak in. She wasn't in the south. She wasn't in a church. "Pandering" would have been for her to try to sound like an Iowan, and that's not what she did. Not even close.
Yet Randi thinks that because she's watched every episode of Oprah, including 17 straight hours from the 30th Anniversay Box Set, that she "Knows" Oprah and how she talks.
**WRONG**
Do you also know what her favorite toothp aste and nail polish color is? I doubt it. Randi was wise enough to realize that what we hear Oprah speaking most of the time is "Broacaster-eze." The allegedtly Neutral Accent (sometimes referred to as the "California Accent") that most people on television are required by their job to use. Oprah was born in Mississippi, and lived for a time in both Milwaukee and Nashville Tennesee before eventually becoming a News Anchor in Baltimore.
There's no good reason to believe that her formative time in both Mississippi and Nashville didn't produce the kind of accent we heard during the Obama speach and that even though she has been trained to suppress it - that is her natural accent and that it only came out because of her nervousness.
The point is that Oprah didn't sound "Black" or like a "Preacher" - she sounded southern, which as a matter of fact - SHE IS SOUTHERN!
The difference between this and Hillary's use of a black accent in a black church is first of all the fact that Hillary isn't Black, even though she lived in Arkansas for years - she's from Chicago, and she IMO just literally sucked at doing the accent. (Other disagree on this point) I felt it was wrong for her, simply because she didn't do it very well - exactly like when Randi herself talked about trying to use an english accent in England. She Sucked at it, so they told her to stop. Oprah sounded fine - it didn't sound either forced or unnatural for her, it just didn't sound like everyone PRESUMES Oprah is supposed to sound.
So is that Oprah's fault or is it theirs?
The other issue is that Randi was so deeply offended by the idea that some people function in more than one dialect/accent at a time. She clearly seemed to feel that only the corporate/mainstream/northern/white accent was acceptable, and that people who didn't fully adopt it throughout their entire life were somehow "Faking It" either at home or at work.
In many ways Randi's comments were the ugly flip-side of O'Reilly's comments about Sylvia's. Whereas O'Reilly felt that more White People need to know that Black People really can be Polite, Civil and Articulate in public - presuming either that most of them aren't, or that most White people are just plain ignorant -- Randi presumes that not talking "White" and/or "Corporate" all the time shows a lack of commitment and professionalism and that if someone discriminates against you because of it, it's your own damn fault.
This was the part the was the most offensive in what Randi was saying. It was clear to her that corporate speak was somehow superior to any other form of english, and that IHO anyone who doesn't fully embrace their inner-white-corporatist is going to be "inauthentic" and not progress in their business life because of it.
"They aren't holding you back at your job because you're black, they're holding you back because you don't to talk "professionally"! (ne: Act and Speak White/Corporate/Mainstream Enough!) when you're in the privacy of your own home! No one can be "two people at once!"
That is simply put - A CROCK of SHIT!
And then, she has the nerve to accuse the listeners who simply said - "We speak differently under different situations" of being racist? None of them, NOT ONE, accused Randi of racism - they simply said that they disagreed with her. For Randi to them turn around and claim that they were anti-white racists for pointing out that yes, indeed, black people have their own unique American dialect (actually several of them), and that when they leave work the leave all that corporate talk they have to do to "get ahead" behind was very sad and naive.
"When did this start?" she asked.
It's always been this way in America as has been documented in books such as "From Juba to Jive: A Dictionary of African-American Slang."
And guess what?
- Malcolm X."Black's didn't land on Plymouth Rock - Plymouth Rock landed on them"
This isn't to say that you should feel sorry for us, but I think we'd all appreciate it if you would stop jumping up and down on that Rock, while trying to turn us into little chocolate skinned copies of yourselves. We're not, and that should be "Ok".
The fact is that African slaves weren't allowed to speak their native languages when they arrived in the U.S. and it was illegal to teach them to read, so they had to make due. The result has been the black vernacular and black culture which has also spawned Gospel, Jazz, Blues, R&B, Funk, Hip-Hop and ROCK AND ROLL!
They did what they had to do to express themselves. They (we) still do.
My opinion is that Oprah was just nervous and her well-hidden "Black-cent" finally came out. Too bad Randi apparently couldn't handle the truth the Oprah really is black after all.
There is also the arguement that the manner that Oprah choose, assuming it was indeed a deliberate choice, is still the method that would part a large part of her own upbringing and experience - the oratory flair of a preacher. It can easily be said that Oprah was getting to the heart of the matter and Testifying (as we Black Folk Say) to the legitimacy and importance of the Obama campaign as being the best embodiment of dreams of Dr. King. A point which is open to considerable debate, but it makes perfect sense to use the language of Dr. King to express that. And also it wasn't present during the entire speech, only when she seemed to be trying to make a specifically truthful point, she wasn't "acting" and trying to create a "character" - she was trying to make her points as best she could.
It was also really sad that Randi equated Black-speak with BAD Speak, and with the frequent use of cuss-words. It's neither. I think that Dr. Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown and Professor Cornell West of Princeton would have a lot to say to disprove that particular view. Black English isn't "inferior" anymore than Jazz is "inferior" to Honky Tonk. It's just different.
I love Randi, I love her show and and I love what she does everyday to help bring the progressive cause into the mainstream - but I have to stand up today and say that I expect progressives to understand that we are all indeed different and that NO ONE PROGRESSIVE should endorse the ideas of supremacy and inferiority on the basis of ethnicity, culture and language. From one White person to the next, from one Black, or Latino, Asian or Muslim to the next - We ALL speak differently, we think differently, we dress differently, we do our HAIR differently - and that should be all good, since that's what "freedom" is supposed to be about, right?
It's shouldn't be fair or legitimate to limit or punish someone for not "CONFORMING" to some mainstream social ideal as long as they meeting the basic requirements of their job or being civil and cordial. That's just plain bigotry.
We are supposed to have the freedom of choice to be whoever it is we want to be - when we want to be them. That's our God Given Right and NO ONE should try to take it away from us, not even Randi.
I expect more from America, and especially from progressives.
Full Disclosure: I am Black, but my preferred candidate at this time is John Edwards. How's that for breaking the Stereotype that "we all stick together?"
Vyan
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