Obama's sidiolect put down by a white yet again

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Mon Sep 3 20:32:24 UTC 2012


Do you mean to say that EVERY white Californian you have ever spoken to in
your life has begun to drop his 'g's in your presence??

Most white Californians?

Some white Californians?

A few white Californians, but you remember them more strongly?

One white Californian?

Just wonderin'...

DanG


On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Obama's sidiolect put down by a white yet again
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the NYT Mag, Martin Leibovich writes:
>
> "Obama does his best to stir the old magic -
>
> _droppin' his g's_
>
> …"
>
>
> Is it really the case that even so-called "liberal" white folk think
> that Obama - even after he has "chosen" to define himself as "black"
> and not as "mixed" - is some kind of phony because, under pressure, he
> loses control of his pswaydo-white persona - unlike General Colin
> Powell, a soldier far more accustomed to handling pressure - and
> allows the level of his enunciation to "degenerate" into that of his
> ordinary and usual boojie speech-pattern?
>
> OTOH, have I been naive to assume that white Californians, for
> instance. who use "g-drop" in their conversations with me are speaking
> normally, when, in fact, they're condescendingly talking down to me in
> an effort to make a nigger feel that he's accepted?
>
> Shee-lt! Dass coal, yawl!
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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