A question for a news article

[Your Name]

This is Steve Sailer, the National Correspondent for United Press
International (UPI). I was wondering if you might help me out with a topic
I'm exploring for a news article on a particular accent that seems to be
becoming more common among well-educated African American men.

I got interested in this because I recently interviewed a geneticist at
Howard U.,and then I watched a biologist at Arizona State being interviewed
on PBS. I noted that they spoke with identical accents. It's the one used by
lots of college educated black men under, say, age 45 these days: very
masculine, distinctively black, but not at all ghetto. You hear it a lot from
African-American men wearing those little wireframe glasses that seem to be a
subtle marker of being a college grad. It's a good all-around accent -- in
some ways like an Australian or Irish accent in that it's easy to understand,
reasonably efficient for pronouncing multi-syllabic words quickly and
clearly, but it's not fussy-sounding like a BBC English accent.

I was wondering if there's a name for this or any information on its origins.
How does it differ from the typical accent of a white college grad? From a
less educated black's accent? Is there a black female equivalent?

Thanks,
Steve Sailer
National Correspondent
United Press International
www.UPI.com
Main: 818-766-7687
Fax: 818-766-3787
Mobile: 202-841-1217
12515 Landale St.
Studio City, California, USA
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Secondary Email: SteveSlr at aol.com