Obama's sidiolect put down by a white yet again

[Wilson Gray]

On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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'...

IME - from hearing the speech colleagues at the Los Angeles Department
of Water & Power, classmates at UCLA, UC Davis, fellow-members of the
(former?) California linguistic association from Berkeley, Stanford,
Santa Cruz, and other California colleges and universities - "g-drop,"
like the raising of /E/ to [I] in the environment before nasals, is
part and parcel of everyday, colloquial speech among Californians in
general, whether from San Diego or Mendocino or of whatever race,
ethnicity, or social class.

Hence, for me to assume that these two features are merely
"false-faces" - what Hallowe'en masks are called in Marshall, Texas,
BE - put on for my benefit by every living soul that I've ever heard
speak in California is no more reasonable than it is for white
political columnists to assert that "g-drop" is an unnatural feature
of Obama's speech that he adds only when he's falsely and
unsuccessfully trying to portray himself as a regular feller - "a
plain, ole country-boy / Just a 'tater-lovin' country-boy" - in the
Harry Truman mold.

If you can't beat them and they won't let you join them, then what is
there left to do?

"Stay black and die,"

as we say in the 'hood.

--
-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

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