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Ainsley and her unabashed love of life will be your guides for this random post
Things I did not need today:
* People arguing that what Willow did wasn't rape. I can handle people forgiving her for it or still liking her despite it--that is, of course, their prerogative--but I can't handle the absolute denial that it was rape. I can't. I shouldn't even get involved in these arguments because it just makes me mad.
* Totally random instances of people hating on people with Southern accents. Like, not light-hearted, the way I talk about people with Boston or New York accents or whatever and how they grate upon my hears with their nasal quality. ;p Serious dismissal of people because of their accent. Classism. It really is, I swear.
When I was a little girl (I'm talking before I started school), I had an accent so thick it sounds almost...Cockney. I mean, ridiculous (but charming! I was a cute little girl!). My parents didn't own a video camera, so we only have one VHS tape of my sister and me growing up that was filmed just whenever one of my aunts or uncles or whoever had theirs around. And there is this one absolutely priceless bit of footage of me at about three, three-and-a-half, doing a puzzle and singing a song and my accent is so thick it's unbelievable. I wish I could figure out how to take that snippet of footage and get it off the DVD and upload it so y'all could see it. You'd laugh hysterically, I am telling you.
But I learned to code-shift really young. Probably as soon as I started school. I was smart, in the gifted program from kindergarten on, and I loved school, worshiped my teachers, took to reading and writing so fast it'd make your head spin. School was my kingdom. And I wanted to thrive there. And so I learned how to turn my accent off. I swear, this is a survival skill for kids, learning to talk like your teachers (one of my favorite song lyrics of all times is from a Don Williams song: "but I was smarter than most and I could choose / I learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news." Newscaster English. They call it that for a reason).
Because you learn very, very early (and I'm sure this is true, and even more so, for kids with other kinds of accents--like if you speak African American Vernacular English or if you're an immigrant and your accent labels your country of origin) that people who talk like you aren't smart. They aren't successful. They are stupid and backwards and bigoted and probably barefoot and marrying their siblings. This is what pop culture taught me. And like it or not, it's what my teachers taught me when they spoke in their Newscaster English (for instance: three of my favorite professors in college were from small towns in Arkansas. Not one of them talk with the slightest bit of an accent. And two of them, at least, came from working class backgrounds, so I know their parents spoke with them) instead of their natural ones. I don't blame them, of course--they probably wouldn't have gotten hired if they had spoken the way their parents did. But I noticed. Trust me. I noticed.
And look--a Southern accent doesn't necessarily mean bad grammar. I mean, sure, some of us use the word "ain't" a lot (though that word has quite an interesting history--it's old, old, old and was once the contraction of choice for the English upper classes before it fell out of favor). But you don't have to butcher the grammar to have an accent. It's more than that It's (for me) flat vowels (yes, I really do say "tur" instead of "tour" and "ol" instead of "oil" most of the time) and Shibboleths ("fixin' to" and "grocery store" and whatever). And yeah, sometimes saying "got" instead of "have." But I can write in perfect grammar, diagram sentences all day long, and speak without any trace of accent. And when the situation demands it, I do.
But I kind of resent the fact that I have to. Sometime during college I realized that I didn't need to be ashamed of my accent, and I started embracing it again. Flipping the on-switch on again. And it feels really freeing. Even though people mock me (and they do--even people from around here, and also my daddy who, despite his Tennessee father, was raised in Indiana, primarily); most of the time it's good-natured, and when it isn't, I've learned not to care, most of the time. Look: I can have this accent and talk about Foucault or metaphysical poetry or whatever. I can have this accent and be successful. I can have this accent and make straight A's. I can have this accent and do a dang good job at work. I can. I'm learning this and loving it and it feels really good.
But I still get annoyed when I see depictions of Southerners on TV or movies. I am very sensitive to it for two reasons. One is that they are almost always faked and almost always sound bad. And a lot of that badness comes from this belief that there's one kind of Southern accent when--no. Dozens. If not hundreds. Accents vary greatly by location and socio-economic status and education level. I swear, I can tell whether someone is from East, Middle, or West Tennessee just by having a conversation with them. Not to mention that you really can tell how much money they have. I have a middle class Middle Tennessee accent, with tinges of lower class and East Tennessee because of my family background. And my word choices, my syntax, speak of my education.
The other is that the majority of characters in popular culture who speak like me are stupid or poor or horribly bigoted. We joke about the fact that whenever there's a tornado or whatever down here, the big city Yankee news teams come down and find some old woman in her bathrobe and curlers standing outside her double-wide or some guy with a mullet and teeth missing to interview. And hey--my grandparents live in a double-wide. I love a lot of people like that. But that isn't all we are. If you only knew about our culture(s) from TV, you'd think that we're all either Poor White Trash (a phrase I despise because of the classism in it) or the débutante-ball-having, Derby-attending, mint-julep-sipping modern white aristocracy. Uh. Not true. We have hipsters and nerds and geeks and party girls and every other kind of stereotype you can imagine. We really do. Never mind the fact that it isn't just white people down here--we have a ton of diversity, too, and a lot of people who you might not expect to have Southern accents based on the way they look do.
This isn't intended to be all Oppression Olympics-y. It really isn't. I don't think that what I face because of the way I speak can possibly compare to the prevalent racism in this country, for instance. And I am incredibly middle-middle class, so even though this reviling of my accent is class-based, I've still got at on of privilege in that area. But I know, I absolutely know (because I have been told point-blank by more than one person and because I pay attention to the culture around me) that people automatically deduct 20 points from their estimate of my I.Q. as soon as I open my mouth. And as fun as it is to then surprise them by being really, really pretentiously smart from there on out, it also makes me angry and sometimes makes me feel really small.
So when someone like Ainsley Hayes or Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer or the ladies on Designing Women or any character Ben Browder plays (his accent is subtle, but discernible, especially if you're listening for it) comes along--a character who's smart and sharp and a good person--it's really heartening. Maybe it shouldn't make me feel better but it does. And when I go see Rick Bragg speak and remember that that man has written four New York Times bestsellers and he still lives in Alabama or when I see Dolly Parton and remember that she is ridiculously smart and generous and successful and talented, it does give me hope that I can be me and still be who I want to become.
And I hope some day when I am a successful novelist, some girl somewhere hears me speak and hears an accent like hers and realizes that she can be more, too. That she can do whatever the hell she wants to and still say y'all.
Yeah.
I just needed to get that out. I'm gonna go watch cheesy kdramas now, okay?
* People arguing that what Willow did wasn't rape. I can handle people forgiving her for it or still liking her despite it--that is, of course, their prerogative--but I can't handle the absolute denial that it was rape. I can't. I shouldn't even get involved in these arguments because it just makes me mad.
* Totally random instances of people hating on people with Southern accents. Like, not light-hearted, the way I talk about people with Boston or New York accents or whatever and how they grate upon my hears with their nasal quality. ;p Serious dismissal of people because of their accent. Classism. It really is, I swear.
When I was a little girl (I'm talking before I started school), I had an accent so thick it sounds almost...Cockney. I mean, ridiculous (but charming! I was a cute little girl!). My parents didn't own a video camera, so we only have one VHS tape of my sister and me growing up that was filmed just whenever one of my aunts or uncles or whoever had theirs around. And there is this one absolutely priceless bit of footage of me at about three, three-and-a-half, doing a puzzle and singing a song and my accent is so thick it's unbelievable. I wish I could figure out how to take that snippet of footage and get it off the DVD and upload it so y'all could see it. You'd laugh hysterically, I am telling you.
But I learned to code-shift really young. Probably as soon as I started school. I was smart, in the gifted program from kindergarten on, and I loved school, worshiped my teachers, took to reading and writing so fast it'd make your head spin. School was my kingdom. And I wanted to thrive there. And so I learned how to turn my accent off. I swear, this is a survival skill for kids, learning to talk like your teachers (one of my favorite song lyrics of all times is from a Don Williams song: "but I was smarter than most and I could choose / I learned to talk like the man on the six o'clock news." Newscaster English. They call it that for a reason).
Because you learn very, very early (and I'm sure this is true, and even more so, for kids with other kinds of accents--like if you speak African American Vernacular English or if you're an immigrant and your accent labels your country of origin) that people who talk like you aren't smart. They aren't successful. They are stupid and backwards and bigoted and probably barefoot and marrying their siblings. This is what pop culture taught me. And like it or not, it's what my teachers taught me when they spoke in their Newscaster English (for instance: three of my favorite professors in college were from small towns in Arkansas. Not one of them talk with the slightest bit of an accent. And two of them, at least, came from working class backgrounds, so I know their parents spoke with them) instead of their natural ones. I don't blame them, of course--they probably wouldn't have gotten hired if they had spoken the way their parents did. But I noticed. Trust me. I noticed.
And look--a Southern accent doesn't necessarily mean bad grammar. I mean, sure, some of us use the word "ain't" a lot (though that word has quite an interesting history--it's old, old, old and was once the contraction of choice for the English upper classes before it fell out of favor). But you don't have to butcher the grammar to have an accent. It's more than that It's (for me) flat vowels (yes, I really do say "tur" instead of "tour" and "ol" instead of "oil" most of the time) and Shibboleths ("fixin' to" and "grocery store" and whatever). And yeah, sometimes saying "got" instead of "have." But I can write in perfect grammar, diagram sentences all day long, and speak without any trace of accent. And when the situation demands it, I do.
But I kind of resent the fact that I have to. Sometime during college I realized that I didn't need to be ashamed of my accent, and I started embracing it again. Flipping the on-switch on again. And it feels really freeing. Even though people mock me (and they do--even people from around here, and also my daddy who, despite his Tennessee father, was raised in Indiana, primarily); most of the time it's good-natured, and when it isn't, I've learned not to care, most of the time. Look: I can have this accent and talk about Foucault or metaphysical poetry or whatever. I can have this accent and be successful. I can have this accent and make straight A's. I can have this accent and do a dang good job at work. I can. I'm learning this and loving it and it feels really good.
But I still get annoyed when I see depictions of Southerners on TV or movies. I am very sensitive to it for two reasons. One is that they are almost always faked and almost always sound bad. And a lot of that badness comes from this belief that there's one kind of Southern accent when--no. Dozens. If not hundreds. Accents vary greatly by location and socio-economic status and education level. I swear, I can tell whether someone is from East, Middle, or West Tennessee just by having a conversation with them. Not to mention that you really can tell how much money they have. I have a middle class Middle Tennessee accent, with tinges of lower class and East Tennessee because of my family background. And my word choices, my syntax, speak of my education.
The other is that the majority of characters in popular culture who speak like me are stupid or poor or horribly bigoted. We joke about the fact that whenever there's a tornado or whatever down here, the big city Yankee news teams come down and find some old woman in her bathrobe and curlers standing outside her double-wide or some guy with a mullet and teeth missing to interview. And hey--my grandparents live in a double-wide. I love a lot of people like that. But that isn't all we are. If you only knew about our culture(s) from TV, you'd think that we're all either Poor White Trash (a phrase I despise because of the classism in it) or the débutante-ball-having, Derby-attending, mint-julep-sipping modern white aristocracy. Uh. Not true. We have hipsters and nerds and geeks and party girls and every other kind of stereotype you can imagine. We really do. Never mind the fact that it isn't just white people down here--we have a ton of diversity, too, and a lot of people who you might not expect to have Southern accents based on the way they look do.
This isn't intended to be all Oppression Olympics-y. It really isn't. I don't think that what I face because of the way I speak can possibly compare to the prevalent racism in this country, for instance. And I am incredibly middle-middle class, so even though this reviling of my accent is class-based, I've still got at on of privilege in that area. But I know, I absolutely know (because I have been told point-blank by more than one person and because I pay attention to the culture around me) that people automatically deduct 20 points from their estimate of my I.Q. as soon as I open my mouth. And as fun as it is to then surprise them by being really, really pretentiously smart from there on out, it also makes me angry and sometimes makes me feel really small.
So when someone like Ainsley Hayes or Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer or the ladies on Designing Women or any character Ben Browder plays (his accent is subtle, but discernible, especially if you're listening for it) comes along--a character who's smart and sharp and a good person--it's really heartening. Maybe it shouldn't make me feel better but it does. And when I go see Rick Bragg speak and remember that that man has written four New York Times bestsellers and he still lives in Alabama or when I see Dolly Parton and remember that she is ridiculously smart and generous and successful and talented, it does give me hope that I can be me and still be who I want to become.
And I hope some day when I am a successful novelist, some girl somewhere hears me speak and hears an accent like hers and realizes that she can be more, too. That she can do whatever the hell she wants to and still say y'all.
Yeah.
I just needed to get that out. I'm gonna go watch cheesy kdramas now, okay?