When Joe Biden referred to Barack Obama as 'articulate', he says he meant it as a compliment. Apparently, he's in hot water as a result.
According to an article in the Sunday Washington Post, white people generally regard being called 'articulate' as a compliment, but black people generally regard it as a slur, feeling that it is implicitly saying that most black people are hard to understand.
I don't think thats true. Some black people are hard to understand. Some yellow, some white ones are, too.
Someone like Obama is notable for two reasons, completely aside from his intelligence and decisiveness: his choice of words is precise and eloquent, and his pronunciation of those words is clear and crisp. This is unusual in any case, for any public or private person (think, for example, of the John Houseman character in The Paper Chase), but it is particularly unusual for a black person. Our experience is that black people tend to have something of an accent, and when they do not, we do a doubletake. Think, for example, of the actor Roscoe Lee Brown, or the singer Charlie Pride. Listen to their voices with your eyes closed -- and then open them. I suggest that for most people, there's a moment of cognitive dissonance. What they see isn't what they expected. When people hear Obama speak, what they hear isn't what they expected. We see a black politician, and we expect the rolling orations of Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton, which ring of the mid-south. We don't expect the careful non-accented and precise diction of Obama, and we're surprised. Its the same as when we hear, for the first time, a black person speaking -- in London. Its not what we expect.
Precision isn't a slur unless what you really meant was 'this guys faking it, he really wants to be white'. Biden's not my favorite guy, but I don't think he meant that.
2 comments:
Saying a person is articulate because you (not you but a general "you") had already formed an image, preconceived and full of assumptions mostly of negative expectations of that person (or people that look like them) is not a compliment.
If I leave my car at the dealer for a tune-up, should I say when picking up my car thanks for not stealing any items from the car? Am I praising their honesty and integrity? No, rather I'm saying you look like a thief, I expected you to steal, and the fact that you didn't surprises me because I am so self-assured of my own preconceived opinions and prejudices that I had low expectations of you.
I hoped you would comment!
I think you're right about the source of the unhappiness about the idea, but its sad when you have to judge what someone's assumptions are before you can know whether to accept their words.
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