Why do Blacks in the US talk differently than Whites ?

[Link]

I have some Austrian friends and having known them for years and visited them in Vienna it is really hard for me to accept the fact Hitler was Austrian.  Now that I read the OP it is suddenly very plausible to me that Hitler was born in Austria.  Ignorance was so nice.  I want it back.

This thread was started by a moderator!  The forum being the forum again.

Why do you have to bring up Hitler here ?

I don't want this to be racist or anything (I'm not racist at all).

I was pointing out that this difference of speaking style is not known to people here, unless they visit the US and hear it themselves.

That's why I wanted posters here to explain why it is that way (thanks, Xahar for the link) and why it's still that way after 400 years of Black settlement in the US.

It is what it is.  There are 310+ million Americans.  The country stretches across an entire continent.  Why would you think everyone in the place would sound the same?  Does everyone in Austria sound the same regardless of geographic location, education level and social class?  Frankly if you spend this much time copying and pasting stuff on the internet I would think if you were really interested in American culture you would get a passport and come over for a visit.

I could gather up a bunch of my friends and family regardless of race and if I put a blindfold on you and asked you to determine their race by their accent you wouldn't be able to do it.  What really irks me beyond the race thing is you are how old and just had the epiphany that not all Americans sound the same?  Then you take it to the next level and assume all black people sound the same and the sound is different from white people.  It's that kind of sloppiness in regards to culture, race and ethnicity that made me go Godwin.

[Keystone Phil]

Can we have Naso weigh in on this one?

[Joe Republic]

Tender, on behalf of Link (because he won't obviously), I apologize for his hypersensitivity.  Such a reaction to racial issues is quintessentially American.

I'd honestly like an answer to my earlier question though.  I've always wondered about it.

[Link]

Tender, on behalf of Link (because he won't obviously), I apologize for his hypersensitivity.  Such a reaction to racial issues is quintessentially American.

I'd honestly like an answer to my earlier question though.  I've always wondered about it.

The sort of causal racism that is accepted in America is what leads to unarmed black kids getting shot walking home from the store by "frightened" people.

Joe Republic, you are seriously saying it makes perfect sense someone who incessantly posts on the internet about the United States from a foreign country is just now finding out all Americans don't sound the same?  Are you honestly saying you think Michael Jackson, James Earl Jones, Collen Powell, and Barrack Obama sound the same?

Seriously I can take a black person from New York City, a white person from New York City, a white person from Dallas, and a black person from Dallas and the black and white person from New York will sound indistinguishable from each other and totally different than the black or white person from Dallas.

The forum never ceases to amaze.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Tender, on behalf of Link (because he won't obviously), I apologize for his hypersensitivity.  Such a reaction to racial issues is quintessentially American.

I'd honestly like an answer to my earlier question though.  I've always wondered about it.

The sort of causal racism that is accepted in America is what leads to unarmed black kids getting shot walking home from the store by "frightened" people.

Joe Republic, you are seriously saying it makes perfect sense someone who incessantly posts on the internet about the United States from a foreign country is just now finding out all Americans don't sound the same?  Are you honestly saying you think Michael Jackson, James Earl Jones, Collen Powell, and Barrack Obama sound the same?

Seriously I can take a black person from New York City, a white person from New York City, a white person from Dallas, and a black person from Dallas and the black and white person from New York will sound indistinguishable from each other and totally different than the black or white person from Dallas.

The forum never ceases to amaze.

And yet, you manage to confuse Allen West and Cornel West.

[Link]

And yet, you manage to confuse Allen West and Cornel West.

A, what on earth are you talking about?  And B do you think it is reasonable for an adult in Western Europe who spends numerous hours a week posting about the US on the internet to think 310+ million American sounds the same?  Do you think that is intelligent?

[ingemann]

I have always wondered about this since here all movies are German-dubbed and once I heard Blacks actually talk, they talked differently.

Why exactly is that ?

That's not the case here for example: Black people who are born here, like the football player David Alaba has the same Vienna dialect like other (white) Vienna residents.

Dialects are establish when a population live apart or separate from other groups. So the answer is that African Americans speak differently because they to some degree live separate from the main population.

[Link]

I have always wondered about this since here all movies are German-dubbed and once I heard Blacks actually talk, they talked differently.

Why exactly is that ?

That's not the case here for example: Black people who are born here, like the football player David Alaba has the same Vienna dialect like other (white) Vienna residents.

Dialects are establish when a population live apart or separate from other groups. So the answer is that African Americans speak differently because they to some degree live separate from the main population.

Bravo.  Another racist comment by someone sporting a foreign avatar.

Michael Jackson and Darth Vader don't sound the same.  Sorry if that offends the forum.

[ingemann]

Tender, on behalf of Link (because he won't obviously), I apologize for his hypersensitivity.  Such a reaction to racial issues is quintessentially American.

I'd honestly like an answer to my earlier question though.  I've always wondered about it.

The sort of causal racism that is accepted in America is what leads to unarmed black kids getting shot walking home from the store by "frightened" people.

Joe Republic, you are seriously saying it makes perfect sense someone who incessantly posts on the internet about the United States from a foreign country is just now finding out all Americans don't sound the same?  Are you honestly saying you think Michael Jackson, James Earl Jones, Collen Powell, and Barrack Obama sound the same?

Seriously I can take a black person from New York City, a white person from New York City, a white person from Dallas, and a black person from Dallas and the black and white person from New York will sound indistinguishable from each other and totally different than the black or white person from Dallas.

The forum never ceases to amaze.

Impressive could you be more country club? If you haven't discovered it, Tender Branson is not a native English speakers, there alone we have a barrier in getting different dialects across, for him most American dialects likely blur (I know it do for me) as Europeans are taught British English not American English. Beside that TB are Austrian a people who dub foreign television (something he write in the first post), so he rarely hear the different American dialects either and most interaction Europeans have with African Americans are educated professional, the group most likely to speak the different American standard instead of the regional African American dialects.  

[ingemann]

I have always wondered about this since here all movies are German-dubbed and once I heard Blacks actually talk, they talked differently.

Why exactly is that ?

That's not the case here for example: Black people who are born here, like the football player David Alaba has the same Vienna dialect like other (white) Vienna residents.

Dialects are establish when a population live apart or separate from other groups. So the answer is that African Americans speak differently because they to some degree live separate from the main population.

Bravo.  Another racist comment by someone sporting a foreign avatar.

Michael Jackson and Darth Vader don't sound the same.  Sorry if that offends the forum.

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Shared cultural and historical experience of being African-descended slaves living under white Southern rule for a few centuries.

[ingemann]

Shared cultural and historical experience of being African-descended slaves living under white Southern rule for a few centuries.

More like African American migrant speaking southern regional dialects moving to the north, where they're placed in semi-isolation, end up mixing the dialects and adopt traits from the local regional dialects. There's a reason that it's usual non-Southerns who speak about a distinct African American language.  

[All Along The Watchtower]

Shared cultural and historical experience of being African-descended slaves living under white Southern rule for a few centuries.

Oh, and also shared experience for a century or so after emancipation of living brutal second or third-class citizen lives, again under (mainly but not exclusively) white Southern social rule, transitioning to urban inner-city areas in the North and South alike, forming distinctive neighborhoods of their own-a living legacy of centuries of slavery and then segregation.

[Link]

Impressive could you be more country club?

Country club?!  I assure you country clubs in the United States are not where  people that fervently dispell racial myths congregate.

If you haven't discovered it, Tender Branson is not a native English speakers, there alone we have a barrier in getting different dialects across, for him most American dialects likely blur (I know it do for me) as Europeans are taught British English not American English.

I am going to stop you right there and let you know I have lived in Europe for years and nothing you have said excuses this behavior.  I spent most of my time in a country a fraction of the size of my home state back in the United States and even I as a foreigner could elucidate that there were different accents.

Beside that TB are Austrian a people who dub foreign television (something he write in the first post), so he rarely hear the different American dialects either and most interaction Europeans have with African Americans are educated professional, the group most likely to speak the different American standard instead of the regional African American dialects.

That is most certainly not what he said.  He made one sweeping statement about ALL Americans and then followed it up with a sweeping statement about ALL African Americans.  Then numerous forum members poured in and continued to make sweeping statements about ALL African Americans.  I appreciate you trying to massage the facts because that at least indicates that you realize something was wrong with the initial statements.

Further more it is important to realize what you don't know.  I doubt as you move from city to city everyone in Austria sounds the same.  Whether or not your ear is trained to pick up the nuanced differences in other countries why would you assume that they operate totally differantly than your country particularly when they are exponentially larger and more diverse?  That makes no sense?  Does he not travel to neighboring European countries?  Germany is right next door.  They speak German too.  Do all Germans sound the same?  Then?

Really when you travel around and are subjected to "ugly American" memes and then you see this type of behavior coming from our Continental friends you really have to wonder who is ignorant.

[Link]

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

Lol.  I've spent plenty of time in Vienna.  And this person from Vienna doesn't even know what Americans sound like and that proves all I know is "thin pop culture."

[ingemann]

Impressive could you be more country club?

If you haven't discovered it, Tender Branson is not a native English speakers, there alone we have a barrier in getting different dialects across, for him most American dialects likely blur (I know it do for me) as Europeans are taught British English not American English.

I am going to stop you right there and let you know I have lived in Europe for years and nothing you have said excuses this behavior.  I spent most of my time in a country a fraction of the size of my home state back in the United States and even I as a foreigner could elucidate that there were different accents.

You know I have dealt with my country's German, Faroese and Greenlandic minorities, and when they speaqk Danish they speak in the latter two case the national standard and in the former case a version of the South Jutish dialect. Minorities in Europe usual have different languages and when they do not they usual speak the local regional dialect. There are no reason that a non-American who have never heard a African American speak should automatic know that they speak different dialects from the White people they live beside.

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That is most certainly not what he said.  He made one sweeping statement about ALL Americans and then followed it up with a sweeping statement about ALL African Americans.  Then numerous forum members poured in and continued to make sweeping statements about ALL African Americans.  I appreciate you trying to massage the facts because that at least indicates that you realize something was wrong with the initial statements.[/quote]

"Sign" really? this is it, it's a weak defence for you starting your racist namecalling. You know when most people come with a statement, they usual don't feel it necessary with the staement that this only include some people and some people may be different, that's usual a underlying assumption, and everyone in this thread except you got it. If I descrive Irish travellers as a mobile people, it's a underlying assumptions that they're just more mobile than British people in general and of course exception (sometime even a majority) exists. Here the underlying assumption was that poor to lower middle class urban African Americans outside the South and there of course was exception to this.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There's no reason for assume that a minority speak a different dialect from their neighbours, that's quite rare and usual demand long term isolation and earlier emigration from a place where another dialect was spoken.

[ingemann]

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

Lol.  I've spent plenty of time in Vienna.  And this person from Vienna doesn't even know what Americans sound like and that proves all I know is "thin pop culture."

Seeing as I'm not from Vienna, that's a really thin defence, the least you could do was to come some ignorant statement where you compare me with Breivik.

[Link]

ingemann,

I don't have the time to go through your post and debunk every point.  Every country where I have lived has multiple accents for a variety of reasons regardless of ethnic or racial make up.  The reasons may be slightly different in different countries but considering I've seen this pattern on at least three very different continents I just have to assume the rest of the world is the same unless proven otherwise.  To think 310 million Americans are going to sound the same is ridiculous.  To see one news show or movie as an adult and then extrapolate your assumptions to include 100% of a minority group in a country you've never been to is insane and yes it will offend a great many people.  If you want to see for yourself whether Michael Jackson, Darth Vader, and the President of the United States sound the same there is plenty of free content on the internet that you can preview.  There is no need to take my word for it.

[Link]

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

Lol.  I've spent plenty of time in Vienna.  And this person from Vienna doesn't even know what Americans sound like and that proves all I know is "thin pop culture."

Seeing as I'm not from Vienna, that's a really thin defence, the least you could do was to come some ignorant statement where you compare me with Breivik.

Did you read my posts.  Did you see where I said I had Austrian friends in the United States?  Did you see where I said I went and spent some time in Vieanna?  Did you see that?  Where did Denmark come into that my victim friend?

Also you need to read the WHOLE post.  I made my remark because it is such a break from my FIRST HAND experience in Austria.  And no, one person making a careless mistake on the internet is not going to erase my FIRST HAND experience in a country.

[ingemann]

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

Lol.  I've spent plenty of time in Vienna.  And this person from Vienna doesn't even know what Americans sound like and that proves all I know is "thin pop culture."

Seeing as I'm not from Vienna, that's a really thin defence, the least you could do was to come some ignorant statement where you compare me with Breivik.

Did you read my posts.  Did you see where I said I had Austrian friends in the United States?  Did you see where I said I went and spent some time in Vieanna?  Did you see that?  Where did Denmark come into that my victim friend?

Also you need to read the WHOLE post.  I made my remark because it is such a break from my FIRST HAND experience in Austria.  And no one person making a careless mistake on the internet is not going to erase my FIRST HAND experience in a country.

Is that some kind of new version of; "I have a Black friend I'm not racist"

[Link]

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

Lol.  I've spent plenty of time in Vienna.  And this person from Vienna doesn't even know what Americans sound like and that proves all I know is "thin pop culture."

Seeing as I'm not from Vienna, that's a really thin defence, the least you could do was to come some ignorant statement where you compare me with Breivik.

Did you read my posts.  Did you see where I said I had Austrian friends in the United States?  Did you see where I said I went and spent some time in Vieanna?  Did you see that?  Where did Denmark come into that my victim friend?

Also you need to read the WHOLE post.  I made my remark because it is such a break from my FIRST HAND experience in Austria.  And no one person making a careless mistake on the internet is not going to erase my FIRST HAND experience in a country.

Is that some kind of new version of; "I have a Black friend I'm not racist"

That's a new version of "get a passport and then we can discuss this as equals."  I took the time to walk the streets of Vienna and gain an appreciation for the city, the country, and the culture.  Now I have to listen to a guy who constantly comments on my country tell me as an adult he thought everyone over hear sounded exactly the same.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

There is a main outward facing American accent. It's called "General American," and it's what newscasters use. People on national TV tend to all sound the same unless there's a specific desire to call out the accent and make it a part of the character (see Modern Family).

There's nothing wrong with assuming all Americans sound similar to it, since we're really starting to. More kids are learning to talk and growing up on-demand video. Us adults are getting exposed to it, too, and our accents are changing as well. Language and speech evolves. But white speech and black speech haven't evolved together, partly because there's been such a divide between the two races for such a long time here.

In the United States, black people simply aren't integrated with white people. Older white people generally don't live in black neighborhoods. Black people generally don't live in white neighborhoods. There are racial divides and economic divides that keep the two cultures from merging. That's a big part of why Cory Booker was a controversial figure when he ran for mayor of Newark the first time -- he's seen as culturally white.

[opebo]

They are endowed with positively enormous vocal cords - at least twice as long as the average white man's vocal cord, and as thick as a Coke can.

[Hifly]

Did you lack a racist comment about my country based on a historical person? I guess it's hard to be so sheltered that your knowledge about foreign countries are only based on thinnest pop culture.

Lol.  I've spent plenty of time in Vienna.  And this person from Vienna doesn't even know what Americans sound like and that proves all I know is "thin pop culture."

Seeing as I'm not from Vienna, that's a really thin defence, the least you could do was to come some ignorant statement where you compare me with Breivik.

Did you read my posts.  Did you see where I said I had Austrian friends in the United States?  Did you see where I said I went and spent some time in Vieanna?  Did you see that?  Where did Denmark come into that my victim friend?

Also you need to read the WHOLE post.  I made my remark because it is such a break from my FIRST HAND experience in Austria.  And no one person making a careless mistake on the internet is not going to erase my FIRST HAND experience in a country.

Is that some kind of new version of; "I have a Black friend I'm not racist"

That's a new version of "get a passport and then we can discuss this as equals."  I took the time to walk the streets of Vienna and gain an appreciation for the city, the country, and the culture.  Now I have to listen to a guy who constantly comments on my country tell me as an adult he thought everyone over hear sounded exactly the same.

Actually, Link, he did not say that all people in the USA sounded the same. He noticed that there are stark differences in dialect and that's why he, as a foreigner, was seeking a mature and intellectual response as to why this was. It is unfortunate that you have decided to engage in an immature form of social discourse rather than simply answering his question like an adult. However, this only highlights your problems, not his.

[Link]

Mark Warner 08,

I just want to apologize for going Godwin on you.  I really did enjoy my time in Vienna.  I guess I made that remark because I just don't really equate Hitler with Vienna.  Maybe I need to spend more time there in cultural immersion but it was really one of the most pleasant places I've ever spent time in.  The transportation, architecture and people were all fantastic.

Also I don't think you are a racist.  Sorry if I left that impression.  I have said bigoted things at various times in my life just out of shear ignorance.  Not because of malice.  Really the first thing that surprised me was how sweeping your statement was about America in general.  You post detailed and rather wonky things about the United States and I just built up this picture of you.  While I have traveled to and lived in multiple places I hesitate to really get into in depth discussions about many of them.  My time traveling has taught me how little I actually know.  I am always amazed at the foreign participation in threads about the US.  I simply don't have the knowledge to make many meaningful and accurate statements about places outside of the United States.  Heck I have to keep silent on this forum when people talk about many states in the America.  I just sort of built up this image of you which I didn't necessarily always agree with but that I admired.  I was just very disappointed in your comment.  And it wasn't just you.  It was the fact that no one pointed out the fallacy.  All the Americans know full well that implying an African American from NYC sounds more like an African American from Houston than a White person from NYC is nonsense.  Sure there may be cases like that but there are plenty of situations where that is just not the case.

The bottom line is there is no monolithic white American accent and there is no monolithic black American accent.  There are hundreds of millions of individuals in the United States and numerous cultures, histories, migration patterns, socioeconomic classes, education levels, etc that all interplay and create a myriad of accents and dialects.  Making clumsy broad cultural statements about something as malleable as the accents or dialects tens of millions of individuals scatter throughout thousands of communities across an entire continent will get you into trouble.  Maybe not on this forum because it is a fairly homogenous bubble but if you blurted that question out in public in the US it would cause waves.

Frankly a lot of people that are called "black" in the United States wouldn't qualify as black in many places including Africa.  This issue as with many cultural issues in Europe is complex and it deserves to have it's complexity acknowledged and respected.