Speak To Me As You, I'll Understand

This NPR article about white people who attempt to "sound black" in order to establish empathy with a listener struck a chord with me on two levels.

I attended a high school that was racially mixed.   Everyone got along well.  One rule:  a white person should not "try" to sound black.  That was patronizing.   It doesn't mean that the white kids didn't pick up some verbiage--your home became your "crib" and there was always the phrase,   "why you wanna do me like that?"--but this was similar to a Midwestern moving to the South and picking up some inflection.  Trying too hard brought a roll of the eyes.

After high school, I attended a broadcast school in order to launch my radio career.   One of the classes dealt with erasing our Midwestern pronunciations:  "worsh" became "wash" and "y'all" is unacceptable.  Much like the BBC, however, the broadcast industry is not so strident anymore about accents.  

I think broadcasters and our culture in general are learning this lesson:

I can understand you just fine if you speak to me as you. If you speak to me as if you're me, we'll both end up confused.