Harry Reid has come under fire for his statements about the benefits of President Obama’s speech patterns. The statement in question is that then-candidate Obama didn’t speak in “the negro dialect” unless he wanted to.
I am a little torn on this issue. There is a dialect, one could call it an accent, that could be called stereotypical of African-Americans. Perhaps the key is the word stereotypical. I know many African-Americans that speak in the same cadence, pronunciation and word-selection as I do. I also know a number of Caucasians that speak in a manner that is very different than me.
So can adults discuss this issue without appearing as a racist? If there is a speech pattern that would be stereotypical of African-Americans, is there a non-insulting way to describe that dialect? I suspect that we all understand the idea that Harry Reid was trying to convey in his private conversation. There are a number of people that wouldn’t vote for a black candidate that speaks stereotypically. Of course, we don’t have a problem electing a guy that talks like he just fell of an Texas turnip truck.
I am prepared to be skewered by this post, so skewer away.