How We Inherit our Racism and Prejudices: A Story of a Southern Racist
The voice came on the radio, slowed by the syrupy, languid humidity of the Deep South. My home. Born and raised in Central Florida, a place as deeply redneck and cracker as Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi. I cringed.
“Idiot,” I thought, the quicksilver judgment whipping into my consciousness before I had a chance to censor it.
Honestly. Really???
I’d made that flat judgment based on the speaker’s accent. Not the thoughtful, intelligent discourse. Not the well-considered ideas and provocative discussion. Just the man’s accent.
Now let’s be very clear. One hour in my hometown, I can talk like that too. It’s as natural as breathing. I can also understand, and can even speak, the unique Southern Black patois that was inherited through the slave trade. That language is a mishmash of English, French, Cajun, Caribbean, African and a whole lot more mixed in. It has its own cadence and rhythm. Hearing it is like listening to a lullaby, if you grew up with it. That is the language of my youth, as much a part of me as blackberries in spring and the rich, black, earthworm-filled earth of my father’s farm. I grew up surrounded by a gaggle of Black kids with whom I played, planted corn, and rode a white-faced mule for hours on end. I miss the innocence of not…