Well let’s analyze what is meant by “white voice” vs. “talking black”.

A lot of it has to do with formative regions and the prevailing cultures of a certain period. African-Americans got our accent of English from the White British settlers in the Lowcountry region. We’ve kept that accent and spread it to multiple urban areas outside the South starting with our migrations to the Midwest and the Great Migration. This is why a lot of our linguistic roots in American English are shared with the descendants of British settlers in the Carolinas and Georgia. This spread out further following the invention of the cotton gin, resulting in the forced migration of slaves to as far as Texas by the same descendants of the aforementioned British settlers.

But this spread of population, this region, has always been poor and both socio-economically and racially stratified, and we carried both the accent and the perception of Southern poverty with us to multiple cities. Hence, this Southern American English is more associated with us in more cities than it is with the White Southerners who mostly carry the same and similar linguistic tendencies to this day.

If you’re from the South, you can tell the difference between African-American and White Southern English; in fact, Southern English is the most widespread accent of English in the United States. But if you’re from outside the South, that difference is minimal compared to the difference between African-American and White Western/Minnesotan/New England English.

The Midwestern English that is most associated with Nebraska is the most state- and economically-privileged form of English in the United States. This Nebraska accent, known as “General American”, is what we think of when we speak of “White Voice”. It is also the accent in which television journalists are regularly trained.

I should know, since I can’t speak African-American English to save my life. This accent helps for phone calls.

#NoAccent #MilitaryBrat #NebraskaAccent