Summary Of On Being Told I Don T Speak Like A Black Person

Throughout history society has created many stereotypes and assumptions based on race and nationality to confine us into categories. The reality is, not every individual fits a specific category because we are unique even within the same ethnic group. In “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black person” Allison Joseph illustrates some speech stereotypes that come hand in hand with her racial background and how even people from the same racial background and house hold don’t all sound alike. The author portrays that race and linguistic has such a huge impact on our daily life and how society sees her differently to others when they see she does not fit in the stereotype of sounding “like a black person” and feels frustration to being compared

Which in some cases it might apply and be true, but a whole race can’t be classified as poor or uneducated because not everyone in a minority group are lower class and not everyone in the hegemony race is wealthy and has had a good education. The poem mentions how the mother of the author has a different accent because even though the mother was forced to lose her accent back in Jamaica when colonial minded teachers were teaching her. Her. “Mother never lost her accent, though, the music of her voice, charming everyone.” (701) This quote shows that the author still thinks her mom 's voice is beautiful, even though is different from her own voice and how she admires her mother accent and don’t think less of her by the accent even if that’s not the accent she pick up as a kid. It also implies that now everyone in a same household has the same accent and this is because people even in the same neighborhood have different

Moreover, Joseph states, “Sure they knew what a black person was supposed to sound like. I was supposed to sound lazy dropping syllables here, there.” (702) This shows that Joseph acquaintances found it weird that she did not sound black according to them and the author is making us question do we really know a whole race to assume everyone within that race has the same linguistic abilities. Therefore, stereotypes are also use assume that everyone in a particular a race does something inadequate just because few people in that race we heard have done it, when in reality that’s not how it works we don’t all think the same or do the same but we are still criticized as a group and the person making the assumption about us is not taking into consideration our individuals trait and are not getting to know us but making comments that puts a label in the whole being targeted. “I realize there’s nothing more personal than speech, that I don’t have to defend how I speak, how any person, black, white, chooses to speak. Let us speak. Let us talk with the sounds of our mothers and fathers still reverberating in our minds, wherever our mother or fathers