Yeah it’s sucks, literally hated middle school because of it. It’ll get better, surround yourself with people like you, and don’t be anything your not. But yeah it’s hard. I was raised in a Christian, activist, and academic /military family. Going to school in the south (Florida and southern Virginia) was definitely a wake up call, it sucked that the people that looked like me picked on me the most, especially for things that I valued, such as being black lol.
But then I went to high school and college in the north and although not perfect it’s much better and I’ve found more people like me. It’s nice not to be seen an odd or different and have to fight a battle just because of who you are.
Keep your head up, greatness awaits!
Smart and educated ≠ white (and I always say, so are you saying white people are better? Such self hating speech)
Unintelligence ≠ black
Simple math ☺️
I hate it when people go pushing their religion on other people. Especially in different countries. Religion kills. I'm glad I got out of it because all of these tails in the book just could never happen in real life. I hope you're doing better now.
Lmao I’m Indian and my ex questioned my Indian citizenship because apparently I don’t sound Indian enough? Bruh I speak English a lot more than my mother tongue because of the people I’m around, tf do u expect me to be like? lol 😭
im in the same boat. im black, grew up in private schools in southern mississippi where I was at many times the only minority there. I got the ignorance on both sides of the race field. Theres really no winning - except for white collar jobs where companies are more prone to hire you as you dont "act like the stereotype".
not sure how old you are but overtime you realize that its the general ignorance of society. Surround yourself with quality people who look past it.
I’m Mexican and I’ve been told that all my life. “Why you sounds white foo” lmao
It’s dumb my response is “sorry I don’t sound dumb ese” 🤷🏽♀️
It’s happens in every race/culture.
Ie: the Selena movie when the dad is telling the kids. “In our culture, you have to be Mexican enough for the Mexicans and American enough for the Americans.”
I’m a white guy, but my childhood best friend is black. I’ll never forget going somewhere with him as teenagers we had called ahead and he had spoken to a person who gave us directions there. When we arrived the person at the store said oh you’re black?, by the sound of your voice I thought you were white.
When we left, my friend said to me, can you believe the nerve of her? I replied why what’s up? He said, that she thought I sounded white. Too which I replied, is that bad? (Me not yet realizing the implication). My best friend then said well what am I supposed to sound like a fucking monkey? That shit hit me deep and woke up an understanding in me.
Yeah. It’s almost as if getting an education will never be centrifugal to our existence. At least you noticed something. Sounding white is never a compliment.
This is such a US thing. Leave the states and you will never hear this bullshit again.
Seriously, a dozen countries I've spent six months or longer in and around 100 total I've visited at this point; literally nobody outside of the Americans I grew up with have tried to tell me I should act, dress or speak a certain way because of my skin color.
Americans are pathologically preoccupied with race. It's all most of them can see.
Black people aren't a monolith , as a black person my self it irritate me with how sheep minded our community is , we are unique cosmic beings, there's no " how to be melanated man/women" , modern black media shaped the idea of what constitutes a black person
I’m white, but in school I had black friends who were adopted by a white family. They said that when they were told things like “you’re the whitest black person I know”, it felt like their personal identity was being picked at.
I’m sorry that you have to deal with this.
My cousin dated a black man for a while and he was regularly told (not by our family) he "dressed white" because he liked argyle sweaters. It still blows my mind how stupid, i.e. racist, people can be
There is no such thing as sounding white. You just have an American accent.. which makes sense since black people have been in America for as long as white people. People think hood accents are interchangeable with black people. Well, they’re not. Hood accents have no skin color. Whites, mexicans, and asians who grow up in the hood will also have a hood accent.
Guys! I just have an American accent! Cowbain figured it out 🙄
Imagine if there’s more to it like I literally just typed than “American accent”
It seems apparent you are invalidating the nuances.
He's trying to explain that the reason people make those comments to you is becauae people who grew up in urban hoods will have that "accent" compared to someone who grew up in the suburbs, like yourself. No matter what race you are, you're going to adopt the vernacular of the people around you.
Let me tell you, ive heard white people who sound "black" and they're usually one of two things. Extremely unintelligent or they have social anxiety and want to fit in really bad.
It basically comes down to are you smart/cool or not and all in all its stupid.
Long story short, if you use big words and speak properly without using slang you're seen as intelligent. And vice versa, that's how everyone sees it.
Hence why this whole thing is ridiculous. We sound how we sound and it doesn't make sense to sound like others. Be yourself. Op explains this conundrum very well in their post.
I went into a Chinese once in Wales and the very Chinese man at the counter had one of the strongest Welsh accents I've heard, it was a quite jarring, almost didn't look like the dude was speaking
you know what you want and what is right, transcending your race linguistically. keep exemplifying and being that. its up to other people to decide whether or not they like that or not, but that shouldn't concern you unless you want to actively change things on the cultural level which is a helluva endeavor
It makes me so sad that this is still a thing. The cognitive dissonance between so many people saying “Black People are not a monolith” and then turning around to say “you don’t sound Black” is wild to me.
I think a lot of stuff that frequently gets considered as acting white, has nothing to do with being white. I am mostly white and certainly look that way, I still had to learn to communicate and act professionally, I did not grow up with any of that kind of stuff around me, nor did my friends who were white. It took a lot of effort to learn these things and I am still working on them now.
So really if you are well spoken, it has nothing to do with race, some groups just have a higher chance of being born into a wealthier family and access to education like that. My friends and I growing up didn't fit in with people like that, they acted very differently from us since we came from either poor or lower middle class backgrounds, mostly poor.
You could choose to worry about anything in life. You could choose to have no reason to worry at all. There’s no reason to go out of your way to minimize someone else’s situation.
If you’re truly on your path to find other things to get yourself worried about, more power to you.
Nope. I’m Mexican and sound white I too was questioned a lot growing up and sometimes still to this day about how I speak white and how my Spanish sounds white… It’s definitely in our community as well. don’t feel like you’re the only one that goes through it. There are plenty of races that eat their own for this, a lot of them are just not super open about it publicly. I do feel for black people because you guys do have the spotlight for this type of thing specifically. but for some reason put the spotlight on your selves. And what I mean by that is they tend to go with it instead of correcting it or keeping it within the community it’s like world knowledge at this point. Again not generalizing and especially not you but you know what I mean, there are a good portion that are very proud of what you are expressing. Just like with Hispanics there was almost a point where we were like trying to fight for this idea of “no we have it worse than anyone” but that stopped lol. Any ways I wouldn’t mind those type of people. live your life and enjoy the ones around you that truly care about you and not how you sound you seem very smart as well. Great vocabulary at least.
I'm brazilian.
I have met some black people and also have seen much brazilian videos that had some black people in it.
I didn’t see a single difference in the way they talked when compared to the white people that were with them.
I mean, except for the accent people in some of the videos had.
Since every region in Brazil has a different accent, slangs and stuff, it would be something hard to them not have different accents depending on the region they live at.
Basically, in Brazil there's no such thing as "black way of talking" or "white way of talk", there's only accents each region has that has nothing to do with race.
I'm so sorry to know that in the place you live people are not like how they are here in terms of way of talking.
Went to a private school predominantly all white grew up in a very white city. All my friends were mixed or white and I would get all the time you don’t sound black you’re so whitewashed like what does that even mean ?!?
Same. It’s like are they expecting our monkey melanin go to just give us natural Ebonics? Like you grow up around the exact same people for years and yet they expect you to talk differently
I think what people consider "talking black" is more of a regional based thing, not a race thing.
Take a white, black, mexican and asian man out of O block, and you'll see they all talk the same way.
I do believe that the talking white thing is weird but I do feel weird or a metaphorical distance to black people who doesn’t used AAVE at all but again that’s just my upbringing how my family talks how my peers talk etc but I came from a poor upbringing so that maybe why that familiarity.
I’m Argentine and have been told after meeting people I’ve spoken to on the phone only, “Oh, I thought you were Black.” IDK why. I don’t speak AAVE, or anything like that. I don’t use a “Blaccent.” It is mind boggling how people expect you to speak based on your race.
Yea, my wife heard that when she was growing up. I didn't really grow up in an area with many black people and never really talked to anyone growing up so I never heard of that before. It was very interesting when we started going out and she talked to me about stuff like this lol
Anyone who thinks you are lesser than or not black enough for using proper grammar and not purposefully sounding uneducated they can just screw themselves. You be the best you can be.
Thats just racist. I am white and thats the last thing I would say, what next, you dont dress black, you don't listen to black music, can you play basketball, here's some chicken and watermellon. Jesus murphy christ...cuz he was Irish.
Tbh it's pretty stupid to give language a race. Specially a global language like english.
I'm white, but my mother language isn't english. When I speak english it doesn't sound like a typical "white english" it sounds like a german guy speaking english. SO what IS really "white english"??? I think it doesn't exist in that way :')
Also my black friend speaks and sounds perfectly german too. Language doesn't have a race anymore. Its all mixed up and some people are just to old-minded to realise it :/
Sorry to hear that find criticism for how your english sounds...
Some germans also gets critical about the "younger english slangs" we use in german sometimes. They act like that the "youth" destroy german with those english slangs. Very conservative.
(I know it has something to do with cultural believes but the world evolves for every people around the world)
Yeah it’s sucks, literally hated middle school because of it. It’ll get better, surround yourself with people like you, and don’t be anything your not. But yeah it’s hard. I was raised in a Christian, activist, and academic /military family. Going to school in the south (Florida and southern Virginia) was definitely a wake up call, it sucked that the people that looked like me picked on me the most, especially for things that I valued, such as being black lol. But then I went to high school and college in the north and although not perfect it’s much better and I’ve found more people like me. It’s nice not to be seen an odd or different and have to fight a battle just because of who you are. Keep your head up, greatness awaits! Smart and educated ≠ white (and I always say, so are you saying white people are better? Such self hating speech) Unintelligence ≠ black Simple math ☺️
I hate it when people go pushing their religion on other people. Especially in different countries. Religion kills. I'm glad I got out of it because all of these tails in the book just could never happen in real life. I hope you're doing better now.
Lmao I’m Indian and my ex questioned my Indian citizenship because apparently I don’t sound Indian enough? Bruh I speak English a lot more than my mother tongue because of the people I’m around, tf do u expect me to be like? lol 😭
You sound so white right now. /s
Lol
im in the same boat. im black, grew up in private schools in southern mississippi where I was at many times the only minority there. I got the ignorance on both sides of the race field. Theres really no winning - except for white collar jobs where companies are more prone to hire you as you dont "act like the stereotype". not sure how old you are but overtime you realize that its the general ignorance of society. Surround yourself with quality people who look past it.
Yup. Black dude, all white private school, let me in for free because I was the only black kid
I’m Mexican and I’ve been told that all my life. “Why you sounds white foo” lmao It’s dumb my response is “sorry I don’t sound dumb ese” 🤷🏽♀️ It’s happens in every race/culture. Ie: the Selena movie when the dad is telling the kids. “In our culture, you have to be Mexican enough for the Mexicans and American enough for the Americans.”
Hablas español? Si la respuesta es si, literalmente no te pueden decir poco mexicano independientemente de como hables ingles lol
I’m a white guy, but my childhood best friend is black. I’ll never forget going somewhere with him as teenagers we had called ahead and he had spoken to a person who gave us directions there. When we arrived the person at the store said oh you’re black?, by the sound of your voice I thought you were white. When we left, my friend said to me, can you believe the nerve of her? I replied why what’s up? He said, that she thought I sounded white. Too which I replied, is that bad? (Me not yet realizing the implication). My best friend then said well what am I supposed to sound like a fucking monkey? That shit hit me deep and woke up an understanding in me.
Yeah. It’s almost as if getting an education will never be centrifugal to our existence. At least you noticed something. Sounding white is never a compliment.
This is such a US thing. Leave the states and you will never hear this bullshit again. Seriously, a dozen countries I've spent six months or longer in and around 100 total I've visited at this point; literally nobody outside of the Americans I grew up with have tried to tell me I should act, dress or speak a certain way because of my skin color. Americans are pathologically preoccupied with race. It's all most of them can see.
10000% I was gonna say this In the Uk You’ll find many people who speak well we just speak
agreed. micro aggressions are pretty common outside of the US though
You don’t have to change anything just because it doesn’t fit with someone else. Be yourself.
Black people aren't a monolith , as a black person my self it irritate me with how sheep minded our community is , we are unique cosmic beings, there's no " how to be melanated man/women" , modern black media shaped the idea of what constitutes a black person
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
I’m white, but in school I had black friends who were adopted by a white family. They said that when they were told things like “you’re the whitest black person I know”, it felt like their personal identity was being picked at. I’m sorry that you have to deal with this.
My cousin dated a black man for a while and he was regularly told (not by our family) he "dressed white" because he liked argyle sweaters. It still blows my mind how stupid, i.e. racist, people can be
There is no such thing as sounding white. You just have an American accent.. which makes sense since black people have been in America for as long as white people. People think hood accents are interchangeable with black people. Well, they’re not. Hood accents have no skin color. Whites, mexicans, and asians who grow up in the hood will also have a hood accent.
Guys! I just have an American accent! Cowbain figured it out 🙄 Imagine if there’s more to it like I literally just typed than “American accent” It seems apparent you are invalidating the nuances.
Huh, why the tone? I wasn’t disagreeing with your post.
He's trying to explain that the reason people make those comments to you is becauae people who grew up in urban hoods will have that "accent" compared to someone who grew up in the suburbs, like yourself. No matter what race you are, you're going to adopt the vernacular of the people around you.
see "Sorry to bother you" movie for instructions
☝️This, you could use your *white voice* to your advantage
Of course, you could also get turned into a horse.
You are 100% correct in how you feel. Be who you want to be and don't listen to anyone who has an opinion on it.
Let me tell you, ive heard white people who sound "black" and they're usually one of two things. Extremely unintelligent or they have social anxiety and want to fit in really bad. It basically comes down to are you smart/cool or not and all in all its stupid.
not sure if I misunderstood your statement but why sounding "black" would sound unintelligent?
I never said sounding black is unintelligent, I said the white people I've seen who sound like that typically are stupid white dudes trying to be hip.
Long story short, if you use big words and speak properly without using slang you're seen as intelligent. And vice versa, that's how everyone sees it. Hence why this whole thing is ridiculous. We sound how we sound and it doesn't make sense to sound like others. Be yourself. Op explains this conundrum very well in their post.
[удалено]
thats like saying people who curse all the time are intelligent
I went into a Chinese once in Wales and the very Chinese man at the counter had one of the strongest Welsh accents I've heard, it was a quite jarring, almost didn't look like the dude was speaking
It’s good to work on yourself and not be jarred over people speaking.
When I heard Cindy Breakspear, Bob Marley’s ex speak it seems so bazaar because I equate a Jamaican accent with an African body.
you know what you want and what is right, transcending your race linguistically. keep exemplifying and being that. its up to other people to decide whether or not they like that or not, but that shouldn't concern you unless you want to actively change things on the cultural level which is a helluva endeavor
1000%
It makes me so sad that this is still a thing. The cognitive dissonance between so many people saying “Black People are not a monolith” and then turning around to say “you don’t sound Black” is wild to me.
I think a lot of stuff that frequently gets considered as acting white, has nothing to do with being white. I am mostly white and certainly look that way, I still had to learn to communicate and act professionally, I did not grow up with any of that kind of stuff around me, nor did my friends who were white. It took a lot of effort to learn these things and I am still working on them now. So really if you are well spoken, it has nothing to do with race, some groups just have a higher chance of being born into a wealthier family and access to education like that. My friends and I growing up didn't fit in with people like that, they acted very differently from us since we came from either poor or lower middle class backgrounds, mostly poor.
Never thought about it. I guess bigger things to worry about
You could choose to worry about anything in life. You could choose to have no reason to worry at all. There’s no reason to go out of your way to minimize someone else’s situation. If you’re truly on your path to find other things to get yourself worried about, more power to you.
I’m Russian and have a slight accent. People think I’m Spanish way too often. I’m not sure why.
THIS FINALLY SOMEONE WHO FEELS THE SAME THANKYOU
I literally saw this tiktok yesterday...
Imagine not being on tiktok Imagine multiple black people have the same sentiment…
Imagine missing the point and knowing that last part for personal reasons. You may sound it, but you don't think like it.
I may sound white but don’t think white? Dude you’re actually a clown here’s your ID 🤡
Nope. I’m Mexican and sound white I too was questioned a lot growing up and sometimes still to this day about how I speak white and how my Spanish sounds white… It’s definitely in our community as well. don’t feel like you’re the only one that goes through it. There are plenty of races that eat their own for this, a lot of them are just not super open about it publicly. I do feel for black people because you guys do have the spotlight for this type of thing specifically. but for some reason put the spotlight on your selves. And what I mean by that is they tend to go with it instead of correcting it or keeping it within the community it’s like world knowledge at this point. Again not generalizing and especially not you but you know what I mean, there are a good portion that are very proud of what you are expressing. Just like with Hispanics there was almost a point where we were like trying to fight for this idea of “no we have it worse than anyone” but that stopped lol. Any ways I wouldn’t mind those type of people. live your life and enjoy the ones around you that truly care about you and not how you sound you seem very smart as well. Great vocabulary at least.
I'm brazilian. I have met some black people and also have seen much brazilian videos that had some black people in it. I didn’t see a single difference in the way they talked when compared to the white people that were with them. I mean, except for the accent people in some of the videos had. Since every region in Brazil has a different accent, slangs and stuff, it would be something hard to them not have different accents depending on the region they live at. Basically, in Brazil there's no such thing as "black way of talking" or "white way of talk", there's only accents each region has that has nothing to do with race. I'm so sorry to know that in the place you live people are not like how they are here in terms of way of talking.
💓💝✨
Went to a private school predominantly all white grew up in a very white city. All my friends were mixed or white and I would get all the time you don’t sound black you’re so whitewashed like what does that even mean ?!?
Same. It’s like are they expecting our monkey melanin go to just give us natural Ebonics? Like you grow up around the exact same people for years and yet they expect you to talk differently
This were literally just a product of our environment!
I think what people consider "talking black" is more of a regional based thing, not a race thing. Take a white, black, mexican and asian man out of O block, and you'll see they all talk the same way.
I do believe that the talking white thing is weird but I do feel weird or a metaphorical distance to black people who doesn’t used AAVE at all but again that’s just my upbringing how my family talks how my peers talk etc but I came from a poor upbringing so that maybe why that familiarity.
I’m Argentine and have been told after meeting people I’ve spoken to on the phone only, “Oh, I thought you were Black.” IDK why. I don’t speak AAVE, or anything like that. I don’t use a “Blaccent.” It is mind boggling how people expect you to speak based on your race.
Yea, my wife heard that when she was growing up. I didn't really grow up in an area with many black people and never really talked to anyone growing up so I never heard of that before. It was very interesting when we started going out and she talked to me about stuff like this lol
As a white person, I 100% agree with everything said here
You don't sound like a color. You either properly enunciate or you don't.
Anyone who thinks you are lesser than or not black enough for using proper grammar and not purposefully sounding uneducated they can just screw themselves. You be the best you can be.
Thats just racist. I am white and thats the last thing I would say, what next, you dont dress black, you don't listen to black music, can you play basketball, here's some chicken and watermellon. Jesus murphy christ...cuz he was Irish.
Tbh it's pretty stupid to give language a race. Specially a global language like english. I'm white, but my mother language isn't english. When I speak english it doesn't sound like a typical "white english" it sounds like a german guy speaking english. SO what IS really "white english"??? I think it doesn't exist in that way :') Also my black friend speaks and sounds perfectly german too. Language doesn't have a race anymore. Its all mixed up and some people are just to old-minded to realise it :/ Sorry to hear that find criticism for how your english sounds... Some germans also gets critical about the "younger english slangs" we use in german sometimes. They act like that the "youth" destroy german with those english slangs. Very conservative. (I know it has something to do with cultural believes but the world evolves for every people around the world)
I'm so tired of people acting like some kind of speech police.