All About Accents: What You Told the White Guy

I agree that immigrants to the U.S. shouldn't have to conquer their accent to be perceived as the talented professionals they are. However, I think your focus on skin color is misplaced, and your assumption that white southerners get a free pass is flat-out incorrect.

I moved away from the South 15 years ago, but despite my best efforts I still have an accent. I meet people every day who seem to assume that people with an accent like mine are banjo-picking half-wits. If our conversation lasts long enough, I usually see their attitude shift. I think it's because I've had a chance to demonstrate correct grammar and a robust vocabulary, or because I've had a chance to contribute ideas to solving a problem. I have struggled as an adult to learn French and Spanish as well, but I would not take a job [in] Spain or France and expect forgiveness if my fluency was a drag on the work task at hand. Concerning accents, we can and should "get over it."  But regardless of skin color, it is unreasonable to expect to be perceived as a peer without the necessary skills in grammar and vocabulary in the language that predominates the work team.

—Renee Buffington

Regarding white people with southern accents, I couldn't disagree more with the White Guy on this one! I have heard my white peers say that they think southerners "sound stupid" because of their accents, and I've heard it said about both poor and middle-class whites.

—Rus Binkley

I'm a white guy with a strong southern accent. I've lived in the Northeast, Midwest, South, many parts of Canada, Latin and South America. In all of these places, males tell me that they find my speech to "be easy to listen to" and females tell me that my speech is "charming and sexy." In Quebec City, where there is a strong dislike for English-speakers, my accent was viewed as the language used by rebels who attempted to gain their independence from the Union. This perception allowed me to secure many sizable business accounts.

—Dan Jennings

Just read your response to the question about accents. I do agree with you, but FYI, I was reminded of a routine that comedian Lenny Bruce did in the '60s about President Lyndon Johnson. Bruce's routine made much of northerners' unwillingness to accept any sort of intellectual comment from a southerner (he lampooned Johnson's Texas accent), because they "sounded" uneducated. In other words, nowadays the "peer" argument is accurate, but I suspect it wasn't always so within the United States—even behind the color line among whites.

—Elliott Bronstein

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