Question:
Do you feel the same way about the difficulty of understanding an immigrant's accent (say an Indian's accent) and another white guy's accent (say someone who has a strong southern accent and you are not a southerner)? If not, can you think of a reason for feeling different[ly] about them?
Answer:
In my opinion, many people (not just white people) will use an accent as a reason to insult a person with less perceived power. Since you asked specifically about white people, I will relate that I've heard white Americans tell people with foreign accents to "learn English." I've never heard a white person from the Northeast tell a white person with a southern (U.S.) accent to "learn English." I'm sure it happens from time to time (probably immediately prior to some unexpected dental work), but it can't be common.
That's because in almost all cases, if the person with the southern accent is white, they are perceived by white people to be a peer. Peers are permitted to have an accent. I have a friend with a prominent British accent and she's told me that she finds most American men find her accent to be "sexy" and she's used that to her advantage in getting superior customer service. A southern accent is considered charming in many circles. But a "foreign" accent--especially from a person of color--can be met with scorn and derision, especially by bigots.
I've had the opportunity to travel to many places on the planet and have found that my brain has substantial shortcomings processing languages other than English. Therefore, I humbly understand how other people could have an accent for many years after adopting a new language.
At a recent meeting of PRIMER (Puerto Ricans In Management and Executive Roles, where I am one of two Anglo members and the 2006 Member of the Year), I was talking with one of my fellow PRIMER members who has a fairly prominent Spanish accent despite two decades of living in the mainland, a graduate degree from a top continental U.S. university, and a highly successful career in corporate America.
I had to ask him to repeat a sentence and he apologized for his accent. I felt terrible about his apology, so I said, "Please don't apologize. If I moved to Puerto Rico, twenty years from now, I'd still be the guy with a difficult-to-understand English accent--because that's just the way I am."
By the way, have you heard this joke? A person who knows three languages is trilingual, a person who knows two languages is bilingual and a person who knows one language is American.
Read Immigrant Success Stories from highly successful corporate executives and entrepreneurs in the September 2007 issue of DiversityInc magazine.
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