Dialects & Accents

Hey everyone! So I’ve finally decided what I wanted to comment on and that is dialects and accents. We’ve been talking about some really great stuff in class but I was most fascinated by Theo’s comment on Wednesday regarding why black dialects and accents are most often recognized and preserved, whereas white accents are not. After class I was thinking about this and tried my best to pay close attention to see if I could recognize different accents or dialects on campus; unquestionably I could (from back and white students). Therefore, Theo’s comment continued to stir questions in my mind: why only preserve black accents? What does this mean? Does it symbolize anything?
Ironically, something occurred last night that inspired this comment: I was watching American’s Next Best Dance Crew (or something like that) with some friends and there were three judges on the show evaluating the dancer’s performances. The three judges were Little Mama, Omarion and JC (former member of boy band N*SYNC). I would like to note that all three of these judges spoke with a very unique style and accent, thus accentuating that they were from different geographical places. However, after hearing their comments, my friends started imitating the judges. They repeated JC’s comment, without preserving his accent or “style”; as if they were speaking in their everyday accent and style. However, when came time to imitate Little Mama’s comment, they sounded something like this: “Ya’ll godda known dat you guys bring it all da time, yah know!” (they made sure to add in some head weaving and finger snapping as well). As soon as I saw this I could not help but think of what we have been talking about. So again, why????? Why preserve black accents, dialects and styles and not white ones??? Anyways, I just thought I would share this with you guys as I found it really interesting and eye opening. It would seem that some of the stuff we’ve been reading about, analyzing and commenting on is still happening today.