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The recent "code-switching" episodes made me remember an episode of #NYPDBlue when Andy and Lt. Fancy were on a stakeout with another Black detective who Andy both despised but helped as a fellow alcoholic. 1/
Doing this from memory so may be fuzzy on some of the details but basically, Fancy, who challenged all of Andy's racism and biases, started "talking Black" to the other detective and Andy was confused. "Where'd you learn to talk like that? I thought you grew up middle class". 2/
"At my daddy's knee" said Fancy. Andy was aghast and thought because of Fancy's upbringing he always spoke how he spoke at work. Fancy made the point (and this is where I can't remember his exact words) that we do it for people like him. Which is the point. 3/
We do it often to stave off the assumption that too many white people won't admit they make, that we're uneducated, inarticulate, and ignorant. The funny thing is, when people encounter this at work, as I have, the white person who's so "impressed" by how "articulate" 4/
the Black person is, never stops to think that WE work in the same place. WE had to have the whatever they had to be hired, promoted etc. WE had to graduate from schools, including sometimes better ones than white people attended. But always the tone of surprise. 5/
WE know we're constantly being judged. Yet I've sat in meetings where white people have mispronounced or incorrectly used words and yes, I've taken pleasure in correcting them, only to be challenged by them insisting on the WRONG pronunciation/meaning. 6/
"It's how it was pronounced/used where I grew up". But let me let loose with an AAVE term and you'd think I'd just used profanity in front of the Pope. At any rate. Andy grew. He was a racist SOB misogynist ahole mean drunk. But he grew. Others, unfortunately, never will. 7/7
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