011423 What is Code-Switching? (Part 2)

earlier basically kind of covered it. Black people are in this country are bilingual and you may not anew it and that and you might know it if you've been around a black person long enough for in different circumstances, but were going to spend some time talking about that. We're also gonna discuss our Way Black History Fact today. We're going to talk about a white man named Benjamin Lay for our Way Black History Fact and if you think that sounds interesting, wait until you hear the story.

But first and foremost, we're going to show you, or rather tell you, how to become a better ally. It's time for ba ba ba ba, and today's Babba is brought to you by Major Threads Sportswear. Check out Major threads dot com for the finest in men's sportswear. Today. To become a better ally, we want you to read a book. The book is called How White Folks Got

So Rich? The Untold Story of American White Supremacy, And basically it kind of dispels the myth of kind of the pioneer, you know, westward expansion or you know, the colonists crossing the Atlanta Tick to the New World and making a life for themselves and making a go at it.

It largely dispels a lot of myths associated with that way of thinking, because that way of thinking kind of suggests that everyone else is lazier, doesn't work hard, or something like that, right, And the truth is, there were lots of deliberate, intentional levels in society that you know, encouraged people to do things, to pioneer, to take over lands, and you were given things and you were able to grow and you know, transfer wealth from one generation to

the next. I'll quickly read a review. How White Folks Got So Rich is a critical and essential information that non whites need to understand it be able to make sense of how we ended up in the situation we find ourselves in today. Specifically, information people classified as black

need to know and overstand. Black adults, and even more importantly, young black people need to understand how the system of racism and white supremacy has played a major role in how people who classify themselves as white maintain dominance in control through a system of cleverly crafted laws and rules designed to undermine black progress every step of the way and privilege white people every step of the way. So yeah, check that book out, How White Folks Got So Rich?

It is interesting. And again we're not knocking anybody, We're just trying to tell the truth so that everybody understands why we are where we are. Once we understand that, then we know how to move forward as brothers and sisters. Now, code switching, que you ever had the code switch? Probably not even aware of the all just happened without second thought. And I don't think this is I think most people hear that and they immediately connect it to corporate America

or the difference in cultures. But it's the difference between the way you talk at school versus the way you talk at church. It's not just about your black friends and your white friends from corporate America versus home. It's your friends versus your mom, your pastor versus your teacher, your football coach versus your you know, the deacon at your church. It's just all these different forms of not just language but behavior growing up in this skin, in

this country. Absolutely, there's it's interesting because you know, you're right, at church, you wouldn't talk the same way you would, let's say, after school with your friends, you know, growing up, or if you're I don't know, hanging out with your buddies. That's not a word I would normally use. But your buddies at a night club, you know what I mean. Now, everybody can kind of say, well, yeah, I'm gonna like push my tongue out a little further if I'm hanging

with my friends versus if I'm in church. That's not what code switching is. Code switching is an entirely different hash sharing different tone you know, you got to make sure you don't sound too angry, too aggressive. It's it's basically you're putting on your whitest display. I'll challenge that in in in the right settings, you know, and the other ones. It's kind of like, well, uh, I think

what you're calling well articulated speech is white. So that you're you're right, You're right putting on your whitest as if to substitute white for professional welfare. I have to push back on that. Please, please push back on it. So let me before you push back, let me finish what I'm saying, and then what you're about to say is very necessary. So we are often taught to be like them, be better than them, to be good enough. Right, they hold the opportunities. They're the ones that hire fire,

advance grade. Uh, you know, whatever it is that you're doing in life. And by day I mean white people. This is the world that we live in, right, And so this is a skill that I believe that black people develop at a young age because we recognize that we are or I guess I should speak for myself. I recognize that if I sound like them and I move like them, then I might be able to fly under the radar. I might get a passing mark. I might you know, I might not be challenged. I might

have an easier go at things. You have no idea the amount of code switching that happens. If the police are behind me and they're like, sir, can you step out of the car? Yes or no? Certain Absolutely, I don't talk like that right, And to call it whitening making yourself as white as you possibly can is absolutely

the wrong way to describe it. But when you boil it down to it, I think that it's very easy for black folks to make a connection with that code switch and whiteness in a vast majority of the instances, like there is a white presence that is that is telling me or that that makes this switch preferable if

I want certain outcomes here right. In other words, I may not lean on as as my friend Cheryl would call it jive talk, interacting with an employer, a person that holds the keys to opportunity, any anybody that I need to take me seriously. I could be talking to, you know, someone who's given me bad service at a restaurant. I could be talking to a manager. I could be you know, whatever, the situation is you put on you're

provided that it's a person that looks white. I could be at the doctor's office, you put on that language, that faced that posture, and try to have that conversation. Now in contrast, and I do want to hear from me, but let me just wrap this up. In contrast, if I go to a doctor and the doctor is black, it's not strictly speaking necessary. In fact, it might feel a little awkward because you also know, doctor that I don't talk like this, right, and so there's the potential

to have a much more comfortable conversation. This is the experience I had recently. I took my little sister to get her blood drawn for a something that she had to take care of medically. And the doctor came in and she was a black woman braids, you know, just and she was like, oh, look at you. And my little sister's name is Princess, right, that's her given name. My dad is a g anyway, So the doctor comes

in and she's like, your name is princess. Oh wow, we're about to have some fun today, girl, you know. And that's you can't imagine a different It's hard to explain the rhythm of we bout that has some fun today girl from a black woman to another black woman. And how important and comforting that is. How the doctor didn't have to code switch. The doctor can just kind of stay where she is and get on my sister's level.

My sister received that information. She's terrified in needles. She's got that blood drawn off, blood draw off, no problem, no tears this time. My sister is an adult woman, and it's it's a really traumatic thing for her. That's why I go with her wonderful experience, right, So pushback against the whiteness. The thing I've said about why so I.

in the city too. So the experience was very, very much about the students in the classroom, not like the idea of the white savior didn't even play a part, because the teaching staff was diverse but predominantly black as well. Because again Detroit, Michigan. My first white classmate was at cast Technical High School my freshman year, but that was almost singular. I didn't have class rooms full of white

students until Bowling Green State University. And I think I've told the story of my first actual intery encounter with flagrant overt racism. Sure, and then of course that turned into a snowball and you start to experience it more as an adult. But there was a kind of sheltering of growing up in Detroit with a best friend in high school who moved to Detroit from Gary, Indiana.

to do so so absolutely nothing. It was about, Okay, you're about to go talk to.

so cool? Right, So again having to like, I know for a fact that if you were to take the type of conversation that you would have with your friends in high school and try to have that conversation in front of your mom, she might get lost it maybe three or four points of the conversation, like, well, okay, I missed that. You know, through context clues, you can get still a majority of it, but there are certain

parts where they get lost. This happened with my father because we would often leave here, go to Last Angeles, me and my friends from high school, we go to Los Angeles, hang out with my father, and he would get lost in our conversations. He'd be like, man, the way you guys talk is so different. My father is as black as me. Right. But again, that illustrates illuminates the fact that, yes, there is sort of a bilingual component to being black that is not readily found in

every other culture. Right with that said for places where it's not as monocultural, like a place like Detroit, an environment where it's kind of mixed up a bit. I think California, you know, which is where I'm from, and where you think of a lot of the people who are in positions of authority. How do they move, how do they sit? How do they talk? You know, your

examples come from classrooms often enough and the news. When you see these people and they all look white and they all talk like this, they say the whole word like this, to quote Riley from The Boondocks, and you realize that you're playing a game in their world where they make the rules and they are the deciders at the end of the day. And so this code switching

becomes more important as you mature. But I think from a young age a lot of us recognize that having those two languages and knowing when to deploy them in conversations can make a significant impact on outcomes in your life. Now, I do want to read something here. So the question was why do black people switch the sound of their voice to say white when speaking to white people? Okay, this is the question that was asked, and the answer was, it's an example of outstanding soft skills as masters of

customer service within an assimilated integrationist token environment. The technique of mimicking the customer's cadence, tone, and accent is used to help alleviate the stereotype based terror white people feel when they speak to black people. In other words, we don't want you to feel intimidated, afraid, We don't want you to feel like we're going to mess things up

for you, and that sort of stuff. Right, So this response is speaking to those parts of it, right, which may not be true one percent of the time for one hundred percent of the people, but it kind of gives you some insight into the necessity of being bilingual while being black in this country. Right, I'm talking to you on the radio right now, I realize that I have to have an intellectual conversation on the radio every week. I talk like this, Man, I am the coolest due

in the world. Man, if you just listen to me on the show, you think I'm a square as that CD cover in the corner. But I also recognize that this is something that has come very natural for me. You know, I might code switch six or eight times in the day, depending on how many people I'm around.

our thoughts better than most people. I hope that doesn't sound like we're bragging but this is something that we found to be true, and we try to use this these what we what we consider gifts to kind of give people insight into what it's like to us, to give you a little bit more firsthand knowledge of something you may not otherwise be made aware of, and having the ability to articulate these things we feel like in my translate and so yeah, sometimes the that switching is

is definitely necessary. And then sometimes you're right, I just don't do it MS. But you know there's another part of it too, and I think that this is something that now that we're here, is worth mentioning. Code switching.

And if I can do that, then we are communicating. I'm not the best Spanish speaker, although it was the first language I spoke. I have a grandmother, my grandmother from Cuba. She raised me the first few years of my life. If you were to drop me off in the middle of Mexico, I'd sound like a three year old talking to anybody. But am I communicating? Yes, absolutely. I could get myself to a phone booth, I can get myself to a station where the people that can

help me. I can get myself a ticket and get back to the US right, or get myself a translator. That's communicating. If someone has an accent that you don't love, it's an accent in no way is a reflection of their cognitive abilities. Some people have brilliant minds and they're not the best speakers. Or some people have minds and they are the best speakers. They just don't speak in

a way that you're accustomed to listening. And these are things that we all have to challenge because for a long time I had stereotypes about people that came from the South, and I thought that people from the South were just slow, and that's not true. They're just Southern. They have a different way of talking. They're not in a rush to get the thoughts out of their brain. They can sort of take their time a bit and

let the words lean on top of each other. Once I learned that, I felt like, oh, maybe I'm misjudging. Maybe I'm being prejudiced, you know, And this is something that we all may be guilty of at different points in our life. So if you happen to come across a black person that hasn't code switched in your presence, maybe they're trying to let you know who they really are. Maybe they're trying to bring you over to their side of things. Maybe they're trying to make you feel comfortable

with their authentic self. And sometimes I be tripping, and sometimes I'd be trying to make time trying to make people feel a little bit more comfortable. Let me finish reading this. Okay, the alleviate the stereotyped based terror white people feel when they speak to black people. Okay, many times, however, despite our best efforts, the customer will still attack and kill the customer service tech during due to self inflicted

anti black racism being stronger than civility. In other words, if you hear this example, forgive me for not providing the proper context here. But this example came from obviously a customer service example of a black person at work having to communicate.

they are saying to me? And if the answer is yes, that means they are communicating And at that point you need to check your prejudices. All right, So it's time for the Way Black History Fact. Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by the Black Information Network Daily Podcast And as I mentioned, we're going to be talking about a gentleman named Benjamin Lay. So let's get started. January twenty sixth, sixteen eighty two through February eighth, seventeen fifty nine.

Well that was a while ago. Benjamin Lay was an Anglo American Quaker, humanitarian and abolitionist that means he was white. He worked as a sailor. Sorry he was best known for his early and strident anti slavery activities, which would culminate in dramatic protest. He was also an author, farmer, vegetarian, and distinguished by his early concern that the ethical treatment of animals. Born in England into a farming family, his early trade was as a shepherd and a glove maker.

After becoming a Quaker, he worked as a sailor and in seventeen eighteen moved to Barbados. Here he witnessed the poor treatment of African slaves that instilled in him his lifelong abolitionist principles. Lay later settled in Philadelphia and was made unpopular among his fellow Quakers by his confrontational anti

slavery stance. He published several pamphlets on social causes during his lifetime, and one book, All slave Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage Apostates, one of the earliest North American works against slavery. While man Ley stood barely four feet tall, referring to himself as Little Benjamin, he was a hunchback with a protruding chest, and his arms were as long as his legs. He was a vegetarian. He only ate fruits, vegetables, and honey, and drank only milk

and water. He did not believe that humans were superior to non human animals, and created his own clothes to boycott the slave labor industry. He would not wear anything nor eat anything made from the loss of animal life or provided by any degree of slave labor, refusing to participate in what he described as his tracks as a degraded, hypocritical, tyrannical, and even demonic society. Lay was committed to a lifestyle of almost complete self sustenance after his beloved wife died a man.

at least one foot bear and in the snow. When passer by passers by express concern for his health, he said that slaves were made to work outdoors in winter, dressed as he was. On another occasion, he kidnapped the child of slaveholders temporarily to show them how Africans felt when their relatives were sold overseas. That is a gangster move. Indeed, the most notable act occurred in Burlington, New Jersey, at

the seventeen thirty eight Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Quakers. Dressed as a soldier, he concluded a diatribe against slavery, quoting the Bible saying that all men should be equal under God by plunging a sword into the Bible containing a bladder of a blood red pokeberry juice, which splattered over those nearby. So he had a flare for the dramatic as well. Okay, his next part comes from this. I pull some of this from Wikipedia, just so you know

my source. This next part comes from a Smithsonian Magazine article which regarded the Burlington Quaker meeting incident. Okay, so you might hear some stuff again because two different sources, all right. He finally rose to address this gathering of weighty Quakers and many friends in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey had grown rich on Atlantic commerce, and many bought human property to them. Lay announced in a booming voice that God Almighty respects all people, equally, rich and poor,

men and women, white and black alike. He said that slave keeping was the greatest sin in the world, and asked, how can a people who profess the Golden rule keep slaves? He then threw off his great coat, revealing the military garb, the book, and the blade. A murmur filled the hall as the prophet thundered his judgment. Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslaved their fellow creatures. He pulled out sword, raised the book above his head,

and plunged the sword through it. People gasped as the red liquid gushed down his arm. Women swooned with the shock of all he splattered blood on the slave keepers. He prophesied a dark, violent future. Quakers who failed to heed the prophets called must expect physical, moral and spiritual death. The room exploded into chaos, but Lay stood quiet and still, like a statue. A witness remarked. Several Quakers quickly surrounded the armed soldier of God and carried him from the building.

He did not resist. He had made his point. The article also describes Lay throwing tobacco pipes at fellow Quakers at meetings in Philadelphia, while loudly protesting the slave labor upon which the tobacco growing relied. At other Quaker meetings, whenever anyone who owned slaves stood up to talk, which is how Quaker meetings work, he jump up and yelled things like there's another inward master to shame them. He regularly said slave owners bore the mark of the beasts

and were basically Satan incarnate. It came as no surprise to Lay or anyone else that ministers and elders had him removed from one gathering after another. Indeed, they appointed a constablary to keep him out of meetings all around Philadelphia, and even that wasn't enough. After he was tossed into the street one rainy day, he returned to the main door of the meetinghouse and lay down in the mud. Requiring every person leaving the meeting to step over his body.

Lay was disowned by the Quaker Society in seventeen thirty eight because he just wouldn't stop calling out elders as rich members for their hypocrisy on the issue of slavery. Also that year, Benjamin Franklin published one of Lai's anti slavery pamphlets, All Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage Apple States. But Franklin owned a slave and later bought two more. Lay called him out Ley refused to eat or wear anything produced in anyway from slavery. He was

a vegetarian and his wife died. He lived in a cave, kept goats and bees, farm vegetables and fruit trees, and grew flax so he could spin it to make his own clothes. And he had a library of about two hundred books. So I think that's kind of partially some way black history for you and Boba as well, becoming a better ally becas that guy was risking it all, all four feet of him.

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