By Shannon Craig
Last week a member of our editorial staff overheard a conversation I was having with my mother.
“Nice accent,” he remarked in a patronizing tone. He meant it in jest, but I’ve received the same comment beneath a veil of condescension many times. It all started with a poorly illustrated tree.
I’m sure that many of you had to fill out a family tree at some point during grade school; I believe the entire charade has been patented. Even as a youngster I knew that my tree would most likely remain in an eternal state of Autumn. My father’s parents were immigrants from Ireland and had lost contact with most of their family after moving to the States. He is the only living paternal relative I know. On the other hand, my mother’s side was expansive, but would prove to be limited in terms of familial knowledge.
“We’re from Alabama,” my grandfather answered flatly.
“Yeah grandpa, but what COUNTRY are we from?” It was a reasonable question.
“Don’t you know that Alabama is in the South and that the South is in the United States? Damn, what are they teaching you at public school?”
It was a bust.
My family tree has been firmly planted in the South for as long as anyone can remember. Our family name is scattered in most states south of the Mason-Dixon line and my grandfather has “plum run into our kin” as far west as Texas. Though most of us now live in Florida, which many do not consider the South, we can’t seem to escape the drawl. I caught some flak over my accent when I was younger, but it wasn’t until I started traveling to different parts of the country that my accent was brought to my attention negatively. And I didn’t quite like it.
I started teaching myself how to speak in a “non-regional” dialect when I graduated from high school. A Southern accent is often considered lazy and slow, ignorant even. But the person who decided it was lazy was obviously the ignorant one. Naturally I drag my A’s, drop my G’s, mix my vowels and combine my you’s and all’s. Seems pretty active to me.
Don’t get me wrong, my voice never bothered me, but I became tired (quickly) of the stereotypes attached to my accent. Southerners are racist, stupid, hospitable, country-singing, cotton-ginning, NASCAR-loving, fried-food-eating rednecks. And I’m blonde so brunette Northerners think that I represent all that is wrong with this country.
And maybe I am.
Sure, we have ongoing feuds about mayonnaise brands, we eat Moon Pies and drink liquid sugar, we spy on our neighbors, gossip, and on occasion we even say “ain’t.” But we have pride and we always remember our roots, even if we can’t seem to recall exactly where the seed came from. If that’s a bad thing to those from other regions, then they should stop visiting us during their vacations and buying all our awesome condos.
When I hear “nice accent,” even if it comes from a sharp tongue, I am reminded that a mockingbird can’t tell a rooster how to sing just because it has a different song. And I love that I, and others with voices like mine, know what that means
