AOC Makes Mistake of Defending 'Racist' Accent, Instantly Slammed by Minorities Who See Through Her
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a new excuse for her strange accent at the National Action Network conference last week: Code-switching.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the controversy, here are the basics: At the predominantly black conference last week, the New York Democrat seemed to adopt a Southern drawl when talking about menial work.
“I’m proud to be a bartender, ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with working retail, folding clothes for other people to buy. There is nothing wrong with preparing the food that your neighbors will eat. There is nothing wrong with driving the buses that take your family to work.”
Ocasio-Cortez speaks in an accent that she never uses while telling a room of predominately black people that there is nothing wrong with them folding clothes, cooking, and driving other people around on a bus for a living. pic.twitter.com/FIbIAPokt0
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) April 5, 2019
Once the incident garnered attention, Ocasio-Cortez quickly went on the defensive.
“As much as the right wants to distort & deflect, I am from the Bronx. I act & talk like it, *especially* when I’m fired up and especially when I’m home,” she wrote in one Twitter post. “It is so hurtful to see how every aspect of my life is weaponized against me, yet somehow asserted as false at the same time.”
People still didn’t seem to buy that, so we got a new explanation: She was just code-switching.
If you’re not familiar with the linguistic concept, a crude description would be to say that it’s switching between two different dialects or languages during a single conversation or sometimes within the wider context of a certain milieu. In Ocasio-Cortez’s case, she was just taking on a Southern accent in front of black people because she was … a black person from the South? Oh well, let her explain it:
Next time you‘re told straight hair is “unprofessional” & that speaking like your parents do is “uneducated,” then you can complain about code-switching.
Code switching is a tool communities learn when they’re told their voice, appearance, & mannerisms are “unprofessional.” https://t.co/tKPTneEncO
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 7, 2019
“Next time you‘re told straight hair is ‘unprofessional’ & that speaking like your parents do is ‘uneducated,’ then you can complain about code-switching,” she tweeted when someone questioned the argument being made for her. “Code switching is a tool communities learn when they’re told their voice, appearance, & mannerisms are ‘unprofessional.’”
The good news is that we can improve this easily w/ honest reflection.
For ex, are certain hairstyles discouraged in your workplace?Why?
Can you think of someone who didn’t advance bc of how they spoke? Why?
Examine what’s deemed “unprofessional” around you & adapt it to 2019.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 7, 2019
“We see the perceived ‘costs’ to not code-switching all the time. Can’t tell you how many young people in our community don’t have the confidence they should bc they didn’t grow up learning secondary speech,” she continued. “Their talents get stifled by ‘respectability,’ despite enormous gifts.”
“The good news is that we can improve this easily w/ honest reflection. For ex, are certain hairstyles discouraged in your workplace? Why? Can you think of someone who didn’t advance bc of how they spoke? Why? Examine what’s deemed ‘unprofessional’ around you & adapt it to 2019.”
Now mind you, she didn’t make the code-switching argument to begin with, arguing this is how she’d talked in other speeches. That doesn’t mean that she didn’t think she was code switching or that it’s mutually exclusive from her original explication of the strange lapse into a Southern accent — that it was no different from speeches she’d given previously, which was clearly false.
But it is interesting to note.
It’s also interesting to note that some African-American Twitter users didn’t think she possessed that particular code to switch (though CNN’s Don Lemon apparently wasn’t one of them):
But you are not black or Southern. I am a third generation New Yorker. 17th generation American none of my family is friends from New York speak in the dialect you did at NAN. You mocked black people. We won’t forget it.
— CYBERREGINA (@BSEMPLE28) April 9, 2019
Some reactions were a bit more forceful about the point. (WARNING: The image below links to the original tweet where the obscenities are written in full.)
And then others pointed out the obvious.
Code switching = still pandering.
Assuming a different speech because of people who don’t speak the same as you is just suggesting they’re not intelligent enough to understand you.
— Jorden 👑 (@_realjgoodwin) April 7, 2019
That’s arguably the most disturbing thing — the fact that she adopted this speech before the National Action Network, a predominantly African-American group, while talking about menial jobs. That probably wasn’t the moment to drag that out.
Also, while we’re on it, Ocasio-Cortez’s rant about the horrors that code-switching is meant to avoid seems pandering as well.
Professionalism isn’t a bad thing. It isn’t racist or enforcing homogenous cultural norms. If you don’t speak and act professionally in an interview, you’re not going to have the same chance at the job that someone who speaks and acts professionally does. Get used to it. This isn’t racist, classist, sexist or anything of that nature — and minority Twitter users realized that.
Beyond that, however, it’s clear that even if she was code-switching that some minorities weren’t buying that she had the right to. Granted, these are three responses, but one can extrapolate this — particularly when one considers the fact that just about everyone — regardless of race — is tiring of Ocasio-Cortez’s excuses in this matter by now.
I hope this doesn’t go away, however, because I’m curious what she’ll come up with next.
Multiple personalities, perhaps? Repressed trauma from being among the oppressed class? Imitating the colonizer? So many possibilities, so few news cycles for this story to remain fresh.
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