The Economist

(Steven Felgate) #1

70 Books and arts The EconomistAugust 4th 2018


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Y COINCIDENCE two big new films
feature race voice and the telephone
in America. In Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlans-
man” based on a true story a black po-
liceman successfully putting on his whit-
est-sounding voice convinces a Ku Klux
Klansman he is a supporter. (When the
time comes to meet the group in person
he enlists a white partner.) And in Boots
Riley’s “Sorry to Bother You” the down-
on-his-luck young black protagonist Cas-
sius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) takes a job
in telemarketing. A wise old black col-
league (played by Danny Glover) tells
him: “You wanna make some money
here? Use your white voice.” And as if flip-
ping a switch Mr Glover’s character dem-
onstrates it. Cassius learns his own white
voice (played by David Cross a white co-
median) and soon he is on a rocket-ride
to success.
“Sorry to Bother You” is an absurd
magical-realist romp. The truth of race
and voice in America is not. The second
half of the film is more about free-for-all
capitalism than it is about race. But the
thread that links them is that sounding
black is costly.
Americans know instinctively that
“Cassius Green” is more likely to be black
than white and many studies have
shown that applicants with typically
black names get fewer responses from po-
tential employers than otherwise identi-
cal ones with white names. But voices of-
fer clues to race too through timbre and
accent. In 1999 John Baugh a black profes-
sor at Washington University in St Louis
who grew up in Philadelphia and Los An-
geles and has several accents at his com-
mand rang round estate agents and
found that they were less likely to offer
him properties in white or Hispanic
neighbourhoods when he used his black
voice. When he used his white voice he

was mostly offered white neighbourhoods
and when he used his Hispanic voice he
was mostly offered Hispanic ones.
Two decades on Kelly Wright a gradu-
ate student at the University of Michigan
carried out a similar study. Ms Wright is the
daughter of a German mother and an Afri-
can-American-Cherokee father was raised
in Knoxville Tennessee and has a native
command of black standard American
and southern white accents. She made re-
cordings of all three accents and had a
group of 340 subjects rate the person they
heard. Speaking in her black accent she
was judged to be more “difficult” and
“poor” than when she used the other two.
The white accent was considered the most
“pleasant” “educated” “attractive” “confi-
dent” “trustworthy” and “rich”. The
southern accent scored between the two
on most of the rankings. Sounding south-
ern and white costs you a bit; sounding
black costs a lot.

Ms Wright is now updating Mr
Baugh’s study calling property managers
to find out whether they respond with of-
fers enticing information or special deals.
Overt discrimination—“you can’t see the
place”—remains rare she says; subtle
steering towards this or that kind of home
is commoner.
The British discriminate on the basis
of class and region more than race. British
newspapers often report on studies of
which accents sound the most pleasant or
intelligent (Received Pronounciation
south-eastern and posh without being
grand) which the most annoying or ill-
educated (Birmingham Liverpool and
Manchester). Ambitious people from out-
side the south-east are told to “lose their
accents” (speakRP in other words) if they
want to do well.
The consequences of voice discrimi-
nation are profound. Consider those stud-
ies of estate agents. A house in a good area
is a ticket to a good school which allows
your children to mix with the right sort of
people and thus acquire the right accent
so that the virtuous cycle continues. All of
this of course works the other way
around too.
Society can approach this problem in
two ways. One is to expect everyone to
learn the most mainstream least notice-
able accent. Black Americans who sound
like Barack Obama can expect to be con-
descendingly called “articulate” but at
least they will face less discrimination.
Not everyone however has a white par-
ent from whom to learn that accent and
adults can’t easily change the way they
speak. An alternative is for people to stop
judging each other on the basis of their
voices. People can be inarticulate in stan-
dard accents or eloquent in looked-
down-upon minority ones. Accent preju-
dice isn’t just wrong; it’s irrational.

Johnson The cost of an accent


Sounding black has a profound impact on Americans’ lives

Ms Baker draws from a rich stock of un-
published memoirs journals police re-
ports and other documents deploying
fresh material with a light touch. A promi-
nent character is John Auden brother of
poet W.H. Auden a geologist and lonely ju-
nior colonial official in Calcutta who is dis-
enchanted with his duties. He finds so-
lace—and relief from morale-sapping
heat—in trips to the Himalayas. Auden ob-
serves soon after arriving in India that
“most of what he has been told...is useless
or absurd like the lines and props for a
play whose run is long over.”
Auden and Michael Spender a map-

maker mountaineer and younger brother
of Stephen Spender a writer are among
the “lastEnglishmen” of the book’s title. So
too arguably are the Bengalis who rage
against colonial rule during debates at liter-
ary salons and yet feel affinity to some
parts of Britain treasuring its universities
writers and freedoms. They are torn over
the degree to which they should oppose
Britain. At one extreme was Subhas Chan-
dra Bose a charismatic Bengali who fled to
Nazi Germany and fought beside Japanese
forces who invaded India. But many Indi-
ans like Nehru kept some affection for
Britain despite itsnoxious imperial project.

By focusing on less exalted characters
often of a literary bent Ms Baker produces
a highly readable and intimate view of an
unusual time and place. At times her fluent
writing beguiles: it is easy to forget this is
non-fiction and wonder how a novelist
might have invented a more satisfying plot
for her well-sketched characters. Nancy
Spender wife of Michael and a noted
painter would have made a glamorous
foundation for a triangular love story for
instance. Yet as narrative history this is skil-
ful work showing ordinary individuals as
they cope—or buckle—while great geopolit-
ical events twist and shape their lives. 7
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