What are your thoughts on this statement? (NSFW)

I mean, without going to in depth on it, it’s honestly true sometimes. It’s definitely not a given, but you can usually tell if someone comes at you with pretty obvious inner-city slang and tones, and just immediately based off some things they say.

I dunno if it qualifies as racist, because the statement isn’t passing a judgment about black people. It’s just pointing out that they can usually tell. Would it be racist if I said I can always tell when someone I am looking at is black, but I can’t always tell if they’re latino?

I pretty much agree with the statement. I think 90% of the time if I think someone on the other end of the phone is black they probably are. If I have no idea, or they “sound white” I would not hazard to guess, nor have any assumption, to whether they were white white, black, Asian, Hispanic, nothing. I would have no idea. I also could probably guess pretty accurately if their was an out of country accent that they are Asian or Hispanic.

Is it true? In my experience, there are certain voice characteristics that are centered on but not exclusive to black people. Some of it is choice of words, but, again, in my experience, it is more in the tone and timbre than in the words being used. It is a sound characteristic, but not a content characteristic.

Is it racist? No – it is a fact. People sound different. Asians sound different than Russians. People who speak Arabic have a better grasp of gutturals than native English speakers of whatever race. Facts are facts.

Where racism comes in is if a person discriminates against a black-sounding person because of the sound of their voice. That is improper. But that is not a fact, it is the way people APPLY the fact.

It’s not really racist. Of course different races, nationalities, languages, etc have different nuances that can make it easier to match the voice with the person’s race. It’s an automatic response anyway in just about anyone. You hear it, and you can’t help but know. It’s like hearing if the person i smiling, or angry, or if they have a speech quirk or accent.

It doesn’t matter so much who the person is, or what race they are…. as how they plan to use the information (knowing the race of the person on the phone).

We all tend to gin up a mental image of a person when all we do is hear their voice (or read their character in a novel)... lots of inputs affect that, including accent, dialect, vocabulary, grammar, etc.

However, much like you shouldn’t congratulate an unknown woman on her pregnancy, I find it’s best to keep my imaginings to myself.

It’s really just silly .. not especially racist… probably more ignorant than racist.

Sounds like someone is into believing stereotypes.

Not racist. I can tell when a call to tech support is being handled by someone in India. I can usually tell what part of the country someone is from. That isn’t racist, it is observant.

not racist at all. I can tell English, Asian, Indian, Chinese, Australian, black, and a variety of others. I was told once by a gentleman from England, “all you Americans sound alike” and I was not offended.

I can sometimes tell, but not always and I have been known to get the gender wrong, which is worse.

I would ask “how do you know?” How many people do you actually see after you’ve had a phone conversation? How do you know you’re not making an assumption that is actually inaccurate?

Depends on the black person. Some accents are hard to miss. I doubt that you would guess my race: I speak Standard English and have done so since childhood.

@syz Someone knows because a person has had the opportunity to meet the person amd see what color they are.

@bea2345 I think everyone is agreeing if we can’t place the accent as black, the person could be anything. It is not so much all black people sound black, but if the person sounds black they probably are.

What are your thoughts on this statement? Assuming someone is of a certain race by the caller’s tone/accent/language would only be considered racist if the reaction, be it verbally or mentally, treated the caller differently than they would of someone else of a different race. So, I’d say that, no, this isn’t a racist statement on the surface, but I would wonder why anyone would state something like this.

Would the skin color of the person who made the statement affect the way you answer the first question? Racism is not limited to one race, so the answer is “no”.

Is it offensive? I wouldn’t label it offensive, but it would make me wonder if the person making the comment is racist on some level. Every time someone mentions a person’s race, my thought process gets distracted as to why they are bringing it up. Does it factor into their statement? Often, it doesn’t.

I agree there is a black vernacular. But it’s not spoken exclusively by blacks and more importantly, blacks are not restricted to using it. Most of us could guess at someone’s race, but we would know that we would often be wrong. It seems to me that someone who is certain they can identify a person by voice has expectations of what each race can sound like. And I would have to think that racist by definition.

No. Not racist, one can tell some peoples ethnicity by their tone, accent or other give aways. Observant is not racist, it is simply observation.

No, this is not a racist statement and here is why….................

Today, the races are mixed.

It implies black people only speak a certain way. Newsflash: they don’t.

@Blackberry No it doesn’t. It implies some black people speak a certain way, and few other groups speak that way. It in no way means all or most black people speak that way.

@JLeslie Hmmm, ok.

I can truthfully say that it has never occurred to me to think about the race of the person calling me. That may be because I work with people from all over the world or it might be that I am more concerned about why they called and could care less about their color.

I notice that it is easier to understand people calling from Africa than ones calling from Mississippi. It is the education, no the race the tells in a person’s speech.

Not particularly racist beyond pointing out that there are multiple colors of people. The person is essentially commenting on the very strong regional correlation between an accent and a notable characteristic of the majority of the people (within that region) who use it.

I’m pretty sure that some people can tell they are talking to a left handed, slightly ADD BLONDE, when they talk to me. ;-) I mask my blondeness well for the most part, just don’t watch me park. lololol

The thing with the AAE “accent” is that it isn’t just regional; it’s the result of an ethnic dialect that’s cross-regional. In my sociolinguistics class, we talked about how the AAE dialect is one of the most recognizable and one study showed that people could correctly identity if a speaker was black based on his speech around 95% of the time.

No, I don’t think it’s racist. It’s quite true.
I mean, if a white kid grew up in the ghettos, I’m pretty sure he’d end up talking that way too.

@MilkyWay Borne out by observation. It can be a bit disorienting, but white people can and do speak AAE.

Well, there is such a thing as a “black” sounding voice. If there wasn’t , you would not have the phenomenon of white or other non-black people sounding, to their credit, like they have a ” black ” voice. Case in point is Joss Stone.
I don’t see racism here.

@MilkyWay And there the white whale breeches!

“If a white kid grew up in the ghettos, I’m pretty sure he’d end up talking that way too.” This is the linking of black and ghetto. This is what is racist – the assumption that black people talk that way of course because, hey, they all grew up in the ghetto!”

@6rant6 Black people do talk that way because of where they grew up. I would say black men tend to have deeper voices also, but much more than deeper or higher is the structure of their sentences, word choice, accent, dialect, that comes about by the community someone lives in. If they grow up middle class they sound like run of the mill middle class usually. Although, in areas that have very large black populations even the black middle class sometimes have a slightly different dialect if they still are fairly separated from the white community. Education level plays a part, because once people get onto a college campus they start to speak similarly too, and higher learning typically is more diverse, especially large campuses.

Damn!. My link to Joss Stone does not link.
Well,...., she was singing at a tribute concert for Aretha Franklin.
It’s on youtube.

Thanks everyone who has answered to date! I was very interested in what you all had to say about this!
I was intrigued by what @DominicX referred to as the AAE accent particularly about it not being regional. What does this mean that it is not a regional accent? Is if physical? societal? and does it occur in other languages besides english?
Or is it only american english? What about other english speaking countries? Does it occur in England? Australia? So many fascinating questions!

Well, by “not regional” I meant that within America the dialect/accent is cross-regional. That is, although it originated in the South, it is used by black Americans all across America, therefore it’s an ethnic dialect rather than a regional dialect. In general, black Americans tend not to adopt the local dialect of where they live but often speak AAE even in places like New York City where the distinctive New York City dialect is prevalent.

They don’t call it blue-eyed soul for nothing! No one has a problem calling an entire genre of music that based on the fact that white people are singing and sounding like typical black music. I had no idea Michael McDonald was white until someone told me!

I think that @lloydbird brings up an important point: one might distinguish the race of a speaker by vocal timbre rather than by the words used. If it is racist to think that black people (are more likely to) have a voice within a particular timbre range, then we will have to attribute the birth of soul music and modern gospel to racism. There is interesting work done by musicologists showing how these forms of music were deliberately developed in contradistinction to rock and rap for the express purpose of finding something that other races could not appropriate. This was done by making vocal timbre central to the genre. Singers like Joss Stone have undermined this a bit, of course, but one could easily argue that the strategy has been mostly successful.

If you talked to my (white) brother on the phone, you would think he is black. If you talked to one of my old friends (who is black), you would think he is white. That is to say, there is a dialect that is associated with (some) black people, but it would be a mistake to use that to make any assumptions. I wonder why anyone feels the need to make assumptions about an unknown person’s skin color in the first place.

@augustlan Great point, why would anyone bother to think about what color someone sounds. Unless the person is stereotyping for some reason I think.

I do not think it’s a racist statement unless the person saying it is a racist…and means it in such a way. But the statement, by itself, is not racist.

I think the belief in that statement is more of an American phenomenon than anything (because of the many dialects and, of course, the society itself).

I have to agree with others here who said it’s not racist. Many times I can tell the race of the person over the phone based solely on the voice, tone and accent. When I speak on the phone to people I have been told that I sound “white”. I used to be offended by this but now I don’t make other people’s assumptions my problem.

What your friend was referring to is probably voice inflection- that AAE @DominicX wrote about more than vocabulary. My opinion is that it’s not racist but a curious observation.

It all comes down to vocal characteristics. I too, can tell most of the time, if the person on the other end of the line is black, simply because many black people speak differently. It’s not racist, it’s just what is.

A person can make an guess, but actually know is a different thing. My husband has had business calls and sometimes I have assumed wrong. So I just stopped guessing. It becomes harder to tell once they reach 40 or so. There voices just get deeper on both sides.
Now if they have an accent than I can determine race sometimes and nationality. But like @flutherother , I have also mixed up sex sometimes. :P
Oh, and its only offensive if you guess wrong or go about asking the person on the phone if you guessed right. Than you’re and idiot and a bigot.