Do you know older white men who call other white people articulate or well spoken?

Asked by JLeslie (65417) December 10th, 2019 from iPhone

I was just watching The Real, and they were talking about Bloomberg saying Cory Booker was well spoken. They said there is a history, or an assumption, that black people don’t speak well, and so it is insulting, or like a backhanded compliment, to say a black person speaks well. They also said white people don’t say it about other white people. I know I have. I’ve said it about white, Hispanic, black, if someone speaks well I’ll dole out that compliment.

If it’s offensive to black people I take that seriously, but I don’t find it true that white people don’t notice someone who is well spoken regardless of race or ethnicity.

Plenty of people are criticizing Biden for stumbling over his words, and Bush for mispronouncing. I know Biden called Obama articulate years ago, and Obama gave great speeches, but in interviews Obama would practically stutter. Obama certainly hesitated on some words, and there seemed to be a total void of people pointing it out. Not that I think it has to be pointed out, but I found it ironic that people went on and on about how well he spoke. Or, I guess they went on about his speech giving skills? Is that it?

Like I said, I take it seriously that someone might be offended by people calling them well spoken or articulate, but I think they are off in their thinking that there is some sort of assumption by white people that a black person won’t speak well. All these politicians are surrounded by all races and ethnicities in their social circles who have similar education level and wealth. Those two things have more to do with how articulate and well spoken someone is than anything, and even those things are not perfect predictors of course.

I don’t mean someone needs a higher education to be articulate, I don’t think that at all, I just mean having a higher education means it’s more likely the person has a good command of the English language. They still could be a terrible orator, nothing is for sure.

Cory Booker went to Yale and Oxford, and has been a political presence in the the NY metro area, and both politicians have helped each other in political races. I doubt Bloomberg is even thinking about what color skin Cory has.

I’m starting to get suspicious. I feel like so much of this sort of thing is boys on social media. Articulate, taking a knee, Bloomberg’s girlfriend being de facto First Lady, it’s all stuff being stirred up for nothing. I guess I’m becoming a conspiracy theorist.