Overall, I enjoyed the debate and was charmed by both candidates. Palin certainly made up for her awkward interviews with Katie Couric, and Biden was clear and concise in expressing his positions. I appreciated that neither of them were shy in defining their positions. The same-sex marriage issue was particularly interesting, as both of them spoke with honest candor.
My issue is with the coverage of the debates. Let me elaborate....
I am an American, born and raised. My parents are the same way, and their parents before them, and their parents before them. In fact, I've always said the only thing more American than me is a Native American! My family doesn't have close ties to our European roots because
1) they're so mixed that it's pointless to try and break it down into percentages (English, German, Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, Dutch, French, etc...), and
2) Centuries and generations have passed since the majority of my ancestors left their respective lands and came over to America, losing or blending their languages and cultures into a rural, northern/Great American culture.
I lay down my credentials as a bread and butter American to ask the following. Where did I miss the turn? Where did my fellow Americans become unrecognizable to me? Or better yet, when did I become unrecognizable to my fellow Americans?
After the debate last night, television and print media took Sarah Palin to task for how she spoke. Is this normal? Has this become accepted and I missed the memo? Sure, comedy pieces have been written about the Kennedy's New England accent, or a deep south politician's drawl, but a serious news piece about speech behavior? I pulled some lines from an AP article for an example: "You became 'ya,' change was 'comin' and a class of third-graders even got a 'shout-out' from the Alaska governor."
Is there anything inherently wrong with that? I know a lot of people who speak like that, and I sometimes speak like that myself. A news commentator on CBS last night noticed with disdain how she "began to drop her G's at the ends of words" and how she was appealing to the folksy element of the American population. Also, for effect:
"I found her folksy talk insulting and inappropriate for someone running for the vice presidency," added an Obama supporter. That is nothing more than an elitist attitude of superiority based solely on the fact that he was raised somewhere where she wasn't, which is logic built on a house of cards. Now, I know accent superiority exists in this country and others, but I honestly thought we had moved forward. If you want to report on Palin (or McCain, or Biden, or Obama), report on their policies, not the way they talk. Leave that to Tina Fey.
Is there anything inherently wrong with that? I know a lot of people who speak like that, and I sometimes speak like that myself. A news commentator on CBS last night noticed with disdain how she "began to drop her G's at the ends of words" and how she was appealing to the folksy element of the American population. Also, for effect:
2 comments:
Hey Joel,
In answer to your question: Yes, this scrutiny of a candidate's mode of speech is normal. It always has been. Until very recently, it has always been about accents. JFK's accent, for example, was heavily commented upon in his race with Nixon (remember that he was the first New Englander and Catholic to be elected as President).
But this isn't just about accent, it's about the ability to speak proper english. And, as I imagine you have seen in the Couric interviews, when Palin goes of the cue cards and tries to think on her feet, she lacks the aforementioned ability. Even when she does stick to the cards, as we saw in the debate, she is probably too folksy to be in the second most powerful office in the U.S. Because in America, folksy is cute. Outside America, it isn't. They call it ignorant. Can you imagine her coming over to Europe for economic talks with Gordon Brown? The talks in and of themselves would probably not be handled by her, she's been run through the mill already by 15 minutes with Katie Couric. But imagine the traditional post-talk joint press conference: "Howdy everybody! Before we get started, I'd like to give a big shout-out to my hubby back in the US of A who's been lookin' after the little un's while I've been over here in Great Britain (oh, have they not called it that since WWII? Whoops!), Hi Honey, I'm on TV in a foreign country! Woo hoo!" It would be a disaster.
It isn't simply about how a person speaks, it is more about how that has been shown (in this specific case) to be an indicator of that person's level of culture and education. I think that is probably what people are reacting to, not necessarily her accent or sprinkling of pop-culture speak.
I totally hear you on that... I alluded to the Kennedy's in the post. In fact, Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons has that accent... They're still being lampooned years after the fact. And in my Spanish experience, accent is huge in the way you analyze a person (BTW, loved the dandalu video)...
I suppose the idealist in me wrote the post, not the realist. Since my days as a journalism student in high school, we've been told that media should be objective. Obviously, I know that's not true, but I still think it should be. That's why it irked me when the commentator began talking about how she talked, instead of what she said.
Yes it would be embarrassing if the situation you imagined came to pass in Europe. I'd like to think that it wouldn't, either with an Obama win or with Palin knowing her audience. She emphasized repeatedly in her debates that she "wanted to bypass the media filter" and talk straight to the American people. She knew what she was doing by appealing to her audience that has the power to vote for her. Europeans can't vote for her, so she doesn't have to impress them, I suppose the logic goes.
Yes, I believe that assertation is correct. I think people do find her uneducated and uncultured. But I say, let that be the issue and talk about that instead of hiding behind attacking her accent.
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