As I was driving to work this morning, I was thinking about my thick, southern accent. If I were to get a call from a fancy publishing company in New York wanting to hire me to write a book (Hey, a girl can dream, right?) or write for their blog, how would I feel about a phone interview or even an interview in person? It’s easy to say that I would feel shame or embarrassment because my accent is as thick and as southern as they come. In fact, when I travel out of state, I often find that the accent causes gaps in communication and understanding.
While it is frustrating the stereotype that the southern accent comes along with, I wouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed of the accent because it is a part of who I am. The southern accent means that I was raised on homemade gravy – using bacon grease to make it. The southern accent means I will be the first to order a sweet tea at the restaurant. The southern accent means that I was threatened with a 'switch' as a child, and I was made better because of it. The southern accent means I have close family ties, and I value my elders and their wisdom. The southern accents means that I relish in a loud country song, kickin' up dirt on a gravel road, and the windows rolled down in the heat of the summer.
The southern accent is me, and I can’t be ashamed of who I am or where I’m from.
Unfortunately, the southern accent also means that I am looked at with disdain by others. I am condescended by those who do not know me and do not know that I have a Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, and I am working on a second Master’s degree. Why is it that a thick southern accent is always equated with ignorance and poverty (not just poverty, but the lowest possible economic status - no running water and a little shack made with scraps of wood and barely standing)? Why is it that Kentucky – eastern Kentucky – is always seen with this negative stereotype?
Any time that the mass media decides to feature eastern Kentucky, it seems they choose the worst possible image to display. It’s a woman living without running water and washing her clothes in the creek or maybe it’s the single-father with few teeth who can’t afford to buy books for his children, so someone gives them books (nothing wrong with it, but I’m just stating these are the images that are projected about eastern Kentucky). It is this perpetuation that creates the “normal” view of my area, and it is thanks to these images that the southern accent is viewed negatively.
Regardless of how those with southern accents are seen, I will continue to be proud of my accent. I remember once a local establishment offered classes to help “get rid” of your southern accent. I stand tall, and I say “THIS IS ME.” I cannot be who everyone wants me to be. I can only be who I am, and I’m pretty damn proud of the person that I have become. I wouldn’t change my accent – even if it did present hindrances. My accent is a part of me, like the pulse of my heart, like the flow of my blood, like the fibers of my hair, it is an important puzzle piece to me, and if someone can’t accept that and see past it, then they certainly do not deserve my time, y’all.
