“So if you grew up in the ghetto, why do you talk so White?”

It was Saturday. I was a sophomore. I was exiting Stanford Stadium with a friend from my freshman dorm after a close game against Washington. He had heard me yell, “You ain’t got the juice, cuz!” after an incompletion by UDub gave us the win, and he saw this a fitting question as we made our way back to our dorm.

I gave him the answer I had always given to anyone who had asked me that before: “I don’t know, because that’s what schools and employers want.”

The question was a microaggression. But up to this point, I hadn’t given race much thought, so my reaction was rather tame. I hadn’t written anything about race, I never questioned how my Mexican roots influenced people’s perception of me, and I didn’t understand that race could grant you implicit advantages and disadvantages.

I had, however, been conscious of it. I grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in a southern suburb of Chicago. Of the 350 kids at my middle school, about 10 of them were White. My eyes knew the difference between the kids of my alma mater, Brookwood Middle School, and the mostly White James Hart, and I knew those distinctions weren’t all due to the economic gap between us. Out of all the blurred lines that separated us, though, language was the most perplexing of them all.

In our hallways, “you was a goofy” if you cracked a bad joke. We replaced fricatives (the ‘th’ sound in ‘the’) with harder sounds. If you didn’t know what the teacher was talking about, you “aksed” a question. (Admittedly, I hated that tendency)

I picked up this way of talking through osmosis, presumably in the same way that people pick up British accents. Our language was structured, and it stretched far beyond just slang. I didn’t realize that “African American Vernacular English” described our way of talking until my AP Language and Composition class in high school. At the same time, I didn’t realize that people saw us as inferior for speaking that way until much later.

Through years of schooling, I was conditioned. Towards the end of high school, I started believing that, “You want to fight?” was better than “Squad up, den,” be it in an essay or in conversation.

Eventually, that begged the question: So if I grew up in the ghetto, why did I talk so White?

I suppose the answer I gave was pretty accurate. One of them rewarded me with a good GPA and got (and continues to get) me the attention and respect of people in power, from summer employers to the admissions officers of our most prestigious schools. The other got me funny looks from my classmates and a decent amount of red ink on my papers.

That being said, the question is so completely off-base and discriminatory that I should’ve shown my friend who really has the juice.*

For one, my American hometown is mostly Black, but that’s not and should not be the definition of a ghetto. It is on the lower end of the middle class spectrum, sure, but it’s still a nice neighborhood. Contrary to popular belief, a collection of black and brown families can create a good community.

For two, and this is the most infuriating part of the question, I ask this: why is the “correct” version of “English” deemed as White? English encompasses a wide array of dialects and accents; people in New York speak differently than people in the South, who, in turn, speak differently than people across the pond. You wouldn’t penalize for this difference in a job interview, so why do we routinely label AAVE speakers as uneducated and form lesser views about them?

I realize that saying "speaking White" has become less common, but this microaggression is a microcosm of one of the many wrinkles in the White supremacist system.** That system is just that: systematic. There is an implicit punishment for speaking, writing, and thinking in a “lesser” form of English, and it just so happens that most of its users are Black. The “White” English is the English of those in power who will rigidly praise its successful user as eloquent and articulate and anyone else as questionable, despite their other existing abilities and qualifications.

To some extent, this plays into a larger discussion about language. I am more comfortable using AAVE, probably because I learned it before I gained more control over “White” English and it is a lot more conversational. This summer, I’ve largely only interacted with my best friend, my boss and coworkers, and the barista at my favorite coffee shop. They are all White and have different upbringings than I did. After two months, I felt exhausted and out of place; no one understood me when I would say things like, “this sandwich is the biggest stain,” and I yearned to be around people who did.

But in interviews, academic papers, and (frankly) around White people, I will be White Irving. I need the person in front of me to understand me, and “White” English is often the standard for doing that, even in the international academic community.

However, language should not use pragmatic baselines to establish superiority. This microaggression is harmful because of the profound aspects of identity that it infringes upon. I consider the English that I grew up with as a more important aspect of myself than I do the “proper” form. I was in danger of tossing it away because my teachers almost had me convinced that it wasn’t useful in their environment, and that because it wasn’t useful, it wasn’t valuable.

When we tell people who don’t have the latter that their tongue is inadequate, we are reducing much more than their English. We are marginalizing. We want them to conform, we want them to see that proper is better. White is better.

But despite what we may say, that’s just not the case. English is an exquisite language; all of its variations demonstrate that. There is no need to restrain it or to standardize it. Please, do not diminish its less popular counterparts; accept them.

Two years later, I now know this: the way that I speak reminds me of the way that I grew up. The way that I grew up reminds me of who I am.

This is my English.

Sometimes, when I’m at Stanford, I really crave a 20 piece from McDonald’s. Sometimes, I’ll give into that vice and I’ll ride my bike to the McDeez in the Stanford mall.

When I’m dining in the upscale eateries of Palo Alto, I’ll order with a, “Hi, could I get the ___?” But not here. Here, I want that flame, and there’s only one way to get it: “Yea lemme get uh, 20 piece McNuggets. Honey mustard.”

I’m not less intelligent for that, nor should I be labeled incompetent for it. That’s just how it be.

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* That’s a joke (the juice part, not everything else.) But I wanted to note that I had to think twice after writing this sentence. I don’t want to come off as angry and risk alienating the ears of some readers as a result of the angry minority stereotype, but I am mad that one of my friends would ask me that so non-chalantly. Just a note.

** “White supremacy” is a rather hostile phrase, I admit, and carries a similar risk to the note above. But there doesn’t seem to be a better way to describe the phenomenon, so it will have to stay.