Codeswitching

Most often, blacks feel the most pressure from within their community to codeswitch.  For example, in the article “The Black Guy That Acts ‘White’, Christopher Hudspeth writes about the discrimination he faces as a black kid in high school by his black peers.  Hudspeth clarifies that the high school he attends is located in a good performing district, which suggests this kind of discrimination is not exclusive to lower performing inner city schools.  During high school, Hudspeth’s black classmates make fun of him for all sorts of things such as his taste in music, the clothes he wears, for taking school more seriously, and for speaking proper English.  Hudspeth admits he wanted his peers’ approval by starting to listen to rap music and getting clothes from Fubu and wearing baggier jeans.  In addition, Hudspeth starts to codeswitch and speak more like his black peers by using the “n word” and “aight.”  Hudspeth feels the pressure to codeswitch because “there’s a misconstrued way of thinking in the black community, that well-spoken blacks desperately want to be white,” which I agree with.  However, Hudspeth doesn’t feel comfortable with the new way he is speaking and it lasts only for a short time.  

 Hudspeth seems to contradict himself.  At the same time, he feels that a person should speak however he or she likes, he also feels he has to be cautious about how he speaks to certain black people in the community.  For instance, Hudspeth’s advice to people like him, as well as the entire human race is that “it’s all right to speak in whatever manner you prefer” and “don’t change for anyone.”  By contrast, Hudspeth explains why he feels he has to be cautious when he is speaking to certain black people in the community.  For example, Hudspeth explains a time during the 8th grade and writes the following, “as a result of using the word ‘acquaintance,’ a fellow black student said to me, ‘I don’t give a sh-t what color your skin is, you ain’t black.’ That remark stuck with me for some reason. From that day on, I began walking on eggshells around blacks who speak ebonics. And to be honest, I haven’t stopped walking on them since.”  From this experience, it is reasonable, Hudspeth would associate blacks who speak Ebonics as being part of the black community because Ebonics is another word for AAVE (African American Vernacular English).   Due to the fact that the people from this community have discriminated and ridiculed his way of speaking, Hudspeth has become cautious about the way he speaks and learn to codeswitch more strategically around these black people.  Basically, I agree with both ways of how Hudspeth feels because he is right that people should be able to speak the way they like but at the same, you have to be cautious how you speak, especially when you are dealing with people from a community that criticize you for not talking their way.