Save the Date: Sept. 29 on ‘ICE and the Press’

In the launch edition of The Long Wave, I wrote about how when I was growing up I consumed all my world news and cultural influences through the radio, and so my accent is a direct reflection of that. It is a little bit Voice of America, a little bit Christian Science Monitor and a whole lot of BBC. Add to that my British schooling in parts of Africa where there were still some stubborn colonial tendencies that focused on elocution and even inflection (never intone upwards when asking a question, we were taught, to maintain status in a conversation). The outcome has been a weirdly anachronistic British accent, one that was then undercut by consumption of American pop culture. The final result is a transatlantic mishmash.

A lot of people I meet for the first time give up on trying to identify my accent and straight-up ask me where it’s from, a sort of frequency scrambling that underlines how important accents are in helping us place who we’re speaking to. What I never quite realised until our Long Wave chat is how much of that accent is not just an organic mixture of influences but a way of expression unconsciously adjusted in certain situations.

You are what you speak

An accent is an identifier, especially when you’re from an ethnic minority. And particularly in Britain, where accents fall along class lines, how one sounds can be a way to signal authority and credibility. There’s a phenomenon called “phone voice” in which we sound more “cut glass” and formal than we would in person, and that is because of its fundamentally remote nature. Phone voice accents become the load-bearing of our efforts to assert ourselves. It is, in effect, an attempt to ward off any bias or discrimination, to neutralise identity and its associated prejudices.

Broadly, what became apparent during our conversation is that these are accents that choose us, rather than us choosing them. Different ways of speaking often present themselves involuntarily – clipped and sort of broadcast-y in work scenarios; softer and, in my case, more American among friends and loved ones yet downright Victorian when dealing with bureaucracies. I had come to think of my changing accent as related to the fact that English is not my first language, and so a clear and uniform accent had never fully bedded in – it was still malleable and easily influenced. But the truth is that it changes because there is a lurking sense of not quite belonging.

Severing the mother tongue

All sorts of things bear down on our accents, regardless of race. In England, the southern accent is considered the neutral and aspirational default, and research shows that when people with regional accents move to the south of the country and do not sand away their original speaking identity, they are sometimes subject to accent discrimination, which affects their professional and academic experiences due to a hierarchy of accent prestige.

But race and immigrant extraction bring their own legacies to Black people’s expression. The Long Wave production editor, Janise Elie, said: “Many Caribbean people, including some family members, were forbidden from speaking or learning their ‘mother’ tongue and dialect in case it diluted their English accent. As a result, an important link to our roots and identity has been lost.” She is now teaching herself that mother tongue, Dominican Kwéyòl.

I grew up speaking Arabic but English was privileged in our household, for reasons that were never explained. It was assumed that it was the key to unlocking aspirations in an English-dominated world, and I suppose perfecting it was a way to erase or dilute our identity, as if perfectly enunciated English would somehow disguise our Blackness. It’s a preposterous notion but draws on awareness of the risks of being too “other” and thus unfamiliar, and maybe even evoking suspicion. It reminds me of a sketch from the British TV show Little Miss Jocelyn (so good, too short-lived), where a Black character working in an office of white people panics when a new Black colleague joins the team, and furiously warns him not to be overly familiar, because no one knows she’s Black.

Shame and acceptance

What struck me about our accent conversation was that rush of familiarity; that sense of having something that had always been lurking in the back of your mind being given expression. There was something a bit giddy about the “Oh my God, same!” aspect of it. And I think that was because there was, perhaps, a little knot of shame or embarrassment about our changing accents; one that dissolved among the self-recognition, self-deprecation and universalism of our experiences.

Our changing accents were simply a testament to how racialised minorities from all over the world instinctively pick up the same threads. We were all merely navigating gigantic social, class and racial forces that were beyond our control. And so, over the course of a spontaneous team conversation, something that was gnawingly cringe transformed into a warm, enveloping comfort.

Sept. 18: Stanley Nelson Documentary on Black Health

From Yanick Rice Lamb at Howard University: A documentary directed by filmmaker and former Howard faculty member Stanley Nelson will be the focus of a program at the hospital’s towers auditorium:  “Critical Condition: Health in Black America”

Sept. 20: AI Panel and Tour of NBC4 in D.C.

From Washington Association of Black Journalists: WABJ will host a panel discussion centered around Artificial Intelligence for journalists, along with a studio tour of NBC4 on Saturday, Sept. 20th from 9:30 am to 11 am.

This is an opportunity for journalists to learn more about the AI landscape.

There is limited seating. If you would like to attend, please email info@wabjdc.org. 

Refreshments will be served.

Sept. 21: Remembering Gwen Ifill on Her 70th

From Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, where Gwen was a parishioner and where her celebraton of life was held:

Remembering Gwen Ifill, 1955-2016

Please Join the Metropolitan AME Family as we remember our friend and member

Sunday September 21, 2025, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1518 M Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005. 10 AM, Metropolitanamec.org

From Nov. 14, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                            Contact: Dakarai I Aarons                                                            Dakarai.aarons@gmail.com

Metropolitan A.M.E. Church Comments on the Passing of Member and Noted Journalist Gwen Ifill

Washington, D.C.—the following is the statement of Rev. William H. Lamar, IV, Pastor of Metropolitan A.M.E. Church on the passing of journalist Gwen Ifill, a longtime member of Metropolitan. 

“Metropolitan A.M.E. Church mourns the passing of our dear sister Gwen Ifill, a member since 1989. Gwen, the co-anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour, was a lifelong AME, a woman of deep faith and a trailblazing journalist. Despite her busy schedule, she could be found in worship on Sundays when she was not traveling. She engaged visitors and members who approached her about career or who just wanted to take a picture and she found time to speak when asked or narrate a special program like the church’s presentation of Handel’s Messiah.

Working first for newspapers and later on television, Gwen brought a still all-too-rare sight into the homes of all Americans: a black woman delivering the news and sharp insight on our nation’s political process.  Gwen covered more than a half-dozen presidential campaigns and her  success inspired us all, inspiring a generation of aspiring young black journalists and young female journalists to follow the path she boldly blazed forward, no matter how many racist and sexist attacks she faced.  She used her platform to mentor countless young people and her fame to give back to her beloved church and community. When Gwen published the 2009 best-selling The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, she donated some of the proceeds to help restore Metropolitan’s historic building.

Gwen has been awarded some of the journalism industry’s highest honors, including most recently the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism from Columbia University and the First Amendment Award from the National Press Club.  But may she be remembered most for being unbought and unbossed and using her platform to improve the lives of others. While Gwen is no longer among us and has gone to be with the Father, her legacy of service, deeply rooted in her Christian faith, will live on.”

Sept. 27: Ishmael Reed at D.C.’s Busboys and Poets