CODE SWITCHED/AT BIRTH: A SENIOR SPEECH
Dawnya Green
I told you I was done lying I told you I was done lying I told you I was done lying complacent See....I’ve learned that it’s essential to my being to have boundaries, and priorities. How much of myself will I let go in order of importance To succeed in any given environment my academic integrity shouldn’t correlate to my speech patterns nor my mannerisms my eloquence is only assumed because of my widened vocabulary, spatial awareness neatly stitching my words together, and calm confidence resembling smooth, cooling waters The facts of who I am and what I am to be are multidimensional, in that everything I do is in one way or another inspired by my culture which reaches past boundaries to create new ones. It fosters a sense of belonging — to something that’s bigger than my surroundings. The subtle inflections, drops, and so called “drawl” of my voice mimics the cascading rivers of my youth, of my past. The highs and lows almost sound like a song, one native to my (reclaimed) land, my reclaimed voice and sound. My language is not like yours, it breaks all standards in a unique and lilting (lifting) cadence that enraptures all ears within its greatness. I have to scrounge for scraps and morsels of what might create a mental mirage of an entire ancestry merely to feel content with my place in the evolution of my culture, my black culture. my dear culture is the very lifeblood that is tapped by all that interact with it, leaving its body (those born into the culture) left dry and weakly calling out against yet another injustice. I’d never known an alphabet to write my native/regional dialect until a wave of education (new to me, but not directed at me) shed light on something I’d rather stay in the dark. Pandering, may we call it? Commodification? Thievery? This act goes by many names. My ingrained knowledge hasn’t found the need to put paper to pen. I live orally; why isn’t that allowed to be separate from society’s colonization of language! This goes out to all those that want to steal my language and butcher it in ways I’ve never imagined. The broken ebonics that blurts from uncultured lips falls on my ears in screeches similar to nails on a chalkboard and is a stark contrast to the calm reality of people staying in their cultural place. The paltry attempts at imitating us sound like dissonant keys being smashed by a baby who has yet to learn how to control or position their fingers and arms, to dance between lines of black and white, of flat and sharp, to create a rainbow of sound...
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Dana Hall
