🎭 “The Language of Survival: Code-Switching in the Black Community”
A subset that struck me in particular viewing The Other Wes Moore is the issue of code-switching, how Blacks tend to switch their manner of speech, behaviour, or identities, based on the audience. It is not only a matter of speech change but life, chance, place. In their own fashion, both Wes Moores demonstrate that code-switching is a key determinant of identity and door-opener (or door-closer). And having undergone such circumstances myself, this was a theme that was not far away and more relative to me as apart of the black community.
The author Wes Moore has developed the ability to travel between worlds as seen in the book. He is raised in an adverse environment of Baltimore, however, being taken to military school, he understands how to represent himself in a different way at school and at work. He gets to know about the rules of conversing in proper English, dressing in a particular manner, and to carry himself with a degree of confidence among what enables him to blend into elite locations such as Johns Hopkins University and Oxford as well as the White House. Nevertheless, the flexibility does not imply that he has lost his roots. Rather, he finds the way to create a balance between two aspects of identity, one which is defined by his community, and one which may be anticipated in the working environment. That juggling is another variation of code switching, of which most educated Blacks are quite familiar.
The other Wes Moore, nevertheless, does not have an opportunity to code-switch successfully. His setting does not encourage it; it incites dissimilarity. After he attempts to enter the ranks of street life, there is a way he has to speak, dress, and behave in order to survive. In his world displaying any vulnerability or talking proper might make you a target. His switching of languages is necessitated, and it does not offer him equal opportunities. Rather, it gets him stuck in the loop in which attempting to alter his voice or demeanor could literally endanger his life. This juxtaposition of the two Wes Moores demonstrates that, although opportunity is an environmental creation, it is only through the environment that code switching works, as an ability (or even disguise) to endure day in day out.
In my case, the code-switching is what I had to do since I was born. The language and dialect used is a part of our identity because learning to speak in a certain manner, use abbreviations, beats, sayings, etc. are a reality of growing up in a black neighborhood that makes it feel real and comfortable and makes things nice. However, in school, or when I am with those who do not appear like me, I have found myself alternating it: I make sure that my voice sounds more professional, I use the right choice of words or I do not use the slang language because I do not want that other person to look at me as someone who is not educated or ghetto. Not that I am embarrassed about the way I speak, it is just that I have been conditioned to understand that the way I sound can determine how people treat me.
I have experienced this more so in the case of education. Similar to the author, Wes Moore, I have witnessed the way Black people with higher education tend to be in a fine line of not being accepted by the mainstream and being who they are. We are supposed to tone down or fit in whether in the classroom, during job interviews or even during a simple conversation. However, there are moments when there is no pretense when it comes to code switching; it is the translation. It involves ensuring that your voice is heard in the world where they may not necessarily speak your language, or your culture.
Still, it can be exhausting. The question, of course, is: Who would I be even when I change these versions of myself? This is why I admire the way the author of the book, Wes Moore, does it to demonstrate that code-switching does not imply the loss of oneself. It can entail the process of learning the skills of moving within various spaces maintaining the roots.
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