This is probably gonna piss a lot of you off, but I have been meaning to address this issue for quite some time. There is not really that much distinction between black people and white people in Thibodaux. Sure, socioeconomically, the whites have the upper hand, but in terms of dialect, its about a tie. In other words, both ethnic groups pretty much speak exactly alike. I know racism exists, and thats just a fact of life around the world, but my point for wanting to call attention to the sameness in lingual utterance distinctions between my black and white friends in Thibodaux is to illustrate how amazingly similar both groups are, despite frequent arguments and disagreements about differences. Of course when we are young and unworldly, we havent a clue about how our speech sounds in comparison to the rest of the regions around us, much less the world around us, so we chat in the fashion that our loving parents teach us, but thanks to the annual sugarcane conference my father brought the family to in various locations in Florida every year for over two decades, I received a shocking and embarrassing revelation from a very pretty little girl with whom I was smitten. You see, not everyone who attended the conference was a plantation owning, sugar magnate. Many of us were either the family of Bob Falgout, a Houma In-jun who somehow managed a PhD despite his severe limitations in language or a bunch of Cameco executives who also had the verbosity of Huck Finn characters. So we always convoyed to our Florida conference every summer thinking of beaches, seafood, fresh fruit. booze ( for the elders), water slides, go-karts, etc. It never occurred to me that we had the most outrageous accents in practically the entire South. Well this girl with whom I was smitten exclaimed with great delight that I had the cutest way of talking and she begged me to speak more and more. Embarrassingly all of this attention came with a large crowd, mostly of sugarcane millionaires whose kids spoke non-regional English primarily due to the boarding school educations their sugar millions had afforded them. She clapped with glee and begged me to speak. Yes speak like you command a dog to speak because she wanted to hear publicly the strange and unusual Thibodaux accent that my bayou upbringing had bestowed upon me. My timid reply to the girl of my fancy and her minions of smirking on-lookers - Whatchu wan me ta say? It was at this precise moment of revelation that I realized I talked funny. I was different, unique, and not in a good way, but more like a clown or some other kind of freak, circus performer. My simple whatchu wan me ta say evoked an uproarious response from the kids of higher class, and even though the Cameco kids had more money, they didnt quite get it due to the fact that all that Cameco money never bought them out of the Thibodaux vernacular, not even the Giardinas who also sounded black. I decided to work hard to try and focus on hearing this funny and entertaining thing called the Cajun accent by the rich sugarcane brats and slowly made some progress in achieving a less regional dialect, but alas, I still am unable to shake the foundation of such a solid foundation of pure, regional dialect. A friend (ex friend now) told me a story once about his family from Thibodaux having to evacuate to North Louisiana due to the arrival of a rather vicious hurricane. The waitress at the Waffle House was delighted with the uniqueness of their black accents and asked them how on earth they had acquired a southern black way of speaking. Well, you can imagine that the white, blue collar father of the family was incensed even retorting, Who you callin black? But the fact of the matter is indisputable. White and black people in Thibodaux sound pretty much the same. Why shouldnt they? Our schools are segregated and the populations in the schools are almost 50/50. We go to class together, we eat together, we play sports together and in many cases, despite the so-called charges of white racism against blacks, we have become great friends and many of these friendships have lasted throughout the years, even for me who has come out with huge hostility at black Americas refusal to stop voting as a bloc for the race-baiting Democrats. Regardless of my dissatisfaction with the political mind of black Americans, it still must be pointed out that, at least in Thibodaux, we arent really that different. A long long time ago, during a phase in my life when I was about to be married to a rather WASPy little redhead from the Episcopal township of Fairfax, Virginia., we brought the two families together for a luncheon at the Fairfax Country Club. My future father in law was a self-admiring member of Americas oldest Anglican, British-ancestral community and, in case some of you are unaware, they are capable of the highest arrogance. Me? Well, despite my humble upbringings in rural southern Louisiana, I too, for some strange reason, have always viewed myself as an important person and have often clung to arrogant posturing in the face of adversity despite the lack of a pure bloodline, money, opportunity and power. I was once even called delusional for having this personality despite my social limitations. So during lunch, my intensely arrogant, self-aggrandizing, future father-in-law (only for about 3 months) decided to share what he thought was an interesting observation at the table. Mind you, his interesting observation was poorly masked in the form of insult. He said, Well Eric, it seems rather interesting to me that you and your parents have rather different accents, How do you credit this difference in accents? Now of course what my asshole ex-father-in-law was unaware of is that I can read an insult coming from a mile away. He was being pompous, He was mocking my family, and if I could go a bit further, he was mocking every last one of the good yet verbally challenged people of Thibodaux, so I retorted, Well Jim, its like this. My parents are black. A very uncomfortable silence followed. My ex kicked me under the table, but the fact is, I won. I dont take shit from arrogant social climbing WASPS. I learned my lesson years earlier at the Ft. Walton Ramada Inn where I stood in the spotlight of ridicule. Now dont think I have fully escaped my regional vernacular. In fact, it reveals itself almost daily. If drunk, its out!. Emotion brings it out too. As soon as I step foot back into Renes Bar, it flows like the Burger Chef Dam. Hick! Ah could have a Milla Light? , and if a 25 inch redfish is on the line, make no mistake that umma catch me dat sucka! Let da drag ot! Let da drag ot!
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 13:50:53 +0000
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