MAGA Shocked To Learn Kamala Has Turned Black Again
Is Kamala Harris turning Southern? Is she turning Detroit? Is she still Black? Why did she use a different accent at a rally? What is happening? Let's uncover MAGA's latest pathetic dog whistle.
(Emily Elconin/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The latest manufactured, racist outrage churned out from the 24-7 right-wing controversy generator has them fuming that Kamala Harris, born in the Bay Area, was allegedly heard sounding “Southern” in Detroit during a rally.
Surely, this is worthy of headline news, front page coverage, and demands an immediate Congressional hearing and investigation! What else is Kamala Harris hiding? I mean she allegedly “turned Black” according to Donald Trump even though she was born to a Black father and Indian mother. For the rest of the world, we understood that Kamala is a biracial woman like nearly 35 million Americans. However, this is a foreign concept to Donald and MAGA probably because their limited concept of diversity only includes a red-headed white person.
But MAGA will not be deterred!
They must uncover the truth behind Kamala Harris’s Sphinxian nature, but they can’t be bothered to care about Trump receiving $10 million from the President Sisi of Egypt or investigating the conspiracy behind the failed January 6th insurrection incited by their twice-impeached vulgarian lizard king. At the White House press conference, Fox News unleashed the head of its gang of circus monkeys to get to the bottom of this earth-shattering controversy.
"Since when does the vice president have what sounds like a Southern accent?" Pete Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Kamala’s accent was also described as “Detroit speak” by MAGA trolls and criticized as “cringe” and “fake.” To her credit, Jean-Pierre didn’t entertain any foolishness and responded with a quickness: “I’m not going to even entertain some question about…it’s just. Hearing it sounds so ridiculous. The question - I’m talking about the question - is just insane.”
It’s also sadly ignorant.
America, unlike Fox and MAGA, understands that Kamala Harris is a Black woman and code-switches both consciously and unconsciously depending on the audience. Way back in 2013, NPR defined code-switching as “the practice of shifting the languages you use or the way you express yourself in your conversations.” They even gave 5 quick reasons as to why people code-switch.
By the way, it’s not just a Black or POC thing. You might be shocked to learn that even white people do it! Yes, I swear! For example, the US Senate currently has its own Foghorn Leghorn who also goes by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. He is an immensely privileged and highly educated attorney who has a pHD from Oxford, yet he has spent his career as a Republican Senator bemoaning “the elites” in a Kentucky Fried Chicken Southern accent that he seemed to magically adopt as soon as he entered office.
Did he just turn Southern? Did he turn white? Is it a schtick? What’s happening? I need Congressional hearings.
Let me confess that I also code-switch. My first language was Urdu even though I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I speak with an “American accent” (we all have accents, folks) when I’m on television or in professional settings. However, when I’m talking to family I resort to a type of hybrid Urdu-English. My wife says that I magically develop a Pakistani accent. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. It’s natural to me and gets unlocked depending on the crowd and my comfort with the specific audience. I’ve even heard Southern white folks working in LA or NYC crank it up to Lynyrd Skynyrd levels when they’re talking to folks back home. If you don’t believe me, just listen to Reese Witherspoon sometimes. “Legally Blonde” sorority girl from California she is not.
The only positive from this latest, pathetic, desperate attempt to attack Kamala Harris with misogynoir is that it will reveal MAGA to be out of touch and desperate. It’ll backfire like all of their recent attempts and show them as antiquated vessels of a Confederacy that lost in the past and will continue to lose in the future. It will also teach a whole bunch of MAGA white folks that they, too, code-switch.
Welcome to the human species.
Andale!
Still tripping on Kamala’s perfect response to whether she recently “turned Black:”
“Same old tired playbook. Next question, please.”
Seems like the perfect response to code switching.
I'd never heard of the "code switching" but I can see how I do it. We all do at the level of talking to a dog or child. It gets subtler in other circumstances, but when I lived for a while in N Carolina I found myself beginning to drawl.
It happens in writing, too. My style on Substack is way different from what I would use in a formal brief back when I was practicing. I much prefer it now, so there is something to be said for getting away from an audience you have to sound like.