The Indoctrination of Children in American Culture

[Thalassa]

Taken from the Scientific American, on the cultural indoctrination about accents:


"Studies have shown that adults from Mississippi rate their own region as relatively low in linguistic “correctness.” How can that be?

Katherine Kinzler and Jasmine DeJesus in the Psychology Department at the University of Chicago have just published a study of children’s attitudes toward accents that provides some surprising answers. Children 5-6 years of age from Chicago and a small town in Tennessee were shown pictures of people accompanied by a brief 3 second audio clip of speech in either a Northern or Southern accent. When asked if they would want to be friends with the person, the Northerners overwhelmingly selected the Northern-accented speakers as friends. Interestingly, the kids from Tennessee had no preference based on accent.
What do you think happened when the young children were asked who was “nicer,” “smarter,” or “in charge?” The children from Chicago attached these positive attributes to the Northern speakers, but the children from Tennessee were indifferent to how these attributes were associated with people speaking with either accent.

This last result, as I mentioned above, deviates from how Southern adults associate positive attributes to people speaking with a Northern rather than a Southern accent. So the researchers then gave the same test to 10-year-old children. The results after children had aged 4-5 years were quite different. Ten-year-old children from both Chicago and Tennessee thought the Northern-accented individuals were “smarter” and “in charge,” and that the Southern-accented individuals were “nicer.”

Clearly, children must learn these attitudes from us; that is parents and other adults. This develops in part by the attitudes we subtly convey to our children and by how we adults organize our society and culture. This is where human nature takes a nasty departure from the way songbirds use dialect. Our attitudes toward accents are strongly influenced by what we hear in infancy and childhood, but learning and acculturation are imposed on us by subtle indoctrination and experience."

Anyone who doubts a biased cultural indoctrination persists, intentionally, presenting the North as "correct" or "in charge" is in extreme denial of blind bigotry towards Southern culture, to the point that it's shockingly seen in small children in the 21st century.

This sets children up to accept cultural half-truths as being "more objective" from people who are Northern rather than Southern. It's a form of insidious discrimination, one that puffs up self righteous morons to say hateful, biased, unbalanced things about all or most people of Southern origin, in the manner of a toxic Fe that implies "look at me, I hate slavery" than any real knowledge about the cultures or histories involved.

It's weird to me too that not as many people go around talking about what a scumbag slave owner the glorious George Washington was, or express as much self satisfied political correctness over suggesting we entirely overthrow the American government SINCE IT'S THANKS TO MASS GENOCIDE.

When's the last time you ate a Hershey bar? Mmm..tastes like slavery. Look it up, and point to present day Pennsylvania.

 

[JAVO]

That's both a fascinating and disturbing study. I wonder how travel and tourism factors into this. Northern people are more likely to vacation in the south, or so it seems anyway. But then, there's the selection bias for a more northerly-sounding voice in the media. I think there is anyway. What do you think?

I was born and raised in central Ohio, but both of my parents were born in southern Ohia, moving farther north around the age of 5-8. I discovered that I had a bit of a southern accent when I was speaking to a group of people. Afterwards, one woman came up to me, and in a curious but bordering on accusing tone, asked, "Are you from West Virginia? " The fact that I had a noticeable accent and the unexpected slightly negative tone about the origin of my accent surprised me.

 

[Thalassa]

I think it has a lot to do with the "American Standard Dialect" in television, especially news reporting (not that news reporting is all that great anymore)...but it's more than that. Like if you look up "teaching children about the Civil War" honestly it's terrible "the Civil War was about slavery, Southern people had slaves, Abraham Lincoln wanted to free the slaves"...not that there is a problem with including the issue of slavery, but there were thirty years of politics leading up to the Civil War that had to do with money, tarrifs, rail roads, etc...it started long before. As early as the 1700s, the Old South was considered a different specific culture, I'm talking colonial America. ..even when the North still had slaves, the South was still considered a different culture. So there's a lot of bias towards Southern culture that's been branded "slave land" that we see in movies. Or television shows about lovable but dim witted Southern people, like the Beverly Hillbillies, and Dukes of Hazzard. It's an accepted cultural bias, although the South had a distinct culture as far back as colonial America, far prior to abolitionist movement, and only 20-25 percent of Southern people participated in or benefited from it, and about 75 percent, the vast majority of Confederates, really believed they were fighting for their land, culture and states rights. Not to mention that the Norths motives were not as pure as has been taught to children. This really sticks with some people.

People from West Virginia are "Old South" or Appalachian, so although they joined the Union, WV accents are still associated with this Northern bias against ALL Southern culture.

As far as I know, people from the North mainly vacation in Florida (not really Southern) or New Orleans (different than rural Louisiana where bayou culture and real African American voudou culture are still authentically practiced).

I took Appalachian studies in college, and the exploitation of Appalachian people specifically in the early 20th century is heart breaking. Additionally, as an English major I was taught that there's actually no "correct" accent or dialect among English speaking American people.

I know this affected me personally. When I am attempting to make a public speech, or garnering professional respect, I actually hide my accent. Of course it comes out, some people say they hear it, and my roommate laughs, because she grew up in D.C. and North Carolina, and she says when I'm mad I sound like her grandmother from North Carolina. My roommate never attempts to hide her accent, but she's African American and I wonder if there's less of a negative stereotype towards blacks.

 

[Thalassa]

BTW, the last line about Hershey bars - they've been discovered to source chocolate from West African child slavery, in the 21st century, and they are a company from Pennsylvania.

As one person said in an article I read "we never stopped slavery, we just outsourced it."

How many self righteous Northern people are flipping a shit about that?

 

[JAVO]

Thank you for that detailed and intriguing analysis! I remembered that you took Appalachian studies, and that's part of the reason I asked the question. I knew I would likely get a very informed answer.

I've heard you speak on video years ago in a video post on this site, and I didn't notice much if any accent. Of course, you probably have nearly the same accent as me and my family, and maybe that's why it wasn't noticeable.

It's sad that so much of our economy still relies on slavery and other exploitation.

 

[Thalassa]

My accent is prepared for public display, like a cake. You'll never hear my mother or grandfather unless I choose. This is a different sort of oppression and slavery. I was watching a show last night with deep Southern people speaking intelligently in narrative, and there's no shame. It's like the beginning of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. People in Louisiana parishes make the exact same grammatical "errors" and so forth, even with a background in anthropology or DNA or homicide. It honestly makes me angry that I was ever conditioned to alter my speech to be taken more seriously. There are people in much more serious fields who don't. It's pretty disgusting in literature, acting, writing or public speech, because it's common and even systematic. "English professors do not speak in this manner.

And there is something lost, in the Gothic Southern Narrative, when this aspect is denied - something humane, creative and poetic.