Summary Of Storm The Gates By Tiffany Hendrickson

When considering Tiffany Hendrickson’s “Storming the Gates: Talking in Color”, I agree with the interconnections of cultural background, speech and race. We often stereotype the way we think a person’s voice should sound based off of their race. In Hendrickson’s essay she talked about how people can code-switch between SAE (Standard American English) and AAE (African-American English) in order to feel more comfortable in different environments. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of code-switching and how our cultural surroundings relate to the sound of our voices.

In Hendrickson’s essay she argues that she should not be judged because her voice sounds one way but her skin looks another. She attained her “Black” accent from the neighbor in which she grew up in. The neighborhood she grew up in was an impoverished African American neighborhood hence her “black” sound. Although Hendrickson had a black voice, the color of her skin was white and people often

It is more likely that if you live in a predominately African American community that you will use AAE (African American English) as your native form of English. It is likely that if you live in a predominately white community that you will speak SAE (Standard American English). "It may sometimes seem that there are only two kinds of English in the United States, good English and bad English"(Diane, Douglas p.6). In America, SAE is the language of academia, while AAE is thought of as an inferior variant of the standard American English. Those who speak “bad English” often stereotyped to be associated with academic failure and often frowned upon by the professional world. “Several studies have documented that teachers erroneously believe that speaking AAE is ungrammatical, lazy, and unintelligent” (Godley, Escher p.6). Although one may use AAE as their dominate language, there is a solution that we all use called code