Against Tone Policing

Tone policing is a way of invalidating what someone is saying because of how they’re saying it.

It goes beyond literal tone–too loud, too brash, too animated–and extends to using slang or African American Vernacular English and beyond. It often assumes that the speaker is uneducated, rendering their opinions or experiences as null and void.

And when it’s decided that someone isn’t worth paying attention to because of the way they speak or share information, we lose out on valuable insights and perspectives.

EK Powell joins Erica to discuss tone policing and respectability politics, how content creators are pushing back and influencing media, and why you can’t address everybody.

Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:

• How respectability politics and tone policing create an obligation to assimilate

• How content creators are pushing back against respectability politics

• How calling words slang or jargon applies different implied value to language

• Why showing up authentically means you can’t address everybody

Punching Back Against Misconceptions

EK Powell is the mind behind the What's Good English YouTube channel and TikTok account where he punches back against misconceptions that people have about African American English.

The Obligation to Change Your Presentation

On the Pause on the Play® podcast, EK Powell (he/him) explains that respectability politics is hard to define, but he sees it as a learned way of changing the way you present yourself to appease a set of expectations for how you’re supposed to appear in the dominant culture.

“A lot of Black people came up with respectability politics and showing the white man that we could actually participate in their fame just as well as they could, as a way to show people we have value…[But it] has long since overstayed its welcome, outlived its usefulness and people need to accept us for who we are.”

He says there are always going to be variations in how people present themselves depending on the social situations they’re in, but those adaptations are not respectability politics.

As a kid, Erica recalls being taught to “communicate in a certain way, to use a certain type of tone…[And] I remember having people meet me in person and saying things like, ‘oh, I didn’t know you were Black.’...And back then that felt like, ooh, that was a compliment. I got in the door and you might not have let me in here if you knew I was Black.”

Now, of course, she says, “I need to be able to be in here no matter what my skin looks like or how you process me.”

She agrees with EK that the way we communicate naturally shifts with our context. “There’s a difference between having different conversations with your 90 year old grandparents versus talking to a person online or talking to your next door neighbor.”

But those modulations in tone or word choice are not the same as the obligation people of color feel to assimilate and show up in an acceptable way in order to be taken seriously or treated with respect.

“And that’s how a lot of people that I know, including myself, were taught. That you’re not gonna be taken seriously. You’re not gonna be thought of as professional. And it’s something that people have felt like was a coat they had to put on and off.”

The shift to remote work and online communication, especially since the pandemic, has changed how some of that shows up in professional settings, but she says it’s still there.

EK agrees and adds that he’ll often see people in the comments of TikTok or Instagram videos correcting the creator’s grammar or pronunciation, or the grammar of other commenters.

“And it’s like, what is that for?...What’s the point? You still understood.”

Pushing Back as Content Creators

EK says the pressure of respectability politics does exist for Black content creators, but it’s possible to push back on it.

He continues, “I don’t need to give it to you in mainstream American English. I don’t need to put on this extra buttoned up suit and tie version of English in order to express the concept, in order to express some high-level concept stuff. I can just be whoever I am…I see the people trying to dress stuff up with the whole respectability politics trope, and it’s just like, why bother with all that?”

Erica says that there isn’t one easy answer.

“Some people are like, I don’t give a shit. This is what I’m gonna do. Hard stop. And then there are some people that–because it is already a challenging landscape to get equal attention, equal monetary support, equal level of followers or visibility–there are people that are like, if I don’t do this, how will this impact me? How will this take away my opportunities?”

And that dichotomy, she says, boils down to passing judgment on creators who don’t show up the way some people felt that they should.

EK gives the example of a video he made about Black comedian Steve Harvey telling the story that NBC hired a dialect coach for him to correct his pronunciation and grammar. He says he got a lot of comments to the effect of “well, he should learn.”

“What about Steve Harvey is exuding unintelligence? And people were trying to attack the clip and say, ‘oh, well, he must have learned.’ And it’s like, that dude still sounds Black. He sounds like Steve Harvey.”

Erica notes that the clip “wasn’t about him receiving education, that was about him needing to assimilate. That was him needing to fit into a mold. That was him needing to be more acceptable to a mainstream–read: white–audience.”

Slang, Jargon, and Appropriation

EK says the overall message of his work across platforms is that “there is nothing wrong with the way that you speak, that intelligence has nothing to do with the way that you speak.”

He says the rules about language are arbitrary, especially about using slang.

For example, “there’s no difference between slang and jargon. Those two words are the same thing, except for slang just has a connotation that is less than, and jargon is like, oh, well, that’s specific to such and such.”

To illustrate that point, he says he found an old vocabulary quiz that stated that if you knew most of the words you were superior. One of the words was parterre, which describes a patterned formation of hedges in a garden or park.

“How is this word, parterre, anything but just rich people slang? Like, I can point to those hedges and be like, oh, check out that pattern in the hedges…Nobody’s gonna know that is a parterre unless they come from a certain class of people.”

He also mentions slang or jargon that arises in certain sports, like rock climbers referring to paths up a mountain as the “beta” because climbers used to film and share climbs on beta max tapes.

Erica says there is so much language usage that is particular to dialect, location, class, income level, industries and professions, and pastimes. 

“There’s all types of language that comes up that is specifically tethered to these are the things that you do, these are the things that you enjoy, these are the circles that you move in.”

EK says that this also plays into cultural appropriation. He says that in the supposed melting pot of American culture, Black culture was never truly allowed to mix. “And that extends to today, where if we say stuff in a certain way, it’s wrong, but all of your slang is permitted.”

Erica adds that it’s also an issue of what we consider valuable.

“If you value something, then you find that these particular words or ways of communicating are valuable and that there’s a purpose to them and they’re worth being used. And…there is a place to where there is no value put on the way that Black people, in this particular conversation, are communicating, until those words are co-opted by people that aren’t Black.”

And those connotations of value extend beyond the words to the people. “You’re basically saying that you’re not of value because you’re not smart enough, you’re not eloquent enough, you don’t communicate well, you don’t do things in a specific way, so you’re not valuable.”

The Influence of Creators

Erica asks, as someone who is not a content creator and has not been particularly active on social media recently, if content creators should be, or are, actively using their values in their content and what EK has noticed on the platforms where he’s active.

He says that he thinks a lot of people are doing that. He says that Black TikTok is something like a family, where many of the creators are mutual followers with each other, they’re in each other’s comments, there’s a level of shared language, “which is really presenting a certain package and a certain image.”

“And with the way that it is, with the way that the culture is and has evolved, we are presenting that, this is who we are. You just need to accept this. We’re not shucking and jiving to prove to you that we have value. You should know that we have value by now. It’s 2022.”

He adds that for all of its problems, he is grateful for TikTok and social media for providing a “window into what people are feeling. Never before really, have we had, just the power to have a voice, where we could actually see what people were feeling and going through.”

Erica says she is interested in the ways that social media influences media as a whole, from people parlaying Instagram or TikTok fame into careers to pushing media companies to take risks with content and where they put their money and support, even things like having closed captions reflect the actual dialect and slang wording and spelling of the speakers.

“The more and more people are finding places to be more fearless when they are creating things, it is showcasing that there are people that want to have their stories told, or their realities centered as another reality and not just this very whitewashed, mainstream, watered-down thing…Creators are a part of putting it out there that people want to be reflected as they are.”

Address Those You Want to Address

Shifting to a more authentic style of presentation and communication does mean shifting to intentionally address a specific audience, Erica says. And there will be people who refuse to acknowledge you.

“We don’t speak for everybody. We speak for whoever it is that is our audience at that moment. And I think it’s important that that is what’s understood about the message in any format, in any arena. It is about us addressing those that we are addressing with the message that we want them to get. Not for someone to come in and say, well you didn’t say this right so I didn’t take in what you said.”

She continues, “And that’s where I think that all of us can take a note from creators…That regardless of anybody’s biases, regardless of anybody’s perceptions, anybody’s preconceived notions, you being yourself is really the point. And if people don’t get you…then that means that they don’t deserve to receive you.”

EK agrees and says he does find himself sometimes trying to create content educating around certain topics raised by others where he knows he’s being sea-lioned, when he could be focusing on something else that would also educate and uplift.

He clarifies that sea-lioning is “people who, quote unquote, just ask a question, just be informed as to why you said this certain thing, or you have this certain belief. But it’s coming from a point of they’re just trying to waste your time. They have no intention of actually being educated by you. They just want to spin your wheels.” 

Sometimes it works and it leads to an “epic clap-back video where I will not only educate my audience with something, but give them an argument to use to beat the argument that I was presented with when they hear it in their real life….But other times I would catch myself and I’m like, I’m being sea-lioned right now, aren’t I?”

Erica says it comes down to “acknowledging the fact that education and knowledge and context and storytelling and connection…You shouldn’t be able to say that it’s not worthy because it didn’t come in a specific package.”

EK agrees. “You got the message, you understood the message. Why are you complaining about the packaging? I clearly have the knowledge on the subject, you might not like how I choose to display that knowledge. But nonetheless, that knowledge is on display.”

Let Go of the Urge to Police Language

With that in mind, EK recommends that people “just stop and evaluate what was said. If you understood, you don’t have to say anything. Just stop yourself and just evaluate what was said in the context, if you got it or not, you don’t have to tone police anybody, you don’t have to grammar police anybody…Let go of that need for policing and correction. It’s just not that important.”

Ready to Dive Deeper?

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Connect with EK Powell:

• Instagram: @whatsgoodenglish 

• TikTok: @whatsgoodenglish

• YouTube: What’s Good English

• Support EK Powell on Patreon

• Contact EK Powell