ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ RESPONDS TO CLAIM SHE USED 'FAKE' ACCENT: 'I AM FROM THE BRONX. I ACT & TAL

[Judi Lynn]

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ RESPONDS TO CLAIM SHE USED 'FAKE' ACCENT: 'I AM FROM THE BRONX. I ACT & TALK LIKE IT'
BY SCOTT MCDONALD ON 4/5/19 AT 7:45 PM EDT

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke Friday at the National Action Network convention, and for all the praise she received for her message about taking pride in your work, she drew an equal amount of criticism for her accent.

Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term Democrat from the Bronx, offered a message to the working class through her speech, stressing that any work is good work. She reflected upon her days as a “proud” bartender, about which she declared, “ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

“There's nothing wrong with working retail, folding clothes for other people to buy,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “There is nothing wrong with preparing the food that your neighbors will eat. There is nothing wrong with driving the buses that take your family to work. There is nothing wrong with being a working person in the United States of America and there is everything dignified about it.”

It wasn’t her pitch itself that got people on social media stirred up about the speech, but rather the delivery. A number of critics of the congresswoman claimed Ocasio-Cortez was using a “fake African American accent” or faux "Southern accent” at the convention, which reportedly had an audience made up largely of African Americans.

More:
https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-defends-her-criticized-fake-accent-friday-1387980?piano_t=1

[JI7]

1. more likely she tones down and adjusts her accent when she is in congress

[UniteFightBack]

2. I haven't said anything about this but since it's being brought up. I don't know what the hell

accent she has but she really doesn't sound like she's from New Yawk as in the boroughs.

[Tucker08087]

4. The Bronx has its own unique accent,

as do many parts on New York and New Jersey. I’m from South Jersey. Born and raised. I’ve never heard anyone say “Joisey” in my life. It’s probably from an area as small as the Bronx.

[UniteFightBack]

6. Ok but nobody I've ever met from the Bronx sounds like that. Those are just the people

I've met of course.

[Tucker08087]

8. Didn't she move after some time?

It all kind of merges, but when we get back with “our people” the original accent tends to get stronger.

[UniteFightBack]

12. I honestly don't know much about her bio, but I want to say even though she may not sound like a

typical "New Yorker" it doesn't make her any less New York. Any Republicans have any doubts about that and they'll be pullin' back bloody stumps.

[monmouth4]

7. So glad you said that. I'm from Jersey also and have never, ever heard "Joisey"...LOL. n/t

[Tucker08087]

9. I swear it's a New York thing!

[2naSalit]

17. In New England...

I know, but in that area it's often used as slang. Or was when I lived there for decades.

[flyingfysh]

32. parts of Boston have distinctive accents

Even Somerville MA (just north of Cambridge, just west of Boston) has its own peculiar accent.

[ck4829]

3. Keystone Kops of the tone policing brigade

[Arkansas Granny]

5. I can't remember the last time a freshman Congressperson received so much attention

There's something about her that scares Republicans witless.

[Judi Lynn]

11. They are unable to stop themselves from shrieking about her. What is it, anyway?

I don't feel myself getting all whipped up over anything she has ever said or done, and they've been climbing the walls over her from her first appearance in Washington, D.C., and one of them started howling her clothes look too expensive.

Jeezus.

[crazytown]

36. Fox wants a Dem female to hate

- my cynical take on it all.

[still_one]

10. WHO CARES? Is this REALLY an issue?

[UniteFightBack]

15. Well you know who it's an issue for....and it ain't us. nt

[Judi Lynn]

16. The point is that there is something about her Republicans despise so much they are lashing out

at anything about her they can focus on.

It is actually worth a begrudging moment's reflection to question why it is they hate this woman.

[2naSalit]

18. She is the biggest threat they have seen in a while...

she is way intelligent, knows her job, their jobs and everybody else's job along with the laws... and she just got there. Not only that, she's eloquent in her presentation in person and in media and she doesn't need much help figuring out how to respond in such a way that they cannot compete. And that scares the crap out of them, especially if she's influential enough to attract others like her to government. It would be O V E R for them and they know it so they have to distract her and engage in defcon five character assassination. It used to always work.

[Beringia]

22. It certainly spurred my attention

I happend to make a facebook friend, who turns out to be very paranoid, and she was constantly posting about Ocasio-Cortez, so I looked into her further.

[Tarc]

41. For the same reason a co-worker lashes out at Doctor Who's new female lead

Rey in Star Wars being competent, or really any female in a role where they may possibly get the better of a man. They are petrified over being challenged.

[Xipe Totec]

13. My accent regresses depending on the amount of alcohol consumed.

And I've lived in lots of places so my accent reverts from Masshole to Texian to Mexican depending.

[2naSalit]

20. Well, see, that's the thing...

She's traveled and lived in places where they speak other languages, she code shifts* in a different way as she combines what she's acquired from other languages, not that there aren't examples of that in the Bronx. And maybe she speaks more than one language at home. When I was a kid, that was common among my classmates at school, I wasn't in the Bronx but most of the northeastern states have many cultural influences. Whichever we experience and possibly use, we adopt and it changes from pureness.

*Not sure if there's a term for that, if there is, I don't know it...knowwhatImean?

[Xipe Totec]

25. I don't know if there's a term for that

But I've always thought of myself as a social chameleon; blending in to whatever environment I'm in.

My sister used to be a flight attendant for Aeromexico. When I visited her in Mexico city, my accent would shift within 24 hours of being there and nobody could guess I wasn't a chilango (native Mexico City resident). My sister hated me for that; after 5 years living in the city all she had to do was open her mouth to be instantly pegged as a Norteña.

Many a time traveling through rural Texas my accent would shift going into a grocery store or gas station; just another good ol' boy stopping for an RC cola and a Moon Pie. It was a defensive mechanism.

Of course, it takes effort and concentration to do that, and alcohol does not help.

[2naSalit]

27. I used to do

the same thing to protect myself as a trucker traveling alone. I switch to whatever I'm hearing if I need to, sometimes I do it without noticing. Have friends with heavy accents from Europe and I sound just like them in a minute or two.

[Xipe Totec]

28. When I started college in the US, they put me in a class of English for foreign students

I had to beg them to switch me to standard English classes because I was starting to pick up the accent of the other foreign students.

Laugh if you want, but I was terrified.

[2naSalit]

31. I can relate!

Just like English, Spanish and other languages have many dialects. Some are less desirable to adopt, like trucker drawl!

[UniteFightBack]

14. I just heard the clip....I didn't notice anything unusual at all. As far as rump calling her a

bartender....wouldn't that be his base??? Un fucking real.

[Yavin4]

19. The New York accent changes over the years

Bernie's is old-school as well as Trump's. The population shifts and changes as does the accents.

[2naSalit]

21. Thank you, I was

thinking the same thing while writing something else.

[Yavin4]

24. In fact because of gentrification, the "Hollywood" version of the NY accent has all but disappeared.

People in Brooklyn today sound nothing like Bernie.

[2naSalit]

26. That's true...

I think that AOC also has acquired a little of the languages from places she's been, which like the Bronx, changes with new languages/accents present.

[ecstatic]

23. Who are the critics? lol

OK, I bit the bait and listened. I haven't listened to her previous speeches so I have nothing to compare it to, but clearly, you're going to have a different delivery when giving a speech vs. talking in a relaxed setting (like in the Instagram video they posted). Also, the topic probably changes the cadence of a speech as well--like the topic of Russia vs civil rights. In the latter scenario, you might be more inclined to draw inspiration from iconic civil rights leaders like MLK when delivering the speech.

I'm tough on AOC when she messes up, but I think this is silly.

[GemDigger]

35. They just want you to focus on her accent and not her content.

That was a good speech and I am sure it hit home with millions of everyday people.

[dlk]

29. With the High Number of Serious Problems We are Facing, Why Would Anyone Obsess About an Accent?

That's just silly.

[Liberal In Texas]

30. Really? Gawd don't they hate her thouigh?

We have a lying narcissist psychotic unstable asset of Russia in the White House and this is what's important?

[TheRealNorth]

33. The fact that Newweek thought that her accent was worth an article

Shows how pathetic that some in the MSM are at chasing whatever stupid controversy the cons throw out there. I'm not sure I want to even pick that magazine up now next time I visit my MD's office.

[suffragette]

34. As AOC wrote, "Any kid who grew up in a distinct linguistic culture & had to learn to navigate class

enviros at school/work knows what’s up.”

Exactly. Moved around quite a bit and I know exactly what she means.

[whistler162]

44. Makes me think of my mom and her brother

Brooklyn born and bred for the most part, shipped off to Warren PA for the summer before, during, and after the WWII. Because they were made fun of due to their accents while in Warren they learned to talk without a Brooklyn accent. You would be hard pressed to hear a Brooklyn accent in my mom's speech. My uncle you can hear some Long Island, where he lived and worked for most of his working life. But little to no Brooklyn accent. Heck, my uncle didn't start speaking English as his primary language until he went to school since his father was Swedish and his mother was 1st generation Swedish American. He went on to teach English in High School.

[suffragette]

45. Thanks for sharing this.

So many reasons for accents and expressions of speech to shift.

[Vinca]

37. That's just stupid bullshit. I listened to her and she was fabulous.

She wasn't using a "fake" southern accent, she was being AOC. She's everything. She nails it every time and on top of it all, I think she's got charisma flowing out of every pore.

[Hortensis]

38. Oh, brother. Btw, that politicians have to (and they do)

speak to various constituencies in different ways is our doing for being too irresponsible to educate ourselves well enough to be able to be especially interested in discussion of issues and processes.

In these days of highly sophisticated mind-tweaking methods, potential voters still react to the stupidest things on the most primitive levels. If politicians don't do what they have to to somehow keep and do their jobs in spite of it, well funded and well trained replacements who do will take their places.

I don't know if Ocasio is changing her accent, vocabulary, length of sentences with changes of neighborhood. I don't care. It's very easy and natural to adopt the speech patterns of people you're among, politicians have always done it, and these days more and more are of necessity training to do it particularly well.

[Oneironaut]

39. But she didn't use an accent...?

Second, why is Newsweek publishing this trash? People on Twitter get “offended” if the wind blows some on the opposing side’s hair the wrong way. It’s just fake outrage trolling.

[KelleyKramer]

40. That's what they are down to now? Her accent??!

This is both hilarious and pathetic at the same time

Conservatives are absolutely terrified of her

And Newsweek actually wasted ink printing that crap, SMH

[spanone]

42. 'a number of critics of the congresswoman' I'm shocked!!!!

what a pant load

[ThoughtCriminal]

43. W's supporters never seemed to notice

that he was the only one in his family that had a "Texan Accent".

But seriously, in what universe would we have to be living in for this to be of any importance? Clearly, every problem facing mankind must have been solved.