Does the Presence of an Accent mean the Lack of Intelligence in HoCo?
A couple of months ago, my mother and I went to the doctor’s office, and once the receptionist heard the accented words leave my mother’s mouth to announce that she was here for her appointment, she immediately got irritated and repeated that she could not understand my mother at all. It continued like that for about a minute until my mom asked me to repeat what she had said. I could see that my mother was struggling and frustrated as she
was once again being dismissed due to something that she could not change, her African accent. In that moment, I felt a myriad of emotions but the ones that were most emphasized were shame for something that I could not control, and a lot of anger for someone very obviously discriminating against my mother and having no true understanding of what that accent meant. I feel that this is a perfect example of the “nice-nasty” type of racism that is very alive in Howard County where outwardly, all differences are accepted but within
micro-interactions with those with said differences, it is a different story.
Although it is not uncommon, it makes me feel incredibly angry that my mom has to fight through such barriers, and sad that this is an incident that occurs over and over again in Howard County. I hope that there will be a day where people will not dismiss or deny my mother due to what may be deemed as a sign of her not being “American” or intelligent, and she will be allowed to simply exist without that specific target on her back.”
