Comments on: Into the voice box http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/05/14/into-the-voice-box/ Sat, 07 May 2011 16:36:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: arun http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/05/14/into-the-voice-box/comment-page-1/#comment-23 arun Tue, 29 May 2007 14:14:04 +0000 http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/05/14/into-the-voice-box/#comment-23 You're completely correct about the racialization of the materiality of the voice Dimitris What interests me (as a geographer I guess) is that your post combines three scales usually kept safely apart in academic analysis - first, the snottiness about accent on the British Isles, which I suppose is shared with the French, but in Britain there's the historical hypersensitivity induced by class - second, the amount of melanin in your skin - this is Fanon indeed - and thirdly the sub-corporeal (smaller than an individual) scale of the larynx - and its connection to the language centers of the brain of course. Racialization is not done TO bodies, but bodies do it themselves, in interaction of course with the visual and linguistic regimes they find themselves in... I even think language in the UK sometimes overrides race, in a way, especially after "Asian cool"... I guess I look "South Asian", though I'm Belgian and my accent wavers between Flemish/Dutch-ish and generic South-Indian-ish, and in the UK I've always felt I'd be treated different if I'd speak with, say, a Brummie accent - not that there'd be no racism any more, but you're more securely categorizes as "British-South-Asian" that way - less of a category fuck. In other words, traditional white British English is the standard and nonwhites, to be accepted, need to comply (call centre Indians having to change their name...). Another scale to include: the entire HEAD. Wouldn't it be great if second generation South Asians in the UK reintroduce, under the name of Asian cool, the famous practice of shaking/tilting the head for "yes... sort of" that their parents have had to gradually unlearn? Perhaps the increasing popularity of Bollywood can facilitate this. Arun You’re completely correct about the racialization of the materiality of the voice Dimitris
What interests me (as a geographer I guess) is that your post combines three scales usually kept safely apart in academic analysis – first, the snottiness about accent on the British Isles, which I suppose is shared with the French, but in Britain there’s the historical hypersensitivity induced by class – second, the amount of melanin in your skin – this is Fanon indeed – and thirdly the sub-corporeal (smaller than an individual) scale of the larynx – and its connection to the language centers of the brain of course. Racialization is not done TO bodies, but bodies do it themselves, in interaction of course with the visual and linguistic regimes they find themselves in…

I even think language in the UK sometimes overrides race, in a way, especially after “Asian cool”… I guess I look “South Asian”, though I’m Belgian and my accent wavers between Flemish/Dutch-ish and generic South-Indian-ish, and in the UK I’ve always felt I’d be treated different if I’d speak with, say, a Brummie accent – not that there’d be no racism any more, but you’re more securely categorizes as “British-South-Asian” that way – less of a category fuck. In other words, traditional white British English is the standard and nonwhites, to be accepted, need to comply (call centre Indians having to change their name…).

Another scale to include: the entire HEAD.

Wouldn’t it be great if second generation South Asians in the UK reintroduce, under the name of Asian cool, the famous practice of shaking/tilting the head for “yes… sort of” that their parents have had to gradually unlearn? Perhaps the increasing popularity of Bollywood can facilitate this.

Arun

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