Plenty of white people grow up in diverse environments or even all black environments so they pick up the dialect. That’s unavoidable
Other people get influenced by their friends or spouses who say things or from the media they consumed, they look it up, and think “that’s a cool word I’ll say it next time when it fits my situation”
Then there are the rich libs in their bougie neighborhoods or gated communities that try to be hip or rebel against their white bread upbringing. Even if they don’t mean to be racist, they become caricatures of black people because they want to fit into an environment they’ve never been exposed to get some kind of cred. Because they’ve never been exposed to it, all they have to go off is the most mainstream depictions.
This. I know a lot of white people who have either grown up speaking that way, or who picked it up naturally and have earned the right to use it. I’m homeless, in a very white city—the homeless community here though is at least 1/3rd Black, if I had to guess.
i'm mixed race, but it's been a couple of generations, so i pass as white, and i grew up around black people, and i was taught to speak in "white" coded ways in order to "sound educated," get a job more easily, avoid discrimination, etc. etc. so in a way i'm the yang to the yin of people like this. even when I'm around black people i don't code switch back to AAVE because it doesn't feel natural to me even though i've been exposed to it my whole life. to do so would make me feel like the one lightskinned mix person trying to play up how black they are, and it comes off as cringe. I mostly try to listen more than I speak, in person, even though in text i ramble.
Depends on who you are and how you’re using it.
Plenty of white people grow up in diverse environments or even all black environments so they pick up the dialect. That’s unavoidable
Other people get influenced by their friends or spouses who say things or from the media they consumed, they look it up, and think “that’s a cool word I’ll say it next time when it fits my situation”
Then there are the rich libs in their bougie neighborhoods or gated communities that try to be hip or rebel against their white bread upbringing. Even if they don’t mean to be racist, they become caricatures of black people because they want to fit into an environment they’ve never been exposed to get some kind of cred. Because they’ve never been exposed to it, all they have to go off is the most mainstream depictions.
This. I know a lot of white people who have either grown up speaking that way, or who picked it up naturally and have earned the right to use it. I’m homeless, in a very white city—the homeless community here though is at least 1/3rd Black, if I had to guess.
i'm mixed race, but it's been a couple of generations, so i pass as white, and i grew up around black people, and i was taught to speak in "white" coded ways in order to "sound educated," get a job more easily, avoid discrimination, etc. etc. so in a way i'm the yang to the yin of people like this. even when I'm around black people i don't code switch back to AAVE because it doesn't feel natural to me even though i've been exposed to it my whole life. to do so would make me feel like the one lightskinned mix person trying to play up how black they are, and it comes off as cringe. I mostly try to listen more than I speak, in person, even though in text i ramble.