A SEPTA Mentality

Morgan Marant

Gold Stream

A SEPTA Mentality

            There is a natural code of conduct while riding a SEPTA bus. That is: you’re in public, treat this bus better then you would yourself. SEPTA even took the time to put these rules on every bus in Philadelphia. Apparently, the woman next t me had never taken the time to read the rules or to even consider that she’s not on the bus alone. She talked animatedly into her phone and loudly popped her gum; unaware that everyone on the bus could hear her conversation.

“I don’t unda-stand ‘POP’ why I didn’t get the job! ‘POP’ I mean, I’m qualified and sh*t ya know what I’m sayin! ‘POP’ they just aint hire me cuz I’m back.”

My first impulse was to slap the phone out of her hand. The reason you didn’t get the job is because of the way you speak not because of your ethnicity, I thought. She probably doesn’t know any better. What a shame.

James Baldwin the author of several books writes “To open your mouth…  is to ‘put your business in the street.’ You have confessed your parents, your youth, your shoo, your self-esteem and alas your future.”  He is undoubtedly correct. The way a person speaks not only conveys their language it can exhibit how they were raised.  Language and speech can dictate who a person becomes as an adult.

My mother and father both pushed me to speak properly. My mother- a lawyer- and my father –a school teacher- taught me to use correct grammar at some of the earliest stages in my life.  There were many times in my life where I went to conventions and legal functions with my mother. Several times I was complimented on how well spoken I was at such a young age. When I attended middle school the way I spoke began to give me a problem. My peers would often tell me that I didn’t speak like the stereotypical black girl was supposed to therefore that made me not black but an Oreo; white on the inside and black on the outside. My speech displayed that I was and still am destined to be successful. It appears that the way a ‘black girl’ speaks does not reveal those ideas or characteristics.  

After those incidents I began taking out my anger on people who resembled the ones that made fun of me; most of them were of my own ethnicity. I looked down on them. Why couldn’t they speak proper English like the rest of the world? Why were so many of them loud and angry? Why couldn’t they be like everyone else? Then I came to an understanding that I knew nothing of every individual, black person in the United States. I was judging them solely, on how they spoke. Their language defined the identity that society had already created for them and I went along with it and even believed it.

A language does show a lot about a person’s identity. A language can even determine people’s initial reaction upon first meeting them but a language cannot determine where a person ends up. If and only if they allow the identity that society has placed upon them to hinder them then they have allowed themselves to become a product of their language and environment.

            Even though I am older and wiser I still cringe when I hear a person speak like the woman on the SEPTA bus. A small part of me retreats back into my old personality and says, “Here’s another black person setting us back five years.” As I pull myself out of that mindset I know that it is just a language. A language that only defies how the person speaks and not who they are. A number of comparisons can be made between ethnicity, language and class but the truth is the way a person speaks does not create their identity.  It creates the identity that society has designated for them.