Date:  Wed, 23 Mar 1994 10:08:06 CST

From:  Mike Picone <MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET>

Subject: for the record



Just for the record, I heard another instance of NPR anti-Southern

bias this morning on the radio. Kokie Roberts was referring to some

federal legislator (whose name I didn't catch) when she said that he

"mumbled in a Mississippi drawl that nobody understands." I will bet

money that the person in question was a white Southerner, for she would

never have permitted herself such a derogatory remark if it had been

otherwise. In fact, the insult is all the greater because of the exaggeration,

for even if someone of another ethnic group conceivably spoke a divergent

variety of English or an "accented" variety that impeded comprehension, such

a remark would be considered inappropriate. Yet in this case it is not

credible that the variety of English she is referring to is actually

unintelligible to her or anyone else, but she did not hesitate to use

exaggeration to make a negative insinuation based on linguistic habits.



Mike Picone

University of Alabama