Or is this a bit inappropriate?

[Mycatishere]

I was listening to an audiobook today, and I’ve already read the book - wanted something easy to listen to while I got on with other stuff.

So in the book, one of the characters is called Maggie and is half sister to a character named Bonnie. Bonnie is white British and is narrated with a slightly cockney accent (she’s Scottish in the book but anyway …) and she and Maggie have different fathers. But there’s no mention in the book, no hint, of Maggie having grown up anywhere other than uk.

Yet Maggie is narrated with a Jamaican accent am I alone in thinking that’s a bit off, really?

Why is it inappropriate? Why does it matter?

Is Maggie played by an actor with a Jamaican accent?

@WooNoodle no. Same narrator throughout. She just puts on a Jamaican accent for a woman who is mixed race but not Jamaican.

And yeah tbh @KrisAkabusi , I think it does matter.

You've said you think it matters, but you haven't said why! Why does it matter that she's got a Jamaica accent?

Well presumably they got a Jamaican actress to read the character with Jamaican heritage and a WB one to read the WB character? Or are you saying one narrator put on different accents?

Because she’s not Jamaican @KrisAkabusi and I don’t really think I’m comfortable with anyone black or mixed race being given a Jamaican accent tbh.

@5128gap I’m saying one narrator put on different accents.

Its inappropriate for a WB person to be putting on an accent to narrate a POC, yes.

Then yeah that is off

Couldn't she have got her accent from her dad?Or grew up in a part of London that's full of Jamaicans and picked up the accent...that does happen.

Well if the character in the book had a Jamaican accent it would have been written with one wouldn't it? So yep very odd and not on.

So all we are told about Maggie (fairly minor character) from the book says:

All she knew of Maggie - apart from that she was married and liked kids - was that she was mixed race. She and Bonnies mother had shared the same mother, but Maggie father had been black.

And based solely on that, it’s OK to put on a Jamaican accent?

Was she brought up by her dad (who we assume has a Jamaican accent)?

No.

And why would we assume a black man has a Jamaican accent anyway? There are six black men in my workplace. None of them have Jamaican accents.

Is this Recitatif?

No, it is not.

Audiobooks are largely narrated by one person.

I have absolutely no idea what the last two posts mean. I’m sure there’s something funny about it all but I’m actually not seeing it.

Do you not think if every time a black character appeared in an advert or TV or similar and a Jamaican accent was put on for that character, that might be highly inappropriate? Because I do.

Yes, I know @WeAreBob . So why is it not inappropriate for her to put on a Jamaican accent to narrate a woman who happens to be mixed race?

That was Faye wasn’t it?

I worked with a woman with a Jamaican accent. She’d only been there on holiday but it was where her family was from.

So because you worked with this woman with a Jamaican accent it’s OK to put on a Jamaican accent for anyone black or mixed race?

And that one person should not impersonate an accent that some POC may have in order to portray a person of mixed heritage. If its essential to the story that a Jamaican accent is used a Jamiacan person should have narrated those parts.

No, it is not.

Audiobooks are largely narrated by one person. Books can have characters from all demographics, races, cultures, countries. That one person has to voice them, no matter what. It is not racist. Otherwise, all audiobooks would require a cast making them prohibitively expensive for less well known authors and books.

What is racist is that the narrator has decided that a black person cannot be british despite presumably being raised in the same country as her half sister. Black people can be British.

That’s exactly what I am saying @WeAreBob

I am pretty disgusted by it to be honest.