...to think that 'doing' an Indian accent is not racist?

[MrsMerryHenry]

I was thinking about an old friend this evening, and how when we used to teach EFL together (if you've ever learned a foreign language, rest assured, your teachers are laughing at your mistakes behind your back! ) all the teachers used to 'do' loads of accents - we'd all taught all over the world and so everyone had a bunch of foreign accents up their sleeves. However when my friend then 'did' an Indian accent, apparently some of the (white) teachers had a go at her and said she (white) was being racist. They didn't object to the content of what she said, just the fact that she was mimicking an Indian accent. There was a bloke of Indian origin amongst the teachers but I don't know whether he was there at the time to make a comment.

Am I the only one who thinks this is bizarre, hypocritical and rather hypersensitive political correctness? (by the way, if anyone says it's "political correctness gone mad" I shall shoot them )

I think it is racist. There are Indians who speak with an accent to their English, but it is very subtle and difficult to do, unless it comes naturally to you.
If it was a bit like 'mind your language' and other 70's bad sitcoms, then yes racist.

It sounds like everyone was having a bit of fun and they were being overly PC. I love doing accents, I used to live in "Toron'o" and picked the accent up, I can swap between the two easily (not as easily as when I was a child as I haven't been in awhile) and used to do it so I didn't get stopped to "say something" all the time.

Something I've noticed from some of the stupid decisions made in Birmingham:

Winterville (instead of Christmas)
The Three Little Puppies (Pigs)
Bah Bah Rainbow Sheep

is that the decision to do it comes from white people who know nothing of racism and end up offending the people who they were trying not to offend in the first place. Each time it hits the news the mosque say that it creates problems and that they don't want it.

My boss does fabulous accents - and her imitations of people are spot on. I feel as if I know her mother and she's dead!

She will take off some off some of the parents including accent - but she would see it as like having a video recording of the event rather than being racist.

I would love to here her doing me, especially the lesson where I uttered the sentence "so imagine this Jesus dude came up to you and said..."

MDStare - No, that was just because an American couldn't dream of there being people who are not American who are newsworthy.

I do "baa baa black sheep" and then I do "baa baa white sheep" in my music classes. I even change the "boy down the lane" to "girl" for the second verse. Largely it's because I had both a black and a white sheep puppet and I wanted the song to be longer.

I am sure though there are people who think I am being PC.

As long as you're not banning the black sheep orf punishing anyone who sings about one!

The African American stuff is classic! Reminds me of a town council who blocked swear words on the net and made their own site inaccessible because the town name contained a swear word.

Um ... nobody has held an 'African-American tie' party. I've done a websearch, and found lots of conservative twits using the expression, but nobody else.

I'm ill at ease with doing accents (it's often racist or used to be cruel to people), but I think in the context of doing lots of other accents, doing an Indian one could be fine.

I love that 'African American tie!' And the swear word internet story! Brilliant!

I certainly don't think it's thoughtful to copy someone's accent in front of them, but doing it behind their backs is ok!

Deeeja, presumably you think doing any accent is racist, right? Why should Indian accents be singled out in the context I described in my OP?

Dragonbutter - so sorry I couldn't be there for you, m'dear; I'd shuffled off to bed by the time you posted.

I loved the skit on goodness gracious me, when they went out for an English, It was so bloody funny.oh hang on was it raciest? Nope it was funny only whites are raciest

Can anyone tell me why would anyone mimic an accent? Any accent at all. In what circumstances is it necessary to mimic an accent?

When you are repeating a conversation? No, you can say the words without saying the accent.

When you are telling a joke? Well, if the joke requires a certain accent - why? And if so, is it not taking the piss out of a particular group of people and therefore one could argue it is discriminatory.

What is the reason why 'doing' any accent is essential in normal conversation?

I'm not saying I think 'doing' an accent automatically means you are a racist person who hates but I think it's always good to think about things, think about your reasons, challenge yourself.

Any accent that I try and do comes out sounding like a poor quality fake Indian accent.

Im terrible for accents, i find them really fascinating and i often find myself aping people with accents, its really embarrasing

People mimic my accent all the time. I don't think its nessesarily racist. Of course it can be, if they are trying to say something offensive about my country, or make a rude generalisation about people from my country. But mostly, its maybe funny, mayb annoying, but not racist.

I'm Australian, BTW. But its fine to mock Aussies right? And be assured Aussies put on English accents as well

On the other hand, if I knew something I said or did offended someone, I wouldn't keep doing it.

Blimey! I do a proper good Irish accent, esp when pissed - so does that make me racist? Even if my dad was Irish?

Just look at the comics on TV, how about Jon Culshaw and all those impressionairos? Are they all racist too?

Of course not. We tend to have a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to black people. Many of them take the mickey out of their own accents - that rapper accent is very good and has been mimicked loads. AliG, a Jew pretending to be Asian with a Staines accent parodied how sensitive we are as a nation to anything we think might be racist.

Obv if the content of mimick is racist then that is highly inappropriate, but if it's just an accent you're mimicking - fair game I say.

What about 'Allo 'Allo with the French and German accents?

"Listen very carefully, I vill zay zis only vance"

Is that racist?

The whole "Don't mention the war!" tabloid humour that the Brits find funny when talking about the Germans is wearing a bit thin for me but I don't see it as racist.

I feel that the content is more important than the accent. If you are mimicking Asians, using racial stereotypes then it is racist. If you are just mimicking then accent then not.

Remember that scene when Asian comediens caricaturised the Brits going out for a curry, only in reverse? "I'll have the blandest thing on the menu"

I am still waiting for somebody to answer HecateQueenOfGhosts' question

from goodness gracious me? that sketch was brilliant.
or when the scenes when they had the two middle-aged couples trying to out englisdh each other to show who had settled most?
used to love that show

fwiw i think that people are far too precious tese days about what is genuinely meant to be ironic or satire humour.i'm most certainly not talking about systematic bullying based on race but close to the bone humour which we often accept from well known comics like chris morriss or sacha baron cohen because we give them the benefit of the doubt and attribute the best possible motivation for the joke that they are being satirical but in real life we seem to immediately attribute the worst to people often because we already have a problem with them. although i think tact is the main thing,as amongst my close friends i'd describe our sense of humour as dark and a lot of things are said for shock value, so i wouldn't make jokes of that nature around people i don't know or at work because i know they are inappropriate for that setting.
however i don't perscribe to the idea that a wwhite person doing an indian accent is inherently racist, or that only white people ccan be racist.

I think they all have, margo Silence can say more than words.

Why mimic an accent? Why not?

It's part of our culture to poke fun at ourselves and our own accents as well as others. I love it when work colleagues try to imitate my Northern accent and end up sounding like a Yorkshire/Irish cross.

It's called satire. It's been done by people throughout the ages. A curiousity about how others pronounce and vocalise things. For some it's a testing ground of their individuality - they might hear an accent they like and try to incorporate it into their way of speaking. It's a way of understanding others and where they come from.

Hecate, I think in general people adopt an accent in order to make their re-telling of an event or situation more lively & full of expression. It's what differentiates us from robots, or why Prof. Hawking is difficult to listen to for long periods.

Everyone has an accent. I'm from the north-east though I live in London now & the amount of times I've heard really crap Geordie accents... Am I offended? No. I think most people have a radar which detects whether others are being deliberately offensive & on the whole they are not being offensive, just verbally descriptive. If it is maliciously done then it is offensive and/or racist, otherwise it is not.

Aren't accents only "funny" because someone doing the impression is marking them out as "funny". I can't think of someone doing it in a good way (and the ggm sketches were making the point). It is the linguistic equivalent of blacking up. It only, unconsciously or consciously, refers back to stereotypes.

So I don't know that I'd go as far as "racist" but I would go as far as stupid, annoying and totally unnecessary.

I don't get it. It just seems pointless, not to mention a bit embarrassing to listen to. We'd not be worse off if nobody ever faked an accent again.

So Poppycake, what if a white person from London imitates another white person from Manchester? Is that 'blacking it up' too?