But I don’t think that in this case she really sounded “black.” Rather, she sounded like a white Southerner. Why you’d use a white Southern accent in front of blacks is an odd question indeed, but this isn’t Ebonics (that’s a technical term black scholars coined, by the way):

We have ta reform our government. The abuses that have gone on in the last six years — I don’ think we know the half of it yet. You know, when I walk into the Oval Office in January of 2009, I’m afraid I’m gonna lift up the rug and I’m goin’ to see so much stuff uh-nder thar. . . . You know, what is it about us always havin’ to clean up after people? . . . But this is not just going to be pickin’ up socks off the floor. This is going to be cleanin’ up the government…Us always havin’ to clean up after people

Compare that with Malkin’s jab at Clinton:

You be trippin’, girl.

Now, it’s true that blacks picked up many speech patterns from Southern whites, as Thomas Sowell showed in Black Rednecks and White Liberals. But since then, blacks have come up with a variety of other speech patterns and expressions, none of which Hillary employed.

I think the message here, more than anything, is to appeal to a broad constituency without pretending to be something you’re not. People see through a fake in a hurry, and in this case it’s hard to tell whether Clinton tried to sound like a black person or the descendant of a plantation owner.

By Robert VerBruggen