Obama Does Dialect

Obama's book, Dreams from My Father,, (You've heard of it? OK, then, I'll begin.) has also been issued as an audiobook, read actually by Obama himself. He is, after all, a skilled public speaker.

This is just a gift to Hugh Hewitt, because it's perfect for radio, and Hewitt has been playing clips of it [Listen| Download MP3] to mixed reactions. But what I noticed is that when Obama reads lines by people who have foreign accents, (mostly his Kenyan family) he imitates their accents.

Also, when he says (see transcript, but you should listen to get the full effect)

I chose my friends carefully: the more politically active black students, the foreign students, the Chicanos, the Marxist professors and structural feminists, and punk rock performance poets.

If you listen, he says the word Chicanos, in the middle of a regular English sentence,with an accent that makes him sound like Freddy Fender, who I happened to also be listening to today.

When he speaks the words of his African relatives, he speaks with an accent that, if doesn't sound exactly like an African accent, it at least sounds like Sidney Poitier playing an African.

Of course, this is just more of what Steve Sailer has been saying about how good Obama is at creating his own identity, and of course, when he talks like a black American (see video) he's doing the same thing.

My point? For a white politician to be caught mimicking foreign accents always means deep trouble for the white politician.

I need to listen to the whole thing to see if Obama has a Chinese laundryman or an Italian barber. That would be fascinating to hear.

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