Heard my daughter codeswitch on her school Zoom call yesterday and my head snatched up so fast. Where did she learn this? Does she hear me do this? Is this something that is just in the DNA of Black culture so much so that at 10 she already knows & doesn’t need explicit teaching?

The funny thing is, her teacher is Black and classmates Black and Latino, and she doesn’t do that normally, but this was a special info session with a middle school and the woman leading that was white.

I’m also fascinated by people who think codeswitching is merely speaking “proper” or standard English. It...is not. It is the intonation, the annunciation, the posture. I can speak standard English and still sound Black.