Kamala Harris and the Phony Crime of Code-Switching

This is not a behavior particular to Harris. It is a phenomenon commonly known as “code-switching.”

Denigrating code-switching is a bipartisan grievance. Conservative critics say Harris’s switching in and out of dialect is inauthentic, pandering, and condescending. Liberal critics say code-switching is bad in general because it arises from nonwhite people being forced to communicate in “white” ways.

However, what Harris is doing is not only natural but practical, especially in such a diverse society as ours. If one’s goal is persuasion, one should realize that some ways of speaking are more persuasive than others depending on context.

A 2019 article in Harvard Business Review defined code-switching in a pitiable light, saying it amounted to “adjusting one’s style of speech, appearance, behavior, and expression in ways that will optimize the comfort of others in exchange for fair treatment, quality service, and employment opportunities.” DEI activists say having to code-switch strongly suggests that someone’s authentic self isn’t included in certain spaces.

Effective communication and authenticity have been at odds since antiquity. Plato saw rhetoric — speech aimed at persuasion — as the opposite of authenticity. He said hearing rhetoric was like eating sweets and hearing authentic speech was like consuming something healthy but much less enjoyable. However, Plato’s student Aristotle was more realistic about effective communication, saying that rhetoric is necessary, lest the honest man be bested by a liar in debate.

A modern-day version of this dispute arises in the field of anthropology, and it plays into our current culture wars.

Anthropologists have argued that some language or speech is perceived through an “ideology of authenticity,” while other language or speech is perceived with an “ideology of anonymity.” The first of these posits that language and identity are linked in an essential way. The scholar Matthew Engelke, in his book “How to Think Like an Anthropologist,” writes that the ideology of authenticity “suggests that our language expresses something integral to who we are, both individually and corporately.” In other words, language is not just a tool for communication. It’s a method of defining oneself at an existential level: One is one’s language. The ideology of anonymity, however, sees language not as essential to identity but as a communication medium available to anyone; it does not define us as human beings.

Engelke believes that many people embrace the ideology of authenticity for political purposes, but he seems to lean toward the ideology of anonymity as the superior — or, at any rate, more practical — ideology. He points out that Standard English is the most global language, the lingua franca of world business and politics. If language were essentially and fundamentally tied to identity, millions of people speaking English in business and diplomacy would feel oppressed or denied their right to be themselves. However, research from Engelke and other scholars shows that this is not the case. People who want to communicate effectively throughout the world know the efficacy of Standard English; there is nothing controversial about using it.

That said, the ideology of authenticity seems to be winning out in social justice circles and academia. Many scholars in my field, rhetorical studies, say that asking someone to speak in a way not indicative of their preferred identity constitutes oppression. “As long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate,” Gloria Anzaldúa wrote in her magnum opus, “Borderlands/​La Frontera.” Being a victim of “linguistic terrorism,” Anzaldúa argues, is devastating for those who embrace the ideology of authenticity.

More recently, the rhetoric scholar Vershawn Young has made a career out of this idea, insisting that teaching Standard English to Black people “replicates the same phony logic behind Jim Crow legislation.” In an essay for the Journal of Advanced Composition, Young calls the focus on Standard English in academia “segregationist” and insists that Black people who switch between Standard English and African American Vernacular English suffer from a kind of “racial schizophrenia.” Young even says that teaching Standard English to Black students is tantamount to “chopping off folks’ tongues.”

I embrace the ideology of anonymity from two vantage points: one as a Black man, the other as a rhetorician. Having been steeped in both predominantly white and predominantly Black spaces all my life, I feel code-switching to be authentic because I know what it is like to convey a message differently based on what would make an audience more understanding or receptive. It is akin to translation. My desire to persuade outweighs the desire to express my identity; I can do the latter in other ways if I choose to at all.

We are supposed to be able to talk to one another on a variety of topics, for a variety of reasons, in a variety of settings. And someone who abides by an ideology of authenticity may have a tough time getting a point across in a society of diverse viewpoints like ours. The rhetorician Wayne Booth puts this bluntly: Without an adaptive skill like code-switching, “our social world would collapse.”

Perhaps the most important truth is that we all code-switch to some degree. A white man may not talk to his friends the same way he talks to his parents. He may not talk to strangers the same way he talks to friends. Code-switching is both intuitive and pragmatic for anyone whose main goal is clear and effective communication. In a pluralistic, free, and civil society, code-switching is a species of adaptation, an imperative for navigating society. Code-switching is simply good rhetoric.

Vice President Harris is not acting like a member of the elite pandering to an audience. When it comes to her code-switching, she’s just a regular American.