Katherine D. Kinzler

I debated giving this book 3 or 4 stars. Went with 4 because I’m feeling generous. Liked the first half of the book pretty well, but then she segued from talking about about how people with non-standard English accents face discrimination (true, and a problem) into urging that they be a legally protected class from discrimination (not a good idea, you can’t keep adding to the already long list of protected classes). The very end of the book was a chapter about sexist language, more or less correct but this has been hashed out since the seventies and I don’t think she added anything new.

I think she should have had some more interesting details about what accents are, how they evolve, how people perceive different accents, etc in the first half of the book and just skipped the second half.… (more)

This is a must-read for anyone who seeks to learn more about racism and related issues. The author shows that our tribalism is more deeply rooted in language than in skin color. Simply put, we have biases against people who don't speak like us, and particularly those who speak a so-called non-standard dialect or have a pronounced accent. (Of course, everyone actually has an accent.) This form of bigotry is not (yet) recognized as such and is considered a permissible prejudice even among those of us who consider ourselves to be woke. This book should be required reading, along with Wilkerson's "Caste," in every school and book club.… (more)