Ep. 29 - Code Switching ft. Heavy Crownz

BrownTown again welcomes Heavy Crownz, rapper and educator, to
the conversation around the nuances, personal experiences, and
real life implications of code switching.

Near the end of episode 25, the podcast’s first live recording at
DePaul University, Heavy and Caullen began discussing the nuances
of code switching. In this episode, BrownTown welcomes Heavy back
to continue that conversation. The gang breaks down their
personal experiences with code switching and how it interplays
with respectability politics, social mobility, and survival. Code
switching is a linguistic phenomenon often described as switching
between dialects, or changing the way in which one speaks, in
order to more easily acquiesce to a particular environment or be
understood/validated by a particular person(s). These alterations
can include changes to rhetoric, language itself
(slang/vocabulary), tone, syntax, diction, body language, overall
demeanor and can be both conscious and unconscious. Though
everyone plays this game to some degree, in America it’s often
discussed and practiced amongst Black folks and other people of
color (see Insider’s take).


BrownTown begins by inquiring about Heavy’s experience traversing
the worlds of hip-hop and educational institutions. All three
dive into personal experiences at places of work and growing up
fluctuating between their “native” speech and code switching to
better assimilate into situations. David brings in a bilingual
perspective, adding more depth to the discussion. In relation to
friends and family as well as society at-large, BrownTown and
Heavy make parallels to broader issues, recognizing their and
others’ privilege regarding language, access, and discourse. They
analyze how the need to and refusal to code switch can create
unconscious value judgements and indications of one’s
relationship to the dominant social and cultural order. The group
spends much of the episode broadening the linguistic definition
of code switching to social situations in white spaces and the
internal monologue of Black and Brown folks to resist playing up
stereotypes for sake of onlookers (see SoapBox editorial piece).
This is intermixed with discussions of Boots’ Riley’s film Sorry
to Bother You and the Saturday Night Live Prison Job skit.


In short, the gang subverts the idea of “appropriate” and
“proper” language and demeanor, sending up these notions as
inherently problematic, othering, and ultimately harmful.
However, they recognize the real consequences this brings: Heavy
articulates how, while in college, Martin Luther King Jr. felt
immense pressure to code switch and dismantle every stereotype
about Black men in order to avoid any additional discrimination
and hindrance to his education. Caullen references Fred Hampton’s
powerful oratory and ability to capture attention to organize all
kinds of people with his rhetoric. All three push back against
the idea that one need code switch to be ”respectable” yet
understand its real life implications.


GUEST
Heavy Crownz is an MC and high school educator hailing from
Chicago's Englewood community. With a degree in History from
Tuskegee University, Crownz aims to create personal music from
the soul in a style of flow he calls AfroTrap. His strongest
motivations to go on have been the need for people to have good
music with substance and purpose. Find Heavy’s music on Spotify,
Soundcloud and YouTube. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and
Facebook.


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CREDITS: Intro music by Fiendsh with soundbite
from Dave Chappelle on Inside the Actor's Studio. Outro song
Dangerous by Heavy Crownz. Audio engineered by Genta
Tamashiro. Episode photo by Rohan Ayinde.


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