There was uncomfortable shuffling in seats and glances shared across tables during the lecture Wade Davis, the National Geographic Society's Explorer-In-Residence, gave last Saturday at the Bob Ewert memorial dinner event to raise funds for the Northern Medical Programs Trust.
On several occasions during his talk, Davis, while telling stories about his travels among the First Nations of northwestern B.C., imitated the accent of an aboriginal man
The stories Davis told where he deployed the accent were flattering stories about the specific men he was speaking of but it was still jarring to listen to a Harvard-educated Canadian anthropologist do something that is normally frowned upon as politically incorrect at best, if not labeled as outright racist.
Davis also took on a Texas accent when telling a story about meeting Ray Hunt, the legendary oil baron, but nobody seemed to think that was a slight on Texans (and the story was also flattering about Hunt).
In all of the stories Davis told where he used the accent, the First Nations man always had the punch line, either delivering a hilarious comment or an insightful piece of wisdom. There was nothing but respect and admiration in his tone, which is to be expected coming from a man who has built a prestigious career studying world cultures.
But was Davis being an "accidental racist" for copying an aboriginal accent to tell his tales?
Country superstar Brad Paisley released his song Accidental Racist this week and it made an immediate splash online. Recorded with respected rapper LL Cool J, the song makes an effort to bridge the gap between "Southern pride and Southern blame."
The song rejects both the righteous anger of the Neil Young classic Southern Man and its famous middle-finger no-compromise response in Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama. Instead, Accidental Racist tries too hard to find common ground and by the end, LL Cool J can only say "the past is the past" while Paisley pleads that "he just wants to make things right."
Paisley and LL Cool J may think time has reduced the Confederate flag to an innocent symbol of white Southern pride but they're whitewashing history, pun intended. The Confederate flag is America's swastika, nothing less. The bars and stars represent the group of Americans who, just 150 years ago, were willing to fight and kill their fellow Americans in order to protect their right to own slaves.
Both artists deserve praise for at least expanding the conversation about racism in the U.S. but they are mistaken to think American race issues can be solved by finding middle ground. White Southerners in the 1850s and 1860s were as wrong as Germans in the 1930s and 1940s. Modern German citizens reject the swastika and Hitler's evil vision of an Aryan race, wearing the shame of their ancestors to show they've learned from history.
That same maturity and understanding still does not apply in the American South.
And while Davis caused no harm with his imitation of the First Nations speaking style , it should not be encouraged, either. Many of Davis's anthropological forefathers seized priceless artifacts from indigenous societies around the world under the guise of protection and education. It's only under the modern light that we see those acts were cultural theft.
Imitating the speech of an aboriginal person, regardless of the academic pedigree or honest intent of the speaker, is the theft of story and voice.
Call it cultural plagiarism.
