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I Stutter and I Talk Funny. You Got a Problem with That?
My voice got ripped apart on Reddit — and my reaction surprised me.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the sound of my voice. It started well before the first time I heard myself on tape — though the moment after I pressed play on that prehistoric tape recorder was one of the most ear-opening moments of my life.
“Is that what everyone hears when I talk,” I thought to myself as I tried to wrap my brain around the strange sound coming out of the speakers. I heard something completely different in my own head, and it sounded so much more “normal” than this.
It was the first time I realized the Caribbean accent all the kids in school made fun of wasn’t just a figment of their imagination. Suddenly, it all made sense: the taunts, the looks, the “Are you from Jamaica?” inquiries, and why so many of my Black classmates bullied me for not talking like them.
It happened a little bit after I stopped taking speech classes in third or fourth grade. Speech class had been a humiliating experience. Mrs. Upson was the teacher, and I had to go twice a week while everyone else was in regular class. There were only two or three other people in speech class, so every time I went, I felt like I was being singled out for being some kind…
