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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.

Jeremy Helligar
6 min readJan 13, 2025
Photo: PIX4FREE

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…

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Jeremy Helligar
Jeremy Helligar

Written by Jeremy Helligar

Brother Son Husband Friend Loner Minimalist World Traveler. Author of “Is It True What They Say About Black Men?” and “Storms in Africa” https://rb.gy/3mthoj

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