"Storming the Gate: Talking in Color" by Tiffany Hendrickson

In Hendrickson's personal essay "Storming the Gate: Talking in Color" asserts that people should not associate verbal expression by the color of someone's skin. Hendrickson shows is by giving the reader insight on how she managed to subdue the aversions that she encounter because of the "color of her voice". Hendrickson brings forward this issue in order to highlight the racial divide among black and white in this country by the power of the voice. Hendrickson makes reference to individuals who make racial stereotypes based off of the color of skin by the color of their voice.

I found Hendrickson's essay to be motivational, as she not only prevail through judgments but attend college to study upon the issue "talking in color". Hendrickson gives a definition on code-switching and explains how individuals use code-switching in conversations to differentiate their speech patterns and usage depending on their settings. I can relate because I have used code-switching when interacting with people. Growing up I attended a predominately black middle school and I was ridiculed because I spoke "white". I felt as if I did not belong due to the opinion I spoke "proper English" and not the way a black person should sound. Ironically, we place high value on intellect but how can a person display their intellect when their only judged on the way that they speak. With Hendrickson learning to overcome all the tough journey's that have happened in her life, in the end she has learned to accept and "value the power of her voice" (Hendrickson).

Hendrickson writes about herself being a white girl, but talking like a black girl. She goes on to explain how she, “would like to change the white world’s view of my speech, or at least to fully understand why my speech, and the speech of those who sound like me, are considered inferior” (Hendrickson) and that’s because we have this view of people who do not talk like us are not supposed to look like us or are not as important. Hendrickson writes as she goes through challenges of people looking at her and she knows it’s not because she’s from the “ghetto” but because her mother is deaf and that is the way she learned to talk. She writes about going to college and having a Communications major to prove that she can speak to people of all cultures, she just has to “code-switch” so her voice matches the audiences. Hendrickson overcame stereotypes and became more than she first thought she could, and not by believing what others thought of her, but what she thought of herself and what she knew to be true.