"From Outside, In" Responses

(2.) Mellix remembers growing up "speaking what I considered two distinctly different languages- Black English and Standard English". Through experience she learned when, where, and how to use each language. In what kinds of situations did she use Black English was when she was with her immediate family. Standard English was used by Mellix when her relatives from out of town were visiting, and also when she was out in public (at school, etc.) How she felt about this "doubleness" was a sense of growing insecurity- she didn’t feel comfortable having to conform and be forced to step out of her comfort zone.

(3.) For Mellix as a young woman, what it meant to speak Standard English to whites was to conform from her comfortable style of language to one she didn't truly feel comfortable using. To Standard-English-speaking blacks, the same thing is with whites, when she was speaking to her relatives coming from out of town she would speak very little and when she did quietly and reserved. What the pain of having to use Standard English was to Mellix was that Standard English was not “her language”- that of the “country” black style was hers. Using standard english, as I stated before, was to step out of her comfort zone and to conform to societies norms.