Prof Claims White People Use Their ‘Cop Voice’ to Establish Authority Over Others
“provoke[s] fear and extreme forms of compliance from people of color”
This sounds like the sort of thing a crazy person says, not a college English professor.
The College Fix reports:
Prof: White people use ‘cop voice’ to establish ‘racial authority’ over others
In the latest on the white supremacy front, a professor at New York State’s Binghamton University says that a “sonic color line” exists in the United States, a “learned cultural mechanism” by which racial differences are established via ways of listening and sounds to “communicate one’s position vis-à-vis white citizenship.”
English professor Jennifer Lynn Stoever provides an example of such: Songs by artists such as Jay-Z, Public Enemy, and KRS-One feature representations of a “cop voice,” or a “racialized way of speaking that police use to weaponize their voices around people of color.”
This “cop voice,” Stoever says according to Science Codex, “provoke[s] fear and extreme forms of compliance from people of color.”
“I define ‘cop voice’ as the way in which police wield a vocal cadence and tone structured by and vested with white masculine authority,” Stoever says. “[It’s] a sound that exerts a forceful, unearned racial authority via the sonic color line to terrorize people of color.
“Intentionally wielded, although allegedly ‘inaudible’ to its users, cop voice almost immediately escalates routine police interactions with people of color…”
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Comments
This is so insane it could only have come out of academia. I predict this professor will receive job offers from Harvard and/or Stanford and/or lots of other prestigious places of “higher education.”
Oy, what a weirdo. Even so, I’d like to see at least a pale semblance of logic involved in these wacky theories. In this case, I’m a bit unclear on the link between “cop voice” and “white masculine authority.” What the hell kind of white masculine authority needs sound effects?
So what does a non-white cop sound like then? I’m confused.
Well, if you read Ta’Nitwit Coates, you’ll understand that all cops are white. Even the African-American cops are white.
Is this the same voice she uses to control her classroom?
Teacher voice teacher voice is a very common term in the ed business. It refers to a teacher speaking in an authoritative tone with loud- or at least not soft- volume. Rest assured that black teachers know how to use “teacher voice” to their advantage.
Oh good Lord, how fucking stupid are these people? It’s called speaking with authority, and it knows no race.
Having had black coaches and superiors, I can assure you that they used it too.
Note to author: “college English professor” and “crazy person” are not mutually exclusive terms.
If “white masculine authority” was real why would it require raising your voice to assert it?
I would suggest her to send her husband to me, or to basically any other “person of color” that I know, and test that “scare them people of color with your white voice” theory.
(IF, she’s the “husband type”, that is.)
Yeah, they will learn a thing or two about “sonic color lines”.
If you want to see sonic authority, go to boot camp and witness any drill instructor of whatever color. This tying it to race is beyond stupid.