I just don’t think an accent is identical to other forms of presentation. Accents are deeply personal and cultural. When I debated in high school for a non-indian audience, we were repeatedly told in euphemistic terms that our accents made us less “compelling”. It was deeply demoralizing to know that not being from Eton made us worse to listen to, and I know people who consciously changed their accent because of it.
Now that my accent has become Americanized after years of living in the US, it is genuinely painful and isolating to meet Indian people who think I grew up in the US because of my Americanized accent. I have lost something of my connection to India because of my accent change. I listen to myself and I sometimes wonder who the hell is speaking.
Sidenote: since you’ve essentially removed the original comment, some of the context has been lost. In particular the thing that ticked me off the most was not you saying that some people might not understand Will, but that his accent “might be something to work on”.
I just don’t think an accent is identical to other forms of presentation. Accents are deeply personal and cultural. When I debated in high school for a non-indian audience, we were repeatedly told in euphemistic terms that our accents made us less “compelling”. It was deeply demoralizing to know that not being from Eton made us worse to listen to, and I know people who consciously changed their accent because of it.
Now that my accent has become Americanized after years of living in the US, it is genuinely painful and isolating to meet Indian people who think I grew up in the US because of my Americanized accent. I have lost something of my connection to India because of my accent change. I listen to myself and I sometimes wonder who the hell is speaking.
Sidenote: since you’ve essentially removed the original comment, some of the context has been lost. In particular the thing that ticked me off the most was not you saying that some people might not understand Will, but that his accent “might be something to work on”.