# Do you think Obama counts as a black president? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 17, 2012, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-obama-counts-as-a-black-president/644289 "2012-12-17T08:50:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 74
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-obama-counts-as-a-black-president/644289/74 "2012-12-18T20:23:20Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Okay, first of all, every time a white person uses the term “AAVE,” god kills a kitten. Second, dialing back the colloquialisms isn’t “talking white.” It’s “talking.” The same as when you cut back on the informal speech in a formal setting. This not switching between talking white and off-white. AAVE is a linguistics label, and in fact refers to a sociolect. Sociolects are different from dialects in that which sociolect you’re using depends on context. Most people have different sociolects, for instance, I talk much differently with my friends than I do with my professors than I do with my family. Those are all examples of different sociolects. So when I “cut back on the informal speech in a formal setting” it is, in fact, doing the EXACT same thing AAVE speakers do in a formal setting. We both switch from our respective colloquial sociolects to Standard American Academic English. AAVE just happens to be a sociolect that has a more well known label (I think it has rather unique properties and is considered more noticeable than most sociolects as well, but I’m not 100% sure on that). Though I won’t deny that most people who know the term probably don’t know that they do the same thing and think it’s just a way to denote “black people speak”. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-obama-counts-as-a-black-president/644289)._