Photo: @swanoforlando on TikTok
A white woman was caught on camera going on a "racist" tirade against Black Americans' unique names and quickly getting checked. The viral TikTok was uploaded by a Florida-based account called @swanoforlando, which recorded a woman named "Beth" ranting about how Black names aren't pronounced or spelled correctly.
“Black people are notorious for naming their children 25-letter names that they’re never gonna get even pronounced right, let alone spelled right," the woman remarked. The TikToker then chimes in on why Black names are quite different.
“The reason for that is because during slavery their identities were taken away so they had to have unique names in order to identify their offspring when they were sold from different plantations," the person recording said. "So that came down … as generational trauma.”
“Okay, well how about now? Isn’t that sort of trauma for that poor kid that’s never gonna have his name spelled right?” Beth continued.
“Only to your standards,” swanoforlando countered. “People can’t take the time to pronounce it correctly.”
As the two kept going back and forth on the subject, the TikToker dropped a line that resonated with thousands of viewers: “You can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but you can’t say Jaquan. Are you kidding me?"
Many people in the comments shared stories about how teachers and co-workers would often mispronounce or misspell their names. Some even called out those who can readily pronounce the European names of popular brands.
"I always say people can always pronounce Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Yves Saint Laurent but not somebody’s NAME. Put respect on my name!!!!!!" one TikTok user commented.
Another wrote, "My name is mekayla and my white high school English teacher for the whole year messed my name up until I corrected her then said she felt unsafe lol."
"My name is Déjà….most white people call me Dj or something else yet they can say Déjà Vü perfectly in a sentence," a commentator stated.
According to a 2003 study by Roland G. Fryer and Steven D. Levitt, distinctive Black names were the result of various influences, from the civil rights and Black Power movements promoting Black pride and creativity to Black Americans reconnecting with their African and Arabic roots.
Before this push for culturally different names, Black people often carried the names of white people and Biblical names after slave masters stripped them of their cultural identities.
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