‘Careless and wrong’: David Oyelowo apologizes for comments about southern Black dialects
TheGrio...
The actor’s comments drew swift backlash after saying the Black Southern accent was just a Nigerian accent with a “lot of slavery and subservience.”
David Oyelowo is walking back inflammatory statements he made regarding a popular Druski sketch regarding British actors, dialects and more.
In a statement posted to Instagram, the Golden Globe-nominated actor who portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2014 film “Selma” apologized after comments he made on a podcast about Southern accents went viral.
“I want to apologize unreservedly to all those who were rightly offended by my comments on the One54 Africa podcast regarding Southern Accents,” he began. “It was the wrong thing to say and it is not how I feel.”
He continued, “I have nothing but deep respect and great love for Black people of all kinds, especially those from the American South. Reducing a dialect born from the richness and resilience of Black Southern culture to anything less was careless and wrong. All I truly care about is lifting up my Black brothers and sisters from all places through my work and my words.
Please forgive my failure to do that in this instance.”
As theGrio previously reported, Oyelowo was asked about Druski’s sketch regarding British actors trying on American dialects to secure roles, along with fame, acclaim and more. While Oyelowo found humor in the sketch, he told “One54 Africa” hosts Akbar and Godfrey that it wasn’t “helpful” and called for collaboration, saying the issues only arise when a British actor finds “success” portraying an American, and that the issue stems from “insecurity.”
Later in the conversation, when asked to imitate a Southern accent, the actual backlash kicked in.
“If you take the Nigerian accent and slow it down, you put a lot of slavery in there … you put a little bit of subservience in there, this is what happens,” he said around the 3-hour mark of the conversation. The accent itself isn’t what conjured up the backlash; the mention of “subservience” and “slavery” did.