Left-Handedness.
The year is 1905.
Born into a blue-collar family in the UK with blue-collar expectations, you are mediocre in everything. Your father works in a factory. Your mother is a homemaker.
You? You are expected to work in a factory.
Your life path is set.
Except for one thing.
As you walk towards your front door to leave for school, you reach for the door handle with your left hand.
That’s right. You are left-handed.
You are just that unlucky.
Your father catches you using your left hand.
“How many times do I have to tell you!! Use your Goddamn right hand! Your teacher is going to beat you. Heck, I should beat you.”
Your father knows what it means to be left-handed.
After all, he’s seen Paul at work.
Paul, a left hander, is clumsy - an oaf. He can’t operate the factory machines. His writing with the dip pen is rubbish, smudged and blotted all over the page. He isn’t getting promoted. He’ll work the same job til he dies.
Your father just wants a better life for you. And that means you have to fix your left-handedness.
Now, only a hundred years ago, your life was different if you were left-handed.
The scissors weren’t comfortable.
The machines were designed for right-handed use.
You were clumsy because things were awkward for you.
They weren’t designed for you.
If the world you live in isn’t designed for you, things are a little harder to navigate. The world is a little less straightforward.
Fast-forward 100 years and left-handedness isn’t that big of a deal. Now it’s just a feature. There’s nothing about it.
This is how I feel accents are like.
The world is a little backwards in the sense that people have prejudices and expectations dependent on the native language of an area.
So, yes, it is an asset to know and be able to communicate well in English. But, it is, in part, related to the idea that the community was derived from an English-speaking only society.
As our world became more interconnected, other languages became mixed and the world as a whole is better for it.
Cultures have blended, been shared, been protected.
Yes, there are still struggles. It is the growing pains of a society based on assumptions - like everyone needing to be right-handed.
And yes, sometimes there are still reasons and skills that are ‘right-handed’ for you to learn to work well in your environment.
Like handshakes, the default is still a right-handed handshake.
Or using a public computer. The standard is still a right-handed mouse.
But you don’t have to give up your ‘left-handedness’. You don’t need to see being ‘right-handed’ as better. Instead, it’s just a moment when right-handedness is an asset.
Your accent is a feature. It is a feature of where you lived and grew up. It is a feature of your native language. And it is a part of you, just like handedness.
But, it isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a thing.
