A Quote by Ruth Westheimer
When I came to this country, people told me that if I wanted to teach and work here, I would have to take speech lessons to lose my accent. But it helped me greatly, because when people turned on the radio, they knew it was me.
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Some people are embarrassed to say they came from East St. Louis, Ill., but now more people want to claim it. I grew up in a community center and I knew what it gave me. I always knew I wanted to give back and help people because people helped me.
Early on, people told me I was making Chinese people look bad. I've been living with this accent. I had already been doing standup for a while. I knew my voice already. I myself never wanted to make my accent the butt of the joke. I never want it to be, 'I'm laughing at your accent.'
My goal was to play drums, but my father made me take piano lessons. He told me I needed to learn to read music first, so I took lessons for six years. I thank God that he made me take those lessons, because it taught me a tremendous amount.
I'm very lucky, because it's a combination of the German, the Hebrew, the Swiss, the French, and that accent helped because as soon as people heard it they knew it was me.
I knew Childress was going to help me because my crew told me on the radio. I really appreciate what Richard did, but that is typical of people in this sport.
I have had people come up to me in the street - one woman actually told me she hated my accent, she can't believe I'm on the telly and my accent is so annoying. I ended up laughing because I thought, 'this person doesn't know me but she felt she could come up and slate my accent.'
When I first started out, being from the South and going to New York or Chicago, people kept telling me to get voice lessons and 'lose that stupid accent you got.' And I'm like, 'Well, where I come from, you have the stupid accent.'
To be honest, I didn't think I would be here for this album [Give the People What They Want]. I thought I was going to die. When the doctor came in by himself and told me I had cancer, it was frightening. He told me he got it and there would be six months of chemo. I really thought people would be promoting my record without me here to enjoy it. But I'm here.
My mom had always wanted me to better myself. I wanted to better myself because of her. Now when the strikes started, I told her I was going to join the union and the whole movement. I told her I was going to work without pay. She said she was proud of me. (His eyes glisten. A long, long pause.) See, I told her I wanted to be with my people. If I were a company man, nobody would like me anymore. I had to belong to somebody and this was it right here.
When I first went to acting school, they made me lose my accent, which is very upsetting for me. The first day of Shakespeare class, I remember the professor was like, 'Oh, boy. Oh no, no, no, no. No, no, no,' and sent me to a voice and speech class to get rid of the accent immediately.
Contrary to what people say, my wife never turned me away from the presidency. She told me to reflect on it and do what I wanted.
When I turned 12 or 13 years old, even as a dad, you can't make a kid play anymore, but up until that point, he pushed me to keep playing, and when I turned 13, I didn't want to do anything else. He was just there with me at the cage every day because I wanted him to go with me and throw to me and work on what I needed to work on.
As a kid, I hated home, and I just wanted so much to learn or do something that could take me away and keep me away forever. And then I got blessed to get to make music and meet people who wanted to work with me. And then, the next thing I knew, I was on the road, and I was gone.
Coaches would have me in the gym do 1,000 kicks for a practice. I would do them until everyone was gone, until I had done all my kicks. People asked me why I would do it - that's stupid. But my coach told me to do something like that, and I knew it would benefit me, and I would do it.
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I grew up with the idea that someone might hate you if they knew what religion you were; being afraid to open my mouth because my accent might make people think something about me. Or even if they didn't, would they understand me?
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