re: Anyone else find British accents super annoying?

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I find white people in New Orleans saying “ax” instead of “ask” super amusing however.

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"Ax" for "ask" is VERY old and predates African-American Vernacular (AAVE). We have evidence that whites in New England said it in the 1700's and it almost certainly came over from England. The same is true of "be" for "is/are/am."

John Neal (an American novelist born 1789) wrote his novels in phonetic vernacular where you can see all of this. He later wrote an article on the funny speech of people in rural Maine (where he was from) during the American Revolutionary days. Here are some words he mentioned:

Afraid was "afeard"
Ask was "ax."
Chair was "cheer" (scare was "skeer")
Concern was "consarn"
Drowned was "drownded"
Fellow was "feller"
Seen was "see'd"
This/those was "this here" or "them there"

And my favorite from Neal. He said American sailors sometimes said "Shiver me timbers." Neal noted this phrase about 60 years before the novel "Treasure Island" was written. So, yes, it was something actually said on both sides of the pond (the author of Treasure Island was a Brit).

This all sounds very hillbilly to us now, and only heard in rural Appalachia. But it was once far more common and normal in early America. Black people have "maintained' some of these old pronunciation quirks because they were always a tight-knit and sort of segregated community. This is common all around the world - rural people often speak in "old" dialects that modern people think are "weird." In reality they are just old.