Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation by Stuart Buck

Author:Stuart Buck [Buck, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2010-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

9

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

“When you speak proper English and don’t use Ebonics or slang, they say, ‘Why are you acting white?’… They say, ‘Yo, what’s up?’ I say my name’s not Yo.”

—Student from Binghamton, New York, 2007

This book will be controversial in some circles, if only because I say that “acting white” exists and should be taken seriously. To some people, it is borderline racist to suggest that any cultural factors might contribute to the fact that black students lag far behind white students. What’s more, if you say that some black students think of studiousness as “acting white,” it is as if you have accused black students of bizarre and nonsensical behavior. These critics appear to believe that “acting white” must be downplayed or denied at all costs, because if it did exist, it would be an inexcusable form of stupidity.

As it happens, I think that those critics are wrong all the way around. They are wrong in claiming that “acting white” is a myth. But they are also wrong in assuming that “acting white” is nonsensical and inexcusable behavior. Indeed, I would defend the “acting white” criticism as entirely normal.

To be sure, normal does not mean beneficial. Rather, it is normal in the sense that eating too much sugar is normal—it is behavior that arises from deeply rooted and commonplace desires that made sense throughout our history, but that, unfortunately, can be destructive if given full rein today.

Thus, in order to have an idea how the “acting white” criticism might be reduced, we need to understand the powerful psychological forces that generate it in the first place.

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