Posted on 06/17/2006 11:38:57 AM PDT by wagglebee
Courtney Smith figures she heard it nearly every day she was in public school:
“Courtney acts white.” “Courtney talks white.” “Courtney thinks she’s all that.”
Just because she did well in school and spoke proper English.
“The black friends I did have, we were the overachievers,” said Smith, now a 20-year-old journalism major at Norfolk State University who hopes to be a news anchor. “We knew that we 'talked white,’ and we were going to continue doing that. We didn’t care if we were teased.”
The “acting white” theory – that some black students are dissuaded from trying their hardest in school for fear of being teased by peers – has moved beyond academia and into public consciousness. It often comes up in discussion of the persistent gap in educational achievement between blacks and whites.
Now a group of researchers is saying the focus on the theory of acting white isn’t right.
“Somehow it has reached a level of prominence that is not warranted,” said Erin McNamara Horvat , one of the co-editors of “Beyond Acting White,” a collection of essays recently published by Rowman and Littlefield .
“It’s an explanation and it’s easy,” said Horvat, an associate professor of urban education at Temple University. “For some people, it puts the problem back on the students themselves.”
Horvat acknowledges that black students face pressure not to “act white.” She’s seen it in her own research. Yet she says it’s just one of many factors, including school financing and the distribution of top teachers, that could explain the “achievement gap.”
Plenty of high-achieving black students besides Smith have shrugged off the “acting white” comments.
“As I’ve gone through my whole school career, people have called me white because I’ve made good grades and didn’t conform to the stereotype,” said Ixavion Wright , 18, who graduated Thursday from Norfolk’s Lake Taylor High School. “My whole take on it was, I didn’t really care. I chose to be different. I just went to school and did what I had to do to make good grades.”
Wright graduated at the top of his class, with a 4.0-plus average – his only B was in calculus. He plans to begin pre-med studies at the University of California at San Diego in the fall. Wright, however, thinks the “acting white” pressure influenced other students: “They feel they’re supposed to be cool, and cool is not supposed to be making good grades in school.”
Douglas Reeves , an author and researcher on education in Boston, said a web of factors, including the availability of Advanced Placement courses and experienced teachers, influences the achievement of black and white students. “Acting white,” he said, shouldn’t be discounted.
“What we have is a generation of research and common sense that peer pressure is really important,” said Reeves, who is a paid consultant for Norfolk Public Schools. “Peers follow peer pressure for good and ill.”
He also noted the work of Harvard University researcher Roland Fryer , who examined thousands of teen responses to a national mental health survey. Fryer found that the popularity of white students soared, while the popularity of black and Hispanic students plummeted, when their grades rose above a 3.5 average .
The effect, he wrote, was more pronounced at integrated schools than at predominantly black schools. Fryer declined to be interviewed last week , saying in an e-mail that he didn’t want to “get into a back and forth discussion with other scholars on this.”
Horvat’s book, however, cites opposing research. One essay concluded that black students, particularly in the early grades, “value education and want to do well academically.” Another, interviewing black students in Charlotte, N.C., found that many avoided high-level courses not for fear of “acting white,” but because they saw too few blacks in them.
Yardan Shabazz , an English teacher at Indian River High in Chesapeake, can’t escape the “acting white” debate. He makes a speech at least once a year after a bright student gets mocked by another student. It goes like this: “What are you implying when you accuse this student of acting white? You’re saying that only whites should be able to speak clearly?”
“It has been my soapbox for so many years,” Shabazz said, but he acknowledges it probably has little effect.
The “acting white” theory originated 20 years ago with the doctoral dissertation of Signithia Fordham , who studied teens at a Washington high school. Now the Susan B. Anthony professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Rochester, she has complained that her work has been wrenched from its context and oversimplified.
“Acting white,” Fordham said Friday , is not limited to schools. Nor, she said, should black students be seen as the culprits; the issue stems in large part from experiences with racism.
Zina McGee , a sociology professor at Hampton University, agreed that the “acting white” phenomenon – which she termed “quite influential” – is linked to obstacles facing students, such as reduced expectations for blacks in the classroom.
The Rev. B. Courtney McBath , the senior pastor at Calvary Revival Church in Norfolk, got razzed for “acting white” when he was growing up in Tennessee. That didn’t stop him from attending MIT.
The best defense, McBath thinks, is “the environment of the home. If parents have taught their children that education can lead you to success in life, then the 'acting white’ idea is not as influential in the life of that child.”
And it doesn’t have to be parents. Daniel Davis , 19, a recent graduate of Princess Anne High in Virginia Beach, counts “older African Americans, teachers and counselors” as his inspiration. “A lot told me that I had potential and I could go far,” said Davis, who is headed to Norfolk State. “It stuck in my head.” So he turned the “acting white” insults into “a positive thing making me do better for my future.”
Some successful black students say they haven’t been plagued by “acting white” taunts. Darius Vines , 18, who will graduate Sunday from Kempsville High in Virginia Beach and enroll at Howard University, thinks he was shielded by hanging out with those of different races and immersing himself in a range of activities.
For Wright, the valedictorian at Lake Taylor, it was never a tough battle.
“I chose to break down the barriers, as far as the stereotypical African American male, and do well in school,” he said. “I think everyone else should achieve as high as they can, because in the end it’s all going to pay off.”
Heck yeah he gets it. More power to 'im!
The part you left out: when Ixavion points out that the homies' lifestyles are the result of own choices and actions, they'll crucify him and demand more of his tax dollars.
After all, those who've gotten lucky at the gaming table of life ought to pay the way for those who didn't.
The problem is that this demented thinking even exists among the children of successful people.
There was a black kid who grew up down the street from me. His father was a surgeon and he grew up in a six-bedroom house with a pool, tennis court and a maid.
I didn't see him after high school and then ran into him one day about ten years later. He was in what could best be described as a gang and was talking with his friends about how the white man was "oppressing" them and "keeping them down."
I just shook my head and walked away.
"Wright graduated at the top of his class, with a 4.0-plus average – his only B was in calculus."
How do you get a 4.0+ when 4.0 is perfect and how can you be perfect if you got a 'B' in calculus? This doesn't compute.
There is an anecdote from Eugene Volokh that illustrates this concept:
There's an old Soviet joke about the man who visits Hell. (Actually, there are many different Soviet jokes about the man who visits Hell.) In Hell, there are three giant cauldrons in which the sinners are being boiled. On the rim of one stands a regiment of demons, shoulder to shoulder, constantly using their pitchforks to smack down the sinners who are trying to escape. On the rim of the second walk a few demons, who occasionally whack someone down. The rim of the third is empty, but no-one is getting out.
What's going on here?, the visitor asks. "There are three kinds of people," the Devil says. (In the original joke, they are Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians, but in honor of the 2004 Orange Revolution I've sworn off Ukrainian jokes.) "The first kind is in the first cauldron. When one looks like he's trying to escape, all the rest follow him. We need a lot of demons to manage them.
"The second kind is in the second cauldron. Occasionally someone is trying to escape, but the others don't pay any attention. It takes just a few demons to deal with this kind.
"The third kind is in the third cauldron: When one is starting to escape, all the others drag him back down by the ankles."
http://volokh.com/posts/1148363820.shtml
You're lucky they don't feel like you are obligated to support them.
The “acting white” theory – that some black students are dissuaded from trying ...for fear of being teased .. ."
"This has also been a problem among hispanics."
I remember when the same pressure not to do well was popular in my middle class white suburb in the late 50's/early 60's.
Possibly it's an age thing with teen-agers, period?
Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys -- a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught.
The brown monkey's instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.
Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact.
It's already happening...
It is part of every school culture. Thr high academic achiever must also be good at sports or some other activity that the low-achievers respect. But this gopes hand in hand with that crazy movement to institutionalize "black English" as a distinct dialect.
They used to call this acting like an Uncle Tom, but I don't think anyone who uses that term as a slur has ever read Stowe's novel. Uncle Tom is a Christ-like figure who sacrifices himself out of love.
A "B" in calculus,and still has a 4.0?Good point.Back in my day a 4.0 was perfect.You are correct,it doesn't add up.I do know students featured in the local paper have gpa's higher than 4.0.Maybe it's the "new" math they're teaching these days??
I grew up surrounded by hippies, my high school was full of hippies. My university was full of hippies who were pretty nasty to those who shaved and bathed on a regular basis.
What is the difference?
In my senior year I took and failed a Grade 10 course in German and it didn't affect my GPA.
It certainly is.
My children are called 'whitey' or wera/wero(derogatory 'blondie') by my husband's hispanic relatives...And my kids are still only babies. These Aunts and Uncles are constantly pointing out how white they are in comparison with the all-hispanic children.
Ironically, my daughter's 'colored' (hazel) eyes make her prettier to her relatives than my other children's brown eyes. Go figure.
Well, some of us make it.
It wasn't easy then and it still isn't at times. But I have to keep the eyes on the prize.
The thing that's even more amazing to me is this mindset...
When one of us does succeed, then we get flak from the same people who called us toms and sellouts about "not putting back into the 'hood".
Now why would I want to do anything for these people when they did nothing but denigrate me studying and working hard?
The absolute chutzpah!
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