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.”
This problem isn't confined to black students. Unfortunately one of my sons (white) once told me that if he studied hard in high school he would be "acting Asian".
ping
Ho-hum. Just keep failing and making excuses, but not on my dime.
Maybe. Ogbu's research in Shaker Hts., OH, showed that the children of successful blacks often climbed back into the bucket of their own accord. With help, of course, from the 'mainstream' thug culture.
Also, schools that have + and - letter grades will call A 4.0 and A+ 4.333.
Choices. We all make them and we reap the consequences of the decisions we made and acted out.
A friend who is a black, professional woman in L.A. has bemoaned this forever.
If 'acting white'= being educated, speaking basic English,having goals,etc; then 'acting black' must be being UNeducated, unintelligible speech, and having no goals for betterment.
And this is GOOD?
Please tell me that an entire race of people have not only defined- but defend- being black as poor, stupid,lazy and illiterate.
I think it's still okay to excel in some sports and rap music.
Nail - hammer
Good
Why should it amaze you? They don't have a chance because of the discrimination so why should they even try. The only answer to this is to seek government's help. Affirmative action, reparations, ebonics training and welfare to even the score. The achievers are traitors and should be discouraged at all costs or the culture will be lost forever.
Unfortunately the DNC takes this crap out of the High Schools and applies it to adult black Republicans.
Well said
Of course. it's whitey's fault that the taunt "acting white" ever formed.
Please...
And of course the SUCCESSFUL black students will say the taunt didn't affect them. It's self-evident, isn't it?
It's the group you ask if you want the answer to be "no".
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