Two of us in one class!
Who knows how long the phrase "acting white" has been around, but it was institutionalized in a study in the 1980s by Fordham and Ogbu. In an attempt to understand the achievement gap between Black and White students, Fordham and Ogbu studied a group of Washington D.C. students.
The way I understand it, they figured that Black students had a few choices when it came to succeeding in school:
Now you see my grades - now you don't!
- camouflaging their success
- forgetting their Blackness and becoming, in essence, raceless
- not succeeding at all
Fordham and Ogbu suggested that in order for Black students to be successful, they didn't just have to do well in school, they had to figure out how to make it jive with their Blackness. This added pressure was apparently too much for some kids, so they decided to not deal with it by failing.
WHICH MEANS that a big reason Black kids weren't doing well in schools was because they didn't want to.
Ok, so there are a lot of problems with their "acting white" theory, which a lot of sociologists and researchers are still writing about, but surprisingly it has still remained a legitimate way of thinking about Black students (and other students of color, for that matter).
Hopefully by now you see a problem with it too. Are we to believe that an entire contingent of kids aren't doing well because they don't want to?
Sociologists Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey suggest that the real reason "acting white" became an acceptable reason for the achievement gap was that it put the blame on the kids; no longer were the schools totally at fault for the achievement gap - the kids were!
Well, I took all those AP and Honors classes (except for the science ones because that was never my thing) and I never thought doing well in school meant I was "acting white." I admit Green Day and Ben Folds Five were my jams back in the day, so maybe that put me in ambiguous territory, but it sure wasn't my grades.
Studies show that a lot of Black students relate with The Real Shakur. According to some recent papers, "acting white" exists but it has nothing to do with being a good student. And assuming that really is the case (which I think it is), then HALLELUJAH! There are issues in the schools, but it ain't the kids' fault.
2 comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure the "acting white" hypothesis posits that kids are failing b/c they don't want to do well -- thus making it their fault. I've always interpreted it as positing that some kids who do well are stigmatized. In other words, kids are afraid of what will happen if they do well -- which is different from not wanting to do well.
It seems to me that one connection between fearing something and not doing it is the choice to not pursue it. Which, to me, means that one implication of the theory is that black students who are fearful of being called white would do things to avoid it.
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