I was trying to figure out why I was getting so many referrals for “acting white.” This article (reg. req.) is why. In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Paul Tough writes (briefly) about a study that was the subject of this post:
Through a link on BlackElectorate.com, I found a recent study conducted by Duke University called “Breeding Animosity: The ‘Burden Of Acting White’ and Other Problems of Status Group Hierarchies in Schools….”The study is based on an earlier one conducted by Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu in the 1980s, which hypothesized that black students viewed high academic achievement as “acting white”, which is perceived to be a negative quality…
They found limited evidence of “racialized peer pressure against academic achievement in the high school level.” They claim the peer pressure is most likely to occur where blacks are “grossly underrepresented in the most demanding courses,” such as Advanced Placement classes.
Karolyn Tyson, William Darity, Jr., and Domini Catellino concluded: “The burden of ‘acting white’ does constitute a problem for some black adolescents…However, the problem is not one of culture as the original theory [Ogbu's] implied, but one of status group inequality in schools.”
Let me state my bias up front, as if people don’t already know. I believe the problem is cultural, and the sooner we admit that, the sooner we can find solutions to the problem. Therefore, I disagree with the study’s conclusion. But I will read it, all 76 pages, and blog about it. In fact, I’ll probably write a column. Newspaper editors like op-eds that summarize controversial studies.
I’d planned to write an op-ed about the study but got sidetracked with something else. I’m posting this entry to inform new readers about the study and to bring in more visitors doing searches for “acting white.” 
Totally Unrelated Update (5:00 p.m.): Well, slap some feathers on me and call me a chicken. Scott Peterson gets DEATH.
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Prometheus6′ take on “acting white” is worth checking out, too. There’s an NYT editorial re: the Darity study that is worth examining too.
LB: I guess I’d ask what “recognizing the problem is cultural” has to do with your potential solutions. I’ll simply parrot the editorial’s analysis of this behavior as being part of “youth culture”, which is right on point:
“When white burnouts give wedgies to white A students, the authors argue, it is seen as inevitable, but when the same dynamic is observed among black students, it is pathologized as a racial neurosis.”
I just have trouble with perceiving slacking off as a racial neurosis: in fact, I bet there are white readers of your blog that skipped a class or two during high school. And I bet they didn’t worry about it being a cultural problem.
Of course, being a liberal, I support slacking off because it is multicultural and all-inclusive. Diversity, baby.
Feels good to scoop the Times, doesn’t it?
I’m white and skipped a couple of classes in high school. And while there were always other white kids ready to call me a “nerd” when I got As, there were also always plenty of white kids to look down on me when I got Cs.
tvd,
Did you read the post and comments from when LB covered this before?
An interesting corollary is the cultural perception of blacks among white youths. My little brother is in middle school in a very wealthy urban town (Brookline) in Massachusetts, and his 6th grade class is probably 40% Jewish, 40% Anglo, 10% Asian, and 10% Black. I asked him once whether he was popular, and he said:
“Not really. If you’re black, then you’re popular. If you’re friends with black kids, then you’re kind of popular. If you’re just white, you’re not popular.”
With only one black friend, he didn’t score very high on the “coolness” chart. The perception among the pencil-necked, Harvard-bound Brookline kids that being black is equal to being “cool” is a testament to some seriously twisted stereotypes on TV and elsewhere in youth culture.
SCSI:
Not yet.
Salim:
Being black “is” cool. At least, I always thought so
LaShawn, In college (WVU) my brother, friend, and I sat in the very back row of calculus class. We’d come into class hung over and everybody knew it – including the teacher who would give us tests, call out out names and grades afterwards, and make the students walk to the front of class and get their papers. Our three grades averaged 99%; in fact, I didn’t even have to take my final due to my 100% average. The point is, we all were white, but we didn’t “act white” while we kicked all the other nerds butts, grade wise. Anybody can kick butt, and still remain “cool”.
At what age did you finally learn that being “cool” is utterly irrelevant? I know some 50+ folks who haven’t learned it yet.
Ouch!
Scott Peterson gets lifetime imprisonment. Saying he got the death penalty is hard to justify, considering California’s treatment of that penalty.
Hey Allen, I’d break every rule LaShawn has on profanity towards you if I could. I know drinking isn’t cool. My whole point was that you don’t have to be nerdy – or white – to do good in school. We balanced our social side with our academic side.
My point was not that drinking is “cool”. That’s why I put the word in quotes. I was mocking the notion of coolness. Drinking causing nothing but bad. My point was, you don’t have to be nerdy or white to do good in school. People need to balance their social side with their academic side – yin yang.
Bucktowndusty,
You act like students coming to class with hangovers at WVU is a rare thing. When I was there, it often seemed I was the only one who hadn’t been out all night drinking.
When I taught 6th grade for a number of years, I noticed that blacks “acting white” was not necessarily the predominant attitude. Mostly in our lower socio-economic suburban neighborhood, the white kids “acted black” in order to be cool. The baggier the pants, the strut in the stride, the exaggerated “ghetto” accent,the apparent unconcern for grades, all combined to present a cool black persona. Of course, these are stereotypes or charicatures of a race of people, but my students adopted it hook line and sinker in their quest to be cool.
Jesus Robin, It appears I can’t make a simple point without getting the 3rd degree. I feel like Siskel and Ebert are peering down on me! I’m afraid to post again.
Good point Sistersophist,
I would add that there is probably a great deal of typical youthful “rebellion” wrapped up in the “acting black” look.
(Way back) in my day it was black leather, greased back hair, cigarette-on-the-lip, and of course the swaggering pimp walk all in the name of coolness and “rebellion.”
I learned a long time ago that cool means basically not being afraid to be yourself and act and believe how you see fit, regardless of what anybody else thinks or does.
If you have to “act” like anything, then you aint cool.
I also agree that being cool is basically irrelevant to those with adult mentalities.
After spending most of my jr. high school and high school years as usually the only black male in the class (even in inner city Oakland), I decided to pass up attending school at home and attend a black college in Alabama… One thing that will always stick with me is that even in some of the more difficult undergrad classes– organic chemistry,calculus, engineering and such… I was saw “cool” brothas and sistas excelling in these classes… After class you’d see these same folks on the Ave with their cars with beat and the whole nine… but hard at work studying later in the evening and in class. My point being… cool or not has nothing to do with it… These kids need to realize that there is nothing wrong with performing to their highest aptitude and still being the cool kids they may be.
“LB: I guess I’d ask what ‘recognizing the problem is cultural’ has to do with your potential solutions.”
I would seek your opinion about potential solutions to this as well LaShawn Barber. Is this a ‘cultural’ problem?
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