The Other N Word
by Racialicious Special Correspondent Latoya Peterson
The most provocative ideas seem to fly out of nowhere.
I was listening the community discussion of Jabari Asim’s new book The N-Word: Who Should Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why and I was enjoying the depth of conversation explored by the attendees. One woman, when recounting her experiences made an interesting and illuminating comment.
As a Caucasian woman raising a biracial child who identifies as black, she explained having a lengthy discussion with her child about his casual use of the N-word with his multicultural group of friends. The woman’s son informed her that the n-word was no longer a stigmatized term. What was worse, the son explained, was the “other N-word.”
Puzzled, I leaned forward in my seat. As I shivered in the aggressively air conditioned meeting room, I did a quick scan of my mental word bank to figure out another n-word. Nothing. The woman continued.
The other N-word was nerd.
Damn.
The discussion continued to swirl around me, but that phrase stuck with me for the rest of the evening.
The following day, I attended my younger sister’s high school graduation. A graduate of Charles Herbert Flowers High School (focusing on the Science and Technology program) I am pleased to share that my younger sister graduated in the top 5% of her class.
However, she was outdone by both the class valedictorian and salutatorian, both of whom boasted advanced GPAs, (4.8 and 5.2, I believe), SAT scores, college level course work (one of them had completed Calculus 3), and numerous community service projects.
Both of these young men confidently approached the podium and spoke of opportunity, achievement, and success. As they spoke, I wondered if they had already felt the sting of the “other n-word.” Outwardly, they were both attractive, seemingly popular young men. What were their lives like? Did they feel penalized for the intellect? Did they feel the burden, the unrelenting pressure placed upon those deemed young, gifted, and black?
After the tassels were turned, I fought through the throng of graduate families to find my younger sister. After giving her my congratulations, I asked her if her valedictorian and salutatorian were ostracized for being so smart.
“No…” she replied, as if thinking about that concept for the first time. “They are really normal.” Apparently the boys had a strong group of friends and both had been dating – a far cry from the nerdy, awkward intellectual stereotype. Apparently, they were living just a normal teenaged existence. Then again, my sister does attend a school with a magnet program.
I kept thinking about the ideas and views on intellectual achievement in the black community, particularly in light of Thomas Chatterton Williams’ article in the Washington Post on Monday. In his article “Black Culture Beyond Hip-Hop,” Williams writes:
As John H. McWhorter emphasizes in his book “Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America,” “forty years after the Civil Rights Act, African-American students on the average are the weakest in the United States, at all ages, in all subjects, and regardless of class level.” Reading and math proficiency test results consistently show this. Clearly, this nostalgie de la boue, this longing for the mud, exacts a hefty price.
A 2005 study by Roland G. Fryer of Harvard University crystallizes the point: While there is scarce dissimilarity in popularity levels among low-achieving students, black or white, Fryer finds that “when a student achieves a 2.5 GPA, clear differences start to emerge.” At 3.5 and above, black students “tend to have fewer and fewer friends,” even as their high-achieving white peers “are at the top of the popularity pyramid.” With such pressure to be real, to not “act white,” is it any wonder that the African American high school graduation rate has stagnated at 70 percent for the past three decades?
The concept of a pervasive culture of non-achievement is argued by many scholars in and outside the black community, including the above referenced John McWhorter. In his first offering, Losing the Race, McWhorter writes about being mercilessly teased at the hands of other African-Americans because he was more interested in language tapes than in socializing or sports.
I understand his perspective, but it is not an experience that I shared. Growing up inquisitive and intelligent did not brand me with a scarlet letter n. While I remember being teased about being bookish and nerdy, it was never a malicious kind of teasing. My friends and classmates would say things like “Toya reads the dictionary for fun,” but always in a more fraternal, playful kind of manner. Even those who teased me about “talking like a white girl” never made any derogatory comments about my intelligence. In fact, most of the comments about my mental capacity were made respectfully – being smart may not be for them, but they would never say anything to dissuade someone else from pursuing knowledge.
I called my friend Ken to get another perspective on the matter. Ken is smart – like speaks multiple languages, got sent to space camp in middle school smart. I figured he could help shed some light on the issue.
“Yeah…you know, it was kind of the same for me,” Ken confirmed. We discussed the attitudes of our friends and family when it came to intelligence, and how our minority backgrounds impact the pursuit of learning. For the most part, people seem to fall into two camps: the implied education camp (”you will go to school, you will achieve, you will go to college”) and the education-is-not-for-me-but-be-proud-you’re-smart contingent.
Either way, being intelligent was a quality we both possessed but do not remember being penalized for daring to think.
Still, popular intellectual black thought says that smart black children will be penalized for their smart little thoughts and fall into a cycle of underachievement.
I wonder to myself, is that assertion still correct? I do not doubt that bullying exists – but bullying solely for the crime of being intelligent? Is this a definitive snapshot of today’s youth culture?
Or is this thought process reflective of the older generation failing to think about intelligence and intellect in new ways? In an era where scholastic achievement is stagnating but entrepreneurial efforts are flourishing, are we simply looking at an outdated model of what it means to be smart?
Hopefully, the clothing company Dangerous Negro is on to something with one of their new tee-shirt slogans: Smart is the new gangsta.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
jessica wrote:
This was a great article. After graduating from a private school where I was one of 10 black students with an enrollment of 500 I went to the local high school. (Private boarding school just wasn’t for me.) Entering in 10th grade was hard enough, but for me, most of the kids knew each other since grade school. They weren’t receptive to me to begin with and I was trying to infiltrate their cliques. While I lived in the same neighborhoods as they did, I didn’t know them. They teased me for “talkin’ white”, knowing who my father was, why I had that “African” accent, (I was born in Jamaica), and the fact that my father lived in the home with my mother, that they were married, and the fact that he was biologically my father as well.
It got worse when our Advanced Chemistry teacher needed a week off and they couldn’t find a qualified sub. My father, substituted the entire week teaching us covalent bonds and what NaCL was. He had locks to the floor, spoke in English with a Cuban inflection and thorougly enjoyed Chemistry. That was the end of it for me. The teasing didn’t stop until I graduated in 1991. They never let me live down the fact that my father was smart. I in turn dumbed down, sat in the back of the class, closed up, but still managed to graduate 7th in my class. So… Latoya I know EXACTLY where you are coming from.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 9:57 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
Hi Jessica,
I am glad you enjoyed the article, but I did not share that kind of experience.
It is interesting to hear that you were taunted for being different. I think the behavior that you describe is indicative of what teasing is – “smart” was one of the ways people penalized you for being different. They also teased you about your manner of speech and other things, right?
Part of a theory I am working through – and let me know if I am way off – is that smart is a point of insecurity, but not the sole trigger of bullying. So if someone bullies you for being smart, it is normally them hating for another reason – they are just using intelligence to try to take you down.
Also, I wonder if your experiences were the same post high school? Outside of that den of insecurity, did people perceive your intelligence and drive the same way?
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 10:10 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
While I was the object of the occasional “you think you’re white” teasing (if white = intelligent, doing well in school, and speaking “clearly,” then what does black mean? Why do we hold ourselves back?), most of the ostracism came from my own family (not my mother, but maternal extended family) who, in the typical “expectations for the southern woman” fashion felt that dating a boy, having a child, and/or getting married (in no particular order) was more important than anything else. Only my great-grandparents respected the value of education. The rest basically ignored my academic accomplishments or even made fun of me (my aunt always made sure to talk like a valley girl to ridicule the way I spoke, even though my manner of speech is accentless and not valley girl-ish at all…). In the end, I think they realize that my hard work in school paid off, but I’m sure an engagement ring would be much bigger news back in Memphis than a new job or a degree…
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 10:16 am ¶
jessica wrote:
I guess what I meant was that I understood the article from the point of being teased for being smart.
I definitely think that I was being teased in high school for being smart and different, for being an immigrant, and for being a little naive as well. I watched “A Different World” on TV. I think I romanticized attending an all black high school from the very beginning. The bullying from being smart was just a way to break me down because from there it was the clothes I wore (all kids of Jamaican/West Indian parents wore Travel Fox shoes in all colors), not having the right jacket (I begged my mother for that coveted leather 8 ball jacket for years), or the latest weave.
Post high school I attended a Historically Black College and since we were all there for the same reasons the teasing-because-you-are-smart stuff stopped. In college, it became the “you’re cute to be so dark”, “aren’t you gonna perm your hair,” and “what do you mean your family isn’t from the south” conversations.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 10:42 am ¶
thejoyprincess wrote:
Latoya, I am glad you wrote this and I think it’s worth being a longer piece, maybe a counterpoint?
In elementary school, the same girls who played with me in the neighborhood for years accused me of acting white/being a nerd.
They didn’t like the visible joy I showed when I received good grades, how I was quick to raise my hand to answer a question, etc.
Shoot, being a nerd had benefits like pizza and ice cream parties, or extra Oregon Trail time on the Apple IIe’s!
Still, I knew better than to dumb myself down. I was always clear that those girls were coming from a place of jealousy that helped foster their own underachievement. And like PG, PG-13 and R-rated movies for me at the time, that was off-limits. Rather face the wrath of salty little black girls than the belt from my parents who were supreme overachievers and expected the same out of me very early on.
In middle and high school (before I left for boarding school) it switched up a bit. I was in magnet programs and found myself around other black kids who supported each other doing well. Acting white was Acting Black, which meant getting good grades, doing great projects, collecting awards and ribbons for whatever! And these kids were not shunned, or bullied, some were popular with lots of friends! We’re talking early 90s now.
The kids who saw themselves as less smart ribbed us but they did it sort of admiringly, umm, I think, LOL. Mainly these were kids in the non-magnet programs who we were separated from most of the time. That’s a whole other essay!
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:09 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
Sadly I was called “white”, “oreo” or heard, “you ain’t all that” (apparently I was/am). What these kids didn’t know, was that my ethnic background and family expectations vs. low expectations from whites pushed me to succeed.
Unfortunately, anti-intellectualism is all too prevalent.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:11 am ¶
dnA wrote:
I am also feeling the itch to write about this subject. In my experience, being called white has more to do with how you talk, how you wear your clothes and what music you listen to, rather than how smart you are or whether or not you do your work. I’m not rationalizing that it is therefore okay, I’m just stating that I’m not convinced being called white has to do with outward displays of intelligence. No one wants to be a dummy.
But the idea that intelligence is intrinsic to whites is not something black people came up with. I think what bothers me most about these discussions is that while white people decry this kind of “racism”, everything in society reinforces the connection between whiteness and intellectual excellence, and the effect of this on non-white people is rarely discussed when dealing with this issue.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:37 am ¶
LM wrote:
Great topic… and an incredibly complex problem. For me the only clear-cut solution is to acknowledge education as key. Simplistic, yes, but when this isn’t taken for granted by enough adults, kids take the cue and slide. Obviously there’s much more to say but I’ve got only 24 hours today. I hope we revisit this soon.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 11:42 am ¶
ss wrote:
you might be talking about one experience – growing up in a typically education-oriented atmosphere (in terms of family/friends/school system). however, there are lots of people out there who do not have that support system and if they are making the attempt to focus more on education in a system that doesn’t give them the same amount of support and encouragement, YES, it can be discouraging to want to do well in school – there are pressures from peers, like ‘who do you think you are? you think you’re better than us?’ or they might be discouraged by the very people who are supposed to be helping them achieve their educational goals (i.e. teachers). I definitely can’t say one n-word is worse than the other. But both have repercussions and different contextual meanings to each person/group depending on their surroundings.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 12:51 pm ¶
berrybrowne wrote:
i’m loving that a lot of the commentors (and of course you, latoya) share my experience that being smart and black did not doom me to a lack of friendship or peer acceptance. i was actually homeschooled for about half of my education – which was great – but during my time at public high school i formed close friendships with the black kids and other kids of color who were in honors classes with me. the fact that i didn’t really know many of the black kids in my school i think was more a function of us not being in the same classes. my experience was that many white kids were in honors classes because their parents knew how to work the system, not so much their superior intelligence, and that black parents actually believe the american myth of the meritocracy, so they didn’t pull strings to get their kids in honors classes. schools are re-segregated through honors, gifted and talented, magnet and other specialty programs. by keeping groups separate, the “system” isolates the black students who are either simply high-achieving or who have parents with the savvy and education to ensure their children can access the same educational perks that white kids can.
when i went to law school, i attended a majority institution and found that the “acting white” thing was actually a misguided point of pride for my small number of black peers. they’d been hearing – more from white people than black people (as was my experience) – that their intelligence and achievement made them different from other black people, throughout their lives. when confronted by other intelligent, high-achieving black people, they felt threatened and instead of us working together, we competed with one another. i transferred to an hbcu for my remaining years of law school and it was one of the best decisions i ever made. there i found an incredible diversity of super smart black people who were hip, cultured and connected to their communities.
i think we have to reject the rhetoric of those like mcwhorter, who think that the “acting white/smart” thing is a black construction and ensure that we cast at least an equal amount of blame on the broader society that is astonished whenever black folks break out of the stereotype. as one of my professors said when a white student pointed out how “bright” one of the black characters in a novel was, “i find it interesting that white people are always astonished to find that educated black people are intelligent. it’s like, ‘oh my! the little monkey can talk!’”
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 1:02 pm ¶
Blanky wrote:
Nerds–white, black, yellow, brown, red, or something in-between–always have had the short end of it.
Anti-intellectualism is an issue in high-schools and some colleges.
In the Asian/Hispanic-majority schools I grew up in, whites and blacks sort of banded together. Being smart became acting “Asian”; being “ghetto” became acting “Mexican.”
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 1:24 pm ¶
Keke wrote:
I can definitely relate to this article. I spent my life up to the fifth grade going to schools that were very mixed or almost all white. When my family and I were forced to move into a different neighborhood, I found that things were quite different there. Previously, I had had friends of all different colors who were just as smart and accomplished as I was. Being labeled “gifted” in my old school had been an honor and most of my classmates participated in friendly competition to see who could get the best grades.
When I moved to the part of town that was predominantly Black, things changed. Although at my old school I had been a great student, I wasn’t considered the absolute best. In my new school, I was considered the smartest person there. I was further along in my studies than all the other students and was often bored in class and spent most of the time tutoring my classmates. Much of the information they were learning I had learned long ago. Many of my classmates would accuse me of cheating if I finished a test in fifteen minutes while they struggled the entire class period.
I was made a target. Everyone hated me. The teachers and administrators often tried to intervene, but they only made things worse. When they needed examples of how well the academics were, they would pull me out of class and show me off like I was some sort of science project. It didn’t help that I spoke with like a “white girl.” I got teased mercilessly about it. To make up for the lack of academics in school, my parents opted for tutors. I continued to excel past my peers in every subject. I had a miserable, lonely existence. I didn’t actually start to meet more like minded people until high school. In high school, I was placed into an accelerated program where there were kids of all different colors and backgrounds with similar abilities. It was only then that I felt accepted.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 1:28 pm ¶
Winn wrote:
Great discussion! I think there may be many contextual levels to this discussion, including age and geographical location. I grew up in an affluent suburb in Texas, and received relentless teasing from other blacks about “talking white”, being “an oreo”, and not “staying black”. As a result, although I had close white, Asian, and Latino friends, I had only a few close black friends, and they were similarly ostracized, because they were perceived the same way I was. I agree with dNa: although I was teased for taking honors and AP classes and playing Academic Decathalon, I wasn’t perceived as a “nerd”. I just didn’t act or talk stereotypically “black”, listened to “white” music and had interests that many of the other black students couldn’t relate to. I am in my mid-thirties now, and I hope that the experiences Latoya and her friend Ken relayed are more indicative of the way things are today than the popular myth. But I also share an experience with Wendi in that my family, including college-educated relatives, also teased me about “talking white” and not knowing who I was. I could handle being criticized by school-mates, but my own family was a different story. Education was prized and respected, but seeming to emulate the dominant culture was definitely not!
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 1:32 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
many white kids were in honors classes because their parents knew how to work the system, not so much their superior intelligence, and that black parents actually believe the american myth of the meritocracy, so they didn’t pull strings to get their kids in honors classes. schools are re-segregated through honors, gifted and talented, magnet and other specialty programs
YES!!
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 1:58 pm ¶
dnA wrote:
I’ve said this before, but its so hard for me to buy the idea that black folks are particularly anti-intellectual when we elected a president who couldn’t pronounce nuclear.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 2:21 pm ¶
Gouw wrote:
Sup guys, I’m mostly Asian and from NY, with a little bit of African but you sorta have to squint. As an Asian in a school with a large Asian population I find that there’s little teasing about intelligence, but rather if you’re Asian and get good grades, some people think it’s because you study a ton. Not me because I’m bloody lazy. Anybody else deal with this?
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 3:20 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
Wow.
I am floored by the comments. Thanks to everyone who took the time to share their experience.
I should probably clairfy – I should never say I wasn’t teased for being smart. I can remember a couple occassions being called out by people. But these were the same people who teased me about my k-mart shoes and my lack of brand name clothing, so I guess I seperated it from other kinds of teasing.
When I got older, I stopped being teased all together – nothing outwardly had changed, but I had decided that all I was ever going to be able to be is myself – lacking inflection, speaking proper english, reading nerdy books, listening to rock and hip-hop. Once I became unshakeable in my position, no one really messed with me. Maybe it was confidence? I couldn’t tell you, but I guess ignorant kids who couldn’t deal stood clear.
I do remember being called out publicly with someone trying to embarass me for being smart – that person was a senior being held back, and at the time I was a junior. But again, his isolated comments did not categorize my experience.
Generationally speaking, I’m 23 and Ken is about 28. He just had a birthday, so I hope I have it right. Hope that helps clarify the times frames on some of this. My sister and her peers are 17-19.
What I am wondering is why “bullies being assholes” is construed as “a culture of non-achievement in the AA community.”
The idea of a support system was brought up by SS, which I do want to explore more. My education came from the relatively affluent suburbs, my family members and some friends were educated in the inner city. When I interact with different groups of people, I still get the same reaction.
The thing I get teased for the most is not knowing how to play Spades.
This is certainly an ongoing discussion – I’ll try to revisit it in another post as I am doing more research.
(Side question: To John McWhorter and Thomas Chatterton Williams quote actual young adults in their writings? Or are they just making a judgement?)
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 3:34 pm ¶
Vanessa wrote:
I really enjoyed this article. I reflect a lot on what it means to be a woman of color, in college,-and on my experience as a person of color in an urban school system.
Although we grew up in a household headed by my Anglo-American father and Venezuelan mother, both my sisters and I identify as Latina, and we have shared the experience of struggling with meeting our parents desires for us to excel academically without being percieved as nerds or “acting white” by our peers.
More and more, educational institutions (local, state, and federal) take on more standardized assessment measures, –No Child Left Behind, State-wide exit exams, SATs, etc. One of the things that problematic with this, is often these standards are ones that Middle-Class white students can meet more easily, because these tests are written in their language with their culture in mind.
For many students of color and working class whites, in order to excel in school, one must learn the new language, new culture, new codes, new rules.
Hence, in one way or another- in order to get those A’s, score high on tests, etc….one does have to “whiten” themselves, in order to meet the white standard that is set for them.
A lot of these ideas, I drew from reading Lisa Delpit’s “Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom”.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 5:23 pm ¶
Adrianna wrote:
I’m from haiti and I got tease for talking white and being smart. I got the whole you are a snob, you don’t act like whatever or talk like wathever.It happened to my fellow carribean people too.I mostly hang out with other immigrants and some white kids. In college my African freinds got tease for talking white and being smart. It drew a big wedge between them an some of the other black american kids. My friend from Ghana tried to get answers at the black student union, but no one answered. I asked a African professor studies at college i was visiting and she said that we see positive representation of blacks in our countries and that make a big different in how we see intellignece and intellect. I have to say though i get offended when people say that crap to me ,cause it is very limited and ignorant to see all black people that way. We already have to deal with ignorance outside the community.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 7:22 pm ¶
drea wrote:
Latoya I’m glad you offered this perspective. I’ve been arguing against McWhorter’s views for years now. I don’t think anti-intellectualism is a problem in the AA community. The problem is that there are some people that think that “coolness” and “intellectualism” are mutually exclusive. Trends and popular culture are prominent in our society, and among youth of all races, not conforming to them makes you fair game for teasing and ridicule. I learned early on that if I wanted to escape ridicule as president of the Latin club at my 99.9% black, inner-city, somewhat dilapitated, public high school, I needed to balance it with a few lunch room freestlyes. I wasn’t only avoiding ridicule, I was embracing some aspect of a culture that I still wanted to be a part of as I explored “different” interests. Working as a mathematician now, I notice that in my professional community, many people take pride in shunning popular culture. They put forth an intentional effort to separate themselves from “common” (less-intelligent) people, but then they want to play the victim/moral superior by scolding the majority of society for treating them as outcasts. I’m not buying the anti-intellectualism argument. Brains are respected among hustlers and academics alike.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 7:29 pm ¶
eric daniels wrote:
Drea you are so right about the B.S. McWorther and Williams ARE PULLING and trying to equate this to black culture. When I was in high school I was part of the nerd crew/ music/art cliques and if you did not play sports, or were cool, good looking or were a cheerleader or anything related to being popular you were kept of the real cool cliques. In the 1980’s it was the preppy types , so I started wearing trench coats , boots, wearing my hair Prince style . I still made good grades and didn’t get my first girlfriend until I was 19.
Well nobody I knew ripped people in my school for “acting white” in fact, many of the cool brothas and sistas were NHS scholars and liked Doug E. Fresh, Prince and Micheal Jackson. I think McWorther and Williams were total social outcasts who couldn’t cut it in any social circle and getting revenge for being total herbs. School acheivement is a complicated issue, trying to tie Hip- Hop culture (MCing DJing, Graffti and Breakdancing) to commerical rap – pop and make it street culture is a loser all the way.
Jay- Z , Russell Simmons, FUBU, and G- Unit must be stupid but they made over a billion and half dollars last year combined, I quess that ‘black street culture’ must be really tearing Damon Dash and Will Smith down. Smith had an offer to attend MIT and Damon Dash went private schools. These idiots are like Jason Whitlock and Stanley Crouch pulling stats and repressed teen angst out of their asses because they didn’t make the yearbook or get those fine girls in school.
Posted 01 Jun 2007 at 10:20 pm ¶
julie wrote:
this might be totally off-topic and perhaps completely outrageous and unsubstatiated – but: i’ve noticed so many progressive, people of color in academia married to white partners – is there a link to this topic?
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 4:47 am ¶
Lynn wrote:
I would just like to say that I don’t think the absolute problem is anti-intellectualism in the AA community. I believe that, with children in particular, the problem comes from someone else being recognized and held in greater esteem than everyone else.
I am 28 years old. When I was in elementary school, I went through the “honors track” and was one of very few AA’s to do so. All of us got confronted by our peers for “acting white” but I think it was more because we were separated from them. They wondered what was so special about us.
I attended an all-black high school filled with high-achieving students. I was still ostracized because of the administration’s habit of parading me around like their little monkey (or science project, KeKe
). In terms of GPA, I wasn’t even the top student, but I had won a series of academic competitions. Because I was held up as “the example” other students began to resent me.
I went to an HBCU where we were all there for the same thing, so I never experienced that again. Now that our school days are all over, those hostilities are no longer there. We are all proud of each other and happy for what everyone has accomplished.
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 9:21 am ¶
lunanoire wrote:
One pattern that I noticed from certain friends who grew up in unsupportive homes (one moved out at age 16), is that it can help to be so much of an outsider/nerd that you don’t get caught up in joining a gang, going to jail, becoming a junkie, or getting pregnant early like your siblings.
On the other hand some people who are nerds are also quite socially gifted; these well-liked kids can do their own thing w/ a lot less ridicule.
It’s harder for the followers when compared to leaders and outcasts who are less constrained in choosing their path. Humans are social creatures, so it is hard to go against the grain.
A friend who recently graduated from medical school participated in a program w/ her brother when they were in high school as high-achieving student in the ‘hood, even though thier parents are educated, married, and have investments and rental properties. (maybe the program was not class-based).
-Some people are forced to become outsiders, others choose it, and some have been outside so long they don’t remember which
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 10:53 am ¶
tasha wrote:
Julie, that is another topic entirely, and you’ll have to be more specific. When you say “people of color”, do you really mean people of color in general, or has a particular interracial pairing caught your eye? Since the topic at hand is dealing with the “problem of” or perception of anti-intellectualism in the black community, I’m going to assume, however naively, that you are referring to black academics with white spouses, perhaps even black, male academics with white spouses. I’ve heard many reasons regarding why there are so many black male academics married to white women, but I can’t say that the dearth of highly educated, black females is one of them. In fact, that can’t be the reason, seeing as that black women routinely outnumber black men on college campuses. However, that disparity among black women and black men, when it comes to college degrees, may very well explain why black female academics have white spouses, if in fact black females were included in the “people of color” that you alluded to earlier.
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 12:23 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
julie – my guess is that since there is the rate of interracial couples increases with higher education degrees (don’t have the link, but it’s been cited in articles and studies – probably the strudies detail marriage, not dating history, so the rates may be even higher), and academics by definition hold those degrees, the two will overlap.
But it’s not just black/white IRs. I though the raste of IR” out-marriage increased with education anyway, possibly as a factor of being in a new environment and exposed to a wider variety of people in a post-high school environment. But I think as many traditionally monoethnic communities grow more div erse, people won’t need to go to college to meet a wider variety of people, and the “higher ed = higher rate of IR”s” mantra will become less accurate.
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 1:39 pm ¶
Sewere wrote:
What Latoya, Drea and Eric said.
McWhorter got is ass laughed at every debate when he tried to sell his crappy arguments here at Berkeley. Even grad students tore a gaping hole through his ridiculous book – anecdotal stories of his unfortunate experience juxtaposed with spurious data.
Nubian and Ebogjohnson have also done an fantastic job of poking holes through McWhorter here here and here.
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 7:07 pm ¶
kristen wrote:
my goodness this post is bringing up too many memories…
i too received the “nerd” label from friends (occasionally i would read at slumber parties!), but i was virtually ignored in school by most of the kids (still am as a matter of fact).
in middle and high school, everyone knew who the smart kids were- we all sat in the front of class, while the underachievers sat in the back and mostly talked. oh and i went to majority black/Latino middle and high schools.
i do believe that having a mother who went to college and later earned her master’s degree fostered my love of learning. that and never wanting to end up the way most of my peers did.
Posted 02 Jun 2007 at 9:27 pm ¶
tasha wrote:
Hmm . . . I see what you’re saying, Lyonside, but if the rate of IR marriage increases with higher education, how does that line up with the statistics regarding unwed black women with advanced degrees?
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 8:59 am ¶
Sewere wrote:
I forgot to mention that McWorther is a linguist and a damn good one at that… unfortunately, he thinks that makes him a credible sociologist and psychologist.
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 1:30 pm ¶
julie wrote:
to tasha:
sorry, should have been more specific – i meant people of color in general; in hindsight, i didn’t notice any clear pattern, as my former professors and gsi’s at berkeley who’ve had white partners had been asian, latino, black, and native, as well as both male and female (as for sexuality, that i didn’t know). this information was sometimes freely advertised in class, or it just came out through pictures resting on a professor’s desk during office hours. anyhow, totally another topic for another day!
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 1:52 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Tasha – I responded to Julie before your comment was posted. I’m not familiar with the stat you’re quoting, but I’m just saying that according to stats, a higher education and a higher rate of interracial marriage have gone together. It doesn’t mean that ALL minority people with a higher education will marry interracially.
And I’m not just talking exclusively about black women and white men, although it sounds like you may be.
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 5:28 pm ¶
Guerita wrote:
Too often I’m called a nerd in my classes! lol alot of kids tell me I’m smart. I go to a school were most of the students are Asian and I take honors and A.P classes and I’m somethings the only no-asain student in my class with excebtions of 2 or 3 latino and/or black students. Often I am more ostracized by my class mates in my honor classes since I’m not only not Asian , I’m mixed(American-Mexican, techincally Native American/European) , I think the fact most of the kids knew each other from Chinnese school or since kindergarden. I notcemy classmate are nice to me beacuse I get good grades and try my bst and I am active. One I kid in my A.p Class commited how I was not white but mexican I resposend with I’m both, them he said not you are white, in fornt of our teacher! More than once do I get coments about my hertage and about not being asain. Once I told my friends I wouldnever date I guy with a lower GPA than I had, they conmentted how I would never find a mexican boy to date!(YEah what nice friends I have!) A lot of kids make me feel bad somewho that I’m not asain,yet I rember who I am and those same kids will come up to me and ask help with the homework. Somehow I will survive high school, hey that why they intevented fan clubs for!!!!!
p.s I love that tee-shirt slogan : Smart is the new gangsta. Don’t make me pull out my IQ!
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 6:07 pm ¶
LM wrote:
dnA, drea and lunanoire make great points. “Nerd” as a derogatory term is basically shorthand for social outcast, and the reasons for this are many, generally not because someone’s considered to be smart. (In fact, I think sometimes brains are overestimated sometimes by peer groups as a reason for success… yeah, they’re part of it, but hard work counts every once in a while. Most kids would love to appear as if any kind of success comes easy to them.)
To drea’s point about lunchroom freestyling and the like, though, a lot of kids are not as socially skilled, or even socially inclined… and I’d argue that most “nerds” — as in the math circles you describe — aren’t “putting forth an intentional effort to separate themselves from ‘common’ (less-intelligent) people.” (There are other words for people like that.) In addition, to the extent that someone needs to spend more time studying in order to succeed academically — this involves making choices, setting priorities… and part of the issue here, it seems to me, is which priorities are encouraged by the family/community.
Beyond that, succeeding academically these days, especially when there are opportunities beyond school or neighborhood boundaries, can remove kids from social circles (even if they’re otherwise socially skilled/inclined). When that separation leads to resentment, name-calling sometimes ensues.
BTW, the study that’s by now being referenced fourth-hand is here: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3212736.html. It’s kind of funny the see the phrase “acting white” used continually without the quotes.
Last point, especially to drea, sewere and eric daniels: having read a handful of pieces by McWhorter over the years and many more in the past few days, I have mixed feelings about him. He’s a bit cold — and perhaps socially removed (nerd! just playin’) — for my taste… but I’m at the point of cringing when I see him dismissed out of hand. I don’t care to defend him, either, but the guy is fairly careful in his arguments. He may be a darling of “white America” and social conservatives, but that MAY not be his intent.
Posted 03 Jun 2007 at 8:42 pm ¶
liliana wrote:
The association of “white” with positive social behaviors and “black” with negative ones, is a manifestation of the deeply embedded racial dichotomy within our society. While conducting research among Colombian American youth in New York, I discovered an association between “gangsta” or “street” behavior with dark-skinned males and “education” or “going to college” with light-skinned females, despite the wide range in skin color within the group. Thus success in education can actually be interpreted as a threat to the black identity, as ludicrous as that sounds. It is similar to the way Hispanics may feel threatened by a “gringo salseando,” afterall salsa is “ours.” A threat to one’s identity, perceived or real, causes a reaction. Greater awareness and assurance among minorities that education and success is also “theirs” and not just a “white” thing, in addition to more vocal role models will help to change those sociocultural associations that attribute middle class success to white/Euro/Anglo Americans and “underclass” (a problematic word in and of itself) failure to African Americans and other minority groups. In the meantime, we need to find ways to help youth cope with peer teasing and rejection, while we learn to better understand the blurry line between class and race.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 6:11 am ¶
dnA wrote:
McWhorter is trotted out on Fox News anytime they want to belittle the accomplishments of other blacks. I’m sorry, but that’s unforgivable.
He is, by contrast, quite sane on NPR’s News and Notes. Among other blacks, he lets go of much of the posturing.
It reveals his real issue with the black community, which is simply anger at not being accepted, since once he is, the madness melts away. Everything he writes is informed by it, and it makes him intellectually dishonest.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 10:03 am ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
Did anyone catch that new show “Meet the Faith” on BET this weekend? It’s hosted by Dr. Ian Smith (yes, the one who does the weigh-ins on Celebrity Fit Club) but he’s actually a great host when he’s allowed to do more than read a weight off a scale.
Anyway, they did an episode on the state of marriage in the black community. And one of the panelists was Thomas Lopez-Pierre, who founded The Harlem Club, where men pay $5,000 a year to have access to young, educated black women who have to submit a full-body photograph to be admitted.
This guy was an unbelievable douche – I bring it up because I’m sure that once Fox News discovers him, he will be the go-to black guy for criticizing other blacks.
Among the things he said: Black men don’t want partners, they want wives who will cook and clean.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 10:31 am ¶
Wendi Muse wrote:
no…but this sounds like another article…ahem lol
http://www.harlemclub.com/home.html
p.s. note that the men just need to send in a resume
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 10:44 am ¶
LM wrote:
dnA,
Have only seen McWhorter once on Fox and heard him once on “News and Notes,” not enough to have caught the pattern you mentioned. His comments on Fox were definitely positioned, though, to downplay Obama’s candidacy BECAUSE Obama is black, so I’m apt to agree with you. Still, though, his words alone weren’t objectionable. I’d hate to be in his shoes on Fox and I have no idea whether he likes to be. But I do believe he thinks independently and expresses his own opinion. Better that than speakers who solely “play” to the right (or to the left, for that matter), not because they truly think that way but because they’ve discovered this is how to get a regular television gig (best example of this to me is Bill O’Reilly).
McWhorter himself has said he hears his arguments all the time in all-black circles but black people tend not to like when he says them in front of white audiences. The reasons for this are understandable, but at some point the fact that white people are listening/watching/judging shouldn’t matter.
Carmen — you’re right, Thomas Lopez-Pierre is an unbelievable douche. Times two. Now I’ve done my name-calling for the day.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 1:18 pm ¶
dnA wrote:
Well, until his appearances on News and Notes, I had no sympathy for the man. He is a linguist posing as a sociologist, using his anecdotal experience like someone else would use hard, statistical evidence. He’s simply not qualified to be cited as an expert on things he is cited on, and the irony is while he opposes affirmative action, a white man with no official background in social science would never be asked to make the the kind of observations he makes.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 1:29 pm ¶
dnA wrote:
Yeah I may have to blog about that Harlem Club thing, because I’m moving to Harlem soon. Madness.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 2:25 pm ¶
GotOutb42l8 wrote:
I had the misfortune of briefly dating Mr. Lopez-Pierre a number of years ago. Unbelievable douche? You’re too kind Carmen, as during those few weeks, I was subject to his Taliban-esque philosophies about women. I believe he’s now married. That said, I can completely see him suckling on the Fox News teet in no time. I pity him.
Posted 04 Jun 2007 at 5:16 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
GotOutb42l8 -
Girl, I feel for you! Congrats on making it out alive.
I am planning a post on the BET thing – hopefully I don’t pass out tonight before I finish writing it.
LM & dNA – good conversation on McWhorter. I do not know quite what to make of him either. I have followed his work since Losing the Race, but I didn’t really pull much enjoyment from it. Authentically Black is quite a bit better – but those are essays, not a book. I am in the process of reviewing Winning the Race. Still, I am not sure how to comment on him. On one hand, he still has childhood scars that should probably be dealt with. On the other hand, McWhorter makes some very valid arguments that should not be dismissed so lightly.
Posted 05 Jun 2007 at 12:44 am ¶
1985supastar wrote:
I am black, I graduated from high school in 2003, and I went to a mostly black magnet school. The name of my school is synonymous with the word nerd, our prom king was also the salutatorian. So the “N” word at my school was not nerd it was “nobody”. Being labeled a nobody was the worst thing to be labeled, and was not contingent on grades, intelligence or talking “white”. The nobodies were the students who had no influence, made no contributions, and were generally unknown/ignored, at least when you’re a nerd your presence is acknowledged.
I am in college now and I miss the support of my high school, I have found that it’s more difficult in college to be a nerd in the sense of not fulfilling or attempting to fulfill the stereotype of the drunken sex crazed college student.
Posted 06 Jun 2007 at 1:24 am ¶
al wrote:
i think something people miss when they claim that AA communities are anti-intellectual is that white communities aren’t exactly happy to welcome intellectuals. it seems that there has recently been a nerd-chic thing going on, but i remember thinking that smart = uncool for a long time (i’m white and 29). my cool older brother wasn’t the “smart one”, after all. but he was the most popular kid in school. same with his gf (now wife, she’s also white) who always told me, ‘i don’t read.’ and she didn’t.
now, though, my nephew (their son, 11) tells me, ‘it’s cool to be a nerd.’ and i guess it is, because he’s pretty well liked and also gets the best grades in his class. so i don’t know.
Posted 07 Jun 2007 at 5:31 pm ¶
al wrote:
sorry, i forgot to also mention that not only were the less academic kids popular, there was resentment in my hs towards kids who were academic. kids were constantly giving my white friend shit for having her name announced all the time, winning awards and what not. they just assumed she was stuck up. she didn’t even want anyone to know she did well. she just wanted to get into a good school. and these kids were also white (the school was about 94% white).
Posted 07 Jun 2007 at 5:36 pm ¶
Jennifer wrote:
i didn’t read all of the posts before writing this, so hopefully i’m not repeating.
as a white girl, i often was ostracized for being too smart. looking back, it’s amazing to me how often i heard “are you english? you talk funny sometimes.” or “you’re too smart to be american.” i think anti-intellectualism is an american problem across the board, not just within various american sub-cultures
Posted 15 Jun 2007 at 10:20 pm ¶