A number of high school students of color feel that they will be a traitor to their roots, their color, their family background, or their friends, if they do well in school, even if it means that they will be able to go to college and get a well-respected job, like teacher, lawyer, doctor, where they might even be able to come back and serve their community. They might be bullied for "acting white" if they do.
- Can you tell us about times when you have been bullied for "acting white?"
- Or have you bullied someone else for the same?
- If you are a member of the majority, the "white," we'd also like to hear about what you think about your classmates who are afraid of "acting white."
- Is it because they see that there are mostly "white" kids in advanced classes?
- Is it only African/Americans who feel this way?
- Is there something similar where you live that is more class-based, than race-based, like "acting posh?"
- If you are a minority in another country, is there a similar thing going on where you live?
- Do you want to join them and stop being good at school so your friends don't bully you?
- Do you work even harder, to get out of the neighborhood?
- How do your old friends treat you when you come back to the neighborhood?
- Do you even try to go back to the old neighborhood?
- Do you feel you can be a role model for kids like you used to be?
- Do you drop your accent, and "talk white?"
- Do you dress differently?
- Can you still hang out with your old friends?
- Can you influence them in any way?
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I have never been bullied by ny own for acting white since I am as white as you could be. Female tall blue-eyed and blond. At least my hear was very blond as a teenager now it has turned darker. In stead I had tried the opposite. In DK blond girls are believed to be stupid and ignorant and a lot of stupid jokes are made about blond girls. In high school I was fighting for the teachers to take the girls as serious as the boys. I made a tutoring group for all the female students in my math and physic class. There were not many female students at that time studying math and physics. The hardest thing was not to teach the other girls math or physics. The hardest thing was to make them believe that they could learn it and that they could be as good as the boys because everyone else told them the opposite. In my physic class we were only five girls the rest of the class were boys and they would not accept that my academic skills were better than their skills it was embarrassing for them because I was a girl and it did not make it better that I was blond I was supposed to be stupid.
ReplyDeleteActually I find it disturbing that the gender issue is not believed to be a problem anymore especially ethnic minority girls have troubles because they are both ethnic and female at the same time they have to accept being discriminated by their own for being female and they also have to accept being discriminated by everybody else for being ethnic.
Perhaps this is not such a great problem in the States I do not know I have never been to the States but an Amarican professor in climate issues, marine biology, Copenhagen University told me once, that she believes, that Danish girls lack self confidense compared to Amarican girls. I do not know wether she is right but she probably knows more about it than I do.
On the other hand I know that Tracy Chapman an afro-American sing and song writer believes that Afro-American girls have this double problem being both female and Afro-American. This is one of the reasons why she has been a guest in Sesame Street where she sang a song about how important it is for children to learn and that they should never be to shy to ask out loud I don’t know but I will ask: You can hear the song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewKg31Zfv3M
Actually I misunderstood the term acting white when I was voting for if doing well in school means acting white. I did not read the long message about acting white since I was busy with my own work. I thought that acting white meant trying to look white trying to talk white and so on. I believe that what you mean with that question is, that if you are doing well in school is acting white and I believe, that that is a quite stupid opinion. If some ethnic minorities in America thinks that then they are being discriminating against themselves thinking that they are not allowed to be good in school just because they are ethnic but unfortunately many years of discrimination have maybe made them think so in the same way that many Danish girls think that they are not able to learn math just because they are girls. When I voted yes I voted yes because I believe that unfortunately ethnic students will be taken more seriously in Danish schools if they act white. For this reason many ethnic children change close on their way to school because they do not want to go to school in the clothes their parents want them to wear but they do not dare wear Danish clothes in front of their. Especially some of the girls do not want to wear the traditional Muslim scarf because they are being very much discriminated wearing this scarf especially after 11’th September 2002 but their parents want them to wear the scarf because the Muslim religion says so. Other girls have decided to wear the scarf everywhere because they believe that they should be allowed to wear it because of freedom of religion. This has meant a lot of debate about whether we should allow this scarf in Danish Schools or not. Muslim females in DK have lost their jobs because they insisted on wearing this scarf. I find this discussion very difficult because on the one hand we have to accept the freedom of religion on the other hand we have to fight for women and girls right to choose their clothes themselves.
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