The Urban Review, Vol. 34, No.

2, June 2002 (䉷 2002)

High School Students of Color Talk About

Accusations of “Acting White”

David A. Bergin and Helen C. Cooks

Fordham and Ogbu (1986) have described fear of “acting white” as a significant factor
that influenced the attitudes and often undermined the achievement of African-American
students at “Capital High” in Washington, D.C. The present qualitative study investi-
gated 38 relatively high-achieving African-American and Mexican-American students in
various high schools, public and private, in a midwestern city. The respondents did not
report avoiding academic achievement in order to avoid accusations of acting white.
Most of the students we interviewed reported no loss of ethnic identity. The students felt
strong resentment toward their peers’ accusations of acting white and did not seem to
be intimidated by the accusations, though they were bothered by the accusations. It
would be useful if future research addressed the conditions under which avoidance of
acting white is most likely to occur.

KEY WORDS: high school students; color; accusations; “acting white”.

Acting white and fear of acting white have become common terms among
those who investigate the well-being of students of color in the United States.
An early published use of the term acting white appeared in 1970 in the context
of discussion groups that included both white and black students (McCardle and
Young, 1970). The black students held a goal of achieving equal rights and
opportunities without “acting white.” For them acting white meant to “be be-
come more inhibited, more formal, or to lack ‘soul’ ” (p. 137). Note that aca-
demic achievement was not named as a marker of acting white. The students
felt that acting white would result in alienation from their peer group. In two
1994 Wall Street Journal articles and in a book, journalist Ron Suskind de-
scribed avoidance of academic achievement and accusations of acting white in
a grim Washington, D.C., high school (Suskind, 1994a, 1994b, 1998). Peshkin

This research was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education (R117E30184-93).
David A. Bergin is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Mis-
souri–Columbia. Helen C. Cooks is an associate professor of social foundations of education at the
University of Toledo. Address correspondence to David A. Bergin, Educational and Counseling
Psychology, University of Missouri–Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211-2130, e-mail: BerginD噝
missouri.edu.

113

0042-0972/02/0600-0113/0 䉷 2002 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

114 THE URBAN REVIEW

and White (1990) also encountered fear of acting white in a northern California
high school. For example, one student they interviewed said, “Sometimes, I
have to change and act white; sometimes, I have to act black. Say I go down-
town talking like I am now. They will just stare at me, sayin’, ‘look at the
nigger trying to act white. What’s wrong with him? I ought to go poke him in
his head’ ” (p. 26). Educators are interested in fear of acting white because of its
potential influence on academic achievement. If avoiding acting white means
not listening to heavy metal music and not wearing khakis, educators see no
problem. If avoiding acting white means not trying hard in school or avoiding
good grades in school, educators see a major problem. Some investigators have
reported that avoiding acting white does mean avoiding high achievement. For
example, Suskind (1998) described an attempt by high school administrators in
Washington, D.C., to induce academic effort by paying $100 for straight-A
performance in any of the year’s four marking periods. Winners had to collect
their checks at school assemblies. After a few such assemblies, “The jeering
started. It was thunderous. ‘Nerd!’ ‘Geek!’ ‘Egghead!’ And the harshest,
‘Whitey!’ . . . The honor students were hazed for months afterward. With each
assembly, fewer show up” (p. 3).
Probably the most widely known work on the issue of acting white is by
Fordham and Ogbu (1986), who described fear of “acting white” as a signifi-
cant factor that influenced the attitudes and undermined achievement of Afri-
can-American students at “Capital High” in Washington, D.C. They stated that
“one major reason black students do poorly in school is that they experience
inordinate ambivalence and affective dissonance in regard to academic effort
and success” (p. 177; emphasis in original). According to Fordham and Ogbu’s
theoretical framework, African-Americans experience a group identity or fictive
kinship with other African-Americans. One aspect of this group identity is that
members of the group are united in an oppositional social identity that is partly
defined as not doing things that are associated with white Americans, who are
viewed as their historical oppressors. Ogbu (1987) distinguished castelike, in-
voluntary minorities, who have suffered a long history of oppression and dis-
crimination, from voluntary immigrant minorities, who may suffer current dis-
crimination but who as newcomers lack the history of persecution of castelike
minorities. Castelike minorities are most likely to experience fictive kinship, an
oppositional social identity, and low achievement. It is they who fear being
accused of acting white because it would suggest that they are not “good”
members of their group.
Attitudes and behaviors that the students at Capital High identified as acting
white included listening to white music, studying, working hard to get good
grades, actually getting good grades, going to a Rolling Stones concert, and
putting on “airs” (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986). An important marker for acting
white is speaking standard English; Phinney (1990) pointed out that “language
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 115

has been considered by some as the single most important component of ethnic
identity” (p. 505).
The issue of avoidance of acting white can be framed as an issue of resis-
tance. Various writers have documented or analyzed the tendency of students,
those of color or not, to resist what they view as an unfair power structure
(Alpert, 1991; D’Amato, 1988; Giroux, 1983; Mirón and Lauria, 1998; Sanders,
1998; Sun, 1993). Student resistance is usually based upon issues of ethnicity or
class or both and occurs when students perceive that they are oppressed or
disadvantaged due to their ethnicity or class. In the case of avoidance of acting
white, resistance has a strong base in ethnic identity and ethnic relations. Resis-
tance can be described as a desire to reject dominant culture and norms and to
embrace subcultural norms and values. For example, Fordham (1996) described
middle-income black children whose parents were frustrated by their children’s
underachievement: “Their parents perceive their actions as deliberate rejection
of academic success, success that they can easily achieve if they are willing to
do so. Instead, the daughters perceive success in school-sanctioned learning as
physical and mental separation from the black community” (p. 194).
However, some writers have pointed out that youth can construct their resis-
tance through appearing to embrace dominant culture and proving that they can
excel in it. For example, Fordham (1996) stated, “There appears to be less
familiarity with resistance as conformity. Indeed, nominal conformity to school
rules is often equated with acceptance and, in some instances, even acquies-
cence to a dominant ideology. However, as I shall argue throughout this book,
at Capital High conformity to school norms and values could be and often is
interpreted as resistance” (p. 40). Likewise, Mirón and Lauria (1998) stated that
“at City High resistance is more productive because students and teachers do
not take out their hostilities toward white hegemony on each other. Instead . . .
they struggle for a quality education together, thus partly ensuring a better qual-
ity of life in the future” (p. 204; emphasis in original). Sanders (1998) found
that of 10 students who were highly aware of racism and racial barriers, six
were high achievers; “however, instead of reducing their motivation and aca-
demic effort, this awareness seemed to increase them” (p. 89).
Thus, we can see that some students of color resist white hegemony and the
school power structure by avoiding academic achievement and other behaviors
that might mean alliance with white culture. Other students of color may seek
academic achievement in order to achieve better lives and to resist white hege-
mony.
While there is good documentation that fear of acting white exists, at least
two articles have pointed out that in fact white students and black students may
not differ in the rate at which they suffer from peer rejection for academic
achievement. Cook and Ludwig (1998) used data from the 1990 National Edu-
cation Longitudinal Study (NELS), a national sample study, to analyze whether
116 THE URBAN REVIEW

blacks and non-Hispanic whites differed on such self-reported variables as low

levels of school effort, high levels of school effort, and social standing. They
concluded, “While ethnographers observe that black adolescents sometimes
taunt high-achieving black students for acting white, it appears that either these
taunts do not inflict especially grievous social damage or high achievement has
offsetting social effects” (p. 391). Likewise, Ainsworth-Darnell and Downey
(1998) analyzed NELS data using self-report variables such as value of educa-
tion, endorsement of cheating and breaking rules, and popularity as well as
teacher ratings of classroom effort and disruptiveness. They concluded that their
data contradict key claims of the oppositional culture model for explaining ra-
cial/ethnic differences in school achievement. Collins-Eaglin and Karabenick
(1993) also found little evidence of widespread academic alienation among Af-
rican-American students. Spencer, Noll, Stoltzfus, and Harpalani (2001) have
been particularly critical of the “acting white” assumption. Studying African-
American youth in a metropolitan southeastern American city, they found that
high self-esteem and achievement goals were related to high Afrocentricity, not
high Eurocentricity.
A purpose of the present study was to further investigate the social pressure
to avoid acting white. Fordham’s (Fordham, 1988, 1996; Fordham and Ogbu,
1986) data came from a single predominantly African-American high school in
Washington, D.C. We wished to expand understanding of fear of acting white
by talking with youth of color in various high schools in a midwestern city. In
the current study, the respondents came from a variety of types of schools:
public and private, predominantly black, predominantly white, and racially bal-
anced. The respondents had applied during eighth grade for a scholarship incen-
tive program targeted at groups underrepresented in higher education. The pro-
gram required a B grade average, so the students were relatively high achievers.
They were interviewed several years later; during the time lag, they could have
reduced their achievement if peers accused them of acting white. The respon-
dents included some Mexican-American students; anecdotal evidence and logic
suggest that Mexican-American students experience the same social expulsion
threat as black students if they “act white.” These were the major questions of
the present study: (1) Did students report avoiding academic achievement in
order to avoid appearing to act white? And (2) did they perceive that they had
given up ethnic identity in order to do well in school?

METHOD
Study Participants

Thirty-eight students were interviewed for this study. They had all applied at
the end of eighth grade to participate in a program named EXCEL. Twenty-
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 117

eight were participants in EXCEL, and ten were in a comparison group. We

will briefly describe EXCEL, then the comparison group. Approximately 50
eighth-grade students are selected each year to participate in EXCEL, a schol-
arship incentive program for students from groups underrepresented in higher
education. In order to be eligible, at the end of eighth grade they must be at
grade level on standardized tests, have a B average, and be nominated by a
teacher or counselor. Benefits of the program include summer institutes at the
university, field studies (field studies have been conducted, for example, in the
civil rights South, Ghana, and Taxco, Mexico), academic tutoring at the univer-
sity during the school year, and a scholarship to the local university. Admission
to the program is not based on income, so family incomes vary widely. Students
come from public and private schools throughout a medium-sized, predomi-
nantly white (about 70%) midwestern city. Program activities occur mostly at
the university. While the schools are supportive of the program and provide
data regarding achievement, they do not administer program elements.
For 1 year of the program, students who qualified for the program were
admitted by random assignment (Bergin and Cooks, 1997) because more stu-
dents qualified than could be admitted. About equal numbers of students were
randomly assigned to the EXCEL group (43) and to the comparison group (40).
The initial purpose of the control group was to test the effects of the EXCEL
program on grades and enrollment in college. We have included the members of
the comparison group in the present study because their comments help us
know whether the EXCEL students’ perspectives are unique to EXCEL stu-
dents.
Students were selected for interviews from three consecutive EXCEL groups
and from the comparison group. They were selected not randomly, but to pro-
vide diversity in gender, ethnicity, achievement, and year of graduation. Their
mean high-school grade-point average (GPA) was 3.3. Students in honors
classes were graded on a 5-point scale, so it was possible to attain a cumulative
GPA over 4.0. At the time of the interviews, 10 students were freshmen in
college, 21 were high school seniors, and 7 were high school juniors. Thus, we
had had extensive experience with the EXCEL students for 5, 4, or 3 years and
knew them well. We did not have such extensive background knowledge of the
comparison group. Seniors are overrepresented because they include both an
EXCEL group and the comparison group. While the EXCEL program includes
Asian-American and low-income white students, for the purposes of this study
only African-American, Mexican-American, and mixed-race students were in-
cluded. The EXCEL students were not paid for their participation. The non-
EXCEL students were paid $20 for their participation. A related article (Bergin
and Cooks, 2000) discusses an overlapping set of students’ experience with
academic competition.
118 THE URBAN REVIEW

Interviews

The 38 students were interviewed regarding high school and family experi-
ence. EXCEL students were also asked about EXCEL. Interviews took 1 to 1 1⁄2
hours and were transcribed. The interview was semistructured; thus, every stu-
dent was supposed to be asked the same basic questions, but the interviewers were
free to follow up on responses as seemed appropriate. All but 6 of the interviews
took place in students’ homes; eight of the interviewers were African-American
and one was white. The interviewers included one professor, one graduate stu-
dent, and six parents. Parent interviewers were trained by the researchers and
were paid a modest stipend. Follow-up sessions were held with the parent inter-
viewers to assist them in dealing with the interview process. Because our intent
was to describe personal, subjective experience, and because the follow-up ques-
tions varied by interviewer, the interview responses were not quantified.
We analyzed the transcripts by gathering all comments that related to eth-
nicity, ethnic identity, and acting white. We gathered the comments by reading
all transcripts and by using computer search capabilities. Nearly all relevant
comments occurred as a response to the interview question regarding ethnic
identity. The comments were then analyzed for recurring patterns. These pat-
terns and exceptions to them are described in the following section.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

One of the questions interviewers asked was whether students felt they had
to give up their ethnic identity in order to do well in school. Initially, the
interview protocol asked about ethnic identity but not specifically about acting
white; as the interviews proceeded and feedback arrived, it became apparent
that the interviewers should ask about acting white. This delay explains why
some students were explicitly asked whether they had been accused of acting
white and others were not. Where names are used, they are pseudonyms. In the
quotes, we used the following convention: a dash (—) indicates a pause and an
ellipsis (. . .) indicates deleted words. In the following descriptions, some de-
tails have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Description of Acting White

The students with whom we talked were familiar with the term acting white.
This was true of both African-American and Mexican-American students. They
provided the following descriptions of acting white:
Speech:
Talk proper
Don’t talk slang or curse
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 119

Don’t talk ghettoish talk, with half words, making your own words
Use big words and enunciate
Say your Spanish surname with an English accent
Instead of saying you are going to the movies, say you are going to a flick

Music:
Listen to white music, classical music, heavy metal, or rock music

Dress:
Don’t wear tennis shoes
Dress like a preppie
Wear a tie
Button your shirt instead of having your chest hang out
Wear penny loafers
Dress white—for a girl, roll up your pants, have the back of your shirt hanging
out, tuck the front in, and have big poofy bangs.

School:
Suck up to the teachers a little bit
Kiss butt
Work up to your potential at school
Get good grades
Always do your work
Be really neat

Other behaviors:
Date white girls
Act like Carleton (on television show Fresh Prince of Bellaire)
Have lots of white friends, hang around with white people
Act stuck up

Of the 17 students who were specifically asked whether they had been ac-
cused of acting white, 7 said no. One was Nikki Dryden, a black female who
was among the top 10 in her class at a predominantly black school. Her single
mother had wanted her to attend a Catholic school, but she chose the public
school. The school serves the city’s inner city, where it is an icon of the Afri-
can-American community. The school is a historic building that is situated on
the main street of the city’s most historic district of homes and churches. The
school seems to have a reputation (some argue undeserved) that leads some
parents, African-American or not, to prohibit their children from attending.
Nikki was active in student government, band, and science club. She stated that
she knew what acting white meant, but
120 THE URBAN REVIEW

33: No. I’ve never had that problem. Because it seems like, in high
school, everyone knew me. They knew that I always did my best and it
was just like they respected me for it. I mean as far as people getting in
trouble or whatever, it was like a lot of times people wouldn’t treat me
as they would everyone else. I mean they respected me more because of
my grades and everything. So it was like I got more respect because of
that. . . . I understand what you’re saying but I’ve never had that prob-
lem. It’s just like everyone there, they knew me, they would encourage
me. Or if I would get kind of like a low grade or something on my test,
they were like, “Why did you get that? You know you could do better
than that.” I mean that kind of thing. So I’ve never had that problem.

While Nikki was not accused of acting white, she understood what it meant.
Even though some students were not directly accused of acting white, it is
important to recognize that all students understood what the term meant. Nikki
was not ostracized because of her good grades; in fact, she was elected to a
student government office. It appears that Nikki did some things that could
have attracted accusations of acting white, but her style of being allowed her
smooth commerce with her fellow students. She was an achiever, but other
students did not perceive her to be allied with the Other. In fact, she explicitly
states that other students supported and encouraged her high achievement.
Selena Sanders, on the other hand, reported quite a different experience. She
was at the same school as Nikki and was also in the top 10 of her class, but she
said that she was often accused of acting white:

34: People tell me I talk white. And then I ask the question, “Well, how
do white people talk?” And they say, “You know, proper like.” But I—
acting white? They tell me I act preppy or something like that. But that
sort of got away from that white, acting white type of thing. They go
“preppy.” They say another word now, “Oh she’s prep-like” or some-
thing like that.
Int: Does it still have the same racial overtones?
34: Um hum, it does. It’s just little things like I wear penny loafers. So
wearing penny loafers, I have on my shoes, my hair is always done, I
talk really proper, my work is always done, I’m really neat, those type
of things. So everything together I guess. And then I don’t say too much
to people. I sort of let them say what they want to say to me and then
I’ll respond. I’m not the first person to always start a conversation. I like
to listen more than I like to talk and—
Int: So people view that as being stuck up or acting white or both?
34: Stuck up is acting white.
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 121

Both young women were highly achievement-oriented, but they differed in

their styles. Nikki, who was not accused even with high achievement, behaved
in ways that did not attract accusations of acting white. She was relatively quiet
and did not seek the limelight (though she was a prominent student government
officer). In contrast, Selena was very socially active and was not afraid of
controversy. She was elected to several prominent posts and liked to assert her
individuality through her dress and speech. She not only had high grades but
also chafed against the high school culture. She said, “High school was not
what it was supposed to be—the time between childhood and adulthood where
you have all these great experiences.” She would be a more likely target for
accusations of acting white because her behavior went beyond high academic
achievement into areas of dress, speech, and attitude. Note that in her com-
ments, she did not mention academic achievement as a reason for being ac-
cused of acting white.

Spending Time with White Students Leads to Accusations

A reason that several students who attended racially mixed schools gave for
accusations of acting white was that they were perceived as spending too much
time with white students. They were enrolled in college preparation or honors
courses that tended to be mostly white. Therefore, they spent most of their
school time with white students, and the result was that many of their school
friends were white. For example, Christi, a black female at a public mixed-race
school, said:

31: The majority of my classes are honors classes; therefore there’s a lot
of white people in my honors classes, and there’s not too many—I don’t
have a class that has more than four black people in it. And if I’m in a
class with all the whites and the Chinese and everything else, all of a
sudden Christi’s not black anymore. Maybe I’m just misinterpreting
from what they say to me.
Int: What who says?
31: My black peers.
Int: Okay. What do they say?
31: They basically ask me, “Why aren’t you true to your color?” And
I’m like, “Well, how am I not true?” I’m sorry if I’m smart, you know.
I’m not going to sit there and hold myself back just so you can have this
feeling that I am being black. I’m being black whether I’m smart, dumb,
stupid, or whatever.

Christi lived in the catchment area of the same African-American school that
Selena and Nikki attended, but Christi’s father said that there was no way she
122 THE URBAN REVIEW

was going there. He had heard bad things about that school. She attended
a mixed-race public school that she grew to like because she “intermingled
with white people and Hispanic people.” The school serves working-class black
and white neighborhoods and is located on a large plot of land in a predomi-
nantly white neighborhood. African-American students who attend the school
travel farther than most of the white students. Christi was active in student
government, National Honor Society, a conflict resolution program, and Leader-
ship Club and was also elected to the homecoming court. Her father said she
liked to be in the limelight. The honors classes she attended were predomi-
nantly white, so there was a perception that she preferred to spend time with
white students. Thus, it was not just achievement that led to accusations of
acting white, but also the inaccurate assumption that she preferred white people.
Joe Murphy, a black male, attended the same school. He was a very success-
ful athlete and a very successful student. He stated:

30: Yes. I’ve been accused by a lot of people, actually, of doing so. A lot
of the black people that I know, or that think they know me, only see an
image of me being around a lot of whites. Whereas most of the times I
hung around my classmates and I was usually the only black male, so I
got to really know my classmates and those are my friends. Outside of
school, I didn’t really have a lot of friends— . . . my teammates, I had a
lot of white teammates. So the people I hung around were the people
that I saw in school the most. So a lot of people got an image of me as,
oh, he’s a sellout.

These quotes from Joe and Christi suggest that affiliation with whites is a
major component of being perceived as acting white. In their interviews, these
two students did not mention accusations based on their being in honors classes
or earning high grades; rather, the accusations appeared to be based on the fact
that students of color frequently saw them with white students. Joe Murphy’s
parents said that they thought he had been accused of acting white and attrib-
uted this accusation to the fact that he spent more time with white students than
with African-Americans. They said this was not because he preferred white
students, but because the students most likely to share his aspirations (to be-
come a physician) and skills (e.g., athlete in a “white” sport) tended to be
white. They were careful to state that he knew where his ethnic roots were.

Denials of Giving Up Ethnic Identity

Students generally claimed that they had not given up their ethnic identity in
order to do well in school, nor had they allowed accusations of acting white to
affect their study habits or effort to achieve. For example, we interviewed three
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 123

girls from the same Catholic all-girl school. The school is one of the elite
Catholic schools in the city and won national recognition for quality soon after
the data for this study had been gathered. Two of the girls said they had not
given up their ethnic identity:

Int: Do you feel as though you have to give up some of your ethnic
identity in order to do well in school?
8: No. That’s another reason why I chose to go to the academy, because I
did go to public school for junior high and a lot of the kids were pretty
well, “You sound like a white girl, you’re stuck up, blah-blah-blah,”
because I was in honors classes. A lot of times I was the only black in
the class. Coming to the academy, everyone wants to succeed. So, it’s
not really a problem.

This student had felt frustration in a public junior high school because the
students lacked a desire to learn and achieve. The public school that she had
attended had a mixed-race student body and mixed levels of achievement. She
much preferred the private school because everyone was interested in learning
and achieving good grades.
The second student who attended the academy was asked:

Int: Do you feel as if you have to give up any of your ethnic identity or
blackness in order to do well in school?
6: No. Not at all. It feels good to see other black students trying to do
well at school. And, you know, it seems like that’s when we come to-
gether the most in school for schoolwork. And there’s not much of us in
the school. There’s only a handful of black students in the school.

However, the third student, Karen Cook, assumed that every African-Ameri-
can had to give up ethnic identity to do well in the school:

7: No . . . I feel everybody in the academy is in the category of not

totally being themselves, hiding their ethnic identity. Those who aren’t
able to adjust just leave. Those who are willing to adjust—maybe adjust
somewhat—can stay.
Int: So, what would have happened if you did not acclimate or adjust?
7: I wouldn’t have been there.
Int: No? Why not?
7: Because it’s almost as though you can’t take the atmosphere—the
whole atmosphere of the academy; you just can’t take it. It’s just some-
thing you can’t deal with on a day-to-day basis.
124 THE URBAN REVIEW

Thus, Karen implied that she had given up some of her ethnic identity in order
to fit into a white world. Karen lived in a relatively upscale suburban white
neighborhood. Karen commented with pride that four minority students—in-
cluding two of her friends—had graduated with honors, yet she also com-
mented regarding African-American high achievers: “Their ethnic background
is definitely African-American, but their mental set, or their mind state, is not.”
While she lived in a white neighborhood and attended a predominantly white
school, she was critical of students of color who were too “white.” Karen was
one of the few interviewed students who criticized others regarding ethnic
identity.
Selena Sanders felt that she had not given up ethnic identity to do well in a
predominantly black public school, though she was accused. She was in the
running for valedictorian, active in organizations in school and outside school,
and had won various university scholarships. She expressed herself as follows:

Int: You ever feel as if you gave up any of your ethnic identity in order
to do well in school?
34: What do you mean? I don’t understand that question.
Int: Do you have to be less black. . . .
34: At my high school?
Int: . . . . in order to do well in school?
34: No, not at my high school. I didn’t have that problem. I think the
most of, let me think, I didn’t really have a problem with identity, racial
identity or black identity or anything like that because everyone around
me was the same. I think it might have been different if I would’ve gone
to another high school, maybe.
Int: Sometimes it seems like students who do well at a predominantly
black high school have the hardest time, if they do well in school.
34: I don’t see myself having a problem. You mean with education-wise
or . . . ?
Int: No, with other students.
34: OK, I can see that. Yeah. It’s just, it’s not animosity, but that’s the
only word I could think of. Sometimes I feel, uncomfortable and it’s
not, it’s like a group of us, that these 13 people over here do well and
everyone knows they do well, so they’re sort of in the shadows.
Int: What do you mean in the shadows?
34: They consider you nerds or they think that you think you’re better
than them type thing. Yeah. But you learn to look over that. But yeah.

Selena seemed bothered by accusations of acting white, but not sufficiently

to change her behavior. She held strong achievement goals that drove her to
attain high grades, join clubs, and participate in school politics. She was not
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 125

about to allow other students’ accusations of acting white to affect her life
goals.
Samuel Jackson, an African-American male, attended a school that was
mixed white and black and that served both low- and middle-income families.
He was also accused of acting white and also denied having given up his ethnic
identity.

Int: Do you feel as though you had to give up some of your ethnic iden-
tity or “blackness” in order to do well in school?
21: Not at all. I think in order to do well in school I had to more-or-less
identify with myself and of course keep my Afrocentric point of view
basically throughout everything. If there was ever a discussion in class, I
would voice my African-American opinion whatever it would be—I can
never, I don’t think I was ever really subjected to having to choose
between acting black or acting white, which is something that I sort of
hate.
Int: Were you ever accused of acting white?
21: Yeah. Plenty of times.
Int: Who accused you?
21: Black students. Usually other black students who, in fact, weren’t
doing as well. I was accused of acting white simply because I got good
grades. And I would say, “Is it wrong for black people to do well?” I
would go back and say, would say, “Did W. E. B. Du Bois act white his
whole life?” They’ll say, “No, that’s different.”
Int: Now did they know who he was?
21: No. Often I would have to explain to them. They say, “Well that’s
different,” and if I say, “Well, was Martin Luther King acting white?”
they’ll say, “No, that’s different.” . . . They’ll say, “Why are you button-
ing? You’re supposed to have your chest hanging out.” I don’t like that.
And they would say, “OK, so you’re trying to act white.” I thought, it
got sort of amusing but it was—I don’t know, it never bothered me.

Samuel was one of the few students who explicitly named high academic
achievement as a key reason for attracting accusations of acting white. Nev-
ertheless, it is not clear that high academic achievement was in fact the primary
reason why Samuel was accused. Samuel’s style of dress suggested he wanted
to stand out as an individual and probably had something to do with the accusa-
tions. While Samuel denied being bothered by accusations of acting white, he
also said that he did not like the accusations. Most people would feel uncom-
fortable when accused of rejecting their roots and their people. We did a follow-
up interview with Samuel about a year later, after he was well into his college
career at a major university. We pointed out that he had stated earlier that
126 THE URBAN REVIEW

accusations of acting white did not bother him. He laughed and said that of
course the accusations had bothered him.
Another black male, Daniel Smothers, claimed he didn’t act white, though
he seemed threatened by the question and appeared ambivalent about accusing
two other students (including the just-quoted Samuel Jackson) of acting white:

Int: Do you feel as if you had to give up part of your ethnic identity or
your blackness in order to do well in school?
19: Hmm. In a way, but in a way not. Not really given up so much, just
try to be supersmart, but that’s something that other students did more
than me. For instance, like Samuel—and Samuel’s just like Ervin
Brooks—they were more—not—they didn’t give it up, but they were
more uppity, try to be supersmart. And then me, I came off as yeah, I’m
smart, but I’m going to be the way I’m going to be.
Int: Would you say that they tried to act white?
19: No. They didn’t try to act white. They just—no, they didn’t act
white. I’m not saying that they were sellouts or they always tried to act
white. They just—no, they weren’t a sellout or anything. They didn’t try
to act white. They were black on everything. They had black ways, but
it’s just they—I don’t know. They tried to. I don’t know. Sometimes it
seemed like they were trying to be so intelligent and they tried to view
things more from—I don’t know how to describe it. Samuel talked
slang but it’s like he really wouldn’t really talk it. That’s what I mean.
They’re not, not that they’re sellouts. They would act black. They do
everything black, but they wouldn’t talk slang because to them it made
them look ignorant, and to me, it’s like, well, I have nothing to prove to
anybody because if you know you’re smart, prove it to yourself, and
show everybody, which I have already done, so it’s like I already know
I’m smart. So what else do I have to show?

Daniel appeared uneasy about accusing Samuel and Ervin of being sellouts
because he recognized that they were knowledgeable about black history and
spoke out on black issues, but he felt that they avoided slang and acted “uppity”
to prove their smartness. Daniel then described Joe, who came closer to being a
sellout:

19: There weren’t any [sellouts] in EXCEL—Wait a minute. They ac-

cuse Joe—I’d say he’s not really a sellout. He knew he was black and
he understood that. But sometimes it did bother me when he tends to
overindulge in whiteness. From the standpoint of, not so much listening
to white music, just—
Int: How did he overindulge?
19: Well, dating white girls.
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 127

This accusation that a fellow high achiever or EXCEL student was a sellout
was unusual. Only two other students volunteered similar comments that a fel-
low high achiever was a sellout. One was Karen Cook, who has already been
quoted, and the other was Dave, who said that some of his friends had given up
their ethnic identity by “just completely doing everything that white people do.
Not to say that they’re white things that they do. But they feel that if white men
in this country are successful that they, in order to be successful, have to do the
things that white men do, and they completely do everything that white people
do.”
The Mexican-American students whom we interviewed reported experiences
similar to those of African-Americans regarding acting white; they denied hav-
ing given up their ethnic identity but said that they were sometimes accused of
it. Consider Maritza, a Mexican-American female. She lived in the catchment
area of a school that served primarily students of color who experienced rela-
tively low achievement. She transferred to a predominantly white school that
served different income levels, including some of the city’s higher-income
neighborhoods. She stated that she was perceived in her neighborhood as hav-
ing given up her ethnic identity:

Int: Do you feel as though you have had to give up some of your ethnic
identity in order to do well in school?
25: I think other people see that I have. I’ve noticed as soon as I started
high school, and I went to School X [higher-income, mostly white], and
my other friends went to Y [lower-income, multiple ethnicities], or they
just quit high school, they kind of said—this is a good one—“Oh, Ma-
ritza’s changed a lot.” Some people just don’t recognize me. They may
have known me since I was in third grade, and they look at me now, and
they just don’t recognize me. I don’t look different. I look the same.
I’m the same person. I just study more. I spend more time doing things
that they just don’t do anymore. They’re too busy working, or they have
their babies to take care of or something. Most of the kids around here
don’t speak Spanish, and my parents taught us Spanish. I know Spanish
and English. I just know both of them fluently. I could go from English
to Spanish in a second, without thinking about it, and I do it a lot. A lot
of the kids, they say I speak English funny. I guess I speak properly or
something—I don’t know. It’s just, to them, it sounds funny because I
just don’t talk the way they do. It kind of makes me mad sometimes
because they really shouldn’t say anything because they don’t speak
their own native language, and they don’t know about things like I do. I
work hard for something that they don’t want. I don’t see that I’ve lost
anything. I think of myself as more Mexican than they’ll ever be. I think
they’re the ones that have kind of lost a lot and are out of touch with
their ethnic group.
128 THE URBAN REVIEW

Maritza and her family lived in a modest home in a low-income neighbor-

hood. During the interview, the interviewer observed two police officers across
the street while they handcuffed a man and carried a television out of his house
while a matronly woman shook her finger at him. Maritza said that her friends’
parents would not let her friends visit because they considered the neighbor-
hood dangerous. When asked why they did not move, the mother said that they
had considered moving, but they liked the neighborhood and had decided to
stay. Nevertheless, Maritza was accusing of selling out because she did not
attend school with her neighbors, did not speak street lingo, and did well in
school. So mere academic achievement did not attract accusations. Rather, Ma-
ritza’s perceived rejection of the neighborhood, evidenced by her rejection of
the local high school, and her style of speech were key behaviors that attracted
accusations.
The students clearly voiced their frustration against accusations that they
acted white or were sellouts and disagreed with the suggestion that they had
given up their ethnic identity in order to do well in school. Most pursued a
high-achievement path that included honors classes, earning good grades,
studying, and using “proper” English in school. In the next section, we discuss
their feelings toward their accusers.

Anger Toward Accusers: I Know More About My Ethnic Heritage Than

You Do

Several students whom we interviewed seemed offended that people who

appeared to know nothing about their own ethnic heritage would accuse more
ethnically knowledgeable people of acting white. For example, Maritza was
offended that Mexican-Americans who could not even speak Spanish would
dare accuse her of talking funny and acting white when she could speak Span-
ish and in fact had visited Mexico several times. Joe Murphy, who attended a
racially balanced school, felt the same way about being accused of selling out:

30: It made me feel bad because I had probably known more black his-
tory and had done more to delve into my history than most of them, and
they had the nerve to see me as something that was trying to negate my
heritage. So I mean it made me feel pretty bad but I just learned to try to
ignore it. I mean I still can’t ignore it when I hear that, it pisses me off,
but not everyone is going to like you, and they’re going to find some
way to try to make you angry so I’ve just tried my best to ignore it.

The EXCEL students were particularly confident about their knowledge of

ethnic heritage because most of them had participated in field studies of the
civil rights movement (Bettis, Cooks, and Bergin, 1994) or in Mexico. It
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 129

seemed that one reason the high-achieving students in our study were able to
resist the pressure to conform was that they considered the source of the accu-
sations and asked themselves, “Why should I follow the advice of people who
don’t even know about their own ethnicity and heritage?”

Competition for Grades

If an aspect of acting white is getting good grades and studying hard to get
ahead, then competing for grades would appear to be a sure indicator of acting
white. We were surprised at how many students whom we interviewed were
competing for grades. We described the students’ competitive attitudes at length
in another article (Bergin and Cooks, 2000). Suffice it to say that both males
and females competed for grades and academic honors and, in contrast to some
of Fordham’s and Suskind’s informants (Fordham, 1996; Fordham and Ogbu,
1986; Suskind, 1998), did not report doing things to avoid being perceived
publicly as high achievers. Students stated that the competition gave them
something to shoot for and improved their performance. While there is evi-
dence that competition may not be good in school settings (Bergin and Cooks,
2000), these students of color endorsed it. It would be highly inaccurate to say
that they were avoiding academic achievement.

Mixed Ethnicity

The whole notion of ethnic identity and acting white rests on the assumption
that people claim that they are members of an identifiable ethnic group. Three
of the students identified themselves as being of mixed race. (We are using the
terms ethnic group and race interchangeably here because that is how the stu-
dents used them.) On the other hand, two other students had an African-Ameri-
can father and a white mother, yet neither of them mentioned being of mixed
race. Thus, students who were of mixed ethnicity varied in whether they identi-
fied themselves as being of a single ethnic group or of mixed ethnicity. When
asked about giving up ethnic identity in order to do well in school, one student
stated:

10: No. I don’t think so. I might just sit there and be real quiet. It’s not
that I’m afraid to or anything. It’s just I don’t think anybody would
understand where I’m coming from just because I’m two races. I’m not
just African-American; I’m mixed. And I don’t think anybody would
understand. So I might just be there and be quiet other than try to speak
up. But if it was something that bothers me, I would let them know.

As intermarriage among ethnic groups continues to increase, the issue of ethnic

identity and ethnic affiliation will become increasingly complex. If a child’s
130 THE URBAN REVIEW

parents are of mixed race—say, Filipino, black, white, and Chinese—how does
he or she self-label? Is labeling possible where such mixtures are dominant?
Can accusations of acting white be leveled? Such issues will become more
common in the future and may undermine some of the pressure for ethnic
solidarity or may generate new ethnic categories.

CONCLUSIONS
At the beginning of this article, the first major question that we posed was
“Did students report avoiding academic achievement in order to avoid appear-
ing to act white?” The respondents in this study did not report avoiding aca-
demic achievement in order to avoid accusations of acting white. In fact, their
mean GPA was 3.3, and many reported competing for grades. If we had inter-
viewed only EXCEL students, we might have attributed the lack of fear of
acting white to the EXCEL program, which included a field study of the civil
rights South (Bettis et al., 1994), instruction on multicultural issues, and leaders
of color who served as models. However, the statements of comparison students
were similar to those of EXCEL students. Keep in mind that the EXCEL and
non-EXCEL students had both applied to the program in eighth grade and were
interviewed several years later. Thus, there was plenty of time for them to falter
in academic achievement and to be affected by peer pressure to achieve or not
achieve.
The second question that we posed at the beginning of the article was “Did
students perceive that they had given up ethnic identity in order to do well in
school?” Most of the students we interviewed reported no loss of ethnic iden-
tity. They made very few comments that could be interpreted as reflecting
adoption of or fear of a raceless persona (Fordham, 1988). The students felt
resentment toward accusations of acting white and, unlike some of Fordham’s
and Suskind’s informants (Fordham, 1988, 1996; Fordham and Ogbu, 1986;
Suskind, 1998), did not seem to be intimidated by the accusations, though they
were bothered by them. Our informants made comments like feeling pissed off
and not wanting to hold themselves back in order to fit in. Some seemed to
identify more with leaders like Du Bois and Martin Luther King than with low-
achieving students.
It would be useful if future research addressed the conditions under which
resistance and avoidance of acting white are most likely to occur. It appears that
when students feel affiliated with a group of students who hold similar values
and goals, they are not so threatened by accusations of acting white. Being in a
demanding sequence of classes with like-minded peers can reduce the pain of
accusations of acting white or selling out because of the solidarity that such
a group can experience. The students whom we interviewed reported that at
each school, there were students of color who chose honors classes and high
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 131

achievement, which provided a peer group of like-minded students. For exam-

ple, Selena Sanders reported sharing competition for grades with a group of
high-achieving African-American students at her predominantly African-Ameri-
can school. In addition, the EXCEL students had such a group in EXCEL,
though the influence of EXCEL may not have been felt on a daily basis because
program participants were small in number at individual schools.
Whether a school is predominantly white, predominantly black, or racially
balanced can affect students’ ethnic identity and need for racial solidarity. It
appears that students of color in predominantly white schools are less likely to
be accused of acting white at school because there are so few students of color.
The students of color may be in different classes and different lunch periods.
They might, however, be accused in their neighborhoods. Students of color in
predominantly black schools seem likely to be harassed about acting white if
their behavior goes beyond high achievement and shows “proper speech,” or
“white dress,” or preference for other “white” things. High-achieving students
of color in racially balanced schools appear most likely to be accused of acting
white because their enrollment in advanced classes puts them in constant con-
tact with white students, and at the same time, there is a large number of
students of color who are in a position to notice and comment on the supposed
defection. One student, a black student in a Catholic girls’ school, had experi-
enced accusations of acting white in her racially balanced junior high, but not
in the private, nearly all-white high school. Students in racially balanced
schools seemed to feel more polarization based on race, so they were under
more pressure to “choose sides.” We say “seemed” because our data were not
originally designed to test this point. Our sample depended on who had applied
to EXCEL and thus was not randomly or purposefully selected from various
types of institutions.
It might be useful to study how different racial balances affect perceptions of
ethnic identity and accusations of acting white. For example, Jacob (1995) and
Ulichny (1996) found that mixing black students and bilingual Hispanic stu-
dents in the same school-within-a-school had some positive effects but also led
to racial tensions. Neither author discussed either ethnic identity or accusations
of acting white, but the fact that black students felt threatened in terms of the
adequacy of their culture and ethnicity might increase accusations of acting
white by heightening perceptions of the need for ethnic solidarity.
When students reject the school of their catchment area and transfer to an-
other public school or enroll in a private school, they seem especially likely to
be accused of acting white. The accusations may be predicated not on the level
of achievement, but on the perceived rejection of neighbors, culture, and eth-
nicity. “Aren’t we good enough for you?” might be a common question.
The students we interviewed frequently named academic achievement as one
marker of acting white; however, mere academic achievement did not appear to
132 THE URBAN REVIEW

be sufficient to attract accusations of acting white. Most of the students we

interviewed could be considered adequate or high achievers, yet in the inter-
views, they did not dwell on their grades, advanced-placement classes, or
honors status as drawing accusations of acting white. The issues pertaining to
acting white that they dwelled on in the interviews included dialect, hanging
around with white students, acting stuck up, and style of dress. Being in an
honors class was not necessarily a problem; the problem was that at some
schools, if you were in an honors class, you were with mostly white students.
The interviewees seemed to draw the ire of fellow minority students when they
went beyond high grades and also dressed out of the norm for their group; or
spoke proper English, especially outside of the classroom; or hung around with
white students.
Fordham and Ogbu’s study (1986) and Suskind’s (1998) journalistic treat-
ment show students going out of their way to avoid academic achievement that
might elicit accusations of acting white. Our data are more positive about stu-
dents’ goals and behavior. Our data are more congruent with quantitative
studies of the goals and achievement of African-American youth (Ainsworth-
Darnell and Downey, 1998; Collins-Eaglin and Karabenick, 1993; Cook and
Ludwig, 1998; Spencer et al., 2001), which do not find rejection of academic
achievement. The differences between our data and Fordham’s could be the
result of method: She used intensive, lengthy ethnographic observations, while
we used relatively brief interviews (though we had broad, experience-based
knowledge of the students). Differences could be the result of city setting: the
inner city of Washington, D.C., may be quite different for African-Americans
than the inner city or suburban areas of a mid-sized midwestern city (note that
Suskind’s Washington, D.C., observations were congruent with Fordham’s).
Differences could be the result of school setting: Fordham studied a single
school and its students intensively, while we interviewed students from different
schools of radically different types. Differences could be the result of time
frame: Fordham’s data were apparently collected during the 1980s, while ours
were collected during the 1990s. Note that Suskind’s interviews and observa-
tions occurred during the 1990s and were congruent with Fordham’s. Differ-
ences could be the result of participant selection: Fordham selected the students
to interview based on her observations of the school, while we selected students
in eighth grade based on their achievement and interviewed them several years
later.
In conclusion, we did not hear a single comment from students admitting
that they had altered their behavior, reduced their effort, or earned poor grades
in order to avoid accusations of acting white. However, we are not claiming
that no students alter their behavior, reduce their effort, or earn poor grades in
order to avoid accusations of acting white. We are claiming that a significant
proportion of African-American and Mexican-American students who were
 ACCUSATIONS OF “ACTING WHITE” 133

earning good grades in eighth grade were still doing so in high school and did
not report reducing or hiding their academic effort in order to avoid accusations
of acting white. We suspect that students who reject academic achievement and
students who embrace academic achievement exist side by side in schools
throughout the United States. Further investigation could study what factors
affect whether students choose to avoid being accused of acting white. It would
also be useful to investigate the perceptions of students who make the accusa-
tions. What proportion are genuinely concerned about issues of resistance, ra-
cial oppression, and racial solidarity? What specific situations and behaviors
trigger their accusations? Further investigation could also study the develop-
ment of awareness of “acting white,” that is, at what age children begin to be
aware of the dangers of appearing to act white and to accuse others. In order to
understand the phenomenon of accusations of acting white, we need to under-
stand the accusers as well as the accused.

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