Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School

Mica Pollock

Published by Princeton University Press 2004

Colormute

Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School

Mica Pollock

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400826124

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book considers in unprecedented detail one of the most confounding questions in American racial practice: when to speak about people in racial terms. Viewing "race talk" through the lens of a California high school and district, Colormute draws on three years of ethnographic research on everyday race labeling in education. Based on the author's experiences as a teacher as well as an anthropologist, it discusses the role race plays in everyday and policy talk about such familiar topics as discipline, achievement, curriculum reform, and educational inequality.

Pollock illustrates the wide variations in the way speakers use race labels. Sometimes people use them without thinking twice; at other moments they avoid them at all costs or use them only in the description of particular situations. While a major concern of everyday race talk in schools is that racial descriptions will be inaccurate or inappropriate, Pollock demonstrates that anxiously suppressing race words (being what she terms "colormute") can also cause educators to reproduce the very racial inequities they abhor.

The book assists readers in cultivating a greater understanding of the pitfalls and possibilities of everyday race talk and clarifies previously murky discussions of "colorblindness." By bridging the gap between theory and practice, Colormute will be enormously helpful in fostering ongoing conversations about dismantling racial inequality in America.

Author / Editor information

Mica Pollock is Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She previously also worked in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

Reviews

"Pollock's profound insights about the dilemmas of race talk and silence will change the way Americans think about language, social categories, and the responsibilities we must face if we are ever to make headway against racial inequality."—Katherine S. Newman, Princeton University

"This welcome book invites us to become more critically conscious of 'race talk' and thus more aware of how even our silences can reproduce racial hierarchies."—Charles Payne, Duke University

"Professor Pollock attacks a vitally important topic with vitality and an engaging and very readable style. Displaying a keen ear, she has artfully picked up the nuances of 'race talk' from students she has taught and observed. Pollock presents a troubling, but significant finding: Talking in racial terms can make race matter; but so too, can not speaking in racial terms."—Hugh Mehan, University of California San Diego

"The scholarship is provocative, the text well written, and the argument clear and compelling. Pollock is a truly gifted writer."—Michelle Fine, City University of New York

"The dilemma at the heart of this book is the same dilemma at the heart of US society: practically no available form of public discourse about racial topics or issues actually engages with what race i. . . . This book's ethnographic setting, detailed observations, and transcripts provide a close-up look at a vexing everyday issue, demonstrating an important performative dimension in the generation of racialization."---Bonnie Urciuoli, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Pollock attacks the topic with strength, providing a clear, compelling, and well-written argument. She helps readers cultivate greater understanding of the pitfalls and possibilities of daily race talk. A necessary and important work in fostering ongoing conversations about dismantling racial inequality in the United States."

"Winner of the 2005 Critics' Choice Award, American Educational Studies Association"

"Winner of the 2005 Outstanding Book Award, American Educational Research Association"

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. We Don’t Belong to Simple Race Groups, but We Do Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
2. Race Doesn’t Matter, but It Does Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
3. The De-Raced Words We Use When Discussing Plans for Racial Equality Can Actually Keep Us from Discussing Ways to Make Opportunities Racially Equal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	74
4. The More Complex Inequality Seems to Get, the More Simplistic Inequality Analysis Seems to Become Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
5. The Questions We Ask Most about Race Are the Very Questions We Most Suppress Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
6. Six Although Talking in Racial Terms Can Make Race Matter, Not Talking in Racial Terms Can Make Race Matter Too Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
Moving Forward Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
Practically Speaking: Words for Educators in Particular Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	220
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251

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