{"id":2592,"date":"2006-08-07T15:51:53","date_gmt":"2006-08-07T22:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/08\/07\/a-few-notes-on-the-language-of-race-and-stereotyping\/"},"modified":"2006-08-07T15:51:53","modified_gmt":"2006-08-07T22:51:53","slug":"a-few-notes-on-the-language-of-race-and-stereotyping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2592","title":{"rendered":"A Few Notes on The Language of Race and Stereotyping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have read thousands of student papers, and I routinely notice is that students (and the general public) really don&#8217;t have a good grasp of how to write or talk about race and racism. In particular I have taught several writing intensive courses, and these experiences have lead me to develop several writing guidelines that deal with racial and ethnic issues. I know some of these suggestions my seem fairly basic, but I always seem to have more than one student who has these sorts of problems with talking\/writing about race.  Here are the suggestions from class:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Racial\/Ethnic Bias<\/strong>: Avoid using racial slurs or outdated terms, unless directly quoting from a source or if it is absolutely necessary. For example, you could say, \u201cRacial slurs such as spic or chink are commonly used in the locker room, but not in public settings.\u201d Sometimes you\u2019ll find older books that use outdated terms; if you are quoting them directly you shouldn\u2019t change wording.<\/li>\n<li>While racial slurs are easy to avoid, the more common problem is <strong>using universal terms or passive voice to avoid specificity<\/strong>. You should not be too vague in the name of political correctness. For example, don\u2019t say, \u201cPeople were lynched by mobs.\u201d Instead be frank, say, \u201cMost lynchings involved White mobs lynching African Americans.\u201d I often find students avoiding racial terminology, especially for Whites. Sometimes doing this takes away from the clarity of your writing. It is also important that we name the actors in any given situation; passive voice generally obscures the actors and denies the power of racism.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Over Generalizing<\/strong>: Be careful not to overstate findings or group differences. For example, don\u2019t say, \u201cAfrican Americans do not support the Iraq War,\u201d Instead say, \u201cAfrican Americans are less likely to support the war in Iraq.\u201d Substitute \u201call\u201d for many, most, a majority, etc. It is very important to remember that there is diversity within groups and phrases like &#8220;all&#8221; or &#8220;none&#8221; obscure that diversity. There are appropriate times to say &#8220;all&#8221;\/&#8221;everyone&#8221; or &#8220;none&#8221;\/&#8221;nobody&#8221; just make sure you really do mean what you are saying. For example, I could accurately say everyone in my (Prof. Sullivan) high school graduating class is white.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Capitalizing Racial\/Ethnic Groups<\/strong>: Ethnic groups should always be capitalized. For example, African Americans, Irish, Ashanti, etc., but there is some disagreement about whether or not racial terms, specifically, Black and White should be capitalized. You can make your own decision, but you must be consistent. (I have been wavering on this one lately. I used to be of the capitalize racial terms school of thought, and now I&#8217;m starting to back off of it. I always capitalize the term Asian, when it am using it as a racial category. I&#8217;ve thought about using lower case for color terms, but as you can see I don&#8217;t have a clear answer for this dilemma.)<\/li>\n<li><strong>First, Second, and Third Person<\/strong>: Use first person (I, we) when you want to emphasize your own belief, perspective or experience. Avoid using second person (you) unless you are directly addressing the reader. For example, you shouldn&#8217;t say. \u201cYou should take your grades seriously\u201d since I (Professor Sullivan) am your reader. Instead, change it to \u201cStudents should take their grades seriously.\u201d Since your audience for this paper is me (Prof. Rachel Sullivan), you should avoid using \u201cyou\u201d in your papers, unless you are speaking directly to me. Third person (she, he, it, they) is usually the best in you papers.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Passive Voice:<\/strong> Passive voice is weak and often takes agency away from an actor, allowing someone to avoid responsibility. For example, don\u2019t say, \u201cDivorces were granted.\u201d Instead say, \u201cJudges granted divorces.\u201d Don\u2019t say, \u201cBlacks were lynched.\u201d Instead say, \u201cWhite mobs lynched Blacks.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know the first one seems self explanatory, but almost every semester I get students writing about &#8220;colored people&#8221;&#8211;like it&#8217;s 1950 or something. I have taken to explaining that colored people is an outdated term and that it doesn&#8217;t have the same connotation as &#8220;people of color.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Now, I&#8217;m probably going make some people mad, but I see these same problems in the way that many bloggers write about race.  I&#8217;m not trying to put anyone down because we all fall into these traps.  I&#8217;m sure if you look through my blog long enough, you will find some of these problems. In fact, I think given the pervasiveness of racism and stereotyping it is very difficult for anyone to completely escape racist and\/or stereotyping language.  I also think that many of these same sorts of guidelines can apply when we are talking about other forms of social inequality&#8211;sexism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, and so on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have read thousands of student papers, and I routinely notice is that students (and the general public) really don&#8217;t have a good grasp of how to write or talk about race and racism. In particular I have taught several &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2592\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}