May 22 , 2006

Overcoming "Acting White"

In 1965, schools were desegregated and the next year, I went to 7th grade at an integrated school.  There I encountered white teachers who used racial slurs and treated black students differently than I was used to being treated.  I remember being chastised for telling my parents my teachers were dumb.  I thought they asked me a lot of stupid questions.  I was so frustrated I’m sure my parents thought I would eventually tell one of my teachers that they sounded silly when they talked to me.

It was clear the expectations for black students were not the same as they were for white students. I was bored because a lot of the material in English, math and history had been covered in elementary school.  But my mother kept me busy with swimming, piano lessons, church choirs, playing piano for church and other church activities.  In the 10th grade I attended summer school with college students at Central State University and received by first college credits.

By now some of my black classmates began to tease about "acting white." Some of them had attended elementary school with me.  Many of them were clearly academically capable but instead, started lagging behind.  There was no way I was not going to do well. I had my parents to answer to. I’d seen one of my three brothers bring home a "C" and be put on punishment for the entire six-week grading period until the grade went back up to an "A" or a "B." During the summer of my junior year I had an opportunity to go to France for summer school with 40 students including five other blacks from my high school.  I spent the last six weeks of 11th grade walking to school with six girls and three of them not talking to me.  They accused me of giving my money to the white man. They were talking about the money my parents were spending on the trip. It was 1970 and the cost of the three- month trip was $850. I belonged to the French Club. We raised all the spending money for all 40 students by selling pretzels, sodas, chips and cookies before and after school.  I was hurt and told my friends my parents would arrange for the trip through a black-owned airline and travel company that offered the summer school trip if they could tell me where those companies were. My mother explained they were just jealous.  I tried to diffuse the situation with the girls but no luck.

I never forgot that and when I saw several research studies on this negative peer pressure I jumped at the chance to do the story.  Researchers have also found that this phenomenon almost doesn’t exist when black students attend a predominantly black school or when Latino students attend a predominantly Latino school. It’s most prevalent among diverse, integrated school populations.  That may explain why I never experienced students teasing me for academic excellence in elementary school.

However, all of the girls who were my friends in laboratory elementary school have done well.  There were six of us.  We are teachers (one is in France), a psychologist, phone company supervisor, sociologist and me, the news reporter.  Expectations were set high for us and all of us have bridged the achievement gap and made our parents proud.