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Acting Black : College, Identity and the Performance of Race - Sarah Susannah Willie

Acting Black

College, Identity and the Performance of Race

By: Sarah Susannah Willie

Hardcover | 16 January 2003 | Edition Number 1

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Sarah Willie asks: What's it like to be black on campus. For most Black students, attending predominantly white universities, it is a struggle. Do you try to blend in? Do you take a stand? Do you end up acting as the token representative for your whole race? And what about those students who attend predominantly Black universities? How do their experiences differ? In Acting Black , Sarah Willie interviews 55 African American alumnae of two universities, comparable except that one is predominantly white, Northwestern, and one is predominantly Black, Howard. What she discovers through their stories, mirrored in her own college experience (she attended Haverford but spent one semester at Spelman), is that the college campus is in some cases the stage for an even more intense version of the racial issues played out beyond its walls. The interviewees talk about "acting white" in some situations and "acting black" in others. They treat race as many different things, including a set of behaviours that they can choose to act out. In Acting Black , Willie situates the personal stories of her own experience and those of her interviewees within a timeline of black education in America and a review of university policy, with suggestions for improvement for both black and white universities seeking to make their campuses truly multicultural. In the tradition of The Agony of Education , Willie captures the painful dilemmas and ugly realities African Americans must face on campus.
Industry Reviews
"Sarah Willie analyzes the array of experiences that constitute what it means to be Black for African American students. She challenges fixed notions of race, showing how Black students negotiate complex racial identities in the different contexts of historically Black colleges and predominantly white institutions. This important book shows that providing equitable education for Black students is more than a matter of numerical representation. Professor Willie's book should be required reading for college administrators and faculty."
-Margaret L. Andersen, author of "Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender
"A bold, original analysis demonstrating the crucibles of identity creation faced by Black students at historically Black and historically white colleges and universities."
-Joe Feagin, co-author of "The Agony of Education: Black Students at White Colleges and Universities
"Sarah Willie has given us a work of great insight and unshakable commitment to racial justice. This book will be indispensable for every teacher and every student concerned with race on campus, and indeed, with race in American society. A must-have, must-read, must-teach work."
-Howard Winant, author of "The World is a Ghetto: The Making of a New World Racial Order
"To what degree is race a malleable, contingent, and performable social identity? Does formal equality coexist with informal inequality, and if so, with what consequences? Are Black colleges the answer? If you, like me, have ever wondered about any of these questions, you must read this fascinating book that raises and addresses such issues."
-Caroline Hodges Persell, co-author of "Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools

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