(Not) Talking About Race: Color-Evasive Tactics in Parental School Discourse

• In Event: Discursive Tools of White Supremacy

Abstract

The everyday discursive practices that covertly racialize persons, settings (e.g., schools), and practices are key to understanding the construction and normalization of race as a social structure. Using the racialized context of highly selective public magnet high schools and interviews with parents, this critical discourse analysis examines and then proposes a set of specific color-evasive tactics employed by parents to engage in covert racialization while evading explicit naming of race. This paper argues that such discursive strategies perpetuate individualist explanations for racial inequality and that direct and explicit discussions of race and racism are needed to combat color-evasive racial ideologies.

Author

• Christopher Hu, University of Virginia