In the United States, acting white is a pejorative term for white cultural appropriation usually applied to African-Americans, which refers to a person's perceived betrayal of their culture by assuming the social expectations of white society. Success in education in particular (depending on one's cultural background) can be seen as a form of selling out by being disloyal to one's culture. The term is controversial, and its precise meaning is hard to define. Nevertheless, the idea that minority students suffer from the negative prejudices of their ethnic peers is currently accepted as generally true in much of the American media—as expressed in articles in The New York Times, Time magazine, and The Wall Street Journal—and in American society.
Read more about Acting White: History of Usage, Case Studies and Research, Commentary
Famous quotes containing the words acting and/or white:
“It especially helps if you know that we’re all faking our adulthood—even your parents and their parents. Beneath these adult trappings—in our president, in our parents, in you and me—lurk the emotions of a child. If we know that only about ourselves, we become infantile; if we understand that about everybody, then we have nothing to be ashamed of—unless, of course, we go around acting like a child and expecting everyone else to act like grownups.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Everyone has left me
except my muse,
that good nurse.
She stays in my hand,
a mild white mouse.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)