Talk:Acting white

History of usage
"Acting white" has been used a lot earlier than 1986. People were using it as far back as the 60s and 70s, along with "Oreo" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.115.10 (talk) 23:17, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Obviously you're right. The source that sentence was cited to didn't mention anything about it anyway.  I took it out, but there are a lot of other problems in this article.  Thanks for mentioning it.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:27, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

"In 1986, Nigerian sociologist John Ogbu co-authored with Signithia Fordham co-authored a study that concluded that high-performing African-American students in a Washington, D.C., and the "acting white theory" was born." This does not appear to be a complete sentence. There seems to be words missing between "Washington, D.C." and the comma. A more complete version of this sentence also seems to have been repeated in the section that follows.--LainiLestrange (talk) 10:55, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Education as betrayal of culture?
"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" - wait... so there are people who actually want to be perceived as idiots? I didn't know that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.184.14.5 (talk) 10:54, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Adding three new sections?
I am thinking of adding two new sections to this article. Black Women for one section and Black men for another. The term "acting white" can be the same, but is also very different and varies between gender. Black men deal with "Acting white" in different ways than women because of the hyper masculinity of not only all men, but especially black men in our society, and stereotyping. Basically, if a black man is not an athlete or does not have a typical "thug-like" attitude/characteristics, he will often be judged or criticized more harshly and find that it is harder for him to fit in with his peers, especially other blacks that do not identify with him. Black men that are seen as "acting white" are identified as "nerdy." For women, there should be examples/sources of what "acting white" means to black women, not just men. What notable women could be listed that have dealt with these stereotypes in society?

The last section I think should be added is putting a header back up for "Popular Culture." For example, the movie Dope is so important for this article in that it completely relates to this topic. The movie is about a young educated black male growing up in a harsh neighborhood in LA, who has dreams of attending Harvard, but he and his friends are seen as "nerds" from the rest of their peers because they are smart, get good grades, and dress differently. There are many other movies out there that portray/make fun of black men who aren't stereotypical that I think would be great references in this article. It could also use a more recent update as well. Nayaanisse (talk) 13:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

No "Black People" template?
There is a template at the bottom of the "Acting White" article that links to the White People wikipedia page. At first I was confused on why no one had added a template to "Black People," but after researching I realized a "Black People" article/template does not exist on wikipedia. There is a link, however, to the African Diaspora page but it isn't the same. I'm surprised that a "black people" template has not been created yet and I am thinking maybe I will start a new article on this. Nayaanisse (talk) 14:06, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20090522174354/http://www.pbs.org:80/newshour/essays/july-dec04/page_9-27.html to http://www.pbs.org/newshour/essays/july-dec04/page_9-27.html
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Miss Ann
Miss Ann, in my section of Louisiana, is the white woman who is the head of the house. More commonly, "Miss Ann" is a black--Negro or colored--girl or woman who acts or appears to act superior to those persons of color around her, acts white. It is not a term one seeks; the actions are condemned. "Who do you think you are? Miss Ann" is the common expression used by blacks. "Uppity" would never be applied to Miss Ann. "Uppity" is a term used by whites to describe blacks whom whites thought considered themselves equal to or--God forbid--superior to whites. A tour guide at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana as recently as the '90s said the wife of the slaveholder/owner of the Castle was "Miss Ann."```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Georga S. McDade (talk • contribs) 17:07, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Unscramble, please
In 1986, Nigerian sociologist John Ogbu co-authored with Signithia Fordham co-authored a study that concluded that high-performing African-American students in a Washington, D.C., and the "acting white theory" was born.
 * Could somebody unscramble this sentence? Valetude (talk) 00:39, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Citation issues
I find it really weird that the main source to justify the existence of this context, which is cited 6 times in the article, among which 3 in the opening paragraphs, essentially says this phenomenon is irrelevant. Just reading the abstract from that source is enough:

"(1) do blacks experience greater alienation toward school than non-Hispanic whites?; (2) do blacks incur social penalties from their peers for succeeding academically?; […] Our analysis suggests the answer to each of the three questions is “apparently not”."

This source says the opposite of what it is used for, and this is very misleading. If the source is only used to extract definitions of what “acting white” could be, then citing it should definitely mention that there was no measurable evidence towards these definitions in the cited article.

194.12.7.68 (talk) 09:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

what the...
not a single mention of code switching, perhaps the MAIN COMPONENT of "acting white"?!

i'd add it myself, but frankly, it should be like 30% of the article! 2601:19C:527F:A680:4982:F03A:8EA9:52E2 (talk) 02:11, 9 July 2022 (UTC)