Analysis Essay Of Fought, Are White People Ethnic? Whiteness, Dominance, And Ethnicity

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Analysis of Fought’s, Are White People Ethnic?

The central principle of studying whiteness is to read history and its influence on the present, inspired by postmodernism, in which, racial superiority concept emerged and developed against a discrimination contrary to nonwhite or other races. Research on whiteness is an interdisciplinary field of research that began in the United States, especially from the end of the 20th century. Those who labelled as white have a certain social contrast of social construct of “whiteness “simply as an ideology. It is also associated with social status associated with social, historical and sociological concept of label “whiteness”.

The ideologies associated with linguistic aspects of whiteness often correlate with social aspects.

The critical view of sounding white occurs over and over in a number of different ethnic groups. Consequently, investigation of studied the concept of white , as being not about some important quality of people, but about the leading philosophies of race in a specific culture at a precise moment in time, in the similar way that all investigations of race must be understood.( Fought 115). Since the 19th century, some authors have claimed that phenotypic meanings accredited to detailed races do not have a biological connotation, and consequently a race is not a valid biological idea. Another theme in the depiction of the “white “disguise is what might be labeled carelessness.( Fought 120)

The privilege of identifying and separating oneself from other groups is one of the undisputable privileges of whiteness. Because of the racial socialization defined above, the “whiteness as a privilege” model claims that whiteness is considered not so much by racial prejudice (i.e., racism), but by racial source of pride. “Whitness is often linked with education and or rational positioning (Fought 116)

How are social stereotypes about who white people are (middle class, educated, not particularly masculine or "cool") connected to linguistic stereotypes about how they speak (standard and sometimes overly correct)?

The ultimate perspective on whiteness and language is the most interesting. It comprises the link among whirtness and lingustic varities that the locally marked.The African-American students in Ogbu’s (1999)study listed “valley talk”. Both the terms “whiteness’ and privilege endure in educationand learning after versions of Jim Crow's segregationist ideology that was lost due to legal and political collaspe. “Confidentiality and the discourse of individualism mask white fear and new forms of exclusion in modern education, says scientist Charles R. Lawrence III”( Helms20). it means that whitness works as amask to hide the true identity . For example, New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo has denied a "racist and misogynistic theory that white people are experiencing an existential decline" due to rising immigration and declining birth rates. "Actually, the whole argument comes down to this; being pure rhetoric, this theory is in its depth comparable to today's popular notions of a flat Earth, unless it lacks the scientific rigor that the defenders of the latter strive for." In other words, it is ridiculously false, and this is obvious. True Manju does not explain why this is so. “The future is incomprehensible, and demography is an inaccurate science,” she assures the reader.

Fought notes that the specific evidence almost denies the concept of the role of struggle in history and how is played a part in creating the concept of “whiteness”. This concept is further known as the primary source of whiteness and all these primary sources that denotes to enhance the concept of “whiteness”.

Although, whiteness has so many diverse meanings that the word "is unknown but a poignant target." Helms, (2005) notes that scholars involved in research on whiteness are in the extreme left-wing radical spectrum and proposes that their outward flaw with deference to white Americans is comparatively due to the fact that white workers do not accomplish the guesses of the Marxist model that the working class will dazed racial and class variances get together and upheaval capitalism (Helms20).

Additionally, one key feature of the philosophy of whiteness is that whiteness is “not cool”, or “unhip”( Fought 117).this shows that whiteness is concept of superiority but not of personality traits like the term cool. The stereo type of white are associated with education , class, personality and linguistic abilities. Three basic perceptions on language and whiteness appear to be leading in the societies that have been the emphasis of current anthropological and sociolinguistic researches

In what ways might these stereotypes reinforce each other and discourage people from seeing a fuller picture of white people and their speech?

The first thing is the way how white speaker speaks standard English. It is not easy to explain but it is well associated with ideologies. Another concept that is associated with the concept of whines and linguistic stereotype is the level and standard of English used by white speakers. It is assumed that they know beyond basic English more likely super standard for grammar and vocabulary.

Particular region stereotype is often stigmatized with the concept of whiteness for example, the terms lie “valley girl”, or New York City dialects. But all of the concept that are associated with whiteness is not clearly and fully fit in to this category. Nor theses perspectives found in sociolinguistic studies of language and ethnicity.( Fought 117)

Finally, racism and whiteness are integrally and exclusive for Americans. But for Fought who completely rejects the argument, the concept of whiteness associated with white intelligent, rich and educated people. And she expresses apprehension about the "belief in moral the emptiness of whiteness, is still there and that is why some white behave or adopt other cultures like African or Indian to hide this emptiness. " She personally put “whiteness” in quotation marks because she was shying away by using the term” whiteness”.

Works cited

Helms, JE (2005). Updating the White Helmet and people with color racial identity patterns. A

guide to multicultural counseling. In JG Ponterotto, JM Casas, LA Suzuki and CM Alexander (Eds.). A guide to multicultural counseling. (p. 181-198). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications.

Fought, C. Language and ethnicity; "Writing about Language: Studying Language Diversity with

First-Year Writers." Teaching English in the Two-Year College 44.2 (2016): 176.