Introduction: Language and White Supremacy (original) (raw)

Whiteness and Language [International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology]

Whiteness, like all racial categories, is a mythic and cunning construct with little biological credibility but tremendous social power. Historically, White social dominance has been propped up not only by violence, political control, and socioeconomic configurations, but also by language ideology and linguistic practice. This entry explores several ways in which White advantages and subject positions have been constructed through language. It looks at the racial politics of colonial-era language policies and attitudes, and the racial hierarchy implicit in the contemporary valorization of “standard” language, particularly in the United States. It examines whiteness as a verbal performance and a matter of style, and how White borrowings from non-standard linguistic varieties have often functioned to affirm White racism. It describes how some non-white communities have mocked White language (and, by extension, the negative qualities they associate with whiteness). And it examines some of the linguistic strategies, from code choice to subtle discursive maneuvers, pursued by self-conscious Whites at pains to avoid accusations of racism.

Introduction to the Forum on Language and Anti‐Blackness

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2021

The co-editors of this special issue thought it was important that we create a space in which language scholars might set our gaze squarely upon the varied ways anti-Blackness/anti/Black racism functions and is foiled, even as we take into account how it is tethered to the rest of White Supremacy's brood and kin (e.g., anti-Indigeneity, anti-Nativeness, Islamophobia, anti-Latinidad, misogyny, heteronormativity, transphobia, ableism, the US carceral state, colonialism, capitalism). Hailing from significantly different intellectual vantage points and personal experiences, the contributors to this forum are scholars of language and meaningmaking who consider an array of practices and structures that sustain anti-Blackness and/or consider those that nourish anti-anti-Blackness.

Introduction: White Noise: Bringing Language into Whiteness Studies

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2001

owes a special debt to anthropology. After all, the fundamental postulate of whiteness studies-that race is socially constructed-is based on extensive anthropological research extending back to Boas and continuing to the present moment (e.g., Harrison 1995Harrison ,1998. Moreover, as a phenomenon grounded in what Hill (this issue) calls the "culture of racism," the racial project of whiteness is especially suited to anthropological study. Indeed, anthropologists have been at the vanguard of scholarship in the critical investigation of whiteness. The influential studies of such researchers as Karen Brodkin (1998) and John Hartigan (1999) have enriched the field by demonstrating the importance of historical, geographic, and ethnographic specificity in understanding the workings of whiteness. It is important to acknowledge, too, that these insights, which Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11(1):3-21.

Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective

This article presents what we term a raciolinguistic perspective, which theorizes the historical and contemporary co-naturalization of language and race. Rather than taking for granted existing categories for parsing and classifying race and language, we seek to understand how and why these categories have been co-naturalized, and to imagine their denaturalization as part of a broader structural project of contesting white supremacy. We explore five key components of a raciolinguistic perspective: (i) historical and contemporary colonial co-naturalizations of race and language; (ii) perceptions of racial and linguistic difference; (iii) regimentations of racial and linguistic categories; (iv) racial and linguistic intersections and assemblages; and (v) contestations of racial and linguistic power formations. These foci reflect our investment in developing a careful theorization of various forms of racial and linguistic inequality on the one hand, and our commitment to the imagination and creation of more just societies on the other.

INTENSE RACISM IN LINGUISTICS: ITS THEORETICAL, HISTORICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ROOTS

In the fourth section of "Arbin Word Roots Epic," I documented the intense racism within the Western-centric field of linguistics. How did the Indo-European theory emerge? How did it become the ideological tool of all fascists, whether openly or hidden? How did so-called freedom-loving, liberal, and even leftist historians and linguists easily embrace this bogus theory? How did politics enslave science? And what is the truth? When we compare Turkish with English and Latin, its compatibility (40.5% - 35.7%) is higher than that of German with Latin and French. The compatibility of Turkish with German and French is at least as high as the compatibility among all "Indo-European" languages (30.9-27). Even Arabic, supposedly outside this language family, shows a 9.6% overlap with English and Latin. These percentages are in parallel with mythological and genetic connections.

How white supremacy influences discourses around language and education in the USA

Black Deaf children’s language has been, and continues to be, a source of oppression and struggle. This paper considers how discourse around language contributes to naturalising white supremacy; that is, the concept that white language, culture, and “ways of knowing” are superior (Mills, 1997). A significant but understudied area is Black American Sign Language (BASL), a variation of American Sign Language (ASL), the language of the North American Deaf community. BASL lies at the intersection between white supremacy and audism, “the hearing way of dominating, restructuring, and exercising authority over the deaf community” (Lane, 1992). Just as “African American studies critiques white supremacy, Deaf Studies critiques … audism.” (Bauman, 2008). I critically consider the ways in which white supremacy and audism both have their bases in assumptions of the moral, intellectual and aesthetic superiority of dominant white and hearing (non-deaf) cultures. The history of education policy and discourse around language in the education of Black and Deaf children has revolved around concerns that students are taught to communicate “properly” and “normally”, as exemplified in the Oakland Ebonics debate. Less well known is the history in segregated Deaf schools of paternalism and oralism (using only lip-reading and forbidding sign language). I argue that concern about students communicating “properly” is more than misguided benevolence, but rather a way to suppress Black and/or Deaf “ways of knowing” (such as in the concept of “Deafhood”) in order to reinforce the supremacy of white and hearing thought, culture and language. I show how both Black and Deaf bodies and language have been dehumanised, pathologised and problematised in similar but historically distinct and unique ways in educational systems (Sanchez, 2015; Jackson, 2006).

Raciolinguistics of White Supremacy

We have to constantly critique imperialist white supremacist patriarchal culture because it is normalized by mass media and rendered unproblematic." -Bell Hooks

Linguistic racism: Origins and implications

Ethnicities, 2023

This special issue of Ethnicities focuses on the phenomenon of linguistic racism. Linguistic racism constitutes the intersection of language, race/ism, and in/equality, as seen in racialized discourses on the relative status of languages and bi/multilingual language use, particularly as these are directed toward non-dominant language speakers. The theoretical framings underpinning the contributions in this issue draw on sociological discussions of critical race theory, and sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological discussions of language ideologies, linguistic racism, and raciolinguistics. Racialized discourses of language (use) are situated within sociohistorical and sociopolitical contexts, grounded in nationalism and colonialism, that privilege dominant national and international languages, public monolingualism, and native-speaker competence in those languages. In contrast, related linguistic hierarchies of prestige pathologize the language uses of non-dominant languageoften Indigenous and/or bi/multilingualspeakers and construct their language use in both overtly and covertly racialized terms. The result is regular linguistic discrimination and subordination experienced by non-dominant language speakers, inevitably framed within wider racialized institutional and everyday discursive practices. The contributions herein explore these issues in relation to Indigenous and other non-dominant language use(s), and their (mis)representation, in the media, workplace, and academia, in the contexts of New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, and the United States.

Linguistics and race: An interdisciplinary approach towards an LSA statement on race

Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America

In order to work towards greater racial justice within linguistics, the challenge remains for linguists to develop a cohesive theory of and approach to race and racial analysis in linguistics that is influenced by researchers of different methodological approaches and racial backgrounds. A formal LSA statement on race will provide linguistic researchers with a framework for studying race and will also serve as a method of intellectual and social inclusion in linguistics. We draw on interdisciplinary expertise in related fields, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, and ethnic studies, to examine how scholars from >neighboring disciplines have formally conceptualized and dealt with race and racial classification strategies. Points of convergence as well as divergence are articulated, drawing insights that may advance work related to race within and beyond linguistics.