This article examines how “Black names” have become a trope for deficit beliefs about Black people in the United States and about Blackness more broadly. In data from two qualitative studies conducted with one group of African American secondary students and second group of African American alumni from a historically black college, participants’ narratives of everyday life reflect the impact of racialization and the extent to which members of both groups attempt to circumvent racialization in their personal and professional lives. The authors identify naming as a cultural right that is threatened within the Black community. They use the principle tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) alongside discussions of “race” in a sociolinguistic analysis of participants’ discussions of race and naming. The authors take up CRT’s call for narrative as a critical component for revealing and analyzing the significance and impact of race. Findings from the study illustrate that African Americans struggle with naming and the implications for Black names that influence personal choices they make regardless of their age, education level, and socioeconomic status. There is a consequential aspect to Black names that imposes challenges in refracting the deficit constructions of Blackness that are attached to them.
AkbarN. (2005). Black collaboration with White privilege. In White Privilege 101: Getting in on the conversation [DVD]. Available from http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com
3.
Anderson-ClarkT.GreenR.HenleyT. (2008). The relationship between first names and teacher expectations for achievement and motivation. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 27, 94-99.
4.
AsanteM. (1991). The book of African names. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
BertrandM.MullainathanS. (2004). Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review, 94(4), 991-1013.
7.
BloomeD. (1987). Literacy and schooling. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
8.
BloomeD.ClarkC. (2006). Discourse-in-use. In GreenJ. L.CamilliG.ElmoreP. (Eds.), Handbook of complementary methods in education research (3rd ed., pp. 227-244). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9.
Bonilla-SilvaE.LewisA. (1999). The new racism: Racial structure in the United States, 1960s-1990s. In WongP. (Ed.), Race, nation, and citizenship (pp. 55-100). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
10.
BourdieuP. (2006). The forms of capital. In LauderH.BrownP.DillaboughJ. A.HalseyA. H. (Eds.), Education, globalisation and social change (pp. 105-118). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
11.
BrownA. F. (2008). Constructing “race” through talk: A micro-ethnographic investigation of discussions of “race” among African American secondary students (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
12.
BrownA. F.William-WhiteL. (2010). “We are not the same minority”: The narratives of two sisters navigating identity and discourse at public and private white institutions. In RobinsonC.ClardyP. (Eds.), Tedious journeys: Autoethnography by women of color in the academe (pp. 149-175). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
13.
BrownT.CornfieldD. (2008). A selective review of sociological perspectives on the relationship between race and wealth. In MoranB. (Ed.), Race and wealth disparities: A multidisciplinary discourse (pp. 57-70). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
14.
CarterS. P. (2006). “She would’ve still made that face expression”: The use of multiple literacies by two African American young women. Theory Into Practice, 45(4), 352-358.
15.
CoseE. (2011). The end of anger: A new generation’s take on race and rage. New York, NU: HarperCollins.
16.
CrenshawK. (1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101, 1331-1387.
17.
CreswellJ. W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (3rd ed.). Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
18.
DanielJ. E.DanielJ. L. (1998). Preschool children’s selection of race-related personal names. Journal of Black Studies, 28(4), 471-490.
19.
DelgadoR. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87, 2411-2441.
20.
DelgadoR. (1995). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
21.
DelpitL. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review, 58(3), 280-298.
DixonA.RousseauC. K. (2006). Critical race theory in education: All God’s children got a song. New York, NY: Routledge.
24.
EmersonR.FretzR.ShawL. (2001). Participant observation and fieldnotes. In AtkinsonP.CoffeyA.DelamongS.LoflandJ.LoflandL. (Eds.), Handbook of ethnography (pp. 352-368). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
25.
FigoloD. (2003, December). Names, expectations, and Black children’s achievement. Paper presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Gainsville, Florida.
26.
FigoloD. (2005, March). Names expectations and the Black-White test score gap. Working Paper Series, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.
27.
FryerR.LevittS. (2004). The causes and consequences of distinctively black names. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(3), 767-805.
28.
GayeG. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. Teachers College Press: New York.
29.
GreenJ.WallatC. (Eds.). (1981). Ethnography and language in educational settings. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
30.
HymesD. (1972). Models of the interaction of language and social life. In GumperzJ.HymesD. (Eds.), Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication (pp. 35-71). New York, NY: Blackwell.
31.
KozinetsR. V. (2002). The field behind the screen: Using netography for marketing research in on-line communities. Journal of Marketing Research, 30(1), 61-72.
32.
Ladson-BillingsG. (1999). Just what is critical race theory and what’s it doing in a nice field like education? In ParkerL.DeyhleD.VillenasS. (Eds.), Race is . . . race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (pp. 7-30). Oxford: Westview Press.
33.
LakeO. (2003). Blue veins and kinky hair: Naming and color consciousness in African America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Company.
34.
LiebersonS.BellE. (1992). Children’s first name: An empirical study of social taste. American Journal of Sociology, 98(3), 511-554.
35.
LiebersonS.MikelsonK. S. (1995). Distinctive African American names: An experimental, historical, and linguistic analysis of innovation. American Sociological Review, 60(6), 928-946.
36.
MatsudaM. (1995). Looking to the bottom: Critical legal studies and reparations. In CrenshawK.GotandaN.PellerG.ThomasK. (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement (pp. 63-79). New York, NY: New Press.
37.
MazuriA. (1986). The dis-Africanziation of the diaspora. In The Africans: A triple heritage (pp. 109-114). Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
38.
NeckermanK. (2007). Schools betrayed: Roots of failure in inner-city education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
39.
OmiM.WinantH. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.
40.
ReisiglM.WodakR. (2001). Discourse and discrimination: Rhetoric of racism and anti-Semitism. New York, NY: Routledge.
41.
RobertsR. (Performer). (2010, January18). The ‘post racial’ conversation, one year in, Talk of the Nation [Audio podcast]. National Public Radio.
42.
SellersR.SmithM.SheltonN.RowleyS.ChavousT. (1998). Multidimensional model of racial identity: A reconceptualization of African American racial identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(1), 18-39.
43.
ShumanA. (2005) Other people’s stories: Entitlement claims and the critique of empathy. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
44.
SkinnerE.RobinsonP. (Eds.). (1983). Transformation and resiliency in Africa: As seen by Afro-Americans. Washington, DC: Howard University Press.
45.
StewartJ. B. (1983). Psychic-duality in the novels of W.E.B. Dubois. Phylon, 44(2), 93-107.
