This article uses data drawn from nine months of fieldwork and student, teacher, and administrator interviews at a southern high school to analyze school racial conflict and the construction of racism. We find that institutional inequalities that stratify students by race and class are routinely ignored by school actors who, we argue, use the presence of so-called redneck students to plausibly deny racism while furthering the standard definition of racism as blatant prejudice and an individual trait. The historical prominence of rednecks as a southern cultural identity augments these claims, leading to an implicit division of school actors into friendly/nonracist and unfriendly/racist and allowing school actors to set boundaries on the meaning of racism. Yet these rhetorical practices and the institutional structures they mask contributed to racial tensions, culminating in a race riot during our time at the school.
BettieJulie. 2003. Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2.
Bonilla-SilvaEduardo. 1997. “Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation.” American Sociological Review62:465-80.
3.
Bonilla-SilvaEduardo. 2001. White Supremacy and Racism in the Post–civil rights Era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner.
4.
Bonilla-SilvaEduardo. 2003. Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
5.
Bonilla-SilvaEduardoFormanTyrone A.2000. “‘I Am Not a Racist But … ’: Mapping White College Students’ Racial Ideology in the USA.” Discourse Society11:50-85.
6.
Bonilla-SilvaEduardoLewisAmandaEmbrickDavid G.2004. “‘I Did Not Get That Job because of a Black Man … ’: The Story Lines and Testimonies of Color-blind Racism.” Sociological Forum19:555-81.
7.
CarterPrudence. 2005. Keepin’ It Real: School Success beyond Black and White. New York: Oxford University Press.
ColemanJames S.1961. The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of the Teenager and Its Impact on Education. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.
10.
ConchasGilberto Q.2010. “Structuring Failure and Success: Understanding the Variability in Latino School Engagement.” Pp. 155-81 in Beyond Stereotypes: Minority Children of Immigrants in Urban Schools, edited by DiazRosalinaSaranRupam. Boston: Sense.
11.
CooperChristopherKnottsH. Gibbs. 2006. “Region, Race, and Support for the South Carolina Confederate Flag.” Social Science Quarterly87(1):142-54.
12.
CrenshawK. W.1997. “Color-blind Dreams and Racial Nightmares: Reconfiguring Racism in the Post–civil rights Era.” Pp. 97-168 in Birth of a Nation’hood, edited by MorrisonT.LacourC.New York: Pantheon.
13.
DeNavas-WaitCarmenProctorBernadette D.SmithJessica C.2009. “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008.” U.S. Census Bureau: Report. Retrieved February 22, 2010 (http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf).
14.
DeyhleDonna. 1995. “Navajo Youth and Anglo Racism: Cultural Integrity and Resistance.” Harvard Educational Review65:403-44.
15.
EckertPenelope. 1989. Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School. New York: Teachers College Press.
16.
EliasophNina. 1999. “‘Everyday Racism’ in a Culture of Political Avoidance: Civil Society, Speech, and Taboo.” Social Problems46:479-502.
17.
EssedPhilomena. 1996. Diversity: Gender, Color, & Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
18.
FeaginJoe. 2000. Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York: Routledge.
19.
FineMichelleWeisLois. 2003. Silenced Voices and Extraordinary Conversations … Re-imagining Schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
20.
GamoranAdamMareRobert. 1989. “Secondary School Tracking and Educational Inequality: Compensation, Reinforcement or Neutrality?”American Journal of Sociology94(5):1146-83.
21.
HartiganJohn. 1999. Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness in Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
22.
HolyfieldLoriMoltzMatthew RyanBradleyMindy S.2009. “Race Discourse and the U.S. Confederate Flag.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education12:517-37.
23.
HugheyMatthew W.2009. “The (Dis)similarities of White Racial Identities: The Conceptual Framework of ‘Hegemonic Whiteness.’”Ethnic and Racial Studies33:1289-1309.
24.
JackmanMary R.1996. “Individualism, Self-interest, and White Racism.” Social Science Quarterly77:760-67.
25.
JaroszLucyLawsonVictoria. 2002. “‘Sophisticated People Versus Rednecks’: Economic Restructuring and Class Differences in America’s West.” Antipode34:8-27.
26.
KiangPeter N.KaplanJenny. 1994. “Where Do We Stand: Views of Racial Conflict by Vietnamese American High School Students in a Black-and-white Context.” Urban Review26:95-119.
27.
LeeStacey. 1996. Unraveling the “Model Minority” Stereotype. New York: Teachers College Press.
28.
LewisAmanda E.2001. “There Is No ‘Race’ in the Schoolyard: Color-blind Ideology in an (Almost) All-white School.” American Educational Research Journal38:781-811.
29.
LewisAmanda E.2003. Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
30.
LewisAmanda E.2004. “‘What Group?’ Studying Whites and Whiteness in the Era of ‘Color-blindness.’”Sociological Theory22:623-46.
31.
LippardCameron D.GallagherCharles A.2011. Being Brown in Dixie: Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Immigration in the New South. Boulder, CO: First Forum Press.
32.
LiuJames H.MillsDuncan. 2006. “Modern Racism and Neo-liberal Globalization: The Discourses of Plausible Deniability and Their Multiple Functions.” Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology16:83-99.
33.
LopezNancy. 2003. Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education. New York: Routledge.
34.
LucasSamuel. 1999. Tracking Inequality: Stratification and Mobility in American High Schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
35.
MacLeodJay. 1995. Ain’t No Making It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-income Neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview.
36.
McDermottMonicaSamsonFrank L.2005. “White Racial and Ethnic Identity in the United States.” Annual Review of Sociology31:245-361.
37.
MetcalfGeorge. 1983. From Little Rock to Boston: The History of School Desegregation. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
38.
MorrillCalvinMushenoMichael. 2009. “Reinterpreting the October Fight: The Institutional Conditioning of Youth Conflict in a Multiethnic High School.” Unpublished manuscript.
39.
MorrisEdward W.2005. “From ‘Middle Class’ to ‘Trailer Trash’: Teachers’ Perceptions of White Students in a Predominantly Minority School.” Sociology of Education78:99-121.
40.
MorrisEdward W.2008. “‘Rednecks,’ ‘Rutters,’ and ‘Rithmetic’: Social Class, Masculinity, and Schooling in a Rural Context.” Gender & Society22(6):728-51.
41.
MorrisJerome E.MonroeCarla R.2009. “Why Study the U.S. South? The Nexus of Race and Place in Investigating Black Student Achievement.” Educational Researcher38:21-36.
42.
OakesJeannie. 2005. Keeping Track: How Schools Structure inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
43.
OlzakSusan. 1992. The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
44.
PayneCharles. 1984. Getting What We Ask For: The Ambiguity of Success and Failure in Urban Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
45.
PerryPamela. 2002. Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identities in High School. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
46.
RaginCharles C.NagelJoaneWhitePatricia. 2004. Workshop on Scientific Foundations of Qualitative Research. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation.
47.
RoebuckJulian B.1982. The Southern Redneck: A Phenomenological Class Study. New York: Praeger.
48.
SchofieldJanet Ward. 1989. Black and White in School: Trust, Tension, or Tolerance?New York: Teachers College Press.
49.
SennettRichardCobbJonathan. 1972. The Hidden Injuries of Class. New York: Vintage.
50.
SimmonsKatieLecouterAmanda. 2008. “Modern Racism in the Media: Constructions of ‘Possibility of Change’ in Accounts of Two Australian ‘Riots.’”Discourse & Society19:667-87.
51.
StaigerAnnegret. 2006. Learning Difference: Race and Schooling in the Multiracial Metropolis. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
52.
StockJohn F.Jr.1979. “Ethnicity, Racism and Busing in Boston: The Boston Irish and School Desegregation.” Ethnicity6(1):21-28.
53.
TatumBeverly Daniel. 1997. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”New York: Basic Books.
54.
TysonKarolyn. 2011. Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black Students, and Acting White after Brown. New York: Oxford University Press.
55.
TysonKarolynDarityWilliamJr.CastellinoDomini. 2005. “It’s Not a Black Thing: Understanding the Burden of Acting White and Other Dilemmas of High Achievement.” American Sociological Review70:582-605.
Van DijkTeun A.1992. Elite Discourses and Racism. London: Sage.
59.
WahlAna-María GonzálezGunkelSteven E.2007. “From Old South to New South? Black-white Residential Segregation in Micropolitan Areas.” Sociological Spectrum27:507-35.
60.
WeisLois. 1990. Working Class without Work: High School Students in a De-industrializing Economy. New York: Routledge.
61.
WellmanDavid T.1994. Portraits of White Racism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
62.
WellsAmy StuartHolmeJennifer JellisonRevillaAnita TijerinaAtandaAwo Korantemaa. 2009. Both Sides Now: The Story of School Desegregation’s Graduates. Berkeley: University of California Press.
63.
WelnerKevin. 2001. Legal Rights, Local Wrongs: When Community Control Collides with Educational Equity. New York: State University of New York Press.
64.
WiederAlan. 1988. “From Crowds to Mobs: School Desegregation in New Orleans: A Case Study of Collective Behavior.” Equity and Excellence24:4-7.
65.
WinantHoward. 1997. “Beyond Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Contemporary U.S. Radical Politics.” Pp. 40-53 in Off White: Readings on Race, Power and Society, edited by FineM.WeisL.PowellL.Mun WongL.New York: Routledge.
66.
WrayMatt. 2006. Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
