This discourse analysis examines North American college students’ discursive constructions of racial boundaries, difference, and voluntary segregation on campus. Participants watched the documentary, Racism 101, at home with others and immediately afterwards tape-recorded their discussion about the video and related race matters. None of the participants disagreed with the existence of separateness on campus; they did, however, offer different accounts and positions. Some criticized such self-segregation while others justified it as understandable due to commonalities or differences. Still other individuals were ambivalent or avowed conflicting accounts, which seemed to reflect a dilemma, such as wanting more meaningful interracial contact but being unable to know how to achieve it. African Americans cited preserving group identity as a justification for boundaries. The findings fit with racial formation theory in that participants are partaking in different discourses so as to articulate, explore, or criticize different positions on interracial matters.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Asante, M. K.
, & Al-Seen, N. (1984). Social interaction of Black and White college students: A research report. Journal of Black Studies, 14, 507-516.
2.
Atkinson, J. M.
, & Heritage, J. (Eds.), (1984). Structures of social action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3.
Billig, M.
, Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D., & Radley, A. (1988). Ideological dilemmas. London: Sage.
4.
Blauner, B.
(1989). Black lives, white lives: Three decades of race relations in America.Berkeley: University of California Press.
5.
Buttny, R.
(1993). Social accountability in communication. London: Sage.
6.
Buttny, R.
(1997). Reported speech in talking race on campus. Human Communication Research, 23, 477-506.
7.
Buttny, R.
, & Williams, P. L. (in press). Demanding respect: The uses of reported speech in discursive constructions of interracial contact. Discourse & Society.
8.
Cerulo, K. A.
(1997). Identity construction: New issues, new directions. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 385-409.
9.
Chick, C.
(1990). The interactional accomplishment of discrimination. In D. Carbaugh (Ed.), Cultural communication and intercultural contact (pp.225-252). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
10.
Cose, E.
(1993). The rage of a privileged class. New York: HarperCollins.
11.
Cose, E.
(1997). Color-blind: Seeing beyond race in a race-obsessed world. New York: HarperCollins.
12.
Dixon, J. A.
, Reicher, S., & Foster, D. H. (1997). Ideology, geography, racial exclusion: The squatter camp as “blot on the landscape.”Text, 17, 317-348.
13.
Duster, T.
(1992). Beyond the myths. In P. Aufderheide (Ed.), Beyond PC: Toward a politics of understanding (pp. 182-184). Saint Paul, MN: Greywolf Press.
14.
Edwards, D.
, & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. London: Sage.
15.
Essed, P.
(1991). Understanding everyday racism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
16.
Feagin, J. R.
(1991). The continuing significance of race: Anti-Black discrimination in public places. American Sociological Review, 56, 226-241.
17.
Frankenberg, R.
(1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
18.
Gallois, C.
, Giles, H., Jones, E., Cargile, A. C., & Ota, H. (1995). Accommodating intercultural encounters: Elaborations and extensions. In R. L. Wiseman (Ed.), Intercultural communication theory (pp. 115-147). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
19.
Garfinkel, H.
(1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice Hall.
20.
Giles, H.
, & Coupland, N. (1992). Language: Contexts and consequences. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.
21.
Gitlin, T.
(1995). The twilight of common dreams: Why America is wracked by culture wars. New York: Henry Holt.
22.
Goffman, E.
(1981). Footing. In Forms of talk (pp. 124-159). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
23.
Gudykunst, W. B.
(1995). Anxiety/uncertainty management (AUM) theory: Current status. In R. L. Wiseman (Ed.), Intercultural communication theory (pp. 8-58). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
24.
Gumperz, J. J.
(1982). Discourse strategies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
25.
Hacker, A.
(1992). Two nations: Black and White, separate, hostile, unequal. New York: Ballantine Books.
26.
Houston, M.
(1994). When Black women talk with White women: Why dialogues are difficult. In A. Gonzalez, M. Houston, & V. Chen (Eds.), Our voices: Essays in culture, ethnicity, and communication (pp. 133-139). Los Angeles: Roxbury.
27.
Kochman, T.
(1981). Black and White styles in conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
28.
Lennon, T.
(Producer), & Bagwell, O. (Co-producer and Director). (1988). Racism 101 [Film]. (Available from WGBH-Boston, MA).
29.
Martin, J. N.
, Hecht, M. L., & Larkey, L. K. (1994). Conversational improvement strategies for interethnic communication: African American and European American perspectives. Communication Monographs, 61, 236-255.
30.
Marwell, G.
(May 27, 1988). What “epidemic” of campus bigotry?New York Times.
31.
Menand, L.
(October 6, 1994). The culture wars. The New York Review of Books, 41, 16-21.
32.
Miles, R.
(1989). Racism. New York: Routledge.
33.
Omi, M.
, & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
34.
Orbe, M. P.
(1998). From the standpoint(s) of traditionally muted groups: Explicating a co-cultural communication theoretical model. Communication Theory, 8, 1-26.
35.
Pennington, D. L.
(1979). Black-White communication: An assessment of research. In M. K. Asante, E. Newmark, & C. A. Blake (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural communication (pp. 383-402). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
36.
Pinderhughes, E.
(1989). Understanding race, ethnicity, and power. New York: The Free Press.
37.
Pomerantz, A.
(1986). Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 9, 219-229.
Rich, A. L.
(1974). Interracial communication. New York: Harper and Row.
40.
Rose, T. L.
(1992). The quality of interracial interactions. In W. B. Gudykunst, & Y. Y. Kim (Eds.), Readings on communicating with strangers (pp. 308-318). New York: McGraw-Hill.
41.
Sanjek, R.
(1994). The enduring inequalities of race. In S. Gregory & R. Sanjek (Eds.), Race (pp. 1-17). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
42.
Scott, J. W.
(1992). Campus communities beyond consensus. In P. Aufderheide (Ed.), Beyond PC: Toward a politics of understanding (pp. 212-226). Saint Paul, MN: Greywolf Press.
43.
Singelis, T. M.
(1996). The context of intergroup communication. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 15, 360-371.
44.
Steele, S.
(1996). Self-segregation should be condemned. In P. A. Winters (Ed.), Race relations: Opposing viewpoints (pp.209-215). San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press.
45.
Thernstrom, S.
, & Thernstrom, A. (1997). America in Black and White. New York: Simon & Schuster.
46.
Tzeng, O.C.S.
, Duvell, C. J., Ware, R., Neel, R., & Fortier, R. (1986). Subjective intergroup distances of Blacks and Whites. In Y. Y. Kim (Ed.), Interethnic communication (pp. 60-74). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
47.
van Dijk, T. A.
(1987). Communicating racism: Ethnic prejudice in thought and talk. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
48.
van Dijk, T. A.
(1992). Discourse and the denial of racism. Discourse and Society, 3, 87-118.
49.
Verkuytem, M.
, Jong, W. de., & Masson, C. N. (1995). The construction of ethnic categories: Discourses of ethnicity in the Netherlands. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 18, 251-276.
50.
West, C.
(1994). Race matters. New York: Vintage Books.
51.
Wetherell, M.
, & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language of racism: Discourse and the legitimization of exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press.
52.
Winant, H.
(1994). Racial conditions. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
