Reading race beyond black and white

Abstract

This article examines the practice of reading race, or the explicit labeling of people or practices with race terms. Through the close analysis of interactional moments, I examine how speakers of different ethnicities and genders across a Texas high school community strategically drew on this sociocultural practice for ideological commentary. First, I argue that readings of race often depended on an ideology of racial authenticity according to which students were expected to engage in racial performances that corresponded with their perceived racial identity. Second, I suggest that reading race was a strategy of gender and class commentary that measured speakers in relation to stereotypes of privileged white hyperfemininity and working-class black hypermasculinity. The analysis underscores the importance of attending to how racialized language is a negotiated process, how this process intersects with local ideologies of race, gender, class, and authenticity, and how reading race often achieves more than racial classification alone.