Raciolinguistics and Transracialization
We live in an
American society that Alim (2016) describes as "hyperracial" and
"hyperracializing" (p. 3). With each passing semester, each doctoral
course and subsequent new media coverage, I am becoming increasingly aware of
this phenomenon. Recently, this was made even more apparent to me by an
international student from Ghana (in a different course) who described
experiencing racism in the U.S. for the first time.
At first, "I
didn't know what was happening to me," he shared with the class. "I
had never experienced racism before, so I didn't know what it looked like. It
wasn't until later on and through my future readings in my courses that I came
to realize what I had actually experienced." This vignette and deeply
personal experienced highlighted for me the uniqueness of the hyperracializing
atmosphere interwoven throughout the fabric of the United States.
Raciolinguistics has added a critically
important layer to this hyperracializing as Alim (2016) also writes that
"language is often overlooked as one of the most important cultural means
that we have for distinguishing ourselves from others" (p. 4-5). It is through
the use of language and listening to one another's language that we come to
racialize people. In the first chapter of the book, Alim (2016) goes on to
specifically name this phenomenon as transracialization,
which he describes as an alternative to the explanation of America as
postracial. Instead, transracialization is defined as the ways in which race is
fluid. Transracialization is not only about the ways in which we position our
own selves but also the ways in which we are interpreted and positioned by
those around us. In this way, identities continue to be co-constructed and
negotiated, as has been much of the theme of this course. This theme of
transracialization stuck out to me as I read across the various research
projects in my section of the text.
The most jarring
statement that Alim (2016) made for me was this idea that transracialization is
about "doing" and "undoing" race at the same time (p. 47).
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea as I think about what this might
look like in classrooms. It seems I'm not alone in my uneasiness as Alim (2016)
also goes on to state that everyone should be afraid of what this might mean
for the future, but, he adds…not too afraid.
There is a specific
quote I am pulling on, surprisingly in the same chapter, as I consider how
raciolinguistics might look in classrooms, or perhaps, more specifically,
transracialization. Alim (2016) writes,
"How can we destabilize restrictive and
regressive notions of race when the struggle for racial equality requires
racializing oneself in order to be treated justly; to be 'counted' and to
'count' and to receive resources, aid, legislation, educational reform, and so
on?" (p. 46)
This quote reminds
me of the ways that we were grappling with what Flores & Rosa (2015)
described as a critical heteroglossic approach where they describe Estela, a
doctoral student often targeted and misunderstood by her professors. They
write, "What if the problem is not Estela's limited communicative
repertoire but the racialization of her language use and the inability of the
white listening subject to hear her racialized body speaking
appropriately?" (p. 161). I'm grappling with these ideas of a
heteroglossic approach and how they tie in with transracialization as we move
in and out of the doing and the undoing of race and language or language and
race and of languaging race (specifically my section of the text).
Last class, we
watched the video NEA put out for culture, equity and education (NEA: Culture,
Equity and Education). We discussed the multicultural orientation of the
video (specifically Sarah's point) and its reification of whiteness and white
ways of knowing and being in classroom spaces. This video seems to suggest a
need to jockey for acknowledgement in classroom spaces, to "count" as
Alim (2016) puts it. As I sit and try to respond to "how might this look
in classrooms," I'm stumped. What is the balance, tension and pedagogical
approach for doing/undoing race, using a critical heteroglossic approach and
also recognizing that there are a multitude of students who have yet to be
counted?
