Race Talk - America's Social Dilemma and its Effect on Public Education

Harvard Anthropologist Mica Pollock Explores the Everyday Quandaries of Race Talk (or Lack Thereof) in Schools

It's been 50 years since the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that overturned "separate but equal," paving the way for decreasing racial inequality through schools. Yet, according to Harvard anthropologist Mica Pollock, instead of becoming a colorblind society, we've often become colormute. Pollock, an assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, argues in her new book, Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School (Princeton University Press, May 2004), that both clumsy race talk and an insistence on avoiding race labels in schools have actually fueled racial disparities in educational opportunity and attainment. Her book addresses a crucial yet uncomfortable question too often avoided in public discussion, inside schools and elsewhere: when should we talk as if race matters?

Through the lens of a culturally diverse high school and school district, Colormute draws on three years of ethnographic research on every day race labeling in education. Colormute considers one of the most confounding questions of American life: when to speak about people in racial terms. Viewing "race talk" through the lens of a California high school and district, Colormute draws on three years of ethnographic research on everyday race labeling in education. Based on the author's experiences as a teacher and as an anthropologist, it discusses how both using and anxiously suppressing race labels (being what Pollock calls "colormute") affect everyday and policy discussions about achievement, discipline, curriculum, reform, and educational opportunity.

"More skillful race talk, Pollock argues, is essential to education and equality. "If we have a commitment to achieving racial equality, then the simple act of how we talk about race in schooling has to be thought through. Because we can't improve schooling without talking about it," says Pollock.

Today, a greater understanding of the pitfalls and possibilities of everyday race talk is more important than ever, as the landmark No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act requires that annual testing scores be broken down by race. The controversy of NCLB, together with the anniversary of Brown, makes it a crucial time for a look at how the American public education system is actually dealing with race's relevance. By bridging the gap between theory and practice and pinpointing some core troubles of American race talk, Colormute will greatly assist ongoing conversations about dismantling racial inequality in America.

About the Author

Mica Pollock is an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She previously also worked in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. Pollock obtained her Masters in Anthropology and Ph.D in Anthropology of Education from Stanford University.

About Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School Mica Pollock Cloth | $29.95 / £19.95 | 284 pp. | 6 x 9
ISBN: 0-691-11695-4
Publication date: May 5, 2004

"Our discomfort with talking about the salience of racial categories in schools makes those categories far more powerful than they need to be. This welcome book invites us to become more critically conscious of 'race talk' and thus more aware of how even our silences can reproduce racial hierarchies."
-- Charles Payne, Duke University

"The scholarship is provocative, the text well written, and the argument clear and compelling. Pollock is a truly gifted writer."
--Michelle Fine, City University of New York

"Professor Pollock attacks a vitally important topic with vitality and an engaging and very readable style. Displaying a keen ear, she has artfully picked up the nuances of 'race talk' from students she has taught and observed. Pollock presents a troubling, but significant finding: Talking in racial terms can make race matter; but so too, can not speaking in racial terms."
--Hugh Mehan, University of California San Diego

"The dilemmas of race in America have been understood in terms of abstract notions of equality and justice. What do these concepts mean in daily life? Mica Pollock's insightful study of race talk - when its applied, when it is erased - provides a critical answer by taking us inside schools to show how categories of race are wielded at times by their very absence in public conversation. Fear of being misunderstood drives the language of race underground, while race itself continues to structure and constrain the experiences and options of students and teachers; "colormuteness" can render underlying inequalities harder to recognize and remedy. Mica Pollock's profound insights about the dilemmas of race talk and silence will change the way Americans think about language, social categories, and the responsibilities we must face if we are ever to make headway against racial inequality."
-- Katherine S. Newman, Harvard University

For More Information

Contact Greer Bautz at 617-496-1884 or greer_bautz@gse.harvard.edu.

Revised in April 2005 when The American Educational Research Association (AERA) honored Pollock with their prestigious "Outstanding Book Award" for her book, Colormute.