“I learn being black from everywhere I go”: Color blindness, travel, and the formation of racial attitudes among African American adolescents
Children and Youth Speak for Themselves
ISBN: 978-1-84950-734-9, eISBN: 978-1-84950-735-6
Publication date: 17 March 2010
Abstract
The current study examines developing racial attitudes among a group of African American adolescents. Data for this study include 28 open-ended, qualitative interviews with African American adolescents (64% girls, 36% boys) in Detroit, Michigan, and were drawn from a larger study in which these adolescents and their mothers were interviewed about racial socialization. Data analysis shows adolescents' racial attitudes to be ambivalent and influenced by the dissonance between “color-blind” rhetoric – the idea that “race doesn't matter” – and their everyday experiences, in which race does matter in important ways. Adolescents' reports of racial attitudes and experiences with racism frequently include travel anecdotes, which reveal how place, travel, and negotiating the color line influence their developing ideas about race. The findings suggest that sources beyond parental socialization strongly affect adolescents' developing racial attitudes and identities and that young people's voices should be further utilized in studies examining these issues.
Citation
Winkler, E.N. (2010), "“I learn being black from everywhere I go”: Color blindness, travel, and the formation of racial attitudes among African American adolescents", Beth Johnson, H. (Ed.) Children and Youth Speak for Themselves (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 423-453. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-4661(2010)0000013019
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited