Acting White: Black-On-Black Racism

I wanted to do a little extra digging into this case before commenting. The headlines seem a bit far fetched. Two Black kids, in S. Carolina, get $150,000 for being accused of ‘acting white’ by other Black kids? I certainly believe it happens, and there can be damage, but what role does the school play in policing this behavior, and how did they get to monetary compensation.

Well, as I suspected, there is more to the story than the headlines. At the heart, this is a case where Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, barring racial discrimination in programs that receive federal funding, was applied against the behavior of Black students and administrators, in an all-black Williamsburg County elementary school/district, who abused or allowed the abuse of the plaintiffs for ‘acting white’, or displaying academically advancing behavior. Story here.

The uncle of one of the plaintiffs seems to have delivered credible testimony as to life in rural S. Carolina and how the races live separately under different rules. "You see, it's a crime to act white, or it's a crime to be white," the uncle testified. Harassment, he testified, made him feel that "we are just dumb, we're just not people, we're undergraded [sic], we're degraded, and we're not even supposed to be in this world."

The complaining students were subject to verbal and physical abuse to a point where they had to be home-schooled. But the twist in the saga was an additional complaint of retaliation against the family by school administrators, whereby the County Department of Social Services (DSS) was asked to investigate the home of the plaintiffs.

So in the end, the $150,000 settlement was a way for the school system to cut their losses after first not protecting these kids from an intra-racially hostile learning environment, and then making matters worse by calling in DSS to look for bad parenting in their home. Quite a commentary on what can happen inside a Black community when families are aggressive at getting an education.

I’m only sorry that the settlement released the offending Black students and administrators from the official charge and finding of racism, as they certainly looked and acted guilty from this distance.

James C. Collier

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