Racelessness

The larger portion of the black community has a culture that is oppositional to mainstream U.S. society. Blacks that want to maintain academic success and achieve socioeconomic mobility have to adpot a raceless identity, meaning they have to supress thier black culture and sense of self in order preserve thier academic achievement.

 

Being that academic achivementis considered a "white" domian, blacks negotiate social space that has a negative effect on who they are. Academic success is equated with acting white. In addition, trying to achieve success in schools where most  value the culural norms of white-middle class society blacks have to modify their behavioral styles and adopt the cultural norms of the instituion where they want to acieve academic success.

 

What manstream society does not understad is that blacks adopt a fictive kinship which is according to Marsh et al is a connection beteen a group of people within a given society that helps them maintain a sense of peoplehood based on ther social, political or economic status. As result of blacks forming this kinship the stigma of underachievement is attached to their race because they have formed this alliance.

 

 "I have dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of thier skin but by the content of their character."

               -Martin Luther King Jr.