Negotiations of the Complicitous Nature of U.S. Racial/Ethnic Categorization: Exploring unCONVENTIONal Rhetorical Strategies

Authors:

• Mark P. Orbe (Western Michigan Univ)
• Darlene K. Drummond (University of Miami)

Abstract:

This analysis explores the multiple ways in which diverse individuals negotiate the complicitious nature of U. S. racial and ethnic categories in terms of self-descriptive labels. Specifically, we draw from narratives of 100 individuals who participated in 13 different focus groups over a nine-month period (September 2006--May 2007). These discussions provide significant insight into the complex ways in which U.S. citizens - native born, first-and second-generation, including persons of Asian, Hispanic, African, and European descent - negotiate U.S. racial and ethnic classifications. Utilizing complicity theory (McPhail, 1994, 2002; Patton, 2004) as a frame, we found that U.S. citizens of European and African descent enact rhetoric that complies with rigid conceptualizations of race. Additionally, people of color were more likely than White Americans to question U.S. race and ethnic categories. However, through their everyday rhetoric, individuals who were born primarily in the Caribbean, Central and South America and then immigrated to the U.S. were most likely to resist essentialist racial and ethnic labels.