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  • Race and ideology: Language, symbolism, and popular culture ed. by Arthur K. Spears
  • Edwin Battistella
Race and ideology: Language, symbolism, and popular culture. Ed. by Arthur K. Spears. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. Pp. 242.

Race and ideology is a collection of essays identifying how language, symbolism, and popular culture function to maintain racism. The book begins with a preface by editor Arthur Spears and his introductory essay on ‘Race and ideology: An introduction’ (11–58). Here S gives an overview of the problematic concept of race, which he views as a sociocultural category rather than a biological one. S also explores the function of racism—defined as behaviors that ‘support the inequality of racial hierarchy’ (21)—in creating obstacles to interracial social movements and in distracting attention from social issues. The role of language and symbolism is central in that semantic and semiotic practices reinforce racial categories and ideologies and pervade the discourse of popular culture, education, and religion. Language is also central in that attitudes about language (e.g. ebonics) are often used as a surrogate for racial attitudes. S sees language and cultural symbolism as reinforcing a two-way racial classification (rather than amultiracial one) and as thereby supporting the status quo.

Part 1 consists of six essays on ‘Linguistic, symbolic, and institutional manifestations’. S’s essay on ‘Teaching “minorities” about language and culture’ (61–82) discusses the goals of a language and culture course for minority students, providing also some discussion of the ‘unstable semantics of the term’ minority (62). S argues that language and culture courses should convey that prestige languages owe their status to economic and political factors rather than linguistic ones and notes that language attitudes are attitudes about people. In ‘Language and labor in Papua New Guinea’ (83–91), Angela Gilliam discusses how language and state power are implemented in Papua New Guinea, where Tok Pisin, English, and Hiro Moto (a trading language spread by police at the end of the nineteenth century) are all spoken. Yves Dejean, in ‘The native language as a medium of instruction’ (93–104), surveys research and discusses issues related to bilingual education for minorities, noting that where mass education has succeeded, the medium of instruction has been the majority language. In ‘The symbolic function of the Gypsy myth’ (105–13), Ian Hancock recounts some of the history of Romani and discusses the functions of anti-Gypsy prejudice. These include scapegoating, setting the boundary around the dominant social model, and providing a countercultural model for those who opt out of the dominant social model.

In ‘Racism and professional settings: Forms of address as clues to power relations’ (115–32), Lee D. Baker discusses ways in which competing forms of address function. He looks at the use of African- American and European-American forms of address in different situations at historically black universities and in two different departments at Temple University. Pem Davidson Baker, in ‘Prison labor: Racism and rhetoric’ (133–63), describes the prison-labor system in the United States, connecting it to the rhetoric of the war on drugs.

Section 2 contains three contributions on popular culture and an afterword. Brenda Abalos, in ‘Straightness, whiteness and masculinity’ (167–79) analyzes themes in the 1980’s television series Miami Vice, noting that the roles of minorities and women tend to reinforce race and sex stereotypes even when the characters are superficially equals. In ‘Colorstruck at the movies’ (181–95), Donovan G. Whylie analyzes Mario Van Pebbles’s gangster epic New Jack City, which deals with the rise of crack in urban black communities. Whylie shows the ‘colorstruction’ of the film—the use of skin color to parallel characterization—and he discusses the effects and prevalence of this reproduction of ideology. Jon A. Yasin (‘Rap in the African-American music tradition’, 197–223) analyzes the history of rap music, focusing on the connection to earlier African-American musical traditions. He shows both rap’s unique form, which involves foregrounding of rhythmic speech, and its unique content, which is often harshly critical of the mainstream. S’s afterword (225...

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