Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America (review)

Turner and Fine's ambitious book (hereafter Whispers) seeks to wed folkloristics, social/political commentary, and popular psychology. It is highly unusual in its outright aspiration to assist in dismantling barriers that inhibit racial harmony. Although this underlying impulse has certainly driven many folkloristic studies, it is rarely acknowledged as an overarching focus. In most instances, scholars have worked toward this end through an examination of materials that expose the racism of the dominant, white American culture (e.g., by focusing on the traditional expressions of African Americans). This has been the prevailing paradigm informing works in African-American folklore since the earliest times, including works by such scholars as Martha Warren Beckwith and Zora Neale Hurston and, more recently, Daryl Dance, Gladys Marie Frye, and even Patricia Turner. Such studies as these are, in the general sense of the term, Afrocentric. Implicit in these works is the assumption that the reader will gain a deeper understanding of black Americans, which will lead to improved race relations. In short, such studies may presuppose that white Americans are more responsible for the state of race relations than are black Americans.

One of the most engaging ideological currents moving throughout Turner and Fine's study challenges this entrenched presumption. The authors advocate the idea that blacks should make an equal effort to understand what it is like to be white in America and that the dismantling of racial discord depends upon an admission on everyone's part that we all harbor negative (if not racist) attitudes. The specific goals of Whispers, then, are to (1) examine how rumors work, (2) present and contextualize beliefs that whites and blacks have about each other, (3) provide information that helps readers to understand racially based rumors, and (4) "provide a basis from which an honest racial understanding is possible, based on discussion without pretense but grounded on fundamental, if imperfect goodwill" (pp. 23–4).

Whispers is organized loosely around thematic categories of rumor. Chapter 1 focuses on rumors about race riots and other violent, racially motivated incidents. Chapter 2 is a discussion of scholarship on rumors, including studies from disciplines as diverse as political science, history, psychology, and anthropology. Chapter 3 examines similarities and differences between black and white versions of rumors about American corporations. Chapter 4 focuses on rumors about the government, and chapter 5 explores primarily white beliefs about black sexuality as expressed in rumors. Gang and criminal activity are the topics of rumors discussed in chapter 6. Chapter 7 covers false rumors, embodied in examples of Tawana Brawley and Susan Smith. Chapter 8 offers suggestions for distinguishing between fact and rumor, as well as recommended responses to rumor that would undermine their divisive potential and lead to productive cross-cultural conversations.

Each of the eight chapters treats readers to many interesting examples of rumors and legends that reflect attitudes about race. The underlying theoretical perspective is that rumors reveal the anxieties and fears of those who share them and can therefore provide insights into cultural psyches, beliefs, and behaviors. Selected chapters offer a comparative discussion of how similar rumors circulate in both black and white communities, arguing that differences in perceptions on each side of the color divide are based on differences in cultural and historical circumstances. For example, it is argued that both white and black Americans often have suspicious feelings toward the government and big business; however, these suspicions are based on different histories and reflect distinct anxieties. Hence, rumors from the two racial communities may mirror these differences. For instance, The Kentucky Fried Rat legend, in which consumers discover that a piece of their chicken is in fact fried rat, reflect American anxieties about abandoning traditional family food rituals and eating fast foods. In the African-American community, however, such legends include ideas about the owners of the fast food chain being members of the Ku Klux Klan and targeting blacks by putting...