The Indexical Decoding of Racist Language
This talk explores the activity of indexically decoding racist language, or the authoritative classification of language as “racist” in kind. Performed by both professional and everyday linguists alike, this metalinguistic act involves identifying a particular linguistic form (e.g., a word or phrase) that may not be widely recognized as “racist” (cf. McIntosh 2022) and making publicly salient its indexical link to a “racist” social type. In other words, the activity, which is typically contextualized as an anti-racist act, involves facilitating the public enregisterment of “racist language.” Such practices are common in both scholarly and public settings, for example, when scholars identify mock language forms (e.g., no problemo) or microaggressions (e.g., Where are you from?) as “covertly racist” (Hill 2008; Sue et al. 2007) as well as when everyday experts critique racializing appropriations (e.g., blaccents) (CNN 2022) and etymologies (e.g., grandfathered in) (The University of Arizona Library 2021).
I specifically discuss two related dilemmas that linguists encounter in these anti-racist acts of indexical decoding. First, scholars generally rationalize their decodings in terms of a “critical theory” of racism (Hill 2008), noting how the racism of the linguistic forms are grounded in the racist ideologies that they reproduce (e.g., racist stereotypes), which shape and are shaped by everyday norms and institutional policies. However, the authoritative decontextualization of specific linguistic forms by experts inevitably invites their recontextualization in everyday anti-racist activities that presuppose a “folk theory” of racism (Hill 2008), namely by attending centrally to the morality of individuals: individuals who utter these forms become hearable as having committed an immoral act, and individuals who hear them are understood to be immorally harmed. A second dilemma is that the harm’s acuteness may be shaped by the very public enregisterment of the form as racist, given how its use can signal interpersonal disrespect. As such, while acts of indexical decoding are ostensibly acts of linguistic description, they partially reshape their indexical value as well as imply a prescriptive force. Despite these dilemmas, I will suggest that such indexical decodings may still serve useful cultural functions, including inviting reflexive attention to the everyday presence of racializing ideologies.
References
CNN. 2022. “Awkwafina and the Use of a ‘Blaccent’: What It Is, and Why It’s Wrong.” CNN, February 8, 2022.
Hill, Jane H. 2008. The Everyday Language of White Racism. Wiley-Blackwell.
McIntosh, Janet. 2022. “The Sinister Signs of QAnon: Interpretive Agency and Paranoid Truths in Alt-Right Oracles.” Anthropology Today 38 (1): 8–12.
Sue, Derald Wing, Christina M. Capodilupo, Gina C. Torino, Jennifer M. Bucceri, Aisha M. B. Holder, Kevin L. Nadal, and Marta Esquilin. 2007. “Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice.” American Psychologist 62 (4): 271–86.
The University of Arizona Library. 2021. “Antiracist Language Guide.” https://lib.arizona.edu/employees/anti-racist-guide.
