Brittany

The fourth chapter chronicles how one participant, Brittany, rejected her presumed White biological identity and opted, instead, to pass for Black. Compelled to leave her Black peers in the core city and live with her father in the suburban community because her custodial parent, her mother, feared that her daughter is becoming Black, Brittany defied hegemonic normality and was consigned to a non privileged social space, not so much by her peers but by the adults at the school, as they describe her, “she talks like a Black girl.”</p

Chloe

The sixth chapter, following Chloe, details how a biracial student misrecognizes the violence embodied in socially approved normalcy and fails to connect her social problems to the structural violence endemic to the race and gender subordination documented in this book. Statusitis and her insatiable quest for hegemonic normalcy, especially regarding her hair, leads her to a kind of depression that is so severe she often finds it impossible to go to school.</p

Excavating, Resuscitating, and Rehabilitating Violence—by Another Name

The conclusion of Downed by Friendly Fire briefly revisits the claims of symbolic and structural violence made in the earlier chapters, harvesting the narratives of the study participants for evidence of how each of them resists or embodies (or sometimes both embodies and resists) the imagined banality of normalcy. Moreover, it is where the authors makes the final case for the excavation, resuscitation and rehabilitation of violence—by another name.</p

Passin' for Black: Race, Identity, and Bone Memory in Postracial America

Signithia Fordham challenges the notion that we are living in a "postracial" society where race is no longer a major social category, as indicated by the rising incidence of interracial relationships and the popularity of biracial identities. On the contrary,she contends, a powerful fusion of historical memory and inclusive kinship compels Americans whose ancestors were enslaved to embrace a Black identity even when they have White as well as African ancestors. Fordham identifies this socially constructed racial identity as "passin' for Black." She argues that virtually every socially defined Black person connected to enslavement—regardless of skin color, hair texture, facial features, or paternity—must perform Blackness. Using narratives obtained from a recent ethnographic study of female competition and aggression in a racially "integrated"suburban high school, Fordham's essay documents how the complex, charged matter of racial identity—concurrently biological and social—inflames the lives of adolescents and impairs their ability to navigate the school environment.</jats:p

Keyshia

The fifth chapter presents the narrative of a middle class Black girl, Keyshia, who is the former BFF of the Black girl, Nadine, whose narrative is presented in chapter three. Unlike her former friend whose Black identity is never challenged, this student sees herself as not quite “Black enough.” In response to this perception, she appears to embrace her lower class Black friend by stealing her boyfriend and opting to disengage from her usual stellar academic performance, a change so profound that everyone notices, but no one intervenes or offers support.</p

Violence—by Another Name?

The Introduction recounts the experiences of the author in the study of racialized female-specific bullying, competition, and aggression in Black and White girls at the Underground Railroad High School. Describing a number of girls, the author demonstrates the tension between the two groups that is perpetuated by existing social norms and their social environment. It details the overall workings of the book in its examination of gender, race, and violence within the social sphere of schools.</p

Racelessness as a Factor in Black Students' School Success: Pragmatic Strategy or Pyrrhic Victory?

Signithia Fordham presents an analysis of the tensions high-achieving Black students feel when they strive for academic success. Students are pulled by their dual relationships to the indigenous Black fictive-kinship system and the individualistic, competitive ideology of American schools. By analyzing ethnographic data on six high-achieving Black high school students, the author finds that the characteristics required for success in society contradict an identification and solidarity with Black culture. Students who feel the conflict between"making it" and group identification develop the particular strategy of racelessness.</jats:p