Thompson Ford's How To Understand Acting White

One of the most strived for things in life is academic excellence however the path to it is never easy. Author Thompson Ford’s article “How To Understand Acting White” outlines Stuart Bucks arguments about the irony of desegregation in education. A separate essay written by, Alfred Lubrano, “The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts” has similar ironies about the average college student. If Ford was to read Lubrano’s essay, Ford would come to a more complex conclusion by incorporating arguments and concepts from Lubrano’s essay. Ford may utilize Lubrano’s essay to expand on certain concepts such as the proximity effect, socioeconomics, and the level of education in top tier schools to further explain the “acting white” phenomenon from his own article. Ford’s usage of Lubrano’s points on the proximity effect to elaborate on his conclusion. Lubrano gives a flashback saying, “Me mimicking my professors thoughts..” Ford can use that to explain the discouragement and hostility that

Ford argues “Today's black underclass may not be as poor as many blacks were in the 1950s, but its isolation from the mainstream and from positive role models is actually worse.” This shows that there is in fact a correlation with social and economic structure in the negligence of education towards black students.” Lubrano says “They feel pressure from other working class friends to not participate and are told that they are being educated is effeminate and irrelevant” Ford cakn use Lubranos comparison between blue-collar kids and white-collar kids, where the black community would represent the blue-collar workers (working class) and the white community would represent white-collar workers (middle class). This argument could help frame Fords point on whites being the exclusive domain in the mainstream