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ABSTRACT
This article offers a Critical Discourse Analysis of an episode of the reality TV show Tia & Tamera. A symbolic interactionist frame provides a lens for focusing on how social interactions impact the ways in which meanings of race are constructed around the topic of biraciality, while critical race theory facilitates an understanding of this construction on a macro-level. Conversations between the biracial title characters and their family and friends comprise the data corpus considered for analysis. Three notable themes emerge from the discourses observed: (1) race talk is avoided; (2) racial understanding varies in public and private contexts; and (3) realities of racial self-concepts based upon past experiences shape expectations of future racial self-concepts. Each theme provides insight into how and why the title character engages in discourse work that serves to establish the racial identity of her yet unborn son within the context of a societal structure that leaves her without a range of choices for how to do so.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Elaine Richardson for invaluable feedback on earlier versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Ashley Patterson is an Assistant Professor of Language, Culture and Society in the College of Education at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on the intersections of identity and education, with a particular focus on the impacts of race in conjunction with additional identify markers.