Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America

Abstract

Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America. By Gary Alan Fine and Patricia A. Turner. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Pp. x + 260, illustration, notes, index. $27.50 cloth) This book presents an important argument for folkloristics as both a valid academic discipline and a valuable intellectual tool for helping American culture work toward honest and productive racial understanding. It is built on Fine's conviction that folklore studies can play a central role in academia and on Turner's penetrating work on folk narrative in the black community, as seen in her classic I Heard it Through the Grapevine (1993). This work extends their scholarship to deal with a variety of persistent and newly emerged traditions, with particular attention given to the role of the Internet in transmitting folklore. Especially telling is the authors' development of Turner's 'Topsy/Eva" concept, holding that similar stories tend to circulate simultaneously in both black and white communities. In some cases, the stories provoke violent clashes, and the role of rumor in race riots throughout the twentieth century is well told. However, in many other cases the stories are distinct and reflect different cultural perspectives on a single concern-mercantilism, suspicion of government, sexually transmitted disease, and violent crime. There are many highlights: the discussion of legends inspired by fried chicken brings together insights from Fine's "Kentucky-fried rat" scholarship and Turner's discussion of the belief that some restaurant chains promote the Klan or add chemicals to their product to sterilize black males. The chapter on government conspiracies extends Turner's previous work into new areas, particularly the complex issues raised by Ron Brown's mysterious death in a plane accident in Bosnia. Turner and Fine reasonably note that rumors have a way of being true and rightly discuss what rumors say about the worldviews of the communities involved without the authors' committing themselves to conclusions about the truth/falsehood of such rumors. In this regard, the work is an important corrective to more popular-based approaches that begin with the assumption that contemporary legends are, above all else, false. On the other hand they do deal thoughtfully with the issues raised by false claims of attacks by the other race, and one of the most disturbing chapters discusses the influence of folk beliefs and narratives on the Tawana Brawley and Susan Smith affairs. A concluding chapter pulls together important lessons drawn from this research and suggests that both folklore and folkloristics could help reduce racial tensions and enhance communication between these historically divided communities. Without sugarcoating the difficulties that remain, Fine and Turner suggest ways in which members of both races could "listen to themselves and each other more carefully and critically" (229). While the book begins with a strong statement of the importance of contemporary legends and academic folkloristics, the key theoretical chapter, "How Rumors Work," says surprisingly little about folkloristic methodology, relying instead on older social science texts like Allport and Postman's Psychology of Rumor (1947) and Shibutani's Improvised News (1966). …