Stinson, D. W. (2011). When the “Burden of Acting White” is Not a Burden: School Success and African American Male Students. The Urban Review, 43(1), 43-65.

In this article, the author reports the “voices” of four academically successful African American men, in their early 20s, as they explicitly respond, in retrospect, to questions regarding the applicability of the burden of acting White theory to their schooling experiences—responses made after reading research articles written by Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu. In general, the responses from the four men illustrate that they successfully negotiated the burden of acting White, even as they revealed instances in which the theory might have been applied to their schooling experiences. The author argues that the various interpretations and uses of Fordham’s and Ogbu’s (single- and co-authored) theories—and, in part, the theories themselves—failed to escape the lure of oversimplification. In that, the (mis?)interpretations and (mis?)uses often oversimplified the theories, and, in turn, the schooling experiences of Black students (and historically marginalized students in general).

Full article can be found here:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-009-0145-y