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07/31/2007: "Hyperwhite"

What is a nerd? Mary Bucholtz, a linguist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been working on the question for the last 12 years. She has gone to high schools and colleges, mainly in California, and asked students from different crowds to think about the idea of nerdiness and who among their peers should be considered a nerd; students have also .reported. themselves. Nerdiness, she has concluded, is largely a matter of racially tinged behavior. People who are considered nerds tend to act in ways that are, as she puts it, "hyperwhite."

[ White people are nerds. Who are we kidding? ]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/magazine/29wwln-idealab-t.html?ei=5124&en=ac18fa16f2d11ac3&ex=1343361600&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=+1185724028-FtKl1f+wz8wDrceNesc6cQ