Pragmatics5:2.197 -212. InternationalPrasmatiqs Associaticln DOI: 10.1075/prag.5.2.07hil JUNK SPANISH,COYERT RACISM, AND THE (LEAKY) BOUNDARYBETWEEN PUBLTCAND PRIVATE SPHERES Jane H. Hill To attend to "constructinglanguages" and "constructingpublics" implicates two directions of thought. A constructionist perspective problematizes and de-naturalizesthe idea of "language,"and suggestshow the fragile textualityof our talk is the resultas much of ideologicalprocesses as of neurobiologicalconstraints. To considerthe constructionof "publics"draws linguistic anthropology in new directions.While the idea that the arenas in which opinions are formed and decisionsare made are the products of social work is not new (cf. Myers and Brenneis1984), "publics" suggests a particular kind of arena, Flabermas's([1962] 1991)"public sphere, ... a categoryof bourgeoissociety." The concept of "public sphere"exposes a new arena for our attention,distinct from the interactionalfield of the marketor the kin group,where peoplewho live in statesspeak "as citizens," with referenceto public affairs,yet not as agentsof the state. Habermasof course arguedthat the bourgeoispublic sphereflourished only ephemerallybefore it was capturedby the cultureindustry with its capacityto manufactureinauthentic "public opinion." Habermashas been much critized for his nostalgiccommitment to the freedomand rationalityof the bourgeoispublic sphere,as well as his neglectof the wayin whichit functionedas much to excludeas to include (cf. papersin Calhoun (ed.)1992; and Robbins(ed.) 1993).The conceptof "public"is, however,productive preciselybecause it sketchesin the broad outlinesof an important arena for the reproductionof exclusionsin contemporarysocieties. I do not usethe term "public"here, however, as a categoryof sociohistorical theoryin the way that Habermasattempts. Instead, I take "public"and "private"to designate"folk categories,"or, perhapsbetter, "ideologies,"for certain speakersof AmericanEnglish. (These ideological complexes are obviouslyclosely related to the theoreticalones proposed by Habermas,and, as he points out, exhibit historical continuitiesgoing back at least to Roman times). The English words are polysemous,referring to contexts("publicity," "public figure," "in public,""go public"), andto socialentities (broad ones,as in "public opinion,"or more narrowly defined groups,such as "the public" of an actor or singer).This paper aims to suggestthat what is most important about the public/privatedistinction in the United States todayis not the zonesof life clearlyincluded within each category,but the play of meaningalong the ambiguousboundary between them, especiallybetween kinds of talk definedas "public" and those defined as private." The senseof boundary betweenthese "spheres" involves several dimensions: Of the socialspaces where talk occurs,of the topicsand themeswhich it engages,of speakers,of stylesand genres. Allof theseare sitesfor contestationabout how talk may "count"and how speakers 198 Jane H. Hill may be held responsiblefor it.l I will be concernedhere with how a particular ideologyabout appropriate stylesfor "public"talk facilitatesthe persistencein this sphereof "eliteracist discourse" (van DUk 1993),and therebyconstructs the publics for such discourse as "white," excluding. people of color as audiences and partrcipants.I discussthe caseof what I call "Junk Spanish",a way that Anglos in the United Statescan uselight talk andjoking tcl reproduce the subordinateidentity of Mexican-Americans.Junk Spanish,and eliteracist discourse in general,se ems to oscillatealong the boundarybetween "public" and "private"talk, making the public reproductionof racismpossible even where racist discourse is supposedlyexcluded from public discussion.Junk Spanishis, of course,only one of a whole complexof discoursesthat havebeen recognizedas covertly"coded" as racist(for instance,talk by white politiciansabout "teenagewelfare mothers" or "gangbangers"does not conjure up an image of misbehavingwhite children,in spite of the fact that whites constitutea high percentageof such groups).Junk Spanishis, however,relatively easy to identify and "decode,"facilitating our exploration of the leaky boundary betweenracist joking construedas "private"and "seriouspublic discussion." Two dimensionsof languageideology facilitate this persistenceof a racist discoursein public talk. The first is a set of tensionsabout interest, between a "presumptionof innocence"for public discourse- that talk offered up as serious public discussionwill be presumed to be addressedto the general good in an unbiasedway - and a "presumptionof interest"- that suchtalk will be biasedand interestedin favor of speakersor those they represent.The second is a set of tensionsabout stylethat datesback to the earliestperiod of the American republic. Cmiel (1990) has traced the history in the United Statesof what he calls the "middling style": The idea that a speaker in a democracywill eschew the high languageof gentilityappropriate to monarchiesand strikea more popular tone, that admits the possibility of plain speakingincluding slang and colloquialisms"The preference for the middling style blurs the boundary between serious public discussionand light private talk, such that elementsof the latter, in this caseJunk Spanishslang, may leak into public usage.Once such slang is used "in public" it gainsaccess to the contestover innocenceand interest,and can make claimsto the former quality. At the same time, this light talk is protected by conventionsof privacy,especially those of solidarityamong interlocutors and the idea that private talk should not be taken too seriously.These two ideologicalcomplexes protect racist (and sexist)discourse, and make possibleits continued reproduction, even where conventionproscribes it. By examiningthe waysin which the racist register of Junk Spanishcan leak acrossthe public-privateboundary, we may perhapsmake progressin understandinghow this reproductionoccurs, and thereby develop strategiesfor intervention. MichaelWarner (1990)pointed out that conventionsof "public"speech that formed at the time of the foundationof the American republic required that tl'rose engagingin it should not be, "byass'dby any private or partial View, prejudicialto ' Nancy Fraser (1990) identified this boundary as a particularly interesting phenomenon. Pubtic and pivate spheres 199 your Country'sService" (Warner 1990: 4t).2 lt is this conventionthat precipitates the contestbetween innocence and interest. Those making public representations makea claimof innocence,the absenceof bias;those opposing them make a claim that the representationis interested.However, ideas about what sort of talk, and whatsort of speaker,is likelyto be "interested"are themselvescontestable. It is very easyto attackas "interested"a pronouncementon economicpolicy by the head of an investmentbank, or a defense of Social Security by the president of the AmericanAssociation of Retired Persons. But in the caseof racist discoursethe contestis heavily weighted, at least tor white speakers,in the direction of a presumptionof innocence.One of the most important reasonsfor this is that the factthat "whites" are a "race"is simplyinvisible to most membersof this group, who takethemselves to have no "race"and take their own positionsto be universal(cf. Morrison 1994.3 Thus, attacks on the speech of African-American or Latino leadersas racially"interested" are a common t'eatureof public discoursein the UnitedStates, but the ideathat Felix Rohatynor Ellen Goodmanmight be speaking for the interestsof "whiteness"is consideredby most people to be a very strange notionindeed (one that could be advancedonly out of a "racial" bias by a person of color). Not only is "whiteness"universalized and invisible,the persistenceof racismas an ideologyis denied.Most white people believethat "racists"are found only among marginalizedwhite supremacistgroups who are behind the times, inadequatelyeducated and socialized.Thus to accusea speakerof racismis a deep insultthat evokesa whole range of highly undesirablequalities. Van Dijk (1993)takes the denial of racismto be a key componentof racist discourse,one that protectsthe positive self-imageof the racist and in turn the positiveimage of whites more generally,and second,permits racist discourseand its negativeand exclusionaryfunctioning to proceed.I believe,however, that van Drjk'saccount is not complete,in that it missesthe fundamentalfact that denials of racismbecome relevant only within the terms of the contestover innocenceand interest.This explainsan important elementof racistrhetoric that van Dijk himself hasidentified: That people making racist representationsin public so often claim thatthey are being"t'air." The idea of "fairness"acquires coherence only within the contextwhere a claim of lack of bias is relevant.For instance,consider the rhetoric in defenseof California'sProposition 187 and similar legislation now beingproposed elsewhere.oThe Los Angeles Times (Nov. 19.,1994, quoted in Garc(a 1994: L3) t Yet as Warner pornted out, these "unbiasecl"speakes could not be imagined as other than white male property owners. By this means, the point of view of this group was made universal, unmarked,its bias invisible.Thus the cultural constructionof the public sphere in the United States functionedfrom its beginning as a powerful device for masking and mystiffing racism and sexism. 3 kst there be any confusion here, my position is that'race'is not a biological category, but is a categoryavailable for the