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What Does a Terrorist Sound Like?

This chapter explicates how microcultural practices that appear overtly flattering—“you speak English so well,” “you speak good English,” or “you’re so articulate,” for example—(re)produce racist meanings and (re)enforce racializing regimes. Bringing together race theory with the language ideological literature in linguistic anthropology, the chapter describes processes of raciolinguistic exceptionalism—whereby exceptionalism occurs through white racist evaluations of, and ideologies about, both language and race—to consider how ideas about minoritized groups and their speech serve to reinforce racist narratives about Asianness, blackness, indigeneity, Latinidad, etc. The chapter argues that raciolinguistic exceptionalism is sinister in that it is simultaneously exceptionalizing and homogenizing, while remaining provisional, that is, dependent upon one’s most recent performance. Its analysis further shows that processes of raciolinguistic exceptionalism take form differently across racialized groups with histories shaped by varying processes of domination, enslavement, settler colonialism, occupation, racial segregation, and other forms of global, racist capitalist exploitation.