White Gazes of Black Detroit: Milliken v. Bradley, Postcolonial Theory, and Why Inequities Persist

• In Event: Forty Years After Milliken v. Bradley I (1974): Looking Back to Move Forward

Abstract

By laying a post-colonial conceptual lens on the Milliken v. Bradley case, this paper examines the historical underpinnings of racialized policy discrimination in Detroit. With a backdrop of Detroit’s restrictive residential racial covenants, the Sweet Trials, the Detroit Race Riot of 1943, the destruction of Black Bottom, the refusal to place mass transit systems in Detroit, and the more recently, racialized implementations of Emergency Management Laws, I argue that White actions toward Detroit are based on very deep-rooted and historical biases, stereotypes and fears of Blacks. In this context, Milliken v. Bradley concretized what had already been at play for a century in Detroit—racial marginalization and disinvestment of Black Detroit.

I use post-colonial theory to interrogate the discussion here because it is the most powerful framework in identifying and critiquing the contours, rationalizations, and impulses the White colonial mindset. This framework therefore offers a lens for deep analysis of 20th century White American behaviors and policy regarding Black urban spaces within places like Detroit. Colonial and post-colonial educational contexts (Fanon, 1963; Memmi, 1991; Said, 1978) are intended to secure the physical and psychological spaces of the conquering powers, and are explicitly meant to control and to be neither liberatory nor emancipatory for the local indigenous peoples.

Critical Race Discourse Analysis (Briscoe & Khalifa, 2013) is the most useful approach to analyzing the discussion here. It allows for an analysis that incorporates essential aspects of Critical Race Methodology (CRM) in that I focused on discourses used in “the racialized, gendered, and class experiences of people of color” (Solorzano and Yosso 2002). CRM therefore allows for the legal and social discourses around the case to be critically analyzed from both a policy and impact (on community) perspective.
Given that this paper primarily examines how Milliken (and other racialized policies) disproportionately impacted Black Detroiters, I pull from political, educational, and legal discourses surrounding the case. Newspaper archives, language from politicians, legal briefs and other sources summarizing the case, and the legal opinions and language of the case will all be used as primary sources. I will also critically examine prior research on the case.

The findings suggest that Milliken had a long-term deleterious impact on Black students (and families) in the city of Detroit. They further show that Milliken is a representation and enactment of White fears and stereotypes about Black Detroiters. And finally, the findings indicate that Milliken v. Bradley would portend later legal cases, policies, and laws that continue to marginalized Blacks in Metropolitan Detroit, and that these continue to be based on White fears and biases of Blacks.

The study is significant because it highlights the continued struggle of Detroit’s racialized past. However the implications offer insights that allow educators to address the systemic problems of racism embedded in Detroit and the suburbs. As this paper critically examines the ways in which biases have shaped policy, it is my hope the schoolteachers and leaders can begin to understand their own biases and their complicities in reproducing contexts of oppression.

Authors

• Muhammad Khalifa, Michigan State University

• Ty-Ron M.O. Douglas, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Terah Talei Venzant Chambers, Michigan State University