When History Repeats Itself: KIPP and Postcolonial Theory as an Analytical Tool

• In Event: 41.061 - "There Can Never Really Be Justice on Stolen Land": A Discussion for Emerging Scholars

Abstract

When History Repeats Itself: KIPP and Postcolonial Theory as an Analytical Tool
This paper uses a postcolonial framework to discuss how KIPP’s mission, hiring practices, and disciplinary policies- enacted in a physical and psychologically colonizing neoliberal context without an anti-racist framework reproduces psychological violence for black students (Fanon,1963; Dumas, 2014). In part, KIPP’s mission is to be “successful in helping students from educationally underserved communities develop the knowledge, skills, character and habit needed to succeed in college” (KIPP Foundation, 2016). I juxtapose the stated mission as well as their hiring and disciplinary practices with literature on psychological violence stemming from colonial occupation (Fanon, 1963; Rabaka, 2010) and colorblind neutral policies (Bonilla-Silva, 2003) to explore the ways in which KIPP is complicit in furthering white supremacy, racial inequity and Jim crow-esque policies that control how black children speak, move and think.
Moreover, this paper explores how white supremacy functions as a colonizing force in black children’s lives; primarily utilizing Fanon’s discussion of psychological and physical violence as an analytical tool to understand KIPP’s policies as a part of a broader neoliberal ideological occupation of black communities, and black educational spaces. As democratic educational spaces for black people collapse due to neoliberal education policies - white supremacy flourishes in schools like KIPP, making them places of violent black suffering (Fanon,1963; Dumas, 2014). This paper pushes us to discuss the importance of construct anti-racist ideological school models and thus act in order to achieve the promise of educational equity. Furthermore, it pushes us to acknowledge how historical practices that were framed under colonialism and white supremacy have evolved into modern iterations that use intentionality to create a buffer between themselves and the outcomes that hurt black children.
This paper highlights exactly how the evolution of colonial practices and thought processes enacted in policy and forces us to question whether or not we can frame what is happening as "post" colonial as we think about new ways to decolonize educational spaces by adopting anti-racist frameworks.

Author

• Jacquie Forbes, University of Wisconsin - Madison