(Re)membering Black Girls: Memory, Racial Trauma, and Troubling Curricula Constructions of Black Girlhood in the United States

• In Event: 68.061 - Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 68.061-15 - Research on Black Girls, Black Males, and Black Youth in Contested Places

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the past in order to inquire into the curricula configuration of Black girlhood in the present. We do so by analyzing the (de)construction of Black girlhood in relationship to the characterization of Black adolescent girls in two young adult novels, and as juxtaposed against our racial memories vis-à-vis these texts. We find that Black girls are constituted as tragic in conjunction with racial violence. We contend that texts such as these contribute to the curricula making of Black girlhood as a subjectivity rife with racial trauma. This is consequential for how Black girls perceive themselves and are perceived, and for what is (im)possible for Black girls to be(come) in and through their educational experiences.

Authors

• Esther Oganda Ohito, Mills College

• Ezekiel Joubert, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities