Black/Latinx Solidarity in Response to Racial Violence: Implications for Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies of Language

• In Event: 25.022 - From Racial Violence to Racial Justice: Praxis and Implications for English Education

Abstract

In paper #3, the author draws on sociocultural perspectives on language, literacy and learning, coupled with recent calls for culturally sustaining pedagogies to examine potential links to English Education and Black/Latinx Solidarity in Response to Racial Violence. The 2016 presidential race has given voice to anti-Black, and anti-immigrant rhetoric that has ignited a movement of young people of color across the country expressing their rage on city streets, and via social media utilizing their varied literacy and digital media devices. #BlackLivesMatter activists throughout the country protest the tragic and senseless murders of Black men and women at the hands of police. Young Latinx activists are confronting anti-immigrant rhetoric amplified by right wing narratives and record number of deportations conducted under the Obama administration using the hashtag #stoptheraids. The critical and digital media literacies deployed by Black and Latinx youth demonstrate their potential to become producers of knowledge for the purposes of civic engagement (Garcia, Mirra, Morrell, Martinez & Scorza (2015).
Language and literacy scholars are pressing the field to reimagine an English education that does not ignore the violence Black and Latina/o youth experience (Kirkland, 2010; Morrell, 2005; Winn, 2013). Other scholars are pressing English educators to consider how the communicative repertoires of these youth are stigmatized in ways that constitute racist attempts to erase the languages of these communities, and/or diminish the linguistic ingenuity they display (Author, 2016[m1] ; Alim, 2004; Flores & Rosa, 2015). And still others are invested in examining forms of knowledge Black and Latina/o youth produce that stand in opposition to dominant perceptions of what counts as language and literacy (Garcia, Mirra, Morrell & Scorza, 2015).
Drawing on these scholars, and from my own research in Black and Latina/o English Language Arts classrooms, this paper will interrogate the often ignored acts of violence that are deployed by “well-intentioned” teachers of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. I will argue for a more explicit link between physical and linguistic acts of violence experienced by Black and Latina/o youth in and out of schools in order to mediate a solidarity stance between these groups that are too often presented as being in conflict with one another.

Author

• Danny C. Martinez, University of California - Davis