Black in Brown Space: The Persistence of Antiblackness at a Latinx-Serving "Social Justice" High School

• In Event: Don't Clip My Wings Before I Learn to Fly: The Stories and Experiences of Black Youth in K–12 Settings

Abstract

Drawing on four years of ethnographic research at an urban public school (BMHS), this paper analyzes the coalitional racial politics at a self-described social justice school serving a majority Latinx population. Guided by literature on anti-Blackness and solidarity politics, it considers the following questions: (1) What are the challenges of rooting out anti-Blackness in a Latinx-centric school like BMHS? and (2) What do BMHS’s struggles with anti-Blackness reveal about the limits of broader coalitional racial politics? The paper finds that BMHS’s Latinx-centricity allowed for a coalitional racial politics that diverted attention away from Black students. The paper also finds that organizational efforts at undoing anti-Blackness were hampered by the dispassionate actions of non-Black faculty and opportunity hoarding done by Latinx students.

Author

• Julio Ángel Alicea, Rutgers University - Camden
  Presenting Author