Diversity Work as Predatory Inclusion: Exploitative Racialized Labor at an Urban High School After Floyd

• In Event: The Politics of Race, Place, and Gender

Abstract

Drawing on four years of ethnographic research at an urban public school, this paper analyzes how antiracist organizational action can perpetuate anti-Blackness. Guided by literature on anti-Blackness, racialized organizations, and diversity regimes, it considers the following questions: (1) What do racial politics at a self-described social justice school look like in the aftermath of George Floyd? and (2) How might greater organizational attention to issues of anti-Blackness perpetuate the burden of diversity work for Black teachers and staff? The paper finds that new initiatives were started after Floyd to support various Black stakeholders, but the work fell largely on Black teachers and staff. This ostensible empowerment furthered exploitative racial practices that are conceptualized as "predatory DEI."

Author

• Julio Ángel Alicea, Rutgers University - Camden
  Presenting Author