Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Justice in the Anti-Woke World of Whiteness in Higher Education

• In Event: Social Emotional Learning for Equity, Well-Being, and Emotional Justice in Higher Education

Abstract

Emotional Justice is a roadmap for racial healing (Armah, 2022). It focuses on the emotional work that needed to end systemic inequity. This emotional work involves exploring, identifying, and severing the connections to power and race that uphold systemic injustice by unlearning the language of whiteness. Emotional Justice connects us to the role of the emotional in oppressive systems that cause harm and sustain systemic inequity. Putting the two words together, 'Emotional' and 'Justice,' highlights this as collective work; each demographic group has its emotional work to do. The four pillars of the language of whiteness vis-à-vis the emotional: 1. Racialized Emotionality; 2. Emotional Patriarchy; 3. Emotional Currency; 4. Emotional Economy.

We use the theoretical framework of emotional justice to explore emotional hierarchy and caste systems in Anti-woke laws and policies. We will investigate laws/policies that restrict public colleges and universities from hiring "CRT" consultants or educators, and the implications for racial-ethnic equity in US higher education. Such policies reinforce racial/cultural dominance in higher education by whitewashing the curriculum to restrict the ability of students to obtain true, accurate information about the history of this society. These restrictive policies have dangerous implications for leadership and hiring/retention of communities of color. We explore emotional justice as a form of critical social-emotional learning to counter the colonial and oppressive epistemic, theoretical, and pedagogical in place within higher education.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry

Intersectionality is an intellectual tool of analysis and praxis that is organized into six core themes: Social Inequality, Power, Relationality, Social Context, Complexity, and Social Justice. The concept of power within intersectionality supports a shared understanding of power relations as mutually constructed. Oppression is an interlocking system where racism, sexism, and classism are in a relationship with each other and do not act in isolation. We utilize intersectionality to analyze power and hierarchy within a modified framework of emotional justice to reveal intersections of oppression and power within laws and policies.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
• Parental Rights in Education" bill., which some opponents have called "Don't Say, Gay," was signed into law in Florida.
• The Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act
• Data from public colleges/universities

Findings
The Emotional Justice framework provides an intersectional lens to explore how emotions are expressed and empowered in higher education. This framework supports the investigation of how emotions and emotional hierarchies can shape decision-making, including hiring, teaching, pedagogy, and administrative leadership.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work

This work builds on the concept of emotional justice by using an intersectional lens--beyond racism and patriarchy--to apply the frames of emotional safety and emotional labor to examine the cultural taxonomy of emotions. Equipped with the framework of emotional justice, we can better articulate how forms of oppression create a toxic work environment that harms students, staff, and faculty. This research is vital to navigating this period of social unrest and political discontent while attempting to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion on our college and university campuses.

Author

• Issac M. Carter, Coaching Imperative
  Presenting Author