Black Abolition Theory Within Radical Abolition Studies: An Introduction

• In Event: Imagining Beyond the Epistemes, Structures, and Practices of Schooling: Black Intergenerational and Interdisciplinary Abolitionist Perspectives

Abstract

This paper offers Black abolition theory within radical abolition studies to reground abolition in its Black theoretical roots, and better interrogates the concept of anti-Blackness and other epistemes of domination in abolitionist study and practice. Employing a close reading of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction, and subsequent books and articles in abolition studies and educational studies that reference it, we highlight Du Bois’ original conceptualization of abolitionism as an ultimate refutation of a racial-social order and anti-Blackness. Harnessing Du Bois, we first present radical abolition studies as an emerging area of transdisciplinary inquiry and multiplicative organizing that upends deleterious epistemes of domination that plague modernity, which requires sharp specificity within and across local, national, and global contexts. Moreover, we draw on the etymology of the word radical to encourage abolitionist praxis to grab systemic harm at its epistemological roots.
Within radical abolition studies, we present Black abolition theory, which aims to make explicit a theorization of Blackness and to abolish the episteme of anti-Blackness. Central to the project of radical abolition studies, Black abolition theory is an ethic, embodied practice, and mode of scholarly inquiry that calls explicitly for the end of anti-Blackness—which is inextricable from all other epistemes of domination—in abolitionist theory and practice. Black abolition theory prompts us to take Wynter’s (2003) provocation seriously which insists we reorder the social relations to reduce the overrepresentation of the liberal Eurocentric man within the category of hu/man. And we argue, in alignment with Wynter, that the core of each of these harmful systems, “with respect to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, struggles over…the sharply unequal distribution of the earth resources,” stems from the present dilemma of the contemporary practice of needing to see “human” as distinct from something—which in our present case, as Wynter argues, is Blackness and Black people (2003). Thus, Black abolition theory dives into the specificity of anti-Blackness by sharpening the language that abolition studies uses regarding Blackness, and uses that sharpened language to then enter into other conversations regarding harmful systems that are, as Wynter argues, inextricably linked with anti-Blackness, such as anti-Indigeneity, sexism, classism, and global warming, among others.
To explore Black abolition theory in the field of education we put Michael Dumas and kihana ross’ theory of BlackCrit (2016) into conversation with abolitionist and educational theory. This conversation uncovers how Black abolition theory contextualizes abolition in education by rooting abolitionist educational praxis in Black lineages. Black abolition theory encourages scholars and practitioners to go beyond the dismantling of current instantiations of systemic harm for Black and other minoritized people—such as the school as it currently operates—and encourages the dismantling of epistemes of domination that sit at the foundation of these systems of harm.
Ultimately, Radical abolition studies contributes to the field of abolition in education (Love, 2019; Meiners, 2007; Meiners & Winn, 2010; Shange, 2019; Stovall, 2018) by encouraging us to (re)member that the abolition of institutions and systems is incomplete without the abolition of their attendant epistemes of domination.

Authors

• Kia Turner, Stanford University

• Darion A. Wallace, Stanford University