Black Faces, White Spaces: Creating Black Space in Hypersegregated Public Schools

• In Event: To BE with Black Communities: Possibilities and Visions of Justice

Abstract

Purpose: With this paper, I aim to complicate the notion of what constitutes a “Black school” and a “Black space.” In concert with the annual theme, I consider what is required to imagine a hypersegregated public school in the United States free of racial injustice? I ask, what does Black space within an anti-Black institution look and feel like?

Perspectives: A “White” educational space is any school or the like that is governed by a set of ideas, routines, and structures that reinforce white supremacy thereby limiting access to quality education (Diamond & Lewis, 2022). In contrast, Black spaces are intentionally created in opposition to anti-blackness (ross, 2020; Warren & Coles, 2020). They are spaces of refuge, solidarity, love, and power that cater to the needs and dreams of the Black people who occupy them, and they stand in stark contrast to the status quo, or “White space.” Warren & Coles (2020) assert Black educational spaces can be physical locations or practices that provide opportunities for Black students and educators to heal and to resist anti-blackness; I consider both.

Methods: Data were collected from September 2020- July 2021 at one purposively selected
hypersegregated public school on the east coast. The school was led by two Black women
committed to cultivating a climate marked by greatness, gratitude, and kindness. They assumed responsibility for the education of nearly 300 children, 95% of them were Black and over 95% of those students lived in poverty. I took a critical qualitative approach to examine how policies and practices shaped interactions. Through observation, interviews, and document analysis, I sought moments when Black space emerged even amidst anti-Black practices and policies demanded by the institution of schooling.

Findings: An overwhelming presence of Black people is not synonymous with Black space. “Whiteness” masked as policy threatened Black life and learning despite Black leadership, teachers, students, and families by shaping and forcing anti-Black actions even in a building filled with Black faces. Still, I observed numerous acts of intuitive, sometimes subconscious efforts to cultivate Black space. Black space was created through instinctive cultural rituals that created temporary refuge; for instance, collections for bereaved team members, collective singing about family and uplift, compliments on hair styles and more. These rituals were about cultivating belonging, which is valuable, but insufficient alone. There were missed opportunities to strategically create spaces for Black healing, and resistance, and dreaming. Therein lies untapped potential for making space to breathe freely in a defunct system; for creating a space beyond the white gaze of accountability metrics; a space that interrupts the miseducation and oft demoralizing nature of the public schools supposedly serving Black children in the United States.

Significance: Black communities are relegated to resource deprived schools throughout the United States. Too often, these schools are sites of Black suffering for all who rely or relate to them. With this paper I strive to illuminate stifling systemic constraints AND emphasize overlooked possibilities for Black space and Black goodness and Black freedom within hypersegregated public schools.

Author

• Shannon Paige Clark, University of Maryland - Eastern Shore