On the Auction Block: Racial Colonial Capitalism and the Destruction of Majority Black School Districts

• In Event: The Last Brick Shall Be the Cornerstone: Re-Mattering Black Educational Lives After the Neoliberal Wrecking Ball

Abstract

State takeovers of public school districts in predominately Black communities are commonly justified as a necessary intervention for failing and/or fiscally troubled districts. Evidence shows racial colonial capitalism consistently serves as the foundation upon which decisions driving state-sanctioned dismantling of majority Black and brown school districts are made. The subsequent decline and even demise of many of these districts while under state control is rarely, if ever, acknowledged or repaired.

This paper examines how evidential racial colonial capitalism has manifested in majority Black school districts while protecting majority white school districts, particularly through the use of finance. Evidence of this problem is examined in the context of a series of Michigan school district takeovers. The state extending its control over elected bodies in several majority Black school districts while supporting failing and/or fiscally challenged majority white school districts in Michigan is why the racial colonial capitalism framework is both appropriate and necessary.
Additionally, there is evidence of a national trend in this regard. It is clear that Black school districts were and continue to be viewed by the state as less capable of navigating obstacles than majority white school districts. Through a comparative analysis of primary and secondary resources such as school board budgetary and meeting documents, state legislative budgetary and meeting documents, as well as peer reviewed research, monographic resources, and news articles, evidence of disparate treatment amongst school districts by the state is made clear. This research serves as a call and perhaps a demand for a deeper examination of this national trend.

Often, school districts experience this trauma of racial injustice in silos. To dismantle racial injustice in any form, it and any patterns of such must be clearly identified and publicized. Through an examination of how finances are inequitably used as a tool of racial colonial capitalism in majority Black school districts while protecting majority white school districts, this

systemic racial injustice can no longer be denied. This acknowledgement can be the catalyst for reparations in the form of legislative changes, debt elimination, and resources to reconstruct districts whose mission is to allow a pursuit of education that is once again a public good free of racial colonial capitalism and its harmful impacts.

Author

• Dana Hart, University of Detroit Mercy