Experiences of Racializing Surveillance: Confessions of a Black Girl in a White Christian School

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Witnessing Exclusion: The Impact of Racism, Immigration Narratives, and Book Bans on Student Identities (Table 7)

Abstract

As a Black girl attending a white Evangelical school during K-12, there was an ever-present sense of feeling watched—by myself, others, and God. I felt an overwhelming sense to live up to the standards set out by my parochial school, family, friends, and myself. This sense of discipline was externally motivated as well as intrinsically maintained. The overt racism laced with a biblical morality clause that felt binding caused me to conflate “goodness” with whiteness and “badness” with blackness. I used autoethnography to uncover how Christian ideals of morality were used to obfuscate and validate racism at school.

Author

• Janelle Grant-Ashbaugh, Grand Valley State University