Racing Culture: Critical Race Theory, Culture Wars, Anti/Blackness, and In/Formal Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Global Perspectives on Sociology of Education (Table 11)

Abstract

This conceptual paper argues many episodes of the so-called culture wars of the 1990s in the U.S. can be better understood as attacks on Blackness. We illuminate this contention via critical race theory, specifically, three of its propositions, racial realism, intersectionality, and counter storytelling. Through a Black perspective, we recast key societal episodes that unfolded in both formal and informal educational spaces: 1) the scapegoating of hip hop, specifically Sister Souljah, for systemic racism; 2) Lani Guinier’s Assistant Attorney General nomination revocation; and 3) the Oakland Ebonics Debate. This analysis demonstrates that the notion of the culture wars reflects a pivotal tension between Black, often gendered, modes of expression and dominant US culture that operates under the guise of morality.

Authors

• ArCasia D. James-Gallaway, Texas A&M University

• Chaddrick James-Gallaway, Texas A&M University