Terror in the Schoolyard: Anti-Blackness, Social Position, and Equity

• In Event: Race, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Education

Abstract

What does it mean to attend a safe and healthy school in the 21st century when you are an African American student who attends an under-resourced school and lives in a disinvested Black community? How do we protect students from the gratuitous violence and suffering they encounter in their homes, schools, and communities? Using anti-Blackness as a conceptual lens, this paper illuminates the voices and experiences of 38 African American youth who grew up and attended schools in Baltimore City to capture the lived experiences of African American youth who are forced to confront anti-Blackness, concentrated poverty, and a defunded school district, which collectively accumulate into terror in the schoolyard.

Author

• Richard Lofton, Johns Hopkins University