Offspring Follows Belly: Reflection and Refusal from a Black Woman Teacher

• In Event: Black Feminist Ways of Knowing in Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This paper considers the assault on Black women in public education through an autoethnographic experience. By exploring the conditions of de jure and de facto discrimination and criminalization of a Black woman teacher in the K-12 public education system, it invites us to reconsider refusal and politics of care. This paper seeks to bridge the historical concepts of partus sequitur ventrem and hush harbors as conceptual frameworks guiding the analysis. partus sequitur ventrem is a colonial law that dictates that children inherit the status of their mother, designed to ensure that the children of the enslaved remained enslaved. Hush harbors, hidden educational spaces created by Black women, were Reconstruction-era examples of refusal, where Black women saw to the education of their young. Focusing on a dual analysis examining reflection through partus sequitur ventrem and refusal through hush harbors, this paper asks questions about purpose, care, and placemaking.

Author

• Jocelyn Foshay, UT Arlington