Restoring Community: CARES Dads as an Enactment of Autonomous Black Politics of Education

• In Event: Black Vision for Black Politics

Abstract

This article engages BlackCrit (Dumas & ross, 2016) to examine how Black fathers navigate and resist the racialized constraints of the education system in a school district in upstate New York we call “Rivertown.” Building upon an understanding of the school system as a mechanism of incapacitation for Black youth, we focus on a grassroots community-driven intervention, the CARES Dads program, a mentorship initiative designed to support students of color. Based on an analysis of 10 focus groups with 10 Dads (8 Black, 2 Black Latino), we argue that the CARES Dads co-construct their work as an abolitionist practice, enacting an autonomous Black politics of education. We detail three themes: the understanding of schools as incapacitating and the Dads as creating new pathways for capacities outside of the school; healing trauma, resisting white supremacy, and developing relationships of love and capacities; and creating non-police, non-carceral, non-school alternatives.

Authors

• Diren Valayden, Binghamton University

• Denise Yull, Binghamton University

• Marguerite Wilson, Binghamton University