Refusing Hero Narratives: Black Youth, Neoliberal Paternalism, and Community-Based Educational Spaces

• In Event: 16.026 - Beyond Public Versus Private: Critical Race and Feminist Perspectives on Public, Private, and Corporate Spaces in Education

Abstract

Neoliberalism, and its relationship to and reliance on racism, capitalism, and patriarchy, shapes educational policy, opportunity, and narratives about race, gender, and academic achievement. As pathologizing, racialized, and patriarchal rhetoric undergirds neoliberal education reform, perilous dichotomies emerge. Privatized “goodness” versus public “badness” and “heroes” versus those that need “saving,” has become commonplace rhetoric. These narratives highlight a critical element of the neoliberal agenda as a racialized project deeply characterized by privatization, marketization, and discourses of deficiency ascribed to Black, Latinx, and poor youth (Author, 2014; Lipman, 2011). This dichotomy of heroes and those that need to be saved is deeply racialized, gendered, and classed, subsequently tying hero narratives to damage-centered narratives within and across diverse educational spaces serving Black youth (Dumas, 2015; Tuck, 2009). By situating the narratives of community-based educators within a broader policy context shaped by race, class, and gender, this paper illustrates the challenges that arise for community-based educators who seek to frame Black youth beyond deficit narratives and who avoid framing themselves as heroes and saviors. This article asks: In what ways are community-based educational spaces shaped by the racialized, classed, and patriarchal dimensions of neoliberal education reforms? And, in what ways do superhero narratives of Black male educators and leaders perpetuate the racialized, classed, and patriarchal dimensions of neoliberal education reforms?
Drawing on ethnographic analysis at a community-based educational program with twenty educators, this paper explores how educators reject deficit framing of their students and resist pressures to label themselves as heroes. This paper contends that hero narratives of damage and struggle are connected to broader discourses of race, class, and gender that in this particular moment are reflected in 1) the neoliberal restructuring of public education, marked by privatization and charter management takeover, 2) the current policy context of My Brother’s Keeper rooted in a discussion of Black male students and the essentializing of Black male teachers and leaders; and 3) the narratives of community-based educational spaces that are autonomous yet connected to state power, and therefore are dependent on philanthropic relationships that are entrenched in neoliberal values of race and class that indirectly (and sometimes directly) thwart the rise of organizations that seek to create counter-hegemonic narratives about marginalized communities (Gilmore, 2007).
Community-based educational spaces engaging youth of color are implicated in the process of neoliberal education privatization (Author, 2014). Situated in this broader political context, findings illuminate the experiences and voices of community-based educators who 1) strive to position Black youth beyond deficit-oriented and damage-centered perspectives, 2) refuse to label themselves as heroes and saviors to Black youth that furthers deficit-oriented rhetoric, and 3) who believe that there were consequences to their refusal to frame Black youth from deficit perspectives and acquiesce to hero-savior narratives. This paper proposes a new lens to view youth work that re-centers the dialogue and attention on the needs of youth and eradicating structural inequities, and not about those who self-identify or are deemed by others as heroes.

Author

• Bianca Jontae Baldridge, University of Wisconsin - Madison