“We Are Required to Be”: The Mobilizing & Sustaining Literacy Practices of Black Girls and Women

Session Submission Type: Symposium

Abstract

The presenters offer three distinct, yet intersecting, perspectives on the responsibilities of literacy educators and researchers in the wake of racial violence. The presenters draw from research projects that bring attention to racist, sexist, and other xenophobic practices that threaten the lives and livelihood of Black girls within and beyond English Language Arts classrooms. Collectively, the three presentations attend to the following question: How might researchers and educators conceptualize Black girl literacies as sustaining and sustainable?

Content Area

• Area 7: Social, Cultural, and Political Issues of Literacy Practices In and Out of School

Chair

• Maima Chea, Georgia State University

Discussant

• Gholnescar Muhammad, Georgia State University

Individual Presentations

• Pens Down, Don’t Shoot: An Analysis of How Young Black Women Use Language to Fight Back Against Racism - Gholnescar Muhammad, Georgia State University; Sherell McArthur, Boston University; Maima Chea, Georgia State University

• Decolonizing Interiority: Black Women’s Materiality, Movement, and Transformation in DIY Spaces - Fahima I. Ife, University of Wisconsin, Madison

• Saying Her Name as Critical Demand: English Education in the Age of Erasure - Tamara T. Butler, Michigan State University