Critical race theory in education: all God's children got a song

306 Pages·2006·4.491 MB·English

by  Rousseau, Celia K.;Dixson, Adrienne D

Dixson title page 5/26/06 9:40 AM Page 1
CRITICAL RACE THEORY
IN EDUCATION
ALL GOD’S CHILDREN GOT A SONG
EDITED BY
ADRIENNE D. DIXSON AND CELIA K. ROUSSEAU
The Foreword and Chapters 2, 4, 9, 10 and 14 are reprinted with permission of Routledge.
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13613324.asp
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dixson, Adrienne D.
Critical race theory in education : all God’s children got a song / Adrienne D. Dix-
son and Celia K. Rousseau.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-95291-3 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-415-95292-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Critical pedagogy. 2. Racism in education. 3. Discrimination in education. I.
Rousseau, Celia K. II. Title.
LC196.D59 2006
370.11’5--dc22 2005036818
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Contents
Foreword vii
Gloria ladson-BillinGs
introduction 1
Part I: Critical Race Theory and Education in Context
1 Toward a Critical race Theory of Education 11
Gloria ladson-BillinGs and William F. TaTE iV
2 and We are still not saved: Critical race Theory
in Education Ten Years later 31
adriEnnE d. dixson and CElia K. roussEau
Part II: Critical Race Theory Constructs
3 The First day of school: a CrT story 57
CElia K. roussEau and adriEnnE d. dixson
4 Pedaling Backward: reflections of Plessy and Brown in
rockford Public schools’ de Jure desegregation Efforts 67
ThandEKa K. ChaPman
5 “Proving Your skin is White, You Can have Everything”:
race, racial identity, and Property rights in Whiteness
in the supreme Court Case of Josephine deCuir 89
JEssiCa T. dECuir-GunBY
6 Keeping it real: race and Education in memphis 113
CElia K. roussEau
7 Critical race Perspectives on desegregation:
The Forgotten Voices of Black Educators 129
JEromE E. morris
8 Parent(s): The Biggest influence in the Education of african
american Football student‑athletes 153
JamEl K. donnor
iii
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iv • Contents
Part III: The Interdisciplinary Nature of Critical Race Theory
9 Whose Culture has Capital? a Critical race Theory
discussion of Community Cultural Wealth 167
Tara J. Yosso
10 Critical race Ethnography in Education: narrative,
inequality, and the Problem of Epistemology 191
GarrETT alBErT dunCan
11 The Fire This Time: Jazz, research and Critical race Theory 213
adriEnnE d. dixson
Part IV: Critical Race Theory in U.S. Classrooms and
Internationally
12 Where the rubber hits the road: CrT goes to high school 233
daVid sToVall
13 Critical race Theory beyond north america: Toward a
Trans‑atlantic dialogue on racism and antiracism in
Educational Theory and Praxis 243
daVid GillBorn
14 Ethics, Engineering, and the Challenge of racial reform
in Education 269
William F. TaTE iV
index 277
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Foreword
They’re Trying to Wash Us Away: The Adolescence
of Critical Race Theory in Education
GloRIa ladSoN-BIllINGS
louisiana, louisiana
They’re trying to wash us away,
They’re trying to wash us away
Randy Newman, songwriter (1974)
it has happened to all of us at least once. There is a song, an expression or an
image that gets stuck in our brains. as a consequence, we cannot stop singing
it, saying it, or seeing it. a few months ago on a transatlantic flight i saw the
film “Walk the line,” a biographical film of country‑western singer Johnny
Cash. it seems like every time i walked out to the parking lot i start humming
“we got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper spout.” This is the first line to
the song “Jackson” (lieber and Edd‑Wheeler, 1967), which Joaquin Phoenix
and reese Witherspoon sing in the film. i do not particularly like the song; i
just cannot get it out of my mind.
something else is stuck in my mind—hurricane Katrina and the aban‑
donment of the people of the Gulf Coast regions, particularly those in new
orleans. some might say that it makes sense to still carry the images of the
Katrina disaster. after all, it was the worst natural disaster to strike the united
states. i watched coverage on the BBC (i was in london at the time the hur‑
ricane hit), Cnn World and my local news (once i returned to the u.s.). i
read newspaper and news magazine accounts. i listened to national Public
radio coverage of the disaster. But it is not merely the disaster that keeps me
fixated on new orleans, it is what the aftermath has come to symbolize. if my
mind were drawn to disaster and horror i would carry images of the terrorist
attacks on september 11, 2001 in new York and Washington, d.C. as with
the Katrina disaster i watched, read and listened to available news outlets.
But, september 11th has faded for me. i can go to new York and Washington,
d.C. without fear or sadness. But thoughts of new orleans provoke a range of
emotions—anger, fear, sadness and confusion. new orleans is emblematic of
the Critical race Theory (CrT) in education analysis i have been attempting
to put forth for more than a decade.
v
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vi • Foreword
Katrina reminds us that race still matters, property rights trump human
rights and the intersection of race and property creates an analytic tool through
which we can understand inequality (ladson‑Billings and Tate, 1995). Katrina
showed the world that some people were worthy of rescue while some people
were not. it also showed the world that even in the midst of suffering, people
could be demonized. dwyer and drew (2005) reported that many of the hor‑
rific incidents—murder, rape, robbery and general chaos and disorder—never
happened. That americans could believe that about a largely poor and african
american community reminds us that race still matters. That we are appalled
that desperate people went into stores searching for water, food, diapers and
other merchandise they might barter reminds us that property rights trump
human rights. Katrina hit the u.s. at the same moment that CrT in educa‑
tion is approaching puberty and, like most teenagers, it is growing rapidly in
unpredictable and surprising ways. it is awkward yet full of promise. it some‑
times thinks before it acts. it is loud and “inappropriate.” however, it never
goes unnoticed and its growth signals the likelihood that we will have even
more challenging scholarship with which to contend in the years to come.
The chapters in this volume arise from a symposium held at the annual
meeting of the american Educational research association (aEra) in april
2004. The title of the session was “and We are Still not saved.” This title is
a modification of two sources. one source is the CrT scholar derrick Bell
(1992), who used it in the title of his book on the “elusive quest for racial jus‑
tice.” The other is its original source—the Biblical passage from the prophet
Jeremiah (Jer 8:20) who mourned for his peoples’ lack of deliverance with
the words, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
Bell used this scriptural passage because he felt it appropriately described the
plight of people of color, particularly african american people in this present
age.
The symposium organizers amended the title to say, “and We are Still not
saved” as an indicator of the limited (and in some cases retrograde) progress
that we have made in educational equity since William Tate and i (ladson‑
Billings & Tate, 1995) introduced the notion of CrT in education research
more than 10 years ago at aEra and subsequently in the Teachers College
Record. The present book is about taking stock and looking forward. it includes
expanded versions of the original symposium papers and additional chapters
that flesh out the contours of CrT at this critical junction.
rousseau and dixson set a frame for understanding the construction
of this volume. They point out that they wanted to look at what education
researchers were “doing” with (and in) CrT to determine its viability as a
theoretical and conceptual tool that has the possibility of breaking open the
frozen conversations and perspectives on race and racial analyses in educa‑
tion. The initial chapters address the storytelling aspect of CrT. This is often
seen as problematic because it is regarded as “unscientific” and subjective, but
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Foreword • vii
CrT never makes claims of objectivity or rationality. rather, it sees itself as
an approach to scholarship that integrates lived experience with racial real‑
ism. This work is reminiscent of the complex renderings of race apparent in
the work of howard Winant (2001). it articulates the race‑making project in
modernity and provides an important historical and international context in
which to understand our present racial predicament. For example, in the u.s.
we find ourselves stuck in a Black/White racial binary that does not consider
the more complex iterations of race in a global context.
Even in the u.s. demographic literature (lee, 1993) we can see that the
question of racial identification has been in flux. in 1890 when question four
(“what is your race?”) was first included in the census, there were almost
16 racial categories ranging from White to Black. There were categories for
degrees of Blackness such as “mulatto,” “quadroon,” and “octoroon.” over the
more than 100‑year history of the question on the census form the two stable
categories have been Black and White and, while other groups may not have
been able to take full advantage of the privilege of whiteness, there are histori‑
cal instances where they have been categorized as such.
asian indians were phenotypically determined to be White. in the lemon
Grove school district incident, mexican american parents won their suit
against having their children sent to a segregated school because they were
categorized as White. For a short time, the Cherokee indians were considered
White as they attempted to assimilate into mainstream u.s. society. Thus, the
real issue is not necessarily the Black/White binary as much as it is the way
everyone regardless of his or her declared racial or ethnic identity is positioned
in relation to whiteness. scholars like Vijay Prashad (2001) challenge the hege‑
mony of White racial discourses and help us reorganize our discourses from
“us versus them” to look at both symbolic and structural barriers that are
constructed as a result of White supremacist discourses.
The chapters in the next section of this volume attempt to expand CrT in
education scholarship by pulling on interdisciplinary perspectives. This work
is in keeping with the model that legal scholars of CrT offer in their work.
This moving across disciplinary boundaries invokes the strategies proposed
by scholars in the 1960s that offered “new studies” that came to be known as
Black studies, Chicano studies, american indian studies, asian american
studies and Women’s studies. in each of these new scholarly traditions the
disciplinary boundaries were made permeable. history, literature, sociology
and the arts were tapped as important knowledge sources for documenting
and conveying the experiences of people. This new approach to scholarship
insisted that no one discipline could fully reveal the complexities of human
experience and thus amalgamations were deemed necessary.
in the case of legal scholarship, the use of other disciplinary traditions was
considered heretical. The field was deeply entrenched in a tradition of prec‑
edent and case law and departures from these canons were rejected. however,
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viii • Foreword
when Bell (1992) published And We Are Not Saved he broke the rules and
created a new kind of legal scholarship that incorporated critical sociological
theory and narrative inquiry into an analysis of the law. in this volume, we
see examples of disciplinary mergers that pull on the traditions of education,
sociology, anthropology, music and art scholarship.
CrT scholars are waging a similar battle in education scholarship. For
much of its history, education research and scholarship was moored to psy‑
chology. Thus, “real” research was that which followed a psychometric para‑
digm. only that scholarship that was “neutral” and “objective” was considered
valid and valuable. We had to be able to observe, measure it and quantify it
for a phenomenon to be so. Thus, the experience of racism was seen as purely
subjective. We could talk about a test as having “adverse impact” because it
regularly and systematically excludes Black people but it can be extremely dif‑
ficult to prove that the same test is “biased.”
CrT allows scholars to pull on a variety of scholarly traditions to make
sense of experiences and epistemological standpoints. For example, CrT
scholars may create “chronicles” that are constructed narratives in which
they embed evidence and other forms of data. in a presentation i did some
years ago (ladson‑Billings, 2001) i created a chronicle that described the way
aggressive urban renewal (now called city revitalization or the new urban‑
ization) programs made city living more attractive for wealthy Whites while
continuing to exploit the labor of poor Black and Brown residents. The chron‑
icle explains the way city politicians and corporate leaders colluded to gather
more property and power while systematically disadvantaging poor people of
color. The chronicle ends with a discussion of the draconian methods the city
fathers attempt to employ to control the schools. at the time of the presenta‑
tion everything i wrote in the chronicle seemed speculative. however, i drew
inferences from the events and actions that were occurring as well as the his‑
tory of urban renewal and displacement of poor communities of color:
The economy was finally turning around. new construction was sprout‑
ing up everywhere and with that construction came more jobs. For the
first time in many years the city could begin to compete with the sub‑
urbs for new businesses and manufacturing. People were growing tired
of long and arduous commutes to the suburbs. if only, the city was safer,
cleaner, with good housing, and good schools.
The mayor, some select city council people, and corporation heads
met to decide how to make the city a more attractive place. “Well, first
we have to get ready those pesky homeless people!” came one voice. “not
a problem,” said the mayor. “We just have to pass some ordinances that
make panhandling, loitering, and sleeping on the streets illegal.” “But
won’t that get the churches and do‑gooders up in arms?” “Perhaps, but
we have to sell this as an initiative for safe and attractive streets. i mean,
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Foreword • ix
we’ll keep the shelters open and point out to the public how hard we’re
working to get these people into them for their own safety.” “Yes, but
the shelters aren’t really safe and we don’t have nearly enough to house
all of the homeless people.” “That’s ok. as long as we look like we’re try‑
ing to help people will support us. You watch, the word will get out in
the homeless community that they don’t stand a chance in this city and
we’ll force them out of the central city. They’ll relocate to a less desirable
part of town or better yet a neighboring town and our problems will be
solved.”
“next we have to start recruiting businesses back to the city,” said
one of the corporate heads. “not to worry,” chimed in a councilperson.
“We’ll put together tax breaks and incentives for the business commu‑
nity that will make it impossible for them to resist moving back down‑
town.” “sure, we can make sure that businesses get prime real estate,
property tax exemptions, and tax credits for hiring as few as 5% of their
workforce from among the ‘disadvantaged’.” That comment bought a
huge burst of laughter. Businesses had no trouble hiring low‑income
and working class people. There was always some low level, menial job
to be done—janitors, clerks, cooks, cafeteria workers, messenger and
delivery people. all of these people could be hired on limited and part‑
time bases and employers could avoid paying living wages or providing
any benefits.
With the streets clear and the businesses returning to the city, the
next thing that had to be accounted for was housing. The city’s movers
and shakers could not be expected to leave their lavish suburban man‑
sions to live in the inadequate housing the city currently offered. Then
the owner of a major construction firm perked up. “hey, here’s an inge‑
nious plan. What if we run the old ‘urban renewal’ scheme? We talk up
the dangers and inadequate condition of the current public housing. The
mayor can start talking about how inhumane it is to crowd that many
people in those buildings and get the ball rolling for their demolition.
They are awful and even the people who live in them can attest to that.
Get some single mothers or elderly people who live over there in front of
a TV camera to talk about how terrible living there is. in fact, we could
get the local TV news to do a weeklong expose on the conditions inside
public housing. We could generate so much support that we could have
a ‘demolition day’ where the mayor comes out to flip the switch. We’ll
have the entire city cheering the destruction of those awful places. But,
now here’s beauty. We replace the public housing with luxury apart‑
ments and condominiums—nothing under $200 thousand.” “But, what
happens to the poor people who were in public housing,” asks one of the
people seated at the table? “simple,” replied the construction firm owner.
“our research indicates that without adequate resources, poor people
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