Downed by Friendly Fire: Black Girls, White Girls, and Suburban Schooling

368 Pages·2016·1.463 MB·English

by  Signithia Fordham

DOWNED BY FRIENDLY FIRE
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Downed by Friendly Fire
. . . .
BLACK GIRLS, WHITE GIRLS,
AND SUBURBAN SCHOOLING
Signithia Fordham
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
Portions of chapters 3, 5, and 6 were published in a different form in “Competing to Lose?
(Black) Female School Success as Pyrrhic Victory,” in The Social Life of Achievement, ed.
Henrietta Moore and Nick Long (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013), 206–29. Portions of
chapters 4 and 6 are adapted with permission from Signithia Fordham, “Passin’ for Black:
Race, Identity, and Bone Memory in Postracial America,” Harvard Educational Review 80,
no. 1 (Spring 2010): 4–29; copyright 2010 by President and Fellows of Harvard College; all
rights reserved.
Copyright 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fordham, Signithia, author.
Title: Downed by friendly fire : black girls, white girls, and suburban schooling / Signithia
Fordham.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016034580 (print) | ISBN 978-0-8166-8966-8 (hc) |
ISBN 978-0-8166-8967-5 (pb)
Subjects: LCSH: African American girls—Education (Secondary) | African American girls—
Social conditions. | Discrimination in education—United States. | Suburban teenagers—
United States. | Youth and violence—United States. | United States—Race relations.
Classification: LCC LC2779 .F673 2016 (print) | DDC 373.182352—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034580
This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents,
both of whom worked nonstop, albeit unsuccessfully,
to keep us, their children,
safe from the unacknowledged, pervasive violence in our lives,
and to my sister- moms, whose love and guidance is
essential to my survival.
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Contents
Prelude: Who Has Seen the Headwinds? ix
Introduction: Violence— by Another Name?   1
1. Frenemies and Friendly Fire at Underground Railroad High 25
2. Last Stop on the Underground Railroad, First Stop of Refried
Segregation: Setting and Methodology 61
3. Nadine: Words as Violence and Misrecognition 105
4. Brittany: She Talks Like a Black Girl 125
5. Keyshia: The Black Girl’s Two- Step 165
6. Chloe: Goldilocks, and Girls Who Are Not 195
7. Ally: Size Matters 229
Conclusion: Excavating, Resuscitating, and
Rehabilitating Violence— by Another Name 249
Acknowledgments 269
Notes 273
Bibliography 315
Index 339
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· PRELUDE ·
Who Has Seen the Headwinds?
The headwinds come in blistering, unrelenting waves, varying in in-
tensity and endurance, their roar too powerful to ignore. They sting
and restrain, penetrating every crevice and corner, disheveling and
rearranging all objects and bodies in their paths. Individuals caught
in their massive strength reflexively lean forward, twisting and con-
torting their bodies, genuflecting in the presence of such awesome
power. To refuse to acknowledge the superior power of the wind is
to risk one’s very survival; leaning forward (or walking backward)
is a sign not only of respect but also of adaptation.
Disregarding the headwinds is not an option. Unlike the dry,
dusty harmattan winds that form annually for several months in
parts of the African continent, in the American context, headwinds
are an invisible constant in the lives of females socially identified
as having African heritage—regardless of where they live, work,
worship, study, or play. These winds alter everything in their lives—
including scientific claims regarding their DNA—from the time
they leave their homes in the morning until they return at night.
African American females who achieve a modicum of societal
success live in the shadows of these winds, as if they were stowaways,
vigilantly seeking—largely unsuccessfully—to limit their visibility
and avoid confrontation. But in order to survive, they must risk being
seen and must elude altercations when they leave home to look for
work, to go to school or to work, to attend church services and other
religious activities, to buy groceries, to shop at the mall, to go to
the gym or the library or private and community meetings, to visit
relatives and friends, and the like. When they do leave their homes,
these females seek to minimize the power of the winds by deflecting
their deviation from dominant, gender-specific normality, rejecting
· ix ·