Feeling safe from the storm of anti-Blackness: Black affective networks and the im/possibility of safe classroom spaces in Predominantly White Institutions

Abstract

Black affective networks form in evanescent moments when two or more Black people in a white space cluster around a Black feeling and other things. This article is a feminist narrative inquiry into Black affective networks in classrooms on the campuses of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in the United States. Authors inhabit dual roles as researchers and study participants in an investigation of affects that percolated in two classrooms, catalyzing the constitution of Black affective networks in those contexts. In the lineage of contemporary Black feminism, authors use beautiful writing as a method with which to narrate stories illustrating the formation of these assemblages. The stories show that these constellations served as locations for the production of counter-hegemonic knowledge of Blackness—that is, perceptual spaces where knowledge of Blackness not as abject but rather as a wellspring of Black excitement, pride, love, and joy was transacted. Ergo, Black affective networks provided Black faculty and students with pathways for temporary escape from the anti-Black violence built into PWIs. Authors pivot from this inquiry on the im/possibility of classrooms in PWIs functioning as safe spaces for Black faculty and students to echo calls for a turn to Black affect theory and to trouble diversity and inclusion discourses in US higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• anti-Blackness
• Black fugitive spaces
• Black feminism
• Black affect theory

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the students in the classrooms spotlighted, as well as the journal editors and the anonymous reviewers of this article for incisive critiques and critically generous, generative feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Black is employed here as a blanket label for all people of African descent—that is, people with traceable African ancestry. The authors capitalize Black but not white, recognizing that language “rules” regarding capitalization, grammar, spelling, et cetera are enmeshed with racial and socio/cultural politics. In works referenced, the authors defer to each cited scholar’s capitalization choices.

2 This is a designation based on the author’s inference, not the student’s articulation.

3 HBCUs were established as sites for the formal education of Black people in the United States following the Civil War. Lovett (2015) offered a comprehensive introduction to HBCUs.

4 The question of how much room, if any, non-Black people should be allowed in presumably safe Black spaces is particularly pertinent given the psychic harm caused by white scholars such as Jessica Krug and CV Vitolo-Haddad, both of whom were recently revealed to have been “Blackfishing”—posing as Black—in order to gain access to these spaces (see Flaherty, 2020).

5 Black or “multicultural” out-of-classroom spaces are not without their challenges. This is evidenced by a recent viral video of a Black student at the University of Virginia’s (UVAs) Multicultural Student Center (MSC) protesting the co-opting of that space (Neelakantan, 2020). On video, the student can be heard stating, “If y’all didn’t know, this is the MSC, and, frankly, there’s just too many white people in here, and this is a space for People of Color [POC], so, just be really cognizant of the space that you’re taking up because it does make some of us POCs uncomfortable when we see too many white people in here” (Ngô, 2020). In response, the institution invoked #AllLivesMatter rhetoric, (re)articulating its commitment “to build a community that is not just diverse, but also inclusive,” and insisting that “in order to foster the diversity of experience and ideas that make UVA a great and good place to study and work, these centers are open to all [emphasis added] members of the University community” (UVA, 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Esther O. Ohito

Dr. Esther O. Ohito is an assistant professor of curriculum studies in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the inaugural Toni Morrison Faculty Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research (CRJ). An interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Ohito researches Blackness, race, and gender at the nexus of curriculum, pedagogy, embodiment, and emotion. Dr. Ohito's oeuvre centers Black women and girls and amplifies Black voices and knowledges.

Keffrelyn D. Brown

Dr. Keffrelyn D. Brown is a professor of cultural studies in education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies (by courtesy) at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Brown's research focuses on the sociocultural knowledge of race in teaching and curriculum, critical multicultural teacher education and the educational discourses and intellectual thought related to African Americans and their educational experiences in the United States.