White fear: analyzing public objection to Toronto’s Africentric school

Abstract

In September 2009, the Toronto District School Board opened a publicly funded Africentric alternative school that today serves a population of about 135 students. While the founding of the eponymous school was the result of successful advocacy on the part of African-Canadian communities in the city, it was met with controversy. Readily observed in online comments appearing in national newspapers, objection to the school was far more common than approval. Arguments against the school ranged from the defense of Canada’s official multiculturalism that impels a fantasy of a ‘rainbow’ of children interacting in the city’s classrooms, to crudely racist remarks equating blackness with uneducability. Through the lens of psychoanalysis, objections to the school are seen as expressions of white fear of the self-determining Africentric Other. In this process, white innocence projects fear of its fragmentation onto the educated black body suddenly capable of incisive knowledge and expressive power.

Keywords:

• Africentric school
• public opinion
• whiteness
• psychoanalysis
• Toronto
• racism
• emotion
• fear
• psychosocial

Notes

1. As of September 10, 2012, the school website indicated that AAS has an enrolment of 190 students and a growing waiting list. http://schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca/africentricschool/AboutOurSchool.aspx.

2. In their 2006 Student Census, the Toronto District School Board (cited in Africentric Alternative School Support Committee n.d.) discovered the following dropout rates among African-Canadian groups: English Speaking Caribbean 40%; Central and South America 37%; East African 32%; Southeast Asian 29%; West Asian 28%; West African 26%; Canadian Black 23%.

3. Freudian though is not hegemonic in psychoanalytic approaches to racism. The work of Carl Jung, Frantz Fanon, and Joel Kovel are also influential. I gratefully acknowledge Tamari Kitossa for reminding me of this point. The question of their relative contributions to understanding the status of the racial Other lies beyond the scope of this article.

4. Supportive posts also appeared. In the example below, Poster F discusses the problematic term ‘segregation’ and challenges the claim of curriculum-neutrality and inclusivity in Euro-centric schooling.As a proud Canadian I can honestly say I am shocked and disappointed at some of the comments posted today.… Whether you agree with the schools or not I think anyone who reads the Globe and Mail should be able to see the difference between segregation and an Africentric school. Segregation is a forced separation while an Africentric school would allow students from all backgrounds and races to attend. Certain aspects of the curriculum, such as history or English would focus on black themes. Is there anything wrong with kids learning about African Canadian history other than ‘they came here on the Underground Railway.’ The fact of the matter is African-Canadian history IS Canadian history and Canadian history is African Canadian history. That they’re emphasizing one particular aspect that I learned virtually nothing about while going to school should be commended. (Poster F response to Hammer 2009)