Feeling fear as power and oppression: An examination of Black and white fear in Virginia’s U.S. history standards and curriculum framework

ABSTRACT

Fear has shaped events throughout U.S. history, as those who have possessed fear have weaponized this emotion to justify violence and oppression while others have used fear as an impetus for radical resistance. Fear, however, has been an under-researched emotion in history education. Using critical discourse analysis methods, in this article I aim to move fear from the periphery to the forefront by analyzing how fear is discussed in Virginia’s U.S. History Standards and Curriculum Framework. Drawing from theories of BlackCrit and Feeling Power, three findings emerged from this study: The standards only describe fear as an emotion possessed by white people, the inclusion of Black suffering does not lead to Black fear, and Black people do not fear. This work illuminates the importance of examining emotions, particularly fear, in social studies education and has implications for both K–12 teachers and teacher education.

KEYWORDS:

• BlackCrit
• emotions
• social studies standards
• social studies teacher education
• state standards
• U.S. history

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Anne-Lise Halvorsen for her critical feedback on earlier drafts of this piece.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I capitalize Black and Immigrants as a way to intertextually amplify the agency of historicized groups that are affected by white supremacy. Using a capital B in Black or I in Immigrant in contrast to a lowercase W for white is a way to shift power relations to those that have been historically marginalized.

2. For the purposes of emphasizing the word fear in the standards and framework, I both bolded and italicized fear in my examples; however, they are not bolded and italicized in the standards or framework.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a summer fellowship awarded by the College of Education at Michigan State University.