Where the repetition fades: black feminist lessons and (sonic) critiques beyond critical whiteness studies

Abstract

Drum. Guitar. Song. Cue up Brittany Howard’s “History Repeats” and notice what happens. For us, something akin to a bluesy-funk hums while reading critical whiteness studies (CWS) through black feminist thought (BFT). Breaking form. Diffractive. Relational. In this essay, we work through prismatic rhythm and consider how Howard’s creative text moves beyond the logic of modern reason to welcome otherwise. We note a writing-thinking-jam session and methodological openings guided by BFT. We then discuss CWS to rethink its approach to analysis and the production of whiteness as its object of knowledge. At the core of our argument are lessons from BFT to incite ways of outmaneuvering and undoing immunity with impunity. With those lessons, we aim to disrupt traditional practices of biocentric disciplinary knowing and open radical (un)disciplinary possibilities. Tune in for a rhythmic swell.

Keywords:

• Black feminist thought
• immunity with impunity
• otherwise praxis
• methodology
• pedagogy

Acknowledgements

Pounding. Hearts. Open. To the UnderCommons Constellation (UC2) for generating foresight, support, and intellectual practice in relational ways beyond the UMass Collaborative for Global Studies and Transformative Education. UC2 fosters kinship and care. T(w)o hearts opening wider. To the anonymous peer reviewers for their engagement. To the team of editors for encouraging our contribution. To the listeners. The song plays on.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 For our purpose, we lead with Brittany Howard’s “History Repeats” and invite the reader to listen to the song’s lyrics beforehand to more fully engage the ideas presented here. The song is cued to “play” within key places of the writing; these interludes are marked with ♪ (to suggest the song is playing). In form, the song fades in and fades out accordingly.

2 In this paper, we are engaging ideas from the fields of education and critical whiteness studies as well as ontoepistemological alternatives offered in black studies and black feminist thought. Across many works, scholars have explicitly written with “Black” and/or “black.” We view the various decisions to use capitalized B and/or lowercase b in black studies as moments that show respect, honor specific histories and cultural processes, and complicate racial category making; for particular usage, see Silva (2014) and McKittrick (2021); for related discussions of usage, see Dumas (2016) and Bruce (2021). Given this paper’s critique of categorical thinking, we follow Bruce’s (2021) intention to “use a lowercase b because I want to emphasize an improper blackness: … a blackness that is neither capitalized nor propertized via the protocols of Western grammar… its smallness does not limit the infinite care it contains” (p. 6). We take heed of particular usage in cited works, knowing that there is no one way to communicate and anticipate care. We also respect the shifting uses in each other’s scholarship; terms are cited as they appear in published works.

3 Immunity: science – the ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells; common usage – protection or exemption from something, especially an obligation or penalty; law – officially granted exemption from legal proceedings.

4 Impunity: narrower in meaning – protection or exemption from injurious consequences, no punishment.

5 See Barnard Center for Research on Women (2015). From Silva’s talk “Hacking the Subject: Black Feminism, Refusal, and the Limits of Critique”: “I hope to set the stage with a reminder of how the black feminist position troubles black and feminist critical projects. For each of them recalls how black feminism performs a double refusal. The refusal to disappear and the refusal to comply. More specifically, refusal to disappear into the general categories of otherness or objecthood that is blackness and womanhood. And a refusal to comply with the formulations of racial and sexual emancipatory projects these categories guide.”

6 See “white ignorance” (Mills, 2007), “white denial” (McIntosh, 1989), and “white talk” (McIntyre, 1997).

7 It is outside the scope of this paper to discuss the two camps of white reconstructionism and abolition (see, e.g. Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996; Roediger, 1994). For a synthesis of these works, their political value, and what they argue in whiteness studies specifically, or race theory generally, see Leonardo (2009).

8 See https://m4bl.org

9 For a combined discussion on emotions and “feeling white,” in relation to educational projects, see DiAngelo (2018) and Matias (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cee Carter

Cee Carter applies the theoretical lessons of Black Feminist Thought to rethink the limits of educational mandates. Her scholarship reconceptualizes approaches to educational equity to guide shifts in teaching and research practices. Her current work traces how educational equity for youth of color is regulated through raciality, economy, and policy. Cee is a newly minted PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Korina M. Jocson

Korina M. Jocson studies youth’s expressive cultures across learning environments and considers how global flows of information, people, and ideas can shape pedagogical possibilities. Her approach accentuates the relational aspects of doing inquiry as influenced by radical women of color poets and writers. Author of award-winning Youth Media Matters and other scholarly works, she is an associate professor of education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.