Through laughter and through tears: emotional narratives to antiracist pedagogy

Abstract

If as a collective society we desire to challenge oppression as it exists, we must individually commit to learning about race, in all its facets, and racism as an institution at an emotional level. Although there are many ways to accomplish these ends, antiracist pedagogy – as antioppressive education – is an effective method to do so through its focus on the intersections of race. This study shares how participants in a higher education classroom emotionally experienced studying race and racism. Using a narrative inquiry hybrid, results of this inquiry include how emotions are at the core of such learning, particularly because they can be racially segregated and relationally complex. The lack of research about the relationship between racism and emotions is felt acutely in higher education classrooms, so this study contributes to our understandings of antioppressive pedagogy in such classrooms. Since the overall goal of antiracist pedagogy is antiracist change and classroom emotions are an impending result, the dilemma of focusing on emotions persists. Subsequent implications for antiracist pedagogy specifically, and antioppressive pedagogies broadly, include explicitly addressing the emotionality of antiracism as an ongoing praxis.

Keywords:

• Antioppressive pedagogy
• antiracist pedagogy
• emotions
• curriculum theory
• higher education

Through laughter and through tears: emotional narratives to antiracist pedagogy

An education mind-supremacist epistemology renders the body silent, therefore squarely addressing emotions is to challenge silencing (Wagner and Shahjahan 2015). This emotional focus is a seemingly difficult feat – emotions lurk in the ‘shadows’ of education (Sheppard, Katz, and Grosland 2015), seen as irrelevant to the conversation of race or a distraction. However, centering emotion is critical, particularly in antiracist pedagogy because ‘anti-racist pedagogy is an inherently conflictive emotional situation’ (Shim 2014, 13). Conflictive, as in how emotions like sentimentality de facto otherize and thus position certain groups as privileged observers (Gachago et al. 2015). Emotions are likewise considered contentious, as in how emotions perceived as compassion actually dwell in the realm of disgust of the Other (Matias and Zembylas 2014).

These are compelling issues. The aftermath of emotional matters has been labeled as ‘a deadly fight over feeling’ and affairs of life or death (Wanzo 2015). The seriousness of emotions can leave antiracist pedagogues feeling ‘frustrated, anxious, incompetent, and even hopeless’ (Shim 2014, 2). One may think emotions are isolated incidents, but contextually, as Ahmed (2004) notes, emotional responses not only shape the experiences of individuals, they do so upon collective bodies. Needless to say, a ‘classroom is an emotional place’ (Pekrun 2014); thus, an entire classroom can be emotionally impacted by isolated emoters. No wonder frustration, hopelessness, and disgust can subsist in the enactment of antiracist pedagogy.

Obviously, emotions are tightly intertwined with antiracist antioppressive pedagogy and consequently impact teaching. Baszile (2008) shared how her emotions caused her to change how she taught about race and racism. Although making passing marks, students were not truly grasping concepts of race (Baszile 2008). Her feeling of a desire to change lives drove her to teach in unconventional ways, i.e. using critical race testimony pedagogies that resulted in associated feelings (Baszile 2008). Since the overall goal of antiracist pedagogy is antiracist change, and because classroom emotions are an impending result, the dilemma of focusing on emotions for the purposes of pedagogy persists. Regardless of what is considered ‘emotion,’ and in accordance with Georgis and Kennedy (2009) and similar to Decuir-Gunby and Williams (2007), there is still a lack of research on the relationship between racism and emotions, as well as a nuanced understanding and fresh perspective of the role of affect in antiracist pedagogies, especially in continuing education classrooms. Therefore, in this study, I inquire how do participants experience a classroom that takes up race/racism as a topic of study, and examine what happens in an advanced higher education course that does such. I found that emotions are at the core of this experience.

Focusing on such emotions is paramount because, regardless of whether we ‘tune to them out,’ studying race and racism involves intense emotions like laughter (Grosland 2013; Meddaugh and Richards 2011; Zembylas 2012), tears (Grosland 2013), and/or anger, frustration, and silence. Although complicated, emotions are an often a compromised part of classrooms, particularly teacher education classrooms (Zembylas 2012). Evidently, there is a lot to know about emotional conundrums concerning race and racism as matters of educational experience that relate to teacher education – be it in one’s own classroom concerning White pre-licensure teachers and/or whiteness (e.g. Duncan 2002; Hughes, Moulton, and Andrews 2016; Mason 2016; Matias and Grosland 2016; Matias and Mackey 2016; Matias, Montoya, and Nishi 2016; Matias and Zembylas 2014) or otherwise related to the lives of children and/or teachers of children (e.g. Kuby 2013; Lewis and Tierney 2011; Madrid, Baldwin, and Frye 2013; Milner 2007; Niccolini 2013, 2016; Shim 2017; Wang 2008; Zembylas 2008, 2010, 2012).

While emotions and race as a topic of study related to teacher educators, children, and educators of children is extremely significant, in this piece I am concerned with theorizing antiracist education broadly, and thus the course under study is in a higher education department (doctoral- and master’s-level students). I also press that effective antioppressive pedagogy needs new insight on the emotionality of antiracism in classrooms in order to explore adult learners broadly. I present this classroom field study by first explaining my undergirding theoretical framework involving antiracism, emotion, and antioppression in education. I go on to explain my research methods and methodology in narrative inquiry. I then share complex findings on emotions related to two specific classroom occurrences. Finally, I conclude with implications and recommendations for curriculum theory that include explicitly addressing the emotionality of antiracism as an ongoing praxis. Although emotions are often considered contextual and socially constructed – and as much social as they are individual (Zembylas 2003) – my hope is that this study provides new insight into antioppressive pedagogy. By centering emotional realities as they happen, all involved may feel more emotionally efficacious to challenge oppression within themselves, in such classrooms, professional development, and beyond.

Theoretical framework

To explore emotional graduate classroom experiences, I unpack concepts of race, emotion, and antioppression. These concepts were not tagged individually in analysis, but rather, were merged together to develop a cohesive investigative lens.

Race, racism, and antiracism

Generally, ‘antiracism’ is a commitment to challenge racism in all its forms (Tatum 2003; Trepagnier 2016) and involves knowing race and racism. Omi and Winant (1994) relatedly describe race as ‘a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies’ (p. 55). Racism, therefore, occurs when social interactions create patterned structures of domination based on essentialist categories of race (Omi and Winant 1994). Critical race theorists in education believe that racism is a part of life in the United States (for example), and white supremacy defines political systems; due to such permanence, it is not unusual for people to be racist, making it difficult to recognize daily manifestations of racism (e.g. Brown and Jackson 2013; DeCuir and Dixson 2004; Ladson-Billings 1998, 2013; López 2003; Taylor 2009).

Although whiteness is related to critical race theory (CRT) (Gillborn 2005; Lynn and Dixson 2013), it is just one aspect of many. Suitably, it is a CRT critique of liberalism that specifically provides insight into the role of emotions by suggesting that liberal ideology (such as liberal thoughts, empathetic emotions, beliefs, or presuppositions) can only be effective when everyone’s social status and frame of reference are equal (see Delgado 1996). Therefore, empathic responses are ‘diminished under conditions of social and economic apartheid. In such societies, the relations between social groups are not only distant, but also, for the most part, structurally unjust’ (Duncan 2002, 90). Such a critique condemns notions of liberal ideology including those that emphasizes incremental change as a way to banish racism (DeCuir and Dixson 2004; Delgado and Stefancic 2013; Fasching-Varner and Mitchell 2013; Grosland 2013; Ladson-Billings 1998, 2013; Saddler 2005). The permanence of racism and critique of liberalism were appropriate analytic lenses for this study on emotional responses.

Critically engaging emotion

Zembylas (2007) called for researchers to make explicit their theoretical assumptions about emotions. My goal for this study is not to theorize emotions ipso facto, nor to define what ‘emotions’ are or are not, but rather to critically investigate curriculum through experience. Since experience results in emotional expression, I understand the importance of theoretical considerations as related to the criticality of emotion. Emotion is an expression of power, race, racism, and antiracism, expression which includes empathy, the Other as ‘threatening,’ shame, laughter, ‘bad’ feelings, upset, pity, and disgust (e.g. Decuir-Gunby and Williams 2007; Delgado 1996; Duncan 2002; Grosland 2010, 2013; Lensmire 2011; Lensmire and Snaza 2010; Matias and Grosland 2016; Matias and Zembylas 2014; Niccolini 2013, 2016). Acknowledged is the growing body of scholarship that centers emotions as it relates to power for K-12-associated education majors, though few researchers specifically address emotions in adult/higher education majors (see Grosland 2010, 2013; Grosland and Matias 2017; Wagner 2005; Wagner and Shahjahan 2015). In order to address this, I draw from select scholarship to develop an aspect of my theoretical framework rooted in critical emotion studies (Boler 1999; Winans 2012). Due to context, emotions are examined critically because it is precisely these emotions that are ‘particularly evident in classes that engage critically with difference, power, and privilege’ (Winans 2012, 151).

A second aspect of this theoretical framework involves how emotions are understood as embodied and situated discourses (Boler 1999) and speak to issues of human interactions (Boler 1999; Britzman 2013; Zembylas 2003). As a result of these interactions, and considering Zembylas (2003) genealogies of emotions in teaching, emotions are neither private nor universal and ‘are not impulses that simply happen to passive sufferers,’ but a language of social life (p. 110). Such a perspective challenges dichotomous notions of private (such as existentialist and psychoanalytic) and public (such as structuralist) domains of emotions (Zembylas 2003). Emotions are then considered culturally relevant public performances that reflect power relations and mediate between subjective experiences and social practices (Zembylas 2007).

It is the power and politics of emotions, and the role of affective connections, that can bind an entire classroom or multiple school communities together to constitute collective bodies (Zembylas 2007). Politics and power make it commonplace to value certain groups affective responses over others, thus further marginalizing minoritized groups while privileging those typically in power (see Wanzo 2015). These power and affective connections play out in classrooms every day, highlighting broad social and political inequalities and thus demanding equity (Zembylas 2007) and challenging hidden curriculum (Hansen 2015). These demands may occur within professional communities of affective spaces in ways that can challenge power and potentially subvert practices (Zembylas 2007).

Antioppressive education

Antioppressive education provides a framework to disrupt subjugation in education and is grounded in improving the experiences of those who are othered in schools (Kumashiro 2000, 2001). Here, the term ‘Other’ means groups of people whose identities have been traditionally marginalized (Kumashiro 2000). Therefore, ‘othering’ references those who are oppressed ‘in and by mainstream society’ (Kumashiro 2000; p. 26). Antiracist pedagogy, as an aspect of antioppressive education, closely examines issues of race in all its forms, as well as its intersections, while also countering racist structures in educational settings (see Grosland 2013; Grosland and Matias 2017; Lee 2006; Shim 2014, 2017). Kumashiro (2000, 2001) takes up the emotionality through the exploration of this crisis and the role of empathy in education. Students experience crisis because they learn that what they know about the Other is never the entire story and therefore must resist their ‘desire to know, to essentialize, and to close off further learnings’ (Kumashiro 2000; 34). Such learning cannot be done rationally, and therefore it can be upsetting (Kumashiro 2000, 2001).

Antioppressive pedagogy specifically is a ‘classroom pedagogy that addresse[s] the myriad ways in which racism, classism, exism, heterosexism, and other forms of subjugation and oppression play out in educational institutions and broader society’ (Wagner and Shahjahan 2015). The value of this pedagogy lies in the political responses of the resulting knowledge (see Kumashiro 2000). Sometimes these political responses involve empathy (Kumashiro 2000). However, empathy is critiqued in CRT and can be too problematic in antioppressive pedagogy; such as when feelings and actions do not correspond, when feelings and intentions lead to antioppressive change, or when empathy reinforces an ‘us’/‘them’ binary (see Kumashiro 2000). Emotions can perpetrate racism but, in the context of antioppressive pedagogy, antiracism is disrupting such emotional othering. It is also in this context that emotions may perpetrate oppression or not be enough to create change without an intentional focus on antiracist action.

Considering the crux of my inquiry, theories on race, emotion, and antioppression were fitting. Subsequently, they were also aligned with the objectives of the course under study. Members of this class were to:

• familiarize themselves with concepts related to race, racism, gender, intersectionality, and other socially constructed identities and how they relate to social privilege and oppression;

• examine and construct research and practice that embraces ‘diversity toward equity’ in postsecondary education; and

• consider ways of thinking, learning, doing, and being that facilitate social justice.

My theoretical framework provided a way for me to answer my research question about how participants experienced the classroom, and to narratively make sense of extensive data.

Methodology and methods

The purpose of crafting this narrative was to emphasize the political value of emotional responses (see Clandinin and Rosiek 2007). Called ‘narrative borderland,’ I used a methodological hybrid of post-structuralist and narrative inquiry approaches to critically examine classroom experiences (see Clandinin and Raymond 2006). Although the primary purpose of narrative research is to create understanding, byproducts can include change or solutions to problems (Elbaz-Luwisch 1997). A politically motivated strategy, deriving in part from feminist research, narrative occurs when people’s stories are sources of new knowledge about social reality and how these stories produce power (Clandinin and Raymond 2006; Elbaz-Luwisch 1997). My concern in this study was with ‘the way broad systems of social oppression obscure people’s ability to see their own participation in those systems,’ as well as with a search that expresses ‘ambivalence about insights that arise from within stories … as a source of important knowledge’ (Clandinin and Rosiek 2007, 66).

Of the various types of narrative inquiry, one kind is called ‘analysis of narratives’ wherein the researcher collects and analyzes narratives to arrive at generalizations about the group being studied (Elbaz-Luwisch 1997). Another is called ‘narrative analysis’ in which a researcher studies a case (people or bounded systems) by collecting materials and forming these as storied accounts, making the data meaningful (Elbaz-Luwisch 1997). Elbaz-Luwisch (1997) explains that the former type of inquiry has a longer tradition in the social sciences, whereas the latter poses ‘a more radical challenge to accepted forms of inquiry’ (p. 76). I utilized both in that I collected several narratives to arrive at the generalization that antiracist, antioppressive pedagogy is emotional, but I also collected materials from the classroom as a bounded system to develop a story.

Data collection and commonplaces

My study was qualitatively grounded and included purposefully selecting a site that would help me answer my research question (Creswell 2009). This involved addressing the assumptions of narrative inquiry: place (study context and location), temporarality (how events and people transition), and sociality (relationship and dispositions of the researcher and participants) (Clandinin and Raymond 2006; Connelly and Clandinin 2006).

Place

The doctoral and master’s face-to-face semester course under study carried the word ‘race’ in its title, was offered by a department of higher education in a college of education, and took place on campus in the evenings. Most of the students were higher educators and none worked in K-12 settings or with children at the time of the study. Although part of a larger study involving extensive fieldwork, this study took place at a public university in one of the U.S.’s 20 most-populated cities. The instructor (Dr. Robin) is a full professor in higher education at ArcticU who taught this course several times.

Temporality and sociality

To document how people and events transitioned (Clandinin, Pushor, and Orr 2007), this study included ongoing observations, audio documentations (later transcribed), and handwritten observation notes of every class session, from start to finish, as well as multiple interviews. I also collected artifacts such as handouts, online writings, and student assignments. Then, at the conclusion of my interviews and observations, I immediately captured my reflections (manually or digitally) as a way for me to debrief the process and capture notes on body language or other occurrences not captured by voice. Demographics at the time of the study, derived from self- and observer-identification, included one (1) Black/African-American male, one (1) White/European female from the Czech Republic, one (1) Black/African-American female, six (6) White/European American females, including the professor, and one (1) non-white female (‘Person-of-Color’) (Appendix A). Classroom desks were arranged into a circle in which I always sat, continually observing and writing detailed field notes on participants’ expressions, interactions, and conversations. When students were in small groups, I primarily stayed stationary at one group, but would sometimes visit multiple groups, depending on the conversations. Then, after each session ended and within 24 h of the class session, I typed my notes. I also wrote my own reflections (and any additional notes) in the same typed document as respective comment bubbles.

Rather than student or instructor, I was exclusively a researcher and my observation role transitioned; my participants knew my role was primarily to collect data (Creswell 2009). However, at times I was a participant observer when my observation role was secondary to my participant role (Creswell 2009). The reason for my shifting role was due to whether the professor explicitly called on me and included me in class activities or if I was personally expressing an emotional response. In congruence with feminist and post-structuralist research (Zembylas 2007), I explicitly reflected in my journal on how my role and emotions shifted throughout the study. In other words, I bracketed myself into the inquiry rather than disconnect from it (Connelly and Clandinin 2006).

To supplement, clarify, and probe experiences, I conducted two semi-structured one-to-one and face-to-face interviews early and midway in the course concluding with a student focus group. These interviews included questions such as: What do notice in yourself when discussions of racism arise? If you were a [particular race], what might you be thinking/feeling? What feelings are easily or more difficulty discussed with your classmates? What about racial equity raises doubts for you/hopefulness?

The professor was interviewed three times. I also conducted semi-structured one-to-one and face-to-face interviews with her. I chose to interview her instead of having her participate in the focus group in consideration of her position as the students’ evaluator. I wanted students to openly talk about their experience as a group and not feel they had to modify their impressions for the sake of future or current relations. I interviewed the professor early in the course (about a third of the way through), late midway, and soon after the course ended. Throughout the study, I treated each participant’s experience as his/her own story, reality, and perception as truth. I conceptualized each narration as actively creative and particular thus, per Chase (2005), questions about the factual nature of each narrator’s statements were not paramount.

Data analysis

After the course ended and all of the data were collected and transcribed, I used inductive analysis and recursive abstraction approaches to examine the data for patterns, narrative, and important themes (Creswell 2009). This process took multiple levels of data analysis which moved from specific to general (see Creswell 2009). For the first level, I reviewed all the course data in chronological order and made notes, using a chart that included the date, data source, topic, big category/categories, and significant events. After I charted (i.e. coded) all of the data, I conducted a second level of analysis which involved building conceptual categories by looking for recurrences and grouping them similarly by themes. Finally, for the third level of analysis, I examined how my categorized data and narrative instances related to my questions and theoretical framework. Throughout the analysis and write up, I continually reviewed my chart as a way to re-examine or include additionally relevant data.

The amount of time I spent in the field taking notes, observing, and interviewing was insurmountable. It was through my extensive fieldwork as an observer-participant/participant-observer that I was able to differentiate ‘typical’ classroom emotions (like laughter) and isolated emotional events (like crying). This time spent was critical because the more time I spent, the more I was able to acclimate myself and capture how the classroom unfolded (see Connelly and Clandinin 2006). Immersing myself in and outside of class (e.g. attending every class, walking around campus with students, and visiting them at their workplaces) allowed me the opportunity to know each person individually and constantly reflect in my fieldnotes. In addition, I knew some of the participants in other ways before the study. Knowing my participants in various ways allowed me to better analyze classroom emotions contextually, therefore I was aware of their demeanors and how they changed (or not) throughout the duration of the course.

Ethical concerns

In addition to the common forms of ethical procedures (e.g. research as mutually beneficial, formalized informed consent, and ‘undisturbing’ the site as much as possible by prolonged observations and ongoing interviews) (Creswell 2009), there are other complex ethical dilemmas concerning qualitative research. First, the examination of researcher positionality (addressed here as sociality) is essential and creates increased reliability, authenticity, and credibility to the study (see Jamal 2005). By way of bracketing myself in the study, I continually reflected on my multiple identities and as a researcher researching racism interracially. Therefore, I was constantly working through ‘the dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen’ (Milner 2007). In my planning and ongoing research journal, I predicted written details on ‘seeable’ research concerns, addressed ‘unseen’ research issues as they occurred, and made impromptu ‘unforeseen’ decisions throughout the process. Lastly, qualitative researchers caution generalizability and limit the use of the term, but expose the use of hallmark particularities, descriptions, and themes in context of a specific research site (Creswell 2009): ‘[narrative researchers] do not aspire to generalize, nor do they promise immediate practical benefits; yet they make strong claims for the authenticity and power of narrative research’ (Elbaz-Luwisch 1997, 76). As with any assumption, these values can be understood as limitations. Although a byproduct of this study is theorizing the role of emotion in antioppressive pedagogy, my main objective was to share a narrative of a classroom that took up race and racism as topics of study in a higher education program.

Findings: once upon a classroom

People construct stories that support how they see themselves, unaware of the deeper implications and assumptions that shape those stories (Bell 2002). These stories ‘provide a window into people’s beliefs and experiences’ that they do not know themselves (Bell 2002), including into that of studying race and racism. Rather than defining emotion, affect, or feeling, as these are subjective and contextual terms, critical emotionality involves using narratives as a window into what emotions, per Zembylas (2007), do or do not permit, as well as how emotions both constrain and empower. This ArcticU classroom, which was multiracial, mostly female, and had a majority of U.S. citizens, had a plethora of emotions, some of which included feeling overwhelmed, guilty, and empowered, saw laughter and tears. Classmates openly spoke race about and racism, as being a target or a witness, and sometimes even made jokes. This laughter possibly created a sense of classroom camaraderie, or maybe as Freud (1960) suggests, a way to make sense out of nonsense. Regardless of the laughter, there were specific classes wherein there was not much laughter but, rather, responses of different sorts. After a short introduction, I detail these narratives as they happened (see ‘A Narrative of Under- and Overwhelming (Dis)Pleasure’ and ‘Emotional Moving Frame: A Parable’ below).

Introduction: emotional otherwiseness as disruption

Narrative occurs when ‘expression is given political values and commitments in many and often unexpected ways’ (Elbaz-Luwisch 1997, 76). Race is a part of life in the U.S., thus this system also defines emotional expressions, some of which collude with racial patterns of segregation, as well as interruptions of these patterns. In this classroom, responses were emotionally raced when the class was asked to react to James Scheurich and Michelle Young’s (1997) piece ‘Coloring Epistemologies: Are Our Research Epistemologies Racially Biased?¹ ’ Emotional patterns of racial segregation were evident in that White students were ‘overwhelmed,’ while the other students were not. In this classroom resistance to this racialized response took the form of emotional otherwiseness as disruption. More importantly, within this emotional otherwiseness was a distinction that steadfastly, concurrently, clearly, and continually disrupted the dominant raced emotional discourse of those who were ‘overwhelmed.’

A narrative of under- and overwhelming (dis)pleasure

In class that evening, Professor Robin debriefed the assigned reading by Scheurich and Young a little differently than usual. Just like every class session, we sat in a circle; but, this time the students were asked to share how the Scheurich and Young piece made them think, feel, and consider implication for action. All of the White students responded to the feeling prompt with the same exact word: ‘overwhelmed’:

Diane: And thinking of [the layers of racism] sort of made me feel overwhelmed by the task at hand, this sort of action piece. You know, not just changing the meat, but changing the bones.

Aggie: …what a massive undertaking [being an antiracist researcher] is, because it is so structural that it makes me feel overwhelmed to experience. It seems like such an uphill climb to change the actual foundations of research and all these sayings that higher education has been built on for so long.

Connie: This article made me feel very overwhelmed and helpless and scared almost, because the way that they broke it down, showing all of the different levels of racism, it’s embedded in all of us, all the layers. And so, it just, at that point it just kind of overwhelmed me quite a bit.

These reflections highlight that these White students felt overwhelmed with change and helpless.

Connie’s fear in response to the reading continued beyond the face-to-face class debriefing. After class, in the online debriefing, Connie wondered if racism really existed since the beginning of time. Still overwhelmed, she wrote:

Last night’s discussion really got me thinking about what society would ‘be like’ if CRT was used as a framework throughout all historical and contemporary issues/aspects of society. Has racism existed in some capacity since the very beginning? Asking myself these questions really overwhelms me because it becomes such a philosophical journey as well.

She went on to share how she felt sad because she had never thought about her own personal role in a racist society:

As I’m approaching the thirtieth year of my life, I am so saddened by the fact it took 28-29 years for me to discover my own contributions to racism, my own whiteness, my own privilege. I feel fortunate for taking this course, and for being so challenged in it. And that makes me think of all the other happy and comfortable [W]hite people in the world who will just continue to perpetuate it (it being racism).

Connie had a range of emotions, including seemingly dichotomous ones like feeling both sad and fortunate at the same time. She also insinuates that she thinks Whites are happy and comfortable perpetuating racism.

Racially minoritized students emoted differently than ‘overwhelmed,’ thus disrupting emotional sameness. For example, Debo, who self-identifies as Black African-American, used ‘overwhelmed’ in a positive way to express his feelings of relief and encouragement:

I think, for me, the first thing I thought was, wow! I wasn’t overwhelmed, it was like finally … there’s something … And, it, it made me feel that as a potential scholar, that there’s hope for the ability for my, my voice and knowledge.

His use of ‘wasn’t’ rejected similar interpretations of overwhelmed and revealed that he was instead optimistic and hopeful.

Peaches and Suzie’s ways of emoting to the assignment were likewise unique. There are two notes of contextualization that must be put forth in order to make further sense of their responses. First, it is of note that they both identify with traditionally racialized communities, e.g. Peaches self-identifies as Black – African-American – of the African Diaspora and Suzie self-identifies as a Person-of-Color. Secondly, both of these students were (at the time of study) equity practitioners in higher education and were generally very open and talkative (as compared to others) in class. However, it seemed as if their emotions were something of confusion and/or uncertainty, and their statements evoked laughter in themselves and the class. For example, when Peaches was asked to respond how the reading made her feel, she said:

So, how did I feel? I don’t know [tone changed]. I’m still thinking on that. How did I feel about it? I feel like some people’s knowledge are, is, validated and some people’s isn’t. You know what I mean?

Here, she discussed the role of power in validating ‘people’s knowledge’ to describe her feelings; she then went on to joke that:

[Scheurich and Young] didn’t have new ideas. I mean, I’m sorry, Plato and Socrates are wonderful, but their mama told them that [classroom laughter]. No, I’m just kidding, but they got their ideas from somewhere …

Peaches’s emotional response to a feeling prompt included joking and laughter, possibly comedy as disruption.

Suzie briefly said ‘liked’ to describe her feelings about the suggestions in the article. After talking for several minutes about thoughts and actions, she apologetically said:

Oh, sorry, one more thing [classroom laughter] … on page 10, sorry, where they talk about … choosing an epistemology frame that fits her social history … I really liked that. And I hadn’t thought about that before, so that’s something I’ll think more about as I get through in my [doctoral] program.

In her response, evoking laughter was part of the emotional disruption. She went on:

[A conversation I was having with a colleague] just makes me feel, I’m getting into the feeling part, just again, concern about research interests and whether [my use of alternative epistemologies for my dissertation] will be deemed legitimate or not, and whether I’ll have to take different angles until a certain point to, to have [my research] be legitimate, I guess.

Although seemingly getting to ‘the feelings part,’ she used the feeling words of ‘like,’ ‘sorry,’ and ‘concern.’ Peaches’s and Suzie’s responses included laughter. Regardless of whether feeling was explicitly addressed in their responses, emotions were present. This classroom circle of responses highlighted students’ emotions about racism and revealed raced patterns as under- and overwhelming forms of (dis)pleasure.

Introduction: crises of divergences

A future class session involved watching a film called The Color of Fear. This in-class showing resulted in a narrative of unstable and shifting emotional variances or divergences. Similar to ‘crises’ resulting from antioppressive pedagogy knowledge (Hughes, Moulton, and Andrews 2016; Kumashiro 2000), emotional divergences about learning race and racism these were too crises. Since the value of antioppressive pedagogy lies in the political responses of the resulting knowledge (see Kumashiro 2000), emotional responses are political responses and, thus, are where the value of this narrative lies.

Emotional moving frame: a parable

After an in-class showing of the film The Color of Fear by Lee Mun Wah,² responses by those who had and had not yet seen the film represented uncharacteristic emotions for this class. Immediately after the film ended, Dr. Robin asked for responses and reactions. After a few moments of thinking, responses to the film followed the circle seating arrangement and emotional differences were stark, including Diane’s tearful response – an unusual classroom behavior for her (or for anyone in the class). As she cried, she explained that she had seen the film before and was concerned that she still sees herself as David, a man in the film who persistently denies the existence of racism; she did not want to be in that place anymore. Through her tears she said:

I saw this when it first came out and I was David. I don’t think anything I’ve seen since has had a more profound effect on me than this did the first time I saw it. And it’s so hard to watch it again to sort of see where I had been and worry that I’m still there. I mean, it’s just so powerful and Victor Lewis [in the film] was on [my] campus last November and I got through about three-quarters of his talk before I had to get up and leave. It’s really good. It’s just really powerful. And to think about myself at nineteen or twenty watching myself on the screen and realizing, just having that ‘Oh, my God’ moment. But I think everybody – everybody should see [The Color of Fear]. Everybody should see it and sort of watch what happens … I think [this film] is required viewing for young White people who haven’t thought about their whiteness.

Clearly, the film had such a powerful impact that she worried about herself, demanded everyone watch it (especially ‘young White people’), and sobbed.

Later during our interview I asked Diane how she felt about sharing in class after watching the film:

[Watching the movie was] so hard because it took me right back there … no matter how many times I see [this film] it’s like a knife to the gut … to say something out loud about it was raw. Not in a bad way, but it was like [pause and audible deep breathing] remembering myself in [David’s] chair, saying those kinds of things; and believing that if we all wanted to get along, we could … I know it’s part of the growth process, but it’s like ick … looking back [and] remembering myself in [David’s] chair.

Her deep and heavy breathing seemed to be an indication of felt complex responses.

As Diane’s interview progressed, she said that though she felt comfortable in class while she was talking and crying about her feelings, she still felt a little awkward. She said that previously she had cried as a result of watching this film, but had done so in private. She explained that the reason she cried in class was probably because Dr. Robin had asked everyone to respond immediately after seeing the film. She admitted that she would not have been so open and emotional if the class had watched the film in the first three to four weeks of the course because as time progressed the classroom had become ‘a safer and safer space.’ She also believed that the small class size made a significant difference because she was better able to hear from her classmates and that helped her get to know them and their perspectives. This class had nine students and she compared that size to another class of hers in which she was one of 26 students. She also wondered whether her crying had been too emotional and so had made other people feel awkward, but then she quickly made peace with herself regarding that.

However, in response to Diane’s emotions other people said they felt awkward and too emoted. During an interview, Aggie not only remembered Diane crying, but questioned her own emotions:

Part of me felt like, oh, should I be crying too? … You wonder if it got to her really bad and why it didn’t get to me to that extent. But just because I didn’t cry doesn’t mean that it didn’t have an effect on me … But, I mean, I felt … I felt super bad for her that she … felt so awful … I’m just uncomfortable with crying, period … I just kind of had this thought like, Did I miss something that it didn’t affect me to that extent?

Instead of saying how the film affected her, Aggie wondered about Diane and felt ‘super bad for her,’ yet she was ‘uncomfortable with crying, period.’ Although she did not show emotion, Aggie claimed that not doing so did not ‘mean that [the film] didn’t have an affect’ on her, though she also wondered if she had ‘missed something’ because she did not display emotion.

Other students also shared how the use of the film affected them, particularly in the segment involving Victor and David in which Victor becomes frustrated with David’s denial of racism through expressive body language and yelling. To this point, Debo shared with me during his interview that:

[I] was shaking when David and Victor got into it. I mean it was just, you know, it was very, very uncomfortable. You know, him yelling and screaming and stuff like that. And I was just like, I never want to get to that point where I’m yelling and screaming about something that he was apparently passionate about.

Debo’s admission of shaking and feeling uncomfortable were not emotions that he had ever before expressed to me either in class or as part of our interviews.

After the class ended, Peaches shared online how she felt about Victor and David’s interaction. Although in class she softly chuckled during several parts of the film, she later posted that she thought their clothes were funny. She wrote:

I too have seen this video before. It’s a good one, because it hits at the raw emotions of being human in such a racialized society. Two things I look forward to when watching the film: Victor’s blow-ups and the manner in which he articulates the problems, and the camaraderie shown by the men of color. I always laugh at the clothing as well. My God, what was I wearing back then? Victor’s blow-ups are what I recommend for people of color to watch when they are just fed up with the disillusionment of whiteness, especially on the job.

Peaches enjoyed ‘Victor’s blow-ups’ or, in other words, his explosive emotion, and even in this seriousness she finds joy and excitement. Suzie, who also saw the film several times, posted that she ‘wasn’t surprised by anyone’s behavior, reactions, thoughts, or experiences,’ ‘not surprised’ being an emotion of calm. Like the other responses, Peaches’s use of humor and Suzie’s calmness were among the crises of divergence.

Emotional crises of divergences about the film figured in students’ online postings. Berlin reflected about living in the Czech Republic, her puzzlement, and a deep concern:

I’ve seen the video for the first time and was deeply concerned while (and after) watching it. Actually, I’ve felt puzzled and challenged during other classes of our course too.

Of particular interest was her very next online comment because it reflected the realities of racism in emotional otherizing:

… [a]ll these issues are very new for me and make me think about society, and education, and the systems we’ve created, and also the role of power in general … David’s judging who can feel what … is a very real behavior of a white majority.

Connie too wrote about her intense feelings in her online post – as with her other emotionally rooted responses – and shared how she was fearful:

All of the films we’ve watched in class have left me with such intense and emotional feelings – feelings of guilt and ignorance for only recently gaining awareness about racism and [discrimination] and my own whiteness. I was scared by how many of David’s statements I recognized from my own thoughts from only very recently … It took living in another country and seeing racism among non-Americans that was the first awakening for me – I feel ashamed to admit this.

Connie was ‘emotional,’ ‘scared,’ and ‘ashamed’ about what she knew and did not know. Rachel was also scared:

Like Peaches, Diane, and Professor Robin, I have seen this video in the past. However, unlike others, I cannot place when or in what context it was. And that scares me. Hearing the lived experiences of the men in the video is remarkably powerful, and it is so clear that racism exists and has profoundly damaging effects. David’s insistence that the other men’s experiences were not true is challenging to think about because I wonder if the reason why I can’t remember the impact of seeing this video in the past is because I somehow ‘wrote it off’ as not true as well. And it also makes me think, in regards to white students in higher education, how do you intervene in their learning in a way that really will make them see racism/oppression/privilege? If the lived experiences heard in the Color of Fear didn’t reach the undergraduate me, then what could?

Although she claimed that the film was powerful, Rachel could not remember where or when she first had seen it. Her memory lapse scared her. She did not remember any feelings from when she first watched the film as an undergrad because, she feared, she had ‘written it off.’ Due to the initial emotions that occurred, and the subsequent lapse, Rachel was able to bury her emotions somewhere deep inside, possibly never to be found again.Rachel’s lapse was of particular note for Dr. Robin. In a later interview I asked if she was surprised by anything in class; she said no, but:

What I was surprised by, and this has never happened before, the two people in the class who said ‘I’ve seen this’ and it didn’t leave an impression on them before. That blew me away because I don’t think it’s like the be all and end all, certainly, but it [speaking slowly] really laid something out there. In a sort of problematic way, but it really pushes, I think, the whiteness piece of it and says things that we’re [whispering] not supposed to say in polite company … and for me it’s like how [speaking slowly] could you not have remembered that? That was probably the most unusual [response since I’ve been showing the film]. Frankly it made me think about where do people have to be [in their thinking] in order to truly engage with that dialogue … I kinda thought that … anybody of a certain age … would be able to at least hear and be troubled with some of the ideas. The idea of not remembering is [she pauses and we both laugh], I’m still thinking about that.

Dr. Robin was not exactly sure what to make of Rachel’s revelations that she did not remember her experience watching The Color of Fear. Dr. Robin used emotional expressions to wonder about what seemed nonsensical; it ‘blew her away,’ and slowly asking a rhetorical question relayed a message of surprise and confusion. Since this film is intense for many, the thought of someone not remembering the film made us both laugh – a laughter of bewilderment. Her whisper, my laughter, Diane’s tears, Debo’s shaking, as well as all the other emotions, comprised this parable of a varied emotional moving frame.

Discussion and implications

These narratives are a reflection of the experiences in an advanced higher education classroom wherein race and racism were topics of study. Through a post-structural narrative inquiry hybrid approach to critically examine this classroom a major finding was varied emotional responses. In particular, emotional otherwiseness as disruption is a reflection of how power dynamics and affective connections in everyday classrooms highlight inequalities, demand equity, and challenge power (see Zembylas 2007). Secondly, crises of divergences are the multifaceted forms of emotional divergences that relate to exposure in learning about racism; in this particular narrative, the class was exposed to the personalization and emotional toll of racism in a film. With these empirical evidences, I conclude that these emotional responses can relate to ongoing praxis guided by phronesis ‘directed at eliminating pain, oppression, and inequality, and at promoting justice and freedom’ (McLaren 2009, 74). The action-driven nature of adult learning (see Knowles 1980; Rachal 2002) makes praxis plausible and emotions inform whether we take antioppressive action or not. For example, participants could engage such a praxis based on the varied emotions experienced or witnessed in the context of antiracist pedagogy in their lives in-and-outside of schools.

Antioppressive pedagogy is emotional, therefore centering the role of power in emotions as part of praxis is promising. Knowing that place, temporality, and sociality are unique, one can contextually decide about how to apply such a framework in their own situations. Despite emotions’ (un)conscious nature, a focus on emotions in the context of antioppressive pedagogy reinforces that the root of oppression is emotional suffering for both the oppressed and the oppressor, thus the need for phronesis directed at deconstructing emotional pain that does not foster antioppression and equality.

Correspondingly emotional diligence in antioppressive pedagogy by way of praxis may include cultivating interruptions in emotional liberal ideology and abstraction by linking emotions, praxis, and phronesis. Emotional suppression is therefore addressed because ‘hidden’ emotions in reflection are forefronted in dialogue and further realized in action. Also consider that a storied life in a racist society is raced; layer this with studying race and racism, is emotionally exhausting, hence so-called unemotional responses are quite possibly very emotional and praxis is important.

A final implication harkens to, per Ahmed (2004), how emotions circulate between bodies, are made in contact with bodies, and create boundaries. Critically examining emotions and how these emotions perpetrate and/or emulate social patterns, and then appropriately deconstructing oppressive patterns, is sorely needed praxis. Such a critical examination can take place in the context of any type of educating (self-directed, online, small group, etc.). Rather than ignoring emotion, learners have varied opportunities to develop a better understanding of how the politics and power of emotion influences everything – who says what, who emotes what, who is excluded, who is included. Fittingly, practice actively challenges power and racism in emotions through progressive learning, examining how emotions influence which actions are implemented (or not), and then re-learning antioppressive practice through praxis with a lens on emotions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, race and racism as topics of study, and the emotions that subsequently result from that study, demonstrate the seriousness of emotions and their link to our lives. Political and consumer advertisers understand very well that emotions are paramount in our choices, and it is time antioppressive pedagogues realize that they are not excluded from this reality. There is plenty more to understand about the role of classroom emotions for the purposes of improving antiracist antioppressive pedagogy, including raising awareness about emotions as a reflection of political dynamics and institutional life, emotional engagement to interrupt us/them binaries, and stopping fear with antioppressive action, all the while through laughter and through tears.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In summary, Scheurich and Young (1997) argue that research epistemologies are influenced by racism because of larger issues of societal racism. In this piece, they propose various ways to counter this form of racism such as using more inclusive research epistemologies from different cultural and racial perspectives.

2. A documentary featuring a multiracial/multicultural group of men who attended a retreat facilitated by Mun Wah. Conversations relate to social and personal experiences with racism and oppression. One participant in the film, named David Christensen, basically denies racism is a problem.

Appendix A.

Participants

Table

Pseudonym	Participant role	Study demographics
Dr. Robin	Professor	White-European American female
Debo	Student	Black African-American male
Aggie	Student	White-European American female
Diane	Student	White-European American female
Peaches	Student	Black African-American-of the African Diaspora female
Katrina	Student	White-European American female
Rachel	Student	White-European American female
Berlin	Student	White-Czech female
Connie	Student	White-European American female
Suzie	Student	Non-White female

All names and locations in this research that would identify those involved have been changed to maintain confidentiality.