Negotiating anti-Black racism in ‘liberal’ contexts: the experiences of Black youth workers in community-based educational spaces

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how Black community-based youth workers navigate anti-Black racism in their educational programming with Black youth in a majority white college town widely recognized as ‘nice,’ ‘liberal,’ and ‘progressive’ with stark racial disparities between its Black and white residents. With racial liberalism and BlackCrit as theoretical guides, this paper draws on in-depth interviews with Black youth workers and observations at city events addressing racial disparities facing Black youth to understand how anti-Black racism within the larger city informs community-based educational programming. Findings indicate a 1) disregard of Black suffering, 2) deliberate shutdown of critical race dialogue and programming, and 3) the exploitation of Black youth workers’ labor and the denial of advancement to positions of leadership within organizations to do white discomfort. This paper challenges liberal and progressive claims of social justice in education within predominantly white cities that reify anti-Black racism.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-Black racism
• community-based education
• youth workers
• racial liberalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All names of participants and the city studied are pseudonyms.

2. Racial disparities in Pleasant Ridge impact Black, Latinx, Asian, and Native American communities. According to local and state reports, there was more complete demographic, economic, and programmatic data on the Black population than on the county’s other racially minoritized communities at the time of the study.