Spectatorship, Black Bodies, and Urban Education

doi:10.1017/9781009188128.045

40 - Spectatorship, Black Bodies, and Urban Education

Womanist Excavations of Binding Inner Visions

from Part III - Emerging Ethical Pathways and Frameworks

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2024

David Humphrey and

Sheron Fraser-Burgess

Edited by

Sheron Fraser-Burgess ,

Jessica Heybach and

Dini Metro-Roland

Show author details

Sheron Fraser-Burgess: Affiliation:
Ball State University, Indiana
Jessica Heybach: Affiliation:
Florida International University
Dini Metro-Roland: Affiliation:
Western Michigan University

Book contents

Get access

Summary

African American teachers are in high demand in urban schools. Presupposing these spaces as operating within a matrix of domination for African Americans in the United States, in this chapter, two African American scholars of differing genders model womanist thinking as politic educational ethics and praxis. hooks, Fanon, and Lorde elucidate the Black subject’s ontological condition as a problem of spectatorship. Womanist theory responds to sociopolitical forces devaluing the self as minoritized subject. Through critical self-reflexivity that acknowledges the debilitating white normative gaze and the inner turmoil of its subjugation, womanist thinking offers a normative syntax of freedom. A womanist praxis of radical subjectivity and a pedagogy of love excavates one’s inner visions for oneself and for one’s students that engenders self-authorship.

Keywords

womanism spectatorship urban education Black teachers radical self-love luxocracy critical autoethnography praxis

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Ethics and Education , pp. 846 - 867

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009188128.045 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcoff, Linda. “The Problem of Speaking for Others.” Cultural Critique, no. 20 (1991): 5–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354221.Google Scholar

Alcoff, Linda. Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

Annamma, Subini Ancy, Jackson, Darrell D., and Morrison, Deb. “Conceptualizing Color-Evasiveness: Using Dis/ability Critical Race Theory to Expand a Color-Blind Racial Ideology in Education and Society.” Race Ethnicity and Education 20, no. 2 (2017): 147–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1248837.Google Scholar

Awkward, Michael. “A Black Man’s Place in Black Feminist Criticism.” In The Womanist Reader: The First Quarter Century of Womanist Thought, edited by Phillips, Layli, 69–84. New York: Routledge, 2006.Google Scholar

Ayers, William. Teaching Toward Freedom: Moral Commitment and Ethical Action in the Classroom. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.Google Scholar

Beauboeuf-Lafontant, Tamara. “A Womanist Experience of Caring: Understanding the Pedagogy of Exemplary Black Women Teachers.” Urban Review 34 (2002): 171–186. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014497228517.Google Scholar

Beauboeuf-Lafontant, Tamara. “Womanist Lessons for Reinventing Teaching.” Journal of Teacher Education 56, no. 5 (2005): 436–445. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487105282576.Google Scholar

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality, 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009.Google Scholar

Cannon, Katie. Black Womanist Ethics. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1988.Google Scholar

Cherry-McDaniel, Monique. “Skinfolk Ain’t Always Kinfolk: The Dangers of Assuming and Assigning Inherent Cultural Responsiveness to Teachers of Color.” Educational Studies 55, no. 2 (2019): 241–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2018.1500912.Google Scholar

Coffey, Heather, and Farinde-Wu, Abiola. “Navigating the Journey to Culturally Responsive Teaching: Lessons from the Success and Struggles of One First-Year, Black Female Teacher of Black Students in an Urban School.” Teaching and Teacher Education, 60 (2016): 24–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.07.021.Google Scholar

Coleman, Monica. “Must I Be a Womanist?” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 1, no. 22 (2006): 85–96.Google Scholar

Collins, Patricia Hill. Another Kind of Public Education: Race, Schools, the Media, and Democratic Possibilities. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009.Google Scholar

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 1990/2008.Google Scholar

Collins, Patricia Hill. “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought.” Social Problems 33, no. 6 (1986): S14–S32.Google Scholar

Collins, Patricia Hill. “What’s in a Name? Womanism, Black Feminism, and Beyond.” The Black Scholar 26, no. 1 (1996): 9–17.Google Scholar

Cone, James H. A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010.Google Scholar

Cone, James H. The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011.Google Scholar

Copeland, M. Shawn. “A Thinking Margin: The Womanist Movement as Critical Cognitive Praxis.” In Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society, edited by Floyd-Thomas, Stacy M., 226–233. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

Cozart, Sheryl Conrad, and Gordon, Jenny. “Using Womanist Caring as a Framework to Teach Social Foundations.” The High School Journal 90, no. 1 (2006): 9–15.Google Scholar

Dillard, Cynthia. B. Learning to (Re)member the Things We’ve Learned to Forget: Endarkened Feminisms, Spirituality, & the Sacred Nature of Research & Teaching. New York: Peter Lang, 2012.Google Scholar

Dillard, Cynthia B. On Spiritual Strivings: Transforming an African American Woman’s Academic Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.Google Scholar

Dixson, Adrienne, and Dingus, Jeannine E.. “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Black Women Teachers and Professional Socialization.” Teachers College Record 110, no. 4 (2008): 805–837. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146810811000403.Google Scholar

Douglas, Kelly Brown. “Twenty Years a Womanist: An Affirming Challenge.” In Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society, edited by Floyd-Thomas, Stacy M., 145–157. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

Du Bois, W. E. B. Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. New York: Russell & Russell, 1935.Google Scholar

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk, edited by Hayes Edwards, Brent. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. First published in 1903.Google Scholar

Easton-Brooks, Donald. “Ethnic-Matching in Urban Education.” In The Handbook on Urban Education, edited by Milner, H. Richard IV and Lomotey, Kofi, 97–113. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2014.Google Scholar

Ellis, Carolyn. The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 2004.Google Scholar

Farinde-Wu, Abiola. “#Blackwomenatwork: Teaching and Retention in Urban Schools.” Urban Review 50 (2018): 247–266. https://doi-org.proxy.bsu.edu/10.1007/s11256–018-0449-x.Google Scholar

Floyd-Thomas, Stacy M., ed. Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

Foote, Chandra J. “The Challenge and Potential of High-Need Urban Education.” The Journal of Negro Education 74, no. 4 (2005): 371–381.Google Scholar

Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Bloomsbury, 1994.Google Scholar

Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. “The ‘Loves’ and ‘Troubles’ of African American Women’s Bodies: The Womanist Challenge to Cultural Humiliation and Community Ambivalence.” In Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader, edited by Townes, Emilie M., Sims, Angela D., and Cannon, Katie Geneva, 81–97. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.Google Scholar

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.Google Scholar

Giroux, Henry A., and Searls Giroux, Susan. Take Back Higher Education: Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Post–Civil Rights Era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hall, Stuart. Familiar Stranger: A Life between Two Islands. In Stuart Hall: Selected Writings, edited by Schwarz, Bill. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.Google Scholar

Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications, 2013.Google Scholar

hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.Google Scholar

hooks, bell. Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies. New York: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar

hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar

Klopfenstein, Kristin. “Beyond Test Scores: The Impact of Black Teacher Role Models on Rigorous Math Taking.” Contemporary Economic Policy 23, no. 3 (2005): 416–428. https://doi.org/10.1093/cep/byi031.Google Scholar

Lin, Yi-Chun Tricia. “Review of The Womanist Idea: Contemporary Sociological Perspectives, by Layli Maparyan.” Feminist Formations 26, no. 3 (2014): 199–204.Google Scholar

Lindsay-Dennis, LaShawnda. “Black Feminist-Womanist Research Paradigm: Toward a Culturally Relevant Research Model Focused on African American Girls.” Journal of Black Studies 46, no. 5 (2015): 506–520.Google Scholar

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 2007. First published in 1984.Google Scholar

Maher, Frances A., and Tetreault, Mary Kay. “Frames of Positionality: Constructing Meaningful Dialogues about Gender and Race.” Anthropology Quarterly 66, no. 3 (1993): 118–126. https://doi.org/10.2307/3317515.Google Scholar

Maparyan, Layli. The Womanist Idea. New York: Routledge, 2012.Google Scholar

Marr, Vanessa L. (2014). “Ditchin’ the Master’s Gardening Tools for Our Own: Growing a Womanist Methodology from the Grassroots.” Feminist Teacher 24, nos. 1–2 (2014): 99–109. https://doi.org/10.5406/femteacher.24.1-2.0099.Google Scholar

McGee, Ebony O., and Stovall, David. “Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing, and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis.” Educational Theory 65, no. 5 (2015): 491–511. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12129.Google Scholar

Milner, H. Richard IV. “But What Is Urban Education?” Urban Education 47, no. 3 (2012): 556–561. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085912447516.Google Scholar

Milner, H. Richard IV, and Lomotey, Kofi. Handbook of Urban Education. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.Google Scholar

Noddings, Nel. The Challenge to Care in School: An Alternative Approach to Education. New York: Teachers College Press, 1992.Google Scholar

Peters, M. A., and Tesar, M.. “The Critical Ontology of Ourselves: Lessons from the Philosophy of the Subject.” In Beyond the Philosophy of the Subject: An EPAT Post-Structuralist Reader, edited by Peters, M. A. and Tesar, M., vii–xvii. New York: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar

Pinn, Anthony B. “What’s the Theological Equivalence of a Mannish Boy? Learning a Lesson from Womanist Scholarship – A Humanist and Black Theologian Response.” In Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society, edited by Floyd-Thomas, Stacy M., 275–281. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Google Scholar

Quashie, Kevin. The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012.Google Scholar

Roberts, Mari Ann. “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Critical Teacher Care: African American Teachers’ Definitions and Perceptions of Care for African American Students.” Journal of Moral Education 39, no. 4 (2010): 449–467. https://doi.org/10.1080.03057241003754922.Google Scholar

Salazar Pérez, Michelle, and Saavedra, Cinthya M.. “Spiritual Activism as a Means for Social Transformation: Womanist and Chicana Feminist Possibilities.” Equity & Excellence in Education 53, no. 3 (2020): 315–323.Google Scholar

Sanders, Cheryl J., Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend, Cannon, Katie G., Townes, Emilie M., Copeland, M. Shawn, and hooks, bell. “Roundtable Discussion: Christian Ethics and Theology in Womanist Perspective.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, no. 2 (1989): 83–112.Google Scholar

Stintos Coloma, Roland. “Decolonizing Urban Education.” Educational Studies 56, no. 1 (2020): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2019.1711095.Google Scholar

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta, ed. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017.Google Scholar

Thompson, Audrey. “Caring and Colortalk: Childhood Innocence in White and Black.” In Race-ing Moral Formation: African American Perspectives on Care and Justice, edited by Walker, Vanessa Siddle and Snarey, John R., 23–37. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004.Google Scholar

Tilley-Lubbs, Gresilda A. “Critical Autoethnography and the Vulnerable Self as Researcher.” In Re-Telling Our Stories: Imagination and Praxis, edited by Tilley-Lubbs, Gresilda A. and Calva, Silvia Bénard, 3–15. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-567-8_1.Google Scholar

Townes, Emily. M. “Ethics as an Art of Doing the Work Our Souls Must Have.” In Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader, edited by Townes, Emilie M., Sims, Angela D., and Cannon, Katie Geneva, 35–50. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.Google Scholar

Townes, Emilie M. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.Google Scholar

Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. New York: Harcourt, 2011. Kindle. First published in 1983.Google Scholar

Warren, Chezare A., and Coles, Justin A.. “Trading Spaces: Antiblackness and Reflections on Black Education Futures.” Equity & Excellence in Education 53, no. 3 (2020): 382–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1764882.Google Scholar

Watson, Wanda. “We Got Soul: Exploring Contemporary Black Women Educators’ Praxis of Politicized Care.” Equity & Excellence in Education 51, nos. 3–4 (2018): 362–377.Google Scholar

Weems, Renita. “Re-Reading for Liberation: African American Women and the Bible.” In Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader, edited by Townes, Emilie M., Sims, Angela D., and Cannon, Katie Geneva, 51–63. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.Google Scholar

Welsh, Richard O., and Swain, Walker A.. “(Re)Defining Urban Education: A Conceptual Review and Empirical Exploration of the Definition of Urban Education.” Educational Researcher 49, no. 2 (2020): 90–100.Google Scholar

Welsh, Richard O., Williams, Sheneka, Little, Shafiqua, and Graham, Jerome. “Examining the Narrative: An Analysis of the Racial Discourse Embedded in State Takeover.” Equity & Excellence in Education 52, no. 4 (2019): 502–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2019.1691958.Google Scholar

Wilcox, Hui Niu. “Embodied Ways of Knowing, Pedagogies, and Social Justice: Inclusive Science and Beyond.” NWSA Journal 21, no. 2 (2009): 104–120.Google Scholar

Williams, Patrick. “Black Looks/Black Light: Med Hondo’s Lumière Noire.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 21, no. 1 (2009): 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/13696810902986425.Google Scholar

Book contents

40 - Spectatorship, Black Bodies, and Urban Education

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive