Unspoken Grammar of Place: Anti-Blackness as a Spatial Imaginary in Education. Issue 1 (January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jenkins, DeMarcus A.
• Other Names: Lopez Ann guest-editor.; Jean-Marie Gaëtane guest-editor.; Genao Soribel guest-editor.; Choi Daniel guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of school leadership. Volume 31:Issue 1/2(2021)
• Page Start: 107
• Page End: 126
• Publication Date: 2021-01
• Subjects: anti-Blackness -- spatial imaginary -- urban education -- racism -- school leadership; School management and organization -- United States -- Periodicals; Administration scolaire -- États-Unis -- Périodiques; School management and organization; United States; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 371.2
• DOI: 10.1177/1052684621992768
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2631-9659

Abstract

This article builds from scholarship on anti-Blackness in education and spatial imaginaries in geography to theorize an anti-Black spatial imaginary as the prevailing spatial logic that has shaped the configuration and character of American social intuitions, including K-12 schools. As a spatial imaginary, anti-Blackness is circulated through discourses, images, and texts that tell a story of Blackness as a problem, non-human, and placeless. Anchored by the assumption that Black populations are spatially illegitimate, the anti-Black spatial imaginary marks Black bodies as undesirable and therefore extractable from spaces and places that have been envisioned for their exclusion. I consider schools as sites spatialized terror where the exhibitions of terror consist of forcing students to observe other Black bodies being forcibly removed from the classroom and school community; constant rejection of Black language, traditions, music preferences, and other cultural forms of expression; the obliteration of Black names and identities. I offer ways that school leaders can unsettle the anti-Black spatial imaginary to transform schools as sites of holistic healing and possibilities.