Black Students and Positive Racialized Emotions: Feeling Black Joy at a Historically White Institution

Black students attending historically White institutions of higher education (HWIs) experience the full spectrum of emotions. Given the permanence of racism and Black collegians’ inequitable experiences at HWIs much research focuses on Black students’ negative emotions as a result of racist conditions. Little research, however, examines Black students’ positive emotions and feelings on campus. This paper centers on affect, exploring how Black students experience “Black joy” in an otherwise White space. Guided by Eduardo Bonilla Silva’s theory of racialized emotions as well as socio-historical scholarship examining the dynamism of Black life in oppressive contexts, this paper analyzes how participants, themselves, understand and describe Black joy. In this paper, the author draws upon interviews with 29 Black collegians at the same HWI. Findings demonstrate how Black students associated Black joy with being, achievement, and collectivity. By studying Black students’ accounts of joy at an HWI, scholars stand to gain a more textured understanding of both HWIs and Black collegians’ experiences.

Black metal not Black-metal: White privilege in online heavy metal spaces

With an increasing online presence among Indigenous Australians, it is worth examining the ways in which online communication technology allows the persistence of racism and White privilege in these spaces. I draw on my experience of conducting research in online heavy metal spaces to highlight technological affordances which allow heightened visibility and permanence of racism and White privilege. That is, language in these spaces tends to construct White bodies as superior and positions non-White bodies as other. I conclude that the affordances of heightened visibility and permanence in these online heavy metal spaces present new challenges for approaches to the fight against racism in everyday Australia.

The Permanence of Racism in Teacher Education

Using the chronicles of three friends, this chapter presents a counterstory that sets the stage for the examination of racism in teacher education, within the United States of America, using critical race theory (CRT) as an analytical tool. The setting of these chronicles is during a time when postracial rhetoric in the United States was at its highest—just after the 2008 election of President Barack Obama. The three friends take the readers on a journey through their graduate experience in teacher education and into their first faculty position in teacher education. Their experiences, as students and junior faculty, are akin to what many faculty and students of color and their White allies experience daily in teacher education programs across the United States. The analysis of their chronicle, using CRT, reveals that postracial discourse has disguised racism and racial microaggression in teacher education. Racial microaggres-sion is as pernicious as other forms of racism and, through its passive-aggressive orientation, validates institutional and individual lack of attention to issues of race.