Understanding and Addressing Racialized History and Violent Extremism Across P–12 Systems and Settings

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Racialized history and violent extremism contribute to racial injustice in P-12 systems through their effects on the ecosystems of students, educators, schools, and districts in a manner that is particularly salient to many students and families today as illustrated by state and district censorship and suppression of ideas and by the ways in which racialize extremist violence penetrates the school both through trauma and stress and through individual acts of violence and aggression. These social toxicities can and must be addressed if we are to create strong conditions for learning, teaching, and well-being for black students, other minoritized and marginalized students, as well as more privilege students who are trapped by the ideology and dynamics of white supremacy.

James Baldwin was one of many Black fighters for human justice who recognized this. Racialized history and violent extremism enact and sustain racial injustice. History, James Baldwin wrote in Ebony in 1965, is not some distant past: “the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations.” Baldwin’s observations are particularly relevant to racialized violence, both when carried out by private individuals and when carried out by the state. They are also specifically relevant to the conferences theme of dismantling racial injustice as distorted racialized views of history legitimate and fuel racial aggression and injustice.
Bias-fueled violence that both created, recreates, and sustain privilege has played a constitutive role in American history. This historical pattern of racialized violence cloaked in nationalist and religious claims continues today in the experience of both the perpetrators and targets of violence as well as for those who witness it. It includes both the pain of historical trauma and seeing it routinely reprised and the daemons that prevent many white Americans from confronting the pervasiveness of this violence. This includes what and how students learn and what and how teachers teach and support learners across P-12 systems and settings.
This historical pattern of racialized violence involves officially sanctioned vigilante violence as well that was often officially sanctioned or sanitized later as well as individual hate violence, which is often only addressed psychologically. This violence also involves attacking people’s knowledge, beliefs, and cultural expression. This ideological violence plays out in current attempts to deny the role of prejudice and racialized violence in American history and in efforts aimed at suppressing or curtailing the teaching of hard history and social and emotional learning while suppressing diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives. This censorship sustains racism and privilege and attacks efforts to enable all students to come to terms with the

American past in a manner that builds social solidarity. The censorship and suppression counters efforts to dismantle racism by influencing what students can learn and how they experience learning and as well as what teachers can teach and how they experience teaching. This includes teaching that develops students grounding and agency while (to go back to James Baldwin) enables them to “change their lives” by reconsidering and enriching their frames of reference, identities, and aspirations.

These matters cross many AERA Division and Sigs as it advances research regarding Education curricula, pedagogy, policy, learning environments and student support, and relates and extends research regarding cultural humility, cultural neutrality, historical trauma, and healing.

The proposed presidential session will address racialized history and violent extremism through three papers that draw upon a variety of materials and media and an interactive panel of six distinguished discussants who can bring a variety of perspectives to how address these issues in a manner that contributes to dismantling racism while countering the toxic effects of contemporary extremist violence and censorship. This panel will be followed with an opportunity for the audience to ask questions via text or email to a researcher who will be coordinating the questions in the event that there is more than time will permit.

The first paper will establish the centrality of the historical racialized historical narratives and extremist violence in U.S. history. It will be presented by Fitzhugh Brundage (UNC). It was written by W. Fitzhugh Brundage (UNC), Antwain Hunter (UNC), Kidada Williams (Wayne State University), Christina Snyder (Pennsylvania State University), & William Carrigan (Rowan University), historians who have each conducted research and published books based on primary research that focus on violence in the U.S. This paper will describe and analyze the pattern of normalized and pervasive racialized violence, racialized domestic terrorism, economic exploitation, land expropriation, and cultural attacks directed at people of color of all ethnicities and the role the state has played in this violence.

The second paper will illustrate what educators can do, how they can be supported, and the individual and collective impacts for students. It will be presented by Dennis Barr, Director of Research and Evaluation at Facing History and Ourselves, an efficacious highly regarded program that enables students to confront difficult issues through historical documents and provides professional development to teachers so that they and their students can confront difficult issues. This paper will share concrete pedagogical frameworks, curricular resources and professional learning opportunities that can support educators in developing their sense of purpose and practices as they relate to racial injustice and other forms of oppression, and present research that examines the impact of such supports on teachers, learning conditions, and students’ learning and development.

The third paper will illustrate what museums can do and provide useful links that students, educators, and researchers can access. It will be presented by Monique Chism, The Smithsonian Institute’s Under Secretary of Education and former Assistant Secretary of Education who is working to bring the Smithsonian’s resources into every school. Her paper will present engaging examples from and describe the Smithsonian’s initiative entitled “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past,” which draws on the breadth of the Smithsonian’s research, exhibitions, and collections to explore the complicated history and legacy of race and racism in our communities and institutions.

The Panel Discussion and audience participation will build upon as well as discuss the implications of the three papers for the conference theme of dismantling racial injustice. The six panelists are Maurice Elias (Professor of Psychology Rutgers), Rich Milner (Professor of Education, Vanderbilt), Mary Cathryn Riker, Executive Director of the Shanker Institute; Congressman Robert C. (“Bobby”) Scott, Ranking Member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Howard Stevenson (Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania); and Brenda Walker an attorney who is also a Professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of South Florida. Each panelist will make an opening statement that will be followed by an interactive discussion among the panelists and then by audience participation that will be moderated by David Osher (Institute Fellow, American Institutes for Research).

Sub Unit

• AERA Presidential Session

Chairs

• David M. Osher, American Institutes for Research

• Leslie T. Fenwick, Howard University

Papers

• Understanding the Role of Violent Extremism and Its Implications for School Interventions: Historical Lessons From America’s Past and Present - W. Fitzhugh Brundage, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Support in Educators’ in Developing Their Sense of Purpose and Practices Regarding Racial Injustice and Other Forms of Oppression - Dennis Barr, Facing History and Ourselves

• Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past - Monique Chism, Smithsonian Institution

Discussants

• Rich Milner, Vanderbilt University

• Mary Cathryn Ricker, Albert Shanker Institute

• Robert C. Scott, U.S. Congress

• Howard C. Stevenson, University of Pennsylvania

• Brenda L. Townsend Walker, University of South Florida