Intellectual Fugitivity Neg - Michigan 7 2024 CGO

Case
AT: University good
Education is a systematic filter to maintain white intellectual supremacy and suppression of Black intellectual potential
Dancy et al 18– [Dancy is the third Helen S. Faison Endowed Chair in Urban Education; Professor in Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Edwards earned her Ph.D. at Louisiana State University and is the Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at Florida International University. Davis earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University, Professor of Higher Education, and the Bernard C. Watson Endowed Chair in Urban Education.] (Elon, Kirsten, and James, “The Long Legacy Of Anti-Blackness In Academia” Sage Journals, Jan 25 2018, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042085918754328?casa_token=78zRC9MV8K0AAAAA:c9YtllpRXZrNuUof-zQZ-G24mG88RUyoSWmKngKeN0m4vwtjXwQq2WawvH1XvFdXixMrCNsGuw)// [King K]
Labor, Ownership, and Education Settler colonialism requires an explicit connection between land and citizenship. The original arbiter of full participation in the colonial political economy was not White manhood. Several White men in the colony lived as indentured servants, share croppers, or otherwise dispossessed. Their agency within the colonial arrangement was barely above the Black enslaved (Williams, 1944). The lynchpin to citizenship was land, or property ownership. This connection between land ownership and citizenship created a fundamental link between ownership and humanity. This link continues to bear much consequence for Black education today.
Education funding at the K-12 level is largely determined by property taxes. Children who live in neighborhoods with higher property values benefit from the resources available at well-funded schools. Children who live in poorer neighborhoods endure underresourcing, high teacher turnover, overcrowded classrooms, and a milieu of additional challenges to their educational access. Unsurprisingly, neighborhood school funding is highly racialized and historical. Steering potential Black homeowners to areas with lower property values, government collusion in the obstruction of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) home loans dispensed to Black veterans, and “White flight” have all worked to consolidate large segments of the Black population to impoverished neighborhoods and subsequently underresourced schools. All of these realities work to concretize notions of mattering and humanity. These realities are even more intriguing when one considers Anderson’s (1988) assertion that universal public education, particularly in regard to iterations forged in the U.S. South, is a Black idea. When analyzed through the lens of organizational or political theory, the challenges of public education can appear unfortunate, possibly evidence of the ills of capitalism, if one were a Marxist.2 However, through the lens of anti-Blackness, these regulatory failures can be understood as White supremacy’s response to Black agency with reassertions and reminders that “The Black” is “slave.”
Public education, the institution designed to prepare students for higher education, is predicated on anti-Blackness. If one is not an owner or the progeny of an owner, one is not entitled to an adequate education. Public education funding is a direct model of plantation politics. The maintenance of a public education system dependent on property taxes institutionalizes a social arrangement of dispossession. It also serves as an anti-Black filter for higher education. Refusal on the part of higher education to substantively respond to the failures of public education reflects its complicity in anti-Blackness.
Institutionalization of Black Suffering
Relegating Black people to labor that models colonial arrangements or reasserts linkages between ownership and humanity perpetuates a system of antiBlackness, but in some ways, these arrangements can be understood as resultant. One of the defining principles of anti-Blackness is the negation of Black humanity by way of violence. Dumas (2016) argues, Black people exist in a structurally antagonistic relationship with [white frames of] humanity . . . antiblackness marks an irreconcilability between the Black and any sense of social or cultural regard . . . [antiblackness necessitates] utter contempt for, and acceptance of violence against the Black. (p. 13)
White humanity is dependent on its ability to harm Black life. To avoid violence against Black people would place White humanity in question because, in an anti-Black polity, White humanity is predicated on Black inhumanity. Black enslavement was maintained by physical, sexual, and psychological brutality. Similarly, the reign of Jim Crow was established through the terrorization of Black communities.
Within higher education, there are similar configurations of anti-Black violence. While physical insecurity is less evident, psychological and economic vulnerabilities persist. Microaggressions, tokenism, impostorship, and racial battle fatigue attest to the psychological torment regularly visited upon Black humanity in higher education (Dancy, 2014; Dancy & Hotchkins, 2017; Dancy & Jean-Marie, 2014; Smith, 2014). Contemporary Black student protest against the culture of White antagonism on college campuses has been largely in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement (Johnston, 2015). The continued defunding of HBCUs reflects a sordid commitment to the elimination of Black enterprise. It also undergirds the relationship of trauma between Blackness and the educational system, a relationship HBCUs play a protective role in fighting against. In many ways, HBCUs are the contemporary manifestation of Underground Railroad safe houses.3 While not beyond a critique of settler colonial strivings, they have also protected and supported Black students along their journey to educational and economic freedom amid a dangerous environment. Defunding HBCUs exposes the state’s commitment to Black vulnerability.
In these settler colonial relationships, Black resistance and despair is understood as not only a nuisance but also a public display of Black suffering for the consumption of a White audience (Alexander, 1995). As discussed earlier, while Whiteness may understand “the Black” as having sentient capacity (ability to perceive or feel), there is not relational capacity (ability to interact; Wilderson, 2010). Thus, Black suffering merely decorates the landscape of White humanity. It cannot be responded to with understanding and empathy. Instead it is Black full intellectual participation in higher education that is illegible, accumulated (collected), exchangeable, and openly vulnerable (Anzaldúa, 1981; Wilderson, 2010). Black academics are not subalterns but the property (slaves) of their colleagues (Wilderson, 2010).
Policy responses to anti-Black violence reveal higher education’s commitment to the maintenance of Black trauma. The standard institutional approach is to establish protocol for racial bias incidents (Hughes, 2013). If the campus is progressive, the particular incident (such as a noose displayed in a quad, Black-face party, or fraternity song celebrating the lynching of Black men) will be swiftly addressed and repudiated. Punishment will be summarily delivered to the individuals clearly responsible, and the campus will publicly disavow the incident. For several reasons, this process supports anti-Blackness. As Hughes (2013) argues, higher education’s insistence on characterizing anti-Black violence as incidental or anomalous functionally erases the history of trauma experienced by Black bodies on White campuses (Wilder, 2013). It frames White perpetrators as foolish and ignorant, possibly even racists, but not as terrorists enacting violence against Black life. In addition, the modus operandi prioritizes the public image of the White institution not the assault on Black humanity
A laundry list of examples show that the University has always been an Anti-Black institution
Dancy et al 18– [Dancy is the third Helen S. Faison Endowed Chair in Urban Education; Professor in Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Edwards earned her Ph.D. at Louisiana State University and is the Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies at Florida International University. Davis earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University, Professor of Higher Education, and the Bernard C. Watson Endowed Chair in Urban Education.] (Elon, Kirsten, and James, “The Long Legacy Of Anti-Blackness In Academia” Sage Journals, Jan 25 2018, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042085918754328?casa_token=78zRC9MV8K0AAAAA:c9YtllpRXZrNuUof-zQZ-G24mG88RUyoSWmKngKeN0m4vwtjXwQq2WawvH1XvFdXixMrCNsGuw)// [King K]
Sites of Anti-Blackness: Colleges and Universities in the Settler Colonial State U.S. colleges and universities embed the legacies of the anti-Black settler colonial state (Anderson, 1988; Thelin, 2004). In fact, the explicit function of the university was to operate within (and in service to) the new colonial establishment (Thelin, 2004). Created to educate the offspring of colonizers, the colonial university acted as a preserver of social inequality by only serving White “elite” males (Thelin, 2004). In addition to preparing ministers, lawyers, doctors, and “men of affairs,” the colonial university also functioned to educate the developing nation’s White male descendants about the methods of controlling classes (Palmieri, 1987; Solomon, 1985). The colony envisioned White women as domestics and reproducers who both supplied and served generations of White male colonialists (Palmieri, 1987). The colony dictated the relationship of the enslaved and indigenous to the colonial university, which was consistent with state doctrine. In Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities, Wilder (2013) dispels the notion that there were no Black people in colonial colleges. In fact, enslaved Black people outnumbered faculty, administrators, and trustees at a number of Ivy League colleges (Wilder, 2013). Black people erected the buildings, cooked the food, and cleaned the dormitories and yet were not understood as laborers, but as property. Colonizers advocated (from college campus podiums) for the inhumane treatment of Black people everywhere, and violence was a common experience for the enslaved on college campuses. Colonial college trustees (many of whom were ministers) tortured and murdered enslaved Black men, women, and children in the most sadistic ways.
College presidents, many of whom were “slave masters,” used enslaved Black people as personal attendants and as house servants to maintain the president’s mansion. Harvard President Increase Mather (from 1692 to 1701) used an enslaved man “gifted” to him by his son Cotton Mather, to run errands for the college. Harvard President Benjamin Wadsworth (1725-1737) brought an enslaved man named Titus, who lived with his family, to the college and “bought a Negro Wench” two days before arriving on campus. Benjamin Franklin, founder of the College of Philadelphia; the first eight presidents of the College of New Jersey (Princeton); and Georgetown presidents Fathers Louis William Valentin DuBourg (1796-1798) and Stephen L. Dubuisson (1825-1826), all accumulated enslaved Black people for their own personal service during their tenures as the top college administrator (Wilder, 2013).
Inducing the humiliation and suffering of Black people for sport comprises the early student life in the colonial colleges. These practices were necessary to mark White subjecthood and the separation between Black people and Whites. For example, several college students seeking recreation at Harvard (who were all White and male) forced the intoxication of an enslaved Black man almost unto death. One of these men was John Hancock, future governor and signer of the Declaration of Independence and the rest became ministers, doctors, and lawyers (Wilder, 2013). At one of the Yale campuses, the record shows that the early students raped Black women so frequently that the college removed them from the students’ presence except the cook whom the students also terrorized. At Williams College, students forced a Black man to smash his own head into wooden boards and barrels. On other early college campuses, college students shot at Black enslaved children to satisfy their boredom when out of class (Wilder, 2013). Enslaved people at the University of North Carolina were often subjected to “pranks” that, in one case in 1811, involved students running wild while attacking their Black servants. Black people endured whippings, dismemberments, brandings, sexual assault, and secret sales that disrupted family units—all on the college campus (Wilder, 2013). This resulted in emotional trauma, leading some Black people to commit suicide. The next section details studies that expose recomposed and reenacted colonial preoccupations.
Colonial Preoccupations, Black Labor, and U.S. Universities Several scholars have explored the differentiated labor expectations placed on Black academics (Brown, 2012; Burgess, 1997; Gregory, 1999; Patitu & Hinton, 2003; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001). These expectations come in the form of increased mentoring, advising, and committee work, among other demands. As previously mentioned, there is clear evidence and discussion of “discriminatory” practice. Only a few scholars have connected these discrepancies to colonial design (Dancy, 2014; Edwards, 2010, 2013; Wagner, Acker, & Mayuzumi, 2008; Wane, Jagire, & Murad, 2013). Recognizing anti-Black settler colonialism reveals not simply a trend of exclusionary practice, but also a performance of inclusion that reasserts the colonial order and engages the Black body as property.
The labor expectations placed on Black women in academia are not just comparatively excessive, but they are also reflective of domestic servitude and eroticism (Austin, 1995; Edwards, 2014; Harley, 2007). Black women academics are expected to attend to the caregiving needs of not only students of color, but also White students and faculty. They are also regularly called upon to attend to the failures of Whites, or “clean up behind,” through interim positions, promotion following scandal, and committee leadership. These colonial labors are often uncompensated and unseen. When Black women insist on the recognition of their labor or resist accommodating White student mediocrity, they are summarily punished as defiant Sapphires (Austin, 1995).1 Black women’s theoretical contributions are also rarely acknowledged. When they are, it is within very narrowly defined curricular parameters, and is often experienced by White audiences as provocative and momentarily titillating, but not central to U.S. higher education mission and purpose (Edwards, 2014; Fasching-Varner, 2009).
Black male bodies on college campuses are seen as primarily generators of income and properties of entertainment (Dancy, 2012; Rhoden, 2006; R.L, 2013). The testimonies of Black male non-student-athletes attest to the academy’s rejection of Black men as intellectual and unwelcome in the classroom. Furthermore, Black males across historically White campuses lament the regular assumption that their admission is predicated on their athletic prowess (Dancy, 2012; Harper, 2015; Palmer, Wood, Dancy, & Strayhorn, 2014; Strayhorn, 2008). For a Black man to exist within higher education as a thinking being is oxymoronic in the White psyche. A comparative analysis of political commentary regarding legacy, athletic, and affirmative action admissions confirms the academy’s commitment to White entitlement, Black male bodies as commodity, and the rejection of Black intellect (Charles, Fischer, Mooney, & Massey, 2009). Perhaps nowhere are these concepts more evident than in revenue-generating athletics
The University was built on slave labor and anti-blackness still pervades now
Asare 17– [Asare has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from Hofstra University and founded BWG Business Solutions a consultancy that provides education for workplaces looking to foster anti- environments.] (Janice Gassam, “The Long Legacy Of Anti-Blackness In Academia” Forbes, May 17 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2021/05/15/the-anti-black-legacy-of-academia/)// [King K]
Academia is often thought of as an ivory tower; a place where the brightest and most thirsty minds convene to acquire more knowledge and expertise. Higher education is purported to be the beacon of free thought. Despite a desire to convince the world that it is a safe haven for liberalism, many institutions have not yet grappled with the ghosts of a not-so-distant past. Predominantly white institutions (PWIs) within the United States have yet to fully make amends for the ways that they advanced from the slave trade. In addition to a long legacy of slavery, PWIs continue to profit off the labor of Black bodies. In 2013, Craig Steven Wilder explored the hidden history of Black labor from past to present in his book Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. According to a New York Times article, Wilder spent ten years researching for the book. The book explores the many ways that American universities exploited Black bodies. Readers are taken on a journey of how Black people endured assault and abuse, often solely for the amusement of white faculty and students. One story that stands out in the book was that of founding trustee Rev. Samuel Gray of the College of William and Mary, who murdered an enslaved child who had been caught running away.
On college campuses, there was also a long history of medical experimentation on Black bodies. It was recently reported that the remains of two children who died during the 1985 MOVE bombing were being used at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Museum for research and teaching. Black bodies were commodified at PWIs through various forms of slave labor. Many of the most renowned universities in this country were built through slave labor. With a recognition of this in mind, some universities have started the process to address and atone for the horrific transgressions of the past. In 2019, Georgetown University announced that they would raise $400,000 each year to support descendants of the 272 enslaved persons who were sold to keep the college going. PWIs should start thinking about recompences for the ways they’ve benefited from and profited off of Black labor. When envisioning what reparations for descendants of enslaved Black people could look like, free college tuition is a beneficial place to start. In addition, loans that were incurred to secure a college education should be forgiven for descendants of enslaved people.
PWIs continue to benefit from Black labor in a number of different ways. A 2018 research paper by Dancy, Edwards, and Davis explored the various forms of anti-blackness that continue to plague academia. The researchers asserted that anti-blackness often manifests in two distinct ways: Black bodies used for labor as property and the policing, control, regulation, and eradication of Black people in the academy. There is a wealth of evidence that supports the researchers’ claims. One of the most blatant forms of Black labor is through athletics. Black people dominate much of the college athlete population. College athletes are used by institutions and do not receive adequate compensation, when analyzing the value that they bring to the institutions they represent. Under NCAA guidelines, college athletes are not able to receive compensation of any kind. In addition to the labor that is extracted from Black athletes, for college football players, there is an even greater risk. A Journal of the American Medical Association study found that CTE, a brain condition caused by repeated head trauma, was found in the brains of 91% of deceased college football players examined.
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