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Learning, Media and Technology

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A snapchat story: how black girls develop strategies for critical resistance in school

Lauren Leigh Kelly

To cite this article: Lauren Leigh Kelly (2018) A snapchat story: how black girls develop strategies for critical resistance in school, Learning, Media and Technology, 43:4, 374-389, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2018.1498352

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1498352

Published online: 19 Jul 2018.

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A snapchat story: how black girls develop strategies for critical resistance in school Lauren Leigh Kelly

Department of Learning and Teaching, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

ABSTRACT Drawing from Black, feminist epistemologies as well as theories of critical consciousness, and adolescent digital literacies, this paper analyzes the narratives of 7 Black, female high school students who experience oppressive practices, including racial microaggressions, silencing, harsh discipline, and marginalization within a predominately White school environment. At this juncture in which race, politics, and activism intersect with school, media, and identity, this study discusses how Black, female students resist oppression and use digital and social media as well as other available tools to speak out against injustice and heighten the racial awareness of their school community. This qualitative case study uses individual and focus group interviews to examine the ways in which Black female students develop critical resistance strategies, working individually and collectively within existing structures to fight for their humanity and liberation.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 15 January 2018 Accepted 26 June 2018

KEYWORDS Black feminist theory; black girl literacies; critical consciousness; digital literacies; suburban schooling

To the Little Revolutionary Be careful, little lightning bug, when you spread your wings Be mindful of the fire in your belly There are those who will want to snuff you out and put out your spark too young. -Layla, 12th grade student

Introduction

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Aaliyah,1 a Black, female sophomore in a predomi- nantly White school, was disturbed by the fact that some of her White, male classmates were expli- citly vocal in their support of a particular candidate, whose policies, she felt, undermined her freedoms as a woman of color. Within school, there was little space provided to engage in healthy dialogue about the election or its sociopolitical implications. In response, Aaliyah posted a photo of two of these classmates on her Snapchat story with a caption that read ‘white supremacists.’ This action led to her being placed into in school suspension for using social media during school hours. This example highlights how the intersections of institutional racism, digital and social media, and school discipline impact the schooling experiences and critical development of students of color, and more specifically, Black, female students. While schools can serve as empowering spaces for Black girls to develop self-knowledge and humanizing critical and digital literacy practices (McArthur 2016; Sealey-Ruiz 2016), these institutions can also be oppressive, dehumanizing spaces for Black girls, ones in which survival and resistance are oftentimes antithetical (Morris 2016).

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Lauren Leigh Kelly [email protected] Department of Learning and Teaching, Rutgers University Graduate School of Education, 10 Seminary Place, Room 229, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA

LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 2018, VOL. 43, NO. 4, 374–389 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1498352

Aaliyah’s turning to social media to express her frustrations at the oppression she experienced inside school indicates a lack of and a need for ‘safe spaces’ in school for discussions of race and iden- tity. It can also be viewed as a response to the ‘conspiracy of silence’ (Sue 2015) regarding expressions of race and identity that impacts the learning environment and identity development of students of color, and especially female students of color, in predominantly White spaces. Aaliyah’s actions reflect the need for marginalized students to resist oppression using the tools available to them as well as the need for schools to foster and support the critical development of adolescents in order to build safe, inclusive, and culturally sustaining learning communities.

Background and context

Black women’s critical resistance

The Black Lives Matter movement, founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi; the #metoo movement, founded by Tarana Burke; and the Say Her Name movement, founded by Kim- berlé Crenshaw and Andrea Ritchie, are three examples of the visibility of the critical resistance of Black women during this modern civil rights era (Raschig 2017). However, Black women’s leadership in U.S. activism is far from new. McArthur (2016) reminds us that there is a ‘rich lineage of Black women activists who used their voices and literacy practices for social change’ (364). This history includes publically recognized leaders such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ella Baker; however, it also includes less visible activists such as Black, female domestic workers who, as Collins (2009) explained, ‘undermine the rules governing their employment by creating Black female spheres of influence and control over the conditions of their work’ (220). While such forms of activism are less visible, they are fundamental to the history of resistance and survival of Black women in the U.S.

Collins (2009) describes structural inequality as a ‘matrix of domination’ that must be examined through the lens of intersectionality in order to dismantle structural oppression. She explained, ‘If power as domination is organized and operates via intersecting oppressions, then resistance must show comparable complexity’ (Collins 2009, 218). Consequently, an examination of resistance strat- egies, including the ways in which adolescents resist the structural forces of school, must involve a complex understanding of the actions and experiences of Black women. Oftentimes, the contri- butions of Black women’s actions and voices go unnoticed in the narrative of civil rights and social justice activism since they take place within the interstices between Black (male) activism and (White) feminism and emerge from a history of social movements that have excluded the intersec- tionality of gender and race. As Crenshaw (1991) wrote,

Although racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and anti- racist practices … . when the practices expound identity as woman or person of color as an either/or prop- osition, they relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling. (1242)

Ironically, it is at this very intersection that successful social justice movements often foment. Thus, the struggle for equity and justice in U.S. society must rest upon an understanding of the experiences and critical resistance of Black females.

Adolescents’ digital literacies and online identity formation

In an increasingly digital and media-centered society, adolescents often engage in literacy practices through digital forms of communication and in online communities. These digital literacies can play a role in adolescents’ identity development. In a 2013 study, McLean describes digital literacies as a means by which young people, specifically Black Caribbean immigrant girls, can ‘come to voice’ (hooks 1994) and engage in critical dialogue with peers. McLean (2013) refers to adolescents’ use of technology and social media as ‘identity markers’ (70) that highlight their multiple literacies as well as their membership in multiple communities. Wängqvist and Frisén (2016) describe online

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contexts as just as important as home and school contexts for the identity development of adoles- cents. This is especially so for those who find few physical spaces in which their identities are sup- ported and embraced. While digital spaces can serve as an important catalyst in the development of adolescents’ identities, such development extends beyond the digital. As Kahne and Middaugh (2012) argue, youth engagement in digital media can serve as a space for individual development as well as an entry point for civic and social participation.

Research on black girls and schooling

Black girls’ tumultuous history in U.S. public schools extends as far back as 1960, when Ruby Bridges defied angry White mobs of protestors to singlehandedly integrate an all-White school in New Orleans. Like Ruby, many Black girls in predominately White schools face the reality that their pres- ence in such schools is tolerated at best, and oftentimes unwanted. Race and gender thus become omnipresent factors in their relationship to school, impacting the ways in which they position them- selves in society, in schools, and online (McLean 2013). As Kerry, one of the participants in this study, said,

[I]t’s always back to the narrative of Black women are always carrying the load for our race as a whole. So, why is it that all the Black kids are agitating the community? They’re not Black kids. They’re Black girls.

Evans-Winters and Esposito (2010) stated,

Because feminist epistemologies tend to be concerned with the education of White girls and women, and raced- based epistemologies tend to be consumed with the educational barriers negatively affecting Black boys, the educational needs of Black girls have fallen through the cracks. (12)

Research on the experiences of Black girls in schools is critical since, ‘Because of racism, sexism, and class oppression in the U.S., African American girls are in multiple jeopardy of race, class and gender exclusion in mainstream educational institutions’ (Evans-Winters and Esposito 2010, 13). This exclusion is exacerbated by the erasure of the contributions of Black women in mainstream history curriculum and in public school curriculum broadly, which was not ‘designed with Black girls in mind’ (Morris 2016, 26).

Previous scholarship on Black girls’ education corroborates discussions of the erasure and disem- powerment of Black girls in schools, including their experiences of silence and isolation (Fordham 1993), inequitable discipline practices (Blake et al. 2011), colorblind racism (Chapman 2013), a social acceptance of Black males that is not extended to Black females (Ispa-Landa 2013), and adults’ attempts at ‘re-form[ing] the femininity’ of Black girls (E. Morris 2007, 22). However, much of the research on Black girls’ schooling focuses exclusively on the experiences of Black girls in urban schools, leaving a paucity of research on the lives and development of Black girls who attend suburban, racially diverse, or predominantly White schools.

In order for educators and schools to support the healthy development of Black girls and auth- entically work towards equity in schools, more research is needed that documents the experiences and critical practices of Black girls who actively resist what they experience as oppression in their school environments. The study discussed in this paper examines the ways in which a group of ado- lescent Black females in a predominately White school work individually and collectively within existing structures to fight for their humanity and liberation.

Methodology

As a theory of liberation, Black feminism provides a necessary framework for understanding and researching Black womanhood and, by extension, Black girlhood. Patterson et al. (2016b) describe Black feminist theory as a ‘vehicle for making black women’s critical consciousness intelligible to black women’ as well as ‘a powerful methodological tool for research by and

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about black women’ (59). Evans-Winters and Esposito (2010) stated that ‘there is a need for a coalition of educational researchers who seek to understand Black girls’ multiple realities … empirically validate the experiences of girls of African descent … . and actively promote social and educational policies at the micro- and macro-level, with those in mind who exist at the inter- sections of race, class, and gender’ (15). Responding to this call, this qualitative research study sought to discover how Black girls experience school as minoritized2 subjects and how they develop tools for resistance and survival within this context. This research approach is rooted in hooks’ (1994) assertion that Black women who ‘deal with sexism and racism, develop impor- tant strategies for survival and resistance that need to be shared within black communities’ (118). It is also based on Collins’ (2009) idea that,

When an individual Black woman’s consciousness concerning how she understands her everyday life undergoes change, she can become empowered. Such consciousness may stimulate her to embark on a path of personal freedom, even if it exists initially primarily in her own mind. (xii)

Through this lens, the struggle for liberation begins in one’s consciousness and an understanding of Black girls’ consciousness development is essential to understanding and supporting their critical resistance.

In applying a framework of critical methodology to their analysis of the shared experiences of Black women, Patterson et al. (2016b) offer a critique of ‘traditional’ research methods, which include,

an assumed separation between power-bearing researcher(s) and the objectified individuals being researched; forms of data collection that truncate the robust exchange of ideas (e.g., rigidly structured interviews and sur- veys); and presenting results to serve those who author them more so than the people who inform them. (59)

The author’s research study challenges such traditions by making visible the connections between the researcher and the participants, deliberately engaging in a ‘robust exchange of ideas’ through the structure of focus group interviews with the participants, and providing the participants with a consistent and generative space for healing and testimony that extends beyond the research and interview processes.

Since this study sought to better understand the experiences and practices of Black girls in school, documenting the students’ narratives through individual and focus group interviews was critical to the research approach and to understanding the girls’ particular forms of activism (Patterson, Howard, and Kinloch 2016a). This practice of documentation serves dual purposes in that it helps the researcher to gather information about the participants’ experiences at the same time that it helps them to articulate and reflect on these experiences. Indeed, when the participants were first approached about being involved in this study, each expressed eagerness to share their stories and to have their stories shared with others who could both learn and heal from them. Patterson, Howard, and Kinloch (2016a) explain that as Black women, ‘By being accountable to one another and providing the safe space to tell our truths, we develop more fully human, less objectified selves’ (48). In pursuit of these aims, the author entered this study with the following research questions:

. How do Black girls who are (statistical) minorities in their schools experience schooling?

. How do Black girls resist marginalization in the context of their schooling experiences?

. How do Black girls experience community and intersectionality within school?

Setting and context

This research study is connected to a long history between the author and the Apple Valley School District in which each of the participants is a student. Apple Valley is a K-12 public school district located in the suburbs of a large northeastern city in the U.S. The district serves students from mul- tiple surrounding towns that are, for the most part, economically and racially distinct, making Apple

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Valley’s student population one of the more racially and socioeconomically diverse in the area while still remaining predominantly White and middle class. The Apple Valley School District consists of multiple elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools. Having grown up in one of the towns that Apple Valley serves, the author spent 13 years as a student in the district and later spent 8 years as a teacher there. For the majority of the time the author spent as a teacher in one of Apple Valley’s high schools, she was one of 3 Black teachers and 1 of 8 non-White teachers in a faculty of approxi- mately 100, serving a student body of nearly 1400 students. 64% of the student body is identified as White and 36% as students of color, including Black (16%); Asian (13.5%); ‘Hispanic’ (7%); two or more races (2%); and American Indian (.4%). Socioeconomically, 19% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced lunch.3

In addition to being underrepresented in the racial makeup of the faculty, the experiences of stu- dents of color in Apple Valley High also follow national trends regarding overrepresentation in exclusionary discipline (Kupchik and Catlaw 2015). According to the U.S. Department of Edu- cation’s Civil Rights Data Collection,4 in 2015, students of color comprised 36% of Apple Valley High School’s student body and 69.3% of the students placed in ISS (In School Suspension). While Black students comprised 13.5% of the student population that year, they made up 38.5% of the students placed in ISS. In that same year, 100% of the students placed in OSS (Out of School Suspension) were students of color. Phrased differently, of the 37 students who received OSS that year, zero of those students were White.

During a previous study, the author conducted an interview with a Black female college student who had previously attended Apple Valley High. During the interview, the student explained that she ‘never felt comfortable’ in the school district, and that, ‘No one wants to be Black at that school.’ She said that the day she graduated she felt, ‘Finally free.’ In her time as a teacher at Apple Valley High, the author encountered many Black female students who shared similar experiences. Inspired by these stories as well as her own, the author sought to examine how Black girls develop strategies for survival and resistance in this predominantly White school as well as the outcomes of these strategies.

Sample

Based on the aforementioned theories and experiences, and with the assistance of former students, the author organized a group of 7 research participants who were all Black girls in the same senior class at Apple Valley High. This group consisted of Aaliyah, described in the introduction, Layla, Lillian, Jasmine, Kerry, Marissa, and Monica. 4 of these 7 participants had been former students of the author; two of the participants were introduced to the author through the research project; and one of the participants was familiar with the author through school interactions, including hav- ing a sibling who was a former student of the author. All 7 of these girls had been students in the district since elementary school, and many had been friends or had known each other for just as long. When prompted by the researcher, all 7 of the girls self-identified as ‘middle’ or ‘upper middle class’ and were 17 years old at the time of the study, with the exception of Aaliyah, who was 16. The criteria for participation in the project were being in the 12th grade class of Apple Valley High, iden- tifying as Black and female, and having a history of engaging in activist-oriented practices in or out of school. The sample size was intentionally small in order to preserve intimacy and rapport within the group.

Methods

For this study, the author conducted and audio-recorded an initial semi-structured focus group interview; 7 individual semi-structured interviews with each of the participants, and a final fol- low-up focus group interview. The purpose of the two focus group interviews was to elicit more in-depth responses from the interactions between the participants and their stories than the

378 L. L. KELLY

individual interviews alone may yield as well as to provide a space in which the participants could learn from and with each other, perhaps finding some healing through listening to each other’s stor- ies. Additionally, the focus group structure can disrupt the potential ‘hierarchical relationship’ that may arise in individual interviews (Creswell 2007). The interview questions asked about the girls’ experiences in school, engagement in digital and social media, experiences with mentorship and community, and development as a Black female within and outside of the school community. Each interview was approximately one hour long and took place over the course of several weeks at the community library after school.

The interviews were transcribed and first categorized through open-coding and subsequently through axial coding (Creswell 2007). Initial emerging themes included the girls’ sociopolitical devel- opment, experience of microaggressions and negative perceptions of Black people in school, and painful encounters with adults and peers in school. In this article, the author focuses on the partici- pants’ development of critical consciousness and the ways in which their school community responded to this development.

Results

Critical consciousness

Brazilian philosopher and educator Paolo Freire (2000) defined oppression as the act of dehumaniz- ing others; he described resistance to this oppression as critical consciousness, or the process of becoming ‘more fully human’ (44). In other words, as one gains critical consciousness, she resists dehumanization and, in doing so, works towards the full humanity of all. The process of developing critical consciousness involves both ‘reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it’ (Freire 2000, 51). Based on the narratives of the 7 participants interviewed, the author found that over the course of their time spent in high school, each of the girls developed characteristics of the stages of critical consciousness as outlined by Watts and Hipolito-Delgado (2015). These include critical social analysis, collective identification, political self-efficacy, and sociopolitical action. These stages took on particular forms and meanings for the participants who experienced this conscious- ness development at the intersections of Blackness, femininity, and adolescence. Simultaneously, the girls’ development in the latter two stages, political self-efficacy and sociopolitical action, were sig- nificantly limited by the response of the school community. The sections below discuss how the par- ticipants exhibited stages of critical consciousness development as expressed through their individual and collective narratives.

Critical social analysis/reflection

Critical social analysis, or critical reflection, is defined by Watts and Hipolito-Delgado (2015) as a ‘recognition of social inequalities and understanding of the unjust exercise of sociopolitical power that creates them’ (849). This involves an analysis of inequity that moves beyond individual acts of discrimination and reflects on the structures that institutionalize and perpetuate oppression. Criti- cal social analysis provides individuals with ways in which to understand their experiences as sub- jects of oppression as well as a means to begin to take action against this oppression.

For the students involved in this study, the development of critical social analysis occurred over time and as a direct result of exposure to social issues and social media. The girls each applied their developing understandings of their social and cultural worlds to their experiences and observations in school, resulting in moments of critical reflection. One example of the participants’ critical social analysis regarding school can be seen in the following example in which Layla shared some of her experiences in school:

An administrator and some students have told me that I was just as bad as White supremacists. There’s never been enough done in this district to acknowledge Black history. I’ve heard teachers say that they don’t even care

LEARNING, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY 379

what day it is as long as they don’t have to come in, in reference to Martin Luther King Day. I’ve been told that stereotypes can be a good thing, that Klan members can still be good people. A teacher of mine agreed with students who said that racist memes weren’t that bad, only in bad taste …

Black people are constantly monitored while going through the hallway and often get more severe punishments for first and second time offenses … . People are allowed to wear ‘Blue Lives Matter’ and ‘MAGA’ [Make Amer- ica Great Again] apparel to school, but someone was told to change out of a ‘BLM’ [Black Lives Matter] shirt on the day of the [Black History Month] assembly. Somehow the faculty of a predominantly White school … think it’s their place to tell people of color how to feel. The history department continues to paint Martin Luther King as an … ally to liberal white folk and Malcolm X as a radical terrorist, which is micro-aggressive, as he was not only black, but Muslim.

In this response, Layla offers multiple critiques of practices within the school that she finds inequi- table and oppressive, including the policing of political clothing only when it is worn by students of color; increased monitoring and discipline of students of color; an absence of Black history edu- cation; a disregarding of Black trauma; and a devaluing of the identities and experiences of students of color. Additionally, Layla expresses an awareness that these issues are embedded in school struc- tures such as pedagogy, curriculum, and discipline.

As Layla shared the above response, the other participants nodded along and expressed similar experiences with microaggressions and structural inequality within school. They then recounted the moments and processes by which their critical social analysis developed. In her one-on-one inter- view with the author, Aaliyah discussed the challenge of developing socio-politically while simul- taneously developing adolescent identities:

I mean there’s also a possibility when you’re young it’s like even more intensified because you have all these feelings and you can’t name them. And at first it just really overwhelmed me; I was angry all the time, and then I just – it became more regular I guess, sort of like when all that stuff was happening with police brutality, sort of like grieving people that you don’t know sort of like does something to you, not in a good or bad way, it just changes you in a certain way because you’re looking at the world differently and once that happens so many times and dealing with the sadness of no repercussions happening and coming to school and having teachers wearing Blue Lives Matters shirts and stuff like that during educational events and just being in school and hav- ing someone wear confederate stuff and them not being yelled at … it felt very enclosing but now … I’m able to compartmentalize more.

Aaliyah’s statement, ‘It just changes you in a certain way because you’re looking at the worl

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