Black and (E)raced: Socializing High-achieving Black Students to Minimize Racism
Written by: Ebony O. McGee
Our education system has been ‘whitewashed’, obscuring the talent and spirit of the African Diaspora. Black students often find themselves compelled to conform to an education system that overlooks their identity, offering them an assimilationist strategy. Assimilation is characterized by White frames in educational ideologies, a model built on White elite thinking despite their assertations that knowledge creation is race neutral and indifferent to power dynamics. This study investigates the experiences of high-achieving Black students who minimize the role of race in STEM education. It sheds light on race-avoidance tactics in predominantly White STEM departments which tend to perpetuate racial erasure and systemic racism. The study also identifies a shift among some students who abandoned race-avoiding tactics and became racially consciousness. The paper underscores the urgency to revisit the systemic roots of racism in educational institutions. Drawing from Afrofuturism, the paper suggests the need for a paradigm shift that celebrates Black identities.
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