Plantation economy religion: Black male experiences with religious antiblackness in predominantly white conservative Christian schools

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research about Black boys in predominantly white conservative Christian schools has centered on their racialized experiences. For Black males, these experiences have been traumatic because their white Christian teachers and classmates have demonstrated anti-black racism through the use of derogatory language, social exclusion, and stereotyping. Researchers have focused on this anti-blackness with little consideration for the religious environment in which these events transpired. Hence, this article aims to analyze the role religion played in the anti-blackness because these events do not happen in a vacuum but in a religious context. From this research emerged a religious approach that we termed Plantation Economy Religion that became the central breeding ground for the development and manifestation of anti-blackness. This religious approach created a complicit relationship between anti-blackness and religion, which manifested in a lack of physical and cultural representation during school worship and enabled people to weaponize religion through plantation economy theology.