18 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 79, NO. 2 79 No.2 No.2 79 READING: “THE CRISIS IN BLACK EDUCATION” FROM A POST-WHITE ORIENTATION By Marcus Croom As a literacy scholar, I have spent a great deal of time theorizing race in pursuit of practical ends—advancing the literacy practices of Black children in US schools. This themed volume focused on the “crisis in Black education” FDXVHGPHWRUHÀHFWRQWKLVTXHVWLRQ:KDWPDNHV³%ODFN HGXFDWLRQ´%ODFN"%ODFNDVDFDWHJRU\RIUDFHQHHGVWREH explained rather than assumed. In this article, I will argue that race can be theorized HLWKHUDVFRPPRQVHQVHRUDVFRQVHTXHQWLDO'GLVFRXUVH1 I will also offer contrasting views of what “crisis” may mean accordingtoeachtheoryandconcludebysuggestingthatthis momentof“crisis”isthrustinguponusanopportunitytoread text and the world from a post-White orientation. By postWhite orientation, I mean a racial understanding and practice characterized by (a) unequivocal regard for “non-White” KXPDQLW\ SDUWLFXODUO\ ³%ODFN´ KXPDQLW\ E GHPRWLRQ RI ³:KLWH´ VWDQGLQJ LH SRVLWLRQ VWDWXV F UHMHFWLRQ RI SRVWUDFLDO QRWLRQV G QRQKLHUDUFKLFDO UDFLDOL]DWLRQ and (e) anticipation of a post-White sociopolitical norm. Racing on a Different Track According to O’Connor, Lewis, and Mueller, race is “undertheorized in research on the educational experiences and outcomes of Blacks.” They explain that race has been XQGHUVWRRG WKURXJK WZR GRPLQDQW SHUVSHFWLYHV UDFH DV variable and race as culture. These understandings of race ignore or minimize heterogeneity, intersectionality, and the institutional production of race and racial discrimination where Black persons are concerned. Alternatively, O’Connor, Lewis, and Mueller argue that race is produced as a social category and urge that future research take an RULHQWDWLRQRIUDFHDOLJQHGZLWKWKHIROORZLQJ (a) theoretical attention to how race-related resources shape educational outcomes, (b) attention to the way race is a product of educational settings as much as it is something that students bring with them, (c) a focus on how everyday interactions and practices in schools affect educational outcomes, and (d) examination of how students make sense of their racialized social locations in light of their schooling experiences. Such studies will continue to uncover how schools SURGXFH UDFH DV D VRFLDO FDWHJRU\ 5HVHDUFK IRFXVHG RQ race production, then, will have implications for talking and writing about race and how race impacts views on education. The following framework conceptualizes race DVFRPPRQVHQVHDQGUDFHDVFRQVHTXHQWLDO'GLVFRXUVH Race as Common Sense: The Wrong Train 6RFLRORJLVW&HOLQH0DULH3DVFDOH¿QGVWKDWUDFHLV ZLGHO\XQGHUVWRRGDV³FRPPRQVHQVH´ZKLFKVKHGH¿QHV as “a saturation of cultural knowledge that we cannot fail to recognize and which, through its very obviousness, passes without notice.”4 In other words, these are “ assumptions that we make about life and the things we accept as natural. Common sense leads people to believe that we simply see what is there to be seen. For example, common senseleadsustobelievethatwesimply‘see’differentraces.”5 She concluded that common-sense knowledge of race was GLVFXVVHGLQIRXUZD\V³DVDPDWWHURIFRORUQDWLRQDOLW\ culture, or blood.” What all of these ways have in common LVWKDWUDFHLVXQGHUVWRRGXQFULWLFDOO\WKDWLVLQDPDQQHUWKDW does not question serious incoherencies and contradictions. Adeeper, more important point about race as common sense is how it assumes racial White superiority.7 The racially White superordinate assumption included in common- BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 79, NO. 2 | 19 79 No.2 sense notions of race is morally bankrupt and indefensible. Race as Consequential D/discourse 5DFHDVFRQVHTXHQWLDO'GLVFRXUVHLVGH¿QHGDVWKH individual, collective, institutional, or global production of race, through meaningful ways of being, languaging, and symbolizing, and the effects of such race production (i.e., ELJ³'´'LVFRXUVHDQGOLWWOH³G´GLVFRXUVHVHHQRWH , trace the beginning of this understanding of race to W. E. B. Du Bois’s book The Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois’s “study of Black identity marks a turning point away from biology and towards discursive interaction.”8 Thus, Du Bois must be counted among foundational theorists when we historicize WKH XQGHUVWDQGLQJ WKDW UDFH LV D 'GLVFXUVLYH VRFLDOO\ constructed, consequential human practice. According to anthropologist Kevin Michael Foster, WKHDQWHFHGHQWVURRWV...