Poverty Vs. Education: 4-6 pg essay

The Journal o f Negro Education, 84 (3), 214-230

Toward a Black Habitus: African Americans Navigating Systemic Inequalities within Home, School, and Community

Richard Lofton Johns Hopkins University Janies Earl Davis Temple University

This article explores the B lack habitus o f African American students and parents by revealing systemic inequalities in their hom e, school, and community, as well as illuminating the agency and cultural knowledge in their com m unity. Using ethnographic case study data fro m 38 African American students and 26 parents who lived in a p o o r Black neighborhood and attended a predom inantly White middle school, the researchers contend that out-of-school time provided context f o r distinct struggles and experiences that heavily influenced the students’ educational experiences. The negative perceptions o f their neighborhood and intergenerational tracking were im plicated in an unequal distribution o f knowledge, resources, and opportunities in the students’ homes and community. M oreover, the agency and cultural knowledge o f African Am ericans were unacknowledged, thereby contributing to systemic inequalities.

Keywords: Black habitus, N eighborhood inequalities, intergenerational tracking, agency, systemic inequalities

I n t r o d u c t i o n

Fifty years ago, sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan sparked a national debate with his notorious M oynihan Report (1965), which argued that the fundamental problem of the Negro was not systemic inequalities, but, rather, the Black family structure that continued to produce a “tangle of pathologies” within the Black community (The authors use the term s, Black and African Am erican interchangeably). While Moynihan briefly touched on issues of the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow Laws, and concentrated poverty, his research suggested that female-headed Black households were the main cause of a cycle of Black poverty in the United States. Moynihan asserted that the “matriarchy” in Black families emasculated Black male identity by preventing men from acquiring the education, training, and apprenticeship they needed for full employment (Massey & Shapiro, 2009; Rainwater & Yancey, 1967; Swan, 1974).

Over hundreds of years, African Americans have encountered different ideologies that have legitimized and naturalized enslavement, confinement, and other forms of racial oppression, while simultaneously being blamed for their own racial plight. The M oynihan Report further legitimized this because it supported Lewis’s (1961) earlier thesis of the culture of poverty, which suggested that poor people sustain their own poverty—their values, norms, and practices cause them to perpetuate intergenerational poverty. Today, there remains a deeply held view that African Americans experience racial disparities because of their own cultural practices (Patterson, 2006). The recent deaths throughout the United States of unarmed African Americans have rekindled this view, which places the fundamental blame on African American families and their communities (Sanneh, 2015). In this current Zeitgeist, people proclaim a self-help ideology (Kelley, 1997) that suggests:

• African Americans are at fault for their own poverty, • African Americans are the main reason why the educational system is not working for them, and • African Americans create an environment for over-policing and police brutality. Even more troubling

is that some teachers, administrators, police officers, and policymakers—the social actors on whom

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Americans most rely—have consented to these arguments to grapple with and resolve racial disparities in the United States.

While the blame-game continues, the everyday lived experiences, voices, dynamics, frustrations, hopes, and actions of African Americans have not been fully acknowledged by the social actors within this discourse. In other words, the habitus of African Americans—which connects systemic inequalities to their own cultural practices, logics, and actions—is not fully addressed in these debates (Dancy, 2014; Young, 2004a). This discourse has not adequately traced the distinct journeys of African Americans in their schools and communities that reflect systemic inequalities and shed light on sense-making and actions in these communities. Therefore, this article illuminates the negative associations of the Black body; the systemic inequalities in Black homes, schools, and communities; and the sense-making that mediates performances by exploring the Black habitus of African Americans.

The journeys of African Americans in the United States continue to be subjugated knowledge (Collins, 2000; Foucault, 1980), which results in unacknowledged systemic inequalities and devalued voices, experiences, and performances. The historic subjugation of the Black body occurs when it is associated with being subhuman, inferior, deficient, primitive, lazy, unintelligent, and hypersexual (Bogle, 2001; Davis, 2013; Harris-Perry,2011). Moreover, the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow laws, and the construction and maintenance of concentrated poverty, have further produced distinct paths for African Americans. Their separate and unequal educational experiences in segregated schools (Kozol, 2013; Orfield et al., 2014) and racialized tracking (Davis, 2004; Tyson, 2011) in diverse schools continue to reveal routes of confinement while simultaneously causing and legitimizing an unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and knowledge. As a result of these multi generational inequalities, African Americans must come to terms with a society that continues to produce unequal treatment and results in a country that prides itself on equality, liberty, and justice.

Specifically, this article explores the Black habitus of African American students and their parents in a racially diverse school and in an African American community. Moving beyond dominant ideologies that place the fundamental blame for racial inequalities on African American communities and families, this article reveals some of the current systemic inequalities that African American students and their parents encounter in an African American community through its negative perceptions, unequal distribution of resources, and police brutality. In addition, this article examines tracking within one school from an intergenerational perspective, thereby moving the discussion away from blaming individual student choices to more deeply understanding the intergenerational systematic inequalities in homes and community. Lastly, this article casts light on the agency of African American parents and community leaders in their struggle to overcome systemic inequalities.

Conceptualizing a Black Habitus

The authors begin to demystify the Black habitus of African Americans by first examining Bourdieu’s understanding of habitus. Next, they build on Bourdieu’s concepts by acknowledging the work of scholars who have given profound insight into racial issues in the United States. Then, through a discussion of the literature, they shed light on systemic inequalities in African American homes, schools, and communities. Lastly, the authors attempt to move beyond a single focus on inequalities by acknowledging the agency, cultural knowledge, and performances in Black spaces.

Habitus

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu brought attention to a complex conceptual framework that he called habitus, which helped explain how individuals acquire practices and habits through their

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culture. According to Bourdieu, the encounters that individuals previously experience lead them to form tastes, perceptions, and actions. During this process, they encounter external constraints and cognitive actions by which they come to understand their social world (Bourdieu, 1990; Young, 2004a). Bourdieu suggested that individuals mediate their social environment and, through this process, make sense of their world and perform actions accordingly. Through this mediating process, people develop dispositions that have lasting effects on their perceptions, thoughts, and actions. Bourdieu acknowledged that habitus is related to not only how people think about the world, but also how their positions in the world facilitate their thoughts and actions (Hovat & Davis, 2010; Young, 2004a). For Bourdieu, individuals who have different life experiences due to disparate social structures develop distinct ways of thinking, feeling, and acting (Wacquant, 2011).

Bourdieu’s analysis also helps researchers address class-based mediating forces, but it is still unclear what role habitus plays among African Americans and what influence it has on African Americans in the United States. Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly given its complex nature, the variable of race is missing from Bourdieu’s full examination of the intermarriage of social structures and cognitive actions.

The Embodiment ofRacialized Lived Experiences

Over the last 20 years, critical scholars have made significant contributions to social science research by exploring the intricate roles that race and racism play in U.S. social structures. For example, Omi and Winant’s (1994) racial formation theory suggested that the social concept of race is not necessarily rooted in genes or biology, but rather in social, economic, and political forces that the dominant group uses as a means of control. Legal scholars such as Derrick Bell (1992) maintained not only that African Americans in the United States deal with injustices within existing social and economic structures, but also that laws aiming to adequately address racial inequalities have in fact been ineffective. Bell and other critical race theorists have asserted that race is an intrinsic part of Black life. Scholars of education have contributed to critical race theory by agreeing that racism is a salient part of social and economic inequalities and legal biases, but they have further highlighted the persistence of racial inequities in U.S. schools (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Parker & Lynn, 2002).

Researchers are investigating how the exclusion of African Americans from certain social networks prevents them from gaining greater resources and opportunities (Ditomaso, 2013; Royster, 2003). When African Americans do gain access to information about employment opportunities, they are often disadvantaged by race. White males with a criminal record are often more likely to get jobs than African American males without a criminal record (Pager, 2003). Therefore, in the last 20 years, social scientific researchers have furthered the understanding of the Black habitus by showing the vital roles of race and racism in the lives of African Americans in their schools and society. This research calls us to move beyond a colorblind critique of social class to an analysis that captures how African Americans in their homes, schools, and communities are encountering race and racism that are utilized to maintain an unequal distribution of power, resources, and opportunities in American social structures.

Tracing the Distinct Routes of the Black Habitus

For over 100 years, starting with W. E. B. Du Bois in The Philadelphia Negro (1899), researchers have examined African American communities to understand their social, political, and economic plight (Drake & Cayton, 1945; Frazier, 1949). Morris’ (1984) book, The Origins o f the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing fo r Change, shed light on the agency of the Black community in the 1950s and 1960s by highlighting the role of the Black Church in providing communities with communication networks, resources, leadership, and space in which to strategize nonviolent tactics to overcome their social and economic inequalities.

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More recently, sociologists and anthropologists have examined some of the social, cultural, and economic issues African Americans are currently encountering in their neighborhoods (Anderson, 1999; Jackson, 2001,2005; Wacquant, 2011; Wilson, 1987, 1996; Young, 2004b), Many researchers have grappled with Wilson’s (1987, 1996) research which contended that economic changes and the out-migration of middle-class African Americans have triggered the development of an “underclass” community that faces an upsurge of crime, violence, homelessness, and drug addictions.

As W ilson’s research drew attention to the challenges in African American communities throughout the United States, other sociologists joined this debate by highlighting hyper­ segregation (Massey & Denton, 1993) and showing that the Black middle class (Pattillo-Mc-Coy, 1999) has not moved far from concentrated poverty. In addition, middle-class African Americans continue to encounter racism (Feagin & Sikes, 1994), and very few families are able to maintain their middle-class positions through multiple generations (Pattillo, 2007). For example, a 2014 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that about 60% of Black children whose parents had income in the top 50% of the distribution saw their own income fall into the bottom half during their adulthood. For Whites, the percentage was only 36% (Mazumder, 2014).

Several decades after the Civil Right Movement, many African Americans still have not benefited fully from the promise of Brown (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954) and the Civil Rights Act o f 1964. In fact, Sharkey’s (2013) book Stuck in Place revealed that three out of four African Americans are still living in the poorest and most segregated areas of the United States, where they are confronted with economic inequalities that have forced some to cope with food insecurity and other economic stressors. In addition, they are exposed at an early age to crime, violence, and homelessness. Therefore, given that racism has played a role in causing these economic and social constraints in the United States, African Americans often travel separate and unequal paths from White Americans.

The African American journey can also be traced to still separate/still unequal educational experiences (Johnson, 2014) that reproduce economic, political, and social inequalities. African Americans in predominantly Black schools confront inequalities in-per-pupil spending, well- qualified teachers, harsher discipline, and access to advanced placement courses (Adamson & Darling-Hammond, 2012; U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2014). In fact, one in five African American students attend schools that do not even offer advanced placement courses (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2014).

African American students who attend racially diverse schools are often confronted with racialized tracking (Tyson, 2011), which places the majority of White and Asian students in upper- track classes and African American students in lower-track classes (Lucas & Berends, 2007). While scholars of education have addressed the underrepresentation of African Americans in gifted and talented programs for many decades (Braddock & Dawkins, 1993; Ford, 1995; Ford, Moore, & Scott, 2011; Gamoran, 1992; Oakes, 1985), one continues to see African American students confined to certain specific locations in public schools. Therefore, the educational journeys of African Americans, whether in predominantly Black or predominantly White schools, far too often involve confinement that simultaneously blocks their access to “high-status knowledge,” which is vital for college and upward mobility (Oakes, 1985).

Perceptions, Appreciations, and Actions

Although African Americans in their schools, homes, and communities encounter various social inequalities that have become naturalized in the United States and have created an unequal distribution of power, opportunities, and resources, African Americans still can make sense of their social world. Young (2004b) encouraged scholars to move away from viewing African American communities as “poor people and their problems” and instead acknowledging the sense-making, knowledge, and performances that do occur in these communities. Scholars of education have furthered this dialogue among researchers by bringing to light the ways in which these resilient

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individuals are producing cultural knowledge in their own lives that helps them understand their social world (Banks, 1993; Dancy, 2012; King, 1991; O ’Connor, 1997; Williams & Bryan, 2013).

Often, when discussing segregated African American communities, researchers do not acknowledge the care, empathy, resources, and social capital that exist despite many social inequalities. Walker (1996) brought to the subject a historical understanding that captures the affective traits supporting African Americans in the segregated South. Moreover, hooks (1990) contended that in these segregated places are homeplaces where African Americans rehumanize themselves from the terror of Whiteness in their lives. Currently, Black churches, community centers, beauty shops, and barbershops are vibrant spaces where people can debate, learn, and listen to each other to understand a global world and find ways to overcome structures of inequality (Barrett, 2010; Harris-Lacewell, 2004).

In these Black spaces, actions or performances of Blackness are occurring. Jackson (2001) shed light on the performances of Blackness in African American communities by asserting that race is not necessarily biological, but rather takes on a performative nature in all Black spaces. According to Jackson,

[It] is the performative, predicated on actions, on the things one does in the world, on how one behaves. It is this performative mandate of race, I argue, that helps allow for race’s linkages to class that both reinforce and tax essentialist explanations of racial hierarchies (Jackson, 2001, p. 171).

This is not to suggest that all Black people think, act, talk, and live the same way, but through their communal lived experiences, a diverse array of actions occurs as a result of cultural knowledge in these Black spaces.

The Black habitus of African Americans includes historical and current experiences that explain the systemic inequalities which have, in turn, produced racial disparities in their homes, schools, and communities. Most importantly, the Black habitus can be used to examine the sense­ making that contributes to African American performances, perceptions, and places that acknowledge their Blackness and its importance in navigating systematic inequalities.

M e t h o d s

To uncover the Black habitus of African Americans, the researchers designed a qualitative study that employed ethnographic case study methods (Creswell, 2003; Merriam, 2009) to illuminate the logics and practices of a group of African Americans in their homes, schools, and community. The lived experiences of African American students and parents were explored in an African American community and a predominantly White middle school, whose school district mirrors the racial demographic of the United States. Covington (pseudonym), a suburb of a city in the Northeast, could be considered a microcosm of the United States because of its racial and economic diversity, and it tells a story that relates to many African Americans. During the Great Migration, African Americans came to this northern suburban city and were confined to a certain section. To this day, they are still in this location. Just as in Ferguson, Missouri, and many other suburbs, African Americans have moved to these places with the hope of better opportunities, but remain in pockets of concentrated poverty and never become part of the power structure as city council members, police officers, school administrators, and teachers (Rothstein, 2014).

The researchers used interviews, observations, school documents, newspaper articles, and field notes to understand how African American students and their parents made sense of the systemic inequalities and agency they produced in their home, school, and community. In total, researchers interviewed 38 African American students and 26 parents. Students’ interviews (ranging from 40-60 minutes) were conducted in the school and followed an interview protocol to guide the questions. Parents’ interviews (ranging from 1-3 hours) were conducted in their homes or in a community center and also followed an interview protocol. The majority of the parents had attended the same school as their children and had encountered similar educational challenges as their children. In addition to interviews, the researchers conducted observations in the community

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at PTA meetings, churches, the community center, grocery stores, and restaurants. The majority of the observations took place in the community center, where one of the researchers spent at least one day a week for several months.

Data Analysis

Triangulation of these qualitative methods led to a thorough data analysis that addressed the sense­ making of African American students and their parents. It allowed for a blending of the various qualitative sources by which the researchers drew conclusions about how these students and parents made meaning of their lives (Stake, 1995; Yin, 2009). Interview data were also collected from administrators, guidance counselors, and teachers to gain multiple perspectives. In addition, during the course of the study, the researcher maintained a constant dialogue with community leaders and pastors to gain a deeper understanding of the issues that African American students and their parents had to confront, given their community and educational experiences. While the researcher was in the field, he continually coded the data by performing a line-by-line reading and re-reading of field notes, interview transcripts, recorded reflections, and documents to “identify and formulate any and all ideas, themes, or issues they suggest, no matter how varied and disparate” (Merriam, 2009, p. 82) as related to academic placement and social positions. Such careful scrutiny led to the development of theoretical memos that took into account how theory and previous research connected to the ideas, topics, and categories emerging from the data. Table 1 shows the participants who were interviewed, the number of interviews, topics discussed in the interview protocol, the number of times participants were interviewed, and the number of participants who attended the school district.

Theoretical memos also provided more clarity and “grounded theory,” which defines analysis such as discovering theory in field notes and other qualitative data. Grounded theory acknowledges the importance of developing organic knowledge rather than verifying analytic propositions (Glaser & Strauss, 2003). Each day after conducting data in the field, one of the researchers spent 50 minutes gathering notes from observations and interviews. After reading over notes, he wrote a memo about the topics that were discussed to capture the sense-making of the people in Covington. This process allowed for organic knowledge that guided the coding of the data in close and systematic ways and allowed for the development of three analytic categories reflecting the experiences of African Americans in this community.

Finding the Black Habitus

The analysis of the Black habitus moved beyond a solely class-based critique to a social and economic analysis that highlighted the racialized experiences that produce different struggles and dilemmas confronted by African Americans in their homes, schools, and community. Special attention was placed on mediations, negotiations, and perceptions by African Americans in relation to daily systemic inequalities that produce distinctly unequal paths, compared to those of their White peers in Covington.

Three subthemes emerged from the data that illuminated the Black habitus of African American students and parents: (a) neighborhood inequalities, (b) intergenerational tracking, and (c) agency within the Black community.

Neighborhood Inequalities

Because of how others negatively perceive them in their community, African American students and parents encountered systemic inequalities, a legacy of racial confinement, and institutional betrayal by police officers (Smith & Freyd, 2014). Similarly, as a result of their struggles, the African Americans in Covington encountered a path distinctly unequal to that of their White peers and, as a byproduct, brought unresolved shame and trauma to their school.

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Table 1

Intergenerational Tracking in Schools

Participants N um ber of Interview s

T opics D iscussed in Interview s

How M any Times Interview ed

People W ho Lived in and

A ttended School D istrict

Students 38 A cadem ic placem ent, exposure to neighborhood inequalities

Each interview one time

38

Parents 26 Prior educational experiences, child’s educational experiences, exposure to neighborhood inequalities and social netw orking

19 parents interviewed 1 time; 6 parents interview ed several times

20 parents

Principal and assistant Principals

3 Perceptions o f A frican A m erican com m unity, A frican A m erican students’ educational experiences, detracking policies

Each interview one time

1

School Psychologist

1 Perceptions o f A frican A m erican com m unity, A frican A m erican students’ educational experiences, detracking policies

One interview , several discussions

0

G uidance Counselor

5 Perceptions o f A frican A m erican com m unity, A frican A m erican students’ educational experiences, detracking policies

2 interview ed 2 tim es; 2 interviewed once; in addition, 2 o f the 5 had frequent discussions

0

Com m unity Leaders (3) and Pastors (2)

5 H istory o f A frican American com m unity, school district relationship w ith A frican A m erican com m unity, social netw orking, exposure to neighborhood inequalities

Each interviewed one time; several discussions throughout time in field

3

The participating parents perceived that school personnel and other residents who lived outside of the Black neighborhood associated only negative characteristics with their neighborhood. The parents gave many examples of how these people accepted stereotypical notions of Black life and culture: in particular, two parents, Sheila and Dave, spoke of negative associations:

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Dave: They call this area the circus. Sheila: Yes, they disrespect this area terrible. Dave: They call this a circus. They make jokes about this place.

Sheila and Dave were not the only ones who acknowledged the negative associations attributed to the African American community. Some parents mentioned an on-line daily newspaper in Covington that provided a section for comments. When African American community leaders were mentioned or incidents occurred in the Black community, such words as “dysfunctional,” “unorganized,” and “lack of ethics, values and morals” were written in this comments section. In addition, African American parents perceived that people associated only crime, illegal drugs, and unemployment with their neighborhood, while White neighborhoods did not have the same connotations.

These stereotypical images of their neighborhood had negative consequences on the African American students who were interviewed at the predominantly White school. In every interview, students were asked if they lived in the African American neighborhood. When the question came up, many students started to laugh and others smiled. When asked why they reacted this way, they answered that they either did not know or thought it was “ funny.” Of all the questions asked, only this one resulted in a smile or laugh—not as a joyful or an amused expression, but rather as a rueful association with shame or embarrassment. It seemed that students were coming to terms with the negative associations of their community held by others at the predominantly While school that valued and respected only the surrounding White areas.

However, this sense of shame about the neighborhood appeared only on school grounds. While the researcher conducted observations in the neighborhood, several of the students would run up and embrace him. In fact, many students wanted to give him tours of their neighborhood and talk about where various people lived in the community. In addition, at their community center and churches, the students had a sense of pride about their neighborhood. Moreover, when the researcher visited homes to conduct the interviews, all of the parents gladly welcomed him in and often started conversations about their family members or community leaders. Therefore, it became evident that when these students left their predominantly White school, they did not express any sense of shame or embarrassment—regardless of neighborhood inequalities—but rather took pride in where they lived.

Another important finding was that neither the teachers and administrators nor the African American students had any information about the legacy of constraints and agency that formed the Black neighborhood in Covington. The non-African American teachers and administrators saw the Black neighborhood as a natural occurrence of the social and economic “choices” made by African Americans that caused them to be segregated in an area with fewer resources and opportunities. However, newspaper articles and a dissertation about the history of the African American community in Covington revealed that this was not a matter of choice, but rather a story of agency, racial violence, and intentional spatial confinement.

As part of the Great Migration, African Americans settled in Covington because of jobs in the North that were advertised in southern newspapers. Aiming to escape the Jim Crow South and gain economic opportunities, and acting of their own accord, these migrants settled in this city from Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, and Florida—some of the states that the African American students’ grandparents left to settle in Covington. One parent, Sharon, gave a personal account of her family migration to the North:

My mother is from Mississippi and my father is from North Carolina. They came here to better themselves. When they came to Covington, it was like a resort for rich people. They just came to work. I believe my mother was twenty-one when she came here. It was in the Sixties.

While African Americans arrived seeking better opportunities, they quickly discovered that they were confined to a certain locale involuntarily. While they showed agency by choosing to leave an

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oppressive environment for better opportunities, their confinement in a particular location shaped the landscape of the Black neighborhood in Covington.

Newspaper articles from the 1970s and 1980s illustrated the racial tension in Covington by describing the race riots that also limited African Americans to this area. When they left their neighborhood, they encountered over-policing and police brutality. As a result of their collective memory of these race riots and police tactics, the majority of African Americans seldom leave their neighborhood. Although today this city has beautiful beaches, parks, and popular restaurants on a main street, 95% (3 out of the 64 individuals) of the African American parents and students who were interviewed and observed have remained in their neighborhood. One might conclude that, consequently, years of racial tensions, race riots, and police brutality have produced feelings among the African American students and parents that they do not belong in many areas of Covington beyond their neighborhood.

The data also revealed that African American students and parents are currently confronted with police brutality. The participating parents cited several incidents in which police officers abused them or family members. One parent, Janet, discussed a recent incident in which the police had abused her sons:

Right now we’re in court for a police brutality charge where they beat my kids almost to death, right in my face and my children’s face. There was nothing we could do about it. At one time, they beat three of my sons, their friend and my boyfriend and they beat . . . tased (sic) my boyfriend in the middle of the street just because he was telling . . . we have one black officer out here. He was telling that black officer, “Y ou’re going to just stand here and let this happen?” They threw him on the ground and tased him twice.

Janet’s story captured some of the issues that African American parents and students must confront in this city, particularly living in fear because of police brutality—a fear that causes trauma in their lives.

Janet’s sister, Tina, also recounted the brutality her sister and nephew experienced:

Stress. I lived everywhere else, came out here, stressed every day. When I saw how the cops act, when I saw how they talk to you, like, for example, my sister going to court now for her sons. I go across the street so I said to the cop, I said, “You know,” I said, ‘T h is is ridiculous. We look to y’all for y’all to support us when we going through something.” I said, “So, now you making me feel like I can’t call you.” I said, “You’re beating up my nephew. Why are you hitting him like that?” He said to me, “Get the fuck back before you get arrested too.” 1 said, “But you’re hitting my nephew. Are you serious right now?” He was dead serious. He said, “Get the fuck back before you get arrested.”

As Tina discussed the police brutality, her daughter Nina, who struggled in upper-track classes, listened intensely and with anguish—tears fell from her eyes. Nina clearly felt the same frustrations and despair as her mother did because of the brutality. Tina added that she consequently felt stressed and unable to trust police officers. She asserted that although people should look to police officers for help, she is only afraid of them.

Tina’s story, similar to those of many others who discussed police violence in Covington, is an example of the institutional betrayal (Smith & Freyd, 2014) that these African American parents and students encountered in their neighborhoods. Institutional betrayal occurs when social actors in an institution perpetrate harm on an individual who needs their services. The African American students and parents gave additional examples of how the police department betrayed their trust and damaged the relationship between the police department and the Black neighborhood. The police officers who were entrusted to protect these residents (as society told them to believe) became individuals who inflicted trauma and fear on their lives. Recent studies have shown that the more often institutions such as schools, and society in general, ignore this form of betrayal trauma, the more anxiety and fear are exacerbated in the community (Gomez, 2015; Gomez & Freyd, 2014; Smith & Freyd, 2014). Therefore, another distinct phenomenon that many African

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American students and parents must confront is the institutional betrayal they witness in their schools, communities, and society in general.

Intergenerational Tracking

The participating African American students and parents who confronted neighborhood inequalities also coped with systematic inequalities in their middle school because of tracking. Tracking, which can be described as the sorting of students according to perceived notions of ability, talent, and skills, has become a modern-day mechanism to racially stratify diverse schools in the United States. While tracking research questioned this practice in the 1980s and 1990s, researchers are continue to find that African American students still overwhelmingly fill lower- track classes.

The first finding related to tracking in this school was that for every student in a lower-track class, his or her parents were also in lower-track classes. The African American parents and their children were placed in lower-track classes, while the majority of White students and their parents at this school were in advanced classes. This occurred for the few White parents who attended school elsewhere and had not been placed in higher-track classes. African American parents spoke candidly about this inequality. In addition, the researchers discovered that a ll of the participating fathers whose children were in lower-track classes had in fact been placed in special education classes. This study indicated that tracking was essentially inherited; because parents did not fully gain all the skills they needed for college and upward mobility, the next generation would then become more subject to placement in lower-track classes.

In addition to intergenerational tracking, African American parents associated placement in lower-track classes and special education with blame, guilt, and shame. They blamed themselves for being in lower-track classes, feeling that if they had “worked harder” and “tried harder,” they could have been enrolled in upper-track classes. In addition, some parents expressed narrow notions of intelligence and often felt they did not have the skills, talents, or ability to be in upper- track classes. Mary made this point:

Because I see how hard it was for myself. You know, wanting to go to certain levels but not feeling smart enough to get there. You know, feeling insecure because I know, like, certain words I didn’t know. I mean, I would try. 1 would study at night to bust my brain and I still wouldn’t know what it was. And 1 don’t ever want my kids to go through that. I really believe I would be somewhere great but because of the education that I had, it kept me where I am. And that’s why I have to work so hard. Because I didn’t stay in school and get the education that I should have. So now I have to work my ass off to help my kids and to help myself because of what I lacked in school.

Mary’s views illustrated how many African Americans made sense of their lower-track placement. The parents did not acknowledge the systemic inequalities they faced in a racially diverse school or the narrow evaluations that determined who should be in upper classes or who were the social actors in the school. Rather, their feelings of not working hard enough were coupled with narrow notions of intelligence that actually made them unaware of how tracking is a systemic inequality and racially segregates African American students. While these parents discussed various incidents of racial discrimination, racial tensions, and race riots, very few connected the systemic inequality of tracking to racism and their educational experiences. They often accepted the dominant views of blame and believed it was solely their fault—because they lacked skills and abilities—that they were not in upper-track classes.

These parents’ unresolved blame and shame further removed them from their own children’s educational experiences. As a result of systemic inequalities causing blame and shame, some parents discussed being unable to help their children with advanced course work in math, science, and English. Observations of several PTA meetings revealed that some White students were advantaged by having parents help them with their homework, but the parents of some African American students were not extremely comfortable helping their children with advanced

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homework. In addition, many White parents obtained tutoring and extra support programs for their children, while many African American students had limited access to tutoring or extra support because of financial reasons.

This examination of tracking through the lived experiences of African American parents and students in this racially diverse school led the researchers to conclude that in order to grapple with tracking, research must move beyond a conversation about “choice” (Yonezawa, Wells, & Serna, 2002) to a discussion of exposure to intergenerational inequalities (Sharkey, 2013) that stem from economic and social factors in homes, communities, and schools. African American students in lower-track classes tend to grow up in homes with parents who also were in lower-track classes. In many of these homes, the parents did not have the resources to acquire special assistance to cultivate skills that ensured attendance in upper-track classes. In addition, school personnel were often unable to develop meaningful relationships with parents and community members, and in fact viewed the Black community as dysfunctional, thus causing many students to be associated with such negative characteristics. Moreover, the school was not able to clearly express to both students and parents the importance of upper-track classes.

Despite intergenerational tracking, all of these parents remained dedicated to education and believed it was the only way to empower African Americans. As Kim stated:

All my kids, because I have them reading before they turn five. My twins, right now they’re five and they can read. That’s the start. Then I make sure they can write, make sure they speak properly, and that’s first. Education is first with me. Then I have to figure out what comes after that.

While their own educational experiences did not prevent them from escaping poverty and a working-class status, the parents looked within their neighborhood to find success stories. Many parents proudly discussed one African American female student they knew who was extremely “smart” and “went on to Brown University.” In addition, they found examples in the larger African American community', particularly President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, whom they saw as powerful individuals dedicated to education, which had, provided positive examples.

Many of the teachers, administrators, and residents in Covington assumed that the African American parents did not value education and, as a result, were in lower-track classes. While this is the same argument in the dominant discourse that blames parents for racial disparities, the findings revealed that these parents, in fact, did value education and perceived it as the only way to upward mobility. However, they wrestled with how to navigate and protect their children in an unequal and inequitable educational system that places them disproportionately in lower-track classes.

Agency in the Black Habitus

Although the African American students and parents encountered neighborhood inequalities and experienced intergenerational tracking, this study also uncovered forms of agency and cultural knowledge in this community. Those living in Covington strove to overcome the barriers they faced in their school and society. While agency, cultural knowledge, and social networks are growing organically in this community, they are not acknowledged, valued or accepted by the all- White power structure.

In the heart of this Black community is an African American community center, where parents and other community members volunteer to overcome the structural barriers facing young people in their community and school. Since the 1960s, pastors, community leaders, and parents have used this center as a place to meet the community’s developmental needs. Five years ago, when the researcher first discovered this community, the center offered a tutoring program specifically to meet students’ educational needs and prevent another generation of African American students from being placed in lower-track classes. A few paid tutors as well as volunteers from the community were available to assist the students. While this work was extremely helpful and the

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program was successful, the City Council cut its funding. One African American parent addressed how the program had helped his son:

I’m going to use my son as a perfect example. My son is in middle school. He’s in sixth grade last year. This year he’s in seventh grade. Sixth grade last year when he was in the afterschool program, Adrian had a ninety-five average. That’s because he was coming [to the tutoring program|. Seventh grade budget stuff cut, we didn’t have the afterschool program. It dropped to seventy-five and I’m like, no way, unacceptable.

This parent’s frustration with the City Council over the budget cut that ended the afterschool program was also echoed by other African American parents. Many felt that the all-White City Council members and the mayor had a disingenuous relationship with the African American community. Some parents pointed to another community center in a White area that continued its enrichment programs for the community’s children. The African American parents noted that City Council members and the mayor had campaigned on educational issues, but when it came to meeting the educational needs of some of the most vulnerable students in this community, they were unwilling to provide them with the same resources and opportunities.

In addition, African Americans pointed to Superstorm Sandy, which significantly affected the area by flooding the city, damaging homes and cars, disconnecting electricity, and cutting off the residents’ access to food. African American parents said that City Council members as well as the mayor allowed an uneven allocation of resources and food in Covington. The African American community was, in fact, the last area to receive some of these resources that were given to the city because of the flood. Also, when first-aid responders developed stations throughout Covington, this community was the only area that did not have a station because their elected public officials did not think one was necessary there. African Americans had to walk a few miles to get water and food. Jessica, a parent, recalled that time:

Yes, but nothing here, nothing. Every day you had to get up and walk, you had no lights, you had no water, you had nothing. But yet still, you had to get up and walk in the cold to go to those areas. So, that is when John [community leader] said “You know what? We can’t take this anymore.”

John, a well-known and respected community leader, and other community leaders and pastors protested against this injustice. A few days later the City Council members, according to those interviewed, allowed for the Red Cross to set up a station in the Black neighborhood. While public officials used the rhetoric of equality, African Americans felt they had to protest constantly in order to receive half of what the other neighborhoods were automatically obtaining. Therefore, the uneven allocation of resources made African American parents feel that City Hall was disingenuous in meeting their community needs. The city’s reactions during the aftermath of Sandy highlighted the current struggle for equal allocation of resources in the African American community, as well as the agency of African American citizens in demanding justice in their community.

While the Black churches and community center produced social networks consisting of pastors, community leaders, activists, and parents, they were unable to develop meaningful relationships with School Board members, City Council members, police officers, and powerful business owners in Covington. African Americans perceived that members of other communities were able to form meaningful relationships, but members from their own community were excluded. Grace made this point when she was asked what she would like to study:

Where would I start first? City Hall. I told you, everyone is related. Everywhere. You know, the cops own the surf shop, the bakery, all the small businesses. School Board is connected to City Council. Everybody’s connected. Everybody went to school together. Police, City Hall, they are all connected.

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Grace’s point about the powerful social network was echoed by many of the community leaders and faith leaders who stated that people in that social network lived in White neighborhoods and did not want to address the issues that plague the Black neighborhood.

John discussed during an interview the powerful social network that does not address the issues in the Black community.

John: There are a few names that you hear. They are high-ranked police officers, have jobs at City Hall, work in the schools. Interviewer: So can I be part of this group of people? John: If you were White and not lived in this area, you can. (Smile) Interviewer: How powerful is this group? John: Very powerful. Interviewer: Does anyone in your community have strong connections with these people? John: People would say, I do, but I don’t. Interviewer: Do they address some of the issues in your community? John: No, not at all.

John believed that only White people and those who do not live in his neighborhood can develop meaning relationships with this network of individuals. He stated that people in his community might think that he has relationships with members of this social network, but he claimed he did not. Later in the interview, he said that during election periods, many of the Democrats who are part of this social networking call him to motivate African Americans to vote. He believed that this elite group uses him to support their mission, but will not develop meaningful relationships that would address the issues facing the Black neighborhood.

John’s views of this lack of meaningful relationships were also expressed by parents who asserted that their lived experiences and struggles were not evident to outsiders because their negative views of the African American community prevented meaningful relationships with powerful figures in Covington. The African American parents perceived that the all-White school board members, City Council members, business leaders, and high-ranking police officers focused only on the community’s negative characteristics. When African Americans entered schools, City Hall, restaurants, and stores, they felt others saw them through a lens of negative assumptions. Many perceived that the power structure could not move beyond seeing pathologies to acknowledging the everyday lived experiences, struggles, and dilemmas of African Americans. Therefore, the beauty, richness, dialect, verve, swag, and cultural knowledge that have developed in Black spaces were not welcomed by the White power structure. Instead, the White power structure disenfranchised them and further led to an unequal distribution of knowledge, resources, and opportunities in Covington.

C o n c l u s io n

The examination of the Black habitus of African American students and parents allows researchers to move beyond a self-help ideology that places the fundamental blame of racial disparities on Black neighborhoods, to a discussion of systemic inequalities, agency, and cultural knowledge in their community and school district. Covington can be viewed as a microcosm of the United States because of its racial diversity and the similar issues that African Americans face in comparable cities throughout the country. This ethnographic study revealed that African American students and their parents in both schools and society are often associated with negative ideas about their Black body. These negative associations become a hidden burden that African Americans bear in racially diverse settings.

Schools are sites where others’ perceptions can block African Americans’ access to knowledge, resources, and opportunities. Thirty years of research has brought attention to tracking by recognizing a distribution of knowledge that allows some students to be placed in upper-track classes where they develop knowledge for upward mobility, while other students—mostly racial

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minorities—are prevented from receiving that knowledge because they are overwhelmingly in lower-track classes (Oakes, 1985). A generation later, tracking has continued to produce intergenerational outcomes that do not meet African American parents’ educational needs and place their children in lower-track classes. Parents’ own tracked placement has prevented them from passing on certain knowledge, resources, and opportunities to their children. It was clear in this study that African American homes and community were heavily influenced by this unequal distribution of knowledge. Therefore, tracking in schools not only allows for an unequal distribution of knowledge, but also functions as a mechanism that distributes resources and opportunities unequally in the African American community. Further discussions of tracking must not solely focus on “decisions” and “choices” (Loveless, 1999; Yonezawa, Wells, & Serna, 2002) of individual social actors within schools; rather, they must become more comprehensive dialogues that consider intergenerational tracking and students’ early exposure to neighborhood inequalities that block access to high-status knowledge in schools.

Further investigation of intergenerational inequalities can greatly contribute to the study of African American communities and schools. A growing body of research is taking into account the multi generational inequalities existing in African American communities (Cortright & Mahmoudi, 2014; Sharkey, 2013). Flowever, African Americans are not necessarily lost or stuck in place. In these communities, one can find grassroots organizers, community leaders, pastors, and residents who are acting to transform their communities through their cultural knowledge. Researchers who seek to continue the discussion of intergenerational inequalities must acknowledge the agency and cultural knowledge that are organically growing and nurtured in these communities. African Americans are not bystanders in their oppression, but are compelled social actors who value education and want to develop meaningful relationships that bring resources and opportunities to their communities. Researchers, policymakers, school personnel, and public officials who are committed to fostering meaningful relationships and partnerships should recognize and address the institutional betrayal that has occurred in Black neighborhoods for multiple generations by police officers, public officials, educational leaders, school personnel, business owners, and policymakers.

By exploring the Black habitus, we are able to move the discourse away from pathologies and static individuals, toward dynamic social actors in the African American community who are confronted with challenges such as negative perceptions of the Black body, neighborhood inequalities, and intergenerational tracking. Despite these systemic inequalities, however, African Americans remain committed to education and its promise, and in turn seek to perform transformative actions.

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Authors RICHARD LOFTON is a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, School of Education, Center for Social Organization of Schools in Baltimore. JAMES EARL DAVIS is Professor of Educational Leadership and Bernard C. Watson Endowed Chair in Urban Education at Temple University, College of Education in Philadelphia.

All comments and queries regarding this article should be addressed to [email protected]

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