UCLA Black Lives Matter and The Paradoxes of US Black Politics Reading Essay two reading logs 2 pages each, choose at least one reading from the following
UCLA Black Lives Matter and The Paradoxes of US Black Politics Reading Essay two reading logs 2 pages each, choose at least one reading from the following for each one. requirements?These logs will give you the opportunity to reflect on readings, practice theorizing, and give me a
sense of where were all at with the material. Reading logs should not be summaries. Rather, you
should directly engage with the material by providing your own analytical take. Synthesizing
concepts and frameworks across readings may be a particularly fruitful approach that can help
you also brainstorm for your midterm and final papers. Some prompts to help you get started. Please don’t try to answer all of them at once! You don’t have to use these questions necessarily – they’re just some ideas that can get your brain noodling! What kinds of connections can you make between the reading and other material weve covered? How can you apply a concept from the reading to a current event? Are there moments in your own life that mirror the concepts weve explored through the readings? How did it manifest? How did it make you feel? And how does it make you feel and think now having read the article/book that mirrors your experience? How might concepts and readings discussed in this class connect to others you have encountered in your educational career? What kinds of questions came up for you as you read the article/book? What do you think potential answers could be? Why do you think these questions came up for you? How can you challenge the arguments being made in the readings? 680101
research-article2016
SREXXX10.1177/2332649216680101Sociology of Race and EthnicityCombs
Experiences of Race in Space and Place
No Rest for the Weary:
The Weight of Race, Gender,
and Place inside and outside
a Southern Classroom
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity
2017, Vol. 3(4) 491505
© American Sociological Association 2016
DOI: 10.1177/2332649216680101
sre.sagepub.com
Barbara Harris Combs1
Abstract
In this article, I reflect on my lived experience as an African American woman teaching in the racialized
and gendered context of a predominantly white institution (PWI) in the Deep South. I use the context of
a southern campus in the Deep South to provide insight into the ways place, race, and gender continue
to shape experiences of people of color and in so doing highlight the fallacy that the United States is a
colorblind or post-racial society. To do so, I utilize counter-storytellinga tool advanced by critical race
theory (CRT) scholars; while CRT is useful to understand the conditions that produce the unequal weight
borne by faculty of color, it is insufficient to understand the social processes that create and maintain it. I
argue that the dynamic nature of racism requires new theoretical approaches to understand it. For this, I
advance a new theorybodies out of place (BOP). I utilize my narrative to provide greater clarity regarding
how BOP fills gaps left by CRT and other racial ideologies. My narrative illustrates how the intersections
of race, gender, and place can operate to create a disproportionate burden (professionally, personally,
physically, and psychologically) on faculty women of color. Ironically, I conclude that this disproportionate
burden often falls on a continuum between empowering and encumbering. However, both ends of the
spectrum contribute to racial battle fatigue.
Keywords
racism, African Americans, bias, body, place, colorblind
Racism is a highly disputed concept, but what is often
left out of contested debates on the topic is the
acknowledgment that racism is dynamic, and the
ever-changing, always adaptable nature of the beast
makes it particularly difficult to identify amid ever
growing colorblind ideological frames (Alexander
2012). Fighting racism involves a daily struggle in the
form of combating microinsults, microinvalidations,
and microassaults (Sue et al. 2007). Repeated exposure to hostile and/or unwelcoming treatment can
exact a toll on the lives of people of color (W. A.
Smith, Yosso, and Solórzano 2006:301). W. A. Smith
(2004) terms this racial battle fatigue, which a group
of education scholars have defined as the physical
and psychological toll taken due to constant and
unceasing discrimination, microaggressions, and stereotype threat (Mitchell et al. 2015:xvii).
American society is a racialized social system
(Bonilla-Silva 1997). The racial hierarchies that
emerge from this system maintain continuing
inequality. Social hierarchies embedded in this
racialized social system are profoundly influenced
1
Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Barbara Harris Combs, Clark Atlanta University, 223
James P. Brawley Drive, S. W., Thomas W. Cole, Jr.
Science Research Center, Suite 2003, Atlanta, GA
30314, USA.
Email: bcombs@cau.edu
492
by socially defined racial categories, and colorblind ideologies help maintain the system (Doane
2006). Alexander (2012:2) writes:
In the error of colorblindness, it is no longer
socially permissible to use race, explicitly as a
justification for discrimination, exclusion, and
social contempt. So we dont. Rather than rely
on race, we . . . label people of color . . . and
then engage in all the practices we supposedly
left behind.
The principle label to which Alexander refers is
criminal, but the paradigmatic frame she applies is
achieved through the ideology of colorblindness,
and it is readily adaptable to other labels.1 In the
classroom, I am not simply a professor, I am a
black female professor, and even when unspoken,
each of those identifiers mediates my interactions
in the space.
A number of sociological theories have been
extremely fruitful toward identifying the fallacy of
a post-racial America (Bonilla-Silva 1997, 2014;
Feagin 2000, 2006, 2013), but the continually
adaptive nature of race-based prejudice in society
necessitates new means of interpreting the continuing phenomenon. We need new theories to help
explicate the numerous ways in which a racialized
caste system not only continues to exist but also
thrives in this purported age of colorblindness.
Setting the Southern
Context
Decades ago, the Supreme Court held that black
bodies have a right to receive an education in a
classroom alongside whites. However, in the more
than 50 years since the Supreme Court handed
down its landmark decision in Brown vs. The Board
of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the majority of students in these classroomsparticularly college classrooms in four-year institutions of higher learningare
white. In this context, black, brown, red, and
yellow bodies in the classroom seem out of place.
This perceived displacement can produce a range
of responses from students and co-workers, which
faculty members of color must manage. Factors
like gender and geographic location can further
exacerbate this burden. In this article, I explore the
weight of race, gender, and place inside and outside
a southern classroom.
The educational system plays a meaningful role
in asserting and maintaining social control in a
society (Payne 1927). The manifest function of the
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 3(4)
educational system is to educate. However, it has
latent functions as well, not the least of which is
social constraint. The educational system reproduces inequality by teaching students their respective place in society. Place in the hierarchical
structure (and entitlement to unrestricted use of
space) is dictated by a myriad of factors, including
race, class, gender, and sexuality.
The Southern Somatic Norm
Racial unrest has many layers. The university in question is no exception. In spring 2012, the student body
at the University of Mississippi, a flagship university
in the Deep South, elected its first black female president. There was little public pushback against this
milestone, but there were some private attacks,
including an incident where she was denounced with
racial slurs (Dandridge 2014). However, on the campus known for producing beauty queens, the fall 2012
election of the first black homecoming queen was met
with a firestorm of hate speech questioning the wisdom of the choice on grounds as varied as physical
size, skin color, and attractiveness (Lucas 2012).
Tensions heightened in the runoff election. The hailstorm of animosity was often phrased oppositionally:
Social media buzzed with queries like, How could
you choose the black candidate over the slim, attractive, blond candidate? (Lucas 2012). These attacks
point to a need to further theorize the body, especially
those bodies that violate the somatic norm (i.e., normative expectation), and in so doing generate disorientation (Puwar 2001, 2004).
Students and others in the university space come
from varied backgrounds. Acknowledging this, I
also acknowledge that inside the matrix of domination, black women occupy a particularly distinct
position of marginality (Collins 1986). An expectation of a particular type of presentation of womanhood persists, and those who do not embody it are
deemed neither fully women nor fully worthy of
protection. This is especially true in the American
South. Drawing largely on social science research
that examines the employment context, it is easy to
see how such women might suffer reprisals distinct
from those imposed upon men in the academic arena
(Moss and Tilly 2003; Rudman and Glick 2001).2
Theoretical Foundations
Gloria Anzaldua (1990:xxv-xxvi) writes:
Necesitamos teorias [We need theories] that will
rewrite history using race, class, gender, and
ethnicity as categories of analysis. . . . We need
Combs
theories that will point out ways to maneuver
between our particular experiences and . . . [form]
our own . . . theoretical models for the patterns we
uncover.
Our stories can rewrite history. The stories of people
of color are not simply telling stories; instead,
they are a form of theory building (McKinley and
Brayboy 2005:427). This article introduces such a
theory.
Origins of Bodies out of Place Theory
While racism is not new, some of the ways it is performed and maintained are. Bodies out of place
(BOP) theory emerged from my attempt to make
sense of the social world around me. As a newcomer
to the subject institution, I took note of everything,
and I reduced a number of those observations to
tenets. Many emerged from elements of existing
theoriesin some cases, extending those ideas and
in other cases controverting parts of them. I was also
particularly taken by the concept of bodies out of
place as expressed in the writings of Nirmal Puwar
(2001, 2004), and many of the ideas expressed
herein are derived from those works. This article
applies BOP as a theoretical framework for analyzing my case study. The aim is to identify its merits in
a concrete way so as to make it viable for other
scholars to apply and build on.
Moving Race Theorizing forward
Existing theories are useful but incomplete as a
means to: (1) understand why members of the dominant society are increasingly employing colorblind
ideological frames,3 (2) articulate how colorblind
narratives maintain growing racial inequity, and (3)
expand readers understanding of the underlying
race-based systems behind these colorblind frames.
BOP helps fill that gap (Combs 2016). BOP, which
makes several basic assumptions about society as
set forth in earlier theories such as critical race
theory (CRT), standpoint theory, and social identity
theory, distinguishes itself from the others in the
attention it pays to bodies, context (i.e., place
whether as a geographical or social construct), and
micro-level interactions (especially how these contribute to the maintenance of inequality on the
macro scale).
Contrasts with other Theories
In many ways, BOP can be seen as a complement
to CRT, but it also adds an important missing layer.
493
BOP asserts that racism is sustained on a macro
level but begins on a micro level; this is the central
idea that both connects BOP to CRT and distances
it from it. CRT asserts that racism is endemic and
built into institutional frameworks like the law
(Bell 1987; Solórzano 1997, 1998). However,
while the CRT principle of interest convergence
popularized by Bell (2004) suggests whites will
support racial justice only when doing so converges with their own economic interests, BOP
argues that the overt or express inclusion of protections for minority groups (which has sometimes
expanded to other marginalized groups) serves
only the interest of whites. There is no convergence
of interests. This distinction is subtle but important.
It is also not a contradiction of the interest convergence principle. Rather, it is an acknowledgement
that the nature of racism is dynamic. By embedding
language that ostensibly protects minority groups
into law, social policy, employment handbooks,
and educational/student handbooks, whites absolve
themselves from culpability for continuing racial
oppression by believing minorities did not take
advantage of the opportunities given to them in a
meritocracy. Like CRT, BOP recognizes that colorblindness and white property rights have been
embedded into our legal structure for some time.
CRT deals well with the macro level, but a void
is left in understanding how individual actors contribute to the social processes through which disadvantage is sustained, supported, and maintained.
BOP fills that space of betweeness. BOP explains
how raced-based attitudes (a necessary precursor to
racism) continue to flourish in society despite overt
legislation to the contrary.
Like CRT, intersectionality seeks to give voice
to the voiceless (Collins 2000; Crenshaw 1989,
1991; McCall 2005). Amid colorblind discourse
where individuals purport either not to see race or
claim that race does/should not matterit is essential to deal squarely with the body and the concept
of the somatic norm. In many ways, the body has
been abstracted from overt application in both CRT
and intersectionality. In its focus on intersecting
effects, intersectionality has lost sight of certain
main effects. The body first is, and then it is identified as female or black. Still, intersectionality is a
helpful but insufficient frame of analysis.
CRT abstractly deals with the body, but an overt
focus is absent. CRT privileges counternarratives
and critical race stories rooted in the lived experiences of the storytellers (Solórzano and Yosso 2002).
CRT recognizes that counternarratives may provide
more nuanced understandings of the racialized experiences of others (Solórzano 1998) and that racism
494
often intersects with other forms of oppression
(Espinoza 1998) like gender. These lived experiences are peopled with bodies. Colorblind frames,
especially ideas like hard work, individualism, equal
opportunity, and others associated with abstract liberalism, abstract the body in a false narrative of
being attentive to the individual. BOP places the
body as a central aspect of the examination.
Merits of BOP
BOP makes several important contributions to the
ongoing discussion of race and racism in U.S. society. Through its articulation of how the structural
nature of racism means members of the dominant
societys acceptance of racial/ethnic minorities seldom gets challenged (as most interactions occur
with people not of equal status), BOP exposes one
of the significant bases on which the fiction of colorblindness is maintained in society. Members of
the society can hold fast to the ideology of colorblindness in their rhetoric because they are seldom
confronted with opportunities to test this value system (Combs 2016). BOP recognizes that the past
matters and holds a continuing grip on outcomes in
society today. As such, all members of society, not
just the dominant society, are complicit in the
maintenance of race-based oppressive attitudes.
The language of oppression varies from time to
time and place to place, and its vehicles do as well.
Structural explanations for racism have relied too
heavily on systemic forces while colorblind ideologies have relied too heavily on individuals. There is
a need to focus on the interplay between both. BOP
acknowledges and asserts that it is the micro level
that allows macro-level structures of oppression to
be sustained.
Finally, BOP inserts time and place squarely
into its analysis. A tension is raised by the use of
the word place, but this tension is intentional. With
respect to African Americans, whites have always
defined place in behavioral more than spatial terms.
McMillen (1989:23) writes, Valuing hierarchy
more than they feared propinquity, whites casually
rubbed elbows with blacks in contexts that sometimes startled northerners. Yet the requirements of
caste . . . were zealously enforced. The racial code
was designed to create distance and hierarchy
with[in] such propinquity (Ritterhouse 2006:27).
Roots of this complex racial etiquette system persist and demand that place in both an abstract and
concrete sense be expressly considered in examinations of continuing racial oppression in America.
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 3(4)
Space and place are not interchangeable. Place
is fixed and definite, but it need not be a geographical construct. Space, on the other hand,
makes place definite by providing a boundary for
its existence (Tuan 2001). An overlap exists
between the two (Gieryn 2000). Bodies occupy
space (Puwar 2004), and sometimes they do so in
geographic or socio-political places. BOP posits
that marginalized group members occupation of
social space is not problematic as long as minority
group members do not occupy spaces and places
the dominant members of society perceive as their
own (Combs 2016). In sum, black and brown bodies are acceptable but only as long as they stay in
their place.
Tenets of BOP
BOP has eight distinct tenets (Combs 2016:539).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
BOP relies on the assumption (built into a
great deal of colorblind and post-racial discourse) that growing numbers of whites
perceive that the social ills in society such
as racism, sexism, homonegativity, and so
on are not endemic or structural but isolated incidents performed by a few bad
actors. Consequently, society wrongly perceives that hard work and merit are the
only factors limiting what individuals can
achieve.
BOP argues the members of society
falsely perceive physical integration (in
schools, employment, and to a lesser
extent, housing) and/or proximity with
social integration.
Members of the dominant society have a
possessory interest in the status quo. BOP
argues that those who utilize this frame
view the gendered, classed, racial/ethnic,
and other patterns discernible in employment, housing, education, religion, political, and other arenas as the natural order
and then work to maintain that equilibrium
(i.e., status quo), often under the guise that
this order is what is best for society.
BOP argues that racism is sustained on a
micro level but operates on a macro level.
BOP theory is relational. Bodies need not
be, per se, out of place as much as they are
out of place relative to the individual position of the person opposing (sometimes
called the opposer) the heightened (i.e.,
495
Combs
6.
7.
8.
seemingly out of place) status of
the black or brown body. Additionally, the
opposition may come about because the
black or brown body seems displaced relative to the position of an individual in a
group to which the opposer belongs or is
affiliated with through strong kin or friendship ties.
BOP produces a response. It is evidenced
through an almost compulsory and provoked
verbal or nonverbal cue to the perceived displacement (body out of place). The only
requirement is that the displacement induces
a response. Responses may range from the
benign to the violent. The important thing to
consider is that the displacement is so disconcerting to the opposer that some response
seems obligatory.
When invoked through discourse, the
opposer uses seemingly race-neutral language, which is laden with race-based
attitudes.
BOP is necessarily intersectional in its
nature and applicable across social structures.4 While this article focuses on black
and brown bodies, it is important to note
the theory is applicable to all stigmatized
minority groups. The stigma may be on the
basis of physical characteristics, racial/ethnic status, non-normative religious views
(which may vary from place to place), sexism, or otherwise.
The tenets of BOP uncover a complicated duality; the body may be accepted; but the body out of
place is rejected (Combs 2016:540). BOPs attention to the body considers the body as more of a
political abstraction or nature than a bodily nature;
except with women, where the focus is often on the
physical body (Puwar 2004). Puwar (2004:8)
writes, Some bodies are deemed as having the
right to belong, while others are marked out as trespassers who are, in accordance with how both
spaces and bodies are imagined (politically, historically, and conceptually), circumscribed as being
out of place.
Methodology
I utilize BOP as both theory and method. In the latter case, I employ a modified grounded theory to
build an interpretive case study useful for the purpose of developing an inductively derived
grounded theory about a phenomenon (Strauss
and Corbin 1998:24). Grounded theory is a qualitative research method that uses a systematic set of
procedures involving open coding, const…
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