Feeling Black: Black Urban High School Youth and Visceral Geographies of Anti-Black Racism

Abstract

ABSTRACT Prior research on anti-blackness in education demonstrates that Black bodies are marked as undesirable and therefore require exclusion, neglect, or mistreatment. Building on this research, I turn to geographical theories to understand the lived, everyday experiences of Black students who attended a predominately Latinx high school. Via visceral geographies, I focus on the body as a spatial landscape to explore how Black students experienced anti-black racism and how they embodied these racial moments. Here, I combine the theoretical resources of visceral geographies, BlackCrit, and anti-blackness, to interrogate the real and perceived violence that Black students endured during the school day. My analysis revealed two salient themes: (1) Black students felt a sense of unbelonging, and (2) they perceived their blackness as unimaginable to non-Black people. Finally, I argue that the (Black) body is a space where researchers can collect information about anti-blackness and work towards addressing racism in schools.