A Critical Pedagogy with College and High School Students in St. Louis Post-Mike Brown

Abstract

This article presents a critical pedagogy for a racially oppressed working-class community, situated in this current moment of capitalist crises. In the aftermath of the police killing of Mike Brown and militarized police occupation in St. Louis, MO, students from a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) employed a Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) module with African American high school students, during Alternative Spring Break 2015. The political education tools were grounded in Historical Materialism and Critical Race Theory. This was rooted in a movement-based praxis by and for the most affected persons (people of color, women, indigenous, immigrants, and queer populations). The PIC module informed this pedagogical process of raising consciousness, creating a vision, and strategizing toward long-term social change. Here, we discuss how this module enabled students to begin to grapple with the root of systemic racism, by connecting theory to their lived experiences. We understand this process as contributing to scholar activism, rooted in transformative public sociology. The modifications are discussed for implementation within future curriculums.

From a Hashtag to a Movement: Black Women Movement Actors’ Challenges to Leading a Radical Movement in a “Postracial America”

“…However, it offers the development of movement consciousness as outlined early on for black women Movement actors, who are leaders, organizers and protestors of local organizations. Black women in this study show the challenges of local organizational goals v. national Movement for Black Lives’ demands, growing knowledge of young protestors and the immediate challenges of fighting to live with the onslaught of police killings (Collins 2002; Destine and Katz-Fishman 2018; Hill 2017; Kelley 2016b; Nilsen and Cox 2013; W. I. Robinson 2014; Taylor 2016; C.…”

“…Moreover, the leaders represented in this study demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of what is at stake for the M4BL. In order to build a vision of a just world to extend to a global working-class movement, political education should continue being implemented both on and off social media to create a unified vision and aid in strategizing for global organizations (Battle 2016; Crenshaw et al 2015; Davis 2016; Destine and Katz-Fishman 2018; Katz-Fishman et al 2016; Khan-Cullors and Bandele 2018; Marable 2015; Nilsen and Cox 2013; Taylor 2016; C. Wilson 2011).…”

“…Class-consciousness demonstrates the levels of participants’ class-consciousness and places participants in the first stage: social awareness (Kelley 2016b; Lenin 2018). For instance, social awareness and social consciousness develop as the first stages of consciousness in response to objective conditions—for example, police violence, racism—whereas the last stage is class-consciousness, connecting all working-class people across borders, race, gender, ability, and so on and develops through political education and study (Bush 2000; Destine and Katz-Fishman 2018; Lenin 2018; Marx and Engels 1844).…”