An (in)visible universe of grief: Performative disidentifications with white motherhood in the We are not Trayvon Martin blog

Motherhood, moral authority and the charismatic matriarch in the aftermath of lethal violence

“…The story of maternal suffering evoked here is an important catalyst for recognition and a mechanism for bringing the problem of family violence out of the confines of the home and beyond being perceived as a ‘private’ issue (Hawley et al, 2018). Observing the privileged stance of some mothers, as Rosie Batty acknowledges here, provides an insight into, as Hartzell (2017) writes,how white mothers can work within and against their racial privilege to challenge dominant constructions of racialized motherhood and form coalitions with mourning mothers of color in protest of the conditions of injustice that continue to claim the lives of their children. (p. 66)…”

“…Her position as a White, middle-class woman who was well-educated and articulate in her experiences raised the profile of the issue across different communities. There were particular features of Rosie’s identity, therefore, that informed her role as a charismatic matriarch, namely race and class, which as Hartzell (2017: 66; Lawson, 2018) and others note is an important feature that moderates the ‘good motherhood’ story in public:Because ‘good motherhood’ is culturally valued, activist mothers who strategically recite norms of ‘good motherhood’ can productively elicit identification and empathy – yet, because ‘good motherhood’ is implicitly coded as white, these productive capacities are significantly limited for mothers of color.…”

The Aesthetic Pursuit of Educational Leadership for Social Justice: Grace in the Struggle

“…There is a long history of mourning women/mothers who have used maternal activist rhetoric to make affective connections with publics in order to compel political action (Hartzell, 2017). Some of the public displays of mourning she noted included: 19,702-1980s) to call for investigations into their "disappeared children" (see Gandsman, 2012;Fig.…”

“…She concluded that the connection to racialized grief and the disconnection from white privilege, for instance, "can be powerfully mobilized toward antiracist ends when charged with motherly affects" (Hartzell, 2017, p. 75). According to Hartzell (2017), "affect refers to bodies' capacities to act and be acted upon by forces and energies" (p. 69).…”

“…However, in claiming that "balancing the rational and aesthetic senses in education has long troubled the field" (p. 93), Gaudelli and Hewitt (2010) separated "the rational" from "aesthetic senses," as if they were on two distinctly different planes. Instead, as indicated by many cited above, including Schiller and Pope, grace is rational and irrational work, and within aesthetics, it is connected to ethics and politics (Denzin, 2000;Hartzell, 2017;Neal, 1968), though when and to what degree varies.…”