When Black Girls Fight: Interrogating, Interrupting, and (Re)Imagining Dangerous Scripts of Femininity in Urban Classrooms

Abstract

The recent death of Amy Joyner, a promising Wilmington, Delaware, high school sophomore demonstrates very clearly the ways in which Black girls are made vulnerable in urban schools. Joyner, an honor roll student, was jumped by a group of girls in the bathroom just before classes began. The alleged cause of the fight was jealousy over a boy. Black girls are bombarded with popular culture messages defining Black femininity along narrow notions of sex appeal, maintaining romantic relationships, and having the ability to fight. Black girls are neither invited in the process of critically examining their popular representation nor supported in thinking through its impact in their own lives. This aspect of the null curriculum, coupled with Black girls' persistent criminalization, makes schools risky places for Black girls. They are left to navigate a society which misunderstands their gender performance without the support or opportunities they need to develop authentic definitions of self, all the while being held subject to beliefs, policies, and practices which surveil and contain them. Despite the neoliberal assault urban educators face, this article argues that urban educators have an epistemic responsibility to critically examine the denigration of Black womanhood in society, incorporate critical media

The Impossibility of Being “Perfect and White”: Black Girls’ Racialized and Gendered Schooling Experiences

“…In a society where normative notions of girlhood and femininity are constructed along Eurocentric and patriarchal lines, Black girls are subject to behaviors and practices that ignore their Blackness (Collins, 2004). Yet Black girlhood, femininity, and performativity are “rooted in a matrix of raced, classed, gendered, and sexualized realities” (Esposito & Edwards, 2018, p. 96). For example, popular culture, television, film, and social media perpetuate the idea that fighting is an appropriate response to resolving conflicts among Black women/girls and that relationships between Black men and women are riddled with dysfunction (Edwards & Esposito, 2016; Esposito & Edwards, 2018).…”

“…Yet Black girlhood, femininity, and performativity are “rooted in a matrix of raced, classed, gendered, and sexualized realities” (Esposito & Edwards, 2018, p. 96). For example, popular culture, television, film, and social media perpetuate the idea that fighting is an appropriate response to resolving conflicts among Black women/girls and that relationships between Black men and women are riddled with dysfunction (Edwards & Esposito, 2016; Esposito & Edwards, 2018). Waldron (2011) argues that these “popularized depictions have helped frame a public discourse about girls that suggests a rise in ‘cattiness’ among girls” (p. 1299), meanness toward each other, and being “overly emotional” and “dramatic” in relational contexts.…”

“…With the exception of Site E, Black girls’ experiences suggest that their relationships with Black boys are rooted in conflicts that are in opposition to their personal beliefs, values, voice, and sense of agency. Black girls are bombarded with racialized and gendered messages of how to behave, interact, and communicate in school spaces (Esposito & Edwards, 2018; E. W. Morris, 2005, 2007; Waldron, 2011).…”

“…W. Morris, 2005, 2007; Waldron, 2011). Furthermore, they are vulnerable to adopting and consuming stereotypical, demeaning, and pejorative representations of ways of being that are often perpetuated by the media (Esposito & Edwards, 2018; Waldron, 2011). This does not mean that girls will not challenge, critically examine, or resist ideals that uphold heteronormative behaviors and qualities of femininity and girlhood.…”

“…This does not mean that girls will not challenge, critically examine, or resist ideals that uphold heteronormative behaviors and qualities of femininity and girlhood. Rather, these representations, coupled with societal expectations and perceptions, leave Black girls to “navigate a [world] which misunderstands their gender performance without the support or opportunities they need to develop authentic definitions of self” (Esposito & Edwards, 2018, p. 87) or healthy relationships with others.…”