Your “Right” to Comfort Limits my Right to Learn: Whiteness, Victimization, and Attacks on Race-Centered Curricula

Abstract

The current attacks on Critical Race Theory, Ethnic Studies, and DEI- centered education are a manifestation of a racial backlash - or a whitelash. This paper uses colorblind ideology (Bonilla-Silva, 2003/2021; Leonardo, 2020) and White emotionalities (Zembylas, 2020) to explore how White racial comfort plays a central role in said attacks. We then show how these White emotions play a central role in three pieces of legislation aimed at eliminating race-centered/race-engaged forms of education: Trump’s Critical Race Theory ban, Florida’s H. R. 7 (i.e., “Stop W.O.K.E.” act), and Arizona’s H. B. 2281 (i.e., the banning of Mexican American Studies in Tucson). It does this by first demonstrating the historical predictability of whitelash. It then explores the emotionalities of Whiteness, in particular comfort/discomfort, demonstrating how they are frequently divorced from empirical reality yet we continually cater to them through policy and discourse. We then show how these forms of education, which are the subject of said bannings, are actually educationally effective, which leads us to explore why they are continually attacked. We conclude with ideas about defending race-centered education, minimizing the impacts of whitelash, and supportive movements for educational self-determination.