Diversity

Cartographies of Blackness and Black Indigeneities acknowledges the saliency of Blackness in contemporary social formations, insisting that how bodies are read is extremely important. The contributors to this volume elicit or produce both tangible and intangible social, political, material, spiritual and emotional effects and consequences on Black and African bodies, globally. It is a call to celebrate Blackness in all its complexities, including race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, spiritualities, and geographies. Understanding Blackness is to insist on Black and African political and cultural appreciation of the phenomenon outside of Euro-colonial attempts to regulate and define how Black and African bodies are perceived. This book intersperses discussions of Blackness with Black racial identity and cultural politics and the required responsibilities for the Global Black and African populations to build viable communities utilizing our differences—knowledges, cultures, politics, identities, histories—as strengths.

The first wave of Black immigrants arrived in North America during the 1960s and 1970s, coming originally from the Caribbean. An opportunity was missed, however, in documenting their everyday experience from a social science perspective: what did it mean for a Barbadian or a Jamaican to live in Toronto or New York? Were they Jamaicans or did they go with the descriptor ‘Black’? What relationship did they have with African Canadians or African Americans? Black Immigrants in North America answers these and other questions while documenting the second wave of Black immigration to North America, which started in the early 1990s. Theoretically and empirically grounded, the book is a documentation of the process of becoming Black – a radical identity transformation where a continental African is marked by Blackness. This, in turn, leads to a deeper understanding of what it means to encounter that social imaginary of, ‘Oh, they all look like Blacks to me!’ This encounter impacts what one learns and how one learns it, where learning English as a Second Language (ESL) is sidestepped in favor of Black English as a Second Language (BESL). Learning becomes a political and a pedagogical project of cultural, linguistic and identity investment and desire.Perfect for courses such as: Black Immigrants, Race Complexity, Critical Applied Linguistics, Ethnography, Graduate Course on Educational Foundations and Curriculum

Womanish Black Girls/Women Resisting Contradictions of Silence and Voice is a collection of essays written by varied black women who fill spaces within the academy, public schools, civic organizations, and religious institutions. These writings are critically reflective and illuminate autobiographical storied-lives. A major theme is the notion of womanish black girls/women resisting the familial and communal expectations of being seen, rather than heard. Consequently, these memories and lived stories name contradictions between “being told what to do or say” and “knowing and deciding for herself.” Additional themes include womanism and feminism, male patriarchy, violence, cultural norms, positionality, spirituality, representation, survival, and schooling. While the aforementioned can revive painful images and feelings, the essays offer hope, joy, redemption, and the re-imagining of new ways of being in individual and communal spaces. An expectation is that middle school black girls, high school black girls, college/university black girls, and community black women will view this work as seedlings for understanding resistance, claiming voice, and healing.Perfect for courses in: Adolescent Development, American Studies, Black Studies, Educational Anthropology, Latino Studies, Multicultural Education, Social Foundations of Education, Sociology and Women's Studies.

The history of presidential politics reached a new and significant milestone with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. It sparked great hope in America for greater racial equity and social justice. A Paradise to Regain: Post-Obama Insights from Women Educators of the Black Diaspora seeks to avert the likelihood of erasure of President Obama’s legacy of hope and possibility that every child, regardless of race, faith, and gender affiliation, can dream big and live to see his/her dream turn into reality. As women educators of color, we all agree that the socio-political climate prevailing in the United States of America, since the aftermath of the 2016 election, requires unprecedented agency. The book provides space for Black women educators–African Americans, Naturalized Black Americans, and Foreign-born Blacks from Africa, the Caribbean Islands and South America (e.g., Guyana)–to have a candid conversation with their young children—sons and daughters, nephews and nieces—about the roadblocks they are likely to face as minority youth of color in their pursuit of greatness and the reminder that they have a role model in President Obama to look up to in moments of extreme frustration and exasperation. Voices of engaged educators of color are indispensable to make sure that children understand that that despite a 360-degree turn from eight consecutive years of a reassuring message that “change had come,” that paradise had been gained, into the threatening message of “making America white again,” we count on them to regain the paradise. Perfect for courses such as: Racism and Education Inequality in the Lives of African-American Youth, Introduction to the African Diaspora, Equity and Diversity in Schools, Place, Language, Power and Knowledge, Global and Multicultural Education in the Secondary School, Issues in Urban Education, Culture Power and Education, Social Class Education and Pedagogy, Language, Culture, and Education, The Politics of Literacy and Race in Schools, Race and Racism in Education and Society, Race, Ethnicity and Linguistic Diversity in Classrooms and Communities, and Education and Society.

Indigeneity and Decolonial Resistance is an excellent text for use in a variety of upper-division undergraduate and graduate classrooms. It is also a valuable addition to the libraries of writers and researchers interested in indigenous studies and decolonialism.