Notes on: Doharty, N. (2019) The
‘angry Black woman’ as intellectual bondage :
being strategically emotional on the academic
plantation. Race Ethnicity and Education,
23 (4). pp. 548-562.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1679751
[I have a repository
copy:https://eprints.Whiterose.ac.uk/148470/]
Dave Harris
This is a late reply to a doctoral examination
question, drawing on CRT to illustrate racial
discrimination and disadvantage. It develops the
concept of 'strategic emotionality' to describe
the decisions Black women academics might have to
make about how to deal with their emotions as part
of research and analysis and its impact on
epistemology (1).
She was asked by a Black female professor why she
had not placed her feelings in her original thesis
and theorised them as part of the analysis. She
had centred the experiences of Black children. The
other examiner, a White woman, said she had felt
her (Doherty's) anger in the writing. This made
her think of the impact of racialised emotions on
research and analysis and the images that control
Black women's emotions and the methodological
challenges this presents.
She was studying the experience of students in
Black history month (BHM) and Black History (BH)
from a critical race perspective that suggested
that racism was still embedded in the history
curriculum and so BH offered only a 'compensatory
and deficit informed approach', something inferior
to Whiteness seen as normal history (2). She tried
to locate the experiences of students within wider
racisms identified by CRT. [Not that they felt
those -- she did]. She did not include her own
emotions. She has now realised that there is a
'race – gendered hidden dimension', using Yancy and the White gaze
[notmuch of it] There is a danger that Black women
will be seen as 'only angry or strong' so they may
need to develop strategic emotionality as a
theoretical concept, to explain what happens under
conditions of White supremacy when writing for
colourblind audiences.
She writes as an '"indigenous insider"' [based on
Banks 1998] endorsing the values and perspectives
of the indigenous community and speaking with
authority about it. She claims commonality with
Black children even though she does not share the
same African Caribbean background, English
education or experience of discrimination [so what
does she share?].
There is a history of research showing
deficit–informed notions of Black children in a
system that seems not to privilege particular
races. Underachievement of Black children is
therefore rooted in White supremacy, with
generalisations about them linked to oppressive
orders and the policing of marginalised groups.
She feels affected by these 'caricature
stereotypes and assumptions', a '"space invader"'
in PWI universities. She is aware that
publications are essential to gain promotion. She
was particularly aware that Black people are often
accused of '"special pleading"' and do not receive
serious consideration, especially if they express
feelings and emotions about racism [citing Bell
1992]. There are other layers and complexities as
well however, affecting Black women specifically.
The sociology of emotions is classically divided
into positivist and anti-positivist camps, the
first seeing emotions as naturally occurring. She
takes the second view seeing emotions as
'historically rooted, culturally specific and
structured as lived experience' (6). Denzin's
political economy of emotion stresses the
endorsement of particular emotions as suitable and
desirable, introducing the idea of social
relations of emotions as ideological. This leads
to the idea of 'socially constructed (White
supremacist) determinants' which guide Black
women's emotionality.
Emotions are still seen as controversial in
positivism and as 'anathema to academic
production'. Qualitative researchers often find it
difficult to establish rapport while avoiding
overfamiliarity, and often have to maintain a
social distance especially when writing up their
accounts. She is also aware that knowledge
production is used to maintain a racial hierarchy,
'in societies saturated with racism' [tautology of
course] and so emotions can be 'racialised and
weaponised'. (7)
Jagger argued that there is a hierarchy with
reason dominating emotion and this silences those
who bear emotion who are seen as more biased and
irrational. Children learn this early. There is a
gender dimension and also a racial one, and there
are differences for Black women. The White gaze
explain some of the constraints on agency.
Whiteness is 'totalising and essentialising' and
underpins emotionality and the type that is
permissible. Yancey's White gaze is specific and
fundamental, normalising Black bodies through
White power. This means that any Black women
trying to develop alternative epistemologies or
definitions about emotions can induce White fear
and be seen as a threat, evoking racial disgust
and risking charges of being irrational angry or
biased.
This clearly affects the decision whether to
include emotions, because it risks displaying a
'"natural proclivity towards ire"', which is a
racist assumption (9), inviting White control.
This epistemological racism [referencing Scheurich and Young]
needs to be countered with CRT.
[CRT is summarised in the usual way, 10, and she
says there are no problems applying it outside of
North America. It has offshoots in feminism Latina
and critical mixed race studies to extend the
analysis. She drew on counter ethnographies and
counter narratives, and it is an even more radical
departure from Black feminism because it uses data
to explore experiences and ask questions on a
larger sociological scale of analysis, especially
their experiences and their location 'within wider
institutional and ideological constructions of
anti-Blackness that legitimated racist acts in the
classroom' (11). At the same time, she says that
CRT would benefit by engaging with researchers'
emotions to disrupt 'the totalising and essentialising
force Whiteness plays on emotionality' but this
would be more subtle than just including emotions,
partly because the audience needs to be taken into
account, especially if it claims to be
'post-racial'.
The role of emotions in critical race work is
still under theorised. Rollock had to add a post
script after being criticised for being
emotionally vulnerable and writing a counter
narrative that might harm herself. Living under
White supremacy does involve an 'emotional toll'.
The interplay of emotions must inform analysis
including memories that are now described as
'racial micro-aggressions, misogynoir, and a
Eurocentric/White supremacist curriculum' (12).
This will break the monopoly that Whiteness has on
Black women's emotions as only angry or strong.
Matthias and Zembylas [haven't got that one, but I
do have lots
of other Zembylas] agree that emotions are
not exempt from power relations and that includes
Whiteness [some piece in 2014]. This means that
Black women using CRT have to be strategic with
their emotions if their work is not to be silenced
or ignored, because Whites interpret emotional
encounters with issues of race and racism.
Strategic emotionality here means 'the deliberate
and conscious thought Black women engaging when
considering whether they do or do not, can or
cannot theorise their emotions as part of their
race research and, the extent and type of emotions
they are prepared to reveal' (13). They are aware
that their work can be read as mere identity
politics, or might result in it not being
published, that they might conform to stereotypes.
This is more than 'emotional management' which
goes on in professional work settings, developed
by Hochschild, especially to refer to women and
their emotional labour. This work assumes that all
ethnic minority women are positioned in the same
way, and are unconscious, a matter of social
paranoia. Some Black women are well aware that
there are positions for them.
Racist stereotypes of stoicism and anger have been
connected with femininity, associated with White
women. Implications are that Black women are
always out to identify problems, have bad
attitudes and are generally mean. This could
affect research on race, suggesting some
unavoidable bias, although this is 'somewhat more
muted in England' (16). A recent collection by
Gabriel and Tate explores uncertainty around
expressing emotions and being honest about
impacts, showing weakness. In her own work she was
upset, enraged and disappointed when observing
lessons, especially as teachers tried to re-create
conditions on slave ships or plantations. She was
also 'visibly upset in the viva'. She now realises
that the need to be strong can involve '"flexible,
ever expanding circles of obligation"', a matter
of being complicit in your own powerlessness.
There is also the audience to consider, especially
if there are implications for policy. Emotions
should not be suppressed, if the effects of power
are to be displayed, but these effects need to be
understood better — for example racial dialogue
can suffer if anger and humiliation is countered
with guilt or silence (18).
Sometimes silence is necessary for survival, a
result of double consciousness arising from being
in the HE system and needing to conform. [All this
helps her rationalise her decision not to include
her emotions in the thesis].
The White woman who claimed to feel the anger in
the writing was simply reproducing a racialised
and gendered stereotype, positioning her as angry,
despite her attempts to avoid including her
emotions. She was still being over determined. She
might have been expressing guilt, or an unease
about social class and the workings of equal
opportunities for Black kids. Black women are
aware that they will constantly be greeted with
disbelief if they express anger, even if expressed
as reasonable and thoughtful argument — those are
often seen as really signs of anger anyway, at
best a misidentification of racism.
So, overall, 'there is a racialised emotional tax
Black women must pay' as their complex emotions
are rendered simple manifestations of anger or
strength. This is the risk they face if they
incorporate their emotions in their analysis. They
have a double consciousness, aware of the context
in which they can engage with emotions and to what
extent, and what the consequences might be,
including the impact on the audience.
CRT was useful [she doesn't give many examples of
this wider context]. The main concern is whether
she was right to theorise her emotions and
conclude she was in order to survive properly.
Lots of other Black women apparently agree.
Implications for CRT should be pursued.
[Ends in a damp squib. Substantial implications
for the authenticity of counter narratives of
course. This is the equivalent of the denial of
racism?]
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