Racing Culture

Critical race theory, culture wars, anti/Blackness, and in/formal education in the 1990s

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v16i2.186979

Keywords:

culture wars, Blackness, critical race theory, formal education, informal education

Abstract

In this conceptual paper, we argue that many episodes of the so-called culture wars of the 1990s in the U.S. can be better understood as attacks on Blackness. We illuminate this contention via critical race theory, specifically, three of its propositions, racial realism, intersectionality, and counter storytelling. Through a Black perspective, we recast key societal episodes that unfolded in both formal and informal educational spaces: 1) the scapegoating of hip hop, specifically Sister Souljah, for systemic racism; 2) Lani Guinier’s Assistant Attorney General nomination revocation; and 3) the Oakland Ebonics Debate. This analysis demonstrates that the notion of the culture wars reflects a pivotal tension between Black, often gendered, modes of expression and dominant US culture that operates under the guise of morality. To end, we illustrate the current relevance of these enduring issues in a hip hop-informed, prison-based literacy initiative and the curricular prohibition of African American studies.

Author Biographies

ArCasia D. James-Gallaway, Texas A&M University

ArCasia D. James-Gallaway, PhD, is an interdisciplinary historian of education in the Teaching, Learning, and Culture Department at Texas A&M University, where she works as an assistant professor and a faculty affiliate in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program. Her work bridges past and present perspectives on African Americans’ struggle for educational justice. She is the recent recipient of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education’s 2024 Early Career Award of Merit. Her scholarship has been supported by the Ford Foundation, American Educational Research Association, Texas State Historical Association, Baylor University, and Texas A&M University. Her first book project, Ordinary Sites: Blackness, Gender, and Class in 1970s Texas School Desegregation, is the first dedicated to Black Texas students’ experiences with pre-collegiate school desegregation.

Chaddrick D. James-Gallaway, Texas A&M University

Chaddrick D. James-Gallaway, PhD, is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University in the Department of Educational Administration and Human Resource Development. A sociologist of education, he primarily examines (anti)Blackness, race, racism, and the racialized experiences of Students of Color across P-20 educational contexts. Advancing the emerging methodology of critical race discourse analysis, Dr. James-Gallaway is a qualitative researcher and critical race theorist, who investigates how racism impacts cross-racial interactions and critical geographies of race. Recently elected Chair of the American Educational Research Association’s special interest group, Sociology of Education, he has published in leading journals, including Teachers College Record, Human Communication Research, Educational Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Race Ethnicity and Education.

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Published

2025-04-30

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 2 (2025)

Section

Teaching in Contentious Times: Black Consciousness, History Education, and Policy

License

Copyright (c) 2025 ArCasia D. James-Gallaway, Chaddrick D. James-Gallaway

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