Altar de Coricancha: los signos de Viracocha y la marcha de dios por el mundo

Many of my participants made a conscious decision to withdraw from the white institutional space of educational systems because they recognize the harms that these institutions impart on Black people. When these actions are viewed through the white racial

frame, scholars, members of the media, and other individuals often portray these actions as “dropping out.” The connotation associated with dropping out of school is negative, and suggests a failure on the part of the individual. Much academic scholarship is dedicated to discovering risk factors that make a young person more likely to drop out of school (Ginwright 2006; Brown 2008) and much activism and community work is dedicated to mediating the effects of these risk factors to keep young people in school. Conversely, very little scholarship (see Fine 1991; Moore 2008; and Chou et al. 2012) and even less community work focuses on the impact that white institutional space has on students of color and works to reform these spaces. It is clear through my interviews and observations that my participants ascribe a very different meaning to their choices to detach from formal education systems—and this is far from a reflection of their educational aspirations. All but one of my twelve participants

graduated from high school. Both Sage and PaperFrank moved to entirely different states in the middle of their high school career in hopes to find a more suitable educational environment to ensure their scholastic success. Nine of my twelve participants attended some college, and three graduated from college. However, no matter their educational attainment level, all twelve participants expressed an understanding that formal education systems do not operate in their best interest.

Many educational facilities in the U.S. are white institutional spaces, saturated by the white racial frame. These white institutional spaces are sources of spirit murder, or attempts at spirit murder, for many students of color. Patricia Williams (1991:87), critiquing the wording in various law school test questions, writes, “most of these problems require Blacks, women who have been raped, gays and lesbians, to not just re-experience their oppression, but to write

against their personal knowledge…It requires them to devalue their own and others’ humanity for the sake of a grade.” For the young Black men in my study, their early lessons in double consciousness allow them to interpret these attempts at spirit murder in white educational spaces much differently. J.I.D. explains:

To this day like I kinda don’t care about the educational system, off of what they’re teaching. They don’t—you only show people what you want them to see or whatever, and that’s how I feel the educational system is.

For J.I.D., this white institutional space promotes ideas associated with the white racial frame, and that facilitates within him the desire to detach from this system. He understands the confines of the school curriculum and is disinterested in what it has to offer. Chris expresses similar feelings:

I, school, I just felt like when I, as I got older, the information that they were teaching me, the shit that I was getting out of school, and how I was already viewing life, it didn’t match up.

The lessons Chris received in school differed vastly from the lessons he was receiving in Black social space both in his home and in his community. Ultimately, these conflicting messages spurred his detachment in white educational structures.

On top of the spirit murder imparted through white educational spaces, many of my participants describe school curriculum as irrelevant to their life and career aspirations. This, too, contributes to their detachment in these white educational spaces. J.I.D. sums this up succinctly: “all these classes that we learned bro! But I need to learn how to do my taxes!” Sage explains more thoroughly:

I didn’t do my work either. Because I just felt like my, I didn’t know what I was gonna do—end up doing—but I always felt like school wasn’t about to have a hand in it, so like, I just couldn’t focus doing my work and I—like it wasn’t even on purpose really. Somebody would give me my test sheet to fill in the bubbles,

and then by the time the test time is up I’ve drawn all over the sheet and not notice I did it, and then when I do finish I’m like, ah shit like, damn, welp, there goes another zero.

For Sage, despite not having concrete career goals, he knew that the education he was receiving in school was not relevant to his life. This knowledge thus spurred his detachment. Without a clear and relevant purpose for school curriculum, my participants disengaged. Morbid James, who dropped out of school in 8th _{grade, argued that his own aptitude is}

proof of the ineptitude of the educational system:

As far as education is concerned I’m surprised that I’m as smart as I am or as functional as I am, cause if you wanna go on paper I have like, uh, on paper I have like a fucking 8th grade education. But like I’m pretty functional, pretty much know everything I need to know. It kinda makes me look at like, the educational system as like . . . I don’t know. It’s weird.

For Morbid James, the fact that he can function so well in society despite having only an 8th

grade education is indicative of the sheer uselessness of much school curriculum. Conversely, both Nuri and FRKO attended mainstream universities in pursuit of art degrees and dropped out after completing all the courses required for their major. They both viewed the knowledge attained in their art courses as valuable, but had no interest in completing the core

requirements necessary for graduation. Nuri explains:

I was still going, but it was more so to kind of finish what I started. But towards the end, I was like, I’m wasting my time, and I’m wasting money. Because…at Georgia State I was also an art major. And I was taking classes about art history and anything that was art-related, because I had already taken all the drawing classes. That was done. I had nothing left but the boring classes. And that’s where I started to struggle, because it’s hard for that stuff to keep my attention. If I’m in class and nobody’s gonna make me do work, I’m probably gonna end up drawing in class. And that’s what ended up happening a lot.

Nuri was very interested and engaged in his education when it was relevant to his interests, but he lost his desire when he was subjected to the courses that were irrelevant to his interests and

life goals. Similarly, FRKO stopped attending Howard University with around 12 credit hours needed to meet the requirements to graduate. Having already completed the requirements for his art major, he decided paying for a full semester of education out of pocket just to fulfill core requirements was not cost-effective. He had attained the knowledge he needed to continue in pursuit of his career goals and chose not to go into debt to complete irrelevant courses despite the fact that they were necessary to complete his degree.

Many of my participants who started college claim they did so solely because of family pressures. Stevo explains that if he had a valid career option directly after high school, his parents wouldn’t have pushed him to go to college. As his dreams of playing basketball got put on hold after his daughter was born, attending college was the only option:

There wasn’t anything I was interested in that could do right after high school. Had, if I knew something that was, almost for sure, they probably woulda supported it. But if it wasn’t basketball they knew, okay you gotta go to college, do something afterwards. So they were basically like yeah, you gotta go to school.

Stevo’s family painted college as his only option after high school, and he didn’t question them initially. Nuri describes a similar sentiment that his mother imparted on him:

College was kind of a thing that I was forced into doing because my mom was like, well, you can’t just stay here and do anything, you have to go to school or you have to go into the military, but you can’t just do nothing.

Faced with the decision between college and the military, Nuri chose to attend college. He preferred to attend an art school, but the cost of attendance was significantly higher than the more traditional in-state schools, so he opted to start at a junior college and then transfer to a local university. Eventually, for many of my participants who attended college largely because of familial pressures, their desire to please their parents wore off the more they were pressured

to take classes that were irrelevant to their life plans. As I said, all but three of my participants eventually withdrew from their respective universities. The three participants who did

complete their Bachelors degrees—Doc, Venus, and J.I.D.—all graduated from Hampton University together, but insist they learned little to nothing from the institution. Below is an excerpt of dialogue in which they discuss their college experiences:

Doc: I didn’t really care about college. It was a waste of time, for real….I didn’t learn nothing in college.

J.I.D.: I learned more about people…I didn’t care about nothing! Doc: We was wild boys in college. We met J.I.D. in college. Venus: We wasn’t in college at all.

J.I.D.: At all! We weren’t!

Venus: I was in college first semester, when I was an architecture major. That was the only time I was in college. After that, I was no longer in college. Doc: I wasn’t never in college.

As they all graduated from this institution, they all were very clearly enrolled in college. Their rhetoric, claiming that they were not in college, instead suggests their detachment occurred while still enrolled in the institution. Their ability to finish their respective degrees is not indicative of their level of attachment to this white institutional space. In fact, it is indicative of their masterful counter-framing skills. The ability to obtain a degree from an institution—which gives them additional value in our society—while remaining detached throughout their

educational process should be recognized as extremely skillful.

When their stories are given merit over the values and stereotypes created by the white racial frame, actions that would stereotypically be defined as dropping out or having low

educational aspirations appear much more complex. My participants actively chose to

disengage from a system they recognized to be worthless at best, and violent at worst. Assata Shakur (Shakur 1987:136) sums up these incongruities:

And when I think back to some of those kids who were labeled ‘troublemakers’ and ‘problem students,’ I realize that many of them were unsung heroes who fought to maintain some sense of dignity and self-worth.

Here, freedom is found through a counter-frame of detachment from a system they are well aware does not have their best interests at heart. My participants know the value placed on education in our society. They also know they are devalued simply because they are young Black men. Instead of choosing to adhere to the value system created by the white racial frame and increase their value based on these standards, they choose instead to preserve their spirits. In doing so, they reject the notion that they need to engage in particular acts to increase their value. By detaching from these systems, they are advocating their self-worth. They are saying— to themselves and anyone watching—I am valuable as I am. They are placing their health— body, mind, and spirit—above social standards. Yet again, this is a valiant, radical act of resistance.