Tumba en el Alto de los Ídolos Por Cristina Toro (2013)

DuBois (1903) describes the first moment that he felt a twinge of double consciousness as being spurred by an interaction with a white classmate in his majority-white elementary school, in which he was the only Black student. All of the students had begun exchanging small cards with each other, and a white classmate refused to accept one that he attempted to give her. He (DuBois 1903:4) explains, “It dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.” Similarly, my participants have experienced moments of clarity regarding the presence of the white racial frame through interactions that occurred in white spaces. Nuri connects his experiences with interpersonal racism in his predominantly white neighborhood directly with knowledge of the presence of structural racism and the white racial frame:

We had to deal with people riding by in pickup trucks saying ‘nigger’ and uh, just, white people in general being real bold in terms of how they acted towards Black people…. Some people, they grow up in this bubble where they feel like oh, you know, it’s a post-racial society, and people don’t really think this way anymore, but we knew, like, that’s not true. We grew up, and we deal with this stuff every day. Especially living in the South…. We were always made aware of this…. If you just watch what’s going on around you, you can see it. Every day. As a black person, you experience it every day on some level, in one form or another.

For Nuri, these racist interactions and experiences that occur in white social space reify the lessons his mother imparted on him as a young child. They confirm the existence of racism that she warned him and his brother about. These experiences work in tandem with the messages received in Black social spaces to foster the development of stable double consciousness.

Similarly, Doc describes an experience that occurred in white institutional space when his mother decided to send him to a majority-white middle school after he attended a majority- Black elementary school:

They wasn’t really, to be honest, fuckin’ with the Black students there that much. All the Black kids [that] was getting put in the gifted class was having problems with the teacher…by the time we finished 6th _{grade, half the kids that came in—}

the Black kids—just got out the gifted program altogether.

Doc goes on to explain that not only did he return to a majority Black school for high school, but his parents chose to enroll all his younger siblings in majority Black schools for middle school to avoid the racialized experiences that he had in white institutional space. He credits many of the racist experiences he had in middle school with fostering an understanding of the pervasiveness of white supremacy in our society. These instances brought to life the lessons he learned from his parents regarding the white racial frame.

Sage, Lawrence, and Nuri all describe similar experiences in schools that represented white institutional space, and all three of them made the decision—with their parents—to attend more inclusive, less oppressive schools after their negative experiences. For Sage and Lawrence, this happened later, in high school. For Nuri, this happened much earlier, after changing elementary schools:

It was a lot of instances where we were treated differently because of our being Black, so I didn’t like it, you know, it wasn’t something I was used to. I liked to be around more people that was like me because I felt more comfortable…. I

remember during lunchtime…each day, one kid was responsible for cleaning the tables after [lunch]. But I would always notice that it was Black kids that were being asked to clean the tables, more so than it was anybody else. And it would happen like every day.

Nuri and his siblings entered this school after their family moved from Atlanta to a suburb of the city. Their previous school had a student population that was majority Black. Their new school served a majority-white student body. Nuri was immediately aware of the differences in treatment from the school employees, and describes above the discomfort that manifested for him in this white institutional space. He continues on, expounding on the difficulties he encountered in this white space:

Not only that, but like the white kids were kinda like bullies, and they would try to bully us, but you know, comin’ from the community we came from, you wasn’t gonna tolerate that. We were there for a couple weeks and we was like, “mama, we can’t do this school because if we stay here, we gonna be fighting every day. And you don’t want that either.” So, we ended up going back to our old school.

Not only did Nuri experience acts of spirit murder in this white institutional space, but he and his siblings were also subjected to increased physical violence from white students. Even at this young age, Nuri and his siblings utilized the double consciousness their mother had fostered within them to advocate for a different, less oppressive school environment. These experiences made tangible the lessons their mother had taught them about white supremacy, and their prior experiences in predominantly Black schools devoid of these traumas allowed them to understand that there was an alternative option.

Both Lawrence and Sage also described getting into several fights in their majority white schools as a result of an act/acts of interpersonal racism. Often, these instances led them to be punished by their school. Stevo also attended a majority white school through high school and,

while he does not describe getting in any fights himself, he observes the differences in punishment for different students based on their race:

I remember these two white guys got into a fight or something like that and they got like 3 days ISS—in school suspension. And these two Black girls got into a fight and they were suspended for a week. Like. From school. And I’m just like, what?… Blood wasn’t drawn in either fight, like it was identical except [it was] two Black women [and] two white guys.

Even if the instances did not impact them personally, these observations of institutional racism served to foster the development of stable double consciousness in my participants. Stevo recognized the differences in punishment and knew that these discrepancies were racialized.

These observations and personal experiences do not only occur within a school setting. Morbid James describes an experience with a police officer in a shopping center when he was a teenager. He and a friend were stopped and questioned after allegedly displaying suspicious behavior in a store. The police officers asked them to review the security camera footage recorded in the store:

So we’re watching the tape, and [the officer] is like voicing us over? In these mock, like, Black voices. And he just kept saying all this shit, and like, and like, quoting like, rap lyrics, and he was just being a dick. [He] was like, ‘I love when y’all wear y’all pants like that, cause y’all can’t fucking run nowhere’ and saying like, ‘How you feel about your thug life now?’ And all this other stupid shit.

This experience offered Morbid James a clear view into the ways in which the white racial frame permeates ideologies regarding Black individuals in the U.S. Although this occurred when he was a teenager, these experiences followed him and the rest of my participants well into adulthood. They’ve been racially profiled while shopping in high-end stores, had many negative interactions with police officers, and had their professional credibility questioned, just to name a few of these experiences. These interactions, facilitated by the white racial frame in both

white social and institutional space, often prompted critical thinking in the minds of my participants, which further stabilized the development of their double consciousness. Each racist interaction or observation served as another example in their minds of the pervasiveness of the white racial frame, and a clear indicator of how the white racial frame impacts the ways in which others perceive and interact with them.