Mapping the Contours: African Perspectives on Anti Blackness and Black Racism

This edited collection examines the significance and implications of anti-Black racism and anti-African racisms for schooling and education in African contexts. It seeks to address the following questions: How do we speak about race, racism and anti-Black racism in Africa? In what ways do practices of anti-Black racism converge and diverge from anti-African racism? How might we understand anti-Black racism in majority Black countries? How does anti-Black racism connect with interstices of difference (i.e., class, gender, sexuality, ability, language, religion, etc.) to offer complex readings of social oppression and resistance in African contexts? In the face of silencing courage, denials, deflection and organized push back we must reflect on the dialectic of theory and practice in schooling and education to respond to global anti-Black racism. Papers in this edited collection will explore the connections and possibilities of decolonial pedagogies and critical anti-racist practice to respond to the specificity of anti-Black and anti-African racism. In a current context of the globalization of anti-Black racism there is a need for a more nuanced examination of anti-Black and anti-African racisms in order to develop more effective ways of addressing systemic colonial oppressions. The various chapters examine the ways anti-Black and anti-African racisms are rooted in African histories of European colonialization and enslavement, African cultural and political narratives as well as spiritual memories of African existential realities, and the continuing existence of Black life and the African humanhood today.