Yet, My Mother and Her Mother Knew…Raise Them With Love: Portraits of Black Motherwork and Intergenerational Strategies Used to Counteract the Louisiana School-Prison Nexus

Abstract

Over the last two decades, empirical research has established the presence of a school discipline gap in the United States in which marginalized populations – including gender non-conforming students and students with non-normative sexualities (Chmielewski et al., 2016; Poteat et al., 2016; Snapp & Russell, 2016), students in special education classes, Latinx students, and Black (Barrett et al., 2017; Skiba et al., 2016) students – are disciplined at disproportionate rates. While this gap is present within the aforementioned populations, the greatest effect is on Black students (Office of Civil Rights, 2022). School-to-prison pipeline research contends that school discipline and school drop-out rates serve as a gateway into the juvenile justice system (Barnes & Motz, 2018; Hirschfield, 2008; Mittleman, 2018; Morris & Perry, 2017; Okilwa et al., 2017; Potter et al., 2017; Skiba et al., 2014). With its disparate discipline and high incarceration rates, there is concern for students within the state of Louisiana and the school-to-prison pipeline (Louisiana Public Defender Board, n.d.). According to data collected by the Louisiana Department of Education (n.d.), Black students accounted for the highest percentage of in-school and out-of-school suspensions in comparison to Asian, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, White, and multi-race students during the 2021-2022 school year. Exclusionary practices, specifically expulsions and suspensions, are a primary risk factor that, when combined with other contextual factors, can result in contact with the criminal justice system (Skiba et al., 2014).

While school-to-prison pipeline literature has documented the existence of the gap and analyzed who is being impacted by the gap, germane to this topic are the perspectives of marginalized caregivers. However, there is minimal literature that centers the voice of Black mothers in said context. This work seeks to bridge the gap within the literature by providing Black mothers with a space to share their experiential knowledge. This study explored Black mothers’ praxis in response to school discipline practices and the school-to-prison pipeline. Particularly, I sought to understand how the enactment of discipline at the school level and the context of school in Louisiana shape Black motherwork. This study will not only add the marginalized voices of Black women to current narratives, but it will also problematize existing research that frames Black mothers and children through a pathologizing lens (Moynihan, 1965; Powell & Coles, 2020). This work will present a counter-narrative that stands in contrast to the majoritarian view, which locates the problem within Black children and Black mothers (Moynihan, 1965). There are Black students who overcome institutional barriers such as exclusionary discipline policies within schools. Exploring how this happens, while simultaneously unearthing intergenerational practices Black mothers use to do so, can unlock an alternative pathway through the school-to-prison pipeline for Black children and illustrate how the Black collective transfers knowledge that leads to empowerment, survival, and resistance as a marginalized group.

In order to understand the complexities that have created the school-to-prison nexus and to examine the ways in which some Black mothers have forged a path that have helped them and their children successfully navigate the carceral system within Louisiana, a comprehensive framework that explores the coalescence of anti-Blackness, place, class, and gender within the context of schooling is essential. This body of work draws upon Dumas and ross’ (2016) framing ideas of BlackCrit in addition to dominant themes found within scholarly works of Black Feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, focusing particularly on her nod to communal mothering within the Black community, Black women’s quest to humanize their children, and Black mothers’ acts of resistance against oppressive forces. I draw particularly upon BlackCrit and Black Feminist Thought (BFT) to illustrate the complexities and tensions found within Black motherhood, represented through the conceptual framework which explores Black mothers’ liberatory praxis (Guillory, 2021) and their quest to carve out fugitive spaces within the confines of the racialized South.

Research questions driving this study were explored through intersectional qualitative research (Esposito & Winters, 2022) using Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) portraiture methodology to convey the resilience and liberatory praxis of Black mothers. Data was generated through the completion of diary entries and paired, in-depth interviews. Data analysis revealed that in order to successfully navigate the school-to-prison nexus, study participants engaged their wit and insight, merging “master’s tools” or conventional assimilationist ways of being as a tool of survival with “momma’s tools,” a metaphor representing acts of resistance to defy structures and systems that lead to Black oppression.