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Campus Rebellion and Plantation Politics: The Continued

Search for Racial Equity in U.S. Higher Education

In the newest edition of Critical Race Theory in Education, Garret Albert Duncan

(2017) writes, “Contemporary forms of racial oppression and inequality are

expressions of allochronic discourses that inform ‘ontological Blackness,’ or the

Blackness that whiteness created as Western civilization began to emerge as a

prominent force in the world” (p. 67). Allochronism, rejects the contemporaneous

existence of object and subject, and therefore places the object in another time.

That is to say that Black people are seen, understood, and treated by others as

existing in a space that is not contemporary, but rather situated in material and

nonmaterial realities of time and place as originally defined by their captors

centuries ago. In essence, Black people are seen as savage, and non-human, and

having a “debilitated mental capacity” (John, 1999, p. 45). As a result, the

policies, programs, and realities of today’s white supremacist society act and

reproduce in accordance to the racist epistemologies of another; perhaps, what we

might call a single longitudinal racial formation project (Omi & Winant, 1994).

While maybe this concept of allochronism is not new to anthropology, Duncan

brings this anthropological concept into the educational fold to provide us an apt

language to explore the phenomenon more clearly. If the goal of revealing and

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critiquing allochronism is to bring into better alignment time and place, or co-

evalness, then the project of a Plantation Politic is to define the ways in which the

organization of a plantation society for all its economic, religious, and social

implications continues to inform the ways in which higher education as a system

perpetuates white supremacy and racial hierarchies. Through utilizing the critical

race theory tenet of counternarrative and story telling, Duncan posits that we bring

into alignment space and time and move toward liberation for Black people. The

goal for today’s interactive symposium is to begin to define the Plantation Politic

as a framework for exploring these parallel structures, explicate application of the

theory to a select set of contemporary campus realities, and open the room to

critique of the “model.”

In my introduction, I’ll attempt to provide a broadly-stroked explanation of the

model and the modern formations of higher education through the discussion of

slave codes, the main legal doctrine that held slavery in place and its link to

modern day neoliberal university formations. I will then introduce the topics our

panelists will explore. After that, we have a few discussion questions for each of

our panelists to engage with you all on and we’ll return to a broader Q&A and

sharing session.

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A project such as this allows one to begin to paint parallels between time and place

and illuminate the ways that allochronism works to make normal the

dehumanization of Black people in modern times. Craig Steven Wilder (2013)

provides us with an extensive history of the ways that higher education were quite

literally built on the backs of Native peoples and Black slaves starting in the

1600’s (this book should be required reading for all students of the field). Wilder

(2013) writes that “Colleges were imperial instruments akin to armories and forts,

a part of the colonial garrison with the specific responsibilities to train ministers

and missionaries, convert indigenous peoples and soften cultural resistance, and

extend European rule over foreign nations” (P. 33). The project of white

supremacy in this country, and globally was born out of colonial competition

between European nation-states in order to extend religious rule, build economy,

and a redefinition of politics based in Machiavellianism that defined State as a

“sovereign body politic ruled by a government exerting definite power over its

people” (Dessens, 2003, p. 9).

The plantation as a social system, as defined by Thomas J Durant, Jr. (1999), is

defined as an “orderly and systematic social unity composed of identifiable and

interdependent parts (social structure) and social processes” (p. 5). Born out of

economic, cultural, and political necessity, as defined by multiple waves of

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colonial rulers, slave plantations burgeoned to maintain colonial dominance at the

sake of Black humanhood and body. This social system, perpetuated for decades,

may be defined as the origin of race relations in the United States (Durant, 1999)

including white supremacy, interracial conflict, a white upper class, racial

segregation, and the institutionalized racial norms that exist in higher education

today.

Understanding the organization of plantations involves understanding nine

structural elements and six social processes that I will explain briefly. Structural

elements include:

1. Knowledge or the beliefs of what are thought to be true

2. Sentiment or expressive feelings between two people

3. Goals of the objective of slavery

4. Norms or the rules that govern and control behavior

5. Status or the positions in a social unit

6. Rank or the arrangement of power into a social hierarchy

7. Power or the capacity to control others

8. Sanctions or the allocation given based on conformity or nonconformity

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9. And Facility or the types of material technology, resources or means used to

obtain an end

Processual Elements include:

1. Communication or how information, decisions or directives are transmitted

2. Boundary Maintenance or attempts to protect the solidarity of the system

from outside change

3. Systematic linkages or the way multiple systems are linked together

4. Socialization or the processes of cultural norm transmission

5. Social control or the way deviancy is eliminated, reduced, or rendered

harmless

6. And Institutionalization or the process through which organizations are

made stable, predictable, and persistent.

Durant (1999) argued that slave plantations are characterized by: (a) import of

slaves and control by whites; (b) forced exploitation of labor resulting in acquired

wealth, power, profit, and prestige; (c) slaves as chattel property; (d) social caste

system with little upward mobility (e) racially stratified division of labor with

whites at the top and Blacks at the bottom; (f) strict system of governance

employing control mechanisms; (g) “slave and non-slave subsystems, represented

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by emerging social institutions such as family, economy, education politics, and

religion” (p. 5); and (g) a structure that required continual adaptation to internal

and external forces. The parallels are incriminatory and it is clear that slave

plantation politics can serve as an apt framework from which to view the

university.

If we look at campus environments through the lens of Durant’s slave plantation,

this helps us better understand (1) the ways enslaved Africans and slave plantations

were fundamental to the creation of some university campuses; (2) how the

exploitation of Black peoples’ physical and emotional labor continues to be central

to the economic workings of universities; and (3) how the vestiges of plantation

culture and life influence modern university culture, climate, and structures of

power. Using this framework we are able to examine the interactions between

institutional leaders and campus protestors (students, faculty, and/or staff) in order

to understand the power differentials embedded in these interactions. We can

explore how the technologies used to create plantation life are similar to those

technologies used to sustain higher education institutions, and the ways these work

to produce racial inequities and hostile racial environments that give rise to campus

rebellions. Finally, we can better understand how employing control mechanisms

that seek to repress campus rebellions, may reinforce white supremacy, limit

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freedoms, and continue to oppress Black lives. While plantation life has been

vigorously studied for its heterogeneity of system determined by geography, crop,

individual slave-owner, and time (Blassingame, 1979), there are broad

commonalities and trends much as there are broad characteristics and movements

of today’s higher education system. The nuance of place, time, and purpose opens

up interstices for future exploration.

Per broad example of the framework, I would like to share what I am calling The

oxymoronic social existence of whites (or neoliberalism as the new Slave

Code).

Beverly John (1999) explored the social psychology of slaveholders by examining

what she calls the “oxymoronic social existence of whites.” Throughout history,

white people created a hegemonic understanding of “the power of the slaveholding

planter class to construct reality in a fashion that justified their every action” (p.

45). Through these hegemonic understandings however, there are inherent

contradictions, or oxymoronic social realities. For instance, slaves were seen as

non-human savages and yet made to take care of the children and homes. Slaves

were also seen to have a “debilitated mental capacity” yet there is much research

which proves that slaves worked toward their liberation constantly. Essentially,

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there was a disconnect between the reality of white life and the notions of

humanhood that whites created for Black people. In order to maintain order, the

authors of law created slave codes to maintain order and punish any dissenters. The

name of the game was white supremacy, the rules were slave codes, and the game

board was the plantation. Through this lens, one may examine today’s

contradictions in diversity work, often shaped by neoliberal logics and actions that

simultaneously dehumanize and provide moderated space for Black people to

engage in the educational enterprise. Today’s game is the commodification of

bodies of color for economic gain, the rules are neoliberal diversity rhetoric and

action, and the game board is your college or university.

When slavery was heading toward its formal end, some white religious leaders

publicly wanted to free Blacks (and sometimes provide religious education for

them). However, there was a realization that freeing Black people gives them

potential power equal to whites. Now, they thought, the only thing that separated

Blacks and whites was skin color. At the same time, whites needed Blacks in order

to run their plantations. Ultimately, Blacks couldn’t be free, or else whites would

go broke. How can we do both, they asked? If we watch Ava Duvernay’s 13th on

Netflix (and do if you haven’t), we see how chattel slavery has been redesigned

through the prison industrial complex to maintain many aspects of our economy.

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However, if we apply this same logic to today’s campuses, we may also illuminate

some ways in which additional parallels exist.

We recognize many neoliberal contradictions (Harvey, 2005; Patel, 2015) in

today's colleges, though they wouldn’t have called them that four centuries ago. In

today’s neoliberal organizing of higher education, we might identify institutional

maneuvers that do just enough to keep Black students here on our campuses and

subdue activist movements while at the same time dehumanizing them. These

potential dehumanizations include 1) commodifying their bodies in marketing

booklets and other visible recruitment materials knowing well that students are

looking for "diverse" campus contexts in their college choice processes, 2) utilizing

numerical statistics to look good in campus ranking booklets, 3) increasing good

publicity for those high numbers, and 4) utilizing bodies of color for economic

gain vis a vis tuition dollars in an growing diverse country. These are some of the

economic drivers that require universities to continue to engage in a double-down

of the commodification of bodies of color. At the same time, we utilize terms

which harken to an allochronistic understanding of Black people such as at-risk,

unprepared, and remedial, along with other social stereotypes of Black people such

as dangerous. We also treat Black students, faculty, and staff as lesser than and

without respect, marginalize them, overtax them, and showcase them. In these few

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comparisons, we begin to see how white mindsets about Black people (and the

want to rectify this reality by some) is reinforced and reified in campus action.

Put simply, white people who run our universities need Black people to attend their

universities in order to stay open; however, that doesn’t remove the mindset with

which white people think about and treat Black people. And while some people

would have liked to free the slaves or give Black people humanizing education,

neoliberal action and policy or “slave codes” work to continually commodify

bodies and quell controversy.

Slave codes were laws enacted on a state-by-state basis that determined the rules

and regulations for owning slaves and slave behavior that were punishable by fine

or corporal punishment if not followed. Thinking of diversity through a neoliberal

lens reveals the ways that universities still function as upholders of slave codes.

Slave codes dictated life on the plantation through restriction of movement,

education, behavior, and also dictated behavior for slave owners or those who

opposed slavery. Importantly, slave codes were created in order to quell possible

uprisings.

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Today, universities tout diversity and inclusion policies despite the continued

cultural environments that perpetuate white supremacy and the dehumanization of

people of color aptly rendering those policies powerless. Neoliberal action and

policy determines the types of coursework and the presence of Black faculty and

staff through many mechanisms including alumni giving-power and scholarly

publishing normativity. Neoliberalism militarized our campus police forces such

as when Sam Dubose was killed by a University of Cincinnati police officer. The

officer’s logic probably assumed Dubose was dangerous and ripe for uprising.

Neoliberalism thrives off fiscal austerity of necessary congregation spaces and

services for communities of color thriving in a white supremacist society, battering

down the walls of these micro-climates of safety. Neoliberalism also provides just

enough leeway for Black people to breath and have a sense of humanity when the

campus creates diversity task forces, invites speakers to campus, and conducts

climate surveys...but only just enough room to maintain order “nothing abrasive to

the public harmony or divisive in civil affairs could be tolerated in the curriculum

or the culture of a student body” (Wilder, 2013, p. 267). More broadly speaking,

society’s neoliberal rhetoric regarding the necessity of a college degree to maintain

upward mobility and the reality of “the college degree is the new high school

diploma” places higher education at the center of an economic enterprise that

easily allows administrators to take advantage of the attendees and “keeps them in

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place” through hegemonic notions of “success.” In these ways, we can see parallels

between humanhood, reality, and the slave codes that hold the economic state of

higher education in place. Through this view, we pull together the structural

elements of knowledge, sentiment, goal, status, sanction, and facility. Through

processional elements, we pull together boundary maintenance, systematic

linkages, socialization, social control, and institutionalization.

I leave us with a quote from Wilder’s Ebony and Ivy where he writes about a

sermon given by Reverend Benjamin Wadsworth, future president of Harvard

University. Wilder writes that Wadsworth told his congregation to not “‘pinch’

their servants by denying them the food, drink, clothing, medical attention, and

periods of rest necessary to their health. They should give their slaves time for

prayer and private contemplation, give them to God and pray for them, and let

them read the bible and other books that would enhance their faith...Keep them

busy enough to avoid sin, but not so exhausted as to impair their well-being…

[choose] the mildest penalty that would effectively cure the fault, remembering

that a good master needed neither tyranny nor terror” (p. 129).