Open AccessEthical Considerations on Representing Slavery in Curriculum
Author(s) -
Bennett Brazelton
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
radical teacher
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1941-0832
pISSN - 0191-4847
DOI - 10.5195/rt.2021.830
Subject(s) - curriculum , action (physics) , psychological intervention , tragedy (event) , historical trauma , economic justice , sociology , critical theory , criminology , epistemology , psychology , law , pedagogy , political science , social science , philosophy , psychotherapist , physics , quantum mechanics , psychiatry
Critical discourse on the role of slavery in U.S. history curriculum has tended to rely on calls for justice through truth and complexity. Yet the “truth” of slavery is almost incomprehensibly violent, constituting a form of “historical trauma”; the resultant instructional methods thus resemble what Berry and Stovall term a “curriculum of tragedy.” Ethical questions emerge regarding this method. Chiefly, if slavery constitutes a “historical trauma,” what are the possibilities of a Trauma-Informed curriculum? What are the responsibilities owed to students and historical subjects? Building from critical interventions in Black Feminist Theory and the work of the Frantz Fanon, I propose curricular interventions that attempt to mediate concurrent dynamics of trauma, pain, mourning, action, and revenge.