Ginwright, S. A. (2004). Black in school: Afrocentric reform, urban reform, and the promise of hip-hop culture. Columbia , New York : Teachers College Press. (ISBN: 0-8077-4431-X, 157 pages)

 Troy D. Allen, Ph.D.

Shawn Anthony Ginwright is an assistant professor of sociology and ethnic studies at Santa Clara University in California .[i] Ginwright’s new book, Black in School: Afrocentric reform, urban youth, and the promise of hip-hop culture, provides a provocative, challenge and sometimes disturbing view of the plight of poor urban youth in America ’s inner-city public schools. Examining the city of Oakland, more specifically West Oakland, Ginwright takes his readers on a journey through the history of race, class, ideology, migration patterns, housing patterns, de-industrialization, racism, drugs, violence, hopes, dreams and failures all culminating at McClymond High School in West Oakland. The battles for community involvement, community control, and the lives of the people who were affected by those battles serve as the center for which the rest of the book revolves around. The struggle for reform efforts at McClymond serves to illustrate the many problems in urban schools, while also modeling successful coalitions and strategies for more positive outcomes.  

Ginwright’s work is an eight-chapter book that attempts to provide a comprehensive story about the Afrocentric transformation of McClymond high school in West Oakland , California , which became designated an “Afrocentric” high school in 1992. Chapter one traces the historical development of the Afrocentric movement. While chapter two attempts to locate the Afrocentric movement in the broader context of urban education. Chapter three examines the historical, social, and political forces that have shaped the city of Oakland . Chapter four reveals how the working class residents come to view the Oakland Unified School District . In addition, this chapter provides a glimpse of life in West Oakland , at McClymond High, primarily through the lenses of parent, teachers, and students. Chapter five examines the Afrocentric reform initiative at McClymond High School , along with the various diagnoses of the problems by differing stakeholders such as, community residents, professional educational consultants, teachers and school administrators. Chapter six gives a more detailed look at the implementation process, and its multiple challenges and obstacles. Chapter seven discusses the Afrocentric initiative and offers the authors explanation of why the project failed. Chapter eight offers an alternative Afrocentric model for the hip-hop generation.  

According to Ginwright, the book has three overall purposes. One is to understand the community forces that thwart or promote Afrocentric educational reform in urban schools located in low-income communities, and to highlight how Black middle class leaders in one urban community shaped Afrocentric education in a way that was disconnected from the experiences of working class African-American youth. Secondly, the book provides a comprehensive story about how McClymond High School (Mac) became designated as an Afrocentric school in 1992 and its subsequent outcomes. And finally Ginwright hopes to highlight how the Afrocentric reform movement might be modified to better meet the needs of youth from lower income working class communities. Ultimately Ginwright’s work is an attempt to expand the current Afrocentric theory and strategies by considering the impact of social class on Afrocentric education. Additionally, he would like Afrocentric reformers to develop a more complete model of African-American youth identity that extends beyond race, encompasses class, gender and sexuality. Along with, engaging in a meaningful way the obstacles and environment that many young black poor urban youth must navigate. Ginwright acknowledges that he is an advocate of African-centered approaches to educating African-American children. Additionally, he is concerned that the “Black Middle Class” has defined many of the solutions designed to help poor and working class Blacks without adequately including their input.  

A key component and selling point of Ginwright’s work is his critique of Afrocentric education. Ginwright questions Afrocentric education on three premises; first, how does Afrocentric reform prepare students to address issues in their lives outside the context of school? Second, how do youth themselves respond to Afrocentric curriculum? Third, how does Afrocentric education translate to higher education performance? While his work does not answer any of these questions beyond anecdote and a singular case study, it may be a result of his lack of familiarity with the current and historical literature around the Afrocentric movement. Consequently, Ginwright’s historical narrative on Black Nationalism and Afrocentrism comprise the weakest aspect of this work. His discourse on Black Nationalism is littered with dated sources, historical gaps and narrow interpretations. Ginwright uses his sources in this area with very little analysis and critique. For example, he states that Mulana Karenga founded a cultural nationalist organization called US-United Slaves. A close read of this historical time period reveals that it was other groups such as the Black Panthers who would later label the group US as United Slaves. Ginwright historical narrative of what he defines as Afrocentrism mirrors the work of Stephen Howe and Mary Lefkowitz so closely that its use as a foundational support for a critique of any Afrocentric position becomes inherently suspect and misinformed.[ii] The use of these types of sources to define “Afrocentrism” not only indicates a bias and but can lead to erroneous conclusions by the author. Even more glaring was Ginwright’s use of Molefi Asante’s government name, to borrow a phrase from the hip-hop vernacular is clearly a sign of disrespect and hostility.[iii] Afrocentrism is the word primarily used by opponents and critics of the Afrocentric movement. Ginwright uses Afrocentric, African-centered, and Afrocentrism seemly interchangeably without illustrating a clear distinction. He rails that the Afrocentric idea is static, sexist, and fails to adequately incorporate a class analysis. Yet he offers little new to the Afrocentric theory that he had hoped to expand. Also Ginwright fails to deal clearly with of issue of racial identity and the nexus of class consciousness.  

The strength of Ginwright’s work revolves around the narrative that recounts the history of West Oakland , and specifically about the struggle for education reform at McClymond High School .  The story of those struggles at McClymond are very compelling, frustrating, and disturbing. Ginwright details how the loss of jobs, work, drugs and violence destroyed a community and interrupted the educational opportunities of the students. Ginwright’s work provides an excellent analysis of how these various historical and contemporary social factors interact to create substantial barriers to higher educational achievement for urban students. McClymond High was situated in a school district (OSUD) in financial crisis and was the owner of habitually poor performance rating. Armed with a scathing report on the inner failings of the system, Black parents and community members were not only able to prevent the closing of McClymond but also to push for a strong reform initiative to enhance academic performance.  

In 1987, as a result of a racial incident that had occurred at a Junior High School in West Oakland a network of grassroots community organizations came together to establish BUFFER- Black United Front For Educational Reform. Led by Oscar Wright their mission was “to promote equality, justice, and equal access in education for Black children in Oakland .”  Comprised of black working class parents, community activists, church members and clergy, the organization worked together to gather documentation that OSUD, had by designed, tracked Black students into low performance classes that led to an academic dead end. Consequently, BUFFER developed its own plan to deal with suspensions, expulsions, and low academic performances that were a result of institutionalized racist practices and behavior. Ultimately, BUFFER pinpointed the major concerns that they wished to address, which were: academic performance and equal access to education-college preparatory courses.  

As a result of their activities BUFFER’s profile grew in stature. Soon BUFFER found itself with new members who were willing to assist them in their quest for equity in education. Many of them were lawyers, professionals, and educators. Shortly after they joined the organization these middle-class blacks assumed leadership positions and steered the organization in a direction that provided a diagnosis and solutions that were counter to what the original indigenous community members had sought. If Ginwright’s work had concluded with the struggle of BUFFER and the Oakland Unified School District and the perceived battles of class and racial consciousness in the Black community he would have given his readers a text worthy of serious consideration. Particularly, since it was released during the Fiftieth Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Ginwright’s work can be used to clearly illustrate the impact of Brown on educational system in California , specifically Oakland . In addition, this work should have and can be used to demonstrate both the successes and failures of Brown outside of the “South”. By failing to connect the dots to Brown, Ginwright misses an opportunity to illustrate how integration created many the problems the Black community currently faces, such as failing schools and even the growth of the Black middle-class and this group’s racial anxiety which provides much of the backdrop for the story he tells.  

While Ginwright’s narrative about the struggle for school reform in Oakland is a central component of his work, apparently he has “bigger fish to fry.” Ginwright saves much of his criticism toward scholars in the Afrocentric movement, Afrocentric theory, and attempted Afrocentric educational reform. Much of the personal criticism is directed at Wade Nobles a psychology professor in the Department of Black Studies at San Francisco State University who became a leader in BUFFER. According to Ginwright, Nobles parlayed his leadership in BUFFER to the head consultant and architect of the Afrocentric reform movement at McClymond High. Nobles entered into a contract with OUSD that lasted three years, from June 1992 until July1995. During that time, Nobles attempted to transform McClymond into an “Afrocentric school.” Ginwright acknowledges that Nobles faced an uphill battle from the beginning from external and internal forces. Externally Nobles face a reluctant school board, teachers who were not invested in the success of the program, and community concerns about spending areas. A phrase that was frequently used by Nobles was that “we are building a plane, while we’re flying it.” Internally, Ginwright cites the fact he believes that the project operated from an oversimplified model of youth identity, and that the black middle class members of BUFFER developed a reform strategy that did not address the immediate pressing concerns and needs of the school. A more important, focus for Ginwright was the money that was allocated to create an Afrocentric school. While many community members lamented the fact that those resources could have been used to make a difference in the lives of students but were apparently squandered; Ginwright believes that this was a case of identity for sale. The only note in the entire book refers to the amount of money that was allocated to Nobles and the communities silence on the issue.  

Ultimately, Ginwright’s work mandates that those who are involved with urban youth, and school reform recognize and acknowledge the myriad of forces that poor young people face, before, during and after school. Therefore a “one size fits all” to school reform will continue to be plagued with more failures than successes. Ginwright is at his best when he is writing about the OUSD, educational theory and the potential for hip-hop to be used as a teaching tool. Scholars, Community Activists, and educators should take a look at this work with a critical eye.  

Footnotes  

1 Shawn A. Ginwright holds a doctor of philosophy degree in education from the University of California, Berkeley , CA (May 1999). His bachelor or arts and master of arts degrees are from San Diego State University in communication. Ginwright has previously published: “Classed Out: The Challenge of Social Class in Black Community Change” in Social Problems (2002, volume 49, pages 544 - 562) and “Identity for Sale : The use of racial and cultural identity in urban school reform” in Urban Review (1999, volume 32, pages 87 - 104).  

2 Howe. S. (1998). Afrocentrism: Mythical pasts and imagined homes.  New York:  Verso Press.  Lefokowitz, M. (1996).Not out of Africa:  How Afrocentrism became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History.  New York:  Basic Books.  Curiously, these sources do not appear in Ginwright's earlier work, Identity for Sale (dissertation and Urban Review article).  Therefore, one can assume he recently became familiar with them; however, many of the polemical arguments put forth by these works on "Afrocentrism" have been addressed and critiques.  A good source for Ginwright to start with a more balanced narrative of the "Afrocentrism" is, Afrotopis:  The Roots of African-American Popular History by Wilson J. Moses (1998, Cambridge University Press).

3 See Brown, S.  (2003). Fighting for us: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization and Black Culture Nationalism. New York : NYU Press. It is strange that on page 14 of his work, Ginwright refers to Molefi Asante by his governmental name while on the same page he lists Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, and Maulana Karenga without any reference to a name change. This is problematic for Ginwright to use this type of a backhand swipe to the author of over 50 texts and a central figure in the Afrocentric movement.  

About the Author:  Dr. Troy D. Allen is an associate professor in the Department of History at Southern University in Baton Rouge , Louisiana . His scholarly interests include ancient Egypt, nineteenth century African American History, and Afrocentric theory. Address correspondence to the author at Department of History, Southern University – Baton Rouge , P.O. Box 10092 , Baton Rouge , LA   70813-0092 USA ; e-mail Tallen1012@aol.com.