Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco by Savannah Shange

Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco Reviews

• 
  Shameka

  If there's one book you should read this entire 2020 year, Savannah Shange's Progressive Dystopia is it.
• 
  Jason Palmer

  This book is perfect anthropology. It is what anthropology should have always been. It gets right into the messy, sticky, controversial bits of lives and life that nobody wants to look at closely because looking at them closely will reveal everyone's complicity in the further solidifying of hierarchies of difference. This book looks at a critical case. A critical case is a specific type of case that, without need of a statistically random sample of the population, can reveal the true extent of a societal problem. For example, if you suspect your society has a problem with fire prevention, look at the home of a single firefighter. If even a firefighter's home has no smoke detectors, your suspicion has been confirmed: your society has a fire prevention problem. In the case of this book, if there is a school in U.S. society that is so radically progressive that it actually teaches that the U.S. is an imperialistic settler-state that has never decolonized anything other than the Philippines (and then only because the Philippines won its independence from the U.S.) and EVEN THAT SCHOOL criminalizes Black cultural norms and exhibits grotesque levels of disproportionality in the quantity of Black girls it fails to graduate, then U.S. society has a problem. Now, is it a problem so deep and harmful that it calls for the complete overthrow of the U.S. as a nation-state? In an environment where white liberal politicians are calling for "American values" and protecting "our democracy" and "ours is a revolution, not a campaign," Shange calls instead for abolition. Abolition of what? That is left largely up to the reader, but I take it to mean abolition of EVERYTHING that was based on the racist regimes upon which the U.S. was founded: borders, The Constitution, the setter-state, etc. I'll admit, I found myself clamoring for answers to practical questions like, where do we start? How can there be a pedagogy designed to abolish U.S. institutions when it is housed within a U.S. institution? How could the attempt produce anything but a progressive dystopia? This book does not answer those questions, but if I had never read it I wouldn't be asking them. So it is a start. This book may well be the start of something big: Abolitionist anthropology. However, this book will only work its magic if you allow yourself to be reflected and refracted within its pages. I loved to hate the character of Aaron until I realized he is probably me. If I am honest, I am Aaron. It is now incumbent upon me to not be Aaron. Every reader will find themselves in this book except for the Kates of the world. They won't realize they are Kate (maybe I'm Kate too?). I gave it 4 stars because I save 5 for absolute life-changers. Maybe I would have given this a 5 had I not read Shange's article Black Girl Ordinary first in Transforming Anthropology, because that article changed my life. Since it was already changed when I read the book, maybe I was expecting too much more of a change? 6 years ago, I would not have understood this book at all. There are certain areas of your brain that have to be unlocked prior to reading or you just aren't going to get this, especially if you are socialized as white in the U.S.. I'm not sure what prerequisites to suggest. Any suggestions?
• 
  Izzy

  Such an important topic of inquiry. The depictions of Robeson were eerily similar to my experiences at YES Prep, and I found it relieving to read Shange explore many of the questions I considered as a teacher in a putatively social justice oriented institution.
  
  “The marginalization of Black staff, students, and families at Robeson is an instantiation of how racialized carceral logic has stretched beyond literal confinement to shape the practice of social justice movements”
  
• 
  Joseph Recupero

  As an anthropologist, this is one of the best ethnographies I have read in a very long time. Poignant , purposeful, and dedicated to the lives of those the anthropologist chose to work with. We are pushed to ask not what is possible, but what is necessary!
• 
  Melissa Fondakowski

  Must read for teachers, non profit workers, and anyone in helping professions
  
  On page 167 in the Questions for Teachers, #5, Shange asks "What does 'teaching for social justice' mean to you?" I think for anyone picking up this book, answering this question before and after you read it will provide you with some good information on how you understand the concept of social justice, and how you see yourself as part/or not part of the movement.
  
  I am not a teacher, I am a non profit workers, so I took the question as "what does believing in and practicing social justice mean to me?" In short, to me it means: to always think about what I don't know or can't see, and to complicate every thought word and deed with that "unseen and unknown" in order to force myself to look at the inculturated and indoctrinated beliefs I hold that I do not even realize I hold. When you become aware of these beliefs, the nature of choice changes. It becomes not merely selecting from a set of options made available to you within your particular inherited rubric, but transforms into a choice to reject the rubric altogether.
  
  In that way, I found this book both validating and challenging, as it unapologetically complicates that when we do things right, there is a high likelihood of unseen collateral damage. Shange's marquee point for me is not that we should therefore stop all social justice efforts because there will always be something we don't see and therefore some damage. Instead we should double down and question/ complicate every single one of those social justice actions/efforts because liberation comes in the process of liberation.
• 
  Joma Clevenger

  4 stars for the ethnography, methodology, the amazing-writing, and for how well and clear the book was organized.
  
  Would have been 3 for the really bad understanding of the state; and therefore an idealist understanding of abolition that defangs Black power.
  
  See: "By examining a series of successful progressive reforms, and what they cost Black communities, I critique “winning” as the dominant logic of social justice work. I ask, “Who loses when ‘we’ win?” not so much to expand the “we” of winning to an ever more inclusive list of deserving subjects, but to ask what becomes impossible when we engage in contest as the primary mode of Black politics—this is the differential between revolution and abolition. Revolution seeks to win control of the state and its resources, while abolition wants to quit playing and raze the stadium of settler-slaver society for good." (p. 3)
  
  "However, the demands of abolition exceed a simple respite from antiblack racism. Abolition is the unreasonable, irreverent wilderness that exceeds and undermines any infrastructural attempt to “develop” its lands, even in the service of revolution. Abolition is not a pathway—it is the end of paths and the end of worlds, a roadblock barring passage to the destination-cum-mirage of late liberal democracy." (65).
• 
  Shá

  This is such a necessary and powerful read. You will find yourself shaking your head the entire time in either resonation, shame, or disappointment. The ethnography reminded me of a limited series podcast I listened to called "Nice White Parents" produced by The New York Times. There is no room for error with a topic this important.
  
  The research was very thorough and supportive. She took an unbiased approach, and while there were times when she added personal opinions, she did give details about her purpose.
  
  A question I found myself asking was should teachers find ways to connect with their students on a
  deeply personal level and is that even possible when there is such an emotional disconnect? Time is one of the biggest complaints (aside from salary) that teachers tend to have. I'm curious what that would look like "if" time were not an issue. Perhaps having a pre-start interview with each student, excluding the parent, to build a bond of sorts before classes start. Teachers meet their students generally on the first day of class (if it's before, that's usually a brief encounter related to picking up textbooks or supplies).
  
  Another ponderance that came to mind is should schools lower their standards and become more lenient on academic rigor for the sake of passing struggling students or should the district increase time with students for individual sessions? Rhetorical, we know the answer. By this, I don't mean making one teacher take on the burden of meeting with 50-100 students, but investing more money into hiring teachers for the sole purpose of being flexible with meeting students. This could cut down on the amount of time that a full-time teacher may need to dedicate to a student so the focus can remain on planning, etc. This could work in theory but, unfortunately, not in practice until more awareness is dedicated to the importance of this effort, which she does a good job of pointing out here.
  
  This book could almost serve as a guide for school districts and teachers to review their own shortcomings. But, the focus isn't on teachers. It's on students; in particular, those that are profiled. The statistics that she pointed out were alarming in how many black students get detention, write-ups, or get put out of the classroom. Subconsciously, many teachers aren't aware that they are part of the problem. For example, seeing a group of black kids huddled together in the hall and assuming they are up to something or becoming easily frightened by loud voices and assuming there is an argument ensuing. This is especially problematic because it carries over into that teacher's home life, or if they switch careers (for example, making these assumptions about the black community at a grocery store or public place).
  
  There were a lot of valid points that she made and her contributions are a great start to inviting more ethnography about school settings.
• 
  Michael Skora

  A deeply sobering but absolutely necessary read on the antiblack and carceral logics within the “progressive dystopia” of a San Francisco high school. The endnotes are also worth a gander.
  
  On the other hand, Shane arguably falls into the trap of “airbrushing revolution for the sake of abolition” as Joy James warns about regarding academic abolition (2020). This is further hampered through, in my opinion, strange conflations of revolution with reformism, taking the rhetoric of Bernie Sanders and other social democrats at their word rather than as a co-option of movements and organizations actually invested in overthrowing the ongoing order of things.
  
  Based on what I’ve read so far from contemporary radical scholarship, I am a bit concerned that that while a lot of advocates for “abolition” and “decolonization” rightly argue against metaphorizing their material aims, there seems to be a comparable lack of articulating the revolutionary implications of such of a process. I am completely against expressing these implications to settle white or bourgeois futurities, but without more deliberate consideration of what abolition or decolonization requires (utter revolution), these discourses feel somewhat constrained to the political economies of academic and activist marketplaces.
  
  This is not to dismiss the insightful contributions of Shange and other scholars, but perhaps the answers I am looking for could not and should not be answered by anyone whose paycheck comes from the academic industrial complex. These questions on revolution, abolition, and decolonization are certainly far more appropriate for the revolutionary who is immediately active in and vulnerable to the struggle, rather than an academic in the Global North (not to say that these two positions were/are mutually exclusive. Walter Rodney in “Groundings With My Brothers” offers a pathbreaking counterexample).
• 
  Brian Conor

  A fantastic abolitionist anthropology that gave me so much to think about. Shange's notion of carceral progressivism (the ways that progressives discursively critique the carceral state but then utilize it to achieve their ends by policing and incarcerating people who "don't embody the values of the movement" (from their perspective)) is hugely powerful in the current moment as Black activists and allies stand up against the police state and its brutality against Black lives. In schools, Shange's analysis has reshaped how I am approaching my own work, as I try to understand the ways that some alternative schools devoted to democracy discursively resist but nonetheless support and maintain hierarchical structures built on presumptions of inequality. Every educator and every education researcher should read this book for the ways it thoroughly addresses and theorizes how multiracial coalitionalism is used to perpetuate antiblackness. If nothing else, the book reminds the reader that one's mission statement is one thing but its actions are where the real values are enacted.
• 
  Z

  As an ethnographer myself, and someone who has both written an ethnography and reads ethnographic texts regularly, Savannah Shange’s book stands out as one of the very best. Her work is rich, powerful, and incisive in how it addresses schooling, notions of progressivism, and the ethnographic approach. She has also written her text in a way that does not separate herself, but through which she is both a part of the site and, as a result, implicated through the argument she deftly crafts. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and am excited to pair it with the NYT/Serial podcast Nice White Parents for a class on activism in education that I am teaching this semester. Shange’s work has provided such an important platform for me and those I’m learning alongside to dig into what it means to “win” (and what it means to *want* to “win”) in “progressive” education, and for this, I’m very thankful to have read this book.
• 
  Jerrod

  Indispensable. Advances important discussions about the reactionary elements of ostensibly progressive projects/campaigns and makes essential additions to the vocabulary of abolition. Also manages to develop some tools for practicing radical anthropology and deftly conveys the depth and messiness of our lived world despite its slim page count.
• 
  Devin Kelly

  Loved + grappled with so much of this and found so much of it doing that difficult labor of witnessing from a place between realized progress and imagined progress. Particularly loved distinctions made between consensus and coalition, and the failures of imagination caused, at times, by a reliance on progressive liberalism.
• 
  Ellie

  MUST READ
  
  If you call yourself antiracist, progressive, or even liberal, read this book! It will lovingly hold you accountable for the ways in which you are still failing in your practices.
• 
  Brad

  A heady ethnography of a San Francisco school that aspires to be a place of liberation while replicating forms and practices of the white supremacist state.
• 
  Tristan

  Caveat: I've never read an ethnography before. If they are all this insightful and brilliantly written, I'm in. Shange shows clearly how many of the structures we create in order to disrupt racism do so incompletely, and in ways that continue to victimize Black students particularly, and students of color generally. “Revolution seeks to win control of the state and its resources, while abolition wants to quit playing and raze the stadium of settler-slaver society for good.”
  
  The book (for me) centers around a Spanish class, a faculty meeting, a fight close to campus and an assembly in response to the fight. Shange describes these events with ongoing commentary drawing on her interviews with students and staff and the work of other anthropologists. I wish I could have Shange follow me around in my classroom for just a day: her ability to link actions, phrases and attitudes with the history of oppression is remarkable.
• 
  Annie

  excellent
• 
  Najla Gomez

  Beautifully written. Hella honest. A call-in to do right by Black students while acknowledging its gonna take the dismantling of the whole system to do it.
• 
  Virginia Downing

  This book has shaped how I want to write and practice research among many things. Being critical of the things we claim as wins matters.
• 
  Ruthanne Hughes

  This was a compelling read. I love Shange's writing style, at once intimate and humorous, and grand-scale and brilliant. She puts her whole self into the writing. Even though I'm not an anthropologist by training, I found it very accessible.
  
  The data she has is fantastic. Kate is sitting with me, with her blatant contradictions that reveal the white supremacy and lust for power still at the heart of many progressive endeavors. I appreciate, too, how Shange's argument is not one against individuals, although she certainly calls them out, but one that links individual and institutional action. Not only do progressive teachers carry these motivations, but on an institutional level "the enactment of policy is still overdetermined by the affective experiences of individual nonblack people, resulting in a pattern of emotionally contingent politics whereby cerebral commitments to racial justice are undermined by nonblack people’s vis- ceral commitment to order" (79).
  
  It was interesting how often the theme of loudness came up. I was struck by Mr. Agusalim's casual assumption that the goal is to "keep the quiet kids safe and the loud kids quiet" (104). This resonated throughout the halls of Robeson: the loud kids don't deserve to be safe, don't deserve to be here; get them out so the good kids can be nurtured. This mindset completely tracks with Robeson's record of expelling Black kids at a higher rate than neighboring schools. I'm in awe of how Shange was able to capture this data and then so brilliantly analyze and explain it, revealing the dystopia undergirding what looks like a beautiful social justice project.
  
  I did not leave this book feeling discouraged, somehow. I feel the kind of relief that comes when you finally pull back the rug on all the dirt you'v been sweeping under there and face the ugly mess you have to clean up. Shange doesn't tie it up with a neat bow, however. She leaves us in the practice, walking the path, pursuing liberation.
• 
  Suzana

  Interesting facts that I learnt.
• 
  Jayon Park

  Shange makes me feel like I know nothing about writing. Absolutely in awe.