“They fear us knowing too much”: a composite counterstory on black caregivers’ feelings toward teaching race and black history

Amid contemporary legislative efforts aimed to restrict the teaching of race-related topics and Black history in PK-12 public schools, the perspectives of Black caregivers are often excluded from educational policy decisions. In response to this erasure, I draw from Critical Race Theory and composite counterstorytelling as both theoretical and methodological frameworks to center Black caregivers’ feelings on the teaching of Black history and race in their children’s U.S. history courses, and as educators of these topics at home and in Black communal spaces. Presented through a composite counterstory, the findings reveal that caregivers draw on their racialized emotions as both a rationale for the inclusion of Black history and race in school curricula and as a pedagogical tool to teach their children about race and antiBlackness. The caregivers’ discussions of emotions also challenge dominant societal narratives surrounding Black emotionality.