The influence of colonialism on education extends beyond geographical borders, manifesting in the imposition of Western educational standards, cultural assimilation, western hegemonic systems of power (patriarchy, classism, elitism, racism, the gender binary, and more), and creation of hierarchical structures that mask underlying colonial conditions [1,6,11,20,21]. Numerous present-day challenges that plague higher education stem from entrenched systems that underpin education as a whole. Consequently, solutions emerging from within these systems often address surface-level symptoms, leaving root causes unattended and perpetuating harm against those historically marginalized by the educational system [20].

In the United States, the last two years have seen on-going attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion through the passage of restrictive and discriminatory legislation, dismantling of affirmative action and Roe v. Wade, and the election and appointment of known white supremacists [2,5,12,18]. Singularly or combined, the lasting impact—a ripple effect—will be felt by society for years to come.

Christina Sharpe's In the Wake: On Blackness and Being [17] engages all of us in a revolutionary analytic approach that disrupts the violent winds of history. Diving deeply into the concept of the wake through the exploration of literal and metaphorical understandings of the ship, hold, and weather, Sharpe paints a disturbingly honest picture of the ever-present impact of the transatlantic slave trade on global colonialism and capitalism.

Although Sharpe does not explicitly mention the computing field or computing education in general, we extend the metaphorical language and contextualize it to make visible the ways anti-Blackness is embedded in computer science from which the legacies of slavery and colonialism cannot be divorced [7,17].

What does this have to do with computing education? Scholar activists, researchers, and practitioners in computing education have made progress in disrupting limiting power structures, but we are facing unprecedented backlash from systems that willfully refuses to acknowledge their exclusionary historical and present practices [7,13,16,23]. We believe that what Sharpe calls wake work is critical in understanding how we can be more impactful through an intellectual renaissance of scientific, technological, educational, cultural, artistic, and political rebirth. This brings us to our focus question for this month.

FOCUS QUESTION: HOW DOES UNDERSTANDING THE PAST INFLUENCE ONE'S COMMITMENT TO "WAKE WORK" IN COMPUTING EDUCATION?

Understanding the Wake

Wake: the track left on the water's surface by a ship; the disturbance caused by a body swimming or moved in water. [17, p. 3]

When the literal and figurative definitions of words come together, their true meaning is understood. Building on the dictionary definitions of the wake, Sharpe takes us back to the middle passage, to the slave ships that brought hundreds of thousands of captured Africans to the Americas and Europe. Through this depiction, we understand that there is a legacy a wake—that has been left behind, and she explains "that to be in the wake is to occupy and to be occupied by the continuous and changing present of slavery's as yet unresolved, unfolding" [17, p. 13–14]. Nothing remains the same in the wake. Everything changes.

The wake is the continued disparities in access, participation, and success of Black students in all levels and fields of computing. The wake is the anti-blackness baked into computing education that devalues Black scholars and scholarly products. The wake is the system that silences those voices that directly challenge dominant structures within computing education and endorse resistant and revolutionary practices [3,4]. We are living in the wake. Nothing remains the same in the wake. Everything changes.

It is this wave, this ripple, this "track left on the water's surface" that we occupy and grapple with each and every day and from where we seek new ways to claim our space. A space consciously grounded in resisting and rebelling against the inevitability of our circumstance.

The Ship, The Hold, The Weather

As we move through the water, the wake is formed by the ship. Whether slave ships moving across the Atlantic Ocean during the Middle Passage or systems such as computing education feeding into the racist, misogynistic, and elitist technology industry, they operate similarly and continue to inflict harm through violence—violence used to maintain control over captives and enforce obedience. This violence is also accompanied by the tenets of anti-Blackness —exclusion, invisibility, and denial of humanity. In computing education, marginalized students and researchers may experience similar forms of exclusion and invisibility, facing barriers to access, representation, resources, and opportunities. Techno-racism, sexual assault, and suicide are becoming all too common discussions with regard to the tech industry [8,9,14], an industry that funds computing education at the level of millions of dollars each year that computing education is designed to feed [10,15,19]. We rarely talk about this danger—this violence—but although it does not leave physical scars, it continues to cause emotional, mental, spiritual, and professional trauma.

Within the ship is the hold, a place where enslaved people are trapped in shackles and many die—a place of confinement and captivity—a place of darkness and hopelessness. Although those of us in the margins of computing education are not physically shackled, we are often professionally shackled while trying to give birth to our ideas. We are encouraged, and sometimes mandated, to deliver our ideas using whitewashed language that all but strips the meaning from the message. We constantly worry about the impact of our work on promotion, awards, job security, and now more than ever, our physical safety.

The ship is also operating within, and adjusting to, the weather … the climate… a culture of anti-Blackness. The environment of computing education perpetuates forms of atmospheric violence, sexism, racism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination which create hostile weather patterns on the ship and in the hold. Weather patterns teach us about climate, which evokes thoughts of patterns within and caused by a system. Understanding weather patterns, and anticipating change is what allows the ship to continue to move forward, while the oppressed and marginalized remain locked in the hold. Weather can change in minutes or hours or from day to day, month to month, or year to year, but climate is slow to shift, and requires sustained and consistent action over time. Jones Melo [6] summarize the weather as a system [that] is "accurately rigged…because, unlike in natural weather forecasts, the weathermen are also the ones who make it rain." It is not a singular weather event that impacts our response. It is the prolonged patterns of atmospheric violence (overlapping systems of discrimination) that impacts our physical and mental well-being.

As the ship continues to move forward navigating the weather, what of us in the hold? Our work must find sunlight, for we are not destined for obscurity.

We Work in the Wake

"The question for theory is how to live in the wake of slavery in slavery's afterlives, the afterlife of property, how, in short, to inhabit and rupture this episteme with their, with our, knowable lives." [16, p. 50]

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Wake work reminds us that the past is not the past but ever present, ever emerging, ever reemerging. It honors the ancestors.

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We continue to work in the wake. It honors the ancestors. It acknowledges those present with us. It makes a place for those coming after us. It is the work of caring. It is wake work.

Wake work insists that we not reproduce Black erasure for the sake of remaining in alignment with the rules, policies, and laws of the ship. It reimagines the possibility of birthing while in the hold, seeking to birth that which is disruptive, necessary, and resistant. It reimagines what is possible given the weather and offers care in the weather for self and others. And most importantly, wake work reminds us that the past is not the past but ever present, ever emerging, ever reemerging. It honors the ancestors.

• You found parts of your ancestors inside you,
• In your dance, in your poems, in your language
• You found parts, bits and pieces of your ancestors
• Even those that drowned in the ocean. [21]

Wake work in computing education requires new modes and methods of research, teaching, dissemination, and access. It calls for both the individual and collective efforts of those in the margins to resist and create meaning within the context of the ship, the hold, and the weather. It calls for co-habitation in the historic and present violence of slavery despite the ship, hold or the weather. We may not be able to change the condition, but we can reimagine how we work.

Check back in December when we will share stories of the wake work of our colleagues.

References

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16. Ross, M. 2023. Let's have that Conversation: How Limited Epistemological Beliefs Exacerbate Inequities and will Continue to be a Barrier to Broadening Participation. TOCE 23, 2 (2023), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3578270.

17. Sharpe, C. 2016. In The Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke University Press.

18. Sherman, M. 2023. Divided Supreme Court outlaws affirmative action in college admissions, says race can't be used. Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-race-f83d6318017ec9b9029b12ee2256e744; accessed 30 Apr 2024.

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22. Umebinyuo, I. 2016. Questions for Ada. Ijeoma Umebinyuo.

23. Washington, N., Cobb Payton, F., McAlear, F., Chapman, G., Diaz, L. 2021. Dismantling the Master's House: Effective Allyship, Advocacy, and Activism for Women in Computing. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (Virtual Event, USA) (SIGCSE '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 604–605. https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432564

Authors

Pamela Leggett-Robinson
PLR Consulting
Atlanta, GA, USA
[email protected]

Tamara Pearson
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA, USA
[email protected]

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