Lessons in paradise: envisioning a Black liberatory mathematics education

Abstract

I use Toni Morrison’s Paradise as a backdrop for framing a Black Liberatory Fantasy (Martin et al., 2019) that is rooted in what Dumas and ross (Urban Education, 51(4):415-442, 2016) have conceptualized as BlackCrit. The goal of the current undertaking is to evaluate anecdotes of this working idea of paradise, to merge it with more refined ones, and to dream even bigger about what paradise could look like for Black students in mathematics spaces. It is with this backdrop that I proffer how to fashion a Black liberatory mathematics education (BLiME), my conception of paradise, where Black students are expected to exist in their full humanity. I offer up five characteristics that inform the BLiME framework and are an extension of Morrison’s (2019) writings on paradise: beauty, plenty, rest, exclusivity, and eternity. I contend that Ruby, Morrison’s town in Paradise, had elements of these characteristics, but here, BLiME reimagines mathematics education as a full embodiment of what Ruby had the potential to be.