I enjoyed Shange’s writing style. I liked the way that she weaved her observations in and out of her analyses and discussions. This “storytelling” aspect of her work made the reading very engaging and proved valuable for supporting the larger claims. I also think that another one of her strengths is how connected she was with her subjects and with education and education reform overall.
I think Shange creates an important discussion around social justice reforms that everyone should be aware of. Although reforms are critical for bringing about positive change, their impacts can sometimes lack in ways that we need to recognize. I read a book for my sociology class last semester that reminded me of this discussion. Paul Butler, in Chokehold: Policing Black Men, discusses the ways in which some liberal reform movements are created or influenced by members of powerful groups so that positive change is brought about by their own standards. And thus, structural violence via social control can simply be transformed into more discrete forms. This is not to say that Robeson is trying to perpetuate inequalities at all… just that it is important that we are reflective of our reforms in order to evaluate the way they impact people and what they represent. I think she does a good job of presenting this concept in her discussion of the “education not incarceration” concept, and in the ways that the curriculum is still lacking at Robeson. I do like the way that she acknowledges Robeson, through its successes and shortcomings, as both a strategy for opposition and as a site of struggle. This definitely speaks to the ever dynamic and ongoing nature of creating positive change, and how ethnographies can help us reveal where progress needs to be made.