Feeling the Threat of Race in Education: Exploring the Cultural Politics of Emotions in CRT-Ban Political Discourses

Recent attacks on critical race theory (CRT) aim to limit discussion and understanding of race (and its intersection with class, gender, and power). Racial dialogues can be uncomfortable for those who benefit from power, suggesting that resistance to CRT or any discussion of race and power in education is rooted in emotions. This study examines the role of racialized emotions in public policy discourse that surrounds CRT bans in education that have been proposed, and in many cases, passed across the United States. Focusing on four early-adopting states of the bans, the findings reveal how emotionalities of whiteness are tacitly endorsed, invited, and animated within racialized politics, as well as how these emotionalities might be disrupted.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

-Aristotle
The power of history is often best measured by the emotions it elicits and how much it forces people to rethink what they thought they knew.
CritiCal race theory (CRT) is an interdisciplinary framework that attends to the intersection of race, law, and society (Delgado & Stefancic, 1993).Since its founding in legal studies, it has gained momentum as an innovative theory and methodology in the humanities and social sciences for its ability to offer a structural approach to analyzing racism while leveraging the experiential knowledge of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).Among its analytical tenets are the ideas that racism is systemic/institutional and continues to be significant (Delgado & Stefancic, 1993).Media commentators and conservative politicians have strategically equated CRT with racism itself through a concerted disinformation campaign that claims that CRT targets white people and is intentionally racially inflammatory (Crenshaw, 2021). 1 Such fundamental distortions of CRT have marked it the latest "boogeyman" in schools and society at large (Crenshaw, 2021;Jayakumar, 2022).
CRT scholars explain these distortions as a definitional subversion of CRT (Cobb, 2021), transmuting CRT into a catchall category of "divisive concepts" that sow fear, discomfort, and resentment among parents and voters (Hatzipanagos, 2021).The political appropriation of CRT is openly boasted about by Christopher Rufo, a key architect (Hatzipanagos, 2021), highlighting how anti-CRT policy is part of a broader political effort that amplifies racialized emotions to maintain a white-supremacist, capitalist society.Key to CRT bans is the censorship of BIPOC perspectives and knowledge and the restriction of meaningful discussion of racism and colonial violence (Crenshaw, 2021;Hextrum et al., 2022;Jayakumar, 2022).
Race-conscious and racism-conscious education can be uncomfortable for those who benefit from power (Leonardo & Porter, 2010;Lynn, 1999). 2 White students often avoid discussing racism given its potential for emotional discomfort, which suggests that resistance to CRT or any discussion of power in education is rooted in racialized emotions (Matias & Zembylas, 2014).However, acknowledging these emotional dynamics enables more effective antiracist pedagogies, teaching, and curricula (Matias et al., 2017).Policy concerning curriculum and instruction plays a key role in enabling or suppressing this approach to learning, as it provides educators with educational parameters and guidance.
This study explores underexamined connections between educational politics and racialized emotions in CRT-ban discourses that pertain to both K-12 and higher education.It is motivated by the following question: How do discourses that surround CRT bans reveal and speak to racialized emotions?The research underscores the racialized dynamics of education policy (Gillborn, 2005(Gillborn, , 2014;;Guinier, 2004;Vue, 2021a), highlighting discourse as a key site in the production of racial meaning and politics (Arellano & Vue, 2019;Briscoe & Khalifa, 2015;Casellas, 2022;Iverson, 2005;Moses et al., 2019;Paguyo & Moses, 2011).The salience of emotions in the actual language of anti-CRT legislation points toward the need to understand its role in the political dynamics that surround education policy, especially those concerning race in education.Research on emotions in the classroom has been instrumental in illuminating white people's racialized emotions, how they operate, and implications for teacher-educators, learning, and knowledge formation (Matias, 2016a;Matias et al., 2016;Matias & Zembylas, 2014).Historically, however, such emotional dynamics have not been a prime focus in education policy studies.Whereas recent studies have examined how emotion is employed in the language of proposed and enacted legislation, newspaper reporting, and online commentary (Sheppard, 2023), how educators emotionally navigate social and political issues (Grosland & Matias, 2023), and how faculty experience and respond to the emotionally charged policy environment in the classroom (Liou & Alvara, 2021), the current study focuses on racialized emotion within public debates among policy makers.A focus on emotions helps us to understand the invisible dynamics shaping policy creation and how racialized emotions undergird actors' sentiments about race-conscious policy.Thus, this investigation seeks to understand how racialized emotional dynamics affect-that is, are taken up by and take shape in-political discourse, particularly in policies regarding racism-conscious curricula.
Divesting racial politics of emotional evasion begins with acknowledging the affective component that motivates this effort (i.e., why we feel the need to do this work).As researchers committed to equity, we feel a deep sense of responsibility to shine light on the politics of racial exclusion that animates anti-CRT discourses and how that maintains an education and social system that operates against the collective interests of those marginalized by racism, classism, and cisheteropatriarchy.As such, we engage in this study embracing the idea that research specifically, and knowledge generally, is always political (Dillard, 2000;Jayakumar & Adamian, 2015) in hopes of being able to bring different perspectives to bear on policy.We thus leverage the capacity to be guided by such sentiments and principles, a key value of critical policy analysis (Diem et al., 2014).
The sections that follow begin with the policy context of CRT bans, focusing on the sociopolitical climate under the 45th presidential administration-which we do not name to subvert its conceptual salience-as well as the genesis, scope, and potential implications of the bans.The conceptual framework connects emotions to racialized politics to provide a critical approach to policy research that highlights (a) the role of power, racialized discourse, and racial ideology in education policy and politics, and (b) the broader affective political context that perpetuates racial inequity in education policy.Revealing these dynamics is important in a national context where the discourse of the political right has sought to appeal to, rather than confront, the masses who increasingly exhibit tolerance for racism, sexism, and transphobia/homophobia.This context presents challenges for education equity efforts and demands analytical attention to racialized emotions and their intersections with class and gender in the political dynamics of educational reform efforts.This section is followed by an overview of critical race discourse analysis (CRDA) and the methods employed to explore racialized emotions in education policy discourse within the context of legislative sessions in four early-adopting states.The findings reveal how emotionalities of whiteness (Matias, 2016a) are tacitly endorsed, invited, and animated within racialized politics and indicate ways to disrupt these emotionalities.

Policy Context
The social and political climate leading up to and during the 45th presidential administration influenced the debates on CRT, and it is the culmination of a longer political project on the right (Powell, 2020) that represents a larger, deepseated white-supremacist ideology that subsumes the person of the president (Leonardo, 2020).The sociopolitical climate of the 45th administration, marked by white rage, resentment, and anxiety, most recently built on the white backlash to Barack Obama's presidency (Donnor, 2020) but is rooted in a long, racist history.Embodying a hybrid of overt and subtle racism in his speech, the 45th president unabashedly appeals to and thus externalizes what Leonardo (2020) describes as "decades of built-up white ressentiment" (p.24).Nonetheless, his racist rhetoric has had an emboldening effect among those who hold racist views (Newman et al., 2021) and his election has been correlated with a surge in hate crimes (Rushin & Edwards, 2018).A majority of adults reported that the 45th president made race relations worse since taking office (56%) and that it had become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views, (65% Pew Research Center, 2019).Under this president, the nation also saw increasing political polarization (Pew Research Center, 2021).The shift in sociopolitical conditions has led to increased psychological distress among minoritized groups (Albright & Hurd, 2020).
The discourse of the 45th president is indicative of an evolution in white speech and the ideology of whiteness that is characterized by both race-evasiveness and a consciousness of white identity (Jayakumar & Adamian, 2017;Leonardo, 2020).Race-evasiveness is an ideology that refuses to address racism by minimizing racism as applying only to select individuals and instances and by promoting forms of individualism and meritocracy that oppose the purported "special treatment" of groups-which always happen to be read as BIPOC-affiliated (Annamma et al., 2017;Bonilla-Silva, 2006).This discourse codes characteristics and terms (e.g., "urban" or "underperformance") as racial without naming race because identifying race is purportedly racist.And yet, race-evasiveness aids in reinforcing the emergence of a white race-consciousness that politicizes and mobilizes white identity (Leonardo, 2020).The emergence of whiteness as a public identity helps to mobilize claims of white victimhood that are undergirded by white people's "felt minoritized identity" (Leonardo, 2020, p. 27) and sense of collective persecution (Jayakumar et al., 2021).This new whitecentered discourse and ideology is relevant to the racialized politics that surround CRT bans.
Recent attacks on CRT followed closely on the heels of growing support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, including multiracial protests in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020, as well as efforts like The New York Times 1619 Project, which re-examines slavery in the United States and its consequences while highlighting the contributions of Black Americans (The New York Times, 2019).In particular, CRT bans are inextricably linked to Executive Order 13950 (EO13950), which was issued in September 2020, on the cusp of the 2020 presidential election.EO13950 prohibited federal contractors and subcontractors from providing workplace diversity training/programs, falsely asserting that they promote divisiveness through "anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating" and a whole host of concepts that allegedly cause white people to "feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress" (Exec. Order No. 13950, 2020).The language and allegations are rooted in race-evasiveness that, as previously described, enable the mobilization of white claims of injury.This federal action had an immediate chilling effect, with some higher-education institutions responding by canceling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (Flaherty, 2020).While the Biden administration has revoked EO13950 and replaced it with a new executive order (EO13985, 2021) aimed to advance equity, EO13950's language and claims had already had a far-reaching influence.
At the writing of this article at least 42 states had introduced bills (many times adopting EO13950's language) or had taken other steps that would restrict the teaching of CRT or limit discussion of racism and/or sexism, and 16 states had already imposed these bans and restrictions (Schwartz, 2021).These laws have halted the formation of diversity, inclusion, and equity programs and training around unconscious bias (Bauer, 2021;Flaherty, 2020;Pendharkar, 2021).They have also constrained the capacity of teachers to effectively engage students in conversations about race.A RAND study found that about one quarter of educators surveyed reported that limitations on how to address topics related to race or gender in the classroom have influenced their choice of curriculum materials or instructional practices (Woo et al., 2023), highlighting that the bans have circumscribed educational content in ways that can curb discussions about the historical importance of race in the United States.For example, teachers have expressed "frustration about misconceptions around CRT"; "worry that they might be falsely accused of teaching CRT when talking about issues related to race, figures who are people of color, or history"; and report "feeling greater hesitancy about exposing students to the notion of same-sex marriage and different kinds of family structures, using instructional content that featured characters who identify as LGBTQ+, and displaying LGBTQ+-affirming symbols like pride flags in their classrooms" (Woo et al., 2023, pp. 11-12).The politicization of race in the curriculum is a job-related stressor for K-12 educators that harms educators' (and students') well-being, worsens their perceptions of school climate, and influences their decision to leave their jobs (Woo et al., 2022).
While a majority of the bans focus on K-12 education, some of these laws have direct implications for higher education.For example, some withhold funding for institutions that are deemed noncompliant (Idaho HB377, Oklahoma HB 2988), thereby constraining education equity work.These laws limit higher education's production of knowledge about social issues and phenomena as well as academic discourse that has been deemed "divisive" (Iftikar et al., 2022).Moreover, some researchers have also posited that such bans could potentially constrain Title IV policies, programs, and efforts (Iftikar et al., 2022).Collectively, such restrictions and penalties highlight ways that CRT bans proscribe attempts by students, educators, and institutions to advance equity in education.

The Nexus of Interest "Divergences" and Racialized Emotions: A Conceptual Framework
Because it is an unnatural phenomenon, white supremacy, which could be described as a set of cultural and institutional practices that confer power to white people, requires continual maintenance (Bell, 1980(Bell, , 1993)).The conceptual framework of this interdisciplinary study draws connections between racialized emotions and racial politics in the maintenance of white supremacy.This discussion proceeds by discussing interest divergence as a divide-and-conquer strategy in racial politics that is fueled by white racism and racialized emotions.Homing in on racialized emotions through interest divergence reveals how the political commitment to white supremacy is activated by (a) evoking white feelings of threat to animate support for the maintenance of hierarchies of power and (b) holding emoting subjects in contempt when they do not abide by the rules governing racialized feeling that are already established in a white-supremacist structure.This theoretical context critically situates racism in education policy at the nexus of racialized politics and racialized emotions while also addressing how white supremacy codifies white racialized emotions into law.
Emotions are essential to U.S. politics because the United States is a racialized society.Bonilla-Silva (2019) explains, "race cannot come to life without being infused with emotions, thus, racialized actors feel the emotional weight of their categorical location" (p.2).This idea is pertinent to the concept of interest divergence, which focuses on how race "has been converted into a tool of division and distraction" to undermine racial justice (Guinier, 2004, p. 99).Interest divergence is central to understanding the evershifting terrain of racism and the limits of previous racial reform efforts (Guinier, 2004).Guinier (2004) notes, politicians "have successfully used racial rhetoric to code American politics to this day and who continue to solidify the original bargain between poor and wealthy southern whites" (p.103).This bargain hinges on a feeling of racial superiority among economically marginalized white people over BIPOC individuals (Bell, 1980;Guinier, 2004).Preserving whiteness' psychological benefits has been a defining feature of U.S. racial politics (Bell, 1980;Guinier, 2004) and is one that has had grave economic consequences (Roediger, 2017).Indeed, when economic conditions worsen, race is increasingly likely to be mobilized to secure white commitment to white supremacy (Gillborn, 2014).Political tactics that appeal to white people's racial prejudices (i.e., racial demagoguery) serve both to amplify the divergence of racial interests and to cloak the substantial costs of class-based divergences, as can be seen in neoliberal policies that contribute to the widening wealth gap between the working and upper classes).Such racialized political dynamics have been significant in maintaining the durability of whiteness (Bell, 1980;Gillborn, 2005Gillborn, , 2014;;Guinier, 2004).

Evoking an Affective Logic of Whiteness
Homing in on the role of racialized emotions in interest-divergence politics reveals the affective logic of whiteness-that is, the emotional reasoning used in the effort to maintain white supremacy at all costs, including through class and gender oppression.The political environment underscores the point that emotions are rational and produce affective interests (Bonilla-Silva, 2019).For example, when viewed through an affective logic, working-class white people's and white women's approval of the 45th president is completely rational because he provided "emotional appeasement" around racialized anxieties (Bonilla-Silva, 2019), even though his economic policies primarily benefited the wealthy (Zeitz, 2017) and his overt objectification and casual references to sexual assault served to normalize gender oppression (Filipovic, 2016).In particular, the president's campaign promises to "build a wall" against Mexican and Central and Latin American immigrants and to "make America great again" appealed to white racialized anxieties, while also connecting to white Christian nationalism, an ideology that conflates white, Christian, and national identities and, therefore, deems BIPOC individuals, non-Christians, and entering migrants as threats to the U.S. nation-state and its racial order (Gorski & Perry, 2022).White people's racialized emotions are based on unfounded fears (Bonilla-Silva, 2019), but they are nevertheless instrumental in policy, politics, and everyday life.
The affective logic of whiteness evokes specific kinds of individual and collective embodiment in a racialized society.The notion of embodiment captures how bodies are always already infused with historical, social, and cultural forces (Kim, 2016;Yancy, 2016) so that each racial encounter and the feelings that are produced are never simply "individual" and "new," but rather emerges from histories of association (Ahmed, 2004).The methods by which the 45th president and other political leaders emotionally appease white people underscore how discourse works to "attribu[te] 'others' as the 'sources' of our feelings" (Ahmed, 2004, p. 1).When marked as the "source" of white feelings, racialized "others" become the objects in which emotions are embodied, such that the racialized white subject who experiences those emotions is normalized.In other words, white people are not required to interrogate the actual source of their feelings.Feeling hate, for example, is transmuted so that the endarkened object of hate also becomes the source of hate.Such discourses give license not only to feel hate, disgust, or resentment, for example, but also to freely express and enact these emotions (see, for example, Newman et al., 2021;Rushin & Edwards, 2018).
The racialized emotional boundaries that are drawn through the affective logic of whiteness also map onto social, historical, and political boundaries that inform the nation-state.Discourses, like that of the 45th president among others, highlight the permanence of racialized "others" in marking the emotional boundaries that solidify who is legible and capable of embodying a nation (see Scott, 1998).For example, such discourses invite select bodies to bond around a shared sense of peril that purportedly faces the nation while positioning other bodies outside of this collective imagining; these alternative (and always endarkened) bodies are bound up with and call to mind a contradictory national history that is based in race and racism.And as such, this history reveals an uncomfortable truth.Eliciting racialized feelings, such as fear, capitalizes on the limited socialization of white people that prevents them from being able to see beyond their own distorted [emotional] reality (Mills, 1997) or to feel with or for BIPOC individuals (Matias, 2016a).Racialized emotions translate to how bodies are defined and treated and are thus interconnected with the collective aspect of emotional embodiment.

Maintaining Racialized Feeling Rules
An affective logic of whiteness is intertwined with maintaining norms around feelings, including what feelings are allowed and disallowed.Such affective norms are called feeling rules (Hochschild, 1983(Hochschild, /2003;;Sauer, 2019;Zembylas, 2021).Racialized feeling rules prioritize and give power to white feelings (racial superiority, racial injury, etc.).In the United States, emotionalities of whiteness-the patterned racialized emotions that surface when white people engage in race-related discourse-produce "hegemonic emotional domination" (Matias, 2016a).While all individuals experience racialized emotions, a hierarchical structure of feelings attends to, cares for, considers, and even privileges the dominant group's emotions/emotionality (Bonilla-Silva, 2019;Matias, 2016a).An example of white emotional domination is the immediate attention given to white women's tears (Accapadi, 2007), which are humanized, legitimated, and deemed worthy of sympathy (Matias, 2016a).In contrast, the emotions of BIPOC individuals are delegitimized as suspect (Bonilla-Silva, 2019) and seen as subhuman (Matias, 2016a).
These emotional priorities take shape in both daily interactions and structures, which create comfort for white individuals and engender violence toward BIPOC individuals.Racialized emotional dynamics are evident in racial dialogues, which arouse white anger, fear, and guilt (DiAngelo, 2011) and frequently are structured to prioritize white comfort and safety as a result (Leonardo & Porter, 2010).Nonetheless, white resistance to confronting racism provokes emotional responses, exhibiting such hysteria that white people and whiteness become recentered in conversations of race (Matias et al., 2016).In other cases, white people use socially acceptable language such as expressions of love and care that are rooted in race-evasive ideologies; this discursive strategy serves to dismiss racism and show empathy while masking feelings of disgust (Matias et al., 2016).Hartman (1997) contends that white empathy is an exercise in the imagination that masks racial violence toward BIPOC individuals and stimulates emotions of arousal, pleasure, and enjoyment.White emotionality often shifts the dialogues surrounding racism, which both circumvents the issue and reproduces harms experienced by BIPOC individuals (Matias, 2016a).
This dynamic silences BIPOC individuals since any emotional expression is expected to accommodate white comfort, and noncompliance with this racialized emotional rule runs the risk of being disciplined.To mitigate harm resulting from the social and emotional policing of BIPOC individuals under the white-supremacist state, Black boys are taught to suppress anger when stopped by law enforcement (Mahadevan et al., 2020).These practices resemble those recounted by enslaved African people who displayed outward enjoyment and happiness to appease white emotions (Hartman, 1997).When BIPOC individuals express feelings that challenge white supremacy, they are held in contempt, trivialized, or made into a spectacle that serves to diminish and distract from their grievances (e.g., Brown & Harlow, 2019;Jones & Norwood, 2016;Steinmetz, 2020).Black rage, hooks (1995) explains, has been pathologized and construed as madness instead of a reasonable response to unjust societal practices.This pathologizing is central to sustaining a white-supremacist state by targeting those who resist (Davis & Ernst, 2017).
Law and policy are not only complicit in maintaining the legitimacy and care of emotionalities of whiteness but also instrumental in thwarting answerability to BIPOC communities.Jayakumar (2022) notes, "gaslighting is embedded within the logics of a legal system focused on normalizing what Alan Freeman calls the 'perpetrator perspective'" (p. 6).Emotional dynamics that benefit white people are legitimated through the protection of the law.CRT bans are just one example of a "structural strategy" that is able to "leverage a legal system and social norms that cater to white defensiveness and white comfort, to facilitate the creation and maintenance of inequitable schooling structures" (Jayakumar & Kohli, 2023, p. 97).Harris (1993) explains that through the legal legitimization of whiteness, there remains an expectation of power and control that "enshrine[s] the status quo" (p.1715).These laws, whether in the historically legalized institution of chattel slavery or contemporary bans on racism-conscious curricula, work to control, limit, and extinguish the full range of BIPOC emotions, especially when they present, or even simply are felt to present, challenges to white people's feelings.Thus, the law codifies white people's racialized emotions.
The complexities of living relationally within a racialized society mean that white people's racialized emotions are characterized "by guilt, defensiveness, anger, sadness, shame, and/or discomfort" (Matias, 2016a, p. 7).Preserving the lure of whiteness involves maintaining its emotional comforts and enabling one to feel good about one's own identity while feeling sympathy/ pity, disgust, hate, and/or anger toward others, among other emotions.Eradicating racial inequity requires sharing the emotional burden of race, which involves substantively engaging in dialogue around racism (Matias & Allen, 2013).However, the emotionality of whiteness blocks discourse and dialogues of race and racism that could support creating the possibility for a liberatory future when it goes unaddressed (Matias et al., 2016).
To summarize the conceptual framework, racialized emotions and the relations they produce come alive and have meaning through affective encounters, where "particular histories are reopened" (Ahmed, 2004, p. 54).These histories involve the matrixes of white supremacy and coloniality and their intersections with capitalism and cisheteropatriarchy.When wielded as a political tool in the service of white supremacy, racialized emotions (re)create comfort and legitimization for white people while creating violence and unbelonging for BIPOC individuals and communities.These dynamics reconstruct BIPOC individuals, as emoting subjects within a race-evasive national narrative, into a national problem (Kim, 2016).Racialized emotions offer nuance around examinations of interest divergence, particularly the affective interests of white people and how these are invoked, engaged, and animated in political discourse and education policy.
The current analysis involves a close reading of public policy discourse to examine the kinds of emotions that are tacitly endorsed, invited, and animated within racialized politics, homing in on "what they do" (Ahmed, 2004)-that is, their materiality (Bonilla-Silva, 2019).In other words, the examination seeks to understand the ways public discourses speak to (and/or intervene in) the affective logic of whiteness (e.g., the maintenance of whiteness regardless of its cost, how certain people become the object of love/hate/ etc.) and racialized feeling rules that legitimize some feelings and not others.Related to examining to the materiality of affect in racialized politics is understanding that these discourses and their arguments-whether for or against-CRT bans must be understood as themselves emotional, even if presented as "objective" or "rational" and in advocacy of objectivity and rationality.

Methodology: CRDA
This study uses CRDA to examine public discourses that surround CRT bans.Briscoe and Khalifa (2015) have shown that CRDA is at the intersection of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2005;van Dijk, 1993) and critical race methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).This critical intersection illuminates the relationships between race, discourses, and power.CRDA enables a micro-level examination of discourse in its various forms (e.g., text, verbal speech, semiotics) to understand how it reifies, adapts, or counteracts hegemonic ideologies.Studies that have examined institutional discourses show how policy documents, such as diversity agendas and equity reports, engender racialized meanings with implications for educational equity (Casellas, 2022;Iverson, 2005).
Other research has demonstrated the continuing need to explore the multiple competing discourses while interrogating issues of access to the processes that shape discourses about race, diversity, and equity (Arellano & Vue, 2019;Briscoe & Khalifa, 2015;Dumas, 2013;Freidus, 2022;Hernández, 2022;Moses et al., 2019;Paguyo & Moses, 2011;Vue, 2021a;Vue et al., 2017).CRDA acknowledges that dominant groups possess more societal resources to legitimize their social reality while subverting those of others (van Dijk, 1993).Critical race methodology disrupts the privileging of dominant group perspectives.Grounded in racial realism, critical race methodology centers on BIPOC community knowledge and stories that challenge dominant racial discourses (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).
This study examines both dominant discourses (pro-ban) and counter-discourses (opponents of bans) that inform CRT bans, drawing on legislative sessions as a key site for discursive contestation of race, racism, and racial ideology as well as its interplay with racialized emotions as it concerns education policy.Importantly, these so-called CRT bans do not actually address CRT or any version that is recognizable by its founders (Cobb, 2021;Crenshaw, 2021;Hatzipanagos, 2021).Rather, these bans are geared toward silencing all discussion of race, gender, and power.As legislation/state action directly addresses race, CRT-ban discourses are ideal for illuminating racialized emotions.While bills are colloquially referred to in the public and the media as CRT bans, many laws do not contain the term "CRT" (Johnson et al., 2022).Finally, anti-CRT legislation may be difficult to pinpoint given that it may be subsumed within a larger legislative bill (e.g., in Tennessee) or was introduced in later phases (as occurred in Oklahoma).
The primary data come from legislative sessions where politicians comment on, debate, and ultimately vote on the laws.This study uses nonparticipant observation (Spradley, 1980) outlined by Vue (2021a) to examine state legislative organizations' video recordings.Vue (2021a) suggests that recordings of public testimonies serve in documenting social, cultural, and political life.Examining school board meetings, Vue (2021a) demonstrated how public discourses within school board meetings can be understood as a site of reproduction/resistance to dominant understandings of race and education as well as a pedagogical space that engages public learning.Like school board meetings, which are open to the public and the press and documented in public records, legislative sessions provide an opportunity to examine the ways elected representatives participate in politics regarding education.Likewise, legislative session discourse can be understood as not only directed at other public officials with voting power in education policy decisions but also to a larger audience of constituents (Vue, 2021a).This study extends the analysis of political discourse as a site for understanding racialized emotions.Within the legislative sessions, emotions spread-most notably, excitement and the contagiousness of fear among proponents of the bans as well as the growing concern, among opponents of the ban, for how such bans would encourage racialized violence.Such contextual dynamics undergird the current focus: how emotions are taken up and deployed by different actors.
The data for the analysis come from purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990) of four states: Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.All four states are early adopters of-that is, among the first states to enact-CRT bans.We were interested in early-adopting states because these states' discourses would likely inform those in other states advancing similar laws.In addition, their momentum came from the increased national scrutiny on CRT, as they all passed legislation within 1 year of EO13950.Beginning with Education Week's map tracking CRT bans (Schwartz, 2021) as an initial source to cross-reference with https://legiscan.com,we identified states that had passed and signed into law (i.e., no veto was exercised) state legislation, in the form of a bill or resolution banning CRT within education in 2021.Once states that met these inclusion criteria were identified (N = 9), we systematically reviewed the states' legislative websites to locate video recordings that contained discussion of these bills and resolutions.From the seven states that had relevant videos archived, we selected four for analysis in this article based on early adoption (as stated), geographic diversity, and level of education addressed in state bans.
Collectively, these states include the West, Midwest, Southwest, and Southeast regions of the United States as well as states where laws solely targeted K-12 schools (ND and TN) and states that also implicated postsecondary institutions (ID and OK).While limited to these states, the analysis yields insight into racialized emotions in CRT-ban discourses.
In reviewing the four states' legislative websites we identified nine relevant legislative sessions (including House, Senate, and committee sessions), which serve as the primary data.The legislative session recordings were retrieved, viewed, transcribed, and analyzed (Supplemental Appendix Table 1 in the online version of the journal).Since we were focused on discourse, we only included sessions and segments where substantive discourse specific to the bill, including the discussion of merits and flaws of the proposed legislation and rationales for or against, was present.For example, we did not include instances that only included procedural points such as counting votes, assignment to a subcommittee, noting chairpersons, and the like.In total, the transcripts capture 480 minutes (6 hours and 35 minutes) of dialogue involving 99 speakers (excluding clerks).Descriptive characteristics of speakers quoted in the study (Supplemental Appendix Table 2 in the online version of the journal) comprise (a) speaker self-identification within the session and/or within their legislative profiles and (b) phenotype to code for speaker race; the latter is consistent with the conventions of previous research (Haslerig et al., 2020) and were used in the absence of a self-identification.Given the diversity of our backgrounds the authors of this study share a "healthy skepticism of racial attributions" (Haslerig et al., 2020, p. 280).
Using a combination of coding procedures, such as emotions coding and values coding (Saldaña, 2009), we analyzed the discourses surrounding the ban (see Supplemental Appendix Table 3 in the online version of the journal for examples of codes).In terms of values coding, we used race-evasive ideology (Bonilla-Silva, 2006) tenets in conjunction with in vivo codes (i.e., inductive codes grounded in the data).For emotions coding, we coded for implicit and explicit instances; explicit instances refer to when emotions such as laughter or crying are both observed and discussed, while implicit instances refer to when discourse is interpreted as invoking or eliciting an emotion without explicitly discussing or naming an emotion.Even as we describe our approach to coding, we acknowledge it is not possible to capture all emotions and values.Finally, we coded when substantive (i.e., nonprocedural) comments were for, against, and neutral regarding CRT bans.For and against comments were often explicit; however, in some instances, endorsement or opposition was inferred based on the content of the comments or the line of questioning that challenged or affirmed the assumptions/logic of the legislation.Comments were coded neutral if the speaker stated their neutral stance or if their comments implied neither endorsement nor opposition of the legislation.We excluded comments made by the chair or house speaker of the legislative body.Based on this coding, the vast majority of comments can be considered for or against the passage of the legislation concerning bans, and we speculate that this division is related to (a) how the legislative sessions are structured, often as a debate (as explicitly described in ID), and (b) partiality toward those with a stronger opinion/ feeling toward the bill, making them more likely to speak.These coding procedures allowed us to attend to the connections between emotions, values, and conflicts inherent in education policy discourses.Our analysis also attended to potential differences in discourses surrounding policies that include or do not include higher education; however, this analysis did not yield any substantive differences.
The analysis involved an iterative process used to identify the meaning, themes, and insightful vignettes (Denzin, 1989;Lincoln & Guba, 1985).For example, first-level coding based on the broad codes related to emotions and values was first performed in Dedoose, then later in word processing documents to refine, extract, and reassemble meaning.Researchers also spent considerable time individually and collectively coding as well as discussing and resolving discrepancies in the data analysis.As an iterative process, we repeated these steps, making further refinements along the way.While grounded in critical policy analysis' commitment to making issues of power visible (Diem et al., 2014), in our analytic process, we were also mindful of various and layered elements of discourse (e.g., how power interacts with linguistic practices and interactional dynamics) to support the aim of producing credible and believable interpretations (Jaipal-Jamani, 2014).In addition, when we identified a theme, we revisited the data to examine the relationship among the different instances.Data that did not fit a pattern were examined within the larger context of study to explore potential connections.Our findings draw from themes generated and our focus-aligned with the goals of qualitative inquiry-was on their interconnected meaning to provide a deeper, textured, and complex account toward holistic understanding of the phenomena rather than simply looking at their frequency, even as we offer counts for readers.Importantly, the researchers reflexively drew on their positioning as scholars of color who support race/racism-conscious programs and policies in the analysis of data.

Findings
The findings underscore the centrality of racialized emotion in CRT-ban discourses.Proban or anti-CRT discourses (a) center the emotional and psychological wellness of white people while erasing the traumas of sociopolitical violence enacted toward BIPOC communities, (b) provoke contempt toward those who are perceived as violating white innocence and a raceevasive national ideal, and (c) focus on standards and policy language as a strategy to disengage emotionally and substantively.Meanwhile, discourses from those opposing the bans (a) highlight a more expansive framework that centers on the material, actualized harms that would be reproduced with the bills' passing; (b) attempt to arouse productive emotional engagement with enduring social inequities, including highlighting the need for discomfort to grapple with society's ongoing conditions of inopportunity; and (c) more consistently and explicitly acknowledge the emotional dynamics motivating the ban and the emotional nature of discussing the ban.

Emotional Legitimacy and Priorities
One of the key issues underlying CRT bans is whose emotions matter.Pro-ban discourses prioritize the white psyche by highlighting white innocence and white people's purported emotional fragility in discussions of race.Meanwhile, anti-ban discourses often center both the psychological and measurable forms of harm that are elided by pro-ban discourses, highlighting how centering emotionalities of whiteness reproduce these harms.
White Innocence and Emotional "Fragility": Pro-Bans.Racialized emotions were a key motivation for the bans and are evident in cautionary tales about the consequences of discussing race in school that highlight the psychological distress of children.Across the four states, there were 31 instances of bill sponsors and supporters sharing anecdotal stories of a child or a college "kid" that was purportedly harmed by discussions of race in education settings (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8).These stories buttress the broader discourse around "protecting children" (and ultimately families) from the threat of race.For example, in North Dakota, a story was shared about an elementary student being "completely distraught" due to the revelation of a historical figure purportedly being labeled as racist (Sen.Wobbema, #8).In addition, the Tennessee bill sponsor argued that teachings around race promoted, among other ideas, the belief that "Even if their circumstances are worse than any member of a victim group, an oppressor can never atone for the guilt of privilege."In his preamble when proposing the Tennessee amendment, the bill sponsor also read an email from the mother of a child from the predominantly white and wealthiest county in the state (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020): Lest, you think we don't have this problem in Tennessee, Listen to the following quotes from an email forwarded to me concerning a seven-year-old girl in Williamson County after a discussion in public school on principles as those I just described.The little girl told her mother, "I'm ashamed that I'm white."The daughter then asked her mother, "is there something wrong with me?Why am I hated so much?"The seven-year-old is now in therapy, she is depressed, she doesn't want to go to school, her mother said.Her mother goes on, "she is scared to death and has even had thoughts of killing herself."Again, we are talking about a seven-year-old child.(Rep.Ragan, #5) Such stories erase the historic and contemporary forms of violence committed against BIPOC students in and by U.S. schools (see Arellano & Vue, 2019;Hextrum et al., 2022;Smith, 2004;Wun, 2018) at the same time that they argue that race threatens the sense of safety in schools, particularly for white children.Emphasizing that "we are talking about a seven-year-old child" or, as in Oklahoma, "we're talking about first graders" (Rep.West, #4), these speakers capitalize on the innocence of children to provoke outrage over the purported psychological harm that raceconsciousness causes for white people.These discourses are intertwined with arguments made by proponents of the ban that educational content including subjects such as race and gender is "not appropriate" at such a young age (Rep.Kasper, #8; #4), highlighting how such discourses assume the limited capacity of young people-from elementary-to college-aged-and white people to intellectually and emotionally grapple with complex ideas such as racism, sexism, and cisheteronormativity.It should be noted that research indicates that children as young as 3 years old can learn race (Matias, 2016b).
Pro-ban discourses not only claim that white students will feel "discomfort," "guilt," and "anguish" because of discussing race but also frequently presume that the intent of curriculum addressing race is to instill such feelings, particularly in white and male individuals.In addition to discourse regarding the bans' aim to shield students (and teachers) from being "compelled" to adhere to ideas and feelings that are purportedly taught under the rubric of CRT (e.g., Rep. Horman, #1), the presumption of intent is evident in comments that teachings of race promote ideas that economically disadvantaged white people are unable to atone for the guilt of privilege (Rep.Ragan, #5).In Oklahoma, the bill sponsor discussed the ban as an attempt to curb the alleged curricular objective that white and male individuals experience emotions of guilt and feel responsible for historic injustices: "History is what history is, and we need to learn from it.But just because you are of a certain race or a sex, . . .it's saying that you're not being made to feel personally responsible for those actions" (Rep.West, #4).In further discussion, the bill sponsor clarified, "simply because a majority of white people own slaves does not make me inherently guilty of that same act" and later added that it would protect all from being told "that the only reason I'm here is because I'm a white male," neglecting the fact that "I worked hard to get here."Such discourses indicate that the motivation behind the bans is to head off the guilt that white males will be made to feel in discussing and learning about race and gender.When pressed for examples of this alleged curricular coercion, the bill sponsor furnished anecdotes that ranged from elementary-aged school children to college students: I've read stories about first graders that have been forced to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities and examine their power and privilege.Mr. Speaker, let that sink in.We're talking about first graders.This is just beyond me that we were even having this conversation.Some of our universities are forcing students into compelled speech by forcing them to give an answer or recite a mantra that they want, instead of what that student actually feels.(Rep. West,#4) According to this discourse, the danger of including race in the curriculum is that it forces thoughts and ideas upon students that run counter to their actual feelings.These true feelings, as it is suggested, are rooted in innocence, individuality, and sociohistorical disconnection, all of which deny racial complicity and the cumulative benefits of a legacy of structured government support provided to white people (Katznelson, 2005).Such feelings allow for a positive view of white identity at intersections of race and gender because they suppress collective memory of the racialized instrumentalization of whiteness.These feelings and the elisions that they rely on, as we can see in pro-ban discourses, are threatened when white people are forced to engage in critical discussions of race, gender, and power.Thus, pro-ban supporters argue that a racismconscious curriculum, rather than one where it is historically absent (DiAngelo, 2011), is damaging to the white psyche.Accordingly, the stories convey the need for the bans to shield white people from underserved distress (e.g., feeling shame), which allegedly will unavoidably take place when discussing race in schools.
No one is safe from these threats, not white teachers who allegedly must undergo "antiracist therapy" under a race-conscious curriculum, nor racialized minorities who will purportedly be made to feel as though they are inferior (Rep.West, #4).
For example, just as it is claimed that white people will be made to feel guilty for the historical sin of slavery, it is also argued that teaching Black people about race will make them feel they can only be slaves (Rep.West, #4).Such arguments are akin to those raised against race-conscious admissions that allege that they do more harm to BIPOC individuals than to white applicants.Such arguments fail to acknowledge the violence of silence (see Vue, 2021b).In addition, BIPOC students have observed that eliminating race-conscious programming would likely not reduce the minimization and stereotyping of BIPOC, while doing so would effectively reduce the ability to counteract racialized inequity (Vue et al., 2017).Nonetheless, pro-ban supporters argue that these bans protect all-students, teachers, white people, and BIPOC individuals alike-from the threat of race that lawmakers across multiple states (ID and ND) warned is "creeping" into schools (#2, #8).
The Silencing and Violence of Emotionalities of Whiteness: Anti-Bans.Opponents of CRT bans note how the centering or prioritizing of emotionalities of whiteness detracts from the observable forms of trauma BIPOC students experience in a racialized society (Dutro & Bien, 2014).There were 17 instances of speakers noting the material harm of minoritized students (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #8).Representative Lamar noted, One, I really hate the story that the little girl felt that way.And I'm glad you shared that story because it also allows me to share what it's like to be a Black child in America as well, and the trauma that Black children feel every day. . . .Those little Black kids that I see in my district are upset that they have to go to lesser quality schools, that they have less access to quality housing, that they have less access to quality food.That their family is being ravaged by a systemic criminal justice system built on the criminalization of African Americans.(#6) This comment draws attention to how prioritizing white people's racialized feelings overshadows and reproduces the multiple forms of harm that BIPOC children experience in schools and society.Certainly, all children should be made to feel loved and secure, yet rarely have the kinds of protections advanced for white students been fully considered or extended to BIPOC students (Leonardo & Porter, 2010).Unlike white children, BIPOC students are viewed as other people's children in schools (Delpit, 2006) and their childhood innocence is unrecognized and denied, lending to the normalization of egregious forms of social abuse (Goff et al., 2014).
The sociopolitical disregard of BIPOC innocence is similar to abuses of LGBTQ students, who are dismissed within discourses that assert the emotional fragility of those intersecting with white, male, and cisheteronormative identities.This was made apparent by an Oklahoma representative identifying as a parent of a gay child who drew attention to the harms experienced by LGBTQ students whose silencing would be exacerbated with the passage of CRT bans: People are going to continue to be discriminated against, hated, and threatened, and we're allowing that by putting out bills like this . . .79% of LGBTQ students in Oklahoma today experience verbal harassment today.53% of LGBTQ students have never reported their harassment because they're scared to.Of those small numbers that did, only 20% of those were actually acted upon. . . .So, the reality is, we do have populations that live in fear, that are hurt every day by a lack of understanding about diversity.(Rep.Blancett, #4) In describing the violently hostile environment for LGBTQ students in the state, this comment, like the comment regarding Black children (Rep.Lamar, #5), underscores how systemic mistreatment of minoritized students is overlooked and reproduced in favor of safeguarding white innocence, and how that is accomplished through the legitimization of emotionalities of whiteness.The only "protections" that are offered by these legislative efforts are for those who have the option of disengaging with a racialized or gendered reality.Thus, discourses from those opposing the bans question the safety that these bills purportedly bring to education and illustrate the threats such bills further pose to BIPOC and LGBTQ students.Counter to the discourses that center on emotionalities of whiteness, these comments shine light on the need for racism-conscious learning at the intersections of class and gender as part of a broader effort to secure equitable social and educational conditions for students most vulnerable to social abuses.
Emotional Discomfort as Opportunities for Critical Reflection and Learning: Anti-Bans.Opponents of CRT bans question the credibility of claims that CRT is indeed being taught in K-12 schools as a way to highlight the irrationality of white fear.They also correct distorted understandings of CRT while underscoring the need for critical discussions of race.Such discourses emphasize the pedagogical benefits of reflecting on discomfort.
Discourses from opponents of CRT bans frequently focus on educating proponents of the ban on the liberatory possibilities of discussing race.Across three of the four states-Idaho, Oklahoma, and Tennessee (#2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7)-there were 17 instances where opponents of the bans described the necessity for emotional discomfort.A graduate student noted in his testimony that the understanding of CRT "is so flawed," further explaining, It speaks and lends further credence to why it is necessary to engage in this dialogue in the first place.Would you censor philosophy for critiquing the existential crisis of humanity? . . .Understanding [how] the growth and expansion of knowledge and concepts like Critical Race Theory have led to the empowerment and intellectual contextualization for Black people just like me is a huge missing piece of this puzzle.(Dele Ogunrinola, #1) This testimony aims to engage ban supporters in critical reflection, highlighting the characterization of race as a threat.It questions why race is the site of critique and a source of fear.This questioning implicitly addresses the kind of scapegoating that is also evident in critiques of policies like the use of race in admissions.While many have benefited from affirmative action, most notably white women, the racial benefit, rather than class or gender, is deemed most threatening.Moreover, this testimony discusses how discussions of race engage critical thinking and raise awareness for BIPOC students, who are often miseducated and disempowered in education settings.Such sentiments were echoed in statements in other states (e.g., TN, ID; #1; #2; #3; #5; #6; #7) that spoke of the ability of race-conscious learning to narrow equity gaps through the development of critical consciousness: "If you allow young people to get in[to] history or understand their history, their heritage and culture, there would be less of what we call 'bad behavior' and 'criminal activity' and so forth" (Rep.Hakeem, #6).
Others highlighted the pedagogical benefits of engaging emotions.For example, one representative asked, "Would you not agree that sometimes discomfort can be our best teacher?" (Rep.Ranson, #4).Indeed, opponents of the ban gave credence to the difficulty of racial dialogue for both BIPOC and white individuals alike, yet underscored its significance for grappling with long-standing issues of racial inequity: It doesn't matter who you are, Black, white, Brown, or other.The very discussion makes some uncomfortable.But I would tell you that there's no way to keep working and to keep moving forward on that journey towards a more perfect union and achieving freedom for all until we acknowledge the imperfections [in history], until we address the imperfections, and do what we have to do to in our hearts and our minds to live up to the principles that this country was founded on.(Rep.Hardaway, #6) Contrary to the suggestion from pro-ban discourses that white people primarily bear the emotional burdens of racial dialogue, this testimony, like Lomar's, highlights race as a collective burden, one that historically has been shouldered by BIPOC individuals and communities (Moore et al., 2010).Engaging in racial dialogue and deepening one's understanding of the nation's racialized history is necessary for feeling the way toward equitable educational and social opportunity.Discourses from oppositionists thus encourage engaging emotionally and cognitively to tackle society's ongoing ills.Collectively, discourses from opponents support the idea that presenting race as a threat lessens the benefits of racism-conscious learning for students of all races (Cabrera et al., 2014;Cammarota & Romero, 2009), positioning them to be transformative agents (Vue, 2021a).The ability to engage in transformation requires the willingness to risk feeling uncomfortable in racial dialogue (Matias et al., 2017).

Invocations of Emotion and Constructions of the Collective
Make no mistake about it.We are in a fight for the future of our children and our grandchildren. . . .
[CRT] goes against everything that this nation was founded on and everything that we, as a nation, have fought so hard to keep.The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has no color, has no sex.(Rep. West,#4) The discourse surrounding CRT bans illuminates the ways emotions are invoked about the nation's collective character.In pro-ban discourses, emotions are weaponized at the intersections of national and religious discourses to control and maintain power.As argued in pro-ban discourses, the fight against racism-conscious education is not only to protect children (and families) but also to protect a race-evasive U.S. national ideal.Within this racialized discourse, the emotions that are invoked create boundaries of loving, belonging, and morality.These emotions include interconnections among love, hate/ contempt, hope, shame, and fear.Discourses from those opposing the bans countered these discourses, illuminating that the same emotion, love, can be used to invoke different understandings of what it means to be "American." Race-Evasive Love as National Loving: Pro-Bans.Across each of the four states, a total of five pro-ban speakers explicitly invoked love, was often in connection to race-evasive argument for banning CRT (#1, #4, #5, #6, #8).This discourse offers an idealized version of love that, nevertheless, and oppresses (Matias & Allen, 2013).The Tennessee bill's sponsor noted, Some mistakenly believe that people should be treated differently based on the color of their skin or their national origin.I declare emphatically, those people are wrong.The America that I love and took an oath to defend recognized that all citizens stand equally before the law.(Rep.Ragan, #5) Hence, to "love" America requires defending race-evasive ideals, neglecting how they have largely served white interests (Bonilla-Silva, 2006).This kind of national loving overlooks how law/policy has always been colored, much to the benefit of white people and the dispossession of BIPOC communities (Katznelson, 2005).This articulation of love seeks to erase systematic mistreatments that indelibly mark BIPOC as Other and noncitizen (Alexander, 2010) and maintain the naturalization of whiteness in law (Lopez, 1996).While all are invited to take part in this framework of national loving, the reality is that only white people can embody such loving without perceptible consequence (Bell, 1993;Guinier, 2004) and, therefore, be embraced as the subjects of love in return.Accordingly, such a statement suggests that those "seditious partisans" (Rep.Ragan, #5) who acknowledge racism then must not love, and may even hate, the nation as they seek to "destroy our heritage of individual liberty" (Rep.Ragan, #5) and, thus, legitimately may be cast as subjects of hate.The cultural politics of the kind of love advanced through raceevasive discourses fosters contempt.
Pro-ban discourses also highlight how contempt is fomented through religious discourses that intersect with race-evasive and national discourses.Across all four states, 12 speakers explicitly mentioned Christianity (#1, #3, #4, #5, #6, #8) in pro-ban discourses.Such discourses either imply or argue outright that discussion of race/racism (and sex/sexism as well as gender) is immoral or evil and even equate such acknowledgment with racism and sexism itself.For example, such discourse calls for condemnation of those who, supposedly, Deludedly seek to make our union far less perfect.In shameless pursuit of political power, these misguided souls leverage social, cultural, and religious factors to fracture our indivisible nation to create artificial divisions among us, these self-styled champions of the oppressed unashamedly distort and twist the truth.Perhaps the greatest shared truth and theological doctrine found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God.(Rep.Ragan, #5) Such a "shared truth" conveniently maps onto race-evasive language, which renders invisible how this truth has historically been denied to those deemed racialized Others in the making of the United States.Rather than recognizing this historical discrepancy in ideal and practice as a shame of the nation as a way to compel us to collectively work toward racial reconciliation through a process of systematic restructuring, pro-ban discourses lay shame on those who have fought to share in this truth.
Race-evasive ideals were connected to Christian doctrine across all four states.Such articulations of biblical doctrine from proponents of CRT bans imply that race-consciousness goes against the will of God, who is argued as seeing no race and Himself as raceless.This idea fails to question the idea that God's racelessness is often articulated through and, thus, equated with whiteness: I believe that when you, when you get to the area of pitting one race against another one ethnicity. . . .It's time to stop, . . .all of us believe or are close to believing that we're created in the image of God.Our nation was founded under the principles of biblical specialty for each one of us.So, all of our kids in school are special.(Rep. Kasper,#8) This quote exemplifies how God as the image of love is conflated with race-evasiveness.Accordingly, such logic deems race-consciousness the antithesis of love-that is, hate-as it refuses to ignore that people's social realities are shaped by both race and gender (Rep.Olsen, #4).Such discourse that deems teachings about racism a threat is likely to appeal to those who conflate whiteness, Christianity, and national identity (Gorski & Perry, 2022), and who also frequently favor what Jemar Tisby describes as "a rigid, narrow, and authoritarian kind of politics" (Brookings, 2023).Those who supported CRT bans unified under the banner of color-evasiveness, upholding it as the ultimate moral ground and road to enlightenment.
Critical Loving as Inclusive Remaking of Citizenship: Anti-Bans.Love was also a key emotion expressed among anti-ban proponents and expressed explicitly by five speakers (#2, #4, #6).However, in these cases, it indicated a more expansive political framework.Ban oppositionists' statements brought to light the hypocrisy of race-evasive love and offered different interpretations of biblical scripture in the defense of racism-conscious teaching.These discourses center racism-conscious learning as capable of illuminating contradictions in faith and nation to collectively strive toward a more democratic state.A college student providing public testimony against the ban explained, Instead of seeing Critical Race Theory as a threat to the faith, we should recognize that it's a powerful lens for examining who we are, both as Christians and as Americans.It sheds light on our divided nation, allowing us to see the historical factors that shaped who we are today.It helps identify what is admirable and dishonorable in our nation and gives a map to follow as we seek to build a better nation for ourselves and for our children.
This discourse recognizes the fundamentally interconnected nature of religion/Christianity and state/nationality yet argues that racism-consciousness is necessary for the inclusive remaking of both Christianity and the United States.CRT offers a framework for collective reflection on how both collective bodies have excluded those who do not and are unable to embody race-evasiveness (see Yancy, 2016), and how they might stop doing so.The student added, One of the earliest lessons we learn is that Adam and Eve, our mother and father in Christianity, committed a sin that affected the rest of human history.I have by nature of my faith inherited the weight of their decisions.I have to live my life differently because of the sins of others.This bill requires that information be only factual, but the facts are that our history in America includes racism.(Sophia Burroughs,#8) This invocation of Christianity offers a different interpretation than that often offered by proponents of the ban.Such an interpretation of Christianity resonates with Black liberation theology, which centers the Bible on efforts toward eradicating racism (NPR, 2008).This evocation of Christianity aligns with a racism-conscious movement that Jemar Tisby describes as having "expansive, flexible, and inclusive" national politics (Brookings, 2023).It suggests that the emotional burden of racial injustice serves as a necessary reminder about collective responsibility; one that demands emotional engagement to meaningfully inform national efforts.
Discourses from those opposing the bans also highlight how centering emotionalities of whiteness in love can also be patronizing and oppressive.For example, discourses express frustration with ban proponents' use of love: Throughout the discussion on House Bill 354 lawmakers often started their debate with, "I love our teachers," but then followed up with insulting rhetoric fit for a Dystopian novel.The doublespeak has not gone unnoticed.As an educator myself, I expect to be given the pedagogical freedom in my classroom to introduce students to competing ideas, facilitate tough conversations, and equip students with the tools they need to think critically about the world around them.(Layne McInelly,#1) This statement brings to light the problematic relations created through invocations of raceevasive love.Furthermore, the statement challenges and critiques the purported notion that the bans protect teachers and students.This "protection," as noted by CRT-ban supporters in all states, involves undermining the agency, pedagogical creativity, and instructional integrity of teachers and the academic freedom of faculty in states where bans implicated higher education.This kind of race-evasive loving, which is rooted in distrust and thus seeks to control the citizenry, constructs relations of unequal power between the state and teachers (as well as between the state students and communities)-particularly those interested in advancing critical thinking and equity.Without critical understanding of racism or racism-conscious practices, proclamations of "love for all" can mask structures of inequity and their reproduction (Love, 2019).
Ban opponents model how love demands engagement in difficult conversations.For example, before his deliberation with the bill sponsor in his state, one representative stated, "let me say firstly to you and to my colleagues, I love all of you from my heart. . . .And any perception that I would knowingly or consciously be disrespectful is unfounded" (Rep.Hakeem, #6).This declaration is a precursor to critical questions that engage the substantive meanings around race and history in the bill (as discussed below).Thus, beyond explicitly expressing love, love is implicitly invoked as a humanizing quality (hooks, 1995, 2013) that encourages collective and meaningful engagement in the difficult topics of race and racism.In another example, Representative Pittman called for "set[ting] the example . . .by not weaponizing our words against each other": [Students] should be able to have conversations that will allow them to share their opinions, to share how they feel, to recognize that being different is okay, and to start out agreeing to disagree professionally and with peace and with love in their hearts.(#4) Such invocations of love compel critical engagement with difference and sow seeds of hope for a fruitful discussion of race and racism.They invoke a beloved community where difference is affirmed by claiming rather than negating the cultural legacies that inform a community and national identity (hooks, 1995, 2013).CRT bans forestall critical loving.

Discursive Structure as Racial Gaslighting
Emotions were key in motivating the bans and substantive to both the formal language of the policy and policy deliberations.Yet, pro-ban discourses deny the legitimacy of emotions from opponents of the ban while at times also emotionally and substantively disengaging from the issues by undertaking discursive maneuvers that shifted the focus of the debate to educational standards, legislative procedures, and language used in the bill.In more than 40 instances across all states, attention was directed to bill language to decontextualize (socially, historically, politically) the discussion as well as to dismiss concerns such as racial inequity and educator agency (#1-9).Such discourses are a form of racial gaslighting, which is "the political, social, economic and cultural process that perpetuates and normalizes a whitesupremacist reality through pathologizing those who resist" (Davis & Ernst, 2017, p. 3).
Pro-ban discourses in all states insist that the bans do not impinge on freedom of speech and argue that putting forth these bills is not an attempt to censor any history; we see many supporters proclaiming their "love" of history.Instead, bill sponsors in select states claim that the bans honor impartiality and standards, relying on the formal language of the policy to defuse the notion that there is anything emotional about the issue.In other words, despite making pleas laden with impassioned expression, such as stories about distraught children and language invoking "victims," "oppressors," and "useful idiots," to name a few examples, pro-ban discourses are quick to revert to discourses that focus narrowly on practices that purportedly affirm and provide integrity to standards, often in response to questions from opponents of the ban.The discourse takes shape by focusing on technical language when pro-ban arguments are met with equally emotional pleas and inquiries from ban opponents.In Tennessee, discursive gaslighting can be seen in responses to clarifying questions regarding the bill's intent.The following example (#6) was preceded by Representative Hakeem expressing "love" for his colleagues in a desire for meaningful discussion.He is then repeatedly dismissed when he asks questions about the bill: This exchange is typical of the kinds of discursive maneuvers used by proponents of the ban when questioned regarding the bill's apparent intent to censor "ugly" or unpleasant parts of U.S. history.As seen in this example, one frequent tactic employed to dismiss questions is the response, "thank you for your comments, sir"; this tactic both emotionally and substantively disengages from answering questions posed by opponents of the ban.Another tactic of emotionally and substantively evading questions is to focus narrowly on the issue of "add[ing] clarity through our state standards for education," followed by the invocation of deficit-based images of BIPOC and low-income communities and neoliberal goals of job readiness in the fuller context of his statements.Invoking such images and values elicits an affective rationalization for excluding discussions of race, gender, and power in favor of standards.

Rep
Discursive gaslighting also occurs in discussions about the impartiality of history: is impartiality possible, and if so, is impartiality desirable when discussing historical atrocities such as the colonization in the United States, the institution of slavery, the Holocaust, or 9/11?One response is as follows: "Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, and later assumed supreme leadership of that country, led it into World War II, and ordered the Holocaust.Those are facts.Those are impartial.There is no discussion on advocacy" (Rep.Ragan, #6).In response to a follow-up question on the importance of truth, the bill sponsor patronizingly explained, To my learned friend here, history is a collection of facts that are taught.Truth is a philosophical concept.We teach facts.We then talk about the interpretation of those facts, which you may opine of what involves in truth; this bill does not address that, Sir.This distinction neglects the question of impartiality in the facts that have been collected and taught as "truth," the very "truth" that is so fervently defended in arguments for the bans.
In all states, proponents of the ban insist on focusing narrowly on the "plain language of the bill," which purportedly is about preventing labeling people as good or bad, responsible or irresponsible, inferior or superior.Yet, the discourses engage in this very act, contending that it is opponents of the ban that twist the truth when they broaden the discussion to include sociohistorical dynamics to contextualize meanings of the law.
The [bill] author has been very, very clear, and I would say extremely patient in clearly explaining what this bill does, and what this bill does not do, and it's clear that we have some that are more concerned and choose to focus on stirring up angst on Twitter rather than just simply focusing on the very plain language of this bill.(Rep. Caldwell,#4) In all these instances, pro-ban responses implicitly draw out emotionalities of whiteness while explicitly presenting the substance of the debate as "logical" and "rational."This discourse is further reinforced by the limits of discourse itself within the context of legislative sessions, which constrains what discourse is allowable.For example, when the context of the bill is inquired about or introduced by opponents of the ban they are often directed to stay within the language of the bill: "Senators as we move forward in debate, I would just caution you to not question motive or intent of an individual or an organization, but rather to stick to the language of the bill" (Lt.Gov. Janice McGeachin, #3).Such dynamics mark proponents of the ban as reasonable, rational, logical, impartial, and "patient," and opponents of the bans as out-of-line, hostile, irrational, and biased.Yet, when emotion is displayed by proponents of the ban, it constitutes a performance of white fear, vulnerability, and pain that can impede racial justice (Matias, 2016a).
As previously illustrated, ban opponents are comparatively more frank and consistent than ban proponents regarding the role of emotions in motivating the bans as well as in their efforts to persuade colleagues.They are explicit in acknowledging the feelings in the room, honoring the emotional nature of the discussion, and speaking to both the heart and the mind (Rep.Hardaway, #6).In attending to the sociohistorical context of power, they also take a broader approach when discussing the issues surrounding the ban.

Discussion: The Affective Logic of Whiteness and Pedagogies of Power, Fear, and Resentment
This study examined how public policy discourses that surround CRT bans speak to racialized emotions and reveal how CRT bans are riddled with them.The discourses from ban proponents incite emotionalities of whiteness and encourage hearers to indulge in the affective logic of whiteness as a result.This study adds to previous research that demonstrates that political discourse has a pedagogical function (Davis & Ernst, 2017;Vue, 2021a), highlighting the role of racialized emotions in public understanding of the power of white racial consciousness, whose bodies can embody love and national belonging, and which or, rather, whose emotionalities are worthy of respect, and legible.These pedagogical considerations are connected with the affective logic of whiteness in the discussion that follows.
Pro-ban discourses inherently teach that white racial consciousness has power, ironically contradicting their own argument that discussing race is psychologically harmful to white people, that white people have limited emotional endurance, and that whiteness as a power structure is fiction.Indeed, white emotionality can only be wielded as a political strategy by substantively centering performances of white race-consciousness.Regardless of their authenticity (even if unfounded), such performances of white emotionality (fear, physiological pain, etc.) work to center and prioritize whiteness, which also allows for an inherent (though not explicit) co-opting (Nishi, 2022;Thompson Dorsey & Venzant Chambers, 2014) of theoretical concepts like "white fragility" (DiAngelo, 2011) that are intended to advance social justice.Pro-ban discourse inflames emotionalities of whiteness by foregrounding feelings of white innocence and "fragility" to amplify the threat of race.The concept of white fragility highlights the sociocultural dynamics-including, but not limited to, the continuing patterns of racial segregation and limited exposure to race-conscious educationthat have resulted in white people's sense of superiority and entitlement and has assumedly limited white individuals' capacities to confront, understand, and grapple with racism and racial history (DiAngelo, 2011).Yet, pro-ban discourses have appropriated this idea by using it to legitimate white fears while displacing blame for feelings of guilt, discomfort, and anguish on BIPOC communities.Rather than fulfilling its intended purpose to demonstrate the need for race-consciousness, the decontextualization of white people's purported "fragility" is wielded to shut down the discussion of race in schools.This underscores how white race-conscious discourses can embolden-by animating emotional strength-claims of white racial injury suffered as a result of racism-conscious policies (Leonardo, 2020).
Pro-ban discourse teaches who to love and hate by arguing that discussing race is a threat to collective, national ideals.Such discourse is grounded in the belief that discussions of race only serve one purpose-to teach racism.This idea is evident in the focus on the formal language of the bills and discussion of that language, rather than discussion that seeks to understand, unlearn, and counteract racism that has already been socialized and systematically enacted, historically or in the present day.This race-evasive logic equates any discussion of race with racism.But pro-ban discourses are also race-conscious in that they foreground whiteness, revealing that feelings concerning race are permissible as long as they do not impinge on a positive view of white identity.Feelings emerge in the frequent invocations of love in the framework of raceevasiveness, which is animated by religiosity.These instances of sentimentalization (Matias et al., 2016) highlight the cultural intimacy and messy intertwining of feelings of love and hate in national identity formations.These invocations construct the collective and the nation-state in ways that foment hate against those who cannot ideologically (and, perhaps, phenotypically) embody race-evasiveness, or what proponents call "racelessness."Such political discourses materialize as acts of terror, confinement, and exclusion toward bodies marked as hateful (e.g., Gover et al., 2020;NPR, 2022;Yam, 2022).These observances speak to Ahmed's point: "It is not simply that anybody is hated: particular histories of association are reopened in each encounter, such that some bodies are already encountered as more hateful than other bodies" (Ahmed, 2004, p. 54).
Pro-ban discourses also teach who and what should be listened to.This study underscores the interplay of racialized emotions and discourse in racial gaslighting, which involves masking white-supremacist structure and pathologizing those who resist (Davis & Ernst, 2017).Pathologizing involves, among other aspects, naturalizing the emotionalities of whiteness while marking the emotions of oppositionists as biased, irrational, and unable to reason.The process occurs in part by employing discourse that foregrounds debate on formal policies and rules to evade emotional and substantive engagement with the historical complexities of race and racism.This narrow, techno-rational discourse is incompatible with a broad emancipatory paradigm that would offer a more contextual understanding of issues (Briscoe & Khalifa, 2015).This narrowing of discourse is akin to the ways historical context and the possible existence of a white-supremacist state have been stripped from affirmative action legal discourse (Moses & Chang, 2006), which likely ensures the preservation of the status quo (Harris, 1993;Jayakumar & Adamian, 2015).This study suggests that these discursive differences around race represent more than simply a difference of approach or a conflict; rather, the discourses being wielded by those in power are structured, institutionally sanctioned, and systemically legitimated and are part and parcel of a broader schema of racial gaslighting.In this schema, emotions are only permitted when it supports the structural and cultural hegemony of whiteness.White rage toward the perception of lost racial privilege is invoked, deemed legitimate, and inflamed while Black and BIPOC rage against dehumanization and systemic injustice is dismissed as unpatriotic and declared shameful.Beyond the dominant discourses that surround CRT, such pathologizing dynamics have already played out in the broader national discourse around BLM protests (Starkey, 2016) that have incited white-supremacist insurgency.
The familiarity of anti-CRT narratives leads to their widespread endorsement without undergoing a critique of how they provoke emotionalities of whiteness that reoccupy intersectional histories of racism, classism, and cisheteropatriarchy.These discourses are layered, underscoring the sociohistorical matrixes of race, gender, and class in the cultural politics of emotions.In Tennessee, for example, they highlight the weaponizing power of white women's distress (experienced by mothers about daughters) that prompts attention (Accapadi, 2007) and compels action, especially when distress is attributed to racial others (Phipps, 2021).Moreover, comments regarding "oppressors" that have "circumstances [that] are worse than any member of a victim group" (Rep.Ragan, #5), meaning white people with circumstances of economic impoverishment, familiarly excite and provoke-and thus appeal to-a white-working-class consciousness, even as it is inconsistent with the socioeconomic reality of those whose voices are being amplified to incite fear, hate, and rage.In Oklahoma, pro-ban discourses have affirmed, legitimized, and amplified the feelings that white male identity is under siege (Rep.West, #4) and that they are the true victims of reverse forms of racism and sexism purportedly encouraged by race-consciousness (Rep.Caldwell, #4), signaling that all are threatened by race.Such fears as expressed in North Dakota are connected to a purported threat to heteronormative family structures.These narratives give purpose to the bans, compelling the idea, explained Kristin Kobes Du Mez, that "God has created strong [white] men, given them strength, aggression to protect faith, family and nation" (Brookings, 2023).In all four states, discourses suggest a threat to the very foundations and principles of the United States as a white Christian nation.As such, the threat of race embodied by CRT is characterized as encompassing all "evils," produced by the profoundly immoral and wicked, and, indeed, it is warned that it lurks everywhere and has no race, class, sex, or state boundaries.These warnings thus invoke not just white fear, but also resentment, contempt, and rage.The careful reading offered here reveals how "emotions are bound up with the securing of social hierarchy" (Ahmed, 2004, p. 4)-in this case, a white-supremacist social system that depends on the complicity of white people across class and gender spectrums.Yet again, the wages of whiteness (Roediger, 2017) are bound to emotionalities of whiteness, and here they forestall the possibility of a transformative educational system.
Ultimately, CRT bans subvert critical examinations of U.S. history to protect emotionalities of whiteness that promote feelings of white racial innocence.However, there are also affective costs to white people (e.g., Kivel, 2002) beyond economic and gender marginalization (Roediger, 2017).The lack of empathy, unfounded fears, and the dehumanization are all affective costs paid by white people who accept the psychological, social, and physical pain experienced by children who do not fit neatly into dominant ideological structures (Goff et al., 2014).It might be surmised that the testimonies of Representatives Lamar and Blancett ask us to consider whether there would be justice if the same outrage felt for white children was extended to include BIPOC and LGBTQ students.This question is entertained in John Grisham's (1989) novel A Time to Kill, where the pain, suffering, and injustice experienced by a Black child are only seen and felt when imaged as white.
The emotional realities and complexities of living in a racialized and colonial society are complicated.Ahmed (2004) writes of the testimonies of pain by indigenous Australians, They give flesh to feelings that cannot be felt by others. . . .The call of such pain . . . is a call not just for an attentive hearing, but for a different kind of inhabitance.It is a call for action, and a demand for collective politics, as a politics based not on the possibility that we might be reconciled, but on learning to live with the impossibility of reconciliation, or learning that we live with and beside each other, and yet we are not as one.(p.39) Like these testimonies of pain, those presented by oppositionists of CRT bans such as Lamar and Blancett "give flesh to feelings that cannot be felt by others"; they are a "call for action" and a "demand for collective politics."Feeling the truths of the "impossibility of reconciliation" or living in a fractured society weighs heavily on the national psyche, yet emotionally engaging with such truths may be a means of understanding the inhumanity of the status quo, which can lead to a commitment to collective humanization.In this, Freire (2005) reminds us that dehumanization marks both "those whose humanity has been stolen" and "those who have stolen it"; yet humanity can be "affirmed by the yearning" of the former for freedom and justice (p.44).This process demands a humanizing love that seeks collective growth and development (Matias & Allen, 2013).Thus, inhabiting politics differently requires critical emotional engagement with race and how it occupies psychological, social, and geographical space.
Regarding critical policy analysis, the study's findings affirm the need to interrogate the assumption that policymaking in and of itself can be understood as a rational process (Ball, 1993;Diem et al., 2014).The process is rational, or rather involves an affective rationality, to the extent that it inoculates white people with power by legitimizing white racialized emotional priorities (e.g., structured processes that racially gaslight those who resist), and this very process reveals contradiction and complexity.As noted above, contradiction marks how emotionalities of whiteness are centrally and substantively taken up to compel support for CRT bans alongside the use of techno-rational discourses to thwart dissent against them.Moreover, contradiction undergirds the material effects of CRT bans as both serving and working against the interests of white people; the legitimization of emotionalities of whiteness in the law affords white people certain property rights denied to BIPOC individuals, yet the affective logic of whiteness undermines a public good that is concerned with equity across race, gender, and class that would benefit white people (see Roediger, 2017).Such contradictions, which are revealed by surfacing subjugated forms of knowledge that critique power and amplify BIPOC voices (e.g., Delgado, 1989;Solórzano & Yosso, 2002;Vue, 2021a), underscore the complexity of racialized politics and the complex emotions that it embodies and also demonstrate that racialized politics has always depended on negotiation among white people who have varied and competing interests (Bell, 1980;Gillborn, 2005Gillborn, , 2014;;Guinier, 2004).Another dimension of complexity involves the multiple and conflicting discourses that make sense of policy, which is emphasized here to appreciate how such discourses leave open possibilities for both narrow and distorted conceptions and broader, more expansive conceptions of justice (Guinier & Torres, 2014).Realizing this, we urge substantive engagement with BIPOC emotions, knowledge, and stories, which can bring about not only different, but also liberatory possibilities (Guinier & Torres, 2014;Vue, 2021a;Vue et al., 2023;Vue & Mouavangsou, 2021).Furthermore, noting how all discursive practices, even those that proclaim to be neutral and objective, are emotionally laden (Ahmed, 2004) means that closely attending to the complex systems and environments of policy demands inquiry into racialized emotional dynamics.This study's findings point to the continuing need to understand affective logic, encounters, and politics in education policy, especially when it concerns racism-conscious policy.While this study examined the broader affective political context shaping racial inequity in education policy within legislative sessions, future research could examine how these dynamics within policymaking spaces interact with the media, given its broader reach in carrying discourses to the public (Paguyo & Moses, 2011).This inquiry could, for example, involve the extent to which racialized emotions within legislative sessions are covered and amplified within media outlets.Given that the present study focused on early adopters, future research might also examine whether and how discourses surrounding CRT bans have evolved.Another area ripe for exploration includes how racialized emotional-discursive dynamics play out in other political and more localized settings (e.g., local school board meetings, city councils) where these conversations are also occurring, especially since district-level policy is more salient for educators than state-level policy (Woo et al., 2023).Finally, given the significance of intersectionality in racialized emotional-discursive dynamics that surround CRT bans, future research could explicitly draw on intersectional frameworks alongside theorization of racialized emotionalpolitical dynamics to further attend to the ongoing white-supremacist policy efforts to codify cisheteronormativity, classism, and other forms of oppression-as seen, for example, in antitransgender legislation.Race continues to elicit a multitude of emotions and only until we understand the complexity of these emotional dynamics, including how they intersect with micro-and macro-political dynamics, can we begin to grapple with the unfinished emotional issues, stressors, and pain surrounding race that afflicts the United States.

Conclusion
Why do racialized emotions matter?Ahmed (2004) writes that we are all "feeling our way" and suggests that "[a]ttention to emotions allows us to address the question of how subjects become invested in particular structures such that their demise is felt as a kind of living death" (p.56).Racialized emotions, such as fear (which comingles with hate), not only manifest in the psyche, but also materialize in the social landscape; for example, they help to erect wallsclassroom walls, school walls, neighborhood walls, and national walls-that separate white bodies from endarkened bodies.Similarly, white rage, Anderson (2016) explains, "is not about visible violence, but rather it works its way through the courts, the legislatures and a range of government bureaucracies" (p.3).Racialized emotions have power and consequences, and therefore are necessary to expose.
If emotions can erect walls, they can also break them down.Emotions can be transformed so that we feel with and for those with endarkened bodies that continue to bear the brunt of national investment in emotionalities of whiteness.Love (2019) suggests that pedagogies that promote social justice "must move beyond feelgood language and gimmicks to help educators understand and recognize America and its schools as spaces of whiteness, white rage, and white supremacy, all of which function to terrorize students of color" (p.13).Just as there is a need for white "America" to understand the substantive issues underlying Black rage (including systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence, for example), white Americans also must understand the roots of white rage in capitalism and racism and how deeply it infuses the nationbuilding project.Only then can white people feel with BIPOC individuals and, consequently, share in collective spaces advanced by BIPOC movements such as BLM, to appropriately channel rage toward possibility.As such, emotions can bring about meaningful, transformative connections among differently racialized bodies through emotional exploration and reflection that can connect with one's own racialized body.
Educators and policy-makers alike can engage in this undertaking by reexamining the kinds of understandings and emotions that are endorsed in the creation, discussion, and passage of education policy.The current policy context is invested in both, cementing what Delgado (1989) described as comforting stories, which merge white complacency with racial inequity in the service of amplifying stories that provoke rather than allay white fears.Feelings can and do change (Bonilla-Silva, 2019;Matias et al., 2017), but in this case, these changes require emotional investment in racism-conscious learning (Matias et al., 2017).By critically reflecting on the emotionalities of whiteness, people can engage in emotional transformation, transforming defensiveness and anger, for example, into acceptance, or reluctance into activism (Matias et al., 2017).We must ensure the ability of educational institutions to remain sites for encouraging, scaffolding, and cultivating emotional investment in eradicating inequities.
. Hakeem: [Disappointment and frustration] We're not addressing . . .that all worth of all people should be discussed in our history. . . .But the best you can give me is thank you for your comments, sir, and I'm asking what is the problem with a broader understanding about American history . . .if we want to give people that broader understanding of history, our heritage, our culture, we have to talk about it or put it in our history books.