ABSTRACT

In this conclusion, the author discusses his experiences contemporary school-related racism. He encountered less resistance in his course on American Literature from 1400–1865, where students certainly expected to have to confront the topic of slavery, and where issues of racial violence were safely contained before the Civil War. Three recurring issues are central to the evaluation of the Brown legacy and its effect on schooling. First, the conjoined problems of control and resistance surface as potential obstacles to desired utopian education, and also as utopian desires in themselves. Next, different utopian educational schemes must account for student failure. And finally, the failed school must be considered as a potentially necessary component of a utopian democratic project. The time frame of the school year is crucial, not only for school story plots, but also for setting the boundaries of academic success. The problem of unruly desire for untenable systems haunts other antiracist activism in the United States.