Introduction

A substantial and well-regarded body of research examines race as a social force in education and daily life. Current scholarship, in fact, abounds with conceptual and empirical publications that detail persistent and profoundly disturbing findings about the repressive implications of racialization, especially among people of color (Anderson, 1988; Kluger, 1975; Spring, 1997). A large share of contemporary and classic studies repeatedly show how major indicators of educational life are ensnared by racial inequalities, such as P-12 disciplinary decisions (Council for State Governments Justice Center, 2011; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2000), high school graduation rates (Layton, 2014), college enrollment and completion statistics (Krogstad & Fry, 2014), participation in gifted education (Ford, 2013), special education designations (Ahram, Fergus, & Noguera, 2011), and labor force statistics (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015), among other areas. Taken together, such studies shatter dreamy and misguided assertions that race is becoming inconsequential.