“Don’t Go West”: An Afropessimist Examination of Black Students’ Experiences Off Campus

Black collegians’ experiences of racism at historically white institutions are well documented in higher education research. However, few studies have investigated their racial realities in off-campus spaces near historically white institutions. Drawing on a qualitative intrinsic case study, this work examines Black undergraduates’ experiences in and navigation of a college town with a history of anti-Black terrorism. More specifically, I use the anti-Black spatial imaginary, an Afropessimist perspective, to elaborate the structure of Black suffering beyond university boundaries. Findings illustrate that anti-Blackness—the paradigmatic position of Blackness as subhuman—renders Black students’ socially dead in off-campus spaces through the following themes: (a) Blackness as trespasser, (b) Blackness as object of surveillance, and (c) Blackness as target of violence.