Through an ethnographic case study within one struggling Afrocentric public charter school in the Mid-Atlantic from 2009 to 2011, I show how broader neoliberal reforms and an incomplete attempt at Afrocentric education combined to redefine Blackness as poverty, danger, and failure through the co-optation of school-based practices. Using a Critical Race theoretical framework, I argue that culturally focused programs, which explicitly aim to serve students of color, are at risk of failing their students because of the interests of the reform movements they are accountable to. These findings suggest that culturally responsive educational programs, despite their holistic and empowering frameworks, may be particularly vulnerable to marginalizing the students they aim to serve in ways that are distinctly and overtly connected to broader racist conceptions of Blackness.