Drawing from Michel Foucault's notion of "useful" and "dangerous" discourse coupled with the theory of racial knowledge, this article examines how two common counter-discourses about African-American students operate and create racial knowledge in education practice. By "counter-discourse", the authors refer to knowledge, theories, and histories that emerge as a direct challenge to commonly held deficit-oriented beliefs about racial groups and social phenomenon. They contend that while counter-discourses are useful to challenge problematic theories and practices, counter-discourses are not immune from dangers of their own. In a Foucauldian sense (Foucault & Rabinow, 1984), the authors maintain that counter-discourses are paradoxically both useful and dangerous. This article explores the double relational meanings of two contemporary counter-discourses: "oppositional culture theory" and the "cultural difference theory". They focus on these particular counter-discourses because they reflect common educational discourses used to understand African-American academic achievement. They illustrate how these discourses can operate in both useful and dangerous ways in teacher education. They conclude with a discussion about the complexities and implications of drawing from discourses that seek to improve, yet unintentionally may reinforce limiting, deficit thinking and ways to talk about and work with African-American students. Additionally, they offer three suggestions for how teacher education programs can help students understand and navigate between these counter-discourses.