Abstract
In this essay, I reflect on my lived experience as a Black, female scholar doing critical scholarship on racism in the vein of Critical Race Theory (CRT). I am particularly attentive to the ways that the current backlash against those who use critical perspectives that center the experience of marginalized persons to illuminate continuing racial oppression in society is meant to silence and frighten scholars through challenging our very livelihoods and even our sanity. Amid widespread legislative attacks in numerous states across the nation, I comment on both the emancipatory power of using the agency of Black joy to speak truth to power in a White supremacist world and the constancy of its companion-pain. I do this to better answer the question: in a place where race scholarship is under attack or heavy scrutiny, what are your experiences with leaving or staying and why?
De ni**er woman is de mule uh de world. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God All my life I had to fight. Alice Walker, The Color Purple I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Movement—forced and volitional—is in my DNA. Academia is my second career. The first 10 years of my postgraduate working life were dedicated to the law. I worked as a practicing attorney. Most of my law career was spent at a mid-size firm in Dayton, Ohio. Nearly a decade after leaving the law, I completed my PhD. That was in May 2010. Since that time, I have been at five different institutions. This includes one year as a postdoctoral fellow. I have served at a Christian college, a historically Black college, a predominantly and historically White institution, a selective institution, and a large public regional university in transition. Why so much movement? It is not an easy question to answer. In some ways, there are as many responses to the question as there are intersections to my identity.
I am, as scholar Dominique C. Hill (2019) has written, a Blackgirl (one word) and as Letisha Engracia Cardoso Brown expands upon in her forthcoming book, a Blackgirlwoman. Claiming this identity as one reveals my vulnerability and my strength. Other important aspects of my identity include the statuses of mother, wife, caregiver, department chair, Christian, and friend. All these statuses have factored into my decision to leave or to stay, but each of them too is a hyphenated status. I am a Black mother, a Black wife, Black caregiver, and so on.
As a Blackgirlwoman, I am subject to multiple oppressions. It may visit as anti-blackness, misogynoir, or a host of other ideologies that work to minimize, dehumanize, or disadvantage me. There-fore, I cannot take my physical, economic, or psychic safety for granted. I am not always “unsafe” in spaces and places, but my safety cannot be assumed either.
In this essay, I reflect on the choice I and others doing critical scholarship on racism make to leave or stay at an institution. Many people seek easy answers, so that, they falsely assume this is a regional question. It is not. The American South is often used as a proxy or scapegoat to enable others to believe that all the racism in the United States is contained in that region. Still, as I currently reside in the U.S. South, I will speak from that perspective, but it should not be interpreted as an indictment of one region. Racism does not observe discrete geographic or class boundaries. Besides, as Marcus A. Hunter and Zandria F. Robinson (2018: 2) discuss in Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life, any place below Canada is the American South. 1 At this moment, Hunter and Robinson’s remarks seem particularly prescient.
Regarding this contemporary moment where critical race and other frameworks are under attack, Brian B. Foster and James M. Thomas (2022: 5), the coeditors of the journal Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, write:
It seems apparent to us that what is being banned is not simply the critical legal framework developed by Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, Richard Delgado, and others. Rather, politicians and media pundits have made CRT into an empty signifier, and subsequently filled it with any and all unrelated phenomena that threaten the status quo: Marxism, intersectionality, DEI trainings and workshops, and even rudimentary US history.
For the sake of brevity and clarity, I will hereinafter sometimes refer to the ideas communicated above as “the attack,” which, in my home state of Georgia, manifests in recent challenges to tenure as we know it and other policy changes, including amendments to the Board of Regents Policy 6.5.1 regarding Academic Freedom. The revised policy states, in part:
Students should be provided an environment conducive to learning, be free from faculty or institutional coercion to make personal or political choices . . . Similarly, faculty and staff have the right to be unburdened by irrelevant factors such as ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths.
Some institutions have already responded to this rule by scrutinizing and even calling for the removal of words like “diversity,” “social justice,” and “equity” from institutional and department missions and websites and curbing once required diversity trainings.
For most public Georgia institutions, in the last decade, our student population has become increasingly diverse. Yet, the revised policy has been interpreted to classify Diversity Statements 2 as an unlawful ideological test. As someone who has spent her life on the margins of inclusion, I do not find efforts to give candidates a chance to highlight their commitment to creating a culture of inclusion and belonging to be irrelevant. Furthermore, any prohibition on Diversity Statements makes a statement to the candidate, the larger society, and the university community about the value we place on social inclusion. One must wonder if that is the intent.
In Search Of
Community is an intentional praxis. In my search for community—a network of like-minded scholars with which to battle for Black liberation and sometimes a community to educate and inform—I have had successes, but as the words of Ella Baker set to music by Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock remind us, “Freedom is a constant struggle.” My limited successes mean I get to live to fight another day. I want to plant and water seeds and hope they grow. This is rewarding work, but it also takes a toll. I too want a chance to grow, to rest, and to replenish. These things are necessary not only for my physical well-being but also for my mental health and the acuity of my mind.
The search for belonging is not new. In my book, Bodies Out of Place: Theorizing Anti-blackness in U.S. Society, I write:
W. E. B. Du Bois rhetorically asked, “What does it feel like to be a problem”? And the question is still trenchant: where do you go when you are perceived to be the problem? Black skin is a symbolic marker. As a Black person, you carry it with you everywhere. In some ways, platitudes—“go where you are celebrated, not where you are tolerated,” “it’s their loss,” and “you are better off without them”—are helpful, but they require an individual to first acknowledge the condition of being undesired. A cognitive shift can only occur on recognition of this status of being objectionable. Then individuals can assert that if you view my presence in this physical or social space as a problem, that is your problem. Still, the revolutionary act of claiming a sense of belonging in space begins with responses to the spoken or unspoken assertion “You don’t belong here.” (P. 128)
Here might be a geographic place certain, but it can also be a social space. Spaces are gendered, racialized, and classed sites of power where racism and other forms of oppression can be exercised. Therefore, fully embodying space is a radical act of resistance.
What’s at Stake?
In my work, I theorize regarding racism in contemporary U.S. society. To do so, I use critical—race, feminist, and other—perspectives that center the experience of marginalized persons. Among these perspectives, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been markedly demonized. 3 The theory begins with the radical assumption that racism is endemic and built into the very institutional fabrics of U.S. society. CRT offers one of many counter-narratives to the proposition that U.S. society is a meritocracy. A 2021 PBS Newshour report stated, “CRT is now being leveraged as a catch-all phrase by opponents of equity and inclusion efforts in public education.” Anti-CRT proponents have used the phrase as a rallying cry to garner support for attacks to diversity and inclusion and anti-bias trainings; to support the curtailment of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer), trans, and abortion rights; and to reframe the teaching of African American Studies. 4
I am not afraid of the changes we are seeing instituted now. As the epigraphs that frame this essay state, I am used to fighting. I am used to being “de mule of da world.” I am used to being weary, and I am sick and tired of being weary. That brings me to my real fear. I am afraid there will come a time when some do not know the truth regarding the legacy of racial oppression in our society and those who do know it will be too tired (or afraid) to speak out. I am also mindful that this is likely one of the aims of the attack.
In a recent piece published in The Conversation, I write,
Many—if not all—Black and brown persons in U.S. society are forced to navigate increasingly segregated spaces. As we travel to, through, and in spaces and places, the presumption of criminality shrouds our bodies. It follows us to work, school, play, and even as we pick up younger siblings on a play date at a friend’s house. (Combs 2023)
The last sentence is a reference to then 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who went to an address in the suburban Northland area of Kansas City, Missouri, to pick up his younger brothers. Yarl was at the wrong address, but he did not know that. The 84-year-old White owner of the residence opened the front door and shot Yarl twice.
A few weeks after Yarl was shot in Kansas City, a White female Ocala, Florida, resident shot and killed 35-year-old Ajike (AJ) Owens—a Black woman. According to reports, Owens had knocked on the door of her neighbor, 58-year-old Susan Louise Lorincz, to discuss an issue that Lorincz had with Owens’ children playing in a nearby grass field. In a practice, Shannon Sullivan (2004, 2006: 23) has called White “ontological expansion” and others like CRT scholar Cheryl I. Harris (1993) have called “the possessive investment in whiteness,” Lorincz claimed the public space in the lot that separated her apartment dwelling from Owens’ as her own. In doing so, Lorincz asserted her sole right to regulate, control, and defend the space. Emboldened, Lorincz shot through the closed door and killed Owens. One of Owens’ minor children was standing next to their mother when Lorincz fired the fateful shot.
As the shooting of Yarl and the murder of Owens demonstrate, the presumption of not belonging—at least not for a legitimate purpose—runs through the mundane or everyday experiences of many Blacks. The individuals who shot Yarl and Owens’ each asserted they feared for their lives. I argue, their fear is simply a friendlier name for racism. If you ask me, Black individuals’ fear of Whites is the more rationale of the two. Placing this knowledge in the forefront can be crippling, so—to our own detriment—we suppress it. The more cerebral fear I acknowledge is this. I am not afraid for my physical or economic safety as much as I am for my sanity. The current ideological attack on race scholars and race scholarship says the frames through which minoritized individuals often see and experience the world are invalid. These criticisms or attacks suggest I am subject to some malady, ill-informed, or uninformed. The attack argues that my vision is wrong and that I am wrong for asserting it. That is why I highlight the psychic nature of this battle.
We are not Safe
Last year, I presented at a conference at a resort location in Georgia. Spanning several thousand acres, the facility sat nestled in a wooded and secluded area. I got lost.
A general level of dis-ease came over me. After I arrived safely, I asked the front desk for directions. I wanted to give them to a friend who was on her way. I gave the address that the conference organizers suggested, and in about 20 minutes my friend rang me. She was lost and uncomfortable. Her parents, who were coming along with her, were uncomfortable too. They had surmised that this was not a place that alone or together any of them could get out of the car and ask for directions. 5
The dis-ease and discomfort that we felt were not figments of our individual or shared imagination. There is a long historical and contemporary record of Black skin being weaponized. Considering this history, we know that “respectability politics” will not save us. My friend is gorgeous and brilliant. Aided by her above average height for a female, she commands attention. She was impeccably dressed. She walks with an air of grace and dignity that is truly regal. Despite this, she still feared for her safety and for that of her parents.
That fear is and was legitimate. Amid this reality, claiming a sense of belonging in space is a revolutionary act, but revolutionaries die too. To quote the poignant lyrics written by the mother of a Black son during the social unrest following the killing of George Floyd, sometimes “I just want to live” (Zollo 2019). As the cases discussed earlier in this piece point out, Black and Brown people often do not have the luxury of being afforded the benefit of the doubt when we ring a doorbell. This is not something I often share with my paler colleagues. It is just a reality I navigate.
I am, by nature, a happy person. I may laugh about these experiences, but I choose laughter because the other choice is to cry or to rage. The accumulated weight of a lifetime of micro (and not so micro) aggressions is so great, that I may not be able to pull myself back from the rage or the melancholy.
The Middle Finger
Sometimes I have sought out or even remained in spaces to give a middle finger to the world. It is a way of saying, “You thought you could bury me, but you did not know I was a seed.”
Most often I have stayed (or sought opportunities) out of a realization that there is nowhere I can go to escape anti-Black racism and/or misogynoir. Besides, in the era of the Internet, many physical distances have collapsed. All I need to do is turn on the television (TV) or social media, and I am reminded of what many perceive as my place in society. Those slights cut, too.
One of those fateful days—where I was reminded there is nowhere we can go to escape the attack—happened to me in early March 2021. The irony is the assault did not even happen to me or to someone I know, but it was still a visceral reminder. I was watching “The Talk,” a self-described TV talk show that “features a panel of entertainment personalities discussing current events, pop culture, family” and other issues. Ironically, the TV was on that channel in my caregiver capacity. My then 82-year-old mother has Alzheimer’s and can no longer remember how to change the channel. I turned it to the station for her.
On that fateful day, cohost Sheryl Underwood spoke about her feelings regarding her colleague Sharon Osbourne’s departure from “The Talk.” As I watched Underwood’s measured and thoughtful remarks, I was reminded that Black women are under constant attack in society. From Meghan Markle to Sheryl Underwood—and across every beautiful shade and hue in between—the tears of Black women still are not believed. Let me explain.
Nearly a month after the iconic Harry and Meghan interview with Oprah, Piers Morgan, who has never stood in a woman’s shoes nor walked through life cloaked in Black skin, continued his allegations that Markle lied about her experiences in the British monarchy.
After a heated on-air debate centered around Sharon Osbourne’s defense of her friend Piers Morgan’s comments about Markle, Osbourne demanded that Underwood “educate” her about racism. In the back and forth with Underwood, Osbourne decried, “How can I be a racist against anyone?” Then Osbourne rebuked her cohost for appearing to cry, saying, “Don’t try to cry. If anyone should be crying, it should be me!” Tears are the weapons of White women (Daniels 2021). Black women are not permitted to use the master’s tools. After the on-air implosion, “The Talk” went on hiatus. A week later, the show returned, sans Osbourne who received a settlement and the sympathy of many.
White women’s tears have been weaponized and used to justify lynching, persecution, and myriad forms of violence—physical and psychological—against Black bodies, which are perceived as subhuman and therefore not permitted to feel pain. Sharon Osbourne’s attack on her cohost, Sheryl Underwood is a continuation of the idea that Black women do not feel pain the way White women do. Even when Black women are characterized with seemingly positive monikers like “strong” or “resilient,” the labels are laden with the idea that we are simultaneously “superhuman” in our ability to endure pain but somehow less than human. White women, however, are perceived as fragile beings in need of protection, especially from Black actors. When Black women (or men) are accused of hurting the sensibilities of White women, it sparks a reflexive defense-of-White-womanhood response. Historically and at present, this defense is accomplished by a concomitant assault on Black bodies. It is a key aspect of anti-Black racism in society.
Many still think Black people feel less pain than they do (Akinlade 2020; Anderson, Green, and Payne 2009; Schoenthaler and Williams 2022). Through an intersectional lens, Black women often suffer exponential harm. Slave patrols policed the movements of Black bodies, but they did not regulate the movements of White men who came to slave quarters and other places and raped Black women (Combs 2022: 53). In the decades following “emancipation,” Black men were painted as criminal actors with a predilection to rape White women. In a May 21, 1892, column, Ida B. Wells boldly asserted, “Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread bare lie that Negro men rape white women” (Combs 2022: 24). If anyone was getting raped, Wells argued, it was Black women. The first gynecological experiments were performed (without their consent) on enslaved African women (Owens 2017). None received anesthesia. As recently as 2016, researchers at the University of Virginia found medical students rated Black patients’ pain as lower than that of White patients. The students also held false ideas, such as Blacks have less sensitive nerve endings than Whites and Black blood coagulates differently (Hoffman, Trawalter, and Axt 2016). In 2020, a hospitalized Black physician died of Covid after complaining that her attending doctor ignored her claims of pain (Eligon 2020). When Black humanity is denied, Black people die physical and social deaths.
The current attack on critical ideologies is harmful, but it only exacerbates the everyday violence to which I am subject. For example, like Sheryl Underwood, I know that when White women’s tears are wielded as a weapon, neither age, nor fame, nor social class standing can protect Black women from their sting. Over the course of my career as a college professor, I have learned this lesson numerous times. I share one encounter nearly 10 years ago that remains seared in my memory.
I was called in to meet with the then chair of my department over accusations that I had “frightened” a young White, female master’s student who had asked me to chair her committee.
A year before asking that I chair her committee, the same student asked me to direct her in an independent study for which I received no compensation. I did so. When a member of this young woman’s family faced a life-threatening disease, and she left campus for a time, I supported her from afar. When she turned in her completed thesis, it had serious shortcomings. I invited the young woman to my home and went through the thesis with her page by page, and I carefully outlined areas of concern. My father-in-law had died, and the next day, we were leaving to plan for his service. I took the time to meet with her before departing. Months later, I was still waiting for the revised product. The student had stopped responding to my emails, so that, when I saw her out at a campus lecture, I walked up to her and inquired about it. In her retelling of the event, she was too frightened to meet with me because I was menacing (my one-word paraphrase). Instead, she cried to the department chair, an older White male. He leapt to her defense and replaced me as chair of the student’s MA committee. Like Osbourne, the student cloaked herself in her White femininity and sought the protection and defense of White men. Piers Morgan ran to Osbourne’s defense the way my then department chair ran to this student’s defense. No one defended my character or integrity. I was simply a fungible Black woman. It was easy for them to paint me as angry.
No one wants to be a victim, but not only was I denied victim status, I was framed as a victimizer. Others—male and female alike—bemoan purported “cancel culture.” But who will protect Black women?
After years on air together, Osbourne’s “ignorance” seemed willful. Osbourne’s call for her Black coworker to “educate her” about racism reminded me of the ways that Black women are called upon to bear the burdens of others all while their own pain goes unmet. It reminded me of my deal breaker: If people regularly take or demand much more from me than they give, it is time to go. If I remain, my spirit is in danger of internalizing the lies they tell.
Conclusion
The fight for racial justice is now more critical than ever. I will not back down, but sometimes I do seek spaces where others are at least willing to hold me up. I think about the brilliant Black female mathematicians that Margo Lee Shetterly writes about in her book later turned movie, Hidden Figures. To the extent we are hidden, we are hidden in plain sight. As Shetterly (2017) stated in her remarks accepting the Anisfield-Wolf Award 6 for nonfiction, “The only way to make the American story a true story is to make the American story a complete story.”
Joy and laughter are my companions on this journey, but the joy I have does not come because everything is alright. Instead, it comes from a radical resolve to choose joy in a world of pain.
I hope this also provides insight on why I have chosen to seek, stay, or leave certain places. I seek places where I can tell a complete story or at least contribute to the telling of one. The work of racial justice is not easy, so, comfort can never be my aim. Liberation is my aim. . .for me and for my children.
