Category Archives: Writing/Voice

May 23 2018
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Black Girl, Personal, Writing/Voice

Bury me and watch me grow

 

This is one of my favorite sayings and the inspiration for the vine tattoo I have on my back. I like to think of this saying from two different perspectives: overcoming personal struggle and circumstance that almost knocked me down for good ;and waking up, every day, in spite of  the institutional barriers in place that tame and shrink and murder women like me. I am aware of what is up against me, I have seen it work in real time. I felt pains of its collateral damage. But I’m here though. Growing and strong (but only when I want to be). Chipped but never broken. I will live on.

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May 22 2018
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Black Girl, Class Notes, Research, Writing/Voice

Urban Ed 75200: University Violence

I enjoyed this week’s reading topic. The idea of higher education/ the academy not being safe is a new found realization that,  after years of working in this field (as an administrator who’d one day like to be a faculty member), is something that took a while for me to unpack. There  are times that I feel drained and insidiously watched in this space; and while I am not a professor yet, I can relate to many of the unwanted feelings this week’s authors discuss. It also served as a warning to stay woke and be mindful on how my body and mind, as a black woman, will be treated and the expectations will be placed. I often say that reading, experiencing new things, and being open to learning have provided me with the vocabulary needed to describe my struggle. I am reminded of that from today’s pieces.

Gumbs’ “The Shape of My Impact” gives me that vocabulary. Black woman, myself included have survived. I appreciate her reminder of the original meaning of the word as something to be associated with more than subsisting (barely making it). Survival is a state of overcoming again and again. It means existing within the realms of a society that constantly wishes to keep you bound and silent. While the author’s inspiration is Audre Lorde’s “Litany For Survival”, the piece also makes me think of Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me”:  …come celebrate/ with me that everyday/something has tried to kill me/and has failed”. I also like this interpretation of surviving because we do not need to compromise our beliefs or passions to do so, like the popular definition of the word suggests. We can survive on our own terms.

I think that Gumbs’ piece and N.H.I. (No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues) essay were good connectors to the reading we chose. The N.H.I. provides great historical context on how we have gotten here, higher education realm, a place that we were once systematically denied space, that now accepts us with a litany of expectations and unrealistic standards. White supremacy is one hell of beast. Only a system built on the dehumanization of Black people could evolve with times and insidiously become more prevalent and damaging over the course of time.

This connected nicely with Heidi Safia Mirza’s “Decolonizing Higher Education: Black Feminism and the Intersectionality Of Race and Gender”. I appreciated her including her own story of struggle in academia, it made the article much more profound. Mirza spends her article ruminating how the intersections of blackness and womanhood can act as a double-edged sword for academics. Our identity sort of pre-determines the type of treatment we get, the type of expectations placed on us , and possibly, the trajectory of  our time in any field. We are the token, the special case, or only the grad expert on race. We do not fall into any other category. Our work must be twice as good because we are being watched. As I read this piece, I thought two different metaphors: higher ed for Black women is a cage that was once small but now big, so big, that we may not even realize the bars are still there. We cannot see the owner but we know he’s watching. Or (using Mirza’s saltwater analogy), we are fish who finally got some water but can’t swim in it because we are freshwater fish in salted waters. The new form of oppression does not involve shutting us out anymore, it’s about letting us in and expecting us to maintain the status quo; to assimilate and forget ourselves in the process. The academy has now weaponized our “difference”. I know I must sound dramatic but I know I am not wrong. I have seen this in the extra labor given to black women, in the treatment of black women who choose not to ascribe to mold the university or department has created for them. I have lost quite a few Black female professors (mentors) because of this updated form of oppression. I have seen the research and work of Black women watered down and tainted because it did not align with “the campus ideals”.  These may seem like small things but over the course of time, double consciousness and the double-edgeness of sword can break you. It is violence. I am grateful that I have seen this in real time because I know what takes to stop it from happening to me. Us just being in these spaces is no longer good enough. If we do not stay vigilant against the violent traditions of academia than I do believe we will become the multicultural puppets they desire. I reject that idea and want to continue expanding my vocabulary so I can be better equipped to fight it.

CITATIONS:

Clifton, Lucille. Book of Light. Copper Canyon Press, 1996.

Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. “The Shape of My Impact.” The Feminist Wire, 29 Oct. 2012, www.thefeministwire.com/2012/10/the-shape-of-my-impact/.

Mirza, Heidi Safia. “Decolonizing Higher Education: Black Feminism and the Intersectionality Of Race and Gender.” Journal of Feminist Scholarship, vol. 7, no. 8, 2015, pp. 1–12.

Wynter, Sylvia. “No Humans Involved: An Open Letter to My Colleagues.” Forum N.H.I: Knowledge of the 21st Century, vol. 1, no. 1, 1994, pp. 42–74.

 

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May 22 2018
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Black Girl, Class Notes, Writing/Voice

Urban Ed 75200: What Does Decolonization really look like?

The readings from the past two weeks have me thinking a lot about the act of decolonizing and all that comes with the process. It requires a great deal of work. I find myself having to train my thought process when I think about  it. Tiffany Lethabo King says that decolonizing will require misandry, misanthropy, and skepticism. These are all words I have considered to have a pejorative connotation, words/feelings I have been trained to stay away from when it comes to interpreting academic writing and research. Then, it dawned on me that we have been so consumed by colonial frameworks, that we don’t know how to operate otherwise so, that means there must be tension and struggle. We cannot overcome it without a fight. There is a real feeling of discomfort within this struggle, something that I have never felt before. It is different from the push back we get when fighting for social justice issues. Our society is used to people fighting for the rights of the marginalized, we can see it in how racism continues to adapt to the times but, fighting for a complete overhaul of the way we think and see people is something new.

Eve Tuck and K.W. Yang talks about this newness (I could not think of another word to describe the feeling) that comes with the work of decolonizing. It is something completely different. It is something that will always be uncomfortable because we cannot let it become  routine or be domesticated. The work cannot be tamed if it supposed to completely wreck the status quo. I need to get used to this discomfort; I need to be OK with being “unsettled” as Tuck and Yang say. While I can already see myself acting on my decolonial desires, I still have a ways to go. I feel like a part of process of fully accepting my decolonial desires is questioning my automatic tendency to want to find unity or harmony. I need to be OK with things (especially in academia) not connecting. I used to try my hardest to find myself in a lot of this old, stuffy academic writing and would be discouraged when didn’t see myself. There came a point a in time when I was so blase and uninterested in reading things written by old white men ( I still feel this way, honestly). King reassures me that I should not have reason or search for myself in the text because it was not written for me. She has made me realize that I have already been actively refusing the colonizer, refusing the Western mode of thought (decolonial desires are made in colonial settings, right?!).

I also read Bettina Love’s “Difficult Knowledge: When a Black Feminist Educator Was Too Afraid to #SayHerName”. While her focus of her article was mainly discussing how academia and the education system (along with other societal factors) have made it easy for us to forget the very real plight of black women, it also got me thinking more about the decolonial refusal. I think a part of the refusal King speaks about in her piece also involves the centering of black women. Love mentions how her young, female students can talk about the state-sanctioned killings of black with ease but rarely bring the murders of black women. Black death has become a natural part of our society. When we talk about it, we are usually only talking about black men. It’s like they are the status quo in a sense (a status quo that we always must address during the act of the decolonizing). We have been programmed to not think of ourselves (black women) and liberation at the same time. Decolonizing must also address that in ways that go beyond just demanding certain rights and liberties, right? What would a decolonized BLM protest/movement look like? Is the current M4BL (Movement For Black Lives) a decolonized space? Moreover, I am concerned about the extra labor that comes with having to manually center myself. Is the extra labor a part of the refusal process King discusses ? What would be a decolonized approach look like? Black women already do a large amount of the work in the movement; in a decolonized space is the work still on their backs?

 

CITATIONS:

King, Tiffany Lethabo. “Humans Involved: Lurking in the Lines of Posthumanist Flight.” Critical Ethnic Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2017, p. 162., doi:10.5749/jcritethnstud.3.1.0162.

Love, Bettina. “Difficult Knowledge: When a Black Feminist Educator Was Too Afraid to #SayHerName.” English Education, vol. 49, no. 2, Jan. 2017.

Tuck, Eve, and K Wang Yang. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education& Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–40.

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May 22 2018
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Class Notes, Research, Writing/Voice

Urban Ed 75200- Testimonios

I thoroughly enjoyed reading and learning about Testimonios. It called to mind some ideas I have written about in past responses, in particularly, the idea of truth (who/what determines it) and its implications for black women in academia. For me, it seemed that testimonios were the collections of of the first hand experiences of Latina women. We all know that the voice and experiences of women of color have long been ignored. Yet, scholars are using them in their research and using them in a way that directly makes the experiences of women (of color) to be deemed as truth. I have heard of similar forms experience collecting that, akin to testimonios, requires deep reflection (and agency) of the participant and a solidarity and respect from the researcher.  In that sense, it reminds me a great deal of participatory action research just taken a step farther to honor the existence of the “subject” and their experiences.

In “Chicana/Latina Testimonios: Mapping the Methodological, Pedagogical, and Political” I got the same decolonial disruption (vibe) that I noticed in Tiffany King’s piece on posthumanism (“Humans Involved: Lurking in the lines of Posthumanist Flight”). Testimonios do indeed disrupt white supremacy (directly) in higher education. Testimonios disrupt because they challenge many things that academia employs to regulate, surveill, and deny women of color. Testimonios questions academia’s use of objectivity and challenges the idea of legitimacy. Take, for example, Papelitos guardados;  the authors describe it as something that is both a concrete and abstract concept of expression that is explored through testimonios. The very idea that something can be both concrete and abstract in academic research is almost baffling to me (because I have been brought up in a white supremacist educational system that rejects and negates this form of individual expression). Lindsay Perez Huber mentions something similar in her piece, “Disrupting apartheid of knowledge: testimonio as methodology in Latina/o critical race research in education”. She recounts a time when an academic colleague questioned her methodology and, in particular, the amount of qualitative data  (and her testimonio) she used in her study. They want us to not veer from their broken mold so badly!

I also loved her explanation of the apartheid of knowledge. It is obviously a tool of white supremacy. I just like the term apartheid of knowledge, I think it encapsulates the insidious denial of black and indigenous knowledge in academia. Huber says “The apartheid of knowledge that exists in higher education is much deeper than the marginalization of knowledge that falls outside of the mainstream” (Huber 641). It is much deeper than simple marginalization, it involves that tactics I mentioned earlier (regulation, surveillance, etc.) and more. I would even venture to say that it is violent. Huber says that through the documentation and studying of various testimonios, knowledge and theory are created. Testimonios are basically created outside of the academy; there is no universal definition (according to Huber); it employs the tradition of oral history (a concept that usually contested and questioned in higher education); is used to highlight injustice and bias in and out of academia. Lastly, testimonio creates and is the community. From what I have read, the “researcher” (I use that term loosely because it is not the same research-subject relationship) cannot and does not speak for the  women involved in the study; they are “co-constructors” of the knowledge. Considering the relationship between the women involved, I know for a fact that space they occupy to create these testimonios is very safe and empowering. It is a very dope response to the apartheid of knowledge. There is truth in us (women of color) and we will continue to mine and cultivate it  on our own terms and conditions.

 

CITATIONS:

Huber, Lindsay Pérez. “Disrupting Apartheid of Knowledge:Testimonioas Methodology in Latina/o Critical Race Research in Education.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 22, no. 6, 2009, pp. 639–654., doi:10.1080/09518390903333863.

King, Tiffany Lethabo. “Humans Involved: Lurking in the Lines of Posthumanist Flight.” Critical Ethnic Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2017, p. 162., doi:10.5749/jcritethnstud.3.1.0162.

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May 21 2018
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Community Engagement, Education, Writing/Voice

Finding Myself: The Bonner Scholar Program and my undergraduate experience

I would not have finished my undergraduate education if I was not fortunate enough to be a part of the community engagement scholarship program called The Bonner Scholars Program. Founded in 1990, the mission of the Bonner Program is  to provide “access to higher education and an opportunity to serve” for students in the program.  At the time of my graduation, the Bonner Program was in 22 small liberal arts college, spaces that are almost always completely white and wealthy. I, like all the other members of the program, came from immigrant, low-income backgrounds and households in which higher education was a far off dream. Bonner, along with our own talent, sweat, and skill, made that dream a reality.

I often refer to my undergraduate experience as time in which I acquired the my ‘life vocabulary’. Without tokenizing us, Bonner provided a space of nurturing, learning and growth for a large chunk marginalized students at my college.  I learned how to navigate spaces that weren’t made for me and own them as if I did. I learned that my mother was right, I had to (and will always have to) be better and work smarter than others. I lost what I thought was my voice and, somehow, found it in a place I hadn’t even thought to look. It was during undergrad that I was first asked “who” I wanted to be rather than “what”. And while my undergraduate experience was no where near perfect, I will be ever grateful for the space it allowed for me to learn who I was and who I could be.

In May 2013, Mother’s Day, I graduated from Allegheny College with a bachelors of arts in English and Political Science. Because of the Bonner Program, I had become a youth program manager in a community center of a low-income housing development; supervised a team of 4 regular volunteers; coordinated and implemented 3 educational programs and countless developmental activities for over 50 children between the ages of 3-18. These are not the experiences of the typical 22 year old college graduate. I was given an opportunity to take charge and use my agency and I shined.  Community Engagement was vehicle I used to reclaim the agency that has been taken from me over the years. It fortified my resolve and reminded me of the light I have within me and the power I have to determine my path.

The intersection of education, marginalized youth, and community-engaged teaching and learning is a passion of mine that has continued to balloon over the years into a career path and now a possible research topic for my graduate studies. There is something there, maybe a methodology or framework that can be studied and replicated because my experience is not unique. There are thousands of people from marginalized communities who can speak to the power of community engagement and their education.

 

 

 

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