Earlier this week, The Chronicle Review published an essay by George Yancy, “The Ugly Truth of Being a Black Professor in America,” a searing account of the hundreds of bigoted emails, phone messages, letters, and slights the Emory University philosopher has received over the last few years.
“There are times when I ask myself, ‘Why do I do this?’” Yancy writes. “There is no pleasure to be had in being the object of hatred.” But, he continues, “Silence will not help.”
We asked readers to share their own experiences of racism in higher education. We heard directly from more than 150 readers, most of them anonymous. Here’s a sample of what they told us:
As a Black Woman in academia, I am inherently not trusted to be qualified for my job, and have to work twice as hard just to achieve the basic respect my white colleagues get from the moment they walk into a room.
•
The burden all seems to fall on people of color. We’re the ones that are told to be nicer. We’re the ones tapped to be on every committee that has to do with anything brown, black, yellow, etc. We’re the ones working extra hours at predominantly white institutions because we have students that only feel safe coming to us with their issues or concerns because we understand. We’ve got the students’ baggage and stress in addition to our baggage and stress, and our white counterparts wonder why we’re burnt out by Fall Break.
•
I have experienced racism in the academy by being racism in the academy. I’m a white, cis, straight, female professor. There’s a Black Lives Matter sign on my office door. I film police officers who bother my black neighbors. Yet, when I first started my academic job, I twice in the space of a semester did the same thing to black students that happened to Yancy and his black colleague: called them by another black student’s name. (No, the same thing does not happen with white students.) My black advisees tell me it happens all the time, usually without so much as an “I’m sorry.” I think much of the (white) academy is anti-racist in the abstract, but when it comes to putting in even a modicum of extra individual effort … not so much.
•
The university I work at is plagued with racist events on campus. After every one, an email is sent telling us all that is not “who we are” as a university. But when it continues to happen, is that possibly correct?
We also asked readers their views on what it would take to improve the situation. “Atonement,” said one commenter. “An act of God,” said another. One simply wrote: “Hahahaha!” Here’s what else we heard:
Most people are unaccustomed to dealing with black people, and especially black women in positions of authority and power. The first step is acknowledging that this is a reality.
•
Accountability. The current model in higher ed, where “Diversity directors” have little power and minuscule budgets and staff, is little more than a smoke screen masking the inaction and ongoing racial violence with a veneer of Black History Month programming.
•
The only way for a black professor to improve their climate is to LEAVE racially punitive institutions (of which there are many) and seek greener pastures. Black faculty do NOT have the luxury of staying at the same institution for too long. Familiarity will undoubtedly breed contempt, particularly for competent black faculty. For blacks in the academy, competence only exacerbates the contempt.
•
White professors need to understand that safe classroom spaces are not equivalent to preserving white feelings. Deconstructing racism in the classroom will look and feel vastly alienating for white people, and white professors need to be prepared to deal with that if they are to engage in fruitful ways with people of color.
On Twitter, several readers hailed Yancy’s essay as essential reading.
Other commenters saw something of their own experiences in Yancy’s ordeal.
