Destabilizing whiteness and black oppression in academe: a critical analysis of power, consciousness, and liberation

Abstract

Whiteness is a pernicious and pervasive problem deeply rooted in the fabric of public institutions and organizations. This article critically examines the intricate interplay between whiteness, black oppression, consciousness, power dynamics, and liberation within academe. The authors interrogate the historical and socio-political foundations of whiteness and its pervasive influence on systemic marginalization and oppression. We draw from Black studies, whiteness studies, and critical race theory to both theorize constructions of whiteness and analyze its impact on Black oppression in the academy. We advocate for shifts in institutional practice preceded by shifts in consciousness that would then influence behavior. We propose two alternative models to analyze whiteness: Framework 1: explores the nature of whiteness and white normativity as embedded in a paradigm that centers power in privilege, fear, and fragility; Framework 2 puts forth a liberatory vision, one that requires a shift from privilege to environmentally sustainable living, from fragility to internal resilience, and from fear to the decolonization of the mind. These frameworks call out and seek to disrupt oppressive structures, intending to decolonize and emancipate our minds and envision ways to dismantle and disentangle ourselves from blindly obeying norms perpetrated by whiteness.

Keywords:

• Black identity
• institutional racism
• liberation
• whiteness
• white supremacy

Introduction

Colonialism has dehumanized the colonizer more than the colonized.—Walter Rodney

White people tend to grossly underestimate all Blacks, out of habit. Blacks have been overestimating whites in a conditioned reflex.—George Jackson

I have a beef with white people for showing an inability to evolve as more information became available for their human evolution.—Sister Souljah

Whiteness¹ is a pernicious and pervasive problem deeply rooted in the systems and structures of public institutions and organizations (Gusa, 2010; Starke & Mastracci, 2022; Trochmann et al., 2021). Ongoing race conversations remain rooted in rage as white normativity remains unacknowledged and often goes unseen in policies, practices, and epistemology (Gusa, 2010; Starke & Mastracci, 2022). Berry-James et al. (2021) argued that ending “racism and discrimination requires a deep understanding of systemic racism, structural racism, institutional racism, white privilege, white fragility, microaggressions, and white-splaining” (p. 5). With a focus on power, structures, consciousness, and liberation, the authors interrogate the historical and socio-political foundations of whiteness and its pervasive influence on systemic marginalization and oppression. The authors advocate for contesting mediocratic examination of how whiteness operates within academe. We critically analyze in this article how a critical study of whiteness can destabilize white normativity and white supremacy and its negative implications when the ever-present hegemony of whiteness shapes most people in powerful positions who continue to drive public policies. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, we use critical race theory (CRT), critical Black studies, and whiteness studies to provide counter-narratives and interrogate racism and white supremacy in the academe (Banks, 1990; Crenshaw et al., 1995; Solórzano, 1997, 1998; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002; Yosso, 2005).

The Western world and Anglo-American traditions of hierarchical and unilateral perceptions of whiteness and white values are continually imposed, venerated, presumed, and forced (Rabelo et al., 2021; Gusa, 2010) upon anyone who sits outside what is deemed the “ideal”—white heteronormative male perspective (Alexander & Stivers, 2010; Gooden, 2015; Rosenblum & Travis, 1996; Starke et al., 2018). This research responds to the call for public administration scholars to expose white-centered epistemologies around which public administration and policy have been theorized by focusing on how whiteness influences organizational processes and mechanisms undermining efforts to amplify the efforts of researchers and practitioners who are people of color. We propose two alternative frameworks to analyze whiteness: Framework 1: focuses on the embedded nature of whiteness and white normativity in a paradigm that centers power in privilege, fear, and fragility. Framework 2 puts forth a liberatory vision that requires a shift from privilege to environmentally sustainable living, from fear to decolonization of the mind, and from fragility to internal resilience. These frameworks call out and aim to disrupt oppressive structures, to decolonize and emancipate our minds from blindly obeying norms imposed by whiteness.

Whiteness operates as a dominant paradigm perpetuating unequal power relations and reinforcing hegemonic ideologies implicated in privilege, fear, and fragility (Crenshaw et al., 1995). Heckler and Rouse (2021) describe whiteness as “an institution” that disproportionality allocates resources and power to White people. Whiteness is rooted in hegemony and privileges white supremacist thinking and acting (hooks, 2013). Young’s (1990) Five Faces of Oppression (exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence) chronicles how differences based on identity, specifically race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and class, are negatively constructed and are subject to marginalization and criminalization. Black bodies have been stamped throughout history as inferior, with whites attempting to dominate and subjugate them through systems and power structures that dehumanize, denigrate, silence, shame, and terrorize them (Crenshaw et al., 1995). Yet discussions of race and racism often privilege “white fragility,” as counter stories are often encased in white vernacular, thereby perpetuating the dominance of white identity in ways that are often disingenuous to people of color’s lived and historical experiences (Blessett, 2015; hooks, 2013; Winters, 2020). Discussions of these topics within public administration and predominantly white academic institutions are often uncomfortable and disconcerting (John, 2017), so they are often left out or placed on the periphery of narrative discourse.

Drawing from scholars of Black studies, critical race theory, and whiteness studies, we begin the article with a review of the literature on white normativity and a discussion of our first framework that addresses constructions of white consciousness. Our analysis of whiteness as a construct intentionally draws on the work of white scholars who interrogate their own subject positions since there are benefits to their insights into the spaces that they occupy. White scholars who speak out about whiteness also benefit from its privileges, so their consciousness of “looking behind the mirror” is critical to the discourse we undertake (Yosso, 2005, p. 72). We then share autoethnographies as counter-narratives highlighting the often invisible ways that whiteness impacts the lives of faculty and administrators of color. We will move from there to addressing our second framework, which views the transformation of consciousness as a prerequisite to paradigms of liberation. The final section summarizes the argument of the article, concluding that what is needed is not plaques and platitudes but intentional work to dismantle whiteness and liberate academic spaces.

Constructs of white normativity

White privilege bequeaths a sense of unearned security that is implicitly rooted in societal hierarchies of power and is central to hegemonic power (Crenshaw et al., 1995; McIntosh, 1989). The fear that surfaces in the wake of this is often subconscious, and is about several things: (i) that the racial oppression that non-western groups experienced will be meted out in a reversal of fortune; (ii) that there will be a public revelation that Western achievements are not based on merit but rather on the exploitation of others and theft of ideas; (iii) that white people will be exposed as having inferiority complexes rather than being part of an advanced civilization (McIntosh, 1989; DiAngelo, 2015/16; Jensen, 2005). Fragility is the reaction to the loss of unexamined emotional safety if (white) race privilege is questioned (DiAngelo, 2015, 2016). Drawing from these theories of scholars of CRT and whiteness studies, we argue that whiteness is centrally embedded in a triangulation of privilege, fear, and fragility that are functional at the level of both the individual and the collective psyche, and which subconsciously reinforce each other.

Figure 1. Constructs of white normativity.

In her Master’ thesis, The Destructive Imagination: Whiteness as Terrified Consciousness, Ann Cunningham takes the term “terrified consciousness” from Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and uses it as a conceptual tool to categorize the representations of whiteness in several texts by nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century African American and Afro-Caribbean authors. Terror emerges as the primary descriptor of a subconscious yet collective white anxiety during periods of significant destabilization or change.² Late twentieth and early twenty-first century scholars of Whiteness and Anti-Blackness address this consciousness from both the inside and outside (Blessett & Gaynor, 2021; Gooden, 2015; Hartman, 1997; Kendi, 2016; Starke et al., 2018; Wynter, 2003; Wise, 2011; Snorton, 2017; Moore, 2009). McIntosh (1989) reminds us that “whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, [] average, and also ideal, so that [as] we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us’” (p. 1). In conjunction with this, Alexander and Stivers (2010), argue that “race continues to have a persuasive social [function]…and discussions centered on social equity, justice, and inclusion are often seen by whites as ‘playing the race card’ that is, inappropriately (even cynically) accounting for some event or action on the basis of race” (p. 579).

Scholars of Blackness and critical race theory (CRT) introduce theories that disrupt white normativity and critique the social, political, and legal history that undergirds structural racism and its current impacts (Bell, 1980, 1992, 1995; Crenshaw, 1988, 2010; Delgado, 1992; Williams, 1990). CRT as a theoretical and legal framework argues that racism is rooted and embedded in structures, codified in law and woven in public policies (Bell, 1980, 1992, 1995; Crenshaw, 1988, 2010; Delgago 1992; Williams, 1990). CRT is rooted in primary basic assumptions that argue that the social construct of race institutionalizes racism and perpetuates a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tier (Matsuda et al., 1993/2018). hooks (2013) wrote, “In order to talk openly and honestly about race in the United States it is helpful to begin with the understanding that it is white supremacist thinking and practice that has been the political foundation undergirding all systems of domination based on skin color and ethnicity” (pp. 3–4). Discussions of whiteness require reckoning with colonial power dynamics and the subjugation, exploitation, and oppression of people of color. We call for recognition of these challenges as well as critical engagement about what intentional shifts and meaningful attempts to dismantle and/or disrupt white normativity could look like.

Over a century ago, W.E.B Dubois in 1903 in The Soul of Black Folks, wrote:

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn (p. xxii)

Essentially, Dubois argues that the hegemony of whiteness is normalized and “White” is a metaphor for power (Matias & Mackey, 2016; Starke & Mastracci, 2022). Dubois refers to the concept of double consciousness as having to negotiate two realities simultaneously, which in a contemporary context could be understood as code-switching, a navigation, both consciously and unconsciously, between two different worlds of cultural literacy; one which requires living within and coping with white violence and the other which is the Black cultural space of familiarity. The complexity of this is that people of color must adjust or modify their identities which may include responding to an internalized sense of oppression and discrimination based on the white gaze. The tenets of CRT as put forth by Solórzano (1997, 1998) allows for the view of social reality as perceived from a minoritized and marginalized lens to interrogate the role of race and racism in society and organizations and how people of color navigate, negotiate, experience, and situate themselves based on institutional practices imbued with whiteness (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002; Yosso, 2005).

Black religious studies scholar Darnell Moore further addresses the types of traumas that would lead to the internalization of oppression. Citing Edward Phillip Antonio’s notion of a “negative erotics” and Saidiya Hartman’s constructions of the “pained (black) body,” he states that “the Black body thrashed, the Black body lynched, the Black body sexually assaulted, held captive, murdered, tortured, spat upon, legally denied, named less-than, cursed, missionized and publicly satirized, that Black body is the site of trauma(s)” (Moore, 2009, p. 184). He describes racial realities that are primarily products of the “terrified consciousness” addressed by Cunningham (2002) as well as the triangulation of privilege, fear, and fragility identified by whiteness studies scholars. We therefore ask, how do we reckon with what we are willing to stand up for and what we will risk speaking up against? Whiteness dominates in the machinery of government and administrative functionality based on power differentials maintained at multiple levels. We see this in terms of prevailing narratives of meritocracy, neutrality, power distribution, resources, access, and upholding existing social, political, and economic conditions (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Portillo et al., 2022). Whiteness reinforces gendered and racialized hierarchies and “the white gaze” is a mechanism used to “determine which bodies are safe versus threatening; worthy versus undeserving; valid versus illegitimate; acceptable versus deviant; valuable versus expendable” (Rabelo et al., 2021, p. 1842). Whiteness is also the norm embedded in stories, myths, explanations, definitions, and rationalizations used to justify disparities, inequities, and injustices.

Dismantling and destabilizing whiteness implicitly calls for exposing the illusion of racial enlightenment and continued abuse of white privilege, fear, and fragility (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw et al., 1995; Delgado, 1992) and alternative and revolutionary vision that disrupts oppressive systems to cultivate more inclusive and liberated spaces (Banks, 1990; Solórzano, 1998; Yosso, 2005). Specifically, the authors focus on “whiteness as a system of power,” and they identify “mechanisms and practices that maintain this racist system through regulation, punishment, and control” and this requires white academics to acknowledge the power and privilege of their skin color and reflect on how they may be complicit in upholding the system of whiteness that underpins academe (Rabelo et al., 2021, p. 1842). According to Starke et al. (2018), the “racial contract is a society-wide agreement that benefits white people, with political, moral, and epistemological facets” (p. 471). Our first framework (Figure 1) drew on historical and contemporary analyses of white normativity and how power is embedded and normalized in privilege, fear and fragility. White normativity is rooted in relatable but often unconscious, unspoken, and unexplored assumptions and interpretations of race (DiAngelo, 2015, 2016; McIntosh, 1989; Jensen, 2005; and Alkalimat, 1969). Referring pack to the notion of privilege, fear, and fragility, McIntosh (1989) argued that the “invisible package of unearned assets” is what facilities this and points to the importance of liberation.

Liberatory alternatives

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds. ³

- Bob Marley

Figure 2. Liberatory alternatives: Destabilizing white normativity.

Decolonizing the mind is what we suggest as a model for liberating and empowering our minds. Liberation requires not only confronting normative notions and conceptions of whiteness, but also emphasizing the experiences, outcomes, and injustices often overlooked. Counter-narratives are essential for this transition as white narratives on race, diversity, and discrimination in some instances further empowers whiteness (Banks, 1990; Crenshaw et al., 1995). We propose that privilege is replaced with environmentally sustainable living, fear with decolonization of the mind, and fragility with internal resilience. To move beyond unsettling white normativity and toward more transformative paradigm shifts, the early work of mid-twentieth century Black studies scholar Abd-L Hakimu Ibn Alkalimat is still suggestive in terms of opening our eyes to alternative conceptualizations. In a December 1969 issue of The Black Scholar, Alkalimat published the groundbreaking essay, “The Ideology of Black Social Science,” reprinted in The Death of White Sociology in 1973. In this piece, he implicitly and explicitly pushes back against structures of white normativity as they are made manifest in the discipline of sociology. Describing social science as the handservant to an implicitly white ideology that is functionally invisible, he puts forth his own clarification of this relationship in a way that represents the repressed interests of oppressed Black people, desperately in need of strategies of liberation. In his assessment he asks two key questions: i) what type of a connection between ideology and social analysis would facilitate real liberation? ii) How can Black people develop the type of analysis that would lead to a commitment to struggle for liberation from systemic racism and, is utilizing ideologies that rupture implicit bias the first step? At the heart of his article is a juxtaposition of six terms, one set from “white social science” that functions as the norm and the other set from what he names and deems “Black social science” (Table 1).

Table 1. Juxtaposition of white social science and black social science.

Terms of White Social Science	Terms of Black Social Science
Negro (non-white)	African (Black)
Segregation	Colonization
Tokenism	Neo-colonialism
Integration	Liberation
Equality	Freedom
Assimilation	Africanization

Adapted from Alkalimat (1969).

In many ways, what is referred to as “social science” even today, emerges from a dominant white discursive lens, one that presumes itself to be normative and universal. Black social science, as a distinct discourse tailored to the cultural realities of the descendants of enslaved Africans, does not actually exist in clarity and substance. Where social science distinctions are made between Black people and more dominant groups, they have gotten boxed up into dominant and normative social discursive assumptions which are implicitly seen as universal. The need for any distinctions therefore becomes invisible. Alkalimat’s insightful intervention in the 1970s represented a type of paradigm shift in this regard. The interpretation and understanding of both sets of terms have significant implications for public administration theory and praxis. Referencing to some extent the language and consciousness of the era in which it was written, Alkalimat’s liberatory distinction between the meaning and implications of both sets of terms still stands the test of time. Referring to the terms “Negro” and “non-white” he states, here “Black is not beautiful nor is it designed to survive” (p. 32). African, on the other hand, at the very least links us “to our ancestors.” Moving on to the term “segregation” he notes, “the real problem is not our being segregated from white people in the West [but] our being in the West in the first place” (p. 33). Following his logic, if the issue is the way that diasporic Africans arrived in the West, as enslaved labor, then the problem is not “segregation” but “colonization” which he defines as “a total attempt at subordination [of] a people’s values, beliefs, rituals, norms, institutions, myths and its history” (p. 33). His redefinition of “segregation” as “colonization” and “colonization” as a total subordination of a people’s values is consistent with the critiques of whiteness coming from the range of CRT and Black Studies scholars previously cited, as well as the erasure of non-western cultural difference that Whiteness scholars highlight.

The solution to this is not further “integration” and “assimilation” into contexts that disguise oppression as normative but instead “decolonization” and “liberation.” Within the white social science context, what has often been presented as a solution is “tokenism”—the hiring of one or two prominent people of color in middle to upper management positions. The term “tokenism,” taken from the white social science side of Alkalimat’s framework, suggests a critique of this world order, yet it doesn’t go far enough. Alkalimat’s Black social science classification of “tokenism” is as “neo-colonialism,” which he describes as “partial but not total” [figure-head leadership] “of black communit[ies] by black people” who nevertheless are not free to pursue real agendas of liberation but instead represent “the covert interests of whites” (p. 33).

If “integration” and “equality” are seen within Alkalimat’s analysis of white social science as two reinforcing ideologies that stabilize the dominant societies architecture and structures of thought as both ideal and desirable, then “assimilation,” Alkalimat argues, “is the ultimate form of progress [with]in the white liberal analysis.” But this process he contends, should be more accurately called, “anglo-conformity” (p. 32). When he juxtaposes “assimilation” from the white social science side with “Africanization,” from the Black social science side the mere juxtaposition exposes the extent to which the former category is implicitly a type of “white normativity” masquerading as objective equality. There are startling differences between Alkalimat’s categories of white and Black social science. We draw on Alkalimat (1969) to highlight the root challenges of white normativity and how targeted efforts need to first demystify how it operates and functions.

We now turn to autoethnographic counter-narratives, a necessity in the work of dismantling white normativity, power, and privilege to recall experiences—since the personal is political, emotional, and psychological. We engage the complexities of telling stories to examine powerful and often unseen lived realities. Yosso (2005) views CRT not only as a means to challenge race and racism but as a social justice project geared toward liberation, survival, and resistance. To refute dominant ideology, Winters (2020) advocates for chronicling the daily lives of people of color to give voice to how they navigate the “myriad of unjust and inequitable experiences that are relentless” (p. ix). These narratives are important to illuminate the experiences of faculty of color in the academy to destabilize and begin the process of dismantling the centrality of whiteness.

The stories presented here are used as data analyzed through a CRT lens. As Solórzano & Yosso (2002) indicated autoethnographic narratives are a “tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege” (p. 32). Autoethnography and storytelling elicit and reveal the lived experience and repressed trauma of those impacted by whiteness and systems of oppression (Crenshaw, 2010; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). There are very distinct and different realities for people of color. The pervasiveness of whiteness continues to distort how public institutions are experienced by people of color. Using Solórzano and Yosso’s (2002) methodology for counter-storytelling, we share counter-narratives gathered from our own experiences and those of friends and colleagues who work in academia (pseudonyms used). We leverage the work of Alkalimat and CRT scholars to invite the reader to ponder the relationship between systems of oppression, theories of resistance, and through concrete personal experiences that illuminate and articulate the voices of people of color and their experiences negotiating their identity and navigating whiteness in academic spaces. As articulated by Adichie (2009), “Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.” We all have stories to tell, and attempt to extrapolate, identify, and meditate on what destabilizing whiteness in public organizations and the academy looks like in light of these stories based on how whiteness privileges itself and uses cloaking tactics such as privilege, fear, and fragility to rationalize its position and power. The overarching premise of CRT is that race, racism, and white normativity are fundamental to how organizations and institutions function, so the experiences of people of color are essential to challenge dominant white ideologies (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002; Yosso, 2005).

Autoethnographic counter-narratives

Autoethnography #1

As a young tenure track assistant professor at her first job, Camilla was the only Black faculty member in her department. She was applying for a grant internal to the university and was told that a senior white male faculty member in her unit was the man to go to if one wanted help with grants. She reached out instead to a South Asian male professor whose research was closer to her field and received what she believed to be good advice.

Camilla felt pretty confident.

On the grant deadline day, while walking down the hall, she ran into the grant-writing god.

She second-guessed herself.

Maybe she should talk to him?

“I hear you are the person to see about grant applications.”

“Oh! You heard that did you?” He smiled a bit smugly it seemed to her.

“I may stop by your office, if that’s okay, to have you look it over.”

“Certainly! I’ll be there all afternoon.”

She left and went about her business.

But later she realized that even if he gave her revision suggestions, she had no time to make them. The grant was due that day before 5:00 pm. This was still the era when applications were submitted physically rather than digitally. She had a meeting with the Chair of her department, a white woman who had hired her. The chair had also seen the application since she had to write a letter of support, and thought it was good.

Camilla changed my mind. She would not consult the senior professor.

But since he had consented to read it, she decided to thank him and let him know that she had had a change of heart. She stopped by his office.

“Thank you so much for your willingness but I realize I would not have time to make any changes since the application deadline is today.” She had the application physically in my hand.

He snatched it from her and glanced at it.

“You don’t even say how you would use the money if you received it.”

“Ahm… I do. Further down on the page.”

“Hm. I see. But what are these terms you’re using here?”

She looked at him directly and held out my hand.

“Please give me back my grant application.”

He seemed startled. He handed it back to her and she left his office.

It was the last time she sought his help with her research.

In the next few years, Camilla got bogged down in teaching and service with multiple Black student organizations on campus.

She received the award three years in a row for “Outstanding Black Faculty of the Year” from African American Student Services—an office that closely worked with the student groups.

But there were whisperings in her department.

Will she get tenure?

She felt intellectually isolated. There were certainly well-intentioned white colleagues who wanted the best for her, but no-one who understood the postcolonial landscape from a similar place. The South Asian faculty member left the department to take a job elsewhere.

In her second year she went to a symposium on the East Coast. A prominent white male scholar in the field of American Studies heard her give a paper and asked if she had a manuscript ready for publication.

She sent him her dissertation.

He said he liked it and wanted to publish it in his series with a prominent press.

Camilla was elated.

She waited.

A year passed.

Then two.

The tenure clock was ticking. In the meantime, she had gotten further feedback on the dissertation from colleagues in her field at other institutions and made substantial revisions. She submitted the book proposal to several other presses. One prominent press told her that no academic publishing house would take it. Constant suspicion of Black thought. She was disheartened. On the advice of a mentor, she rewrote the book proposal.

Camilla attended the major conference in her field and set up an in-person meeting with the editor of the press that had her manuscript. He informed her that the Americanist had sent him a random chapter without her name attached and so all this time, it had not been properly reviewed.

He promised her that they would submit it for full review since she was under the impression that this was what had been happening all along.

He was as good as his word.

The review was successful, and the press published her book.

It all felt like a lucky accident.

The book itself had not changed from the time that the other press had told her no academic press would publish it. When she received the book contract, she went from pity case to rock star in her department. No one else—not even the senior scholars with several books—had a publication from that particular press, at that time. She was keenly aware, however, that had she not received the contract, not only would she not have gotten tenure the following year but the very same manuscript, without the endorsement of an elite “white” press, would have been scrutinized and picked apart by her colleagues who despite their limited knowledge of her field, had the power to adjudicate and vote on the quality of her work.

Autoethnography #2

Camilla was now a tenured professor, seemingly trapped at the level of associate with little time to finish the second book manuscript that she had been working on for years. A young Chicana assistant professor was recently hired. Camilla remembered her wowing much of the faculty during her job talk which was fresh, new and exciting. After she arrived, however, there were whisperings about the quality of her writing as well as the critiques of western epistemology in her work. The chair of Women’s Studies, a Black woman friend called Camilla one day.

“Girrlll! You may need to intervene and help Elisa.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Those women in your department have her stressed out.”

Camilla discovered that Elisa was having to meet with the new white female chair on a monthly basis to submit drafts of her chapters. There were also widespread discussions occurring among the faculty about Elisa’s ability to execute the quality of scholarly writing necessary for tenure.

Camilla asked for permission to mentor her alone.

Her own experience with the South Asian professor years earlier made it clear that having faculty of color with overlapping expertise was a key factor in supporting up and coming junior faculty of color. Elisa and Camilla had comparable areas of interest and were working on similar types of marginalized discursive theories. They met every Friday to write and discuss ideas. Elisa soon got a grant that allowed her to bring senior scholars in her field to campus to assess her work. A bit later, the chair asked to meet with her.

Since Elisa had shared with Camilla information about the uncomfortable one-on-one meetings that she’d had with the Chair in the past, Camilla volunteered to accompany her to the meeting. One bone of contention was whether she was coming up for tenure in a one year as opposed to two years—a big difference in time for a junior scholar. Elisa had documented evidence stating it would occur in two years, but the Chair claimed it was to happen next year.

In the meeting Elisa presented her evidence—an email from the faculty committee that conducted annual reviews within the department. It stated that her tenure review would occur in two years from the time of the present meeting. The Chair responded by saying that as the head of that committee, they had hoped to get her two more years, but they were unsuccessful.

Camilla asked the Chair if she could pull up the email confirming the official date of review. The Chair said she didn’t think this was really necessary.

Camilla insisted.

They waited in silence while she went through old emails. When she finally found the email she narrowed her eyebrows before she spoke.

“Wow.” The Chair said. “Well, it seems that Elisa does come up in two years. I’m not sure how I got that wrong…”

Camilla said she was glad they clarified it.

Shortly thereafter Elisa was asked by a prominent press in her field to submit a manuscript and was also invited to apply for a job at a more prestigious institution. She got the position and left a year later.

Autoethnography #3

Rhonda brings to academia over 20+ years of experience in administration and prides herself on being a human-focused practitioner with experience both within and outside the United States. Her practitioner experience is what ultimately led her to the classroom. She gained insight into several things: practices, policies, and procedures and how practitioners are trained to execute public service; how interpretation changes in policies; and the disparities in implementation differed based on the demographic being served. The disparities were often obscured or ignored as anomalies within the system. Over time, she began to notice a pattern of behavior: who got hired in senior leadership roles, who got promoted, who got larger salaries, who got away with infractions, who had access to specific spaces, and who got penalized and punished.

Racial dispariteis were rooted and embedded in practice. There was clear division and segregation in the workforce, with about 85 percent of the support staff being women of color and about 90 percent of laborers being men of color. In comparison, approximately 85 percent of leadership was white and predominantly male. In Rhonda’s former organization, individuals were trained in mechanized ways to perform tasks with strict adherence to rules, norms, and organizational hierarchies. Being in HR this did not often provide room to actually listen to the needs of people and provide them with the services and support they needed. She felt the culture of this environment sneak up on her; soon the hierarchies and inequities began to function as “normal.”

She recalled distinctly a time when she had to stop and think about who she was and what values she wanted to uphold. She didn’t realize until she got to this stage that the dominant norms had seeped into her psyche and the process of assimilating to them was inexorable. She had lost her individuality and authenticity. She struggled with this for a while, but soon realized that the constant pressure to act, avoid negative stereotypes, and appear “less intimidating” to white coworkers eroded her identity and sense of self. It took time and courage for her to reinvest in herself and find her voice and advocate for what was unpopular. Overtime, there was an expectation that she would be the voice that offered an alternative viewpoint and pointed out discrepancies based on how the organization interpreted and enforced policies. She realized that whiteness and white normativity were so privileged as a default way of operating that it was often rendered invisible to those who were experiencing the privileges, but to others who sit outside this design, the implications and burdens were often very pronounced.

After completing her Ph.D. and embarking on an academic career, Rhonda’s experiences as a practitioner were valued in academe. During her first year in academia, she contemplated the nature of her professorial identity and scrutinzed whether the systems and structures in place would allow her to authentically occupy academic space in theory and praxis. She found herself, once again, grappling with finding her voice and not being complicit in systems that perpetuated white normativity and facilitated acquiescence to conventional norms.

Rhonda realized that she struggled with her voice and place in academia since graduate school. She felt a sense of internalized oppression that triggers her to ventriloquize the ideology that has created and sustained oppressive practices and epistemic knowledge. It takes courage and consistent effort to challenge knowledge hierarchies and not feel out of her depth. She pondered, how does an early career scholar flourish in this space and culture that was designed to keep people like her in a confined space? She has become very conscious of how she enters, navigates, and occupies academic spaces and is constantly trying to figure out if she belongs here! The burden is emotional, it is deep-seated, and she feels it thrust upon her in ways that aim to repress her identity and censor her voice.

Autoethnography #4

Maurice Taylor stated that while he occupied the position of VP of Diversity for a large state university, there was significant lack of support for the implementation of the proposals he designed. Antagonism for his ideas grew. He suffered from insomnia and lost his sex drive. Ultimately, he was fired from his job, not due to any negative performance reviews but as a result of the university’s decision to downsize and restructure. He subsequently went through a divorce and fell into a state of depression, eventually leaving academia all together.

Janice Nogbi was one of four Black female professors at her university promoted all at once to upper administration. Janice was promoted to associate dean. She states that after a while, the pressures of the job affected her health in long term and chronic ways. Another of the four, upon her return to being faculty after the stint in administration, underwent major surgery. Janice’s explanation for why they all got sick was this: “They hire you to do something and then they fight you every step of the way as you’re trying to do the things they say they hired you to do.” She was in the Dean’s office for three years and six months.

She describes herself now as only 80% of who she was before, “a shell of my previous self; I will never be the same.” I asked her why she thought this happened to all of them. She said, “I went in believing that they really wanted change. But now, seeing behind the curtain of individual institutions and the whole higher admin sector is no joke!!! Only particular kinds of personalities survive. Black grifters and “mean folks” survive. On the positive side, purpose-driven folks who can block out the foolishness also survive.” Of the four Black women who entered upper administration at the same time as Janice, the one who had surgery went back to faculty; another moved up into the vice chancellor’s office, the third left to get a high-ranking position in a corporation outside of academia and Janice returned to the faculty and left the university to take a nonacademic position a few years later.

Analyzing autoethnography as counter-narratives: Manifestations of power, consciousness, and path to liberation

These stories seek to expand the dialogue on the subtle and overt ways racism is disguised and gives voice to those engaged in the continued battle for liberation and social justice (Alkalimat, 1969; Bell, 1995; Yosso, 2005). Elevating our voices and sharing counter-narratives are essential to document and analyze how each individual navigated different yet similar challenges where their expertise in subjects relevant to diversity or marginalized theories of knowledge were either challenged or not valued by the institution—even though this was part of the area of expertise that they were hired to contribute to (see Starke & Mastracci, 2022; Trochmann et al., 2021). In Janice and Maurice’s case they were hired and not supported and in Rhonda, Camilla and Elisa’s situations their knowledge was treated with suspicion, and this increased their self-doubt, loss of identity, isolation and for some resulted in health issues. Often there is an assumption that non-western and or marginalized bodies of cultural knowledge can be assessed by any scholar who may have fleeting familiarity with the topics. What often happens, however, is that the marginalized scholar, also often a person of color, unless and until their work is validated by an elite academic press, is often subject to excessive scrutiny and criticism, circumstances in which a lack of knowledge of the relevant fields is discussed as a mere difference of opinion (Starke & Mastracci, 2022; Trochmann et al., 2021). This is one of the challenges within contexts in which “white normativity” shapes the context in invisible ways. This often coexists with rhetorical support for diversity, equity, and inclusion, in a department or institution’s curriculum, teaching or hiring goals.

The “anglo-conformity” referred to in Alkalimat’s analysis was ultimately a detriment in the sense that it robbed the scholars and administrators of their confidence in the unique nature of what they had to offer. These stories demonstrate that while institutions hire faculty and administrators of color, while mobilizing the rhetoric of diversity, equity and inclusion, without concrete institutional commitments to translate the rhetoric into reality, faculty and administrators of color will be isolated and absorbed into the dominant white normative frameworks instead of their difference making a difference that matters. As one of the characters in Tsitsi Dangeremba’s Nervous Conditions argues, “this Englishness will kill you” (p. 202). Historically “situated whiteness” remains embedded in organizational systems and structures to uphold domination and power (Gusa, 2010). Scholars, researchers, and practitioners of color are often unable to reconcile change efforts when: (a) white privilege manifests in the language used to drive change, i.e., it has to be written in ways that are palatable for white people; (b) such change efforts often fail to explicitly identify the problems and/or center the experiences of people of color in ways that reckon with atrocities of systemic racism, discrimination, and continued marginalization; (c) they are hired in token capacities in institutions without the resources in place to make diversity, equity, and inclusion rhetoric a reality; (d) there is limited understanding of their research by colleagues who have the power to determine their academic destiny. The complex paradox in academia and academic spaces continues to articulate the potential to liberate and emancipate while simultaneous operating from a colorblind ideology to oppress, subjugate, and marginalize (Solórzano 1997, 1998; Yosso, 2005). The narratives demonstrate antagonistic relationships and highlight challenges faced in academe when people of color are hired and work as experts in areas of their discipline that are marginalized (Trochmann et al., 2021).

What the stories point out is that regardless of education, experience, and abilities, there is an inner dialogue that not only challenges the existence of people of color in a space not designed for them, but forces them to reckon with stereotypes that are imposed upon them, thus forcing them to navigate the conflicts of double consciousness. Exposing diverse experiences in scholarship represents crucial perspectives often silenced. Liberation from this requires challenging the operant nature of whiteness and reclaiming emancipatory power.

Frameworks of racial literacy

The identity that defines us, that brings our work together and sets it apart from that of most of our colleagues, is more complex than the categories of race and gender imposed upon us by a world that is racist and patriarchal. It is an identity shaped by life experience: by what parents and neighbors taught us as children; by our early encounters with the more blatant forms of segregation and racial exclusion and the contemporary confrontations with less obvious forms of institutional and culturally ingrained racism and sexism that face us each day; by our participation in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s; and by the histories of the communities from which we come—Matsuda et al. (1993/2018, p. 2).

White imperialist forces remain dominant in academic institutions, and faculty of color are left to negotiate the oppressive structure of normative whiteness that are emotionally and mentally taxing creating discriminatory trauma. The harsh reality is that the view from the glass window is much different based on race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage as “historically situated White cultural ideology embedded in language, cultural practices, traditions, and perceptions of knowledge” is entrenched in institutions of government (Gusa, 2010, p. 465). Whether we perceive it or not barriers are constructed and maintained in ways that support or hinder access based on racialized environments (Bearfield, 2008). Our ethnographic counter-narratives suggest that meaning should arise from the narrative of those involved (Bearfield, 2008; Matsuda et al., 1993/2018).

Blessett and Gaynor (2021) argue that “[b]y integrating social and cultural factors, outside of White, male, heterosexual affluence, into the research lens, CRT represents a challenge across “disciplinary silos to fashion a more integrated and common-sense account of how race shapes social life” (p. 1590). We must be shrewd about how whiteness operates, it reifies socially constructed racial identities, overlooks the richness of ethnicity and culture, and shapes the allocation of resources with its invisible hand of discrimination (Bell, 1980). It’s essential to point out and give context to where we are today and how we have gotten there. States are actively introducing and passing legislation to sanitize education—essentially seeking to whitewash history. There is privilege, fear, and fragility, buried in policies with language used to legitimize discrimination and a refusal to reckon with America’s historical legacies of discrimination and how this legacy continues to fuel political, structural, and systemic racism (Berry-James et al., 2021; Blessett, 2015; Gooden, 2015).

Discrimination is constant and can be overt, covert, or stacked—meaning that experiences are compounded and multifaceted, and the burden increases based on the intersection of multiple marginalized identities creating cumulative disadvantages (Crenshaw, 2010; Crenshaw et al., 1995). The emotional and psychological burden and trauma from negotiating, enduring, and navigating whiteness is exhausting and requires us to challenge the integration, assimilation, colorblindness that is ingrained in academe. As part of the challenge in destabilizing whiteness, we ask, what can we, as people of color, reasonably do to unsettle white normativity when we are distracted by being criminalized and dehumanized for our existence each day?

Challenging the principle of white normativity

Whiteness is relentless (Alkalimat, 1969; Crenshaw et al., 1995). In terms of the business of dismantling whiteness, how can we dismantle something that is still controlled by those in power and its destructive nature is disguised with white centricity? hooks (2013) points out that the interlocking dynamics of political systems are resistant to the acknowledgment of white power dominance since whiteness operates silently and its colonial legacies continue to be used as an instrument for white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. This connects to Bell’s (1980) argument of interest convergence and the dynamic awareness of sincerity and advocacy. Why, though, does interests have to converge for liberation? The paradox of dismantling whiteness centers around the bondage of white privilege as our society continues to be governed by a hierarchy often white, wealthy, and predominantly gendered male—imbued with extreme power and privilege that provides ownership and control of the economy (Alkalimat, 1969). How do we stop obscuring the embeddedness of systemic and structural discrimination that continues to perpetuate an inferior status for people of color? Where do we begin to dismantle whiteness? The paradox presents itself in the struggle for racial justice while ignoring which race has power and which race has been continually placed in deficit positions (Bell, 1992).

Life experiences and our perspectives and positionalities are often trampled upon us as we struggle internally to find creative, spiritual, esthetic, or pleasing ways of seeing, understanding, and finding our place in spaces dominated by whiteness. These are continued challenges and barriers to addressing issues of systemic racism, social equity, and justice. The empowering potential of CRT has been discussed as a liberatory tool for emancipating our minds to challenge the nuances, complexities of whiteness and its manifestations. Fear of this has resulted in intentional distortion and inaccurate leftist propaganda resulting in critical conversations that explicitly challenge the dominant narrative about racial hierarchy and American exceptionalism as another form of “WOKE” behavior perpetuating divisive concepts deemed a threat to democratic governance (Zavattaro & Bearfield, 2022). Consequently, CRT has become the scapegoat of political correctness, and CRT has been labeled divisive as it reckons with racism and white supremacy. A denial of racism and its history is intended to obscure the current reality of racial divisiveness utilizing the power of privileged positions to stymie change. Yet, there is ample theoretical and empirical scholarship focused on whiteness and white normativity (Alkalimat, 1969; Berry-James et al., 2021; DiAngelo, 2016; Heckler & Rouse, 2021; hooks, 2013; Jensen, 2005; McIntosh, 1989 and many more), that require people of color to reconcile with the historical legacy of discrimination and systemic racism in ways that communicate white racial dominance.

Are we aiming for something unattainable when we seek to dismantle whiteness as this requires more than challenging the rigid ways of systems and structures? Legislative domination and oppression against Black bodies create a problematic environment to challenge the pervasiveness of whiteness (Gusa, 2010). Government continues to be influenced and enmeshed in its past. The parity in reasoning often ignores skewed representation in positions of power, abstract lens through which race is viewed, and overt, covert, or blatant forms of discrimination. How do we promote healing or dismantle whiteness when the nightmare doesn’t end? This question led to the recognition that we generally operate with some people in a deprivation model and others with unconscious internal resources. All the backlash that has happened recently related to multicultural curriculum, critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion is really about people being fearful of this knowledge becoming more central than marginal and probably beginning to do the work of not only exposing but decentering and destabalizing whiteness.

Conclusion: Vision for the future

In this article, we built upon the creativity and courage of scholars who have valiantly challenged and/or exposed the deeply entrenched problems of white normativity and whiteness. As academicians and intellectuals, at our best, we are visionaries with values and goals for social equity, social justice, and inclusiveness, so we attempt to offer suggestions to realign public institutions with predominantly white power structures. Elements of this paper reach for existential issues. Whiteness with its well-entrenched power and privilege, continues to exert dominance and subjugation. Yet, we live and operate in a globalized society rich with diversity, yearning for robust dialogues that emerge from diverse worldviews (Blessett, 2015; Crenshaw et al., 1995).

The authors invite readers to contemplate the enduring legacies and discriminatory repercussions of whiteness that are still resounding in our 2024 experiences. Privilege, fear, and fragility have been wielded as tools to amplify white perspectives and create an illusion of racial enlightenment. This, unfortunately, further marginalizes and silences voices from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. Through the epigraphs and counter-narratives woven into this research, we center the voices and experiences of people of color to serve as a testament to the journey toward destabilizing whiteness, a journey that demands collective efforts, persistent dialogue, critical self-reflection, hindsight, foresight, and an unwavering commitment to remain resolute and courageous in efforts to fight oppression, subjugation, and exploitation.

It is imperative to engage in the tangible work on the front lines as mere rhetoric and superficial gestures will not liberate academic spaces dominated by the oppressive clutches of whiteness and white supremacy. Liberation from these forces necessitates a transformative consciousness that actively challenges oppressive systems. We align with Gooden’s (2015) call to action, which involved a three-fold process: naming, blaming, and claiming. First, we must boldly name the problem in explicit terms (white supremacy, whiteness, white normativity) as root issues. Next, we engage in blaming, pinpointing the core causes of this problem (power, privilege, fear, and fragility). Finally, we embark on the crucial step of claiming, directly addressing the problems and their sources. This involves confronting racial disempowerment, advocating for racial justice in policy positions, and unflinchingly reckoning with our current reality.

We implore academic institutions to proactively create opportunities for scholars from underrepresented backgrounds to thrive in academia. This necessitates the provision of meaningful resources. Our article stands as a contribution to the burgeoning body of research aimed at resisting normative notions and disrupting unexamined and default norm of whiteness. We extend an invitation to more white scholars to leverage their privilege, and acknowledge the prevailing biases, and challenge the advantages conferred by this privilege within norms and power structures to assist in liberating academic spaces. The burden cannot rest solely upon faculty of color to broaden the knowledge base and create and implement remedies. We cannot be too vigilant in our efforts or waver in our commitment to decolonize our minds and disrupt the omnipresent forces of whiteness that continue to drive the machinery of systems and structures, firmly rooted in place. What white normativity exposes is that many people have a vested interest in preserving whiteness as a stable construct and can’t imagine what the alternatives would be if disrupted. By changing the framework, we believe we can embark on the essential process of destabilizing whiteness, paving the way for its dismantling, and ultimately, our liberation.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen D. Sweeting

Karen D. Sweeting is an Assistant Professor at the University of Rhode Island. Her research is theoretically nuanced but pragmatically focused drawing insight from over two decades of practical experience prior to her academic tenure. She views her research as a duty to public service, striving to examine how public service can be more equitable, inclusive, and just to better serve all people from all walks of life, specifically vulnerable, suffering, minoritized, and marginalized populations.

Catherine John Camara

Catherine John is Professor and Chair of the Africana Studies Department at the University of Rhode Island. She has published Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing (Duke Press & University Press of the West Indies). Her second book Afroindigenization and Marasa Consciousness: Submerged Indigeneities in the Afrospora is currently under review.

Notes

1 “Whiteness” is defined here as mainstream heteronormative hegemonic reality, shaped explicitly by European and Euro-American cultural, historical, political and institutional norms and assumptions.

2 Periods such as the US Civil War, Reconstruction, slave rebellions, and revolutionary wars or resistance movements aimed at overthrowing colonial domination. Cunningham examines literature by David Walker, Ida B. Wells and Jean Rhys.

3 The lyrics popularized by Bob Marley in Redemption Songs were derived from Marcus Garvey’s 1937 speech in which Garvey stated, “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”.