In light of the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement there has been a renewed discussion of what it's like to be black in academia.
As the only black tenure-track faculty member at my university, so many of the conversation I am seeing on Twitter and Instagram resonate with me.
One day, post-tenure I will tell the stories, in the mean time, there is both comfort and outrage in the experiences being shared. Being #blackintheivory is an isolated game of survival and working twice as hard to be considered half as good.
In the face of great challenges, like so many of my colleagues at predominantly white institutions, you keep your head down, do your best to support students of color and keep grinding because you believe in the work and you know how important representation is.
My black students can't be what they can't see and I have a veiled optimism that surely at some point, this gets better!
Comments