Abstract
Reading Presumed Incompetent II was a relief, even as it was disheartening and anger-inducing. The focus on the disrespect, abuse, and devaluation BIPOC women confront in academia was like an at-last exhalation. I won’t say I enjoyed reading the frustrating experiences recounted in this book, but I felt validated reading them.
As an adjunct professor, I was questioned every term as to whether I was qualified to teach. It never occurred to me that other BIPOC women at the university might be having similar or worse experiences. I might have learned differently had I ever had the opportunity to meet other Black women faculty. (I knew there were at least two, as I was often called by both of their names.) My position and qualifications have consistently been challenged throughout my 30+ years in education.
Presumed Incompetent shuffled me through a flurry of emotions. I was depressed, enraged, disheartened, uplifted, energized, inspired … again and again. Under all the feelings was the unexpected balm of being seen, recognizing my experiences in the stories. In “Unlikely Alliances from Appalachia to East L.A.,” Desdamona Rios describes the push to conform in appearance and behavior, the understanding that “the norms of academia are firmly grounded in middle-class Whiteness,” (p. 134) and that she was expected to whitewash her ethnic identity. She also calls out a reality that surfaces repeatedly in the book. Describing a White colleague wanting to “get her own” talented BIPOC faculty, Rios writes, “[t]he blatant tokenism and exotification of the future Latina colleague felt analogous to the White woman shopping for a new pet. Then, once POC are hired, the implicit expectation is that we will ‘behave’ by demonstrating our mastery of White middle-class sensibilities” (pp. 134–135). In “Making Visible the Dead Bodies in the Room: Women of Color/QPOC in Academia,” Susie E. Nam calls out the bait-and-switch reality for such hires: “[…] we, as Women of Color and queer People of Color, are recruited to fulfill certain ‘diversity’ categories that look good for the university's public relations […]. We are told that we are such assets to the faculty, that our arrival on campus was so anxiously awaited, that they are so happy that we are here. Then the abuses begin, we see that we are about as welcome as the plague” (p. 172).
These essays show BIPOC women surviving the disrespect, sabotage, and violence, refusing to contort themselves in order to fit inhospitable institutions. The writers push back, create community, make a way. In “Tenure with a Termination Letter,” Penelope Espinoza articulates this well: “I suppose I found that I was someone who dared to challenge the president. […] The importance of asking questions has become a moral of my story. Questions can be instruments of change. When you confront those in power with informed, reasoned questions, you have the potential to provoke responsive action” (p. 37).
At the end of Presumed Incompetent, I find myself hoping the “right White people” will read it, the more-than-allies people who can take it in, recognize their own complacency or complicity, the harm of their inaction. These readers can talk about and share this book with white folks who are still unable to hear BIPOC voices. This latter group of white folks shut down when BIPOC raise concerns, but some can learn in between-us conversations with white peers. So I want good white readers. Lots of them.
I want these essays to be mandatory reading for faculty, staff, and students. Everyone who will be engaged in dismantling racist systems that undergird academia needs the same information. Everyone, even those standing in opposition, needs to do the same groundwork, have the same vocabulary, so the conversation can begin from a common starting point.
All of us who teach, organize with teachers, offer professional development with teachers should read this book and look inward. Are we perpetuating this violence? Are we acting as gatekeepers with students and peers? How can we use the experiences from this book to investigate and transform our own practices? How do we take what we learn from these women and change what comes next?
Finally, I want BIPOC women to read this book, to run up on this statement: “Just know that a Black woman with a terminal degree has likely dealt with a lifetime of microagressions at every educational and professional level, and she has persisted in the face of and in spite of them” (p 242). It's from Marica Allen Owens’ essay, “Closet Chair and Committee Side Piece.” I want them to read it as a calling in, an affirmation. We have passed this way before you. You’re on the right road. You can make it.
