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Abstract

Black women scholars have and continue to make significant contributions to the social work profession; however, their experiences within the profession are mostly absent in the literature. In general, Black women face numerous challenges within schools of social work. Black women scholars endure a compound form of anti-Blackness in higher education known as gendered anti-Blackness due to their multiple marginalized statuses associated with race and gender. This study examined the phenomenon of gendered anti-Blackness as experienced in academia by a diverse group of Black and mixed Black faculty and PhD students. We intentionally utilized a new methodology, Black Feminist Polyethnography, to provide an affirming and communal space for us to dialogically reflect on our collective experiences of gendered anti-Blackness in predominantly white schools of social work. Our findings uncovered six Black woman-centered proverbs that symbolize the ways we collectively thrive as scholars despite gendered anti-Blackness.

Keywords

autoethnography Black feminist theory/womanism intersectionality qualitative women in social work education and administration

Black women scholars have made invaluable contributions to social work education and practice; some notable (hidden) figures include Drs. Josephine A. V. Allen, Joy DeGruy, Ruth McRoy, Inabel Burns Lindsay, Darlyne Bailey, Ruby Gourdine, Leslie Doty Hollingsworth, Jenny Jones, Iris Carlton-LaNey, current NASW President Dr. Mildred Joyner, and current CSWE Board President Dr. Saundra Starks. Despite their excellence, there is a dearth of research examining the numerous challenges Black women faculty face at the intersections of race and gender within predominately white schools of social work (PWSSW) (Fields & Cunningham-Williams, 2021). Further, existing literature in social work education tends to ignore or subsume the experiences of Black women into more general discussions of “other” non-white groups, presumed to share similar experiences due to their race and gender (i.e., all Black scholars, all women of color scholars) (Bryson & Lawrence-Webb, 2000). The absence of studies centering on Black women scholars in social work education reiterates that our experiences are not valued in the profession.

Strikingly absent from calls by leading social work institutions to “address racism and all forms of social injustice” (see CSWE Statement on Social Justice, February 6, 2020) and “embrace an anti-racist mandate” (NASW News Release, August 21, 2020) following the brutal murders of George Flloyd, Breonna Taylor, Daniel Prude, Andre Hill, Manual Ellis, Rayshard Brooks, and Duante Wright at the hands of police officers (to name a few) is the explicit naming of anti-Black racism or anti-Blackness, which is the sustained and systematic dehumanizing of Black life (Sexton, 2008). In higher education, anti-Blackness is perpetuated through (1) the disproportionate absence of Black faculty and graduate students; (2) oppressive policies and procedures that systematically trivialize the contributions of Black faculty and graduate students; (3) white-centric curriculum that promotes the inaccurate telling (including not-telling) of the history and contemporary realities of Black people; and (3) tokenism that devalues the scholarship and accomplishments of Black faculty and students in academia (Bell et al., 2021). Black women scholars endure a compound form of anti-Blackness in higher education known as gendered anti-Blackness due to having multiple marginalized statuses associated with race and gender (Jones et al., 2021). Our positionality offers a unique purview into the intersectional nature of anti-Blackness and power and how it manifests within the institution of social work education (Bell et al., 2021; Stanley, 2020).

This study examined the phenomenon of gendered anti-Blackness as collectively experienced in PWSSW by ourselves, the authors, who are six cisgender Black and mixed Black women faculty and PhD students. This article intentionally focused on gendered anti-Blackness in PWSSW where Black women faculty and graduate students lack representation and inclusion (Fields & Cunningham-Williams, 2021; Shavers & Moore III, 2019). Although we focus on PWSSW, we acknowledge (with gratitude) the long-standing and ongoing contributions of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) to the profession of social work (see Rasheem & Brunson, 2018; Gourdine, Davis, & Howard, 2020). To insert agency within the empirical process, we developed a new methodology, Black Feminist Polyethnography (BFP), to provide an affirming and communal space for us to dialogically reflect on our unique and collective experiences with the gendered phenomenon of anti-Blackness in PWSSW (Brown-Vincent, 2019; Griffin, 2012). In conversation with one another, we grappled with how to survive and thrive in spite of anti-Blackness, which we found to be a constant and immovable force.

Gendered Anti-Blackness in Higher Education

Anti-Blackness in higher education has been discussed in various contexts across numerous disciplines by Black [women] scholars throughout history. We acknowledge it would be impossible to summarize all of these transformative works. Therefore, we offer a brief overview of the broad themes discussed in more recent literature on the topic of anti-Blackness as it applies to Black women faculty and PhD students in general and in schools of social work specifically. Where appropriate, we intentionally situate literature and media coverage examples to highlight modern demonstrations of anti-Blackness as it applies to Black women in higher education. Finally, we conclude this section with a review of existing strategies purported to counter the ill effects of anti-Blackness on the success of Black women social work faculty and graduate students in academia.

Anti-Blackness is many things. Some describe it as an individual's internal prejudice against Black people and Black culture (Morris, 2020), while others consider it an all-encompassing theoretical framework that reinforces a disdain and disregard for Blackness within society (Ross, 2020). At the core of anti-Blackness is the dehumanization and thus devaluing of Black people, families, communities, and culture (whether intentional or not). Anti-Blackness was forged over the course of the last 400 years, beginning with the capture and enslavement of the first Africans brought to U.S. shores in 1619 (Sexton, 2008). Serving as justification for the ongoing exploitation and cultural genocide of millions of African slaves was the widespread doctrine that Black people were less than human and therefore unworthy of humanity. This indelibly tied the inherent value of Black life to white supremacy and white economic profit (Baptist, 2014). The entrenched and deliberate subordination of Black people for white gain and superiority distinguishes anti-Blackness from the heavily used and less poignant term—systemic racism (Ross, 2020).

At the intersections of racism and sexism, Black women experience gendered anti-Blackness (Jones et al., 2021). Gendered anti-Blackness originates from the historic inhumane treatment of the Black female body during chattel slavery, including the condoned raping of enslaved Black women whose bodies were considered property equivalent to that of livestock and only valued when serving White male enslavers and their families (Roberts, 1999). Stereotypes representing the various degrading roles forced upon enslaved Black women serve as a backdrop to the contemporary ways Black women experience anti-Blackness in higher education (Tevis et al., 2020). These include sexist and racist assumptions of Black women academics as angry, emotional, and irrationally aggressive, which was historically label ed the Sapphire (Austin, 1989) or, as it's known today, “the angry Black woman” trope (Corbin et al., 2018). Another stereotype forged during slavery rooted in anti-Blackness, misogynoir, and transphobia is the hypersexualized Jezebel trope, which presumes Black women, inclusive of Black transgender women and Black queer and gender nonconforming persons, have deviant and insatiable sexual appetites (Collins, 2000; Krell, 2017). Yet, despite facing disproportionately higher rates of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and murder in the United States (Cheeseborough et al., 2020; Lenning et al., 2020), Black women are systematically erased from rape and sexual assault prevention efforts in higher education, which remain hyper-focused on cisgender White women (White, 2017; Wooten, 2017). The other stereotype imposed on Black women scholars is the complicit and self-sacrificing Mammy, who is viewed as unintelligent and simply a caretaker for White students and colleagues (Howard-Baptiste, 2014; Wilson, 2012). Black women scholars who are familiar with these stereotypes and their prevalence in academia can experience stereotype threat or the fear of being discriminated against in predominately white departments where they may be one of the only Black women present (Steele, 1998). This can cause Black women to self-police their emotions and stay silent for fear their perceptions might be disregarded or, worse, discredited because of their dual minoritized status (Corbin et al., 2018).

Black women faculty and graduate students endure multiple manifestations of gendered anti-Blackness in higher education. Much of it stems from tokenism or the accepted practice of strategically allowing only a limited number of persons from diverse backgrounds into the dominant traditionally White male spaces of academia (Niemann, 2016). Tokenism is systematically wielded to deny Black women scholars’ equal opportunity and access to legitimacy, power, and respect in academia (Wilson, 2012). Research examining the experiences of Black women faculty and PhD students note how they regularly face marginalization, increased surveillance, isolation, and continuous discrediting of their scholarship due to tokenism (Chance, 2021; Cody, 2019; Mirza, 2014). Racist and sexist stereotypes like the Jezebel, Mammy figure, and the Angry Black Woman are wielded both overtly and covertly by White colleagues and administrators to justify marginalization and the systemic devaluing of the hard work and labor of Black women scholars in academia (Kishimoto, 2018). For example, a study by Cody (2019) of 68 Black female graduate social work students found that nearly a quarter indicated frequently combating anti-Black stereotypes including, the “angry Black woman” or Sapphire trope (p. 88). Similarly, a recent qualitative study by Leath et al. (2021) who analyzed the narratives of 50 Black women enrolled at two predominantly white universities, discovered that the Jezebel stereotype and threat of being associated with this enduring (trans)misogynoir trope, continues to inform the sexual behaviors and choices of Black women in college today. Another qualitative study by McGee and Kazembe (2016) examined the experiences and critiques of 33 Black faculty (14 women) while presenting their research at professional venues. The researchers found that Black faculty faced harsher critiques for their appearance and ability to “entertain” attendees in addition to presumptions that they lacked scholarly integrity, suggesting that pervasive and degrading stereotypes of Black people as entertainers subsist in higher education (e.g., Blackface and minstrel shows). The combined racist, sexist, and heteronormative practice of judging Black women for their ability to entertain may be even more heightened for Black faculty and graduate students with multifaceted identities that include femme, transgender, nonbinary and/or queer, as these identities remain largely ignored or rendered invisible in academic spaces and curriculum (Story, 2017).

Because there are so few Black women faculty and doctoral students in higher education, there is limited access to mentorship and support from other Black women. For instance, in 2019, Black women represented only 2.1% of all tenure/tenure-track faculty in the United States (June & O’Leary, 2021). Contrast this with the rising percentage of Black women enrolling in graduate education (7% in 2018) and receiving doctoral degrees (9.6% in 2017) (NCES, 2018). Considering the pivotal role of mentorship in doctoral education (see Gillooly et al., 2021), the absence of Black women faculty can significantly impact the ability for Black women doctoral students to be successful and graduate with their degrees. For example, a 2015 study examining doctoral student attrition by the Council of Graduate Schools found that Black doctoral students had the lowest attrition rates compared to doctoral students from other marginalized racial groups (Sowell et al., 2015). Faculty, especially tenure-track faculty, have considerable power over curriculum and department-level policy within institutions of higher education. The lack of Black women faculty in higher education means our experiences and expertise are not or inaccurately represented in existing curriculum and policy, which significantly disadvantages Black women students, who make up a growing percentage of college graduates (Reeves & Guyot, 2017).

Studies confirm anti-Black marginalization and tokenism derail the scholarly productivity and achievement of Black women faculty and graduate students. Several studies report the existence of a concrete ceiling that systematically restricts Black women faculty from excelling to positions of leadership and earning tenure and promotion (Chance, 2021; Griffith, 2015). For instance, a critical case study of Black women faculty employed in PWIs (n = 19) found that participants experienced targeted microaggressions directed at their “opportunity” or diversity hire status to discriminatively erode their credibility as scholars who deserve tenure (Kelly et al., 2017). Another study by Porter et al. (2020) utilized narrative methods to uncover the heightened invisible labor of contingent or non-tenure-track Black women faculty despite being considered less valuable than their tenured and tenure-track (TTT) Black women peers. A recent public-facing example of the concrete ceiling is UNC's initial denial of tenure to the esteemed Nikole Hannah-Jones, investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the groundbreaking 1619 Project, for a Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism position to which all her predecessors (majority of whom were White males) received tenure (Robertson, 2021).

The negative impact of gendered anti-Blackness is receiving growing attention due to the syndemic of COVID-19 and systemic racism, which continue to reveal the disproportionate financial, physical, and mental hardships Black women face during this unprecedented time (Poteat et al., 2020; Walton et al., 2021). Newer studies confirm the additional psychological and physiological risks associated with gendered anti-Blackness in the United States. For instance, a recent examination of CDC data (2007–2016) by Peterson and colleagues (2019) confirmed that Black women are dramatically more at risk of experiencing pregnancy-related mortality than all other racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, they noted that approximately 41 Black women die per every 100,000 U.S. births in comparison to the average U.S. pregnancy-related mortality rate of 16.7—a disparity that remained over time and after controlling for age and education-level groups (Peterson et al., 2019). This particular compound risk came to the attention of the larger public after the near-fatal complications experienced by GOAT (greatest of all time) tennis champion Serena Williams during her pregnancy (see Williams, 2018).

Newer theoretical constructs and frameworks that more accurately account for the negative physiological and psychological reactions to systemic racism in academia are receiving increased attention. One such construct is racial battle fatigue (RBF). Coined by Smith et al. in (2007), RBF is “a theoretical framework for examining social psychological stress responses associated with being an African-American male on historically white campuses” (p. 552). When applying this theoretical framework to Black women in higher education, RBF can encompass feelings of frustration, exhaustion, sadness, disappointment, and even numbness (see Grier-Reed et al., 2020). A similar construct, social justice fatigue (SJF), accounts for the impact of repetitive and sustained social injustice on the lives of educators and helping professionals (Mixed Roots Stories, 2016). This construct is particularly relevant for Black women faculty and PhD students who, because of the syndemic, are overburdened managing multiple roles as primary caretakers and providers in their families and surviving an influx of cultural and identity taxation within their departments (Rogers et al., 2019; Walton et al., 2021).

Recent literature examining RBF and SJF has contributed to emerging scholarship exploring the coping mechanisms and survival strategies of Black women faculty and graduate students in academia. These strategies include seeking supportive mentorship and safe counterspaces (Grier-Reed et al., 2021), setting boundaries as a form of self-protection (Davis & Brown, 2017; Grier-Reed et al., 2020), utilizing identity shifting as an anticipatory coping strategy (Jones et al., 2021), and mobilizing strengths and resilience (Chance, 2021; James-Gallaway & Turner, 2021). For instance, a literature review of the experiences of Black women faculty by Davis and Brown (2017) noted the need for Black women faculty to actively resist internalized oppression by seeking those academic spaces like HBCUs that encourage and foster a sense of belonging. Further, there is supportive evidence that such forms of active resistance may mediate the relationship between racism and mental health for Black women in college (see West et al., 2010).

Gendered Anti-Blackness in Schools of Social Work

As a microcosm of society, the profession of social work shares an equally contentious history steeped in white supremacy and anti-Blackness—a history that remains strategically hidden from the majority of existing social work curricula (Wright et al., 2021). This history includes upholding segregation and the unequal treatment of Black communities during the early settlement house movement, where profession founders, including Jane Adams, ignored and distanced themselves from equally serving the needs of Black Chicagoans (Carlton-LaNey, 1994). Our professions’ history also includes enforcing eugenics by administering sterilization programs designed to control the reproductive rights of Black and American Indian women and other women of color (see Kennedy, 2008). Historically denying Black women who are lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and Black queer and gender nonconforming persons access to social services, and endorsing harmful hetero- and cisgender-normative labels from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders are additional ways social work as an institution perpetuates gendered anti-Blackness (Shelton et al., 2019). In child welfare specifically, social work has reinforced white supremacy through assimilation policies that justify the systematic and disproportionate removal of Black and American Indian children and other children of color from their families and communities (Azhar & McCutcheon, 2021). Anti-Blackness was similarly reinforced during the establishment of the profession, which strategically denied Black persons access to social work education (Gourdine, Davis, & Howard, 2020). For instance, in their article “The Illusion of Inclusion …” Roberts and Smith (2002) detailed how PWSSW systematically restricted enrollment to only a few “exceptional” Black students despite the expanding population of African Americans in urban areas in the northern United States following WWI. It was only following the civil rights movement that PWSSW collectively sought the recruitment of Black faculty and students, but only to fill token slots reserved for one or a handful of Black people in any given school (Roberts & Smith, 2002). This precipitated the establishment of social work programs in HBCU, whose inclusive learning design and social justice emphasis welcomed and prepared Black students to serve the Black community, and ultimately transformed the social work academy as a whole (see Bowles et al., 2016; Gourdine et al., 2020).

The remnants of this exclusionary practice continue to reverberate today, as evidenced by the dearth of Black women faculty and PhD students within accredited schools of social work across the country (CSWE, 2020a, 2020b). A recent study by Tower et al. (2019) of a multistage probability sample of Council on Social Work Education (CSWE)-accredited programs (n = 535) noted that Black women represented 8.2% of the full-time faculty. Using the percentage of full-time faculty who are TTT in SSW based on the recent CSWE (2020a, 2020b) report (65%), and juxtaposing this with the number of Black women full-time faculty reported in the recent study by Tower and colleagues (n = 31), we roughly estimate the percentage of tenured, tenure-track Black women faculty to be between 6% and 8% in accredited SSW. Though significantly higher than the national average of TTT Black women faculty (2.1%) (June & O’Leary, 2021), when looking at the percentage of Black students, the majority of whom are Black women, enrolled in MSW (20.1%), Doctorate (35.8%), and PhD (22.1%) SW programs across the United States, this disparity becomes even more pronounced (CSWE, 2020a, 2020b). This suggests Black women doctoral students and junior faculty, in particular, have limited access and thus an opportunity for mentorship from Black women faculty, something scholars note as a contributing factor to overall success and well-being in academia (Edwards et al., 2012; Gillooly et al., 2021). The benefits of having more Black women faculty in PWSSW were reiterated in an analysis of survey data gathered from 108 Black women faculty. The study by Edwards et al. (2012) noted several significant positive correlations between the number of Black women faculty and the number of Black women faculty who received tenure in SSW, offering empirical support for the importance of Black women faculty connections in SSW. Specifically, they found the length of tenure was significantly correlated with the number of Black faculty members in the school of social work, and the number of Black faculty members was significantly positively correlated with the current academic rank of Black women faculty in PWSSW (Edwards et al., 2012).

(Un)Surprisingly, there have been few empirical studies examining anti-Blackness and gendered anti-Blackness in schools of social work. In 2002, Roberts and Smith published a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities surrounding the infusion of race and ethnicity in PWSSW. They cautioned that the overarching dominant white-centric culture of PWSSW creates a toxic environment for Black faculty and graduate students that results in feelings of marginalization and burn-out. One study by Davis and Livingstone (2016) of doctoral social work students participating in an anti-racism project noted how Black women students experienced marginalization in their required courses, where white faculty and peers intentionally ignored topics of race and racism. An older study examining survey data collected from Black faculty in PWSSW (n = 133; 53% women) by Davis et al. (1983) noted gender differences in faculty perspectives of discrimination and advancement. Specifically, they discovered that Black women faculty had less job satisfaction, more concerns that tenure and promotion policies were discriminatory, and were more inclined to leave their current faculty positions than Black male faculty (Davis et al., 1981). A newer qualitative study by Fields and Cunningham-Williams (2021) examined Black women faculty's sense of self as situated in research-intensive PWSSW. Their findings reiterate how PWSSW fosters a sense of imposter syndrome and concern of stereotype threat, which can hinder the productivity and authenticity of Black women faculty.

Although the profession of social work has recently publicly acknowledged the importance of Black lives (falling short of endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement) and a commitment to anti-racism (see NASW, 2020), there is little to no mention of anti-Blackness and its detrimental impact on Black social workers, especially Black women who unduly experience compound forms of racism and sexism. Considering the long-standing contributions of Black women scholars to social work education, there is a need to critically contextualize the realities of gendered anti-Blackness in PWSSW by first and foremost listening to Black women (Bell et al., 2021; Louis et al., 2016). Our study represents one of only a few social work studies that intentionally center on Black women scholars and our experiences in PWSSW (see Davis & Livingstone, 2016; Edwards et al., 2012; Fields & Cunningham-Williams, 2021).

Black Feminist Polyethnography

Black feminist thought consists of ideas produced by Black women that clarify a stand-point of and for Black women. (Collins, 1986, p. S16)

Our study developed a new methodology, BFP to guide our collective examination of the phenomenon of gendered anti-Blackness within SSW. BFP is grounded in Black Feminism and a plural form of autoethnography that allows Black women researchers to investigate, collectively, a social phenomenon from multiple viewpoints and positionalities. First and foremost, BFP centers Black feminism. We consider Black feminism to be equal parts political movement, fellowship, theory, methodology, and praxis, seeking to accurately account for and protect the diverse lives of Black women. The collective of influential Black feminists, including womanists (see Walker, 1983), expand centuries representing numerous abolitionists, civil rights activists, artists, politicians, and academic scholars, including Maria W. Stewart, one of the first Black women (and woman of color) to publish papers and speak out publicly to end slavery and oppression (Logan, 1995). Other notable Black feminists include (to name a few in no particular order) Sojourner Truth, Anna Cooper, Bessie Smith, Sherely Anne Williams, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Shirley Chisholm, Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Katie G. Cannon, Patricia Hill Collins, Stanlie M. James, Paulette M. Caldwell, and Kimberle Crenshaw. Black feminism affirms Black womens’ shared lived experiences and challenges dominant white supremacist and patriarchal narratives that fail to see and therefore value Black women as complex whole beings with diverse roles and identities (Collins, 1986). Black feminism attends to intersectionality by acknowledging the compound forms of oppression Black women unjustly face and have faced since slavery (Crenshaw, 1991). Furthermore, Black feminism recognizes the importance of context and the systemic institutionalization of gender, race, and class-based oppressions (to name a few) in the U.S. society, including within the institution of higher education and the profession of social work itself (Bryson & Lawrence-Webb, 2000; Jones et al., 2021).

BFP is a plural version of Black Feminist Autoethnography (BFA). The integration of Black Feminist thought and autoethnography (systematic and descriptive analysis of a cultural phenomenon experienced by one researcher themselves; Ellis et al., 2010) was formally introduced by Dr. Rachel Alicia Griffin (2012), who described it as …

… a means to voice is obligated to raise social consciousness regarding the everyday struggles common to Black womanhood; embrace self-definition as a means for Black women to be labeled, acknowledged, and remembered as they wish; humanize Black women at the intersections of multiple forms of oppression; resist the imposition of controlling imagery; and self-reflexively account for how Black women can reproduce systemic oppression. (p. 143)

BFA is considered a method to build resistance and foster community among Black women academics. It also provides an audit trail of documented experiences of Black women, whose voices remain sidelined in social work education and academia overall. Dr. Brown-Vincent (2019) stated, “The most critical contribution of BFA is that of presenting oppositional knowledge which demonstrates the ways in which our individual preoccupations are linked by histories of struggle, as well as our liberation” (p. 124). Here, we apply BFA to center multiple Black women scholars in dialogue with one another as empowered by phenomenological polyethnography. Phenomenological polyethnography examines a group of researchers’ experiences as insiders with a specific phenomenon (Olt & Teman, 2019). Thus, our study deployed BFP to create an experiential commons or what Ward (2021) refers to as “a generative space” that allows Black women to inquisitively reflect upon our differences and similarities of experience, all the while rejecting dominant narratives of race and sex that dehumanize and seek to commodify our existence (p. 260).

Our Process

In lieu of the tragic events of 2020, our PWSSW, like most others, began to publicly grapple with its own adherence to white supremacy as deployed historically and contemporarily through white-centered school culture, policy, and curriculum. During these contentious times, we sought a counterspace to share our personal experiences associated specifically with anti-Blackness, a phenomenon that remains unnamed in social work education. Our BFP intentionally centered our individual and combined positionalities as Black and mixed Black cisgender women social work scholars (emerging and established) with experience being “othered” in predominately white academic institutions. It is from this shared positionality that we approached our collective examination of the phenomenon—gendered anti-Blackness.

We were brought together by Kelly, the first author, who originally reached out via email during the Fall semester of 2020 about participating in a project examining anti-Blackness in SSW. The idea came from an email that Chandra, fifth author, received following a presentation she gave at the Social Work, White Supremacy and Racial Justice virtual forum in 2020. The email advertised a journal call for manuscripts on the topic of anti-Black racism, a phenomenon Kelly was indirectly exploring in the context of multiracial identity development. Chandra forwarded the email to Kelly, who then reached out to Felicia, second author, Ijeoma third, Cynthia fourth and Ann sixth authors, all Black and Mixed Black women faculty and PhD students within the PWSSW. We all voluntarily agreed to participate in the project.

We met via Zoom to record two 120-minute conversations early in the Spring 2021 semester. During the first conversation, we started with two prompts where we asked ourselves to describe experiences of anti-Blackness that we encountered in PWSSW and a solution-focused prompt (Berg, 1994) about envisioning a school of social work where anti-Blackness was no longer present (what would this look like?). In dialogue with one another, we noted how difficult it was for us to say for certain whether some of the experiences we described actually were anti-Black. This led to a more poignant conversation and the emergence of more organic topics about what anti-Blackness is and how do we know when an encounter or experience in PWSSW is anti-Black? Ironically later in the first conversation, we noticed it was impossible to envision a PWSSW that was not anti-Black, and that the very foundation of the profession of social work itself was, like every other institution in this country, grounded in white supremacy and anti-Blackness. Instead, we settled on a less culturally taxing question that involved naming palpable steps PWSSW could take to begin to address gendered anti-Blackness. That conversation helped us solidify how our experiences were indeed reflective of gendered anti-Blackness.

During the second 120-minute conversation, we reflected on our feelings and thoughts since the first recording and identified important themes we individually noted after having watched the video and read the chat from the first meeting. This allowed for a more critical and nuanced discussion of our anti-Blackness experiences, including identifying how our experiences were unique from one another based on our diverse roles and social identities. It also allowed us to identify ways to center our well-being and professional success despite gendered anti-Blackness within PWSSW and academia as a whole. Finally, we discussed creative ways to disseminate findings from our project that would be more accessible to Black women social work scholars beyond traditional and often inaccessible peer-reviewed journal articles.

As a new methodology with limited guidance, we approached the analysis of our conversation using the following five steps. First, following the initial conversation, we each individually watched the recorded video and reviewed the saved chat, which was used throughout the Zoom meeting to share thoughts and affirm one another's experiences. Second, we presented our individually identified themes in conversation during the second video. Specifically, during the second conversation, we elaborated on the most significant takeaways from having watched the first video and participating in the project overall. As the conversation evolved, we noticed our tendency to use and repeat certain phrases spoken by one or more of us. Phrases were introduced as entry points to affirm and relay our observations of themes to one another and the group as a whole. After rewatching the video of our second conversation multiple times, it became apparent that we used these phrases in metaphorical and familial ways, suggesting our small Black woman collective had discursively identified shared truths of understanding, or proverbs, as analytic themes. Proverbs have traditionally played an important role in African culture, particularly by challenging dominant narratives that have historically vilified Africa and the civilization of its diverse inhabitants. According to Sibanda (2015), “The myths and proverbs were a construct of the community and not individuals; hence they formed part of the African culture and aided the community in living in harmony while maintaining justice” (p. 1). The third and final step involved comparing/contrasting our proverbs with themes from existing scholarship written by and for Black women scholars in academia, noting similarities and nuances between our experiences and those presented in the existing literature.

Our Positionalities

Kelly Faye Jackson—I am an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University where I have resided since 2007. I am a mixed Black and White cisgender woman who benefits from light-skin privilege and growing up adjacent to White people and culture. My tenured status grants me the ability to speak openly about gendered anti-Blackness in social work education and the platform to push back against it within my own school.

Felicia Mitchell—I joined the School of Social Work at Arizona State University in 2016 as an Assistant Professor. I am a first-generation college graduate, and I am a mixed Black, Indigenous, and White cisgender woman who is often misidentified due to others’ perceptions of how they view race. My scholarship focuses on environmental and health equity in BIPOC and advancing social work education through critical reflection and engagement that seeks to dismantle anti-Black sentiments and settler-colonial standards in academia.

Ijeoma Nwabuzor Ogbonnaya—I am a dark-skinned African-American/Black cisgender woman of Nigerian descent. I recognize that I have privileges related to my educational status; however, I also lack power in the realms of academia due to my tenure-track (Assistant Professor) position, gender, and skin color. This limited power has silenced me in the past, but other Black women scholars empower me to break this silence.

Cynthia Mackey—I am a first-generation doctoral student at a research 1 (R1) university in the Southwest. I identify as a Black mixed-race, cisgender woman, of African and East Indian ancestry. I recognize my privilege as a light-skinned individual and use my privilege to center-Blackness in my scholarship and work with communities.

Chandra Crudup—I am a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and Associate Dean of Inclusive Design for Equity for the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and Access at Arizona State University. As a mixed Black and White cisgender woman who benefits from light-skinned and other privileges, I am dedicated to transforming social work research, pedagogy, and practice through acknowledging the practices of oppression and wielding the power of community collaboration to catalyze action that will lead to sustainable change.

Ann Turnlund Carver—I am a mixed-race, Black and White cisgender woman, engaged in the advanced stages of a doctoral program in a predominately white university. I most often identify as a Black. My positionality stems from my beginnings, as a transracial adoptee raised in a Scandinavian-headed family in the Upper Midwest. My adopted father is also a master-level social worker who lives his work. Additionally, my extensive career in child welfare informs my research concerning peer support and racial identity with African-American youth and young adults with history of foster care involvement. Most importantly, I am a single mom to two woke Black girls (teens).

Our Discoveries

We present our Black women-centered proverbs and offer descriptions of how they were situated within our polyvocal conversation below. As our positionality statements revealed, we all identify as Black cisgender women and humbly acknowledge that our experiences may not be inclusive of Black trans women and/or Black persons who are gender nonconforming.

Take Back the Narrative

Although we recalled numerous experiences of anti-Blackness, we still struggled to define it, and worse, name it into existence within SSW. We discussed many experiences that could be labeled “gendered anti-Black,” yet we initially lacked the internal agency to admit to its prevalence. For those of us mixed Black women, this appeared to be related to feelings of shame associated with our multiraciality and what some might consider tenuous ties to Blackness, thus leading to internalized questioning whether we were “Black enough” to claim Blackness and thus experience anti-Blackness (Harris, 2017). Our inability to name and define gendered anti-Blackness also related to our lack of exposure to language within predominantly white SSW that validated its existence as an external force (vs. an individual internal struggle). Instead, we discussed how a dominant white culture within PWSSW subverted honest talk about racism and anti-Blackness, prioritizing instead a colorblind approach that centered on whiteness and the “othering” of Black people and people of color (see Davis et al., 1983; Edwards et al., 2012; Hollingsworth et al., 2018; Roberts & Smith, 2002).

We noted how PWSSW both directly and indirectly held us accountable to rid the school of systemic racism—ironically, a system we were perpetual victims of. This represents the very definition of gendered anti-Blackness and its enactment through tokenism in academia, where our value as scholars was reduced to racist and sexist tropes of Black women as Mammies who complacently serve the needs of predominantly white departments (Wilson, 2012). To directly push back against this prolific form of gendered anti-Blackness in academia and PWSSW, we talked about shifting our lens away from internalized shame and self-doubt toward one that focused on our collective strengths and resistance as Black women in spite of gendered anti-Blackness. We stated the need to “take back the narrative” and decenter whiteness from our own conceptualizations of academic worth and similarly hold our departments accountable to our value beyond tokenism and serving whiteness. Defining our own worth also granted us the agency to choose whether or not to engage in future anti-racism efforts within our School, College, and University.

Our Physical Presence is Resistance

We spoke at great length about being “othered” because of tokenism within our departments and how the dominant culture of whiteness made our presence as Black women feel unwelcome, odd, and at times even threatened (Obasi, 2021). We talked about the importance of normalizing our presence within the academy as a powerful form of resistance to systemic white supremacy and patriarchy within PWSSW and the academy of social work education. We collectively reiterated the importance of representation and how the space we occupy in academia signals to future Black women scholars their equal right to be in this space. For instance, we shared numerous examples of Black women and other women of color future scholars reaching out to us having come across one of our academic profiles online or after reading one of our publications or participating in one of our presentations.

We discussed the inherent responsibility we felt towards the Black community and other communities of color that we shared heritage, and the privilege we held due to having access to and being in higher education. We noted how this privilege was not held equally among members of our project cohort. We talked at great length about how those of us with white heritage garnered more privilege in PWSSW due to our cultural familiarity with the dominant landscape of whiteness, one that was more easily navigated by those of us who additionally benefitted from light skin privilege. We discussed the internalized obligation we felt to use our varying degrees of privilege in ways that gave back to Black women and women of color students and future scholars, who lacked representation in PWSSW and the academy in general. We noted how this obligation was not shared by all people of color in PWSSW and recalled instances throughout our careers where people of color, particularly those in leadership positions, similarly tokenized and exploited us based on our dual-marginalized positionality.

We used our privilege in numerous ways to formally and informally mentor Black women students and future scholars; mentorship some of us never received due to the lack of Black women faculty in our graduate programs. Instead, we spoke honestly to mentees about the additional burdens and cultural tax they would face in PWSSW and academia in general because of white supremacy and patriarchy. We affirmed their experiences with gendered anti-Blackness and shared strategies for navigating through toxic whiteness and white masculinity permeating PWSSW curricula, culture, and policy. Lastly, we used our privilege to position ourselves on certain committees, initiatives, and efforts to directly advocate on behalf of Black students, faculty, and the Black community at large. We recognized how important it was for us to be at the table in the room consistently speaking out and noted how exhausting and problematic this reality was in PWSSW.

Pick and Choose Your Battles

Reflecting on our conversation about gendered anti-Blackness revealed how we needed to protect our well-being by picking and choosing our battles in PWSSW. We noted how the dominant culture of PWSSW grants White males an incredible amount of agency and privilege in our departments, despite social work being a predominantly female profession. We shared disturbing experiences involving several White male social work students who blatantly disrespected our authority and even threatened our person. Similar to a study by Pittman (2010), we noted how, as Black women, we encountered more hostility from white students, especially White male students, who felt entitled to question our knowledge and expertise in the classroom. Reflecting on the outcomes of these negative encounters, we collectively recognized how PWSSW policies and procedures failed to protect us and women of color from gendered racism in the classroom. Instead, we observed how administrators gave disrespectful students second and third chances in our departments to remain in our classrooms and the social work program in general.

In our teaching, we choose our battles by steering away from instructing controversial diversity courses or, when choosing to teach such courses, allowing ourselves permission to decide when and how to broach contentious topics, especially when feeling emotionally depleted. We also taught online courses that allowed more time to breathe, reflect, and respond to disruptive students. Picking and choosing our battles was indelibly tied to privilege associated with our various positions and roles within SSW. As PhD students, we admitted to having limited power to directly challenge gendered anti-Blackness within PWSSW programs that center whiteness. We talked about the very real threat of retaliation, especially for Black women PhD students and junior faculty whose career trajectories are more dependent on the evaluation and approval of white faculty, especially White male faculty who traditionally hold the most power among faculty in PWSSW.

Keep Your Eyes Wide Open

This proverb speaks to the prevalence of gendered anti-Blackness in PWSSW and academia, in general, and the need for Black women scholars to enter this space with their eyes wide open in preparation for this reality. In conversation with one another, we shared instances where our work and labor were co-opted by white colleagues and peers of color alike, who, despite benefitting from our labor, openly discredited our talents and skills when we were not in the room. These very unfortunate lessons of trust came to us after having been burned multiple times by one or more persons within different social work departments. We discussed how important it is for Black women scholars to have safe counterspaces to talk openly about tokenism and name those individuals known to harm Black women and women of color within PWSSW (Grier-Reed, 2010). We reflected on how historically, Black communities have had to pass along information about how to navigate and travel through white spaces (Taylor, 2020), and the importance of this tradition continuing within PWSSW. By naming these individuals, we push back against the dominant culture of white supremacy and patriarchy that enables and rewards certain faculty and interdisciplinary spaces that serve as extensions of social work research, who repeatedly exploit and marginalize Black women students and faculty. It also helps future Black women scholars, especially PhD students and junior faculty, preemptively avoid certain toxic individuals (and the spaces they occupy) who possess the power and authority to topple their academic careers.

Being aware of gendered anti-Blackness and how it manifests in micro-social interactions with white peers and colleagues in PWSSW was another way we kept our eyes wide open. We discovered that having more experience around whiteness and understanding the meaning behind certain patterned behaviors associated with white supremacy and patriarchy helped us recognize gendered anti-Black messaging hidden within the dialogue of certain exchanges with white peers. This was a skill that varied based on our positionalities and adjacency to whiteness. Those of us mixed Black women scholars who were older and had white family members, or grew up in predominantly white communities had more experience being around white people and therefore were better equipped to decipher covert messaging that reinforced gendered anti-Black stereotypes. This was another privilege those of us with white heritage and/or experience in predominantly white settings used to help empower Black women scholars, those with less experience in predominantly white spaces, to help externalize gendered anti-Blackness within PWSSW departments and academia in general.

Forge Our Own Paths

We discussed the epistemological landscape of research-intensive PWSSW and PhD programs in general, which continue to privilege positivism and essentialist ways of knowing (Hothersall, 2019). This created an environment that felt inaccessible to us as Black women who sought to engage methodologies that centered on culture and community, ironically something the profession touts to value, but only when engaged in an individualistic and formulaic way (Evans-Winter, 2019). We shared examples of faculty and administrators in PhD programs dissuading us from learning about and choosing to utilize methods for our dissertation research grounded in (Black) feminism, constructivism, and critical race theory. Similar to accounts from other Black women PhD students in PWSSW (Davis & Livingstone, 2016), we described instances where we were ostracized in PhD courses by faculty and white students alike when we brought up issues of race and racism that were either overlooked or situationally dismissed. Later in our programs, we were discouraged from choosing topics that centered on race (Romero, 2017) and/or from using nontraditional qualitative research methods that sought to empower marginalized communities.

We spoke about how important it was for us to challenge this covert form of gendered anti-Blackness by seeking supportive mentorship by Black women peers and women of color scholars with the capacity to validate and affirm our development as social work scholars. Due to the deficit of Black women scholars in PWSSW, this frequently required us to look outside our departments to Black women scholars from other disciplines. Forging our own path required an internal sense of strength that our research interests and scholarship were important, even if devalued and dismissed by instructors, peers, and even PhD coordinators within SSW PhD programs. We collectively sought and created counterspaces that served as supportive, nurturing spaces for ourselves and Black women scholars with similar experiences (Grier-Reed, 2010). These spaces acknowledged gendered anti-Blackness and the oppressive realities we face as Black women in PWSSW.

Hold Onto Hope

The last proverb that emerged from our BFP was the need to hold onto hope. Admittedly, this was a hard one for us to discuss due to the systemic embeddedness of gendered anti-Blackness within our profession and society in general. We recognized that holding on to hope was especially important during these tumultuous times when all of us were struggling to juggle motherhood and additional family and work responsibilities due to the syndemic (Poteat et al., 2020; Walton et al., 2021). Our conversation around this particular question revealed our own struggles with racial battle fatigue especially since 2020, and being continuously charged (both directly and indirectly) with solving the problem of racism within our PWSSW, a form of gendered anti-Blackness in and of itself.

How we held onto hope varied but started with a reflective prompt to help remind us why we wanted to become a social work scholar in the first place. This particular proverb served as the foundation for all of the other proverbs that emerged from our BFP, as it reminded us of our worth and why it was important to stay the course. We also talked about how important it was to remind ourselves of this through regular self-reflective mantras, journaling, and communing with one another via text and conversation. In this sense, this proverb symbolized the hope that emerged from our coming together in 2020, which created a safe counterspace for us to redefine and legitimize our existence and importance as Black women scholars in social work.

Conclusion

Although Black women scholars have and continue to make significant contributions to the profession of social work, their stories of experience in social work education are mostly absent. This absence continues to negatively impact the experiences and career trajectory of Black women faculty and PhD students in academia. Our study invented a new methodology, BFP to defiantly challenge dominant anti-Black and patriarchal narratives that perpetually devalue our worth and importance in the academy of social work. We intentionally grounded our study in Black feminism to affirm our shared experiences of gendered anti-Blackness while simultaneously acknowledging that our diverse positionalities foster a necessary layer of complexity to our shared understanding. Black women are not a monolith, and heeding this fact we intentionally utilized a method of research that disputes essentialist assumptions that all Black women are the same. That said, we willfully acknowledge the shortcomings of our study associated particularly with our privileged cisgender positionalities and inability to speak to the Black queer, nonbinary, and/or gender nonconforming experiences of graduate students and faculty within PWSSW. Similarly, we recognize that the PWSSW we interfaced with do not reflect all SSW. There is a need for more literature and empirical investigations on gendered anti-Blackness in social work education and the profession in general. We recommend future Black women social work scholars deploy those research methods capable of recognizing social context and dominant narratives of white supremacy and patriarchy that perpetuate the disparities we face in schools of social work, as opposed to traditional methods that blame our marginalized identities for our oppression. Particularly, we need research that centers on the stories of our Black trans, queer, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming sibsters to offer a more complete understanding of the insidious nature of gendered anti-Blackness in SSW and the profession of social work at large. Lastly, we hope that our proverbs and conversation detailed here will help to protect and nurture future Black women social work scholars who deserve a profession that genuinely sees and values their worth.

Dedication

For our Black women social work ancestors who fought and created pathways for our inclusion in SSW today. For our Black social work si(b)sters who stay fighting and holding strong. For our future Black social work descendants who will change the world.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kelly F. Jackson

Felicia M. Mitchell

Ann Turnlund Carver

Author Biographies

Dr. Kelly Faye Jackson is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Her critical research examines the identity development of multiracial persons. Her co-authored book Multiracial Cultural Attunement (Jackson & Samuels, 2019) - represents an anti-racist practice model for helping professionals serving clients living multiracially.

Felicia M. Mitchell is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Mitchell’s primary research examines environmental change impacts related to water and their effects on Indigenous communities’ health and well-being. Mitchell’s other scholarship endeavors seek to dismantle anti-Black sentiments and settler-colonial standards in academia.

Ijeoma Nwabuzor Ogbonnaya, MSW, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Social work at Arizona State University. Her research investigates how intimate partner violence (IPV) and IPV services impact health and well-being, and how this impact varies across culture, race, and ethnicity. She focuses on populations most vulnerable to IPV, including child welfare system-involved families and people living with HIV.

Cynthia Mackey is a PhD student, CSWE Minority Fellow and graduate research assistant at the Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy at the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Her research utilizes community-based approaches to address health disparities and promote the mental wellbeing of formerly incarcerated Black women.

Dr. Chandra Crudup is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Arizona State University. Her recent research focuses on transforming research pedagogy, and practice through acknowledgement of oppressive and exploitative practices throughout history and dismantling the systems that perpetuate these practices.

Ann Turnlund Carver is a research program coordinator at Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, focusing on African American health disparities and COVID-19. As a Social Work doctoral student, she researches peer models of racial and ethnic identity concerning African American youth and young adults with foster care histories.

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Taking Back the Narrative: Gendered Anti-Blackness in Predominantly White Schools of Social Work

Abstract

Keywords

Gendered Anti-Blackness in Higher Education

Gendered Anti-Blackness in Schools of Social Work

Black Feminist Polyethnography

Our Process

Our Positionalities

Our Discoveries

Take Back the Narrative

Our Physical Presence is Resistance

Pick and Choose Your Battles

Keep Your Eyes Wide Open

Forge Our Own Paths

Hold Onto Hope

Conclusion

Dedication

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Author Biographies

References