Abstract
Through this piece, we draw upon critical race theory and Collins’s Afrocentric feminist epistemology to highlight the importance of storytelling as a knowledge validation system in Black women’s language. We illuminate and analyze a dialogic performance of two Black female literacy scholars in a coffee house “sipping tea,” sharing stories about their joint triumphs and challenges with teaching through equity-based pedagogies. The article takes its political and poetical inspiration from this dialogic performance placed in the center of the article. The dialogue is meant to enliven and represent the Afrocentric feminist discourse patterns that undergird our relationships with one another as Black sister scholars as well as our relationships to our classroom teaching and research. We offer discussions of literacy research and theory, personal experience/ethos, linguistic knowledge, and critique of racism. Our article has implications for strengthening the academy’s understanding of Black female bodies/language in White university spaces still hell-bent on not welcoming/employing either.
Introduction: #TheTeaIsHot: Drinking in Valuable Information
The term sipping tea is described in popular contexts, such as social media, as the act of listening to or participating in the verbal disclosure of gossip or rumors, specifically the sharing of celebrity gossip. Arguably, African American women in the media have made this term popular on several television shows (i.e., The Wendy Williams Show, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Love & Hip Hop, etc.). On these programs, the act of sharing information, or “sipping tea,” is often exploited and misrepresented by the media as an act of violence against another individual rather than an opportunity to engage in a social dialogue using call and response. In African American verbal tradition, call and response seeks to synthesize speakers and listeners in a unified movement (Smitherman, 1999). In this form of communication, emphasis is on group cohesiveness, cooperation, and the collective common good. In this article, we argue that there is a direct connection between the significance of sharing valuable information, or “sipping tea,” and communality in Black culture. Furthermore, our article is titled “#SippingTea” because we assert that storytelling among Black women in the media is devalued or reduced to merely “gossip,” which is similar to how the Black oral tradition of storytelling, or “narrativizing,” is also marginalized in the academy. To counter this argument, we specifically examine the effectiveness of storytelling among Black women and how the legacy of storytelling and counter-storytelling in this group is a valid form of literacy and an effective mode of communication.
As two Black female literacy scholars, we embody the act of “sipping tea” as a means to validate our individual experiences as Black female professors. The act of “sipping tea” is a representation of a communal and safe space that we formed together across several phone conversations. For us, this space symbolizes an act of figuratively sipping tea, while through our storytelling, we listen, affirm, and share our personal experiences. To support our argument, we present a dialogic theatrical performance of us “sipping tea” during an alternative presentation at a major conference. Our brief conversation takes place in a coffee shop, where we discuss the affective and intellectual aspects of our teaching. The conversation is framed by this overarching question: What are the experiences of Black female literacy scholars whose teaching centers on antiracist equity-based pedagogies? One of the goals of our conversation is to share our counter-narrative, which sheds light on some of the challenges we face as Black women, using these teaching methods to explore literacy in our classrooms. A second goal of our conversation is to share some of the useful teaching strategies and resources we have drawn upon that support our work, which allow us to maintain our integrity and passion in the academic classroom.
Theoretical Frameworks
Given the focus on illuminating the rich, yet often invalidated literacies and stories of Black women who are faculty, we found it necessary to draw upon frameworks that effectively provide context for our stories. Critical race theory (CRT) and Afrocentric feminist epistemology provide such frameworks for exploring the intersectionality of our identities as Black female literacy scholars. Through the lens of CRT, we are able to speak to the salience of how race and racism impact our experiences as Black faculty. While Afrocentric feminist epistemology provides similar framing, it also offers a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which gender and race influence our positionalities as faculty members committed to equity-based pedagogies surrounding literacy.
CRT
In this article, we theorize and analyze our narrative accounts using CRT to expose and resist social inequality. CRT has historical foundations in critical legal studies (CLS), which is a movement based in the principles of legal realism (Taylor, Gillborn, & Ladson-Billings, 2009, p. 1). In 1977, the main argument of CLS was that “power and dominion of certain groups (White, male) over an unequal status quo was continuing, and social and political change was needed” (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 2). While CLS scholarship critiques mainstream ideology for its role in helping to create, support, and legitimate oppressive structures in American society, CLS does not include racism in its critique (Ladson-Billings, 1998, p. 12). Thus, as an outgrowth of CLS, CRT scholarship examines the role of race in constructions of power.
The history of CRT began when a group of legal scholars came together in support of the new racial reforms and openly criticized legal litigation that helped maintain social and economic oppression (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 2). Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman were two of the leading scholars during this period whose work addressed the “slow pace of racial reform in the United States” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000, p. xvi). These individuals, along with many other scholars and students, led workshops and published scholarship that redefined racism as not just “acts of individuals,” but as larger, systemic, structural conventions and customs (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 4). According to Taylor et al. (2009), CRT scholarship cannot be considered an abstract set of ideas. Specific insights and observations of CRT include the following: Society’s acceptance of racism as ordinary, the phenomenon of Whites allowing Black progress when it also promotes their interests (interest convergence), the importance of understanding the historic effects of European colonialism, and the preference of the experiences of oppressed peoples (narrative) over the “objective” opinions of Whites. (p. 4)
In the present study, the observations of CRT function as analytical frameworks to highlight common core themes across our narrative/dialogic theatrical performance that reveal how race and racism function in relationship to our experiences as Black female professors.
The origins of CRT exist primarily in legal studies; however, the field of education has adopted several of its tenets. For example, one of the foundations of CRT in education is the observation that racism is a standard and normal occurrence of daily life in U.S. society (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 4). As a result, critical race theorists argue that Whites “find it difficult to comprehend the non-White experience and perspective that White domination has produced” (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 5). In fact, racial inequality is so widespread in our society in several matters, such as hiring, housing, criminal sentencing, and education, that these issues have become irrelevant or insignificant to most Whites (p. 5). In contrast, People of Color have the ability to identify the many oppressive structures that White supremacy has constructed (p. 5). According to Allen (2004), CRT must be applied to antiracist education because White representations of history present Whites as the creators of civilization “and people of color as a drag on, if not a threat to it” (Mills, 1997, p. 57). Therefore, CRT can be used as a tool to help people of color see how Whiteness functions by causing them to think less of their individual and collective selves (p. 132). Thus, using CRT as a theoretical and analytical frame, we aim to revise some of the racist assumptions about female scholars of color in education by presenting a counter-narrative that calls attention to the positive impact Black female literacy scholars have on our society, particularly in educational settings.
The application of CRT presents a more fair and balanced explanation of scholarship that pertains to the lived experiences of people from marginalized racial and cultural groups. According to Scheurich and Young (1997), “dominant research epistemologies—from positivism to postmodernisms—implicitly favor White people because they accord most easily with their social history” (p. 9). This then poses a problem for White researchers because they are unable to identify the sociocultural histories of scholars of color and how they themselves marginalize these histories within the mainstream research community. For example, in Allen’s (2004) critique of critical pedagogy and its inattention to racism, he describes “Whiteness” as a phenomenon that is much more identifiable to people of color: As the oppressed within global White supremacy, people of color are the only ones who are able to see, at least with any primacy and certitude, the various ways that Whiteness operates (Allen, 2001, 2002; Mills, 1997). Whites can also learn to see how Whiteness functions, but they require the spark of knowledge that comes from people of color. And this racial knowledge is the essential source of liberation for us all. (p. 124)
Another tenet of CRT is the “voice-of-color thesis,” which holds that minority experiences with oppression may allow them to communicate to their White counterparts, through storytelling, matters that the White counterparts are unlikely to know (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 9). Storytelling in CRT has many functions, one being “opening a window onto ignored or alternative realities” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 39). According to Delgado and Stefancic (2001), storytelling is useful because “members of this country’s dominant racial group cannot easily grasp what it is like to be non-White” (p. 39). Therefore, “engaging stories can help us understand what life is like for others, and invite the reader into a new and unfamiliar world” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 41). Delgado and Stefancic also describe storytelling as a cure for silencing: Stories also serve as a powerful psychic function for minority communities. Many victims of racial discrimination suffer in silence, or blame themselves for their predicament. Stories can give them voice and reveal that others have similar experiences. Stories can name a type of discrimination; once named it can be combated. . . . Powerfully written stories and narratives may begin a process of adjustment in our system of beliefs and categories by calling attention to neglected evidence and reminding readers of our common humanity. (p. 43)
In this way, CRT allows us to name and voice the experiences of Black women faculty as described in research and our experiences. It is through the naming and voicing of these narratives that we remind the academy of the humanity of Black women. Overall, as a method of analysis, CRT helps clarify the “meaning” of the dialogic performance constructed in this study regarding our experiences as Black women with teaching and how race impacts those specific experiences.
Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology
Afrocentric feminist epistemology is a now long-standing tradition of Black feminist thought in explicitly challenging dominant forms of knowledge production in the academy. However, we reclaim this framework because it applies specifically to the experiences of Black women in the academy and our continuing struggle to secure safe spaces that allow Black women to tell and validate their stories to and for each other. Collins (2002) contextualizes many of the challenges that Black women faculty have historically experienced and continue to experience: Since the 1960s, U.S. Black women have entered faculty positions in higher education in small but unprecedented numbers. These women confront a peculiar dilemma. On the one hand, acquiring the prestige enjoyed by their colleagues often requires unquestioned acceptance of academic norms. On the other hand, many of these same norms remain wedded to notions of Black and female inferiority. Finding ways to temper critical responses to academia without unduly jeopardizing their careers constitutes a new challenge for Black women who aim to be intellectuals within academia, especially intellectuals engaged in developing Black feminist thought. (p. 16)
Contending with these gross misperceptions about Black female faculty’s inferiority and misinterpretations of their ways of being is challenging. Afrocentric feminist epistemology specifically operates in response to and against dominant knowledge validation systems that silence the experiences and voices of Black women scholars. According to Collins (2002), “Black women intellectuals have laid a vital analytical foundation for a distinctive standpoint on self, community, and society and, in doing so, created a multifaceted African American women’s intellectual tradition” (p. 5). Collins supports the argument to respect alternative ways of knowing in which she offers a feminist perspective to support narrative research and dialogue as central to the production of real knowledge and truth, which particularly for African American women can only be constructed from “concrete experiences” (p. 202). Collins asserts this epistemological stance to counter the Eurocentric masculinist knowledge validation process, which describes positivist approaches as the criteria for methodological adequacy. However, “such criteria asks African American women to objectify ourselves, devalue our emotional life, displace our motivations for furthering knowledge about Black women, and confront in an adversarial relationship those with more social, economic, and professional power” (p. 205). According to Collins (2002), for Black women new knowledge claims are rarely worked out in isolation from other individuals and are usually developed through dialogues with other members of a community. A primary epistemological assumption underlying the use of dialogue in assessing knowledge claims is that connectedness rather than separation is an essential component of the knowledge validation process. (p. 212)
Therefore, our research seeks to debunk the myth regarding the inadequacy of storytelling as a methodological approach, and to reveal the intellectual affordances of narrative accounts. It is in the spirit of this intellectual tradition that we, as Black women who are literacy scholars, share our stories with each other, while offering validation and support. We intend to reorient scholarly audiences around the teacher-researcher roles of Black women academics, thus allowing the tea sipping that we perform to reshape a larger discourse of race, classrooms, and education.
Historical Background: Significance of Oral Tradition
“Narrativizing,” or storytelling, is an African American verbal tradition/oral discourse feature that is characteristic of general Black discursive practices, or when everyday conversational talk may be rendered as a “story” (Smitherman, 1977, p. 161). In Black oral tradition, narrativizing can be seen diasporically in African and African American communication structures through the roles of griots in African tribal culture, plantation tales and toasts in U.S. slavery, and presently the hip-hop/rap generation (Smitherman, 1977). According to Smitherman (1977), the story element/narrative is engrained in Black culture, having roots in African ancestry, and is used in everyday conversation as a strong Black communicative strategy (p. 161). Therefore, one can see how African American narrative patterns are culturally at odds with White American culture: unaware of the Black cultural matrix in which narrative sequencing is grounded, Whites often become genuinely irritated at what they regard as “belabored verbosity” and narration in an “inappropriate” context—thus we have yet another case of cross-cultural communication interference. (Smitherman, 1977, p. 161)
Michaels’s (2005) recent scholarship on working-class storytelling in schools also suggests that oral narrative is rejected in classrooms when, students’ efforts to use narrative are often not appreciated by their teachers, not picked up on, extended, or used productively in developing students’ academic arguments. It is indeed at just these points in the classroom conversation that teachers frequently have trouble validating students’ thinking or even recognizing it as cogent. (p. 138)
Thus, research shows that storytelling is often devalued in English-language arts classrooms, and students and academicians are rarely encouraged to exercise or develop this rhetorical skill, especially in fields such as composition, literacy studies, and English education.
Black Women’s Counter-Storytelling Through Narrative Accounts
In Etter-Lewis’s (1991) research on the “narrative legacy” of African American women, the Black woman’s oral narrative is examined as an applied concept and method of analysis for interpreting African American female perspectives. According to Etter-Lewis, African American women perform storytelling in ways that are distinctive to the African American female experience. For example, in her research study, she found that African American female participants she interviewed who experienced racism and sexism combined used complex narrative structures that emerge in three distinct styles: unified, segmented, and conversational. Etter-Lewis sheds light on the categorization of these narrative styles and an awareness of how they are performed discursively to bring to the surface the suppressed and often censored viewpoints of African American women, revealing the “deeper meanings embedded in their narrative texts” (p. 46). Their narratives contain conversational elements to illustrate an idea or event. An example of this is the narrator reconstructing conversations that occurred in the past by modifying voice, tone, and pitch to represent different speakers and different emotions (Etter-Lewis, 1991). The laughter and humorous reenactment of a conversation or dialogue is significant because it may reveal an underlying message in the narrative. For example, conversational narrative style may function as a “buffer,” allowing the speaker to discuss painful experiences or uncomfortable situations in an indirect manner.
Battle-Walters’s (2004) research also applies a similar methodological approach to explore the multiple viewpoints of African American women on race, class, and gender through her phenomenological research study conducted in beauty shops. Battle-Walters explores how the experience of being a Black woman is discussed from several different perspectives, but the daily struggles of having to navigate through discrimination that comes along with being both Black and female can be seen as a shared norm among all interviewees. She introduces the “gendered racism concept” to highlight the reason behind emotions discussed in the narratives of Black women. This concept gives credence to how Black women in our society are forced to endure two counts of discrimination and stigmatization: “First they are discriminated against for being Black. Second, they are discriminated against for being women” (p. 30). This concept is discussed in relationship to employment inequities, success, perseverance, and single parenting.
According to Battle-Walters (2004), Black women also expressed the struggle and challenges they face in the workforce. Many expressed having to prove their value at work due to their employers constantly questioning their ability to do their jobs effectively (p. 37). Participants discussed being ignored on the job or treated as a nonentity. The struggle of gaining respect from their White colleagues was described in this text. The workplace is referred to as a battlefield in which Black women use survival strategies that include “ignoring the fact that they were not being respected by their White colleagues, making a ‘scene’ on their jobs, or quitting their jobs to find more respectable working relations” (p. 38). According to Battle-Walters, these strategies are the result of the effects of the “gendered racism concept” and are used to prevent “self-inferiorization,” which is when one begins to believe or internalize the negative things society says about one (p. 38).
Harlow’s (2003) scholarship also continues to detail the literacies or narrative accounts of Black women who are faculty. She focuses on understanding how race and gender influence faculty experiences. “Although both White and Black women reported efforts to avoid being seen as mean or cold, Black female faculty members were more likely to report actual evaluations by students as mean, cold, or intimidating” (p. 357). Johnson-Bailey and Lee (2005) share accounts of multiple experiences, inclusive of students asking them to demonstrate their expertise as scholars before they deemed them worthy to teach them. They also identify myriad manifestations of the ways in which Black female faculty are challenged. Examples of this behavior include “student resistance, in the form of talking back, hostile nonverbal behavior, [and] inappropriate chatting, and rigid body language can be a means of silencing uncomfortable dialogue” (p. 115). In Thomas and Hollenshead’s (2001) study on the experiences of Black female faculty, study respondents reported more challenging access to formal one-on-one mentorships that White men in the academy more readily experience. They found that women utilized creative strategies, searched outside of their institutions, or built collective models of mentorship to fill in gaps in their support.
In each of these texts, storytelling functions as a valid methodological approach, which honors phenomenology in qualitative research.
Representations of Black Female Storytelling in the Academy
As mentioned previously, Black women are increasingly portrayed as angry, violent, and unsisterly in the media, particularly in reality television shows. These images, which are constructed in specific ways to create inaccurate and monolithic narratives, are told through myopic lenses about what it means to be a Black woman in society. Thus, they fail to account for the depth, passion, and truth of Black women’s use of counter-storytelling and counter-narratives.
Black women scholars and Black women literacy scholars have a rich tradition of utilizing storytelling effectively in ways that are highly productive, empowering, and impactful. For researcher Dionne Blue (2001), women such as Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, and Alice Walker taught me that I did not have to betray who I was as a person, specifically a Black woman, in order to speak or write in a way deemed scholarly or intellectual. (p. 119)
For us, these same women, in addition to the women discussed below and the countless women whose names are not mentioned, offer examples of powerful Black women’s narratives.
In Sisters of the Academy:Emergent Black Women Scholars in Higher Education (Mabokela & Green, 2001), 15 Black female education scholars present collective writings of their research, teaching, and personal experiences. Their counter-narratives talk back to the academy and validate the lives, experiences, research, and teaching of Black women in higher education. Similarly, Richardson (2013), in her profound biography, details a powerful counter-narrative of her journey as a Black woman from “PHD (Po H# on Dope) to Ph.D.” and the experiences that propelled her to a successful career as a literacy scholar in academia. Haddix, McArthur, Muhammad, Price-Dennis, and Sealey-Ruiz (2016) recreated a virtual kitchen table conversation between African American women to discuss the importance of their scholarship that lifts up the literacies of Black girls. Kynard (2015) tells stories to describe how academic “institutions actively reproduce inequality” (p. 3) in ways that denigrate and displace Black women. To illustrate how “bodies of color must negotiate in White university spaces,” she shares the narratives of a Black female professor and a Black female graduate student who endured acts of racial violence when White scholars at their university aligned to “calculatingly defame the only Black female professor and graduate student on their campus” (p. 3). Kynard intentionally uses storytelling and her own personal experiences as a method to analyze levels of systemic racism. These authors demonstrate how Black female literacy scholars continue to utilize counter-storytelling in various ways to validate their own stories and the stories of the Black girls and women who are the focus of their scholarship. Their conversations are strategic, intellectual, and always uplifting. In keeping with the traditions of Black women literacy scholars, we examine the following question: What are the experiences of Black women literacy scholars whose research, teaching, and activism center on antiracist equity-based pedagogies? In the section that follows, we detail our process of exploring this research question.
Background Story of Dialogic Performance
During our first Literacy Research Association (LRA) STAR 1 retreat, we collaborated with the STAR fellows to create a meaningful topic that spoke to each of our experiences as literacy scholars of color in preparation for our joint presentation for the STAR fellows session at the LRA annual conference in 2016. Following the retreat, we each constructed abstracts that would guide us in determining the direction of our joint presentation. During a follow-up phone conference with all of the STAR fellows, we analyzed the content of the abstracts and identified intersections across the abstracts. Through our analysis, we identified three major themes. Collaboratively, we decided that two STAR fellow pairs would each address one of three specific themes during the conference presentation. We (Bonnie and Theda) were paired together given our shared desire to focus on exploring the guiding research question above. At the culmination of our phone conference, each pair scheduled additional phone conferences to construct their joint presentations.
As we (Bonnie and Theda) began sharing our individual stories and experiences via phone, we felt both affirmed and dismayed. Early on in our conversation, it became clear that we shared similar challenges, experiences, and feelings of discontent. While we quickly began to recognize our time together as a safe space for shared understanding, we had also hoped that our experiences were anomalies and not representative of common experiences of other sister scholars. Within 5 min of our first phone conversation, we began to realize the significance of our individual and collective experiences, and we quickly decided to record our conversation as a means to organize our ideas and prevent the loss of any of our rich dialogue. As a result, we successfully recorded our dialogue via phone.
We then constructed a plan to individually listen to the recording and transcribe our respective parts. In addition, we read through each other’s stories and added any missing content. Following the narrative, we engaged in a thematic analysis of our dialogue. This thematic analysis supported us as we then organized our dialogue. While our discussion in this article focuses primarily on this initial dialogue, we collected data in the form of field notes from approximately 10 phone conversations that occurred over the course of 5 months.
On the day of our presentation, we met to practice our performance and determine the physical setup of our presentation. In an effort to effectively capture the raw passion of our conversation and to connect with our audience, which was filled with a diverse array of graduate students, as well as junior and tenured literacy faculty, we recreated a coffee shop atmosphere within the presentation. Instead of utilizing traditional methods of presenting, we displayed a large image of a coffee shop sign on the projector screen, positioned two chairs in the middle of our audience, and placed teacups on a small coffee table near our chairs. In doing so, we invited our audience into our personal conversational space of exploring what it means to be a Black woman who is a literacy scholar in higher education.
As an alternative approach to the traditional conference presentation format, which includes reading and discussing a research paper or presenting and discussing research via a PowerPoint presentation, we strategically drew from elements of the fishbowl discussion method, which is a cross-disciplinary teaching and learning tool often utilized in classroom settings. The guiding premise of the fishbowl method is to focus on the dialogue of a small group of discussants, while the remaining participants observe, listen, and take notes. Typically, the instructor or facilitator poses guiding questions to stimulate discussion between the small and large group of participants. During our performative dialogue, we served as the focal discussants, and the attendees served as the observing participants. At the culmination of all four presentations in the session, our STAR colleague posed guiding questions to the attendees to stimulate conversation. Ultimately, our aim was to call for and demonstrate how transformative approaches to how scholars of color present our research in academic spaces is not only effective but also necessary in some situations. Below, we share the oral conversation we recreated as a theatrical dialogic performance of our research in two parts.
#SippingTea (Part 1): Two Black Female Scholars Sharing Stories
Hey, Theda, it’s good to see you!
Hi, Bonnie, it’s really good to see you, too. We have so much to catch up on.
How are you doing?
I am doing pretty good. Life is good, just busy. I am really enjoying teaching and working on a new research project. I feel like I have landed in a supportive place. I enjoy teaching mostly developmental reading courses for undergrad and Master’s students. Our college does value a visible commitment to equity and diversity, so I am happy that I have the space to build these important aspects into all of my courses. But, there are times that I really struggle with navigating particular spaces.
Really? What do you mean?
I am likely the first and only Black instructor that many of my students will have, and I wonder if that has anything to do with what I have interpreted as blank stares, not just on the first day of class, but throughout the semester.
I understand; my university was founded in 1957, and I’m the first African American professor ever hired in my department. So, it’s been hard, because I know the students haven’t had much experience working with teachers from diverse backgrounds. They look at me confused, too; the only way I know what’s on their minds is at the end of the semester when I get my teacher evaluations. On one of my evaluations, a student actually made the comment, “She rolled her eyes at me.” When I get comments like that, I know it’s based on their preconceived notions about what they think it means to be African American and female.
How do we deal with students’ heightened misconceptions and misinterpretations of what it means to be a Black woman? It is clear that the students’ comments about your attitude and perceived actions demonstrates their hyper-focus on how you physically present yourself in the classroom. I have found that this is very challenging when we have to deal with both students’ comments and their verbal and nonverbal communication that is unwelcoming or so far from who we are.
There is a good article on this in the edited collection Presumed Incompetent. 2 One of the essays is about how student teaching evaluations might be holding back women and minorities. Reading these essays is very helpful because they are motivational and they also help me understand some of the advice I get from my female colleagues. I was told once that in order to get better evaluations, you have to always agree with the students or never tell them no, and always find a way to make your students feel like they’re right even when they’re wrong. So, if they answer a question wrong or inappropriately, say, yes, that’s right, and then find a way to correct them indirectly. But I struggle with this approach because if I teach this way, how will I maintain my identity and my integrity?
What do these moments do to us? This necessarily means that we have to work through spaces where we are asked to compromise our integrity to appease our students and make them feel good. But at what cost to ourselves? We also have to consider what it means to have safe spaces where we can candidly discuss our experiences in spaces where our own experiences aren’t invalidated, questioned, or misjudged.
Yes. I’m glad we’re having this conversation and sharing our experiences. Patricia Hill Collins writes about Eurocentric masculinist knowledge validation systems, and how the personal experience is devalued in academia. But for Black women, real knowledge and truth can only be constructed from concrete experiences. So, we need to have these conversations with each other.
In talking with one of my mentors, she reminded me of the importance of attending to our emotional well-being in addition to other things. This is why it is so important that we have these spaces and other resources to support us. My mentor also shared with me Rockquemore and Laszloffy’s (2008) book, The Black Academic’s Guide to Winning Tenure—Without Losing Your Soul, which has been very helpful.
As I’m reading these sources, I also have to step out on faith because if I’m constantly worrying about the end result, which is getting tenure, then I can’t really focus on educating the students, which is my priority and my passion. So, I’ve learned how to read my evaluations strategically and find ways to meet the practical needs of my students, and I also have generated strategies that help curb those responses that are attitudinal, which I think are just as important.
#SpillingTheTea (Part 2): Student Responses to Antiracist and Equity-Based Pedagogies
For me, it is important to expose my students to texts, research, and practitioner articles by a range of authors. Bridging a gap in literacy . . . In class, they read texts by people like Toni Cade Bambara, Sherman Alexie, Sharon Flake. For theoretical and empirical pieces, I ensure that they read from critical scholars such as Ladson-Billings, Tatum, Muhammad. Regularly reading and engaging with equity-based scholars is important, especially given some of the issues that students may be contending with. For example, my students were very creative and created literacy games for students and their families. One group suggested creating a literacy game involving role-playing and debate surrounding the Civil War. As I engaged with them further to ensure they were considering the critical elements of this topic, they were unable to see the problem in debating about this point of history while leaving out the experiences of enslaved Black people. I challenged them to consider this because creating such a game without a critical understanding of slavery is dangerous, to say the least, and does not represent literacy equity and justice.
It’s really unethical and counterproductive to argue for the side of slavery, right?
It was baffling to me that the students didn’t understand how that was harmful. So, it is important these ideas are discussed and students do have access to multiple spaces where they can consider the critical elements of what they are teaching. While I am passionate about supporting students as they critically think about these topics, at the same time, it is emotional and heavy work.
Developing antiracist pedagogy is rewarding, but yes, sometimes it does feel like it takes extra time and work. I teach a unit on language and literacy in composition, and in these classes, we rarely assign quizzes, but I have had to insert multiple choice/short answer tests into my curriculum to help students, primarily White students, engage with the course material because these students often show resistance to the antiracist teaching approaches I use.
What do they do?
They participate politely. Borsheim-Black (2015) calls this “covert resistance,” meaning they may not actually engage in the readings and coursework, but they’ll come to class and sit quietly but never participate in ways that demonstrate they have read and are thinking critically about the course material. Instead, they participate politely. So, I have had to assign discussion leaders, response papers, and formal presentations to hold students accountable and help them fully engage with the readings and lectures. These activities have helped me improve my evaluations, but at the same time, it is more work for the teacher. But there are very few literacy scholars who write about how scholars of color are not being prepared to have to use alternative or additional teaching strategies that may not be considered common practice in their discipline.
Yes, I understand and agree. Knowing these strategies is just as important as knowing our content, but outside of spaces like this one, it is rarely discussed.
I have to get going, but we have to continue this conversation. This was really great. Let’s do it again next week. Are you free?
OK, yes, I need to scoot as well. I can’t believe how much time has passed.
(Walking out) I was just thinking about what you said earlier . . . I had a student in my English Language in America course who stared at me with a dazed look all semester. By the end of the class, she became one of my favorite students. We ended up facilitating a workshop together on advancing language diversity in English-language arts classes at a national conference. At the conference, I asked her why she stared at me with that confused look all semester. She said, “In the beginning, I was like, ‘What is she talking about?’ But by the end of the class, I was really inspired.”
Many of my students also value the importance of our work. One of my students, who is a student of color, shared that she [had] doubted whether or not a career in education made sense for her and that our class was helping to reaffirm her commitment. Another student stayed after class one day for about 15 min asking questions about educational equity and yearning for additional spaces to engage with these important topics. So, yes, I agree, our work is challenging, but at the same time, it is very rewarding.
I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to catch up. This has been much needed and helpful for at least knowing that I am not alone. We need to ensure that we continue these spaces where we can share our joys and challenges and support each other along the way.
Discussion
As shown in the dialogue above and in the overall response and reactions from the audience during our LRA presentation, we were reminded, as Henry and Glenn (2009) assert, that our experiences are unfortunately “old issues that have not yet been fully acknowledged, discussed and resolved” (p. 3). For example, at the culmination of our individual presentation and during the collective question-and-answer session for our STAR presentation, we were not prepared for the response that followed. We received an overwhelmingly positive mix of standing ovations and affirmations. What began for us as a sharing of our truths turned into a sharing and healing space for not only the STAR fellows who were presenting but also for participants. We received narratives from graduate students of color and both junior and senior literacy scholars in the field. The overarching sentiment was that these spaces are necessary and unfortunately absent. We again felt affirmed and dismayed in the same ways as during our initial phone conversation. We felt affirmed that our stories were seen as significant, worthy, and valuable to our audience members and that our narratives mattered. While the number of hands that flew up one after the other generated a stimulating conversation, we were also dismayed at the vast similarities in the issues we were collectively experiencing. In the following discussion, we closely examine some key points from our narratives, which resonated strongly with our audience.
Black Female Literacy Scholars: Navigating Constructions of Identity in the Academy
In this section, we expound upon two critical points mentioned in our narratives: (a) the significant challenges for Black women employing antiracist and equity-based pedagogies in White spaces, and (b) strategic teaching practices and modes of protection for Black women to explore to avoid racial acts of violence performed against them in academic spaces. All scholars must acknowledge and reflect on how their identities influence how they both position themselves and are positioned by others within the academy (Milner, 2007). To be clear, this reflection of positionality is not unique to Black women faculty. However, it is necessary that we highlight both their shared and unique experiences.
While it is difficult to accurately measure and name the factors that influence how students engage with and respond to any faculty member, it is important to acknowledge the significance of race and how students view and respond to faculty, particularly Black women. In fact, this kind of lens centers Black women in the politicizing of African American language and Black bodies in a way that is often marginalized. For example, Kupenda (2012) describes her experiences as a Black female professor and her White students’ unfavorable reactions to her naturally textured African American “hairdo”: I went natural with my hair. Then, many years after that, several of my black female students went natural. White classmates accosted them regularly and accused them of joining “Kupenda’s agenda” by stopping perming their hair and making themselves look more natural, which the white students felt was unnatural. (p. 24)
This is one example that reminds us that the neglect, denigration, and ignorance around language and Back bodies are always intimately intertwined.
As demonstrated in our dialogue, we collectively experienced a range of responses from students, including negative comments about our attitude or body language. These comments in many ways are rooted in prejudices, possibly conscious and unconscious, that students hold regarding their perspectives of Black women as “rude,” “aggressive,” or “condescending [language from course evaluations].” According to Lazos (2012), the system [of evaluations] is “crazy for everybody” but it is particularly dangerous for minorities and women who must also contend with the unconscious biases of their students who have role expectations that are anchored in gender and race stereotypes. (p. 173)
Thus, we demonstrate how students oftentimes dismiss critical concepts explored in our courses because they may feel we are using our position as an opportunity to display our grievances as people and scholars of color.
Teaching Tools Centered on Literacy Equity
Through our conversations, we also identified that a central component of our instruction is dedicated to expanding our students’ understanding of equity related to literacy. Theda is a literacy faculty member in her college’s department of teacher education, and Bonnie is a faculty member in the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics. We both maintain commitments to supporting our students’ understanding of the critical elements of literacy learning and teaching. Through our courses, we maintain commitments to critiquing and expanding the canon of literacy scholarship in our classrooms to include multiple and diverse perspectives, including those of scholars of color and Black women who are literacy scholars. It is because of our commitment to literacy equity that we also draw upon multiple teaching strategies in our courses. Scholars’ commitments to addressing issues related to equity and social justice in the literacy field are evidenced in myriad forms. Banks (1993) importantly advocates for an expansion of not only the canon of texts that teacher candidates will utilize with their future students but the canon that literacy faculty utilize in their classes. This expansion then challenges knowledge validation systems that are not always inclusive of diverse voices of scholars, including Black women who are literacy scholars. It is through this expansion that our students are exposed to various ways of knowing and acknowledging the literacy skills and contributions of scholars of color. Moss (2003) is another renowned literacy scholar of color who asserts, in her research on African American literacy traditions in churches, that teachers must find a bridge for students and common ground, which allows students to make use of rhetorical strategies they use in their home communities in academic classrooms. She encourages teachers to analyze alternative models of literate texts (such as sermons, written and spoken narratives, etc.) and to interrogate these texts as well as the academic essay (p. 158). According to Moss, these exercises will accomplish many things, such as broadening sites for learning, and will cause students and teachers to think about the academic literate text as one model and not the model (p. 159). We utilize the implications for literacy learning that these scholars prescribe to shape our own teaching practices and to continue to promote literacy equity in our classes.
As Bonnie noted in the dialogue, students may find it difficult to read and discuss such topics or deem reading about, discussing, and reflecting on these issues as irrelevant. As mentioned in the theatrical dialogue, always saying “yes” to students can compromise this basic standard. However, creating additional assignments (response papers, quizzes, oral presentations) that challenge students’ subjectivity and require critical thinking can be beneficial for both students and teachers. The additional assignments we construct may be time-consuming; however, the benefits of these teaching tools are very rewarding. For example, when students are required to fully engage with the curriculum and instruction, they often rise to the occasion, which permits their ability to become active participants and contributors to the classroom community. Our teaching evaluations demonstrate that students appreciate these opportunities to connect with the material and with their classmates. Overall, these strategies have proven successful in our classrooms and have significantly reduced levels of resistance from students to our teaching practices.
In the face of the challenges we shared throughout our dialogue, as a result of our conversation, we left feeling affirmed and reminded of many of the reasons why we are committed to our work. However, as expressed at the end of our dialogue, we also received reminders and affirmations of why our presence in academic spaces as Black faculty is valuable. While we recognize that our identity as Black women may present challenges for students who possess deficit conceptions of who we are and of our capabilities, we also have students who appreciate our presence. Our existence and commitment to lifting up the literacies of students and communities of color has been reaffirming for students who are committed to similar work. Our presence is also affirming for students of color, who are often in the minority and rarely have the opportunity to engage in courses and research or receive mentorship from faculty of color, due in part to the absence of faculty of color within many academic institutions.
#NoTeaNoShade: Implications for Literacy Scholars
To “throw shade” means to publicly criticize or express contempt for someone, either directly or indirectly, in an attempt to dim that person’s light or what makes him or her shine. The expression “no tea, no shade” borrows from this saying to demonstrate the opposite approach: “I’m not trying to ‘come for you’ or offend you, but this is what it’s really like,” which is the overarching tone of this article. What this means is, we understand that “#SippingTea” may be a difficult article to read, especially for White scholars in the field; however, our approach is significant because our aim is to expose the illogical and irrational behavior that Black female scholars endure daily in White academic institutions. The racialized acts of violence we describe above (as well as the ones we are not comfortable sharing outside of our safe spaces) are extremely ludicrous, and we are bringing them to the forefront in hopes that you, too, will find these stories quite alarming. In many traditional ways of knowing and being a scholar, personal experience is often invalidated, yet it is through the sharing and validation of personal experiences that we receive healing from our historical and contemporary racialized experiences (Johnson, 2017) and nourishment to be our best and most successful selves, academically and personally.
Our piece is not intended to generate pity or to frame ourselves as victims, but quite the contrary. It is written from a humanizing standpoint that acknowledges the basic need for all people to have access to a working environment where they are valued and able to complete their tasks as their best selves, while maintaining their identity, sanity, and integrity. When Black women experience challenges anywhere in the academy that are connected to their race and gender, as revealed in research (Constantine, Smith, Redington, & Owens, 2008; Lin et al., 2004; Pittman, 2010), it is important that their stories are validated. In addition, the simultaneous dismantling of systemic and deeply rooted forms of racism and sexism is paramount for the success not only of Black women faculty but of all faculty of color and the academy. As our fellow scholars remind us, while scholars of color share many similar experiences, we must also validate the stories of scholars of color who present multilayered and underrepresented accounts of their experiences (Brooks, 2017; Jang, 2017). For us, CRT and Afrocentric feminist epistemology remind us of the endemic nature of both racism and sexism and provide context for our stories as Black women. Importantly, these frameworks are also equity- and justice-seeking pedagogies that call for forward movement toward eradicating the perpetuation of these systems of oppression.
Because these systems of oppression are complex and challenging to understand, the solutions and translations into practice are not quick and simple. However, we present important considerations at institutional levels. Academic leadership in institutions at every level must not only espouse an appreciation for diversity but demonstrate a commitment to understanding the value in the contributions and experiences of all faculty, including Black women. It also requires that institutions, colleges, and departments actively facilitate dispositions among students and faculty that foster their critical understanding of systemic forms of oppression and their manifestations in relationships with students and colleagues. Furthermore, this commitment requires that the concerns of Black women faculty are taken seriously instead of being dismissed as “in our heads” or nonexistent, challenges that all faculty have, or challenges that are reduced to symptoms of our own perceived shortcomings.
It is important to note that this article has import beyond catharsis for Black women scholars. These are issues that all literacy scholars, especially those who teach students of color, must consider. For example, in many ways, the Black female student’s experience is not separate from the Black female scholar’s experience. As Solorzano, Ceja, and Yosso (2000) reveal in their research, Black women undergraduate students, particularly at predominantly White institutions, also contend with racial microaggressions and the challenges of dealing with stereotypes and misperceptions regarding their identities as Black women. In Bonnie’s research on narrative inquiry in composition classes, Black female students in one-with-one conferences often expressed experiences with teachers who devalued their Black female epistemologies and rejected their use of narrative in written essays. Literacy teachers and researchers who seek to bridge a gap with these students may appreciate how narrative inquiry is presented in this article as being rooted within the Black oral tradition.
Also, according to Ladson-Billings (2005), “scholars of color have the potential to blaze new epistemological and methodological grounds. Their work may push them to break down some old paradigms and create new forms of knowledge” (p. 233). While Afrocentric feminist epistemology and CRT are long-standing theoretical frameworks, we seek to reaffirm the use and validation of these frameworks as storytelling methodological tools for and about the experiences of Black women scholars and other communities of color. Literacy teachers and researchers might aim to utilize some of the oral narratives and scholarly texts written by African American female literacy scholars highlighted in this article to teach courses offered in literacy, English, composition and rhetoric, and education departments. Examples of such courses may include the following: “Methods of Research into Language Learning and Literacy,” “Qualitative Research Methods,” or “Language and Power in African American Communities,” and so on. These courses may be utilized to explore theoretical concepts and methodologies such as phenomenology, ethnography, case study, and oral history. Faculty teaching these important classes should embrace them as spaces to critically expose graduate students and future literacy scholars to theoretical frameworks such as Afrocentric feminist epistemology and CRT. It is through these and other frameworks that center the voices of communities of color and other marginalized groups, as well as name and confront systems of oppression, that emerging researchers begin to develop research tools to effectively address topics such as race and gender in their research.
Simultaneously, Black women must understand how to navigate the volatile history of White academic spaces that may fly under the radar of White male understanding. Through their research, scholars such as Kynard (2015) profoundly evidence many of the challenges Black women faculty face within the academy through personal accounts. Sharing our stories and illuminating our experiences has implications for building stronger sources of support, not only for Black women who are literacy scholars but also for the collective of faculty women of color. As Grant and Ghee (2015) posit in their research centering the experiences of Black women faculty at predominantly White institutions, our stories are replete with suggestions that can support administrators in recruiting and retaining Black women faculty. We transition to provide suggestions for forward movement, because in spite of the challenges, we are appreciative of existing support systems meant to ensure our success within our departments and colleges, as well as support from outside faculty support programs and our colleagues and family.
One of these major forms of support includes access to mentors and support systems at multiple levels. As researchers committed to supporting the success of Black faculty remind us, the lack of mentorship for faculty of color necessitates increased mentorship opportunities (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2008; Thomas & Hollenshead, 2001; Weems, 2003). As Baker-Bell (2017) details in her scholarship, supportive mentors for Black women faculty can offer necessary coping and reflective strategies for successfully navigating the academy. At the national level, we have both tremendously benefited from participating in the STAR program that is offered to junior faculty of color through the LRA. The program provided invaluable support to advance our research and writing and has created multiple spaces that validate us, affirm us, and equip us with the tools to be our best selves. We are grateful to our individual mentors as well as the community of mentors who embraced our cohort of seven junior faculty. We also recognize similar programs, such as Cultivating New Voices through the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Educational Research Association’s Division G mentoring seminars. While these programs are valuable, we recommend more widespread implementation and increased access to programs that understand the importance of safe spaces for scholars of color to share their experiences while also receiving mentorship to support their success in the academy.
For Theda, access to a university-wide mentoring program for faculty of color has provided support from both women of color and nonwomen of color at her institution. Her college of education has also provided rich opportunities for internal fellowships to advance the scholarship and practice of both pretenure and tenured faculty. Internally, the colleges and departments of both scholars offer successful mentoring programs that pair junior scholars with senior scholars in their departments and colleges. As our research and conversations with other Black women who are assistant professors reveal, such programs are not available at every institution. Consequently, it is essential that Black women faculty are matched with formal mentors who understand the unique experiences that both women and Black women face as faculty members. A component of this mentorship should help us navigate what we will face in White academic institutions with both colleagues and students and clarify how it is important to understand “Whiteness” to be successful in these spaces and maintain our own identity. Both of our doctoral training experiences provided access to teacher education support groups for doctoral-level teaching assistants. These spaces were mostly focused on providing us with content knowledge and pedagogical practices in our field. We call for similar communities of practice that provide scholars of color with pedagogical and self-care techniques designed to help them engage with students who may resist their antiracist and equity-based pedagogies, while maintaining their sanity and emotional well-being.
In addition, building and maintaining positive mentoring relationships with Black women faculty and allies who served as our advisors, doctoral committee members, colleagues, and friends have been instrumental forms of support. We must not also forget the important role that family and friends play in providing respite when we are weary and in need of affirmation, including our mothers, fathers, partners, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a list of loved ones. They have listened to and affirmed our stories. They remind us that we belong; that we have valuable contributions to make to the field, as all scholars do; and that our lives and stories matter. It is in this spirit that we #PourTea for all sister scholars and affirm our love: You belong, Sis; you have made and will continue to make contributions to the academy. Your teaching, research, literacies, life, and stories matter.
Ashe.
Bonnie & Theda
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.
