Black, White, and Everything in Between

Abstract

With this chapter, the author sheds light on the experiences of a Black woman hired to create, administer, and manage the day-to-day needs of diversity offices at two small, white private liberal arts universities. The chapter will include insights on the very racism and implicit bias the author experienced, reported, and helped diminish. The chapter also describes the seemingly impossible task of managing change and transformation on private institutions rooted in white supremacist traditions and built upon a history of exclusion. To do this, the author shares personal narratives from colleagues collected via online surveys. The author describes the personal angst experienced while collecting, reporting, and managing the many micro-aggressions, experiences with racism, transphobia, and other reported biases. The author considers the mental gymnastics necessary to serve the needs of the institution and attempt to protect personal integrity and sanity.

The racial politics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work.

“…Institutional type, size, and demographic composition of a campus are not variables, from our perspective, that in and of themselves challenge neoliberalism and Whiteness (e.g., Abrica et al, 2020; Vega et al, 2022). There is no prior research to suggest the tensions and experiences of DEI work differ across institutional spaces, although a preponderance of work situates DEI work as particularly challenging and fraught in predominately White institutional contexts (Patton et al, 2019; Reed, 2023). For example, scholars have previously laid out the tensions of Black leadership in higher education and DEI work (Ahmed, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018; Briscoe et al, 2022; Briscoe & Jones, 2022; L.…”

“…As others before us have noted in prior critiques of DEI work (Ahmed, 2012, 2018; Casellas Connors, 2021; Gray et al, 2023; L. L. Jones, 2023; Leon, 2014; Long, 2003; Patton et al, 2019; Reed, 2023; Stewart, 2017), it is a perpetual challenge to transform higher education institutions while working within them (Andreotti et al, 2015; Stein, 2018, 2019, 2021; Stewart, 2017; Zembylas, 2021).…”