by Delisa Perry

A lot of us who identify as queer, Black, or woman or a combination of the three may find ourselves at an institution that has explicitly or implicitly harmed or silenced parts of our identity. We may not fully realize how detrimental to our safety the ideologies and policies that uphold these institutions are until we are well into our respective academic programs. By that time, for various reasons, it may become difficult to either transfer or leave once we become aware of the lack of safety. Our physical, mental, and emotional health is crucial to our overall wellness as queer and/or Black women and needs to be fostered wherever we may find ourselves. My story is not unique but should be told anyway, given that the survival of my communities depends on telling our own stories.

Before beginning graduate school at a conservative evangelical institution, I was superficially aware of the implications of my race, sexuality, and gender as a queer Black woman. I was mostly concerned with my passion for philosophy and the desire to learn about the foundations of the field from a Christian perspective. This all changed in 2014 with Black Lives Matter quickly gaining traction and my white Christian “friends” revealing how they truly felt about Black lives.

I know that I am not the first nor the last Black woman to attend a PWI, therefore I find it necessary to aid my fellow queer Black women in navigating their own spaces within these institutions. Despite these institutions’ claims of wanting to “set the captives free”, for the most part, they do not have marginalized groups’ best interests in mind regarding our race, gender expression, and/or sexuality. Because of my experience at PWIs for the past eight years, I am aware that people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ folks may find themselves walking the halls of certain institutions. I would like to offer some timely reminders, warnings, and encouragement for my fellow queer Black women.
How to thrive at a PWI:

1. Know that as a queer black woman, you belong at the table as a scholar who is fully human, and deserving of respect and critique from those who reciprocate respect and critique.
2. Learn the rules of their game so that it will be easier to transgress in your own work.
3. Pick your battles. Do not waste precious time "debating" cisgender heterosexual white men on YOUR humanity.
4. Perfect the art of counter arguments, this will sharpen your academic work and conversations.
5. When one of your peers reaches out in genuine compassion, try to think twice before lashing out. They may become one of your few close friends during your time there.
6. Be prepared to have microaggressions lunged at you.
7. Know how to combat the racist and anti-black microaggressions in whatever way feels safe for you.
8. Deliberately reach out to other Black women in other programs. You all will need each other for support.
9. Do not be afraid of taking a break from the predominant readings (i.e. White men) and seek out works from those who share your identities.
10. Do not be deterred by the dismissal by your (white male) professors concerning your passion for your people.
11. Know that there are Black women scholars who will provide an honest critique of your work. Stay in touch with them.

These are but a few suggestions that will hopefully better assist and heal those who are currently or plan on attending a PWI or private Christian institution. As a graduate student studying philosophy and the only Black woman in my philosophy program, I find it necessary to bring healing and knowledge to others who may be isolated. You are not alone.

by t.d. mcinnis

As a queer, black, woke womxn graduate student at a private, majority-white institution, you will only awaken further—you will, in fact, have trouble sleeping. You will excel just enough to be seen, but you will always know that your visibility, the mere tolerance of you, is contingent on your silence. Should you speak—when you speak—you will be ignored, talked over, challenged, laughed off, or worse, deified as the only one who can relieve the white guilt of faculty, administrators, graduate students. Please, they will say without saying, tell me that I am good.

You will realize quickly that you cannot give them the satisfaction; you would be lying. Whether you lie or devastate them with a truth they will quickly explain away, they will never let you be. They will email you syllabi on their classes about race and stare at you, seeking your approval. They will talk condescendingly about the other whites who are not as good as they are.
They will read Baldwin, Coates, Hurston, Morrison and angle their books so that you might see how aggressively they have highlighted the words that they somehow still do not understand. No, you will say, you have not yet read the new Coates book. You will grimace as you watch them feel smug and work to mask their contentment that they are more in touch with Blackness than you are. This, they must believe, is the cure to their white guilt.

They may even read this essay, and share it on Facebook. They may want to talk about it. Already, you are tired of white people intruding on the work you have written, this healing work, that though in part about them, is not meant for them.

When friends ask, you will compare them to parasites that feast on your life force and leave you emaciated. You will reference the scarabs from The Mummy franchise, that wreak havoc beneath your flesh, hiding all the damage they have wrought. They will focus on the skin beneath your eyes, leaving permanent bruises from every microagression, every question, every sympathetic smile.

You will ultimately become distrustful of your white professors (even the allies), your white colleagues, your white friends. You’ll wonder, Is your presence in their life their absolution? On your best days, you can only speculate as to the answer.

You’ll question friendships you once thought pure, genuine. You will burn bridges and hope they will light the way to a better place. You will burn bridges to places you hope to never visit again, cut ties with people you hope to never again encounter.

You will learn the difficult lesson of keeping a healthy distance from white people in your life; you will only trust those who you know will put their bodies between yours and whatever threat the world presents to you as a Black, queer womxn.

In shedding this extra weight, you will have several moments wherein you believe you have lost yourself. You’ll look at yourself in the mirror for hours, just to remind yourself that you still exist. At its worst, your silhouette will start to blur.

At its worst, you will consider heeding the advice of the Black faculty member with shifty eyes: “keep your head down.” You will wonder what manner of trauma she has endured to ask you to remain silent about your own.

You’ll learn that she has advised many of your colleagues in a similar fashion. You will, in this order, resent, forgive, and pray for the students of color who have chosen selective ignorance as their route to survival.

In your third year, when comprehensive exams seem to threaten what remaining stability you have, you will, for a bit, follow this advice. Because you will know but not be able to prove that you have been barred from opportunities because of your race, gender, and sexuality. You will know but not be able to prove that your work is of greater relevance, and use, to the world than that of those who are awarded for their writing within your department. You will know but not be able to prove that the arbitrary rubrics of excellence your department hides behind obfuscate the mechanics of marginalization that bolsters most institutions. Knowing these things, and being powerless to change them, will drive you to self-destructive coping strategies:

You will drink and eat too much.

You will devote (too much) time to learning how to explain these mechanics, the machine of white supremacy, to anyone who will listen.

You will master it so much that people will ask you to do it ad infinitum, and you will fall behind on your own work.

When your advisor tells you that you are falling behind your colleagues, you’ll nod, say thank you, and cry in the stairwell of the old brick building that houses your old white department.

In your shame and embarrassment, you will decide for your survival that it might be best to be quiet. It might be best not to punctuate every sentence with “white supremacy” to remind white academicians on whose backs they stand, that not citing the Black womxn who already wrote the argument they are so proud of is an act of violence.

You will re-commit to your own work, to writing about diversity and anti-blackness in your hometown. To teaching for the future. You will comfort yourself that success will be the best revenge.

You will do so with little to no celebration and affirmation. You will do so after you’ve cultivated a reputation as an angry Black womxn who is aggressively anti-racist. You will do so while internal fellowships and awards are given almost exclusively to the white women in your cohort.

To survive the lack of celebration, the lack of affirmation, you will have to convince yourself that any award from an institution so morally and ethically corrupt would prove that you have failed your life’s work of dismantling white supremacy. You will wonder what kind of life you lead where you must convince yourself that some success is not for you.

Audre Lorde, who you will encounter time and time again throughout your career will call to you during your reading for comprehensive exams. She will meet you where you are, and you will hear her voice in your head, gently telling you to do better. She will remind you that “your silence will not protect you.” Her words will repeat in your mind until you realize how tightly your throat has clenched around all the words you ought to have said.

You will search desperately for and find a community who, like Audre, understands you and encourages you to scream your truth and be brave. They will take you in and take you hiking, dancing, sightseeing, shopping. They will cook for you, cry with you, and affirm you. They will create a space wherein you can be a person with interests besides the white supremacist world to which you are always reacting to in the classroom.

Within this community, you will find, date, and fall in love with a Black womxn who understands, and loves you, and helps you heal. You will relish in the comfort of not having to explain what you have been made to endure.

Over time, your obliterated self-esteem will make it difficult to tell where you end and she begins, and you will rely on her as your only source of joy and fulfillment. Although you will advise your friends on their relationships over cocktails, quoting bell hooks and her reminders of how being “solitary is central to the art of love,” you will gradually, though unknowingly, forget how to be alone. You will fall into codependent patterns that inhibit your growth, and hers.

When you realize that you are seeking her light to shine for you both, you’ll know that you will soon drain her dry. You realize on days that you are both depleted and you expect her to lift you up that you will soon lose her; or rather, that for both your sakes’, you will need to let her go.

When it ends, when you both realize what white supremacy has made of you both, you’ll accept that you must work to survive and heal on your own; that it is not fair or sustainable to rely so heavily and exclusively on another.

You will roam the halls of your department vengefully, snapping at your colleagues and implicitly blaming them for losing what you mistakenly, and harmfully thought was the best thing in your life. It is not that simple, you know, but for a while it will be the only thing that feels right.

You will cry every day, like clockwork. Your dog will curl up near you, knowing when it is time.

You will undertake the work of learning to be alone in a world that has never loved you.

You will have to write down why it is important to be with, and love on, yourself, because when the break up turns sour (they always do) and when you overhear her packing the last box, you will too quickly forget.
You will lay on the floor and bawl while your friends remove every trace of your lover from the home you built together. You will read Rupi Kaur’s “to do list (after the break up)” 112 times. You will wallow for fourteen weeks.

You will return to your dissertation with a vigor that feels metaphysical. You will impress yourself with your writing and you will wonder why things had to fall apart so that this could come together.

You’ll have to remind yourself that you can sleep like a starfish; that there is no need to curl up on the left side of the bed.

When you find that the cure to what ails you is the time alone of which you were so frightened (and sage, lavender oil, crystals, therapy, and countless hours outdoors, preferably by the sea), you will tell your lover that you will take the chain off the door and leave it unlocked for her, should there come a time when you are both ready.

But you will not hold your breath.

You will learn a valuable lesson of radical self-love…and reflecting on the scars no one else can see, you will wonder if there were other ways to learn.

You will sit down to write your manuscript, and find that your need to write against academia has its hands around your throat, over your eyes, so that you cannot think until these words are on the page. You will hope, against hope, that in giving in for just these three pages, you can move on to your work.


t.d. mcinnis is a PhD candidate at an elite Southern university. She hails from Miami, Florida and researches the intersections of and within anti-blackness and diversity in her hometown. Her hobbies include crafting, writing, and reading to a preferred playlist of Beyoncé, Trick Daddy, and 90s R&B.

In May, eight Black women are earning their PhDs in Education from Indiana University. The amazing thing is the women did not all start the program together but they found each other along the way and cultivated relationships to help them achieve their goals. This May they are making history. The university has never had eight Black women complete a program at one time. The Great 8 attribute their success to the ground work laid by Black women before them. They are committed to leaving institutional legacy so Black women still in the program and those coming behind them have the support they need to thrive. Graduation Ceremonies for the #Great8 will be held on Indiana University campuses in Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses between May 5th and May 8th.

Demetrees Hutchins
Higher Education Doctoral Candidate




What's the biggest obstacle you've had to surmount to complete your degree?

The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was fear of my own success. The fear of succeeding at something everyone else felt was impossible for me to do. Once I overcame that fear, I was able to refocus and complete the journey I started.

What advice would you offer anyone else who'd like to obtain a terminal degree?
Self-sabotage is a real thing. Recognize when God is bestowing blessings and accept those blessings. No one ever said it would be easy, but know that anything is possible. Understand your struggle is never in vain, so use it to tackle all hurdles and remove all obstacles that stand in your way. And don’t be afraid to sing your song as it helps you determine your purpose.

Jada A. Phelps-Moultrie
Jasmine M. Haywood
Higher Education Doctoral Candidate  
@BlatinaScholar
What advice would you offer anyone else who'd like to obtain a terminal degree?
The advice I would offer is to think about why you want to get a terminal degree. How will it help you achieve your purpose and passion? Once you know that, hold on to it and remember why you wanted to do it when the going gets tough. Be intentional. Have thick skin, but a soft heart. Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything.

Johari S. Shuck 


What's the biggest obstacle you've had to surmount to complete your degree?
Managing stress and transition. As a single mom of two kids who's lived in two different places, Chicago and Indianapolis, throughout this journey has been taxing, to say the least. Traveling by plane, train, bus and automobile back and forth, every other weekend, for 6 years, I have been in a perpetual state of change and transition while trying to be the best scholar I can be.

What advice would you offer anyone else who'd like to obtain a terminal degree?
When I applied to IU, I had an admission interview with a Black woman faculty member, Dr. Sheree Wilson. At the end, she told me that she had my back and gave me a hug. That was before I was even accepted. That set the tone for my entire experience.  My advice is for people in the initial stages to be very careful about the institution they chose. Specifically look for people among the students and faculty who also belong to groups with which you strongly identify. Talk to them about their experiences. Pay attention to the vibes. This can be a very isolating and emotionally taxing process. You need circles of love around you to protect you from all academia and life will throw your way, for better or worse.


What's the biggest obstacle you've had to surmount to complete your degree?
The biggest obstacle to overcome is self-doubt.  Often times, as a performance artist and dancer, my work looks different than most students. White faculty questioned my ability to do scholarly work, which left me feeling isolated.  I started to believe the White discourse about Black youth from the inner city. Maybe I wasn’t prepared for this type of rigor growing up in Newark. Maybe I lacked the tools to compete with my peers. I was struggling as a writer, and it seemed to come so easy to others. Maybe I was not cut out for this work. Yet, as I continued to doubt myself, others continued to sow into me. Drs. Little and Modibo, IUPUI African Studies faculty, and Iris Rosa gave me opportunities to teach and travel with undergraduates. Drs. Hughes, Patton-Davis, and Murtadha provided opportunities for me join research teams, publish, and present at national conferences. Black faculty challenged me to produce when I wanted to quit. They wouldn’t give up on me, so I couldn’t give up on me.
Nadrea R. Njoku 
Higher Education Doctoral Candidate
@kween504


What's the biggest obstacle you've had to surmount to complete your degree?
My biggest obstacle has been remembering that I have divinely assigned lane to drive my career. That lane is crafted by me, for me, and ordained by my higher power. In a doctoral program you find that you constantly find yourself comparing yourself to other scholars for validation and affirmation. Who is publishing? How many publications do they have? What is everyone presenting on? What conferences are they presenting at? Who is mentoring who? Who is getting a fellowship? The fact of the matter is, i am in this program to blossom and develop into a special and unique voice. I cannot obtain my maximum #BlackGirlMagic potential if I am following someone else’s path. I was hurt the deepest my first year in the PhD program when it looked like everyone was getting awards and funds except me.  After I wiped away my tears--and my momma looked at me sideways for stressing out about someone else’s blessing--doors started to open for me. However, I can’t say I don’t slide backwards from time to time, because I do. But with prayer and focus I stay centered on my goals, distinctive voice, and watch the blessings fall down.
Tiffany S. Kyser 
 Urban Education Studies Doctoral Candidate 

What's the biggest obstacle you've had to surmount to complete your degree?
Persisting through the challenging journey toward a PhD while working full time, being present for my family and friends, and staying engaged as an active citizen in the educational landscape within Indianapolis.

How did having a network of Black women during your PhD journey shape your experience?
I am in awe of the love, spirit, and care the faculty and staff at IUPUI have provided me throughout the years. Having a network of Black women in my field of study, within the social sciences, and within a supportive recognition of intersectional identity was and is significant. Standing in solidarity as Black and as womyn/women, but also embracing the intersectional identities of class, gender, gender expression, sex, sexual orientation, geographic origin, faith tradition, dis/ability, language, etc that simultaneously converge and diverge between Black womyn/women, was also equally necessary and significant in my current doctoral journey.

by Ariana Brown

I entered the white world of collegiate education as a first generation college student, a working class AfroLatina. Immediately, I found myself unable to relate to my peers, people who spoke multiple languages because of their “summers in Paris,” not out of necessity; whose parents paid their tuition out of pocket; the children of CEOs, investment bankers, engineers. Feeling erased, I came to Black Studies because I knew I could not survive the next four years without it.

In March, Dr. Marcia Chatelain’s first book South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration hit bookshelves. Dr. Chatelain serves as an Assistant Professor of History and African America Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. I spoke with the Chicago native about black girlhood of the past and the present, how we can talk about race more effectively and her hopes of paying it forward by sharing her lessons learned with other black women in academia.

by Malaika Jabali


On Sunday, April 19, renowned professor and author Michael Eric Dyson penned a 9,220-word screed lambasting his former mentor Cornel West on The New Republic. The essay is meant to detail West's decline from the leading Black public intellectual and cultural critic he once was. Instead, the piece tells us more about Dyson and West's long-running feud, with Dyson performing the literary equivalent of taking off his earrings and greasing himself up with Vaseline, readying himself for a fight. Amid unnecessary, personal details that could have remained in the recesses of West’s books and the distant memories of the two men involved, the bulk of Dyson’s argument hinged on West’s diminishing scholarship, prophetic illegitimacy, and, most of all, West’s relationship—or lack thereof—with President Obama.

Black women doctoral students who have children and are enrolled full-time often suffer in the dark while committing their talents to the academy. We are some of the brightest, yet we can also be some of the most financially struggling.

"Art is not only central, it is crucial."

Dr. Cheryl Clarke shared with me these words on the importance of creativity within social justice work and movement building during our conversation that covered art, activism, feminism, lesbianism and academia.

The academic world can be a labyrinthine place, especially when trying to obtain a Ph.D. For people of color, the obstacles become even more difficult to surmount. A study from the National Center for Education Statistics demonstrates that black women only made up 4.4 percent of all doctoral degrees conferred between 2008 to 2009. In comparison, 53 percent of students pursuing doctoral degrees were white. The trend continues in weekly median income for people of color; specifically women. A 2013 study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics demonstrated a huge weekly median income gap between women of color and white women. Black women earned a dismal $606 per week to white women’s $722 . White men made the most money at $884 per week.

If you are fortunate enough to be born both Black and female, you will learn early that your needs will, almost never, come before those of The Community. Many within it will expect you to tote the load of White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy without complaint and threaten alienation and derision if you dare push back against the accepted hierarchy. In spite of this, the work of pursuing equity in how we talk about and care for Black girls and women continues.

I have had the email address, madamepresident2b@*******.com, since 2006. At the time, I was a 32 year-old community college English instructor who was being mentored by the president of my college, an African-American male who saw leadership potential in me. With his encouragement, I began to aspire to the college presidency, and the email address was my way of affirming my long-term goal.

by Brittany Dawson

by Quanisha Smith

Is the Academy a place where Black Women can achieve social justice? I attended the 2nd Annual Black Doctoral Network Conference with this one question in mind. With the recent uprisings in Ferguson, MO, and the discussions surrounding street harassment, one could argue that the United Sates is at a critical moment of major social change. For more than seven years, I have participated in and I have organized grassroots movements on key social justice issues such as public education reform. I have trained and supported citizens from Black and economically disadvantaged communities to share their lived experiences and mobilize for policies that aid their communities. However, I am dissatisfied. I yearn for public attention to issues impacting Black women and girls. Unfortunately, I’ve seen little national or regional focus on our plights. I question how we can promote the importance of our lives.

by Signithia Fordham

L to R: Dr. Alondra Nelson, Dr. Erika James

Two Black women will soon assume positions as deans at two of the most selective schools in the country.

Dr. Alondra Nelson will become dean of social sciences at Columbia University on July 1. Nelson's position is a new one within the University's college of arts and sciences, and she'll be one of five Black deans in the Ivy League. Currently Dr. Nelson is a professor of sociology at the university and serves as director of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Dr. Nelson's work focuses primarily on medical inequality.

 
Here's a question I'd like to see in a GCSE maths exam: in a climate where only one in 13 (7.7%) university professors are from BME backgrounds, where only 50 out of a total 14,000 university professors in Britain are from black Caribbean or black African backgrounds, and only 10 of these are women, how much tenacity does one black female PhD student need to achieve her full potential?

Lack of diversity in the ivory tower is not a new phenomenon; in fact, unless you decide to attend an HBCU, (Historically Black College and University), you are guaranteed to only encounter as many as you can count on your hands (well, maybe a few toes too). Though college and university officials alike have created grandiose plans and programs to improve faculty diversity, rarely are they ever fully implemented, and when done so do they achieve the level of statistical improvement as promised on the manifesto.

With her new show, Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry brought black brilliance to broader audience. But those of us who have the pleasure of interacting similarly brilliant black women daily know Melissa is the rule not the exception.

On February 18, 2012, cable television received a much needed facelift via a new show: Melissa Harris-Perry. The eponymous show headed by Tulane University's tenured, political science professor, Melissa Harris-Perry, is changing not only the fashion in which political and social issues are discussed, but most importantly introducing a new image of the Black woman into the mainstream.