It was not the first time my supervisor accused me of secretly thinking that I could do his job better than he could. He advised me, “You need to practice having a poker face,” often saying that I would surely lose all of my money in an actual game.
Despite little experience as an administrator, my strong references eventually afforded me the opportunity to become an acting administrator. Finally, I would be able to do things my way. Being an administrator felt like the sweet spot for me, and the “leader” designation provided a natural high.
It was not long after landing that dream job as an administrator in my own right that I began to read the faces of those who reported to me. I couldn’t believe that they secretly thought that they could do my job better than me, just as I had thought of my supervisor. This realization made me question whether or not being an administrator really was the right path for me.
In retrospect, one of the changes I made that helped sustain me during the times when I questioned my competence was to become less preoccupied with how others saw me and what they might think of me. I focused like a laser on the roles, goals, and day-to-day habits of our unit in support of students. My focus was so intense that an administrator from another area said that I was a zealot when it came to students. Yes, I was, and I took the comment as a compliment.
Having changed my focus, it became vivid to me that I had previously been preoccupied with simply becoming a leader rather than why I wanted to become a leader. While I had always approached my role with humility, it was naïve arrogance that made me think that I could motivate a staff to see the work of student affairs from my perspective and, in turn, change the way they had always done things.
If you begin to feel as if being an administrator is not for you, give yourself time. Among the lessons I learned during my first year as an administrator was that this is the time when we begin to learn who we are, where we should be, and what we should be doing.
In the recent inter-generational conversation on gender I had the privilege of facilitating, the following question brought the most passion because I used the term “gift” in regard to separating gender from race:
Nell Painter, well-known historian at Princeton, now retired, went back to school to study art. In an interview about her experience as an older student, she insists that she does not want to stand for anything or be representative of any group. She did not want to have to ask herself, what does this mean for the race or for women? So I ask you, do you think that Black women will ever have the gift of talking about or addressing gender in the absence of race?
Phrasing the question in this manner was a way of imagining some future utopia where rights and choices of identity could be made by individual human beings rather than by the characteristics and qualities others choose to define us. The reality, as Eboni says, is that the “confluence of race and gender is complex.” Jackie’s comment about not wanting the luxury of separating gender and race is echoed by Tangela who clearly sees that as Black women we will never clearly see which of these identifiers is causing our experience. To smooth over one or the other is a disservice. It’s encouraging to see that all three of these women are positive role models to help future generations to connect race and gender in their self-concept as they define them.
Full Transcript for Representation Section / Conclusion
Gwen (Traditional / Silent – T/S): Nell Painter, the well-known historian at Princeton, now retired, went back to school to study art. In an interview about her experience as an older student, she insists that she does not want to stand for anything or be representative of any group. She did not want to have to ask herself, “What does this mean for the race or for women?” So, I ask you, “Do you think that Black women will ever have the gift of talking about or addressing gender in the absence of race?” And I know Eboni touched on this before. So, will we ever be able to talk about ourselves as women without having to say African American, or Black, women?
Tangela (M): I think a woman could, but I think it would be a disservice. We are layered, we have multiple identities. So, I am a Millennial. I am a woman. I am Black. I was born to a teenage mother in Arkansas. Right? And so those are all things that make me who I am. I would not want to detract from any one of those identities to just be a woman. Because, what I think every day, I am not sure at which avenue I am experiencing… Am I experiencing this because I’m a woman? Am I experiencing this because I’m Black? Am I experiencing this because of my education, who I’m married to, because I wear a size 9 shoe? And because we are not able to distill which of those layers affect us, I personally would not want to do that. I don’t actually think that’s a positive. And, I think it’s interesting that we are asking that of Black women when, I think – Gwen, you touched on it earlier – when we say “women,” there’s a hidden modifier there. When we say “American,” there’s a hidden modifier there. That word is “White.” And, so, I would be much more comfortable if people identified who they were, and so then we could have a really honest conversation. I’m totally comfortable with someone saying, you know, “As a Chinese woman,” “As a Polish woman,” and I would be perfectly comfortable saying, “As a Black woman, here’s my experience.” I think trying to smooth over our differences in order to highlight our similarities does us all a disservice.
Jackie (BB): I have to agree wholeheartedly with Tangela. I say, people who tell me they’re colorblind bother me because I want you to see all of me. I want you to see an older, African American woman who has the experiences and education and activities in her lifestyle that I have, and I want you to see all of that when you see me. I don’t know about people who say that they don’t want this to have any meaning for themselves in terms of their gender or their race because it always will, in my mind. I don’t think we will have the luxury of addressing it, nor do I want it. I agree with Tangela – nor do I want that luxury. I want you to see all of me. And, so, whether I like it or not, am I representing both my race and my gender when I do things? Absolutely. And I’m okay with that.
Eboni (X): Yeah, if we were doing this as a video, I would look like a bobblehead at this point. I’m all up in the Amen corner ready to be, like, hallelu, high five, fist bump, you know, give a pound, all of that. Because, I think part of what was happening here – what both sisters are puttin’ down and I’m picking up – is that we have this very kind of selective way of questioning gender, as well as its importance in connection to the representation of race. And there’s, you know, one way that dominance functions is by remaining unexamined. And, so, to Tangela’s point, you know, when you have someone affirm themselves and say, “I am an African American woman,” “I’m a Black woman,” “I’m an Asian woman,” “I’m a this,” “I’m a that,” and sometimes that’s met with, “But we’re all women.” Mmmmmm….. Yeah… That is the common denominator. We are all women. However, there are differences, and there are nuances to that experience, and I think that, when we, you know, as Tangela said, the modifier here – the elephant in the room – is that when we talk about these gendered experiences and that we’re all women, you know, it’s coming from this presumption of there being the same access to formal education, or that there’s not the same kind of exclusion from various, you know, aspects of social life. That there’s this erasure and cultural amnesia that the Women’s Movement actually thought about us. That we were afterthoughts, at most. It wasn’t about the emancipation of, you know, most Black women. This was about, primarily, promoting the need of middle-class White women. And, so, there’s a way in which people want to take race off the table as if to say that somehow, when we talk about being women, and in the company of our sisters, that it’s all about gender and all things are equal, but, again, it is not. Race only exacerbates that gendered experience in terms of what we talk about with sexism and glass ceilings and the like. And so, to me, while gender is salient for all women, right? – it shapes our identity, you know, it touches on so many different facets of our experiences, but there’s no way of getting around how those are also filtered by being both female and African American. That there’s a confluence. That, whether, as Jackie said, we like it or not, that confluence is complex and layered and complicated, and actually, again, exacerbates the various forms of oppression that we feel, hence, “Ain’t I a woman?” Because there has been this historical disadvantaging of women, but women in these Black bodies. Right? So that there’s a way in which we are conscious of and more handicapped by racial oppression, and that sex oppression or sexism is not the ultimate ism for us – it doesn’t trump all isms.
Jackie (BB): Gwen, I want to give you a very personal example, and the three of you may have heard me say this privately. When I took my last full-time position, I was asked by members of the organization, “How do we describe you to our membership?” And, so, I had to take a deep breath and swallow, and my answer was – and I can’t take credit for founding this phrase, but I picked up on it – “When my mother and father knew that my mother was pregnant, they didn’t know if she was having a boy or a girl, but they knew that she was having an African American child. And so, I expect you to describe you to your membership as an African American woman.” And that was important to me. And that stopped a whole lot of questioning, too, by the way. But it was important that I said that was important to me because they stopped asking me those silly questions.
Gwen (T/S): Good. Well, it’s an interesting what you all are saying. I agree with you right now with the intersection of race and gender, we don’t want to erase any of them. And I was looking at it as a gift if we could talk about ourselves as women in the future, but I think you’re correct – as long as we’ve got this black skin in this country or in this world, I think you’re correct. I don’t think there will ever be a time when women of color, or Black women in particular, will be able to talk about just being women. But, coming off of Sojourner Truth, that’s why I was posing that. …
One of our purposes for this interview is to demonstrate that while there may be solidarity of opinion regarding some aspects of the question around gender and race among African American women, we do see the multifaceted perspectives and encourage others to encourage against homogenizing our viewpoints because, despite shared experiences of being African American women, differences across generations do have impact and should be respected. We ultimately hope that the next generation of women will not have to address equity issues with the same urgency as in the past and as we do now. So, I would like to thank all of you for taking the time, for talking about these questions.
In the recent inter-generational conversation on gender I had the privilege of facilitating, all of the dialogue participants were connected to education in some manner. The expectation, then, is that responses would resonate with students and those who work with students. To that end, I asked the following question directly related to student activism on campus today:
In a political climate where students take matters into their own hands, what do you see as critical for them to know about the risks and rewards of activism in their future careers? What difference do you think gender will make?
As the person still working directly on a higher education campus, Eboni’s is the first voice heard in the above clip, with a question from Jackie. The clip closes with Tangela’s observations.
Takeaways
Responses to this question clearly recognize that student activism is “cyclical and long,” as Tangela notes. Jackie asks if students know their history to inform their present and future. Eboni sees all kinds of students — those who are “grounded in understanding, as well as those who live only in the present.”
The Silent or Traditional (S/T) and the Baby Boomer generations on campus may see the rolling back of progress in the current climate of overt racist groups influencing students. Organizational and environmental characteristics of colleges and universities remain critical today, as they were when the doors began to open to provide more opportunities for all students. Current student activists, as those in previous generations, realize that they have to look to themselves for support because often the seats of power in academe are still occupied by people who do not understand, or do not care to support them in, their struggle.
Full Transcript for Activism Section
Gwen (T/S): Let’s talk about students on campus. As you know, students are quite active today in going after what they want. They don’t trust people to take care of them, as a lot of us didn’t trust people way back when to take care of us. So, what would you say the risks and rewards are for activism and these students’ future careers and, is there a difference related to – why don’t we say – gender and race if you’re an activist right now?
Jackie (BB): I’d like to hear Eboni’s answer, because she’s still actively on campus.
Eboni (X): Uh, sure. You know, I think that, particularly, kind of post-2016 elections, we’re seeing increasing numbers of students of all stripes, but particularly on the heels of Black Lives and Black Minds Matter, kind of post-Mike Brown and any number of us folks who have died at the hands of – unarmed – and have died at the hand of – and the Say Her Name – right? I mean, we talked about Me Too, but in terms of Black women, in particular, who have resulted in death in terms of interactions with police… I think that there’s been a way in which there have always been risks and rewards when it comes to activism, but that students are showing that, at least in the last couple of years, that they’re willing to go there. That the risks and the rewards in terms of what they seem keenly aware of, is that it’s still an uphill battle. That they have to assert with their whole selves demand for access to be afforded, level playing fields – or at least more level, that they’re not distracted by these superficial kinds of things in terms of what you might dangle in front of them to try to get them to retreat. Right? That they’re also thinking about how to redefine the risk in terms of strategy, in terms of ways that they can address specific challenges – some being mainly gendered in terms of, you know, wanting to see Black female leadership, or some, with a lot of the Black male initiatives – there’s a lot of activity on my campuses and on other campuses where students are rising up, there’s a new wave of activism, and I think that they’re coming up with some unique strategies to try to mitigate some of those risks because they also understand that their activism, their decisions today to do that, can result in ways that can limit opportunity later, depending on how they do it. And then there are others that are not trying to be that methodical about it. It is coming from a more organic, emotional place and, yes, they’re bright, they’re prepared, they understand risk and reward, but at the same time, they’re like, “No, we’re having our say.”
Jackie (BB): Let me ask you this: Do they know they’re history, and are they using it to inform their present and their future?
Eboni (X): I wouldn’t generalize to say that they all do, but I think that some, in particular, are poised and grounded in that understanding. I know in terms of just some of the students that I’ve interacted with – some of my advisees – that some of them feel the least amount of support for that kind of engagement, where they will have older generations tell them, you know, “Be careful” – to not take the risk, but they feel like, you know, that these are matters of public policy, that these are conditions affecting lives and, so, some of them feel like, for any number of reasons, that, you know, whether it’s they want to be active around speaking back – clapping back – at what they see as a growing wave of racial antipathy on campus, or a lack of inclusion efforts from central administration, or whatever it is that – some are feeling afraid to take those risks, and they see the risks as more so to themselves, not where this is something that their family or friends are necessarily subject to, and that the benefits of the risks to them make it worth taking, because, you know, they are just at that point of, you know, really wanting to stand up. And, so, I think every generation gets to a point where something where – and, again, that last election – it’s like you get a call to arms. And then it’s the thousand little cuts, you know, in between, of being inundated, where it seems like it’s a rerun, but it’s a first cut, but it happens so much that the way in which folks get kind of, you know, desensitized to seeing – and then being told, you know, “All Lives Matter”… I know when folk hear that and then we time and time again, there’s an acquittal and there’s an acquittal and there’s culpability, and you have campus police profiling you, you have, you know, right-wing student groups on campus, you know… I mean, we just had another Affirmative Action Bake Sale in the spring. We had chalking where very anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Black sentiment and different campuses. And, so, I think we’re at a point where students are – they’re like, “Let’s roll,” “I can’t,” like, “My cup is runneth over.” And the you’ve got others that aren’t – they’re just not going to be actively involved in trying to be on the frontline or getting in the face of administrators or having people protest or stepping outside of their own comfort zone.
Tangela (M): Uh, Gwen, to your original question, I’m on the University of Chicago, one of their professional division’s board. So, we are interfacing with those students. What I’ve been inviting them to do is have a plan – even a loose one – and then to remember that history is cyclical and long. And, so, with respect to social media, what we’re communicating is still the same throughout history, for the most part, but the medium is what’s changing. And, so, whoever’s Googling your name or Googling your account, all of that will come up – that’s following most times, even when you think it’s not there. And then, the next piece I tell them is to be strategic in your alignment, be good allies, and to build a good coalition – including faculty and staff, because those folks have lots of institutional knowledge. You may only be there for two years, you may only be there for four, and the change that you’re seeking to have is to make it better for people who look like you who may want to come to that university. And, the last one is just to be aware of the criticisms that you receive. Everyone is not going to afford you constructive criticism. To let go of the idea of being coddled – that people ought to correct you and tell you what the error is. It should be enough for you to know that you’ve made an error and that you need to come up with a new solution.
Gwen (T/S): Fantastic, fantastic. I think this should be very helpful for students, because I’m hoping that students and those who work with students will be able to hear this blog.
Gwen Dungy 