My job (in the wake of George Floyd), part 2: So what now?*

*On Monday, June 1, 2020, on the heels of a broad message from the leadership about the then recent events, I shared a more personal note with the faculty, staff, students, and board of trustees of UNC Asheville. That note can be found at: part 1. The above was written a couple of weeks later, but never shared broadly.

I have continued to return to the question of what can be done to make real progress, and more specifically, what efforts I should be leading to engage issues of racism within higher education.

There is a body of work that I imagine (and hope) almost all institutions are already engaged in—diversifying the faculty; acknowledging, supporting, and expanding the use of more inclusive pedagogies; ensuring diversity is better integrated into tenure and promotion; examining campus climate; and decolonizing the curriculum, for example. Institutions have had varying levels of success in these areas with very few, if any, claiming “victory” in all. And so, we need to continue to press for progress in each of these areas. But there are other, less discussed areas of work whose importance seems to me to be more apparent in this moment. I want to focus on one such area—freedom of emotion.

In my message to campus, I wanted to, in part, convey the intensity of the emotion and the appropriateness of that intensity. We are emotional beings and it is profoundly human to express that emotion. Or said in another way, denying someone the ability to be their full emotional selves is in fact an assault on one’s humanity. And one of features of racism is often this inequitable imposition of emotional regulation.

An intolerance for anything but obedience and calm is often at the heart of outcomes like Floyd’s death. Needing to contort one’s emotions to the expectations of another is at the heart of some of the worst, and often most lethal, offenses spawned by racism throughout our history, from slavery through Jim Crow and the civil rights era to now.

This constriction of emotional expression appears far and wide in the lives of those impacted by structural, systemic institutions of hate like racism. Obama’s anger translator pokes fun at this fact, as pointed out by Roxane Gay who asks “Who gets to be angry?” Gay also points out the serious impact (beyond the threat of external harm) this imposed regulation can have in citing anthropologist Linda-Anne Rebhun who studies emotion-based ailments. Rebhun writes that ailments can “reflect the difficulties of suppressing unsanctioned emotions and of convincing oneself to feel what is socially expected while maintaining proper emotional demeanor.” There is no question that this is playing out in academia, at institutions of higher education across the country.

If suppression of emotion by some is one side of a coin, the other side of that same coin features the weaponization of emotions for others. The encounter in Central Park noted in my message to the campus is one of the more egregious examples. The woman in that encounter feigns distress in the final moments of her call with the police. Whether knowingly or not, the heightened emotion connects to a long history of an especially brutal violence visited upon black men who white women suggest are a threat.

Here again, there is a far less lethal version of this that is at play in the academic setting. Robin DiAngelo has introduced the idea of “White Fragility” saying that “we white people make it so difficult for people of color to talk to us about our inevitable—but often unaware—racist patterns and assumptions that, most of the time, they don’t.” Doing so, she goes on to say, would “risk more punishment [for people of color], not less. They’re going to now have to take care of the white person’s upset feelings. They’re going to be seen as a troublemaker. The white person is going to withdraw, defend, explain, insist it had to have been a misunderstanding.”

This weaponization can be subtle and easily missed. Consider the exchange between the black musical artist Jully Black and the white television personality Jeanne Beker as they debate the merits of Cherie Dimaline’s “The Marrow Thieves” being Canada’s story of the year. Beker notes that the book is “so much about healing.” Black’s response is that “there’s healing and then there’s action with the healing,” seemingly arguing that “The Marrow Thieves” is not just about healing but about activating change. In response to Black’s passionate defense of her book, Beker asks “why are you attacking me?” This is the moment of weapon activation.

Black calmly challenges the assertion that she has done anything but argue her case. Beker responds by saying to Black, “I just feel that you are speaking to me like I don’t believe that.” Black points out, with a little more bite this time, that she cannot be responsible for Beker’s feelings. An alternative ending might have had Black feeling the need to apologize to Beker. But, Black’s response, in my opinion, was the right one and it is important to call these moments out when they happen in faculty meetings, in exchanges between colleagues, or wherever they come up.

In response to being asked about assuming good intentions, DiAngelo notes that “intentions are irrelevant. It’s nice to know [one] had good intentions, but … we need to let go of … intentions and attend to the impact.” Similarly, Phillip Atiba Goff describes “How we can make racism a solvable problem”—namely, by focusing on racist behaviors over feelings. I agree. Administratively, there is no way to mandate a change of feeling; the only plane in which we can directly operate, e.g. make policy, measure, and hold people accountable, is that of behaviors.

But, Goff himself alludes to addresses like King’s “The Other America,” in which King speaks to the notion that legislation can’t solve racism. King argues:

Those who project this argument contend that you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. Now, I would be the first one to say that there is a real need for a lot of heart-changing in our country and I believe in changing the heart. … I would be the first to say that if the race problem in America is to be solved, the white person must treat the Negro right not merely because the law says, but because … it is right. … Men and women will have to rise to the majestic heights of being obedient to the unenforceable. But after saying this, let me say another thing which gives the other side. That is that although it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. … While the law cannot change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men.

At the American Sociological Association’s 2018 Annual Meeting, then president Eduardo Bonilla-Silva shared in his address that “eradicating racism will require a radical process to uproot its visible, ‘objective’ components as well as demolish its emotional skeleton.”

In each case, there is an acknowledgment that in addition to the objective components—the behaviors and habits—it is important to also address the emotional work. I have described the constriction of emotions, with its associated inhumanity and trauma, and the weaponization of emotions, close cousins to discomfort, guilt and a need to be seen as good.

There is also what I might call the rejection of emotions connected to true feelings of hate and supremacy. Toni Morrison articulated it best, perhaps, in pointing out that those in this state are truly “bereft” with just as much harm done to them by being in that state as to those they hate. She notes that “the racist white person… doesn’t understand that he or she is also a race” and that fact, that identity “has some kind of serviceability.” A person in this state, she argues, would truly need to wrestle with questions like “What are you without racism? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you like yourself?”

“If you can only be tall because somebody’s on their knees,” Morrison says, “then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is, white people have a very very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it.” She concludes arguing that folks in this state would need to engage in real self-examination, including the ways racism is a means supporting a set of ends, both historically and now. But, for most in this category, there is an unwillingness to engage in that self-examination, there is a rejection that there are these emotional gains and costs of perpetuating racism.

In each of these three cases, there is work for us to do in higher education, particularly those of us in positions of leadership. I would like to suggest just a few of the things that we can do.

• Learn from minority serving institutions. One of the things that I believe is that institutions like HBCUs often do a better job of engaging the emotional. The first New Student Orientation at Morehouse that I witnessed still gives me the chills. It, and events like it, often permit and speak to the full humanity of students. And this extends into the way many at those institutions engage the curricular work.

• Provide creative outlets, orchestrate events, and bring speakers to campus who can engage the full spectrum and expression of emotions.

  • As co-coordinators of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program a number of years ago, my former colleague, Rafael Zapata, now Chief Diversity Officer, Special Assistant to the President for Diversity, and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Fordham, and I, would take students to shows like Fela! and In the Heights. We would organize conversations over dinner or other informal spaces easing the way for engaging on that emotional level.

  • I organized Shaun Harper, currently Executive Director of the USC Race and Equity Center, Provost Professor of Management and Organization and the Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, coming to a campus to talk with the community about issues of race and the campus climate. One of the sessions featured Harper sharing common elements of campus climate as they relate to race and inviting students to share how they resonated while faculty and administrators listened to those reactions. I found that session to be incredibly powerful because it was one of the few time that students of color were given the opportunity to express their experiences in such a raw and genuine way and to privilege their voice in a space with many faculty and administrators present.

  • Similarly, I had the great fortune of working with Ari Melenciano as she launched her vision for Afrotectopia, “a social institution fostering interdisciplinary innovation at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture and activism.” She brought together artists, technologists, academics, writers, entrepreneurs, and more to a space that allowed us to not just explore intellectually, but to fellowship on matters of great importance to us and the communities to which we belong, and ultimately, to feel tremendous joy and pride about the work being done, often work that could be characterized as anti-racism work.

Anyone who brings great speakers to a conference, workshop, or other space understands that while intellectual engagement is great, it is often those less formal moments of interaction that really elevate an experience’s impact. I think this is especially true for those who are, for one reason or another, often moderate their identities.

• Ensure centers for teaching and learning engage a range of pedagogical practices. Centers for teaching and learning or whatever mechanisms support the evolution of teaching practices on campuses are crucial for helping to engage these matters in one of the most important places on campus–the classroom. Critical pedagogies that range from trauma-informed to contemplative practices to pedagogy of discomfort are all important.

• And much more:

  • Pay close attention to the symbols, representations and institutional messages, in building names, art on walls, images in brochures,and so on. Consider the work of those such as Glen Catave who use modern technologies to find new ways to tell stories about the complicated histories and narratives of these symbols and spaces.

  • Be a conduit to a much larger community, beyond the academic towers, for this work—marry the campus expertise with the community experiences, with its own varied expertise.

  • Shift the frame so that everything isn’t always measured against a backdrop of whiteness. Consider ways to frame things using language that is grounded in agency and is asset-based.

In doing this work, we need to invite authenticity and acknowledge, develop, celebrate, and support the emotional labor done by faculty and by students alike. It will be critical to support the full spectrum of emotional expression, from anguish and anger—noting that there are scholars like Brittney Cooper who can guide us in how to turn anger into productive rage and pride and joy. And I believe one of the greatest needs is to incubate a kind of audacity of intellectual defiance—the courage to not just be resilient in the face of epistemic violence, but full and complete permission to push back against it, and ultimately to help our institutions evolve forward.

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Cover art: Image of the Black Lives Matter mural done by UNC Asheville students in Fall 2020.