Campus Racial Climate, Boundary Work and the Fear and Sexualization of Black Masculinities on a Predominantly White University

This article presents data from a study of Black men and masculinities at a predominantly White university. I argue that the campus racial climate on predominantly White universities are important sites of boundary work where fear and sexualization of Black masculinities are normalized in ways that shape Black men’s social relations on college campuses. In doing so, I will share narrative data of how Black male college students perceive the campus racial climate, with a focus on how they are feared and sexualized in predominantly White spaces. I also analyze the ways in which they managed race, gender, and sexuality within school spaces, and situate their gendered performances within the context of the boundary work of the university. Attention will be given to their agency in how they respond to White fears and sexualization of Black men.

Are We Ready?: A Review of Getting College Ready: Latin@ Student Experiences of Race, Access, and Belonging at Predominantly White Universities

Getting College Ready: Latin@ Student Experiences of Race, Access, and Belonging at Predominantly White Universities by Julie Minikel-Lacocque describes the pre-college and college experiences of six Latin@ college students (four female and two male) at a specifically predominantly White flagship higher education institution in the Midwest United States. By delivering those six Latin@ students’ voices through the author’s interpretation based on the lens of Critical Race Theory, she presented their challenges applying to college, maintaining enrollment, and being successful at the college as underrepresented minority students, most of whom were first-generation college students. The author also discussed effective ways to help those students become successful college students.

This [Black] Woman’s Work: Exploring Archival Projects that Embrace the Identity of the Memory Worker

Archivists who work on African American collections are increasingly more aware that traditional sites of African American agency and autonomy are becoming more unstable. The need to capture the perspectives and histories of these institutions is urgent. The challenges become more acute when communities recognize the need to preserve their legacies but do not have the resources or support to make it happen. African American material culture and history remains at risk of co-optation from large institutions and individuals seeking to monetize and profit from collecting Black collections. Endemic in that process is the risk of these institutions controlling the narrative and inadvertently or deliberately erasing the narratives of these diverse communities from that community’s perspective. Cultural memory workers focused on African American collections face numerous challenges: the risk of losing the materials or communities themselves; partnering with organizations and administrations with differing, and perhaps conflicting agendas; working on projects with limited or term funding; and the emotional labor of being a person of color in a predominantly white field trying to support communities that can often reflect their own experiences. How can libraries, museums, and archives bring these communities into the world of archives and empower them to protect and share their stories? How can archivists, particularly those of color, find support within their institutions and the archival profession, to accomplish this work of preserving African American cultural heritage? How can archives support genuinely collaborative projects with diverse Black communities without co-opting their stories and collections?The authors will address these questions in this article, discussing their experiences working with a variety of institutions—predominantly white universities, Black colleges, churches, neighborhoods and families. The authors also include their reflections from their National Conference of African American Librarians panel presentation in August 2017 on these related topics.

‘Black is my Home Country’: Re-Membering Race on Gospel Grounds

This essay presents partial findings from a study of historically black collegiate gospel choirs (HBCGCs) at predominantly white universities in northeastern United States. HBCGCs utilize the worship practices of the Black Church as resources for cultivating black communal racial identity in the context of racial difference. I theorize that HBCGCs practice a ‘narrative discipline’ that grounds their communal life together in corporate engagement with the faith stories that inspire their music. I interpret this practice in light of Walter Fluker’s proposal for reforming black ecclesiology. Fluker advances the reclamation of black identity as an existential ‘home,’ which avoids both the essentializing postures of ontological blackness and the equally dangerous narrative of post-racialism through the practice of ‘re-membering’ stories of black experience. I argue that the creative practice of narrative discipline by HBCGCs provides practical shape to Fluker’s ecclesiological hope.

Learning While Black: A Culturally Informed Model of the Impostor Phenomenon for Black Graduate Students

This study presents a culturally informed model of the impostor phenomenon construct for Black graduate students who attend predominantly White universities. The impostor phenomenon is an internal sense of intellectual fraudulence and a tendency to attribute success to external factors, such as luck. However, the original construct was conceptualized with a sample of White individuals and may not capture the culturally relevant factors for Black graduate students such as race or racial discrimination. Furthermore, only one empirical study investigates impostor feelings in Black graduate students. The current study addresses these gaps by using focus groups to qualitatively investigate the impostor phenomenon in 12 Black graduate students. Inductive thematic analysis revealed five themes ( Awareness of Low Racial Representation, Questioning Intelligence, Expectations, Psychosocial Costs, and Explaining Success Externally) and multiple subthemes. The findings extend the original construct, contribute to a culturally informed framework for understanding the impostor phenomenon in Black graduate students, and have implications for theory, educators, clinicians, and researchers.

Fighting for Equity and Community in an Urban Research University

The equity lens evaluates institutional barriers that prevent students of color from gaining access to resources for college success (Bensimon, 2005). The first-generation college students at the University of Southern California are 16% of the total student body and students of color comprise two-thirds of this population. Since 2008, how to support first generation college students of color in their academic achievement and college success once in college has expanded the discussion beyond access. By evaluating institutional structures through the equity lens, the response has been to create intentional academic and social programs for first generation college students of color that bridge the academic and student services divide. Through descriptions of actual programs and stories from students affected by these programs, this essay will discuss innovative approaches to serving first-generation students of color at predominantly white universities.

One African Male in Higher Education

Many predominantly White universities and colleges are seeking ways to both recruit and retain Black students (Simmons, J., Lowery-Hart, R., Wahl, S. T., & McBride, M. C. (2013). Understanding the African-American student experience in higher education through a relational dialectics perspective. Communication Education, 62(4), 376–394. doi: 10.1080/03634523.2013.813631). With lower academic results from the K-12 system, it is specifically harder for these universities and colleges to recruit and retain Black male students. There has been much study given to why Black men are not as successful as other racial and gender groups in K-12, but little research has been given to Black men who successfully finish the K-12 system and matriculate to higher education (Griffin, K. A., Jayakumar, U. M., Jones, M. M., & Allen, W. R. (2010). Ebony in the ivory tower: Examining trends in the socioeconomic status, achievement, and self-concept of black, male freshmen. Equity & Excellence in Education, 43(2), 232–248. doi: 10.1080/10665681003704915). This study presents the cultural background of a male from Africa and how his culture has helped him to be successful in higher education.