Examining Adaptive Behaviors as Resistance Strategies for African American College Students in Adverse University Contexts

This study explored the adaptive behaviors used by African American college students attending a predominantly White university. In-depth individual interviews were conducted and used as the primary method of data collection for this study. In addition, a focus group session provided member checking opportunity to strengthen the study. The analysis revealed participants utilized multiple adaptive behaviors to combat negative racialized experiences while attending a university where they were underrepresented. These adaptive behaviors were used as resistance strategies by African American students navigating a racially charged university context.

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.

Winning when the odds are against you : a narrative inquiry of African American female persistence at a predominantly white university

African American females are enrolling and graduating college at increasing rates and outpacing their male counterparts to graduation. While their graduation rates increase, narratives of their journeys to and through college are sparse in the literature. This qualitative study examines the narratives of persistence of 10 Black female undergraduates enrolled at a Mid-Western Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Through the lenses of Crenshaw's intersectionality and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, this study explores factors that impede or promote persistence through the socio-environmental contexts of Black female undergraduates' journeys to and through a PWI. Using a semi-structured interview protocol, participants share stories of persistence beginning from childhood. Interview data underscore family context, faith, and issues of race, gender, and class as influential factors of persistence toward graduation at a PWI. Implications for practice and research are presented, and recommendations for administrators and practitioners are offered.

The Academic Trinity

This chapter highlights emotional labor from the perspective of a leader with the intersectionalities of being African American, female, and serving in a leadership role at a predominantly white university. Also shared are lessons learned from managing emotion in the workplace including being true to one's self, understanding your purpose, adopting a “put me in coach” attitude, learning to talk to people, finding an affinity group, minding your manners and words on social media, and being inclusive. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the role of inclusion in mitigating emotional labor in the workplace.

Micro-Protests as Co-cultural Communicative Practice

In this article, I utilize phenomenologically-based creative nonfiction to present a case study of what micro-protest looks like for an African American faculty member working in a predominantly white university. Drawing from observations and informal information-gathering techniques over a 20+ year period, I present a layered account to share snippets from a larger narrative that vividly capture the nuanced ways co-cultural group members navigate predominantly white organizational spaces in the margins. Ultimately, I introduce the various ways micro-protest—as a new conceptualization of co-cultural practice—is enacted to achieve the preferred outcome of separation. I conclude with a brief discussion of how this scholarly endeavor contributes to co-cultural research and theorizing.

Directing “The Performance of Possibilities” Within Whiteness: Casting, Staging, and Interaction in Postperformance Discussions

Postperformance discussions are common, talk-driven events that follow cultural affairs (i.e., lectures, film screenings, theater) and often feature expert panelists in conversation with everyday spectators. This article examines the postperformance discussions held after The Every 28 Hours Plays, a critical performance project focused on anti-Black racism and police brutality, at the predominantly White University of Missouri. Applying discourse analysis to transcripts of the postproduction dialogues, I show how Whiteness challenged some White spectators’ understanding of the pedagogically oriented performance and, as such, I examine how critical performance pedagogues can grapple with the White racial frame of spectatorship to navigate and, potentially, resist it. One way to navigate Whiteness during postperformance discussions is to approach the discussions as performance, using directorial practices like casting, staging, and structured interaction to focus the dialogue on a production’s critical themes.

Cognitive flexibility and the health of Black college-attending young adults experiencing interpersonal racial discrimination

This study examined the utility of cognitive flexibility for the health of college-attending Black young adults facing chronic interpersonal racial discrimination in a sample of 218 healthy students attending a predominantly White university in the southeastern United States. Path and simple slope analysis indicated that cognitive flexibility moderated the association between racial discrimination and waist circumference but not depressive symptoms. At high cognitive flexibility, more experiences of discrimination were significantly associated with larger waist circumference. Findings suggest that cognitive flexibility may be detrimental for physical health and not of paramount importance for mental health of college-attending Black young adults.

Mental Health Outcomes of Discrimination among College Students on a Predominately White Campus: A Prospective Study

Racial discrimination is a social stressor harmful to mental health. In this paper, we explore the links between mental health and interpersonal discrimination-related social events, exposure to vicarious racism via social media, and rumination on racial injustices using a daily diary design. We utilize data from a racially diverse sample of 149 college students with 1,489 unique time observations at a large, predominantly white university. Results show that interpersonal discrimination-related social events predicted greater self-reported anger, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and loneliness both daily and on average over time. Vicarious racism from day to day was associated with increased anxiety symptoms. In contrast, rumination was not associated with negative mental health outcomes. These findings document an increased day-to-day mental health burden for minority students arising from frustrating and alienating social encounters experienced individually or learned about vicariously.