The Paranoid Professor: Invisible Scars From Unhooking From Whiteness and Their Impact on Teaching

• In Event: Assault in the Academy: Teacher Educators and the Struggle for Social Justice

Abstract

The third paper is titled The Paranoid Professor: Invisible Scars from Unhooking from Whiteness and their Impact on Teaching. In this paper I share personal examples of my own paranoia, the consequence of my unhooking from whiteness (cf. Hartlep, 2015; Hayes & Hartlep, 2013). Specifically, I share the mental manifestations and material losses that have been incurred as a direct result of my decision to unhook from whiteness—in many cases because I am a teacher educator of color who is employed at a Predominately White Institution (PWI) of higher education. Although being paranoid is something that is new to me—as a former elementary school teacher I never felt this way—I’m highly intrigued that the symptoms of PPD are eerily similar to those of Racial Battle Fatigue (RBF), a term William Smith coined for “the physiological and psychological strain exacted on racially marginalized groups and the amount of energy lost dedicated to coping with racial microaggressions and racism” (Smith, Allen, & Danley, 2007, p. 555). While I have written about my RBF experiences elsewhere (Hartlep, 2015), in this paper I highlight how my personal choices and professional (in)actions have affected me in higher education, namely that I have become a paranoid professor. In this chapter I share the invisible scars that I have received as the result of my intentional choice to unhook from whiteness as an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations, and the impact these scars have had on my teaching. The auto-ethnographic insights that I share are important in the context of higher education generally, and teacher education specifically, because the overwhelming majority of teacher education students are white and female, while an even smaller percentage is faculty of color.

Author

• Nicholas Daniel Hartlep, Illinois State University