"She Makes Me Feel Guilty for Being White": White Tears and the Untenured Black Woman Professor

• In Event: 45.036 - The Impossibility of Being the Right Kind of Black Woman in the Academy: Perspectives From Black Women Assistant Professors Not Waiting to Exhale

Abstract

In this commentary paper, the author details the perils she experiences as the only Black woman and professor on the tenure track at her institution. The author has to negotiate her blackness in the classroom - where some students accuse her of making them feel guilty for being white - while fighting to be seen campus wide where she’s only visible during times of racial unrest or when a Black face is needed on a committee. The author argues the “Black tax” that academics of color are often burdened with is exacerbated for Black women assistant professors whose hyper-invisibility and visibility results from students, administration, and colleagues struggling with where to place them.

Author

• Terri Nicol Watson, City College of New York - CUNY