Coming to the Coffee Shop

• In Event: The Writing Reunion: Surviving the Academy Through the Black Familial Tradition

Abstract

Over the course of a year, several Black academics at a southern university, in an urban city center met once a week in order to write together. Our initial meetings, held at a local Black owned coffee shop, were nurtured by an elder scholar. Upon hearing complaints about a lack of support and readily made spaces for Black scholars to work together she only offered two words of advice, “Make one!” This simple statement sparked movement within our group, and though many of the original members were unfamiliar with one another, our desire to excel and support each other in our various stages of academia encouraged us to continually hold a space, firstly physically for our writing but subsequently virtually for our survival.
Perspective or Theoretical Framework
Within the academy there is a hidden curriculum (DeMarrais & LeCompte, 1995) perpetuated at times by implicit bias, and at other times maintained through dysconscious racism (King, 1991). With a disproportionate number of Black students to Black scholars, or elders if I may, young scholars may feel hopeless in their fight to make a change and be seen as valuable members of the academic community. Alice Walker defines womanist as a “Black feminist or feminist of color… committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.”(Walker, 2004, p. xi) Walkers definition allows for us to explore how our group created a space which values “seeing” one another. I also employ womanist theory because it “privileges the experience of inspiration… and contributes to an ongoing sense of inner well-being and power that defies, and in turn, transmutes external conditions. ”(Maparyan, 2012, p. 33) I provoke the importance of sustaining a virtual space during this global pandemic where we can be our authentic Black scholarly selves. I narrate our evolution from the initial value implored to the physical self being present in our weekly meetings to current times in which this virtual space provides a safe place for our spirits to find home.
Data Sources, evidences, objects, and materials
Drawing on narrative inquiry and womanist theories I use story collecting and personal accounts of my experience in this writing group to detail how we came together as individuals with seemingly little in common to become like family.
Significance
“Without Community there can be no liberation.” (Lorde, 2007, p. 112)We thought we came together to just write but instead we created a community, providing fruit for one another’s souls. Being a Black scholar during the Covid 19 virus has only exacerbated the alienation we usually experience within the University. Through detailing our process of creating and maintaining a virtual space this research can provide a blueprint for others who may be struggling and unsure of how to get or give support through screens in their home. “We care because we know this: the life we save is our own.” (Walker, 2004, p. 14)

Author

• Danie Marshall