Blackademics as Prophetic Witnesses and the Continuing Struggle for Racial Justice in Higher Education

• In Event: AERA Annual Meeting Social Justice Action Committee Session. Black at School: Black Teachers, Black Students, and Antiblack Hostilities in Pre-K–20 Institutions

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss and further conceptualize “Blackademics” as a means of understanding how critical Black scholars, or our definition of Blackademics, navigate the historically white system of higher education. We are especially interested in how Blackademics, as we define them, experience the academy as their teaching, research, service, and public engagement coincides with the public stances denouncing white supremacy. What are the costs to these scholars personally and professionally? For us, the term Blackademic encompasses Black graduate students and faculty members who navigate the historically white system of higher education utilizing a critical race praxis (i.e., CRT’s enaction, see Yamamoto, 1997; Hughes & Giles, 2010; Stovall, 2004) to reject white supremacist racism. In simpler terms, Blackademics are critical Black scholars who seek to change the racial conditions of the world as a way to end all social identity-based oppressions.

Authors

• Chaddrick James-Gallaway, Texas A&M University
  Presenting Author

• Adrienne D. Dixson, University of Kentucky
  Presenting Author

• Jamon H. Flowers, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Reginald D. Wilkerson, College of William & Mary
  Presenting Author