Illegible Suffering: Black Undergraduates’ Perceptions of Social Justice

• In Event: Black Scholars Experiencing and Resisting Superficial Institutional Commitments to Social Justice

Abstract

Purpose:

Social justice initiatives at historically white institutions (HWIs) are often touted as a sign of racial progress (Patton et al., 2019). To be sure, the public murder of George Floyd precipitated heightened visibility of social justice in higher education (Connors & McCoy, 2022; England & Purcell, 2020). However, scholars suggest that timely commitments to social justice are superficial and thus unable to enact transformative change (Tichavakunda, 2021). Moreover, studies indicate that social justice commitments contrast with the racial realities of Black undergraduates (Lewis & Shaw, 2019; Linley, 2018). In other words, social justice commitments embedded in institutional discourse and practice often fail to account for the specificity of antiblackness—the social construction of Black bodies as sub-human—and thereby render Black suffering illegible. Accordingly, this paper draws upon the voices and experiences of Black undergraduates to illuminate how social justice commitments at HWIs along with proxies such as diversity equity and inclusion are unresponsive to the grammar of Black suffering (Warren, 2017).

Theoretical Framework:

This presentation is guided by afropessimism, a multidisciplinary project with an exacting analytical focus on Black suffering (Dumas, 2016). Afropessimist thought is anchored by the notion that antiblackess is a specific form of racism that is inextrably linked with the legacy of racial slavery in which Black bodies were rendered objects of accumulation and the permanent property of whites (ross, 2020). Thus, Black suffering cannot be analogized with the racialized experiences of non-Black people of color (Wilderson, 2010). As such, Afropessimism is used as an analytic tool to better understand how social justice commitments often obscure the specificity of Black suffering.

Methods:

This presentation is shaped by qualitative instrumental case study used to examine how Black undergraduate students interpret the racial climate. According to Stake (1995), an instrumental case study aims to garner insight into a problem by investigating a particular case. The case for this presentation was a larger public northeastern HWI with a history of antiblack racial incidents on and off campus.

Data Sources:

This presentation pulled from a larger research project with interview data collected from 10 Black undergraduates at a large northeastern HWI (citation omitted). Participants met the following criteria: (a) self-identified as Black/African American, (b) undergraduate student status and (c) enrolled during data collection.

Results:

Insights from this research project suggest that Black students perceived social justice commitments at HWIs to be superficial. Participants' stories spoke to how they continued to experience antiblackness despite institutional commitments to social justice and DEI. Thus, this presentation argues that the grammar of Black suffering is untranslatable via social justice discourse and practice.

Scholarly Significance:

This presentation is particularly salient given recent legislative attacks on DEI. In acknowledging the failures of social justice and DEI, Black students may avoid despair and enact strategies of resistance beyond the scope of institution.

Author

• Alex J. Kenney, Rutgers University