Am I Your Social Justice?: Unburdening Ourselves from Representational Institutional Social Justice Commitments

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

Abstract

Purpose:

As a reaction to mass Black blood shed in streets across the United States in the summer of 2020, higher education institutions rapidly touted new initiatives praising social justice scholars and scholarship. These initiatives, job postings, and events were intended to display institutional intent to both acknowledge and repair historic harm and violence (Connors & McCoy, 2022; Ezell, 2023). However, hiring Black scholars does not require institutions to undergo structural and foundational transformation. It does not even mean that institutions quell institutional complexity to establish internal coherence amongst those that inhabit them (Greenwood et al., 2011). Instead, Black scholars and others devoted to social justice aims were courted by chaotic institutions with deep interest in their production and shallow interest in their survival. What institutionalized social justice commitments often avoid clarifying is whether those receiving this “voucher” into the academy are meant to represent a commitment to social transformation and improvement simply through their presence or through their work and contributions (Lorgia Peña, 2022). Therefore, the aim of this exploration is to theorize navigating through this tension towards survival.

Theoretical Framework:

This piece grapples with the tension between the afropessimist sub-human conceptualization of Blackness (Wilderson, 2020) and humanizing resistance promoted by Black Feminism (Collins, 2000). By acknowledging institutional social justice initiatives and using Black scholars as signals that transformation is possible, the piece reflects the afropessimist view that such positions conceive of Black bodies as functional (rather than as human). However, I use an inhabited institutionalist perspective to remember Black scholars as separate from, although tied to, higher education institutions (Hallett & Hawbaker, 2021). In remembering Black scholars as human agents, I argue that Black Feminism provides us with survival techniques that allow us to defend and enact our humanity when in community and relationship with each other. We can look to Black Feminism to withstand the institutional logics that deny Black humanity and exploit Black precarity.

Modes of Inquiry:

This conceptual exploration relates theory and practice by connecting the authors’ own reflections on navigating social justice-related institutional chaos with Black Feminist work. The inquiry engages anecdotes from Black Feminist scholarship from Lorde, Lorgia Peña, and others to first expose the confusion of being simultaneously courted and praised as part of institutional efforts toward transformation, and rendered non-human by institutional tokenization as we benefit from white guilt and Black death. The paper then considers Lorde’s “Uses of Anger” (1984) and Mariam Kaba’s “Hope is a Discipline” (2018) to strategize towards survival.

Scholarly Significance:

This piece aims to uplift Black Feminist strategies to support Black scholars as they navigate shallow and often contradictory institutional commitments to social justice. By institutionalizing afropessimism, I offer a Black Feminist critique/counter while also recognizing the struggle to engage social justice within antiblack and dehumanizing institutions as a continuous legacy. Ultimately the paper highlights the mental burden Black scholars experience when attempting to retain hope and selfhood in the midst of having to represent institutional transformation.

Author

• Hilary Naa-Afi Tackie, SUNY - College at New Paltz