Finding Authentic Voice When "Niceness" Is a Barrier in Conversations on Racism

• In Event: Educators Combating Midwestern "Slow-Drip Racism": Spirit Healing Narratives of Women of Color in Academia

Abstract

I remember the spirit injuries with speaking my truth started in a Ph.D. seminar. It was my second semester and we were crafting our positionality statements. The professor had stressed that these were so much more than a list of identities, they were the essence of how we influenced and analyzed the research. Openness and honesty were key. So I took the plunge and dove into my stories. The day I workshopped my draft, I was sitting in class reading a poem I wrote about growing up being neither fully Latina nor fully White. And as I read, my attention was locked on the tears running down the cheeks of a White peer. It was all…“too much” for her. My thoughts quickly spun out of control. Should I stop? Should I change my language, make it all softer, less honest? Do I comfort her or continue with my initial purpose of sharing my poem? Interactions such as these were not unique to this class; they appeared in conversations with other White peers and faculty, in public Black Lives Matter protests, and in the stories shared by other students and communities of color. It wasn’t until years later, when having a conversation with a mentor that I realized how I chose to be in conversations and how I voiced my experiences was something to be cherished for myself and not adapted to what I thought others needed. My mentor left me with the thought “What do you need to be authentically whole in this space?”

Panelist two is a transracial adoptee, Latina, and critical educator who integrates conversations on racism and culturally sustaining practices into all her courses and professional interactions in higher education. Because of her experiences of being a woman of color raised by white parents, many of her stories and embodied knowledge are situated in the hybrid borderland (Anzaldúa, 2012) of both cultures, histories, and systems of socialization. The perspective and stories she brings to the panel focus on establishing her authentic and unapologetic voice as a facilitator and participant in conversations on racism. As part of a research team that facilitates workshops for faculty, administrators, and students on having difficult dialogues about racism, she has faced numerous conversations centered in color-blind racism or redirected to accommodate “rules of politeness” where certain things are “not discussed.” As such, finding her voice to speak her experiences into the spaces of the workshops has been both spirit injuring and liberating.

Author

• Raquel Wood, Amherst College