Contested Spaces: Cultural Resource Centers in an Era of #BlackLivesMatter

• In Event: 56.081 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 56.081-1 - Critical Race Approaches, Resistance, and Black Achievement on Campus

Abstract

In this conceptual essay, I draw connections between queries facing the Black Lives Matter movement and university cultural resource centers. Through my analysis of three questions facing cultural resource centers that relate to the backlash of the Black Lives Matter movement, I describe the performative and non-performative aspects of these questions. The three questions are: Why isn't there a white cultural center?; Am I allowed in this space?; and How is the work of the space intersectional? I argue that the queries facing both cultural resource centers and Black Lives Matter reveal larger discourses of race in the United States. Following the white complicity claim, I provide implications for educators committed to unsettling racism on college campuses.

Author

• Erich N. Pitcher, Oregon State University