INSIGHT Into Diversity hosts an open dialogue with White and Black women addressing racial and gender equity in the academy

In June 1981, writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde gave the keynote presentation at the National Women’s Studies Association Conference, an event previously protested by women of color for not being inclusive. Lorde, whose legacy is known for confronting injustices of racism and other “isms,” used the occasion to address the academy’s failure to recognize the needs of non-White women in her now-famous speech “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.”

“It is not the anger of other women that will destroy us but our refusals to stand still, to listen to its rhythms, to learn within it, to move beyond the manner of presentation to the substance, to tap that anger as an important source of empowerment,” Lorde stated.

Nearly 40 years later, women in the academy are still grappling with these issues.

To continue this important conversation, INSIGHT Into Diversity recently hosted a virtual event that brought together thousands of women from across the U.S.

The event, titled “Women of Color Need Courageous Allies in the Academy: An open dialogue with White and Black women” is the first in a series of webinars to be hosted by INSIGHT to address issues of inclusion among different racial, ethnic, and gender demographics in higher education. INSIGHT was inspired to create these opportunities for courageous conversations after conducting a series of online roundtables with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) experts in higher education in May and June 2020.

Holly Mendelson, co-publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity, moderated the event and was joined by six women panelists — three Black and three White — who represent a variety of perspectives across higher education:

● Shani Barrax Moore, CCDP/AP, director of diversity and inclusion at University of North Texas

● Laura A. Belmonte, PhD, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and professor of history at Virginia Tech University

● Karen L. Dace, PhD, vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

● Jennifer Laflam, professor at American River College

● Dreama Moon, PhD, professor at California State University San Marcos

● Menah Pratt-Clarke, JD, PhD, vice president for Strategic Affairs and Diversity and professor of education at Virginia Tech University

As of August 13, nearly 20,000 viewers have watched the recorded webinar. To watch the entire webinar and access resources recommended by the panelists, visit insightintoacademia.com.

The following represent several questions addressed by the six panelists during the two-hour discussion.

Why are Black women in the workplace labeled as “angry” if they speak up or confront racism? 

Karen Dace explained that being labeled as angry “is what happens when you question someone or when you challenge something.”

“Even when I’m not angry, I’m told I’m angry … . So I might as well just go ahead and be that, right? I can’t win,” Dace said about her own experiences with the “angry Black woman” trope.

In preparing for the webinar, Dace said she remembered thinking, “Why aren’t White women angry?” and that she hoped it is outrage over the current racial climate that motivated White women to participate in the conversation.

Do the panelists believe that employees are willing to have an honest conversation about this topic? White women are afraid to do or say the wrong thing and thus say nothing. How do we move past that tendency and get authentic conversations started? 

Panelists encouraged viewers to “stand in their Whiteness instead of their womanness” during conversations around race and to remember that non-immutable traits such as religion are not the focus. They suggested avoiding statements such as, “I’ve been discriminated against because I’m a woman.”

Shani Barrax Moore recommended that anti-racism work and conversations first be done using intra-grouping techniques so that different racial groups can feel safe navigating through the difficult discussions.

Dace stated that although White people may be willing to have conversations around race now, she fears that they will abandon these issues. While anti-racism work seems like a “sudden interest of so many,” Black women — unlike White women.— do not have the choice to opt out of this work.

“My fear is that at some point this isn’t going to be vogue and White women will move on to something else because it is hard, because it’s unpleasant, because it’s messy, because it uncovers things that have been buried,” Dace stated.

As a way to combat the fear and exhaustion around these conversations, Jennifer Laflam said she participates in race dialogues with an enrichment perspective.

“I know that through honest conversations like these, I begin to recover my own sense of humanity by uncovering how racism lives in me, which for me is an act of love,” Laflam stated.

How do you have dialogue around racial injustice without burdening the Black woman or women on the team by asking them to speak on behalf of an entire community and be “the educator”?

Dreama Moon suggested that White women engage in this type of dialogue through sharing experiences and storytelling. When leading discussions on White supremacy with other White women, for example, Moon says she discusses how growing up in West Virginia during the “de facto segregation era” moved her toward anti-racism work and how coming to a “critical race consciousness” didn’t go over well with her family.

“I’m always happy to share my experiences in those conversations because I think that they’re probably common White experiences to talk about family struggles, to talk about being willing to live outside your family in so many ways, because that is sometimes a consequence of White anti-racism,” Moon stated.

The panelists also discussed the fact that the wrong people are often appointed to DEI positions and therefore put in charge of these conversations. Sometimes these appointments are misguided because the administration simply selects one of their few faculty or staff members of color; other times, they appoint someone who is bigoted.
Menah Pratt-Clarke pointed out that just because someone is Black doesn’t mean they are an expert on diversity.

She also noted that simply participating in webinars and trainings is not enough to change someone’s racist attitude. “For racist behavior and sexist behavior in [academic] departments to end, people have to have a personal experience that creates such a moral conviction that it leads to action,” Pratt-Clarke stated.

What do Black women need and want from their White colleagues? What are some concrete steps or advice they can take? 

Panelists agreed that to best serve Black women colleagues, White women should first listen to Black women when they speak and then be courageous enough to speak out against racist microaggressions and acts of injustice.

Most importantly, White women should do these things without offering performative allyship, whitesplaining, or engaging in the “oppression Olympics.” These are all reactions that occur when White women are triggered by Black women speaking out about racism and, in turn, try to make the conversation about themselves by either crying because they have been called out or recalling a time when they have been discriminated against because they are a woman.

“My best relationships with White women are with White women who have taken the time to think about what it means to be White in America and more importantly to understand what it means for her to be White in America,” Dace said.

“There are others, though, who have no problem telling me that I’m exaggerating an experience or that I’ve misunderstood something or I’m just too sensitive. They enjoy all the benefits of White privilege while denying that it exists.”

Laura Belmonte said she has seen only a “precious few instances” where a White woman had the courage to call a colleague out in a meeting for racist behavior. Too often, White women don’t challenge others about such behavior because of fear of career retribution.

“In the instance that something like that does show up in your annual evaluation or a tenure letter, there are protections for you in AAUP [American Association of University Professors], in your university policy, in your office of equity … . You are there as an equal colleague and on an equal playing field. Act like it,” Belmonte stated.

Barrax Moore stated that White women should be willing to sacrifice personal gain. “Spend your social and political capital knowing that there will not be a return on investment for you; be selfless in the spending of that social and political capital to spend it on behalf of your sisters of color,” Barrax Moore said. “Be selfless and be brave. This is not for the faint of heart, and for those of us that do this work on a day-to-day, it requires having an ‘S’ on your chest.”

Webinar viewers also had the opportunity to chat with panelists and submit questions during the discussion. When asked how to help students manage racist stereotypes, for instance, Barrax Moore suggested that educators have students “think about internalized oppression so they have an awareness of the impact that these stereotypes can have on them.”

Resources for educators to introduce this topic to the classroom as well as a list of the many other tools and publications suggested by the panelists are available at insightintoacademia.com.

Responses to the webinar were overwhelmingly positive. Having this frank discussion with so many other women, both Black and White, was “cathartic,” said Barrax Moore.

Renaire Frierson, Title IX coordinator and director of equity and compliance at Adelphi University, said in a Facebook comment that the event was “full of pearls of wisdom and nuggets of truth.”

“It was such a relief to hear Black and White women speak so plainly and so honestly about racism and the complicated relationships between Black and White women in the academy,” Frierson wrote, adding she learned things that she will implement in conversations on her campus.

Mary Jo Gonzales, vice president of student affairs at Washington State University tweeted about the webinar: “Realized today is not just about rest, but about filling my empty cup and tending to a bruised soul. Grateful for this webinar I didn’t know I needed.”

Other reactions described the dialogue as “excellent” and “uncomfortable but necessary.”
“There are some things that this pandemic has forced us to do that we wouldn’t be doing, and one of them is having these conversations and having them in a way where everybody can participate wherever they are,” Karen Dace told INSIGHT after the webinar.
Belmonte also spoke with INSIGHT after the event.

“When I hear ‘webinar’ my eyes roll back in my head, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I certainly wasn’t expecting something as powerful and as engaging as it turned out to be,” Belmonte told INSIGHT. “It’s just indicative of there really needing to be more forums where we get engaged in these conversations, because unfortunately there are a lot of people who don’t have a safe space in their academic community.”●

Mariah Stewart is a senior staff writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity. This article was published in our September 2020 issue.