Unlikely Allies in the Academy

Women of Color and White Women in Conversation

Karen L. Dace

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136487811
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2012!

Unlikely Allies in the Academy brings the voices of women of Color and White women together for much-overdue conversations about race. These well-known contributors use narrative to expose their stories, which are at times messy and always candid. However, the contributors work through the discomfort, confusion, and frustration in order to have honest conversations about race and racism.

The narratives from Chicanas, Indigenous, Asian American, African American, and White women academicians explore our past, present, and future, what separates us, and how to communicate honestly in an effort to become allies. Chapters discuss the need to interrupt and disrupt the norms of interaction and engagement by allowing for the messiness of discomfort in frank discussion. The dialogues model how to engage in difficult dialogues about race and begin to illuminate the unspoken misunderstandings about how White women and women of Color engage one another. This valuable book offers strategies, ideas, and the hope for moving toward true alliances in the academy and to improve race relations. This important resource is for Higher Education administrators, faculty, and scholars grappling with the intersectionality of race and gender as they work to understand, study, and create more inclusive climates.

Part I

Origins, Problems, and the Need for Conversation

1

What Makes Cross-Race Alliances Unlikely?

Angelina E. Castagno

Marquita T. Chamblee

Pamela Huang Chao

Karen L. Dace

LouAnn Gerken

Liz Leckie

Kristi Ryujin

Theresa L. Torres

Malia Villegas

Rachelle Winkle-Wagner

This project grew out of a number of discussions, some heated, others humorous, many frustrating, about the challenges associated with cross-race alliances between women of Color and White women. What follows is a discussion between five women of Color (two Asian Americans, Pamela Chao and Kristi Ryujin; an African American, Marquita Chamblee; an Indigenous woman, Malia Villegas, and a Latina/Chicana, Theresa Torres) and four White women (Angelina Castagno, LouAnn Gerken, Liz Leckie and Rachelle Winkle-Wagner) in conversation about the status of cross-race relations between women, challenges associated with creating alliances across race and their hopes for this project.

Decades Ago Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldúa called for Women of Color and White Women to Gather the Courage Required to have a Real Dialogue in an Effort to become Allies. How have Women in the Academy Responded to this Call? How do you Characterize the Relationships between Women of Color and White Women in the Academy?

Pamela Chao: As women in the academy, we have been trained to value our intellect. Yet intellect is insufficient and we too often remain stymied, frustrated and puzzled in our efforts to have conversations about difference and understand the nature of alliances. In addition, the academic information and knowledge our intellect is honed upon is often incomplete and biased toward dominant group superiority. Successful dialogue and alliances occur when we bring emotion and heart with honest knowledge of ourselves and of the systemic nature of oppression–which includes the exploration of the oppressions we embrace and internalize to become part of the academy. I do believe that there are small committed groups who have carved space outside of the day-to-day routine of the academy to have sustained, difficult conversations that are the foundation for seeding institutional change. More commonly, we might come together to build programs or discuss papers or put on a conference, but I have not seen most of our attempts to be longitudinally or radically successful.

Theresa Torres: As a Latina/Chicana, I have to admit the distance between women of Color and White women remains significant. While I am a junior scholar ready to complete the tenure process to become an associate professor, I am older than the majority of junior scholars since I changed careers in my forties. My experiences with making allies with White women inside and outside of the academy have not been very promising. My main allies have been other women of Color.

Pamela Chao: I think it is difficult to generalize across all women of Color and White women in the academy. As I think about my own experiences and those with which I’m familiar, I see a range of relationships. I think some of us have taken Lorde’s and Anzaldúa’s call seriously and are engaged in the kind of dialogue they envision, and I think some of us have not.

Angelina Castagno: I am somewhat conflicted by this notion of dialogue. On the one hand, I understand the need for it. On the other hand, I am perhaps more concerned about the work that needs to be done within the academy by women in the academy. I realize work cannot be engaged without dialogue, but I feel too often we stop at the dialogue, or get stuck in the dialogue, so that we never get to the real work. I also believe dialogue is a safe space for many White women. We have gotten to a place where we can talk with our colleagues, allies and sisters; but we do not push beyond that dialogue to actually do things with our hands, our heads, our writing, our teaching, our committee work—things that will make an actual difference for women, people of Color, students, staff, faculty, people both inside and outside the academy.

Are Alliances between Women of Color and White Women Important in the Academy? Why?

LouAnn Gerken: These alliances are important, because they potentially give women from both groups perspective on their particular experiences. Both White women and women of Color are relatively new to the academy, both have been admitted in part due to social justice campaigns of the 1960s, and both continue to have uneasy relations with White men, who are the original inhabitants of the academy. Nevertheless, White women and women of Color have different relations with White men, at least outside of the academy, and these differences, coupled with other social and cultural differences, cause White women and women of Color to experience their minority status differently. Working to understand these differences as both groups of women ally to solidify their place in the academy can be enlightening.

Pamela Chao: Alliances between women of Color and White women are critical if we accept that the academy is an institution that generates knowledge to empower and enrich the lives of all people in our societies and should include those who have historically been excluded from education. These alliances are core to the notion that we live in a world that includes people who are different. It is in a conscious and principled cooperation that individuals can unite and create enough leverage to change an institution. If we don’t have alliances in the academy, where can we truly interact with each other to test the ways in which the institutionalized “isms” are internalized in us as well as operating in the organization?

Angelina Castagno: Absolutely. Alliances between all kinds of groups of people are important because there are just too many opportunities for the institution to suck people in. However, like dialogue, I think alliances are not enough. I fear sometimes that White women become satisfied and comfortable with friendships and alliances with women of Color. If we tell ourselves that alliances are the goal, we may never put those alliances to work to create the kind of change that we need to see in the academy.

What Makes these Alliances Unlikely?

LouAnn Gerken: The differences (relations to White men, social and cultural background) that potentially provide perspective are hard to overcome, partly because they are hard to identify without having been trained to look for them, and partly because they are hard to talk about once they’ve been identified. In addition, in many academic departments, White women are much less of a minority than women of Color. This asymmetry might make the need for cross-racial allies among women of Color stronger than the same need for most White women. The asymmetry in need for allies can feel unfair.

Pamela Chao: Regardless of the commitment and intent of the women in the academy who may engage in conversations about social justice, creation of knowledge or educating our students, given the social structure in which we operate, it becomes very difficult to break free of the hierarchical values and rewards. We are not separate from the academy and society, we are a part of them and they are part of who we are.

Angelina Castagno: Building alliances is hard work; it takes time, energy and commitment. Everyone is spread thin and the current context in higher education of shrinking budgets, increased bureaucracy and an exploding market mentality only intensify the workload and anxiety about our jobs. In this climate, it is even more difficult to carve out the space needed to build and nurture relationships.

I think many White women are unable, unwilling and perhaps unknowledgeable about how to build and nurture alliances with women of Color. Some of us may be nervous about what our role is, anxious about entering new and unfamiliar spaces, or fearful of saying and doing the “wrong” thing. It is easier to stay where we are comfortable and assume that we aren’t needed or wanted and that someone else will do the work that needs to be done.

I also think many women of Color have become weary of alliances across race and gender. Unfortunately, those of us in privileged positions sometimes engage alliances when it is convenient for us or somehow advantageous for us; and when the convenience and advantage wanes, so too does our commitment to the alliance.

Theresa Torres: I believe that women on both sides of the color line need to change. For women of Color, we need to be resilient and give White women opportunities for change and not to hold on to past wounds and experiences that have separated us. We must be willing to heal, open to the new opportunities for alliances, and patient as we challenge White women and have the creative imaginations that allow us to move forward together. I believe the burden of the alliance has always tended to fall on women of Color and that is tiring. I believe some women of Color, those of us who are aware of these challenges, decide that this burden is too exhausting since we have so many other challenges like tenure requirements that generally are not the same for women of Color, few mentors so we have to create support systems for ourselves within the university, being mentors for others, particularly students of Color, greater community service requirements since we have a responsibility to give back to those who have helped us. Some of us are just too tired to deal with the hard work of forging alliances.

Rachelle Winkle-Wagner: These conversations are sometimes painful for both White women and women of Color. Sometimes the dialogue is embarrassing and downright troubling, particularly for White women as we face some of the troubled racial history in the country and our own lives. In my experience, women of Color have not had the privilege of ignoring this in the way White women have.

There are also social forces that make it more difficult to create alliances. As we forge friendships and collegial relationships, do people in our own racialized groups support it? That is, as women of Color and White women make meaningful relationships, it seems that sometimes they risk losing the support of those in their own racial group. Additionally, I believe there are times when we have experiences that reinforce our separation. For instance, if a relationship is risked and it does not go well, it makes it that much harder the next time. So, we all carry the baggage of our past relationships-gone wrong with us and we bring this into our new interactions.

Do the Responsibilities for Creating a Meaningful Dialogue Differ for Women of Color and White Women?

Pamela Chao: I believe the responsibilities of those who are dominant and those who are subordinate are different because, structurally, those who are dominant gain their advantages from the disadvantages experienced by other groups. Those who are dominant are responsible for acknowledging that they systemically benefit from their dominance. At the same time, it is important that they do not seek personal forgiveness/approval from women of Color. The historical, economic, political and legal advantages attached to whiteness in the United States, and the ability to stand racially with White men belong uniquely to White women and thus White women also need to take the initiative to gather with and learn from other White women and men and to carry other White people along with them in the process.

Women of Color are responsible to examine their sources of empowerment and places of accountability. We must also challenge ourselves to heal and find ways to interact across boundaries when we have been hurt by this interaction and it triggers inexplicable emotions and reactions for us to do so.

LouAnn Gerken: I’m not sure if the responsibilities of women of Color and White women are different in such discussions. But the two groups probably need to be prepared for different kinds of pain in sharing their assumptions about the foundations of the academy. White women may need to be prepared to feel more racist than they thought they were. Women of Color may need to be prepared to question the possibility of any cross-racial allies and thereby feel more isolated. Both groups of women need to be responsible to talk about and talk through the pain and to agree how the discussion should continue or if it should end.

Marquita Chamblee: Women of Color and White women bear different responsibilities for engaging in these conversations. White women have to be willing to really engage the issues and be prepared to do some hard, painful excavation of race and class privilege. They have to be willing to move from cerebral analyses of the issues to heart-rending, gut-wrenching, messy emotional experiences. They need to be prepared to hear some hard, unpleasant truths and be willing to sit with discomfort and pain.

Women of Color also need to come prepared to work on some of “our stuff ” about White women and about ourselves as women of Color. We need to explore the extent to which we’ve internalized and bought into the systems that separate and pit us against one another. We also have to be willing to, once again, take on some teaching roles in helping White women come to a clearer understanding of how the systems of oppression work and the roles they (and we) play in keeping them in place.

When many of Our Colleagues Learned about this Project they Called it Important, Necessary and Brave. Some Even Referred to it as Potentially Daring and Risky. How Do You make Sense of these Statements?

Pamela Chao: In working on this project, the conversations I have had with friends about this book were not much different than the conversations I would normally have with my friends if I weren’t working on this book. So in many ways, it doesn’t feel brave or daring or risky. However, sharing these thoughts with strangers and people who may not see the link between institutional structures, culture, and individual behavior changes the emotion attached. It does feel vulnerable.

It is important to have a space to talk, read, think about racism and how women of Color and White women can come together. I worry that others do not understand the history and the institutional underpinnings of all of our individual and psychological responses to race and gender. I am concerned that when I talk about racism as a system of advantage based on whiteness in the United States, many readers will not understand its far-reaching historical, political and legal foundations and reduce it to an individual experience of racial identity. If people are not able to understand or hear the institutional nature of the inequality and hierarchy imbedded in our society then I fear they will turn off and stop considering the issues involved. Historically, the consequences for women of Color who talk about racism have included loss of friends and relationships, jobs, homes, dignity, and even their lives. Society sanctions those who challenge the norms. Rather than worry about the risks, I want be hopeful about the conversations and alliances that may grow because of this project.

Liz Leckie: My initial reaction is that this project is not as risky or daring for White women. I believe this because in my experiences as a White woman who speaks about race, I am often congratulated or condoned for my efforts when my female colleagues of Color who speak about race are condemned. Occasionally, I have felt alienation and heard the mean things that my colleagues have said about me behind my back or sometimes to my face. Still, part of me has learned to wear these honorable badges as proof of my efforts that I am doing “the right thing.” I have never lost a job, been written up for insubordination, called into my boss’ office and told to “play nice” or had my integrity questioned—all things that I know have happened to my female friends of Color in the academy.

But when I think about this further, it is a lie to say that I do not feel this project is risky. The fact is that I have hidden it from a number of people in my life. I have not discussed it with my boss, I have not told most of my work colleagues, and I did not share it with my mother before her passing. When I think about the number of people that I have actually talked to about this project outside of the women who are working on it, the list is quite small. Unlike other projects that I work on in the academy that I share openly and listen to others’ opinions about, I have not invited the same feedback about this work.

When I get honest, I do fear some of the reactions that I may hear if I share this work. I do not want to argue with people about “how far we have come” or try to answer questions about if I think this book is really relevant today. I am not interested in receiving White women’s unsolicited histories about their relationships with women of Color or White women’s accounts about the ways that women of Color make it too difficult to be friends. I did not want to risk having the recurring fight with my mom about my choices to study and write about white supremacy and racism. I have taken the less courageous road and, for the most part, kept quiet. So, I am not sure what others are referring to as daring or risky but for this White woman this work has a level of personal risk of which I am cautious—perhaps too cautious.

What do you Hope Women of Color will Take from this Book?

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part I: Origins, Problems, and the Need for Conversation
• Part II: Women of Color Talk
• Part III: White Women Talk
• Part IV: Women of Color and White Women in Conversation
• Contributors
• Index