• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

  • Home
  • Courses & Events
    • How To …
    • The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
    • The Art of the Article
    • Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
    • On Demand Courses
    • Upcoming Live Webinars
    • Free Productivity Webinars
    • Gift Certificates
  • Personalized Job Help
    • Document Editing
    • Quick Reviews
    • Specials
    • Interview Prep
    • Personal Negotiating Assistance
    • One on One Career Consults
    • Testimonials
    • Interview Testimonials
    • Graduate School Application Assistance
  • Productivity
  • Coaching
    • Productivity Coaching
    • Private Coaching
    • Pre-Tenure Coaching Group
    • Leaving Academia Coaching Group
  • The Professor Is Out
    • It’s OK to Quit
    • Our Art of Leaving Program
    • Prof Is OUT Services
    • Our Prof Is OUT Team
    • Prof is OUT Client Testimonials
    • Ex-Academics: A TPIO Support Community
  • Workshops
  • Blog

Too Big, Too Brown, and Too Much – WOC Guest Post

By Karen Kelsky | June 21, 2019

I am delighted to offer another guest post in my series of contributed posts by black women and other women of color.

If you’d like to submit a post or an idea for a post for consideration, email me at gettenure@gmail.com. I pay $150 for accepted posts. The posts can be anonymous or not, as you prefer and can be about your experiences of racism/microaggressions in grad school or the career, your post-academic musings, hard-won advice for other students/faculty of color coming up, intersectional practices in teaching or research that you have found valuable, and also of course, makeup and clothes, or even tech gear you’ve found that helps in your work. More information can be found here.

Today’s post is by Naiomi Gonzalez, doctoral student in History at Texas Christian University. Naiomi and I had lengthy discussions about whether or not she wished to publish this anonymously, and sought the opinions of mentors and on FB. Naiomi carefully considered all responses, and in the end decided to publish it under her name.

I’m not only brown but I’m also fat and opinionated. This means that I not only take up more physical space but that I also insist that my voice be heard and respected. For the most part, I have been lucky to have professors that have supported me throughout my academic career. They know I am opinionated and they have attempted to create nurturing environments that allow all students, particularly those from marginalized groups the opportunity to express themselves.

However, academia in general, despite all its lofty conversations regarding the importance of “diversity” continues to embrace the stereotypes of “the big angry black woman” and the “fiery” Latina. These stereotypes pathologize and treat as character flaws the very real and the very justifiable anger that many black and latinx graduate students feel as we confront and navigate institutions that were built off of our oppression. Issues regarding racism, sexism, ableism and the many other forms of oppression that intersect with race and gender, are not, for many of us, abstract problems that we can have a friendly debate about and then move on. Many of these issues impact our lives in very real, tangible ways.

For instance, discussions about police brutality and violence against black and brown people are not simply matters of opinion. The issue is not whether black and brown people “like” or “don’t like” individual police officers. The problem is that an institution that holds so much power is able to murder our loved ones with impunity. The issue is not that “free speech is under threat” at so called “liberal” institutions, but that black and brown students are expected to be ok with our peers inviting speakers who advocate for our continued oppression. Meanwhile we get criticized as “snowflakes” or “social justice warriors” for demanding that our campuses protect us and treat us as human beings. While our white male peers are encouraged to voice their opinions and are allowed to express anger, black and brown graduate students are often mocked for being too “emotional” when discussing subjects that directly impact our lives. White students are allowed to express their anger and displeasure and not be reduced to the stereotype of an “angry white man” or “fiery” white woman. Yet when we protest and demand that our humanity be respected, we are often ridiculed in subtle and not so subtle ways for not endorsing the status quo and remaining silent.

How many black and brown graduate students wonder if their outspokenness will prevent them from being gainfully employed in a job market that is already focused on shutting out large numbers of people or shunting them into adjunct hell? How many black and brown graduate students worry that their activism somehow makes them “less serious academics?” How many black and brown graduate students, studying subjects dominated by white men, agonize over whether or not they be given the opportunity to be heard? How many black and brown students are at the verge of giving up-on their studies and on academia in general, because they refuse or are unable to confirm to the standards that white academia has set as normative? Standards that claim that only certain topics are ‘valuable” or that only certain voices have the ability to be authoritative?

Academia has a lot of good qualities. In addition to the supportive professors I have had throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to travel to different countries; something that seemed off limits to me as a child because I grew up in public housing and my family relied on government assistance to survive. I have studied so many interesting subjects related to my own personal interests and outside of them. While yes, no one needs to go to college or grad school to read books, the reality is that I have learned more from interacting with my peers then I would have by reading a book in isolation. I love learning and academia has provided me with the time and resources to discover and embrace my passions. I am beyond thankful for that.

But academia also has a long way to go if it truly wants to live up to its lofty ideals and rhetoric regarding equality and diversity. It is not enough to simply acknowledge that most universities and colleges need to admit more students and people of color. It is not even enough to actively implement programs that seek to increase students and faculty of color on campus. But academia needs to be willing to embrace us: all of us. Academia needs to embrace our concerns, our opinions, and yes, even our anger. If academia is truly serious about changing and doing better, it needs to be willing to accept those of us who are too big, too brown/black, and just too much.

Similar Posts:

  • Navigating Grad School with BPD – WOC Guest Post
  • What Mentorship? The Experiences of Black Female Faculty – WOC Guest Post
  • 5 Anti-Racist Practices White Scholars Can Adopt Today – #BLM Guest Post
  • When a Cup of Coffee Means More Than a Cup of Coffee: Mentoring as a Woman of Color – WOC Guest Post
  • What Can You Do: Being Black and Tired in Academia – #BLM Guest Post

Filed Under: Advising Advice, Alt-University Critique, Intersectional Analyses, Racism in the Academy, Women of Color in Academia

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kimberly says

    June 24, 2019 at 1:12 pm

    Well said. Unfortunately, this is my truth as well.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Buy My Book!

4.8 stars on Amazon!

The_Professor_Is_In.indd

Get Immediate Help

In addition to our blog and book, we have upcoming live webinars, pre-recorded webinars and other programs that you can get started on right away:

The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
The Art of the Article
Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
Quick Reviews
Free Productivity Webinars

Categories

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Academic Job Search
    • How To Choose and Manage Recommenders
    • How to Interview
    • How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters
    • How To Write CVs
    • Landing Your Tenure Track Job
    • Major Job Market Mistakes
    • Negotiating Offers
  • Adjunct Issues
  • Advising Advice
  • Alt-University Critique
  • Black Lives Matter
  • COVID19
  • Dispatches
  • Goodbye Ivory Towers
  • Graduate Student Concerns
    • Bad Advisors and Good Mentors
  • How To Do Conferences
  • How to Get Grants and Fellowships
  • International Perspectives
  • Intersectional Analyses
  • Makeup
  • Marginalized Voices
  • Mental Health and Academia
  • Ph.D. Poverty
  • Podcast
  • Post-Ac Free-Lancing and Small Business
  • Post-Ac Job Search
    • Careers Outside
  • Postdoc Issues
  • Productivity
    • Book Proposals and Contracts
    • Publishing Issues
    • Writing
  • Promote Yourself!
  • Quitting–An Excellent Option
  • Racism in the Academy
  • Rearview Mirror
  • Resumes & Postac Docs
  • Sexual Harassment in the Academy
  • Shame
  • Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student
  • Strategizing Your Success in Academia
  • Teaching and Research Statements
  • Teaching Demos
  • Teaching Portfolios
  • Tenure–How To Get It
    • How To Build Your Tenure File
    • Surviving Assistant Professorhood
  • The Campus Visit
  • Unstuck
  • Webinars
  • What Not To Wear
  • Women of Color in Academia
  • Work/Life Balance in Academia
  • Yes, You Can: Women in Academia
  • Your Second and Third Jobs

Footer

About Us

  • Who Is Dr. Karen?
  • Who Is On the TPII Team?
  • In The News
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs
    • Why Trust Me?
  • Testimonials

Community

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Peer Editing
  • PhD Debt Survey
  • Support Fund
  • I Help With Custody Cases for Academics

Copyright © 2023 The Professor Is In·

We Are Redefining Academic Community

That’s why we upgraded our private
Mighty Network.

We are committed to building a community with a focus on productivity support. Every day, in a dedicated space, we offer free coaching advice and encouragement. And the couple thousand people who have already joined are steadily building a supportive and interactive community devoted to that elusive idea of work-life balance.

Learn More

Get on Dr. Karen's Schedule

Get on my schedule to work on your tenure track job cover letter, CV, grant applications, book proposals, interview preparation, and more.  [si-contact-form form=’2′]