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How you want DIVERSITY (Blackness) at your university, but... (a thread)
1/don’t know how many Black faculty are in your college.
1/don’t know how many Black faculty are in your college.
2/don’t teach any BIPOC scholars.
3/don’t know how many Black students you’ve graduated.
4/don’t know where the Black student union is.
5/have never set foot in the Black student union.
6/can’t name the top 5 most influential thinkers in your field who are Black.
7/don’t go to any Black professional group meetings/talks at society meetings.
8/always have social events at an Irish Pub.
9/don’t know the first thing about the history of Black people in your town.
10/have never been to a Black church.
11/can’t name or identify any Black sororities/fraternities.
12/would be super uncomfortable in a room full of Black people.
13/have never been invited to the cookout.
14/have never resolved an interpersonal conflict w/a Black person.
15/think “Black” and “African American” are interchangeable terms.
16/prefer Black music.
17/like the police (as an institution).
18/don’t have a robust AfAm/Africana studies program and/or aren’t pushing for one.
19/have no/bad experience hiring a Black faculty member.
20/aren’t self reflective.
21/can’t say “Black ppl” in front of a Black person.
22/can’t or rarely name “whiteness” or “white supremacy” out loud.
23/have never talked to your older white relatives about their experiences during/before civil rights era.
24/won’t call out your racist family members.
25/think racism is primarily perpetuated by overtly racist ppl.
26/consistently fail to call out racist actions of colleagues.
27/have tenure and don’t use it to aggressively combat whiteness.
28/ask Black ppl to teach you about Blackness.
29/get defensive about being called out for your racism.
30/have never seen a Black movie.
31/have no meaningful connections w/Black womxn.
32/have never done a demographic audited of your personal network.
33/rap the n-word when no Black ppl are around.
34/use passive aggressiveness as a primary strategy of communicating your frustrations.
35/act genuinely surprised when a racism, any racism, happens.
36/watch Fox News.
37/don’t actively talk to the white young ppl in your life about racism from a very young age.
38/don’t hate white supremacy.
39/think reverse racism is a thing.
40/think institutional statements of racial solidarity actually do anything.
41/don’t understand the power of social media
42/use the term “dialogue” when talking about DEI.
43/still “raise the roof” gesture.
44/use the term “working class” when talking about a certain demographic of white ppl.
45/think winning over white voters is equally/more important than protecting voting rights for Black ppl.
46/don’t like grits.
47/don’t know any Black line dances.
48/can’t tell Black ppl apart in the wild.
49/expect Black folks to succeed w/out changing your concept/measures of success.
50/appoint a DEI head who isn’t also a tenured professor at your institution.
51/don’t know if your have salary discrepancies correlated w/race.
52/encouraged your untenured faculty to “keep their heads down” until they earn tenure.
53/think you’re a competent academic, but this thread is reading you for filth.
54/don’t know what the phrase in #53 means.
55/can’t directly contact 3 Black colleagues when your dept has a job ad.
56/think diversity statements in job ads do anything other than privilege white men who can write semi-coherently about DEI.
57/expect sports and politics to be separate.
58/tone police Blackness in anyway, including saying things like, “I think they could have done/said it in a different way.”
59/think cancel culture is a thing.
60/think wokeness culture is a thing.
61/don’t get violently angry when someone even thinks about touching a Black person’s hair.
62/comment out loud about your Black colleague’s appearance beyond something like “I like your shirt.”
63/ask a Black person if they know the work of well known Black person w/o having any idea of how said well known Black person is understood by Black ppl more broadly.
64/don’t have a file on your como to document all the racist BS you’ve witnessed at your institution.
65/when you see white locs don’t immediately think of Toni Morrison.
66/call locs “dreds”.
67/don’t hold problematic Black ppl accountable b/c you’re afraid of being called racist.
68/are more afraid of being called racist than understanding and eradicating your racism.
69/listen to podcasts but don’t have any hosted by Black ppl in your top 5.
70/have ever cried white ears in front of a Black person while getting called out.
71/treat non-Black POC like shit and expect to still be in good relation with Black colleagues.
72/blame students& #39; for their poor performance in your class on their "work ethic" instead of your all white syllabus.
73/don& #39;t know what shea butter is.
74/have never used shea butter.
75/have never used raw shea butter.
76/have ever commented out loud about a Black person& #39;s complexion, especially in relationship to your tan.
77/don& #39;t know what Juneteenth is.
78/send emails about DEI initiatives, scholarships, jobs without context, care, and conversation.
79/insist that "doing something" around DEI is better than "doing nothing".
80/remind your Black colleagues, especially when pressed to be more explicit about holding whiteness accountable, that "we are going to make mistakes" and "we won& #39;t always get it right" and "we are trying".
81/think DEI work is more about "connecting" with Black folks than dismantling white supremacy.
82/don& #39;t ground your DEI work in Black scholarship, esp Black womxn scholarship.
83/don& #39;t think about or plan accordingly for how field camp might be experienced differently by your Black students.
84/don& #39;t actually like Black people.
85/have never been invited to dinner in a Black person& #39;s home.
86/have been invited to dinner at a given Black person& #39;s home only once.
87/don& #39;t like red Koolaid.
88/don& #39;t understand that "red" is a flavor.
89/think racism is worse in the south compared to the north.
90/think racism is worse in the US than in Canada.
91/ask Black ppl who talk about racism in their field "so how can we fix this, these issues?"
92/proceed with a search that has no Black applicants.
93/don& #39;t collect or update any data on hiring, graduation, advising, committee, service demographics at the department, college, university level.
94/don& #39;t conduct, analyze, reflect on exit interviews of Black faculty or use said interviews to inform your practice.
95/USE THE TERM DIVERSITY HIRE
96/suggest to Black folks what is/isn& #39;t "strategic" when planning/acting on DEI initiatives.
97/think hip hop culture is more misogynistic than whiteness culture.
98/think objectivity or "taking the emotion out of it" is actually a thing.
99/quote MLK to Black people.
100/like Tyler Perry movies.
Thanks for sticking around folks! I think I& #39;m done for now. Cite Black women, cite Indigenous women, tear down white supremacy, drink more water, see a therapist, universal healthcare/education, reparations, honor treaties, mindyabizniss, tip well, love fully, be safe.
Okay! I’m reloaded!!!!
101/still require standardized tests
102/make derogatory remarks about hillbillies/rednecks thinking that scores points w/Black folks instead of outing you as an equal opportunity bigot.
103/think Abraham Lincoln was “one of the good ones.”
104/use the term intersectionality like my dad uses hot sauce (he puts it on everything).
105/organize a panels on diversity w/o Black folks.
106/organize any panel w/o Black folks.
107/act shocked when we tell we don’t really know The Rolling Stones or the Beatles, but when we ask do you know Muddy Waters & Sister Rosetta Thorpe y’all look at us like we grew a 2nd head
108/let your dog roam around where they want including other people’s personal space.
109/act shocked when your dog isn’t warm & friendly towards the first Black person they’ve ever seen you talk to.
110/claim the pipeline of Black PhDs in your field is small, but haven’t ever looked up the actual stats on earned PhDs by race.
111/don’t ever write formal letters of recognition on institutional for the important contributions your 1/2 Black colleagues makes thinking that your private email of gratitude to them is sufficient (it’s nice, but formalize that shit! Both and ppl!)
112/don’t speak up in meetings but thank your Black colleague privately after the fact.
113/never invite Black colloquium speakers.
114/don’t lead your ask of any Blackademic w/how you plan to compensate them for their time/energy.
115/assume that any two Black adults you see together are either in a romantic relationship or are close family.
