Black Students and Positive Racialized Emotions: Feeling Black Joy at a Historically White Institution

Black students attending historically White institutions of higher education (HWIs) experience the full spectrum of emotions. Given the permanence of racism and Black collegians’ inequitable experiences at HWIs much research focuses on Black students’ negative emotions as a result of racist conditions. Little research, however, examines Black students’ positive emotions and feelings on campus. This paper centers on affect, exploring how Black students experience “Black joy” in an otherwise White space. Guided by Eduardo Bonilla Silva’s theory of racialized emotions as well as socio-historical scholarship examining the dynamism of Black life in oppressive contexts, this paper analyzes how participants, themselves, understand and describe Black joy. In this paper, the author draws upon interviews with 29 Black collegians at the same HWI. Findings demonstrate how Black students associated Black joy with being, achievement, and collectivity. By studying Black students’ accounts of joy at an HWI, scholars stand to gain a more textured understanding of both HWIs and Black collegians’ experiences.

They’re Just Here for Ball: Proposing a Multi-Level Analysis on the Impact of Collegiate Athletics at Historically White Institutions on Black Male Collegiate Athlete Holistic Identity

As the overrepresentation of Black male collegiate athletes (BMCA) increases in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I (DI) revenue-generating sports, coaches and athletic staff continue to overemphasize sport performance, while graduation rates for BMCA remain persistently lower than their peers and research continues to document transition out of sport concerns for this population. Proposing a multi-level approach, we explore the collegiate athletic factors that influence the holistic identity development of DI revenue generating BMCA at historically White institutions (HWIs) leading to difficulty transitioning out of sport. At the macro-level, the NCAA and its policies on eligibility are analyzed. At the meso-level, HWIs collegiate athletic departments and the impact of organizational practices are examined in regards to their impact on BMCA’s identity development, overall experiences and transition out of sport. Lastly, at the micro-level, we explore research focused on BMCAs’ experiences, expectations, and issues at HWIs. By identifying salient factors influencing BMCAs’ identity development and experiences, collegiate athletic stakeholders can use this information to create more effective programming and improve campus cultures that foster BMCAs’ holistic development on a systematized basis creating an environment where BMCAs are prepared to move into the next stage of life after sport ends.

By obligation and by choice: Taking on extra responsibilities during COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter Movement

The summer of 2020 yielded unprecedented hostility for my lifetime as the COVID-19 pandemic escalated and Black Lives Matter protests intensified around the country. Due to a global shutdown, our now undivided attention was forced to deal with the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism, not only socially and politically but within the confines of historically White institutions with their racist legacies and lack of inclusive infrastructures. As such, I was invited by various leaders and stakeholders to participate in conversations and to take on extra projects that addressed institutional bias and racism on my campus. This reflective essay recounts my experience having taken on extra tasks, both by obligation and by choice, particularly as a Black woman pre-tenure faculty member. In doing this work, I show how my experience aligned with the intersectional reality for Black women in academia; I reflect on this season of now, as an extended presence rather than a fleeting moment; and I conclude this essay by offering recommendations to address the lack of institutional support, and the insufficient infrastructures at my institution.

A Critical Race Analysis of University Acts of Racial “Redress”: The Limited Potential of Racial Symbols

More historically White institutions of higher education are compelled to respond, in some way, to increased activism and awareness of continued legacies of racism and racial crises on campuses. The author suggests that how schools wrestle with their legacies of racism and/or respond to student demands to right racial wrongs on campus might be considered university acts of racial redress. Through a Critical Race Theory inspired chronicle, the author argues that seemingly positive university acts of racial redress such as policies, place un/naming, or public statements are, in fact, Racial Symbols that do little to change the material realities of racially marginalized people on campus.

The Chronicle of the Resurrection Regalia: Or Why Every Black Hire Is the First

This article uses Wendy Moore’s concept of White institutional space to explain why Black people experience ostracization, microaggressions, and other forms of othering in predominantly White institutions. More than five decades since the official end of Jim Crow, Black people report Whites treating them as though they do not belong in predominantly White institutions. It is as though Black people are still integrating White spaces, even when other Black people are members in those spaces. Drawing on sociology, psychology, and education literatures and our own ethnographic research, we argue that Black people feel like they are integrating White institutional spaces because they are. White people have constructed a three-part system to protect the Whiteness of spaces as people of color struggle for increased membership in historically White institutions. The first part of the system is physical segregation, accomplished primarily through residential segregation and institutional siloing. The second part is segregation via microaggressions that ensure that only a few people of color enter White institutional space, that the few who enter are unlikely to disturb White institutional space, and any people of color who no longer consent to White normativity are quickly discovered and excised. Finally, Whites use cognitive tricks like subtyping, which define colleagues of color as special exceptions to their otherwise undesirable racial groups. Through a fictional chronicle, the authors demonstrate how White colleagues use physical separation, microaggressions, and subtyping to maintain the Whiteness of their White institutional space.

Studying Black Student Life on Campus: Toward a Theory of Black Placemaking in Higher Education

This essay outlines how Black placemaking, a sociological framework used to study Black residents in urban contexts, might be used to study Black students’ experiences at historically White institutions (HWIs) of higher education. Black placemaking engages with the intersection of Blackness, place, structure, and agency. The author argues that this framework has the potential to more expansively study Black students’ lives, experiences, and mechanisms of engagement without discounting realities of oppression. Drawing from research on Black students attending HWIs and data from an ethnography conducted by the author, this essay conceptualizes a Black placemaking approach for higher education.