Un réquiem para la lucha Afro-Boricua: Honoring Moments of Decolonization and Resistance to White Supremacy in Academia

Abstract

The shared experiences and othering of people of color (POC) in society serve as the impetus for framing our work as critical Afro-Boricua scholars. Our efforts to center our stories and positionalities are connected to the scant number of faculty of color in higher education in which there are only 6% Black, and 5% Hispanic (not disaggregated by gender) (NCES, 2013). This lack of faculty of color is indicative of the legacy of white supremacy (Wilder, 2013) and the deficit ideologies (Nieto, 2003) that still persist in higher education (and society at large). The impact of deficit ideologies on women of color in higher education has been well documented, most recently in the works of Perlow, Bethea and Wheeler (2014) and Gutiérrez y Muhs, Niemann, González and Harris (2012). Thus our continued presence in the academy serves to consistently contest white supremacy, simultaneously creating alternative spaces and approaches to teaching and learning that center humanity. By centering our humanity, we challenge the focus on product and profit in higher Ann M. Aviles Erica R. Dávila Taboo, Winter 2019