Spoiled Apples: A Letter to White Scholars Eager to “Adopt” Black Scholars

Abstract

In the following essay, this author affirms in no uncertain terms that academia is (still) afflicted with entrenched racism and that the often-covert racism is systemic – i.e., built into the structures and processes of our institutions. It is also populated with ostensibly well-intended white scholars who negatively affect the careers of Black scholars in ways not necessarily apparent to most of us. Yet, we scholars are supposed to be the most enlightened of all professionals about such issues. This anonymous essay is a slap-in-the-face reminder that we are not. At least not from the point of view of the relatively few Black members of our profession– and their point of view is the one that matters most when it comes to this issue. I encourage you to listen up, even if the message is one you might not be comfortable hearing. Some of you might have noticed that the recent series of essays in the Provocations and Provocateurs section of JMI represents my attempt to give voice to different minorities in academia (international scholars, women scholars, Black scholars, and soon LGBTQ scholars). I hope it is not lost on readers of this section that two of the three writers have chosen to write anonymously. Anonymous #1, who wrote about the experiences of women in academia, chose to write without identifying herself to protect the guilty (to avoid offending people she otherwise admires for other reasons). Anonymous #2, a Black scholar, chose to write anonymously because s/he feared retaliation from powerful (white) scholars. The writer who wrote without anonymity has received surprising, potent and discomfiting blowback from peers. Think about the current writer’s rationale for wanting to be anonymous: a palpable fear of retaliation . . . It is 2021 (when this essay was written); yet even an accomplished Black author still lives in fear of retaliation from people in positions of power in academia (and as the author notes, just writing about it, even anonymously, makes the heart beat faster). That . . . just . . . ain’t . . . right. We can and should do better – especially in a profession in which we are supposedly enlightened. This is the kind of essay that shows that our self-perceived and self-professed enlightenment is something of a (perhaps unwitting) fiction. This writer also does a convincing job of conveying just how fatiguing simply being Black in academia can be. Essays like the one the follows do not tell us things we don’t already know, but they do tell us that we have serious work to do to get where we ought to be. Do I expect this kind of essay to change the world? No, I don’t. Do I expect it to help keep the conversation going on a subject we desperately need to act upon? Yep, I do. It is one small step on the journey to a more enlightened humankind, not just for academics. For everybody. – Denny Gioia