Inaugural Edition

The Sankofa Journal Inaugural Edition

Davidson College Spring 2019

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The Sankofa Journal is a multidisciplinary scholarly journal of peer-reviewed academic essays and articles on matters relating to Africa and/or the African Diaspora. In the spirit of the interdisciplinarity of Africana Studies at Davidson College, contributions in all academic fields are welcome. Eurocentric articles and essays that focus on European administrators, settlers, or colonial policies should be submitted elsewhere unless they deal substantially with interactions among or the lives of Africans or people of African decent.

For the Lovers of Africana, Critical Thought, The Revolution, and Knowledge…

Special Thanks to the Africana Department & its Majors

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The Sankofa Journal Editorial and Logistics Board Gabrielle Thomas ‘21, Editor- in-Chief Marqus Whitman ‘20, Publishing Board, Editor Jonathan Phillips ‘20, Publishing Board, Editor Daric McKinney ‘19, Publishing Board, Editor Saidah Rahman ‘20, Publishing Board, Editor Uyen Nguyen ‘20, Publishing Board, Editor, Logistics Board, Technical Editor Livaslou Tanjong ‘21, Publishing Board, Editor; Logistics Board, Technical Editor William Botchway ‘19, Publishing Board, Editor; Logistics Board, Technical Editor Sawyer Levy ‘19, Logistics Board, Treasurer Jalin Jackson ‘19, Logistics Board, Secretary Idalina Pina ’22, Head Technical Editor

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Table of Contents The “Open Secret”: An Exploration of the Racialized and Gendered Experiences of Black Women Healthcare Professionals in the Workplace Jaela Danielle Cabrera McDonald – page 4

The American Healthcare System and Its Role in Oppressing Black Women’s Bodies Chineme Amechi – page 19

Performativity in the Black Barber Shop: Barbershop Talk, Culture, and Conspicuous Consumption Jade Polly – page 29

To Dream of a Motherland: The Authenticity and Longevity of Black Artistic Movements Maurice Norman – page 39

Redefining the Autobiographical Occasion: How Black students (and former students) who migrate to predominantly White spaces make sense of themselves, others, and their experiences Karyn Bri’ana Raven Odom – page 43

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Inaugural Edition

The Sankofa Journal

The “Open Secret”: An Exploration of the Racialized and Gendered Experiences of Black Women Healthcare Professionals in the Workplace Jaela Danielle Cabrera McDonald Class of 2018 ABSTRACT:

Regardless of their educational attainments, qualifications, and experience, Black women healthcare professionals face discrimination based on both their gender and racial identities. From conducting eleven, in-depth interviews with Black women healthcare professionals, I identify two sections, discrimination in the workplace and shared knowledge. Firstly, I highlight the ways in which Black women healthcare professionals experience racism and sexism in the workplace through the themes of invalidation and mistaken professions and identities. Secondly, I underline how participants sought to share advice with young Black women entering healthcare. These themes answer the research questions: What are the racialized and gendered experiences of Black women healthcare professionals in the workplace as they engage in direct patient care and interact with their coworkers, as well as their employers? Further, what are the coping mechanisms employed by Black women healthcare professionals to navigate the workplace? Extending Patricia Hill Collins1 theoretical framework of the matrix of domination, I provide insight into how to understand Black women’s experiences within healthcare settings by examining both their marginalized and privileged identities. As a result, I demonstrate the need to center Black women healthcare professionals’ stories and strive workplaces where Black women healthcare professionals are valued and supported.

INTRODUCING THE “OPEN SECRET” A WebMD/Medscape and STAT2 collaborative study, surveyed over 1,000 physicians, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and physician assistants to gauge their perception of patient bias against healthcare professionals. The results showed that 59% of healthcare professionals reported that a patient had expressed ‘offensive remarks’ toward them, such as comments regarding their age, ethnicity, race, and/or gender within the past five years3. This is neither a mere coincidence nor is it rare. Rather, healthcare professionals are vulnerable to sexist, racist, and ageist comments by their patients often referred to as ‘micro aggressions’4. A CBS/AP article5 underscores that this is not a new conversation; they define the patient refusal of care as an “open secret” in the medical field.

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (Boston: Hyman, 1990).

2 “Patient Prejudice Survey Results,” WebMD online, last modified October 18, 2017. https://www.webmd.com/a-toz-guides/news/20171018/patient-survey-results?ecd=stat&print=true 3 “Patient Prejudice Survey Results,” 4 S.F. Marshall, “The Effects of Workplace Micro Aggressions as Experienced by Black Women of a High Socioeconomic Status,” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). (John F. Kennedy University, Pleasant Hill, CA.), 1.

5 “Patients refusing care from nurses of different race one of medicine’s ‘open secrets,’” CBS/AP online, last modified February 25, 2013. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/patients-refusing-care-from-nurses-of-different-race-one-ofmedicines-open-secrets/ 1

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With policies in place that rightfully protect patients from sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. encounters from healthcare professionals, policies are lacking that do the same when the healthcare professional is on the receiving end6. Healthcare professionals are being discriminated against, yet little is done to address these incidences, let alone validate the healthcare professionals’ experiences.

For example, the story of Tamika Cross, a Black woman obstetrician and gynecologist, caught media attention in 2016. Dr. Cross attempted to provide medical care to a man who was having trouble breathing on a domestic flight, but when she tried to reach out to flight attendants to let them know that she could help, she was refused7. Dr. Cross was questioned by the flight attendants about whether she was ‘actually’ a doctor and if she could provide evidence8. Crystal Emery, a Black woman filmmaker and writer, produced a documentary entitled Black Women in Medicine9, which captured the challenges of Dr. Cross and Black women doctors across the United States to show the history of Black women’s involvement in medicine.

Emery included the startling statistic that, “only 2% of all physicians are black women,”10.

Emery felt it was necessary to shed light on Black women doctors, showing their visibility and underlining their experiences. In the same way, I sought to show the stories of Black women healthcare professionals. While it is crucial to investigate provider bias to implement policies and practices that ensure a safe healthcare system for patients, that same effort needs to be directed toward healthcare professionals, who have been neglected in this area of research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Blackness and Womanhood, Simultaneously Collins11 theorized on her concept of the matrix of domination that addressed the nuances of identity. This matrix of domination juxtaposed traditional ways of viewing power, which challenged the view of subjugation and supremacy. Through the matrix of domination, Collins challenges the notion of absolute power within race, gender and class, while addressing that power relationships are rarely dichotomous. People hold marginalized and privileged identities simultaneously, and the mixture of those identities produce certain outcomes that should neither be read as purely privileged, nor as purely marginalized. To use Collin’s language, someone may find themselves, “simultaneously [the] oppressor and oppressed.”12 This theory was applied to 6

“Patients refusing care from nurses of different race one of medicine’s ‘open secrets,’” Carolyn Johnson, “The disturbing reason why we don’t believe young, black women are really doctors,” last modified October 14, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/14/a-black-doctor-wanted-tosave-a-mans-life-first-she-had-to-convince-the-flight-attendant-she-was-an-actualphysician/?utm_term=.f978f79bed98 8 Derek Hawkins, “Flight attendant to black female doctor: ‘We’re looking for actual physicians,’” last modified October 14, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/14/blatantdiscrimination-black-female-doctor-says-flight-crew-questioned-her-credentials-during-medicalemergency/?utm_term=.6474d51835bc 9 Black Women in Medicine, directed by Crystal Emery. (2016; United States, 2016), Motion picture.

10 Crystal Emery, “Black Women are Doctors, Believe It or Not, America,” last modified October 14, 2016. http://time.com/4532225/black-women-doctors/ 7

11 12

Black Feminist Thought Black Feminist Thought, 230.

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Black women healthcare professionals who faced oppression due to their Blackness and womanhood, yet because of their socioeconomic status, educational attainment, and social status reaped numerous privileges13. Their social position afforded them a level of power and privilege, thus complicating the notion of the oppressor versus the oppressed, the absolutes of power that Collins argued against. I extend Collin’s theory to consider age and educational attainment, in addition to race, gender, and socioeconomic status, since these social identities emerged as the most pertinent for the participants. Using Collin’s matrix of domination allowed for the experiences of Black women healthcare professionals to be evaluated in a way that considered the weight and impact of their dominant identities.

Shifting, according to Jones and Shorter-Gooden14 is a historical and current phenomenon, reflecting the need for Black women to strategically abide by cultural norms. It is a learned behavior, a collection of practices for survival, that becomes a way of existing, a method of selfdefense, and an ingrained reality. Shifting frames the context in which Black women experience racism and sexism and add much-needed nuance to the lives of Black women as agents that are shaping how they respond to racism and sexism.

Black Women and Women of Color in Healthcare Early on, Black women healthcare professionals recognize that their career development depends on the successful navigation of exclusive institutions of higher education. To acquire the skills necessary to be prepared for their fields within healthcare, they must learn how to maneuver through a system that was not designed for them. Galace and Calimlim15 conducted a year-long qualitative research study that consisted of twenty women physicians of color from various states in the United States. The goal of their research was to identify the structural barriers to their career success, as well as suggest policy changes and workplace interventions that would better serve women physicians of color16. In their research, Galace and Calimlim emphasized how women physicians of color sought mentorships, when available to them, and identified the need of mentorship programs as a key mediator for many of the barriers faced by the participants17.

Overall, a deliberate effort to systematically support and guide aspiring physicians of color, as well as current physicians, by minimizing the structural barriers to successfully matriculating and thriving, it is highly likely that the efforts would result in a positive impact for physicians and the medical field more largely.

RESEARCH METHODS

13

Sally Raskoff, “Social and Cultural Capital at School,” last modified November 14, 2014. http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2014/11/social-and-cultural-capital-at-school.html

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Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003).

15

Anthony Galace and Irene Calimlim, “Breaking Down Barriers for Women Physicians of Color.” The Greenlining Institute and Artemis Medical Society, (2017): 1-32.

16

“Breaking Down Barriers,” 6.

“Breaking Down Barriers,” 12.

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From October 2017-February 2018, I conducted eleven, semi-structured interviews via phone, FaceTime, and in-person with Black women healthcare professionals who lived and worked in the United States South. These Southern states included: North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. FaceTime and phone interviews were the preferred option for participants outside of the metro Charlotte area, considering their distance from where I was conducting in-person interviews.

To be eligible for the research, participants had to be at least 18 years of age, identify as Black and/or African-American, identify as either a trans woman or a cis woman, be employed as a healthcare professional in the United States, and engage in direct patient care.

RESULTS In response to racism and sexism, Black women healthcare professionals relied on various kinships to be heard, validated, and understood. Their womanhood and Blackness meant that they did inevitably encounter racism and sexism in the workplace, yet by employing Collins18 matrix of domination, I show that the participants leveraged their institutional access, networks, and financial stability in a way that complicated the trope of Black women in despair. Instead, I argue that Black women healthcare professionals are strategic, resourceful, self-aware and determined to make an impact through healthcare, even when they may recognize that the field is not always and historically has not been, welcoming to Black women. These findings were consistent throughout the amount of time the Black women healthcare professionals were at their workplace, geography, age, and profession, which indicated a shared experience between Black women healthcare professionals that went beyond distinguishing factors.

Discrimination in the Workplace Invalidation In this theme, I include quotations that illustrate how the Black women healthcare professionals in my research were perceived as ill-equipped to perform their jobs and how internalizing this perceived inferiority impacts the workplace environment and overall well-being.

This invalidation of Black women healthcare professionals came, not only from patients but from coworkers and employers as well. Galace and Calimlim noted, “45 percent of participants recounted experiences when patients were wary of their diagnosis or questioned their credentials.

Two interviewees even shared that they resorted to taking the extra precaution of listing their medical school, residency program, and years of practice at the outset of every appointment to assuage patients’ concerns.19”. It was common for participants to remember a time when their expertise was questioned, but a general trend was that the Black women healthcare professionals tried not to take this invalidation personally. This distancing from the impact of their invalidation indicates the ‘walling off the discrimination’ shifting strategy20. Jones and Shorter-Gooden write, “Women who wall off racism and sexism are shifting cognitively: by screening out distressing facts, they are shielded, at least for a time from the emotional impact of these painful experiences.21” Avery expressed how her profession prompted her to advocate for the patient, even in instances

18 19

Black Feminist Thought

“Breaking Down Barriers,” 21.

Shifting: The Double Lives, 66.

21 Shifting: The Double Lives, 74.

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when her advocacy was not well-received. Avery’s account reflected that her method of shifting caused her to make a stronger effort to better perceived. …I was pretty disrespected by some of the clinics at first…I’ve tried to over-communicate, which often times has meant that I…overcompensate, so I smile a lot more when I’m in clinic settings, because I know that I’m disrupting what is most normal for them, which is to just send paperwork, and I actually sit in the doctor’s appointment with people, and I’ve had to call and advocate on behalf of the patient…there are some people that are like, “Whoa, who do you think you are?” But that’s my job, to look out for the patient. (Avery, patient advocate, late 20s) Throughout the interview, Avery repeatedly stated her priority of patient-care. Specifically, she used the word, “serve,” to articulate her profession and describe her role. As a result, Avery did all that she could, even when her role was not respected, to advocate for patients to the best of her ability to ensure that their needs were met. Yet, this added burden of being invalidated in the workplace created extra barriers to being able to advocate for patients and allow them to get the care that they need. Below, Olivia described situations where she would go to a surgeon colleague for advice to help a patient’s case, but before she could receive feedback, she would need to prove her surgical ability.

They [men surgeons] almost have to work with you to see your surgical skill before they’ll give you respect and speak to you. I’ve had that happen as well. All of us have. All the females have had that. Even White females, until they get to know you, they may not speak either, but that’s not everybody; I think it’s individual. Especially, the general surgeons. I think it’s because general surgery is a good old boys club, so if you were a woman who’s going into general surgery residency, you have to get that mindset, or you’re not going to make it.

(Olivia, obstetrician and gynecologist, early 50s) Olivia touched on both racism and sexism in her anecdote, and even when there were clear examples of racism and sexism in the workplace, respondents tended to excuse the discrimination or make light of the encounter. This is likely because, as Olivia states, general surgery is ‘a good old boys club,’ which means that due to the nature of the specialty, there are some things that women, specifically Black women, must endure. Jones and Shorter-Gooden explained, “…African Americans and women tend to minimize experiences of discrimination, subconsciously denying or knowingly ignoring bias.22” Black women healthcare professionals’ belittling of their experiences of discrimination are exacerbated by the fact that healthcare requires a commitment to addressing the health needs of a patient. Tia also identified the medical field as an exclusive, where men were preferred, and that preference was not kept a secret. She recounted that in hindsight, she can pinpoint opportunities that she was excluded from, which she later realized was due to her social identities, such as her race and gender.

[In response to: What do you dislike about your place of employment?] I think it’s probably more prevalent in the South, as they call it the good old boy system. Meaning that there are still some of the old traditions, meaning that there are times where I know I wasn’t notified about different opportunities or different things. It was just we passed it along through the system to, of course, White males. I was left out and later found out about it from someone 22

Shifting: The Double Lives, 74.

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who wasn’t quite a participant of the good old boy system…There were several things that were just completely hidden. Fortunately, I mean, I’ve just been a person who’s been blessed where it didn’t hurt me… (Tia, internist and geriatrician, early 40s) One of the pieces in Tia’s account that is salient is when she noted, “…I’ve just been a person who’s been blessed where it didn’t hurt me.” Jones and Shorter-Gooden described the ‘armor’ that Black women put on and the walls that are built up to try and protect themselves from harm, yet warned that this protection comes at a cost, and ultimately, will crumble23. As the interview progressed, Tia became more aware of the racialized and gendered events that took place throughout her time at her work place, which gave her time to reflect upon some of the possible reasons as to why she was treated the way that she was. Below, Lisa shared a time when a patient refused her care, which illuminated another form of invalidation in the workplace.

I have had two occasions where I did have patients who were racist against AfricanAmericans…One guy in particular—he would always yell and scream, and he was very derogatory… He was just doing that towards minorities, and when we sent Caucasians in there, he was absolutely fine, respectful… So, we ended up just switching assignments, but that doesn’t happen too, too often…It was kinda frustrating to me at first because, you know, in my mind I’m thinking, I’m here to help you, like my whole job is to help you, and if you can’t accept that, just because of what I look like, then, it—it was kinda hurtful in a way. You would think that people would put that aside, especially when it came to their life and wellbeing, but I guess over time, I’ve just tried not to take it personally. (Lisa, registered nurse: medical-surgical, mid-20s) Lisa did not understand how someone could place their racism as a higher priority than her care. Despite Black women healthcare professionals’ dedication to their patients, they are not always met with the appreciation that they deserve.

For most participants, experiences of invalidation were challenging to identify, due to the common ‘walling off the impact of discrimination.24’ The next theme, mistaken identities and professions was easier to name, since the parameters were more concrete. In discussing this theme, participants were more willing to tear down their walls and give detail to instances of misnaming.

Mistaken Identities and Professions This theme describes the misnaming that is commonplace for Black women healthcare professionals in the workplace. Nine out of the eleven participants recalled being mistaken for a different profession and/or identity. All physicians recalled times where they were perceived as the registered nurse, certified nurse assistant (CNA), and/or janitorial staff. Three out of four nurses reported being perceived as the CNA and/or janitorial staff. It is important to note, although unsurprising, that participants found that their White and men colleagues did not encounter this discrimination. Damali, a certified nurse midwife in her mid-30s noted, “Sometimes people assume that you are a nurse, or a janitor. People ask, ‘Do you work here?’ These women went face-to-face with stereotypes that discredited them and saw them as a lower ranking than they were, which serves as a powerful indicator of the sentiments that their patients and coworkers possessed.

In the following two accounts, Avery and Lisa described times when they were called “little girl,” 23 24

Shifting: The Double Lives, 80.

Shifting: The Double Lives, 66.

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which underlined the infantilization and patronization these Black women healthcare professionals experienced.

Ninety-nine percent of the time I’m the youngest person in the room. There have been instances where I’ve been addressed as “little girl.” I don’t take kindly to that…I don’t always address it because it doesn’t always feel—in those moments, it feels more like I’m being defensive and it’s going to take us off subject, then I don’t. In more of a casual setting, I would address it, but in a larger meeting, if something affects me in reference to my age comes up, in those moments, I tend to speak a lot to my professional experience…Maybe even to a fault, I talk about my professional experience and let people know that I know what I’m talking about, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be saying it. (Avery, patient advocate, late 20s) Since Avery was disrespected in the work environment, she felt a need to qualify herself and reassure her colleagues of her years of experience. This exhausting reality was present throughout the interviewee’s responses and reflected the blatant disrespect of Black women healthcare professions in their work environments. Lisa presented the patient side of being called “little girl” in her account, noting that this is likely due to the familial bond she has made with some of the patient, as well as her stature as a relatively petite person.

I’ve been referred to as “little girl,” many times. My patients will be like, “Oh, let me call you that. This little girl’s in here trying to talk to me,” and I’m just like, “Alrighty.” And a lot of times, I’ve been mistaken for like a CNA [Certified Nurse Assistant], or like the cleaning staff. (Lisa, registered nurse: cardiology, mid 20s) Lisa described how most patients are more comfortable with White male physicians, and even with a White male certified nurse assistant (CNA). Due to her appearance, Lisa is degraded in the workplace, and even though she held a higher ranking than her colleague who is a CNA, her position is not respected. Nevertheless, Lisa, like other respondents, “try not to think too much of it.” This is understandable, as these Black women healthcare professionals’ negative experiences in the workplace are so commonplace that it seems futile to give them more attention. In addition to being called out of their names, Black women healthcare professionals gave anecdotes of times when their professional title was not recognized, or even blatantly ignored.

I am always called a nurse by patients…I’ll walk in the room, they’ve never met me, they think I’m the nurse. Family members. Even if I’ve introduced myself to the patient, the family members will think, “Yes, you’re the nurse.” I don’t know if that is because I’m female if it’s because I’m Black, or just because I’m young. People always look at me and they’re like “You’re too young to be a doctor,” kind of thing. Even some of my patients, even though they know I’m their doctor, they’ll call me by my first name. They’ll be like, “Linda.” Maybe it’s because I do get personal with my patients and I have that level. I’ve never introduced myself as Linda…I don’t want to get offended. It doesn’t affect our relationship or anything like that. I just say—I’ve had the conversation, “Doctor whatever.” Just refresh their mind, but yes, it [being mistaken for the wrong profession] happens all the time. (Linda, obstetrician and gynecologist, early 30s) Linda described her badge that she wears at work, and she explained that her professional degrees are clearly highlighted on her name badge. Despite this, patients disregard her MD and fail to preface her name with “Dr.” Later, when asked if this mistaken profession happens to the other doctors in her workplace, Linda replied that was unsure, but quickly noted that it highly unlikely

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that this was an issue for her men colleagues. Below, Olivia provides an eerily similar account of how commonplace it is for her professional title to be disrespected.

Now the other thing that breaks my nerves is when you go into a room, you have on your long, white coat, stethoscope, and they say [over the phone when she is entering the room], “Oh, the nurse is here.” I’m not the nurse. I’m Dr. [surname omitted]. Or, this happens a lot to where I’ll have just delivered your baby, cut your body open, sewed you back up…You’re happy, everything is good. “[and the patient replies] Thanks, Ms. [surname omitted].” I’m not Ms. [surname omitted]. I am Ms. [surname omitted] if I’m not working, but I’m Dr. [last name omitted]. They don’t do that to my White colleagues. They don’t do that. They definitely don’t do it to men. I’ve never heard of a male doctor, Black, White, Asian, whatever, say that a patient called him Mr. Blah Blah. No, they only do that to females.

I keep it inward. I don’t show how much it irritates me, but it irritates me a lot. Sometimes I correct them, and sometimes I keep moving because I just can’t. That’s one of the things I really disgust. I worked hard to get my degree. I worked hard to learn how to take care of you the best way that I can. I work hard to be an excellent surgeon. So, I’m going to need you to understand that I’m your doctor. I am not Miss. Whoever, just somebody of the street…Really, that’s one of the discriminatory things that bothers me. (Olivia, obstetrician and gynecologist, early 50s) Unfortunately, both Linda and Olivia’s accounts are not unique. Khullar25 wrote about mistaken professions, featuring a neurosurgery resident at Duke University’s School of Medicine, Dr. Theresa Williamson, who explained that she too is assumed to be the nurse, medical assistant, or pharmacist. She went on to say that if there was a man in the room, no matter his position, patients directed their attention toward him.26 Like Lisa and Dr. Williamson, Olivia is also mistaken for a nurse. For Olivia, this happens so much that it’s become a running joke among her and the nurses. She was sure to say, “But you have to decide whether that’s going to steal your joy, or if that’s going to just empower you to continue to be the best.” Again, Olivia accepts that not all patients will find her qualified and respect her name, but her confidence in herself and her ability grounded her. This knowledge of self is paramount for Black women healthcare professionals because they have been doubted countless times. Instead of allowing those doubts to define them, they demonstrate their ability to maintain composure and keep pushing forward. Black women healthcare professionals realized early on that they had to be strategic about building relationships in the workplace, as this would lead to a better workplace environment for the participants.

Shared Knowledge Dear Young Black Women Entering Healthcare, The last question I asked by participants was, “What advice would you give to young, Black women entering the healthcare profession?” I followed up with this question by asking what the participants wish they would have been told and things that they are still learning in their journeys.

This theme is rooted in Collins’ work on Black feminist thought when she wrote, “Offering U.S. 25

Dhruv Khullar, “Being a Doctor Is Hard. It’s Harder for Women,” last modified December 7, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/upshot/being-a-doctor-is-hard-its-harder-for-women.html

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Being a Doctor Is Hard,”

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Black women new knowledge about our own experiences can be empowering. But activating epistemologies that criticize prevailing knowledge and that enable us to define our own realities on our own terms has far greater implications.27” When Black women share their experiences with each other, the result is powerful. The sharing of this knowledge allows for healing and validation.

The unifying identities of Blackness, womanhood, and a profession in healthcare unite these stories, melding them together in a way that highlights their similarities, with each participant contributing their part.

You deserve to exist and take up space and that is good, that is valid, your experience is your voice. You are not crazy; you are you and that is good. And also, to protect your magic, like you really got to. Self-care is not some fru-fru granola thing like it’s real, and it’s important.

It’s how you sustain yourself and be able to do good work for the long haul, and so that means saying no, knowing that’s a full sentence…I can’t be my best self if I’m always pouring out, and for some reason, that was a lengthy lesson for me to learn; it’s taken me a long time to really embrace that. That’s because I had to be given permission that I didn’t need to be anybody’s savior; I needed to be their partner, collaborate with people. (Avery, patient advocate, late 20s) Through Avery’s lessons, she has taken the time to pursue her studies, finding a program that is the right fit for her. Avery’s note on self-care is important because, for Black women healthcare professionals, they endure more than anyone should, and their extra efforts are rarely recognized. Due to this, it can seem foreign to practice self-care, when daily, these Black women make every effort to put their patients first. Inevitably, this is unsustainable and quite harmful to their well-being. Black women’s painful history of constantly fighting against sexism and racism, but feeling bifurcated, overworked, and still misunderstood were sentiments that were expressed throughout participant responses.28 Take care of yourself. Do not let it [your work] run you into the ground. You are giving, giving, giving. Black women do have a tendency to over-give and not realize they are doing it to their own detriment. It’s a beautiful thing, this giving. It’s not specific to Black women, but the giving profession. The lower you are on the totem pole, the more giving you are.

Historically, Black women just do that, not to say that others don’t. (Darlene, natural health care practitioner, late 40s) Darlene recognized Black women’s history of being the heart of families and movements and noted the effort that it takes to simply exist as Black women, let alone as Black women in ‘giving professions.29’ Even though it often went unstated, this effort took a toll on many interviewees.

As a Black female, you have to work hard for yourself. You have to be better. You have, you can’t be that sub-par person in your job. Because you feel at the end of the day, if you are that sub-par person, it is going to be because you’re Black, okay…You kinda have to be that 27

Black Feminist Thought, 273-4.

28

Micheline R Malson, Elisabeth Mudimbe-Boyi, Jean F O’Barr, and Mary Wyer, eds., Black Women in America: Social Sciences Perspectives. (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 43.

29

bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody, (Boston: South End Press, 2000).

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stellar person, which sucks, but, you know, that’s life. And truly, you should wanna be that above average person. Even though it’s a matter of, you know, sometimes killing yourself to be better. You should want to excel in everything that you do. I do feel like as a Black person, you have to. (Linda, obstetrician and gynecologist, early 30s) The latter half of Linda’s advice underlined the need to overexert one’s self to combat stereotypes of Black women as inferior. Linda recognized that while this reality was not far, it did not negate the reality of what she had to do in her career and in life.

You’re going to have to work harder than the next person. You do, I do, just to be seen as the same sometimes. Sometimes when you work really hard, it won’t be recognized at all, or it will be misinterpreted based on your skin color and your age. (Sasha, public health strategist, late 20s) Like Linda, Sasha reported having to put in more labor than her non-Black counterparts.

Even with this extra labor, though, there was no safeguarding against that work being unrecognized and undervalued. …In a way, be prepared for the stereotypes. What I mean by that is for some reason, it seems like people feel that Black females are just these overly aggressive individuals…You have to wait until people have time to learn who you really are. Then a lot of the bias and a lot of those stereotypes will just fall away…You’re going to face some challenges; they’re still there.

Even though things have changed a lot over time, there’s still a lot of gender bias that occurs, and you’ll be surprised…Just be prepared that when you enter the real world, you’re still going to be in a basically traditional white male environment…They don’t really care the color; it’s just a female provider. Know to expect it. When it happens, don’t get offended.

Someone else will come along that will help you. It always works out; it always does. (Tia, internist and geriatrician, early 40s) Since medicine is a men-dominated field, all the Black women physicians in the study noted that the fact that their identity as a female physician was enough to face overt sexism in the workplace. Often, these respondents explained that their gender was more likely to be a reason for discrimination, rather than their race. Their advice to Black women entering the healthcare profession warns them about what they can expect in the future, but also assures these future healthcare professionals that their experiences of sexism are not personal, but inevitable.

While the wisdom of Black women healthcare professionals will not eradicate the sexism and racism, both covert and overt that they would likely face in the workplace, the participants felt a deep desire to share knowledge. As I listened to Black women share their advice, it was like hearing them talk to their former selves and even their current selves. This crystalized the need for their stories to be made available to others, who like myself, would soon enter the healthcare profession as a Black woman, but also, the need for Black women who are currently healthcare professionals to find solidarity and locate themselves within the stories of the eleven participants.

DISCUSSION The nature of the healthcare field significantly affects the experiences of Black women healthcare professionals. Healthcare is about serving all people, and as a result, the expectation is that those in healthcare are to be selfless, due to their commitment to help improve people’s health, which is supposed to take priority. This expectation of being overworked contributes to the additional layers of racism and sexism that Black women healthcare professionals confront in the

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workplace. These emotionally, mentally, and physically strenuous demands amplify the need to perform and be available to tend to the needs of patients. However, this excess stress can contribute to burnout, where healthcare professionals feel they cannot continue working in the feel due to feeling depleted.

These findings indicate that there is something deeper to these racialized and gendered experiences that my study begins to uncover. My findings are also a call for employers to reconsider sustainability for their workplace, evaluating job satisfaction, employee wellbeing, and the workplace environment. While some Black women healthcare professionals utilize the shifting strategy of ‘fighting back,’ for others, these negative experiences may prompt Black women to seek employment elsewhere.30 For some Black women healthcare professionals, they recognized their dissatisfaction with their former workplace and sought employment elsewhere or began to establish their own private practices. While these changes should be celebrated, it is also necessary to hold workplaces accountable and strive to improve them, especially considering that changing workplaces is not an option for everyone. Whether the participants remained in their places of employment or not, Black women healthcare professionals demonstrated their resourcefulness, which was aided by their socioeconomic status and educational backgrounds.

It would have been a disservice to the participants in my study to portray a story that consisted exclusively of marginalization or exclusively triumphs, without nuance. This is exactly what Collins31 cautions against, as she emphasized, “But portraying U.S. Black women solely as passive, unfortunate recipients of abuse stifles notions that Black women can actively work to change our circumstances and bring about changes in our lives. Similarly, presenting AfricanAmerican women solely as heroic figures who easily engage in resisting oppressing on all fronts minimizes the very real costs of oppression and can foster the perception that Black women need no help because we can ‘take it.32’” Due to the backgrounds of the Black women healthcare professionals, the majority had access to networks, or gained access to networks over time that connected them to resources and opportunities that would have been more difficult to attaint without their social status. Some of these include mentorship programs through associations, personal and career development through conferences, memberships in social organizations, and leadership positions. These achievements complicate the traditional perception of a Black woman’s social status in society, while contributing more to the narrative of Black women’s life experiences. I do want to clarify that I am not suggesting for a monolithic reading of Black women healthcare professionals, rather, I am urging for more sociological investigation on the richness of Black women’s lives in healthcare because there is still much more to be learned and unlearned.

CONCLUSION Although they possess financial stability and have attained high levels of education, their privileges are often not assumed. Rather, the participants noted experiences of being negatively perceived and disrespected in the workplace. Moreover, there is uncompensated emotional, mental, and physical labor that these professionals experience throughout their careers. In my 30 31 32

Shifting: The Double Lives, 66.

Black Feminist Thought Black Feminist Thought, 287.

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research, I posed the questions: What are the racialized and gendered experiences of Black women healthcare professionals in the workplace as they engage in direct patient care and interact with their coworkers? Further, what are Black women healthcare professionals’ coping mechanisms for navigating the workplace? I interrogated the impact of racism and sexism, both explicit and implicit, on one’s self-identity, as someone whose purpose is to provide healthcare to all. Using Collins’ matrix of domination as a theoretical framework, which described power as fluid, added complexity to traditional notions of oppression and subordination. Since Black women healthcare professionals possessed both marginalized and privileged identities, Collins’ framework enabled me to observe that despite their successes, Black women healthcare professionals subjugated identities of being both Black and women meant that they were not exempt from racism and sexism in the workplace.

Olivia concluded her interview with, “Put the lipstick on, comb your hair and keep moving, right in between, pull it together, and get back out there. That’s what soldiers do.” This image served as a powerful description of the amount of difficulty, pain, pressure, and stress that comes with being a Black woman healthcare professional in the workplace. Despite this, their strength, confidence, and unwavering dedication to their patients propelled them forward and pushed them to continue to strive to be their best. Their experiences are not defined by the challenges, though, as they have described extraordinary accounts of positive patient interaction, gratitude for mentors that have paved the way, and stories of growth. Through my research, I have showcased the unique richness in the experiences of Black women healthcare professionals in the workplace. I have highlighted their resourcefulness, as well as demonstrated the need to improve workplace conditions, so they can be more conducive to the success of Black women healthcare professionals and better support them both excel and thrive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Association of Black Women Physicians. "About us.” Association of Black Women Physicians. n.d. https://www.blackwomenphysicians.org/about-us/ CBS/AP. “Patients refusing care from nurses of different race one of medicine’s ‘open secrets.’”

CBS/AP. February 25, 2013. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/patients-refusing-care-fromnurses-of-different-race-one-of-medicines-open-secrets/ Chen, Pauline. “When the Patient is Racist.” Well Blogs The New York Times. July 25, 2013. https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/when-the-patient-is-racist/?mcubz=3 Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Hyman, 1990.

Deggins, Nicole. “Find a Black Midwife or Doula.” Sista Midwife. 2017. http://www.sistamidwife.com/find-a-black-midwifedoula/4559947642 Emery, Crystal, dir. Black Women in Medicine. 2016; United States, 2016. Motion picture.

Emery, Crystal. “Black Women are Doctors, Believe It or Not, America” October 14, 2016. http://time.com/4532225/black-women-doctors/ Galace, Anthony. & Calimlim, Irene. “Breaking Down Barriers for Women Physicians of Color.”

The Greenlining Institute and Artemis Medical Society, (2017): 1-32.

Hall, J. Camille., Everett, Joyce. E., & Hamilton-Mason, Johnnie. “Black women talk about workplace stress and how they cope.” Journal of Black Studies 43, no. 2 (2011): 207–26.

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Hamilton-Mason, Johnnie., Hall, Camille., & Everett, Joyce. E. “And Some of Us Are Braver: Stress and Coping among African American Women.” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 19, no. 5, (1998): 463– 82. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911350902832142 Hawkins, Derek. “Flight attendant to black female doctor: ‘We’re looking for actual physicians.’”

Washington Post. October 14, 2016. Retrieved 2017, September 3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/14/blatant-discriminationblack-female-doctor-says-flight-crew-questioned-her-credentials-during-medicalemergency/?utm_term=.6474d51835bc Hull, Gloria T., Bell-Scott, Patricia., & Smith, Barbara. All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, But some of Us are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. Old Westbury: Feminist Press, 1982 hooks, bell. Feminism is for Everybody. Boston: South End Press, 2000.

Johnson, Carolyn. “The disturbing reason why we don’t believe young, black women are really doctors.” Washington Post. October 14, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/14/a-black-doctor-wanted-to-savea-mans-life-first-she-had-to-convince-the-flight-attendant-she-was-an-actualphysician/?utm_term=.f978f79bed98 Jones, Charisse. & Shorter-Gooden, Kumea. Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003.

Khullar, Dhruv. “Being a Doctor Is Hard. It’s Harder for Women.” The New York Times.

December 7, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/upshot/being-a-doctor-is-hard-itsharder-for-women.html Malson, Micheline R., Mudimbe-Boyi, Elisabeth, O’Barr, Jean F., & Wyer, Mary, eds. Black Women in America: Social Sciences Perspectives. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Marshall, S. F. “The Effects of Workplace Micro Aggressions as Experienced by Black Women of a High Socio-economic Status” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). John F. Kennedy University, Pleasant Hill, CA. Martin, Susan E. “‘Outsider Within’ the Station House: The Impact of Race and Gender on Black Women Police.” Social Problems 4, no. 3 (1994): 383–400.

McDowell, Jacqueline. & Carter-Francique, Akilah. “An Intersectional Analysis of the Workplace Experiences of African American Female Athletic Directors.” Sex Roles 77, no.5–6 (2017): 393–408. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0730-y National Black Nurses Association. “About NBNA.” National Black Nurses Association. n.d. http://www.nbna.org/ National Center for Education Statistics. “Degrees conferred by race and sex.” National Center for Education Statistics. n.d. https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72 National Dental Hygienists’ Association. “About.” National Dental Hygienists’ Association. n.d. https://www.ndhaonline.org/about Neumann, Janice. “‘Black Women in Medicine' relays struggles, triumphs of doctors.” February 6, 2017. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-black-women-med-tv-ent-020720170206-story.html.

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Raskoff, Sally. “Social and Cultural Capital at School.” Everyday Sociology Blog. November 14, 2014. http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2014/11/social-and-cultural-capital-atschool.html STAT. “6 in 10 doctors report abusive remarks from patients, and many get little help coping with the wounds.” Stat News. October 18, 2017. https://www.statnews.com/2017/10/18/patientprejudice-wounds-doctors/ The United States Department of Health and Human Services (Office for Civil Rights).

“Resolution agreement between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights and Hurley Medical Center.” The United States Department of Health and Human Services. n.d. https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/forproviders/compliance-enforcement/hurley-medical-center/index.html WebMD. “Patient Prejudice Survey Results.” WebMD. 2017, October 18. https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20171018/patient-surveyresults?ecd=stat&print=true Woods-Giscombé, Cheryl L. & Lobel, Marci. “Race and gender matter: A Multidimensional Approach to Conceptualizing and Measuring Stress in African American Women.” Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology 14, no. 3(2008): 173–82. doi: 10.1037/10999809.14.3.173.

APPENDIX Patient Demographics Table Name:

Profession:

Age:

Avery

Patient Advocate

Late 20s

Length of Time at Current Workplace: 3 years

Damali

Certified Nurse Midwife Natural Health Care Practitioner Registered Dental Hygienist: Pediatrics Physician: Obstetrics/Gynecology Registered Nurse: Cardiology Registered Nurse: Medical-Surgical Physician: Obstetrics/Gynecology

Mid-30s

2 years

Late 40s

20 years

Early 60s

3 years

Early 30s

2.5 years

Mid-20s

6 months

Mid-20s

1 year

Early 50s

12 years

Darlene Elf Linda Lisa Meghann Olivia

Date of Interview:

December 4, 2017 February 8, 2018 November 18, 2017 October 26, 2017 November 15, 2017 November 14, 2017 February 11, 2018 December 2, 2017

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Public Health Strategist

Late 20s

3.5 years

February 12, 2018

Tia

Physician: Internal Medicine and Geriatrics Registered Nurse: Pediatrics Intensive Care Unit

Early 40s

8.5 years

March 16, 2018

Mid-20s

3 years

February 9, 2018

Vanessa

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The American Healthcare System and Its Role in Oppressing Black Women’s Bodies Chineme Amechi Class of 2022 Bell Hooks once stated, “usually when people talk about the strength of black women… they ignore the reality that to be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression.” The state has long hypersexualized the black woman and subjected her to excessive policing by the state. The United States, for centuries, has reinforced systems and policies such as: mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, the criminalization of welfare and black motherhood to ensure partisan monitoring of African-American women. These policies act as instruments of suppression towards black people, ensuring they are always relegated to positions of second-class citizens. Several movements of black resistance, such as the Black Lives matter movement, have arisen to combat the killing and disenfranchisement of black persons. These movements have served to empower black people and create solidarity between all intersections of the black identity. However, they frequently center around the persecutions of black men which effectively silences the murder and discrimination of black women. This aids in concealing a long-established systemic practice used to eradicate black women’s bodies in the United States, the healthcare system. The American healthcare system, an institution designed to protect and promote the soundness of the body has been a deep-rooted agent used to reign terror on black women.

American gynecology, in particular, has infringed on the reproductive autonomy and rights of African-American women for centuries. According to the Center of Disease Control, 40 out of 100 000 black women died during child birth in America from 2011 to 201433. The stereotypes and myths of the black body and people, which served as the foundation of American gynecology, engender the disproportionally high maternal and infant mortality rates of black women and children relative to their white American counterparts.

The reification of perceived biological differences between black and white people stemmed from racist medical practices that benefitted the needs of slave owners. The arise and advancement of American gynecology from the antebellum (from Civil War) era served as a means of objectifying black women, stripping them of their humanity and dignity of the human person. After the abolishment of slave trade, southern slave owners were faced with the challenge of maintaining their sources of income: agricultural products and services. These slave masters realized that to achieve this goal, they had to ensure the continuity of the involuntary services of African slaves. This could only be sustained if black women had optimal reproductive health. Slave owners and white, male doctors thus took heightened interest in the anatomy, particularly reproductive, of black women. Their interests were generated from the desire to treat the reproductive ailments of white women and ensure prime fecundity and market value of the black slave woman. As a result, white men started exploring the underdeveloped field of gynecology and obstetrics, masculinizing the occupation of the midwife. This effectively rid slaves of a core cultural

33

“Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System | Maternal and Infant Health | CDC,” January 16, 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pregnancy-mortality-surveillance-system.htm.

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practice adopted from their ancestral African homes. Originally, enslaved women took on the role of midwife for their fellow pregnant women in the plantation 34.

James Marion Sims has long been praised as the father of American gynecology. However, it is often neglected how he was able to: treat vesico-vaginal fistulae, develop instruments like the duckbilled speculum, and perfect the cesarean section method of child delivery 35. Dr. Sims perfected his work because of the three black women that were unknowingly leased to him for five years36. The intent of his trials and experiments was to find a method to treat vesico-vaginal fistulae.

This was a common condition affecting black women slaves, resulting in incontinence, which diminished their economic value. In one trial operation, he had one slave patient, Lucy, on an examining table on her hands and knees, while she was naked 37. This took place in front of several his occupational peers. All of Sims’ black patients were restrained to the operating table and had the surgery performed on them without any anesthesia. His elite white patients received different treatment. Unlike Sims’ slave patients, white women with the same reproductive ailments were put under anesthesia, fully clothed, and permitted to lay on their sides during operations 38. The pain, bondage and blood of three enslaved women, erased from archives, were fundamental to the discoveries of Dr. Sims. Retrospective analysis of the ethics and practices of Dr. James Marion Sims forces one to question the doctored narratives of the history of American gynecology, that erase the voices of the oppressed individuals who served as its foundation.

Dr. Sims’ work epitomizes how stereotypes pertaining to the black race were reified and created by scientific research and examination. These in turn served to justify the inhumane practices of slavery and human experimentation of the 19th century. By failing to give his black slave patients anesthesia, Sims mirrored the claims of Dr. Charles White. White theorized that black people lacked consciousness of bodily sensations which inhibited them from experiencing pain like white Americans 39. The scientific reinforcement of the black “superbody” warranted the brutal whippings and excessive working conditions pregnant black women were subjected to by plantation owners. The three slaves’ naked bodies were often on public display as Dr. Sims operated on them. This stemmed from the common notion that black women lacked any measure of modesty that pure white women were born with and thus had no issue with displaying their bodies with pride. Making their naked bodies public spectacle augmented the depiction of the “lascivious”

34

DEIRDRE COOPER OWENS, “BLACK WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN SLAVERY AND MEDICINE,” in

Medical Bondage, Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017), 42– 72, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.7.

35 DEIRDRE COOPER OWENS, “CONTESTED RELATIONS:: Slavery, Sex, and Medicine,” in Medical Bondage, Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017), 73–88, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.8.

36 DEIRDRE COOPER OWENS, “HISTORICAL BLACK SUPERBODIES AND THE MEDICAL GAZE,” in Medical Bondage, Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017), 108– 22, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.10.

37 OWENS. 38 OWENS. 39 OWENS.

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black woman 40. Due to these controlling images, black women and girls were often raped and sexually assaulted by white and black men. However, these malicious practices were not considered crimes because black women were lustful, seductive, and animalistic beings, that had no rights. The fallacies generated about black women’s sexuality implicated false scientific beliefs about their fecundity. This knowledge and research connected black women to biologically inferior species which bred offspring more rapidly and frequently than humans. This philosophy gave plantation overseers the power to regulate when, where, and how often their slaves reproduced.

Slavery and the medical studies that buttressed it, rid black women of their reproductive and sexual autonomy. The hegemonic structures of the white patriarchy, evident in these medical practices, enforced the subjugation of the black woman’s body. This effectively limitted the control she had over it. American gynecology and obstetrics belittled black women, reducing them to nothing but disposable lab specimens. This explains why black women still hold negligible significance to contemporary American society. They were, and still are, objects left exposed to the manipulations of the white gaze and the invasive practices of medicine, sustained by a system founded on white supremacy.

The medical practices of the antebellum era served as a means of pathologizing black women.

This newfound branch of American gynecology furthered scientific racism and justified wrongful practices of slavery. The study of women’s reproductive health and slavery were complementary institutions that benefitted white men. Labelling phenotypic elements of blackness such as: fuller lips, broader noses, “steatopygia” (enlarged buttocks)41 as ailments, solidified the creation of racial dichotomies and hence the superiority of the white race. The conclusions drawn from these operations and studies were contrary to the racial binaries they aimed to create. This is because the methods used by Sims, and all gynecologists of this period, to treat African-American women were identical to those used to treat white women. If these two races were truly biologically distinct then separate processes would be required to treat individuals based on their racial categorization.

These doctors willfully ignored these indications due to their personal biases towards black women and to maintain the marginalization of black bodies in America, hence strengthening white control.

The impacts of their studies have been immortalized and are still evident in contemporary healthcare practices in the United States, retaining their role in decimating black women.

The present conditions of black women’s health highlight the dangers of the epithets simulated from the pseudoscientific beliefs in biological differences between black and white women. The erroneous physical attributes associated with black people, from the series of research conducted on them in the nineteenth century, persist in contemporary, white Americans’ perception of the black race. A study conducted by students from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville links fallacious beliefs in biological differences between black and white people to flawed gauging and treatment of pain in black patients. The researchers in this investigation surveyed white medical 40

DEIRDRE COOPER OWENS, “INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN GYNECOLOGY AND BLACK LIVES,” in

Medical Bondage, Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017), 1–14, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.5.

41 DEIRDRE COOPER OWENS, “THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN GYNECOLOGY,” in Medical Bondage, Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017), 15–41, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.6.

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students and residents, analyzing the proportions of individuals that accepted certain myths of the black “superbody”. About fourteen percent of the second- year residents questioned endorsed the idea of black people having less sensitive nerve endings than white people42.Twenty-five percent of the residents queried agreed that black Americans’ skin is thicker than that of their white peers 43.

From the aggregate results, about half of the medical students in the investigative study believed in the possibility of the existence of these imaginary bodily distinctions. The postulations of black people being less sensitive to stimuli and having thicker skin are elements that contribute to the unfounded idea that they do not feel pain. The students conducting the testing found a correlation between the accuracy of medical students’ precision in pain measurement and the implicit biases they held towards black persons. According to a graph used, participants who held more false presumptions about black bodies were less accurate in quantifying the pain of black patients44. This consequently impacted the efficacy of the treatment of the medical students who were of these stances, effectively decreasing it. Another graph implemented by the authors of this paper shows a negative relationship between the degree of beliefs held, by these medically trained persons, and the proportion of accurate treatments prescribed to black patients. The more inaccurate beliefs a person held, the less accurate their medical dosages were, which supported the hypothesis of the researchers.

Black Americans are systematically given less pain killers than white people. This was exemplified in a study conducted in an Atlanta emergency center. Only fifty-seven percent of the black patients treated for a long bone fracture were administered analgesics, relative to the seventyfour percent of white patients. These patients received the necessary pain medications, whilst experiencing similar symptoms 45. Maltreatment, bias and disregard towards the pain of black people is particularly hazardous to the maintenance of black women’s reproductive health. Child labor and delivery is a particularly excruciating process. Failure to adequately treat a mother’s pain during pregnancy and parturition results in her vulnerability to conditions such as hypertension 46.

Hypertension during these crucial times increases the possibilities of pre-term births and cesarean deliveries47. This puts black women and children, particularly, at a greater risk of: dying, contracting infections, internal damage and blood loss48 . The drastic fates black women, today, are often forced to face during pregnancy and labor are rooted in baseless myths of phenotypic dissimilarities created to further the racist propaganda of the white patriarchy and slavery. The deaths of black women nationwide during child delivery are not isolated events. They are 42

Kelly M. Hoffman et al., “Racial Bias in Pain Assessment and Treatment Recommendations, and False Beliefs about Biological Differences between Blacks and Whites,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, no. 16 (April 19, 2016): 4296–4301, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516047113.

43 Hoffman et al.

44 Hoffman et al.

45 Vence L. Bonham, “Race, Ethnicity, and Pain Treatment: Striving to Understand the Causes and Solutions to the Disparities in Pain Treatment,” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 28, no. 4_suppl (March 2001): 52–68, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2001.tb00039.x.

46 Stephen Bruehl et al., “Prevalence of Clinical Hypertension in Patients With Chronic Pain Compared to Nonpain General Medical Patients,” The Clinical Journal of Pain 21, no. 2 (April 2005): 147.

47 “Preeclampsia and High Blood Pressure During Pregnancy - ACOG,” accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Preeclampsia-and-High-Blood-Pressure-During-Pregnancy.

48 “Preeclampsia and High Blood Pressure During Pregnancy - ACOG.”

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reflections of the structures of an oppressive healthcare system designed to hegemonize and eradicate black bodies.

A study conducted by Lynn Rosenberg and her scientific peers shows correlations between pregnant black women’s perceptions and experiences with racial discrimination and premature births. The study adduces research conducted by Gertrude Berkowitz which concluded that black children are more prone to preterm births and hence have higher mortality rates than white infants49. The authors of this scientific article follow up on these results to determine whether the experiences of prejudice involving the black women surveyed, served as stressors which induced their early parturition. The women were asked whether they had been: treated unfairly in housing, wrongfully victimized by the police, regarded with fear by strangers, or treated as intellectually and socially inferior by another individual. The results showed that women who had experienced discrimination with respects to the circumstances previously stated had unadjusted odds ratios of two and above. The unadjusted odds ratio of this experiment refers to the likelihood that a premature birth will occur. Any value greater than one indicates that depending on the circumstances stipulated, such a birth will be more likely occur. Therefore, the more racial bias a pregnant, black woman experiences in her daily activities, the more prone she is to chronic stress.

This heightens the chances of a premature birth which increases infant and maternal mortality.

The results from this investigative study serve as indicators of how racial oppression negatively impacts black women’s health resulting in the demise of themselves as well as their children.

The daily tribulations black women experience, which involves: having their competence and ability regularly questioned, racialized sexism in the workplace, and criminalization by the media, have cumulative effects on their reproductive well-being. Professor Arline Geronimus conceptualized these correlations with the term “weathering”50 .Weathering refers to the ablation of the body due to excessive distress and it disproportionately affects black people. This in turn increases their susceptibility to hypertension and diabetes 51. There are incontrovertible disparities in quality of life between the black and white experience in America. This explains why 45.7 percent of African-American women are diagnosed with hypertension in comparison to the 31.3 percent of white American women with it52 . Geronimus also theorizes a link between the weathering of black women’s bodies and accelerated ageing at a molecular level. According to a study she undertook in 2010 with her associates, telomeres -nucleotide sequences that impede deterioration of human chromosomes hence delaying ageing- in black women appeared a mean of seven and a half years older than those of white women 53. Studies have shown that advancement in Lynn Rosenberg et al., “Perceptions of Racial Discrimination and the Risk of Preterm Birth,” Epidemiology 13, no.

6 (2002): 646–52.

50 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why,” NPR.org, accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-storyexplains-why.

51 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” 52 “Racism and High Blood Pressure Link Suggested in Research in Black Patients - Cleveland.Com,” accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2013/08/racism_and_high_blood_pressure.html.

53 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why,” NPR.org, accessed December 8, 2018, https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-storyexplains-why.

49

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age increases the risk factors of pregnancy such as pre-eclampsia, a condition developed during pregnancy attributed with high blood pressure and the presence of proteins in urine54. This study thus shows that black women possibly age earlier than white women. Therefore, if older age magnifies health complications associated with pregnancy, black women will experience earlier onsets of complications that white women experience later in their life history. This shows the effects of the stereotypes and controlling images used to ensure the socio-economic stratification of black persons, which thus further marginalize black women. Being a black person in the United States is a turbulent experience; subjecting those identified as black to the incessant dangers of structural and physical violence maintained by the white majority. The inordinate levels of mortality of black mothers, is a public health issue that has been left unaddressed by the state. The minimal attention and efforts being implemented to resolve this dilemma shows how little black women are valued as human beings, to this day, in American society.

The subject of black maternal mortality rates is a prime example of how one’s blackness transcends their economic status and educational attainments, in terms of how they are respected and treated. Serena Williams, a twenty-three time tennis grand-slam champion55, spoke to Vogue magazine on her life-threatening experience with childbirth. The troubling recounts of her pregnancy scare embodies how a black woman’s wealth does not render her immune to the inequities of American healthcare and gynecology. Williams told her interviewer that the day after she delivered her daughter, she began to experience shortness of breath. She immediately presumed it was due to a pulmonary embolism, a clot in a blood vessel56 , which she regularly encountered. Williams informed a nurse that she needed a “CT scan with contrast and IV heparin (a blood thinner) right away” 57. She recalled that the nurse thought her pleas were a bout of disorientation emerging from her pain medication. Initially, her doctors did not completely take heed to her requests. They took an ultrasound of her legs rather than conducting the Computed Tomography scan and administering the drip she requested for. Upon further insistence by Williams, the doctors conducted the scan and found several blood clots in her lungs. This forced them to dispense the drip she had told them to give her from the start. Serena Williams is one of the top athletes in the world, has her own fashion line and an endorsement deal with Nike. The wealth accumulated from her success provided her the means of access to the topmost medical services. Yet, she still fell victim to the implicit biases of medical professionals towards black women. By ignoring her preliminary directions, her medical team disregarded the discomfort she explicitly stated she was in. They invalidated her ability to read her own body, by labelling her complaints as confusion and choosing to give her an ultrasound rather than a CT scan. This perpetuates medical thought from the antebellum era which categorized the black race as intellectually inferior beings who had no sensitivity towards or autonomy of their bodies. The 54

“Preeclampsia: Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatments,” accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.healthline.com/health/preeclampsia#treatment.

55 “Here Are All 23 of Serena Williams’ Grand Slam Titles, in Photos | FOX Sports,” accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.foxsports.com/tennis/gallery/serena-williams-grand-slam-titles-060615.

56 “Pulmonary Embolism (Blood Clot in Lung) Causes & Risk Factors,” accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.webmd.com/lung/what-is-a-pulmonary-embolism.

57 “Serena Williams on Her Pregnancy, Motherhood and Making Her Tennis Comeback - Vogue,” accessed December 8, 2018, https://www.vogue.com/article/serena-williams-vogue-cover-interview-february-2018.

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doctors assuming they knew what was best for Serena was a blatant breach of Serena’s rights as a patient under their care. This nearly lead to her becoming another statistic and victim of racialized maternal mortality in America.

Black women are 243 percent more likely to die from issues pertaining to pregnancy than white women 58. The intersections of one’s race, socio-economic class, and gender identity collectively influence a woman’s access to quality reproductive healthcare. However, a study by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Bureau of Maternal, Infant and Reproductive Health shows that the black identity is the overarching determinant of whose life is prioritized during childbirth. The department examined maternal mortality rates of different races and ethnicities according to their levels of educational achievement. The results showed that 333 out of 10 000 black women, with a college degree or higher, died on average from 2008 to 2012.

White women without a high school diploma, on the other hand, had drastically lower mortality rates of 137.7 per 10 000 women over the four year period59. Therefore, educational status holds little substance in American healthcare with respects to equitable and proper treatment of patients.

Whiteness is still inherently superior to all facets of the black identity, regardless of how hard African-Americans work, academically and occupationally, to be treated as equals. This was the case of Shalon Irving. Shalon Irving worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as an epidemiologist 60. She graduated from her alma mater, Hampton University, summa cum laude and served as an advisor to former first- lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity program, Let’s Move61.

Despite her ranking, Irving still died from easily avoidable post-partum health complications. After delivering her daughter, Irving had developed chronic hypertension, swollen legs, a hematoma, and excessive bloating. Each time she visited her doctor, pre-eclampsia screenings and echocardiograms were ordered, and no test came back positive. Each trip she made, doctors concluded that Shalon’s abnormal symptoms did not indicate any serious health issues. Her doctors and nurse never took her abnormal bodily signs resolutely, despite her constant insistence that “something was wrong”62. Shalon Irving later collapsed and died in her house from heart damage due to hypertension63. This was a condition all her doctors and nurses were aware of but deemed unnecessary to probe for her total well-being. Shalon was a well-to-do and accomplished black woman who dedicated her life to combatting health disparities in the United States. Her death shows that maternal mortality is a respecter of no black woman, regardless of their academic and economic success. Silencing black women’s voices and minimizing their pain is a dangerous institutional tool used to control and eradicate their bodies. Their deaths are a menacing epidemic to black communities in the United States that must be eradicated.

Irving and Williams’ cases are one of many instances that prove the effects of stereotypes associated with black women from the start of American gynecology. These controlling images 58

“Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” Meghan Angley et al., “New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Bureau of Maternal, Infant and Reproductive Health,” n.d., 40.

60 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” 61 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” 62 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” 63 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” 59

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establish the minimal degree of medical care and treatment allocated to black mothers. America’s history of medical racism has created a common sense of distrust of doctors within the black community. Research from the National Public Radio, and two other organizations, reported that twenty-one percent of the black women questioned avoided going to the doctor 64. This circumvention was out of fear of racial discrimination. America has one of the most developed healthcare systems in the world, and ironically the highest maternal mortality rates of all the developed countries 65. This is due to the substantial amount of deaths of pregnant black women. It is evident that black maternal mortalities are a public health issue that deserve urgent attention.

Several steps must then be taken to remedy this crisis. Firstly, it is crucial that medical students are educated on the history of American gynecology and its role in oppressing black women. Medical schools can achieve this by incorporating classes on the history of medical racism into their curricula. Understanding the past brutalities black women were forced to face due to American gynecology, enables doctors to understand their present social experiences and the health vulnerabilities they create. The awareness this produces enables future and present doctors to check their biases and thus effectively fulfill their duty of protecting the black woman’s reproductive health and rights. Hospitals should also mandate regular workshops and seminars on bias, privilege, diversity and inclusion in the health sector. This provides the training necessary to enable doctors to be completely attentive to the concerns of their patients. Hospitals, nationwide, should also effectively penalize doctors who fail to take to heed to their patients’ requests and distress based on their implicit prejudices. Another strategy to protect the reproductive well-being of black women is state legislation for insurance coverage of doulas. Doulas are trained individuals who assist women through the childbirth process. Insurance coverage for doulas is particularly important to black women because they serve as advocates for the mothers to their doctors66. Their coaching and advocacy have been found to lessen odds of pre-term birth by twenty-two percent67.

Most importantly, it is essential that collective measures are taken by medical professionals and the privileged white majority to ensure that black women are never dispossessed of their agency.

Works Cited .Angley, Meghan, Carla Clark, Renata Howland, Hannah Searing, Wendy Wilcox, Sang Hee Won, George Askew, et al. “New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Bureau of Maternal, Infant and Reproductive Health,” n.d., 40.

“Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” NPR.org.

Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dyingafter-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why.

64

“U.S. Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World,” NPR.org, accessed March 19, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world.

65 “Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” 66 “Fostering Access To Doula Care Could Save Black Babies And Mamas’ Lives,” accessed March 19, 2019, https://blavity.com/fostering-access-to-doula-care-could-save-black-babies-and-mamas-lives.

67 Katy B. Kozhimannil et al., “Modeling the Cost-Effectiveness of Doula Care Associated with Reductions in Preterm Birth and Cesarean Delivery,” Birth 43, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 20–27, https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12218.

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“Black Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving’s Story Explains Why.” NPR.org.

Accessed December 8, 2018. https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keepdying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why.

Bonham, Vence L. “Race, Ethnicity, and Pain Treatment: Striving to Understand the Causes and Solutions to the Disparities in Pain Treatment.” The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 28, no.

4_suppl (March 2001): 52–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2001.tb00039.x.

Bruehl, Stephen, Ok Yung Chung, James N. Jirjis, and Sujatha Biridepalli. “Prevalence of Clinical Hypertension in Patients With Chronic Pain Compared to Nonpain General Medical Patients.”

The Clinical Journal of Pain 21, no. 2 (April 2005): 147. https://journals.lww.com/clinicalpain/Abstract/2005/03000/Prevalence_of_Clinical_Hypertension_i n_Patients.6.aspx “Fostering Access To Doula Care Could Save Black Babies And Mamas’ Lives.” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://blavity.com/fostering-access-to-doula-care-could-save-black-babies-and-mamaslives.

“Here Are All 23 of Serena Williams’ Grand Slam Titles, in Photos | FOX Sports.” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.foxsports.com/tennis/gallery/serena-williams-grand-slam-titles-060615.

Hoffman, Kelly M., Sophie Trawalter, Jordan R. Axt, and M. Norman Oliver. “Racial Bias in Pain Assessment and Treatment Recommendations, and False Beliefs about Biological Differences between Blacks and Whites.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, no. 16 (April 19, 2016): 4296–4301. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1516047113.

Kozhimannil, Katy B., Rachel R. Hardeman, Fernando Alarid-Escudero, Carrie A. Vogelsang, Cori Blauer-Peterson, and Elizabeth A. Howell. “Modeling the Cost-Effectiveness of Doula Care Associated with Reductions in Preterm Birth and Cesarean Delivery.” Birth 43, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/birt.12218.

OWENS, DEIRDRE COOPER. “BLACK WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN SLAVERY AND MEDICINE.” In Medical Bondage, 42–72. Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. University of Georgia Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.7.

———. “CONTESTED RELATIONS:: Slavery, Sex, and Medicine.” In Medical Bondage, 73–88.

Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. University of Georgia Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.8.

———. “HISTORICAL BLACK SUPERBODIES AND THE MEDICAL GAZE.” In Medical Bondage, 108–22. Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. University of Georgia Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.10.

———. “INTRODUCTION: AMERICAN GYNECOLOGY AND BLACK LIVES.” In Medical Bondage, 1–14. Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. University of Georgia Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.5.

———. “THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN GYNECOLOGY.” In Medical Bondage, 15–41. Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. University of Georgia Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt69x.6.

“Preeclampsia and High Blood Pressure During Pregnancy - ACOG.” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Preeclampsia-and-High-Blood-Pressure-During-Pregnancy.

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“Preeclampsia: Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatments.” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.healthline.com/health/preeclampsia#treatment.

“Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System | Maternal and Infant Health | CDC,” January 16, 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pregnancy-mortalitysurveillance-system.htm.

“Pulmonary Embolism (Blood Clot in Lung) Causes & Risk Factors.” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.webmd.com/lung/what-is-a-pulmonary-embolism.

“Racism and High Blood Pressure Link Suggested in Research in Black Patients Cleveland.Com.” Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2013/08/racism_and_high_blood_pressure.html.

Rosenberg, Lynn, Julie R. Palmer, Lauren A. Wise, Nicholas J. Horton, and Michael J. Corwin.

“Perceptions of Racial Discrimination and the Risk of Preterm Birth.” Epidemiology 13, no. 6 (2002): 646–52.

“Serena Williams on Her Pregnancy, Motherhood and Making Her Tennis Comeback - Vogue.”

Accessed December 8, 2018. https://www.vogue.com/article/serena-williams-vogue-cover-interviewfebruary-2018.

“U.S. Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World.” NPR.org. Accessed March 19, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternaldeaths-in-the-developed-world.

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Performativity in the Black Barber Shop: Barbershop Talk, Culture, and Conspicuous Consumption Jade Polly Class of 2019 Sitting across from Tony, as CNN covers President Donald Trump’s arrival to North Carolina, we began to talk about the history of Anderton’s barber shop and the black community that surrounds it. Tony, in his mid-fourties, began barbering in 1989.

“Has the shop or community changed over the past thirty years?,” I asked.

Tony responded, “The shop has been the same. Nothing added, but the front chairs...It used to be packed-all the time, but them days were over...We came here two weeks before Christmas in ‘95, so imma say 96. When we came here, we had six men, four women. And it was jumpin.’ But see the haircuts back then changed. Totally. It’s not the same as it is now. ”68 I nodded and asked, “What motivated you to start barbering?” He revealed his mother paid for his barbering license because there were too many people coming to his house for a haircut. “My goal wasn’t to be here this long. My goal was to stay five years..See in the 90s that’s when the money hit, and the money was good. It was so much free-money. Everyone had money. I started cutting hair in 89’ and..that’s when all the drug dealers were making money...They would come in and give you $100[for a haircut], and you’d reach to give them change and they were like, “Nah.” Back then you might have a guy come in two-three times a week to get a haircut..Haircut one day, shape-up another day, know what Im sayin’? Might get their beard done the next day. It’s just not like that no more.”69 Introduction Black barber shops are significant community institutions. A barber shop is more than a place to get a haircut, as Tony, owner of Anderton’s Barbershop explained, “we have to be the lawyers, the counselor, doctors, fathers. It’s never just a cut.”70 However, after two months of ethnographic research, I have come to understand that black conspicuous consumption is inherently linked to the wealth gap in the black community. From examining black performativity of class, I asked: How does the black barbershop act as a space to understand the performance of blackness? What can the political economy of the Black barbershop tell us about the economy of the black community? I analyzed two black barber shops, Tom’s and Anderton’s barbershop, as case studies. The purpose of this research is to better understand black performativity and the recycling of capital within the black community through the ritual of barbering. The economic sustainability of the black barber shop depends on location and community connections which cultivates and allows the presence of black privacy in public spaces, where social and cultural capital is the point of departure. West-End barber shops have become an index and bridge between understanding the economy of the black community as it relates to aesthetic performance through immoral and cultural consumerism (Ramsey 2003).

The Historic West-End 68

September 19th, 9:28a, Anderton’s Barbershop Ibid.

70 October 8th, 2018, 9:45am, Tom’s Barbershop 69

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In the 1960s and 70s, urban renewal destroyed Charlotte’s largest black neighborhood, Brooklyn. Brooklyn, now known as Second Ward, was a thriving black commercial center, “an African American city-within-the-city” (Hanchett 1998, 271). The destruction of Brooklyn created an influx of black Americans, along the Beatties Ford Rd corridor, into black neighborhoods such as Biddleville and McCrorey Heights, also known as the Historic West-End, and eventually white neighborhoods- Smallwood, Seversville, and Wesley Heights (UNCC Special Collections). These neighborhoods became predominantly black as more blacks moved in causing whites to flee.

Black residents that once could afford to buy homes in the west-end, now struggled to keep them.

As new homes are built and newcomers flood the west-end, the value of black homes are increasing, and black people are either forced to sell or experience foreclosure. Dan, West Charlotte alum and barber, explains, “my home was my parents’ home. Everyone here was not able to keep a hold of their family’s property.”71 The West-End is the heart of Charlotte, historically. The Beatties Ford Rd corridor was once known as the “River of Life.” Similar to Brooklyn, it was self-sufficient, educated, safe, communal, and the place everyone wanted to be (Gailard 1990).“It was a time where you did not have to leave the West-Side, because the west-side had everything,” said J.C., 47, a current resident. “The west-side is truly the epitome of Charlotte’s African American culture from the ‘50s forward,” says E. Davis, 57, co-owner of One Way, “prior to that, old places like the Cherry community and the Brooklyn community, where my parents come from, were the older stronger black neighborhoods.”72 As those communities were gentrified, and residents were displaced, many moved to the Beatties Ford Rd corridor. The strength and excellence of those black communities cultivated in those neighborhoods. In addition, Black excellence also referred to black business owners and teachers that were considered pillars in the community. Along the Beatties Ford corridor were all black owned businesses from Mr. Phillips, the community pharmacist to Dr. Webers, the dentist to Dr. Rand and Dr. Nash, medical practitioners. Despite the problem of gentrification in the West-End, black businesses, specifically black barber shops, were and remain thriving within this community.

Background To fully understand the black barber shop as a site of performance, we first have to understand how it became a significant institution for the black community.

Black barbering From enslavement to emancipation, black American barbers and hairstylists have formed the majority of entrepreneurs in the black American community (DuBois 1995, 100).

During the Antebellum period, black barbers, free and enslaved, groomed masters and slaves.

Because black barbers were only to groom white men, the event of grooming black men took place on their porches or in their homes. Black barbers benefited economically from white patronage, however, this patronage soon was expected to re-create the master-slave relationship. White patrons wanted to have absolute control over who the black barber serviced entirely (Bristol 2009).

71 72

June 27th, 2017,11:30a, Underground Barbershop Ibid.

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Once whites began to push for more control and black barbers gained enough power from their trade, they were able to regain their business as sole-owners with full control. The more autonomy they acquired, the more barbers were able to service the black community(Harris-Perry 2004).

In the nineteenth century, black barbering was an elite occupation; black men labored and monopolized the profession through providing service to wealthy whites, usually businessmen and politicians. Black barber shops that catered to white clientele were the more prosperous (Bristol 2009; Mills 2013). After World War Two, the barber shop was the main place in society that was active in the movement to “desegregation” and the black freedom struggle (Mills 2013). Blacks utilized barbering not only to achieve economic freedom but also personal freedom (Bristol 2009).

Barbers distinguished themselves in society which aided the sustainability of their shops today.

While antebellum blacks overall were moving from slavery to freedom, black barbers already had begun to altar their identity to “create a status of privilege and social aspirations”(Bristol 2009, 9).

The black barber shops Given the reality of the West-End, I decided to focus on Tom’s barber and styling shop and Anderton’s barber shop: two shops that are well-known and revered in the community. Tom’s barber shop is a stand-alone shop located on Lasalle St. along Beatties Ford Rd within the University Park shopping center. Anderton’s Barber shop is a shop located along the strip of University Park shopping center located along Beatties Ford Rd. The shop stands between CVS and Food Lion. Tom’s and Anderton’s are approximately 528 ft(0.1 miles) apart. Their close proximity allowed me to gain a better understanding of the economic conditions and history of the community.

Tom’s barber and styling shop has been open since 1983. Mr. Tom, the owner and founder, originally came out of Taylor’s barbershop, located in the place of Anderton’s before Mr. Taylor remodeled and sold it. Tom’s has impacted the community through mentorship, discount cuts, and apprenticeship. The shop serves as “a historical site. People hear and know about the shop from prison to the churches to the overall community.”73 Mr. Tom believed in community; “he cared for everyone.”74 He pushed to pay his barbers $15,000-$20,000/year and desired to pass the business onto his grandson. Though offered $250,000 for his shop, Mr. Tom refused to sell it because the family created from the shop meant more than the money. The setup of the shop supported the values and environment that was fostered.

Tom’s shop has five barbers. Their booths are parallel to the chairs for customers. Above the customers, there hung a “wall of greatness.” It featured photographs of black athletes and historical figures such as the Obama family, the Negro baseball league and Michael Jordan. Above the entrance, there was a sign of a woman pleading over a body reading “Stop the Killing” as well as calendars for the Panthers’ games, haircut guides, and prices. Booths held important familial ties such as photos of loved ones and obituaries. There was a television tuned into CNN which directed the conversation taking place amongst barbers and patrons. Tom’s shop is nothing less than history and community from the barbers to the aesthetic of the shop.75 73

October 8th, 2018, 9:45am, Tom’s Barbershop Ibid.

75 September 28th, 11:45a, Tom’s Barbershop 74

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Unlike Tom’s, Anderton’s barber shop was more modern in it’s setup, however, it held communal history. Anderton’s barber shop opened in 1996, owned by two brothers, Don and Nat, originally from Halifax County,Weldon, NC. Their first shop was located on Statesville Rd before relocating to Beatties Ford Rd.76 Anderton’s is a shop of ten barbers. When it first opened, there was six men barbers and 4 women barbers; now there is six men barbers and two women. The waiting area has a TV to entertain customers. The windows of the shop were decorated with flyers for local clubs, stores, salons, churches, and voter information. The shop environment of was relaxed and easygoing,, however, it is not as family-oriented as Tom’s. Anderton’s is unique because of its purposeful close involvement with the community. Over the years, Anderton’s has held customer appreciation cookouts, which were the largest events held in neighborhood park.

Every election year, Anderton’s hold voter literacy and registration by bringing Mayor Barnes and other councilmen to rally and encourage patrons to vote.77 In previous years, Anderton’s has carpooled residents down to city hall to register and vote.78 Methodology From September to November 2018, I visited both Anderton’s and Tom’s barber shop located in the West-End in Charlotte near Johnson C. Smith University. I spoke with eight barbers, two from Tom’s and six from Anderton’s. However, I spoke in-depth with two of the eight barbers (one from each shop; Mr. Anthony and Tony). Though I spoke in-depth with only two barbers, other barbers offered and qualified historical information. I spent between one and two and half hours at each location for two-three days throughout the week. I mostly conducted research on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I went various times of the day for each shop in order to qualify if the dynamic of the space and engagement changed. I specifically examined the space during opening, peak hours, and closing. When I was not speaking with specific barbers, I observed and engaged in conversations with patrons of the shop. I purposefully dressed as a member of the West-End community by wearing sneakers, athletic brands, and changing my hair often. The observations offered a thicker description of the setting and the “code of conduct” within the shops. In order to further my analysis on conspicuous consumption, I particularly spent a few hours observing the shop from the outside to gain an idea of customer’s and barber’s class from their transportation. Conspicuous consumption, from Thorstein Veblen’s theory of leisure, is the competitive outrageous consumption practices and the demonstration of something symbolic that is more immaterial (Reed 2013). I also noted fashion aesthetics, specifically brands of shoes, clothes, and fine jewelery. This part also relied on the conversation or indirect statements about spending habits.

Literature Review Black Americans entrepreneurial progress and community building has proven their success(Bristol 2009). Bristol (2009) draws on archival research and historical repositories to explain the value in the research of the black barber shop. The black barbershop must be 76

September 19th, 9:28a, Anderton’s Barbershop Ibid.

78 Ibid.

77

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understood through the barbers-patron relationship and race-community dynamic. Studies on how black people interpret their racial experience often relates to their duality in public and private spaces. DuBois (1903) defines the term “double consciousness” as blacks’ feeling of being separated from and a part of the mainstream. This duality references the black person being judged and examined as of the black race, holistically and not individually. From their double consciousness, blacks often feel the obligation to represent for their whole race, or perform in a respectable race when in the presents of the white audience. However, other blacks have responded by refusal to conforming and set values and practices in opposition to whites.

Previous studies have shown that the black barber shop is a place where men can exist without societal projections of hypersexuality, violence, and lack of education (Alexander 2003; Mills 2005), while other studies have focused on the spatiality of the black barbershop (HarrisPerry 2004; Mills 2013). Quincy Mills (2013) argues that the black barber and barber shop are “conduits of Black community formation and national belonging”(254). Mill’s sociological research, conducted through archival research, interviews, and quantitative research (charts, cartography) examines the intersection of masculinity, culture, commerce, and politics. Bryant Alexander (2003) understands the barber shop as a “cultural site” that aids cultural exchanges between those in the Black community through the confluence of hair care, the talking culture, and black people by utilizing performance studies and signifying79 to highlight different ways in cultural currency is exchanged.80 Using double consciousness to understand the black patron and barber as consumers, I draw on Thorstein Veblen’s (2013) theory of the leisure class, specifically conspicuous consumption. Conspicuous Consumption refers to competitive, outrageous consumption practices and the demonstration of something symbolic that is more immaterial (Reed 2013). Within the black community, there are increasing importances of immaterial experiences over material things that relate to the performance of being of a superior social class (Fitchett and Georgios 2012). The black consumer’s duality is a direct response to this obligation to have material things that signifies wealth but actually holds no wealth value. The performance of class is an attempt to reject the duality and appear of an higher economical status.

Analysis From the conversations and observations in Tom’s and Anderton’s Barbershop, three overarching themes emerged: first, the black community has achieved cultural freedom at the expense of economic freedom; second, the black community rejects double consciousness through excessive consumerism; and third, the cycling of capital from barbers and patrons benefit other local communities in the surrounding area. While existing studies conceptualize the black barber shop as a place blacks can be their “true selves,” I argue that it also is a space where the re-making of blackness and class is performed. The barber shop acts a vernacular space, similar to the See Henry Louis Gates Jr. 1988, The Signifying Monkey Alexander references cultural currency through Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to suggest the “different forms of cultural knowledge--such as language, modes of social interaction and meaning, are valued hierarchically in society”(106). Cultural currency refers to the circulation of information that adds to the collective knowledge of relationships, space, and time.

79 80

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“community theater” as Guthrie Ramsey (2003) might suggest. A vernacular space is “a public and private space that provides audiences with a place to negotiate with others--in a highly visible way-what cultural expressions mean”(77). The barber shop as a vernacular space where the vernacular is negotiated helps to understand the spatiality of the black barber shop as performance, where class transcendence occurs. The black barber shop is a space where visible signals of high status can be substantiated by the larger black community.

One day in Anderton’s, as I waited to speak with Tony, a black man pulled up in front of the shop in a 2017 black Mustang with dark tints, clean rims and Tee Grizzley “100 shots” blasting.

He left his car running and music blasting and walked into the shop to a barber. He wore a gold chain and Timberland boots. As he left the shop, a few local guys stopped to speak to him and see inside of his car. Before pulling off, he pushed on the gas for everyone to hear the sound of his mufflers and then “skrrr’d” off.81 I was reminded of a conversation with J.C., a current resident in Niki’s Food Shop back in 2017, he explained, These n*ggas out here ain’t got no motherf*cking money because they don’t know what to do with any motherf*cking money...they are going to misappropriate it and buy 30-inch f*cking rims to put on a 12 year old car.82 Though the man’s car wasn’t old, I believe J.C.’s statement still holds. Paul Gilroy (2010) explains that blacks desire to participate in the market through buying and enjoying things that were denied to them has subjugated themselves and “their agency through their social life as consumers rather than as citizens (10-11). Black American consumption of automobiles and shoes reproduces racial and class hierarchy by forcing blacks to buy into this desire for “luxury.” In addition, the man with the 2017 Mustang serves as an example of how racial performance acts as a way of constructing a “respectable” identity and signifier of wealth and higher class status.

On a Friday, as I waited in the barber shop, a single mother brought her two sons, age 2 and 3, in for a haircut around 3:05pm. The mother was in her mid-20s. Her son’s engaged in dialogue with me, which soon turned into dialogue with their mother.“Hey,” the 3 year old boy waved at me. His younger brother echoed him, “What you doin’?”[sic] I waved back and smiled at the boys. The mother, with neon orange acrylic nails and long lash extensions, began to talk about her plans for the day. It was the youngest boy’s 2nd birthday which she explained. The youngest began to point at another child in the shop, who was watching “Peppa Pig” on an iPhone and told his mother, “He got phone.”[sic] His mother replied, “Mommy used all her data.” She dug in her purse and handed him her other phone.

“I gotta get their haircut every couple weeks. If not once a month, or they gonna be cryin’ from them naps,”[sic] she said. I chuckled and nodded. The mother began to comment out loud about planning her son’s birthday party and anticipating to spend $100 on each of her sons aside from the party’s cost. She further jokingly stated how she hoped the following day she’d be able to get her nails done if her sons were not bothering her. Before leaving the shop, she loudly told her sons, “lucky we ain’t got no time to get ya ears pierced.” The mother’s public expression of wealth is inherently linked to seeking public attention and approval. She rejected the sterotype of being an impoverished single mother by clarifying her finances. In addition, her desire to display her son’s 81 82

Sept. 29th, 12:10p, Anderton’s June 27th, 2017, 11:30a, Niki’s Food Shop

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always have the best or can have what other children have speaks to the competitive nature of conspicuous consumption. Racial performativity is investing social meaning to the body: the mother inscribed meaning to her social class through public claims of money.(Johnson 2003) Overall, the man’s and mother’s class and racial performativity is at the expense of real financial freedom. Now, binded by societal standards of “wealth,” it places them in a position to further be discriminated against and marginalized. In addition, the lack of knowledge on spending proves streotypes of black financial illiteracy.

The Political Economy of the barber shop The barber shop industry comprises establishments that are primarily engaged in cutting, trimming, and styling hair and beards. According to the 2017 Industry Market Research Report, from 2012 to 2017, the industry has increased revenue at an annualized rate of 1.9% to $3.7 billion. The increased industry, also benefiting from the Hollywood depictions of barber shops, has provided shops with a larger customer base. In comparison to 2012, barbers are generating more money per person. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 680 North Carolina barbers are employed with an annual mean wage $28,610 (May 2017). For this section, I will be referencing the cultural capital exchanged for economic capital that takes place within the barber shop. The black barber shop being a place where the barber must wear many hats, such as “counselors, attorneys, pastors, fathers.”83 Anderton’s and Tom’s barber shop are not only recipients of economic capital, but they are also givers. The cycle of the political economy of the two shops relates to the cycling of money between patrons, barbers, owners, beauty supply stores, food places, informal salesperson (referring to people selling items in the barber shop) and the shopping center.

Mr. Anthony spoke to me about the intertwined relationship with customers that moved beyond the haircut.

This is a family place. Customers would come in and show appreciation for us. Bringing us lunch, monetary gifts etc. We helped raise our families in here. We brought our children here and disciplined them all collectively..Mr. Tom created a place where the environment was family-friendly and respected the time of it’s customers.84 As I sat in Tom’s, I listened to Ms. Cora, the woman barber and stylist, speak with a customer.

The customer stated, “I need my hair did. Can I get it dyed here?”[sic] Mrs. Cora finishing up the coloring process on an older man, advised the woman to go buy a color from Buy Wise, the beauty supply store behind the shop. The circulation of capital between barbers, customers, and local businesses speaks to the process of wanting services at a barbershop impacts the business around that shop. Another example refers to the barbers purchasing snacks from the Food Lion next door. The sweeper at Anderton’s took request from barbers as he was going to walk next door for a juice and snacks.85 Barber shop and other businesses, in this case, the beauty supply store and Food Lion are not independent of one another: financially they are connected. The more time I spent at Anderton’s and Tom’s, the easier it became to understand the economy of 83

October 8th, 9:15a, Tom’s barbershop “Mr. Tom’s always had this policy because he didn’t like having someone come in and have to wait for hours and someone walk in and automatically get a seat.” October 8th, 9:15a, Tom’s barbershop 85 September 19th, 9:28a, Anderton’s Barbershop 84

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the shop in relation to the shopping center. I also learned that the barber shop is ranked by quality but also prices. Tony explained that because of affordability, quality, and location, sustaining the barber shop in comparison to No Grease, which is another main stream cosmopolitian barber shop, was doable.

It’s like thirty dollars for a haircut at No Grease. When you in college you can’t pay no thirty dollars a week. So a lot of em[JCSU students] either go there or come up here because we the closest grocery store. So when they see us here, they start coming. It’s just when they aint got no money they don’t come. Or just come and get a shape-up for a party.86[sic] In Anderton’s, a shape-up costs about five to seven dollars. In Tom’s, a shape-up costs five dollars.

Tom has a set rate for haircuts with in the shop; however, though Anderton’s has a standard, it fluctuates based on the barber. Joe, a barber at Anderton’s, explained that in comparison to D.C. the prices at Anderton’s are cheaper. “The prices have increased over the years, but they can still be better.”87 After 3 months in the field, I understand that location, state and community, influence the set prices for the shop, which impacts the flow of customers and capital.

Implication Though there exists research on the black barber shop, most of the work is not recent. The pre-existing research looks at the barber shop as only economic, in terms of the business, or only cultural, in terms of the barber-patron dynamic. My research does not separate the two but address the interconnectedness between each other. Many of the observations and dialogues presented in this paper prove stereotypes of the black community, however, it should also be noted that the decline of the economical structure, stability, and financial knowledge impacted the economic status of the black community in the West-end. The importance of this research is not to highlight the stereotypes of the black West-end community, however, it is meant to understand: one, that the black barber shop is more than a lens for black culture; two, capital is recycled within the black community; and three, the political economy of the U.S. since 1971 has continually impacted the economic stability and growth of the black community.

In addition, there are a few possible limitations to this research. First, I must address my gender. Similar to Harris-Perry (2004), as a woman in a “male-dominated” space, it is unsure if my presence is altering the dynamic. However, at times the female barbers were working, which in comparison to me, the only woman in the shop, the environment was fairly the same. Second, I must acknowledge the location of the shops. Because both shops are in the same shopping center, approximately 528 ft(0.1 mi) from each other, I believe it helps support my claims about the cycling of capital as well as the aesthetic qualities of the patrons. Also both shops act as qualifiers for historical information received from the other. Both provide two different experiences within a black barber shop that services multi-generational black people. I also understand that I speak about the patrons as all being residents of the West-End community. However, this broad statement serves to address those that are a part of the community that moved away, attend JCSU, or are current residents.

86 87

September 19th, 9:28a, Anderton’s Barbershop November 30th, 10:32a, Anderton’s Barbershop

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Work Cited Alexander, Bryant. 2003. “Fading, Twisting, and Weaving: An Interpretive Ethnography of the Black Barbershop as Cultural Space.” Qualitative Inquiry 9 (1): 105–28.

Biddleville Collection, 1983, 1985, Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

Bristol, Douglas Walter. 2009. Knights of the Razor : Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom. 1 online resource (x, 216 pages) : illustrations vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3318538.

Bronson, Rod. 2006.”Cuttin’ Up 4 You: The Role of Barbershops in African American Communities.” Hidden Assets : Connecting the Past to the Future of St. Louis. [St. Louis]: Missouri Historical Society Press. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip066/2006000215.html.

Du Bois, W. E. B. 2007. The Philadelphia Negro : A Social Study. 1 online resource (362 pages) : illustrations, vols. Oxford W.E.B. Du Bois. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1657795.

Fitchett, James A., and Georgios Patsiaouras. 2012. “The Evolution of Conspicuous Consumption.” Journal of Historical Research in Marketing 4 (1): 154–76. https://doi.org/10.1108/17557501211195109.

Gailard, F. “ Beatties Ford Road- 1990.” The African American Album: The Black Experience in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. Vol. 2. Charlotte, NC: Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, 1990.

Gilroy, Paul. 2010. Darker than Blue : On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture. The W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. http://bvbr.bibbvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=019007804&line_number=0001 &func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA. Hanchett, Thomas W. 1998. Sorting out the New South City : Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975. 1 online resource (xv, 380 pages) : illustrations, maps vols.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=41320.

Harris-Perry, Melissa V. 2004. Barbershops, Bibles, and BET : Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/prin051/2003055452.html.

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Historic Charlotte Neighborhoods, Special Collections. Department of Special Collections & University Archives, UNCC Charlotte, Charlotte, N.C. Johnson, E. Patrick. 2003. Appropriating Blackness : Performance and the Politics of Authenticity.

Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10207687.

Marberry, Craig. 2005. Cuttin’ up : Wit and Wisdom from Black Barber Shops. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0618/2004058213-s.html.

Mills, Quincy T. 2013. Cutting along the Color Line : Black Barbers and Barber Shops in America. 1st ed. 1 online resource (319 pages) vols. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3442271.

Nunley, Vorris. 2011. Keepin’ It Hushed : The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric. 1 online resource (viii, 214 pages). vols. African American Life Series. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3416413.

Ramsey, Guthrie P., ed. 2003. “‘It Just Stays with Me All of the Time’:” In Race Music, 1st ed., 76–95. Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. University of California Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pp8bj.8.

Reed, David and David Widger. 2013. “Conspicuous Consumption.” The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorstein Veblen.” Project Gutenberg.

Shabazz, David L. 2016. “Barbershops as Cultural Forums for African American Males.” Journal of Black Studies 47 (4): 295–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934716629337.

Wright, E. 1998. “More Than Just a Haircut: Sociability Within the Urban African American Barbershop.” CHALLENGE -ATLANTA- 9 (1): 1–14.

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To Dream of a Motherland: The Authenticity and Longevity of Black Artistic Movements Maurice Norman Class of 2020 This paper will explore black artistry diversified and varied within the Ghanaian and AfricanAmerican membership of the Global African Diaspora88. I examine the political and social performance of Ghanaian art and how its utility reflects, in acute comparison, to the Harlem Renaissance. The prolific flare of black art hailed into the 1920s before wilting into the Great Depression a decade later. However, the movement served not only to help construct African American identity, but also reclaim its African origins, acquiring the name “The New Negro Movement.” I am interested in the ways in which black artists utilize the historical context of Ghana in formation of their artistic platforms. I narrow in on Sankofa society, a movement that protected Ghanaian identity in both Africa and America. I note the trans-diasporal quality of the shared Sankofan culture. Africana Studies takes as its disciplinary point of departure the idea that there is an African diaspora, either real or imagined. I draw on Kim D. Butler’s Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse and texts by W.E.B. Du Bois to contextualize the African diaspora into macro, intercontinental and micro, nation-wide movements. By looking at the nature of diasporan study, and the trends that consistently assume black inferiority, we can begin to form some tentative conclusions about the utility of black art in relation to identity. I would argue that the inherent close proximity to the “oneness” of a motherland influences the underlying significance of Ghanaian art.

African American art reflects a narrative that differs in severity and brutality, casting its inhabitants into the condition of tenuous identity, rooted in unfamiliar African suggestions. Consequently, the American Negro practiced intellectual expression, via artistic movements, to write a counter narrative that respectively unlearns the derogatory rhetoric surrounding the black identity. However, with a more tangible connection to a common heritage, Ghanaian art reflects inherently more resilient facets of black identity, further illuminating the African American’s potential removal from the diaspora.

By challenging the definition of the African Diaspora, one could argue that the intercontinental dispersal of black populations forcibly severed the community into multiple distinct sub-continental bodies. Furthermore, when distinguishing the range of sub-populations within the diaspora, one uncovers blacks peppered across the globe: Central and South America, Europe, and Canada. The wide spread scattering of black bodies limits the efficacy of comparison. The current discourse surrounding the diaspora reports that “fewer and fewer people are today living in the long of their ancestors” (Butler 190). The African American narrative illuminates the forcible removal of black bodies thrust into perpetual dehumanization within the institution of slavery. The 1600s highlights removal and retention of African culture, and the premature birth of the African American. Chapter 3 of Du Bois’s The Philadelphia Negro depicts the early image of slaves into America, cloaked in criminal activity as a “barbarous people forced to labor in a strange land” 88

I inform the reader not to assume that by removing myself from the African-American I equip a mentality similar to Du Bois in The Philadelphia Negro, “above the color line”, peering in with absolute critique. Rather, I speak through a diasporan lense, modifying my addressed subjects into third parties.

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(Philadelphia 9). The African American begins their primary cultivation in “felonies, pauperism, and other heinous crimes” (Philadelphia 9). Onlookers juxtapose the primitive display of early chattel slavery to the historical context of Ghana. During the 1500s, the early colonization of Ghana erected numerous slave castles alongside the West African Gold Coast. Ghana becomes a site for the physical commodification of a black bodies. Such context challenges Africana scholars to reexamine the unity within the African diaspora. African American artistic movements reflect a narrative incomparable to the inhabitants of their far removed ancestral identity.

The current discourse surrounding the African diaspora establishes newfound parameters around the ways we categorize the international diasporan community. Instead of viewing diaspora in terms of individual populations, we must examine the interactions between and within communities. Labels on the performance and consequences of specific imperial or conquering diaspora allow for greater analysis into the condition of the African American. Butler initializes a comparative study of diaspora. The process interrogates “four [primary] dimensions”: 1) “the reasons for and conditions of the relocation; (2) relationships with the homeland; (3) relationships with the hostlands; and (4) interrelationships within the diasporan group” (Butler 209). The stated conditions allow for two communities to exist underneath the same diaspora. (1) The African American became subjected to global forces that forcibly removed the population into the Americas.

(2) The 1600s highlighted the first displays of resistance, displayed in crime, idleness, and pauperism.

Such actions alluded to the psychological rejection of the forced migration. (3) The African American must navigate the hostland while subjugated, ensuring a psychological toll, alluded to in various slave narratives89. The influence of the previous three characteristics affects the African American’s (4) interrelationships within the diasporan group. While inherently carrying traits of the African diaspora, in blood, in title, and distant memory, the physical separation perpetuates an acute alienation from the overall community. Furthermore, ethnographic research conducted by Africana scholars90 demands a newly composed list of the defining characteristics, namely: “dispersal to two or more locations, collective mythology of homeland, alienation from hostland, idealization of return to homeland, and an ongoing relationship with homeland” (Butler 191). Characteristics revolve around the idea that ethnic communities carry an inherent, instinctual desire to return to the “oneness” of a motherland. This contemporary point of departure allows us to examine the ways in which the African American subject contextualizes its intangible or psychological connections to Africa. The after-effects of chattel slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction Era bled into the South and migrated into the North. The African American’s immutable historical context became a North Carolinian Jim Crow laws or the sordid Ghettos of Harlem, New York.

The production of art within the 1920 Harlem Renaissance served not only to help construct African American identity, but also reclaim its African origins, acquiring the name “The New Negro Movement.” The response introduced what will be hailed as the cultural mecca of black art in New York. Harlem communities began to produce tangible expressions of emotion, be it pain, joy, Iconic and canonized slave narratives such as Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl produce linear representations of liberation, physical chains to physical freedom, and furthermore 89

juxtapose “black flesh” with the disillusion of black health and recovery. However, while texts address the rotten and “cured” physicality of slavery, the psychological damage and residual effects of mental subjugation remained heavily underrepresented in slave narratives.

90 Kim D. Butler; William Safran

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lament, etc. Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen spearheaded new conventions of practicing and performing poetry, utilizing diasporic rhetoric to pronounce sentiments of nostalgia and yearning of a motherland. Hughes’s practice of careful diction and utility of a collective “we” serves not only to localize the subject while simultaneously evoking notions of unity. Hughes performs similar techniques in “the opening line of ‘Proem’ to The Weary Blues volume as a whole: ‘I am a Negro.’”

The “Negro” reappears in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”, “Lament for Dark Peoples”, and the “Epilogue.” Hughes’s “I” encompasses a vast body of history surrounding specifically the African diaspora, black bodies that have “swept Caesar’s doorstep, brushed Washington’s boots, built the pyramids, erected the Woolworth building,” and so-on (Henzy). Techniques administered similar to Hughes’s efforts aided in the reclamation of African American identity and a tenuous connection back to tenuous African roots.

Sankofa, a Ghanaian artistic movement geared towards authenticating, protecting, and dispersing of Ghanaian identity, combats the dissemination of international slave while showcasing displays of ethnonationalism, unique to Ghana’s historical context. Originally, Sankofa aimed to preserve the rich African culture during the widespread colonization of international slave trade.

During the 1500s, colonial provinces in Ghana erected numerous slave castles alongside the West African Gold Coast. Ghana became an export site for the physical commodification of a black bodies. While the African American’s conception entered directly into inferiority, the Ghanaian practiced an adulterated form of social and racial superiority. Moreover, the anomalous mass of enslaved black bodies included Africans from the entire West Coast, not excluded the Ghanaians own residents. Local enslavement alludes to the presence of tribalism riddled within Ghana’s society. Regardless, Ghana could not prevent the efficacy of the slave trade from transporting its own Ghanaian residents. Therefore, the Sankofan artistic movement rose in response to the forcible movement of the African diaspora. Ghanaian representatives, named the Adinkira, began to spread “the rich cultural [Ghanaian] heritage by using pictorial images to convey the wisdom of Akan life.”

The Akan produced intricate symbols, similar to the Western usage of stools91, as vehicles for cultural retention. Christel N. Temple, an Africana scholar at the University of Maryland, states that early Sankofan symbols “evolved among the U.S. populations of African descent who ancestors experienced enslavements … because its wisdom offers a solution to reconstituting the fragmented past” (128). Here scholars can examine the presence of psychological liberation, bodies physically enslaved in America while mentally rehabilitating a connection with Africa. However, the Ghanaian can enact a limited level of preventative control in America; Sankofan practices become heavily susceptible to Western appropriation. Evidence suggest the Sankofan “bird” distributed by the enslaved Ghanaian became a key symbol in African American art and film (Temple 134). Rather than permitting a shared culture between the African American and the enslaved Ghanaian, the Adinkras primary objective revolved around retaining the authenticity of Ghanaian representative, even by its fellow inhabitants of the diaspora. The African American, who dreams of a motherland, must either assimilate into a newfound American identity, or derive parts of Sonkofa, African

91

Ghana inculcated a great deal of cultural significance into the symbols portrayed on Ghanaian their artwork. Temple notes “the tragic tale of the British settler-officer who demanded to sit on the Ashanti Golden Stool,” a piece of artwork precious that Adinkra communicators wage wore over its defilement.

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culture, into its art. This phenomenon alienates the African american into a state in-autonomy and diasporan confusion hammered in by Ghanaian resentment of appropriation.

I conclude my argument riddled with many questions and future examinations about the comparison of the Harlem Renaissance to the Sankofa society. The brevity of the Harlem Renaissance, ending in the 1930s, created ripples of artistic inspirations that the African American carries into the contemporary. The Sankofa, founded after Ghana’s inception in 1957, after the Harlem Renaissance, still remains a budding movement of cultural, diasporic, representation. I wonder if the Sankofan longevity, permitting itself into Ghanaian and American art, is due to a platform of superiority Ghana departed from? The current discourse surrounding diaspora changes daily. By tracking this discourse and further delving into Sankofan research, specifically, its assimilation into American culture. I will more closely examine the correlation between diaspora and artistic movements when I travel to Ghana, the heart of all this study Works Cited Henzy, Karl. “LANGSTON HUGHES'S POETRY AND THE METAPHYSICS OF SIMPLICITY.” Callaloo, vol. 34, no. 3, 2011, pp. 915–927. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41243199.

Woets, Rhoda. “Comprehend the Incomprehensible: Kofi Setordji's Travelling Memorial of the Rwanda Genocide.” African Arts, vol. 43, no. 3, 2010, pp. 52–63. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20744863.

Temple, Christel N. “The Emergence Of Sankofa Practice in the United States: A Modern History.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 41, no. 1, 2010, pp. 127–150. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25704098.

LaGamma, Alisa. “The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design without End.” African Arts, vol.

42, no. 1, 2009, pp. 88–99. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20447939.

Amuah, Joshuea Alfred, “Biography and Adventures of George Worlasi Kwasi Dor in the Discovery of Traditions [Musical] Elements in Choral Music Compositions Schauert, Paul. Staging Ghana: Artistry and nationalism in state dance ensembles. Indiana University Press, 2015.

Du Bois, W. E. B, and Brent Hayes Edwards. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford University Press, 2007.

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Redefining the Autobiographical Occasion: How Black students (and former students) who migrate to predominantly White spaces make sense of themselves, others, and their experiences Karyn Bri’ana Raven Odom Class of 2019 Introduction In a society that celebrates whiteness, how do minority students adapt to their surroundings, make sense of them, and thrive? It has been proven that the white body is prioritized over Black lives time and time again in American society: we consistently hear of senseless shootings and subsequent deaths of minorities that happen as the pervasive myth that “racism has ended” persists—as the prevalence of racism becomes less “public” and more adaptive.

This allows those in power and positions of privilege to assert their dominance and show their prejudices in more ways than the less than subtle wearing of white cloaks and rendering pitchforks.

Over several decades we have watched as America has seemingly worked to be less homogenous regarding the incorporation/integration of Black people into society with equal rights. The Civil Rights movement happened, integration happened, and some Black individuals began to move from the “ghettos” into what used to be white-only spaces. Others did not obtain what little “upward mobility” was possible and thus stayed in their predominantly Black neighborhoods. To better the education system, Black students were moved into predominantly white schools because that was deemed to be the fix for systemic racism and inequalities: for Black students to be granted the opportunity to share the same space with white peers.

But the migration of the Black body into a predominantly white space is not simply a matter of moving location and it is no magic fix for matters of inequality. Yes, with migration comes a change of location, but migrating while Black is both a social and political matter, It is important to hear the stories of those experiencing these migrations as not to dismiss the emotional toll or the lasting effects that such moves can have on an individual’s life. Racism has not ended, whiteness is still prioritized, and Black people still must exist while Black. Black students migrating to predominantly white spaces must try to make sense of who they are as people while entering into foreign territory; meanwhile, their white counterparts must only do half of that labor as they exist without immediate cultural markers—as their identities are considered to be the norm and not that of the “other”.

And what is to be said of how these oral histories of migration are conveyed by the Black individuals? What they experience as they recount their tales into and out of these predominantly white spaces? There are many ways to tell stories; storytelling is a tool that has been used for centuries to preserve histories and to share them. And in truth, some people often are not made aware of how a person, place, or event—a migration—may have affected them until they retrospectively take a look at what they have gone through as Robert Zussman suggests in his essay “Autobiographical Occasions”. Zussman discusses those events that manifest into memories so significant that they “are neither reproductions of the past nor fictions, but contain elements of both” (Zussman 1996, p. 147). These accounts of migration told by these Black students are more than stories: they are in fact autobiographical occasions that serve as narrations and reflections that come about as the result of the happenings within our lives, their lives, that call for us to do the work that must be done to construct and understand our identities.

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However, the experiences of the Black students in this study serve to provide a redefining of the autobiographical occasion. Zussman says that autobiographical occasions are not our everyday portrayals of ourselves, but instead stories about our lives that reveal aspects our identities, or descriptions about how we have come to be how we are, that we may not usually give much thought to (Zussman, 1996, p. 147). This is not the case for Black students in predominantly white spaces who must consistently narrate their existences, their understandings of their surroundings, and attempt to make sense of their migratory status. While the term autobiographical occasion introduced by Zussman suggests that the only benefit reaped by the narrator occurs during the narration of one’s experience after it has happened, this paper will delineate the ways in which autobiographical occasions or migrations of the Black student affect their everyday lives as they do not have the luxury of not thinking about the elements of life that others “may not usually give much thought to” (Zussman, 1996, p. 147). Their migration experiences into and out of predominantly white spaces/educational institutions serve as not only isolated autobiographical occasions, but consistent social situations that dictate occasions for them to understand their racial identities, their social ties, and their expectations of themselves and others. Throughout this paper I will investigate such situations and the impact that that they have on the Black individuals experiencing the migrations.

Literature Review In this writing I call upon 3 texts that contextualize the experience of race performance in this day in age and address its effects on Black students in predominantly white educational environments: Acting Black: College, Identity, and the Performance of Race, Privilege: the Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, and "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?": and other conversations about race. These individuals have racial identities that are perceived to be that of the “other” and they face discriminations and disadvantages as a result. I use all of the frameworks provided by the 3 authors in order to give name to the sentiments expressed by the Black interviewees throughout their interviews; I do so to explicitly map the shared experiences of these minorities before, during, and after their migrations.

Khan’s sociological research presented in Privilege is different from the other works in that it is grounded directly in the special confines of his college preparatory boarding school alma mater: the prestigious St. Paul’s School of New Hampshire. However, he makes a larger sociological point about the differences between the ways in which minority students navigate the world versus white students, which is helpful in that many of the migration stories utilized in this study are about moving to and from educational institutions built for white students that later encompassed the existence of our ever-growing diverse world population. In Privilege, the meritocratic nature of St. Paul’s as a boarding school, but also the supposed role that meritocracy plays in America at large, comes into question for the students of color there (Khan, 2011, p. 84).

Similarly, in the interviews of the Black individuals in this study, many voice that they question that same efficacy of the meritocratic ideal as well—of whether meritocracy is enough to counter the feeling of being the “other” that Black students in a predominantly white space may feel.

Khan describes that there is a certain ease that many of the privileged students at the school are able to feel in their migration to school, an ease that comes with knowing the unspoken rules and ways of the elite, that minority students are not initially privy to but instead forced into. With

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that comes an expectation that the minority students will assimilate as much as possible and desire the same things that their white counterparts desire. Young Black and Brown students at St. Paul’s, in predominantly white institutions, are led to believe that “ease of privilege” is inherent to the institution when in fact, Khan says, students of color are far more likely to not reap the benefits of the so-called “meritocratic ideal” because of their larger positions in American society: because of how they are perceived to be different (Khan, 2011, p. 135). This inability to achieve “ease” manifested in the interactions that the Black interviewees in this study had with other students at their schools (and in the case of the adults interviewed with colleagues in the working world). This can lead the Black students/individuals to be left disappointed by not only their educational institutions, but a society that is not meritocratic and forms a monolithic idea of Blackness. A society that refuses to see them as anything but the “other”. Khan’s work not only acknowledges the expectations that form as a result of migrating into the predominantly white educational space that is St. Paul’s, but also provides background for why Black students generally may have certain expectations of themselves and work to adjust their behavior accordingly as a result of their attendance of these educational institutions.

In Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria, author Beverly Tatum offers an exploration for this concept of the “other” and challenges the reader to answer that very question presented in her title. Not only that, but she explores inquiries of why it is a question that is asked/why it feels pertinent for it to be answered in American society today. Tatum analyzes what Blackness can mean when placed in a white context in order to understand how whiteness, deemed by default to be “the norm” in America, works against those fitting outside of that norm Tatum writes, “People of color learn early in life that they are seen by others as members of a group. For whites, thinking of oneself only as an individual is a legacy of White privilege” (Tatum, 1997, p. 103). When describing the ways in which they grew over the course of their migrations, in reflecting on how they changed and what they learned, many of the Black interviewees described moments that speak to the ways in which minorities can be generalized. Those experiences, according to Tate, contribute to a minority’s understanding of her racial identity and understanding and/or developing racial identity is crucial to one’s maturation process (Tatum, 1997). Although the Black interviewees did not explicitly name racial identity formation as a key component in their journey, they each described instances during which they understood the purpose of and importance of developing and expressing their racial identities; some even were able to pinpoint the first instance in which they began to understand that they themselves were Black. The end of Tatum’s book manifests less as findings and more as a concrete conclusion that is crucial to the analyzations of this study: that is her message asserting with certainty, a message that the interviewees express agreement with through their actions, that there is nothing wrong with minorities seeking refuge with one another by sitting together in the cafeteria (or generally seeking out other spaces to surround themselves with others who may looks like them or share similar experiences).

Similarly, in Acting Black: College, Identity, and the Performance of Race, Sarah Susan Willie’s research highlights the ways that Black students wrestle with understanding their racial identities, while amongst white peers, to understand what it means to identify as Black. Black students navigate the expectations that come along with that and deciphering/choosing when, where, and how to perform said identity (Willie, 2003). For Willis, it is absolutely necessary that it

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be made clear that “black and white (and red, yellow, and brown) are all roles in the personal and institutional drama of race rather than simply markers of biological difference, signifiers of ethnic traditions, and expected behaviors” (Willie, 2003, p. 127). In thinking of the process of identity formation, this idea that Willie produces about roles is crucial; others’ expectations of us and our own expectations of ourselves are key components in the formation of racial identity. The interviewees, when describing their inherently racialized lived experiences, not only described their own identities but did so in contrast to the whiteness of their peers in their communities. In understanding themselves, the Black students also begin to take note of the roles that others and their identities, similar to them and different from them, play in their lives.

Data and Methods The interviews utilized within this analysis were conducted and transcribed by 3 of the 11 undergraduate students at Davidson College over the course of the spring 2018 semester for Dr. Hilton Kelly’s Oral History course. Ranging from freshmen to seniors, the 11 students conducted in-person interviews with individuals inside of the Davidson community and the surrounding areas.

All of the interviews were conducted based on the same general topic of migration that was decided on by the class in conjunction with the professor of the course, Dr. Kelly, at the beginning of the semester. Each student in the class interviewed 2 individuals about a particular theme regarding migration: said themes range from the migration of Black high school students to college preparatory boarding schools to the forced migration of individuals whose homes were foreclosed upon. There was a total of 22 interviews conducted by the class; I call upon 5 of them in this analysis and pertinent information regarding those 5 interviewees can be found in the table below: Name of Gend Participant er Race Occupation/Age Schools Attended Kaitlin Femal Black/Trinidadi College Student/ Concord Academy, *Davidson Barkley e an 19 College College Dean of Angela Femal Students (former Cheyney University, McDaniel Harris e Black student)/ 47 College, Wright State University Daric College Student/ The Lawrenceville School, McKinney Male Black 20 *Davidson College University of Ivory Coast and the University of Salamanca, Spain, College Professor University of Cae Coast, University Honoré (former student)/ of Kent, University of North Missihoun Male African 65 Carolina at Chapel Hill Bailey Femal College Student/ (Unnamed Catholic High school), Norman e Black 19 *Davidson College *Student is currently still enrolled in this institution Before the interviews began, each student was responsible for collecting basic demographic information about their interviewees (where they were from, their full names, etc.). Students also had their interviewees fill out a permission form, before the start of each of their interviews, that

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served to address the purpose of the class project and the Davidson College Oral History program, as well as give the interviewees information about how the class would handle the distribution of the recordings through the Davidson College Archives. Members of the class were required to transcribe their interviews in addition to providing the name of the interviewee, a biography of the interviewee, and a description of the content of the discussions within the interview along with said transcriptions. The following 5 questions were ones that were asked by each of the 11 students conducting interviews to provide an element of consistency to our project methods; no matter what the chosen theme of the interview may have been, each student asked their two interviewees these questions: 1. Why did you move from ___________ to ______________?

2. What were some of the surprises—good and bad—in your move to a new environment?

3. What kinds of adjustments did you have to make in your transition from _______ to __________?

4. What advice would you give to someone moving from __________ to ____________?

5. Do you identify more strongly with your old community or your new one? Explain?

Along with these 5 questions, any other questions that individual students saw fit to ask pertaining to specific subject matter were asked in the interviews. The interview transcriptions were uploaded to Moodle by the 19th of April, making them accessible for everyone in the class to be able to analyze and code to be utilized in our final papers. By going through the transcripts and searching for consistent themes and patterns, myself and my 10 classmates have worked to develop and present clear arguments pertaining to different elements of migration. There was no minimum or maximum number of interviews that students needed to call upon with their analyses; in this paper I use 5 of the 22 available interviews available. 4 of the interviews that I call upon pertain to migratory stories of students, or those who were students during the time of their migration, who racially identity as Black. The 5th interview is of an individual migrated from an African country, but even so I argue that he shares many of the same experiences as the interviewees who identified as Black. Even he compares his experience as an African in America to that of the Black people in America saying that Africans and Blacks often ultimately face similar struggles in terms of being discriminated against on the basis of race.

In my writing I am looking to give voice to the often voiceless. I provide context for some of the quotations provided by the Black interviewees and I do so to give a better understanding of the lives of the individuals interviewed, but I also make an effort to let some of the quotations speak for themselves to better solidify the experiences of these individuals. I look to the telling of their stories as a means of providing evidence for the topic of my research which some may argue is unable to be proved. Their experiences are real, these oral histories are valid, and they provide schemas for the systemic problems faced by minorities in society today.

Additionally, it will be noted that while my research does not focus specifically on gender, the vast majority of the histories referenced are from the 3 Black women used for this study. I felt that emphasizing the female experience within my research would provide my analysis with a perspective often lacking in the literature about the experiences of migrating peoples. Just as whiteness is often thought to be the default racial category, masculinity is thought to be that for

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gender, and I wanted to provide a platform for these Black female voices to be at the forefront of this exploration.

Findings Black students and former students make sense of their experiences in predominantly white spaces in the following 4 ways: 1. By gaining an understanding of their racial identities and how they will decide to perform said identities.

2. Navigating social situations and relationships in predominantly white spaces.

3. Forming expectations of themselves and internalizing how others’ expectations of them may change as a result of their migration.

4. Consistently reflecting on happenings within their environment and what large and small factors have influenced their migration throughout their migration, thus redefining the autobiographical occasion.

These findings delineate the effects that migration into predominantly white spaces has on Black individuals; they deconstruct the dominant narrative that tells us that integration was a solution to end racism and that Black students should be grateful for the opportunity to enter predominantly white spaces despite the struggles that they face in doing so.

Performing, Forming, and Understanding Blackness While race may be a social construct it is not one that can be ignored when speaking on minority experiences and how they differ from those populations of privilege: whose skin color do not label them as inherently criminal not worthy of equal treatment. When the Black individuals who were interviewed migrated into the predominantly white spaces, at first, many of them expressed that they were not hyperaware of their race. Although, that soon changed as their migratory status required them to begin to do the work to that it took to understand their identities.

Bailey, a college aged and fair skinned Black woman, recalls that she in fact thought herself to be Asian at one point in her life during her elementary school years as a result of attempting to make sense of how her light skin related to the white skin of all of her classmates. Having no one besides her white classmates to compare herself to in that predominantly white elementary school environment, she developed a crush on her new Asian classmate because, she remembers thinking, “Oh I could have a crush on him because he kind of looks like me” (Bailey K. Norman).

In our society, whiteness is thought to be the default and Bailey therefore understood, even at a young age, that the melanin in her skin made her different than her classmates in her predominantly white school. This noticed difference called her to begin to do the work to understand her Blackness. By no means did the work end that year, later it will be revealed that Bailey is still doing that work now as a college sophomore as she continuously gains more of an understanding of her racial identity, but it still began as a result of her migration into that space.

Black students navigating predominantly white spaces—navigating society in general—are tasked with attempting to understand their racial identities and how best to perform them in order to gain a sense of self that is not tied to the whiteness that is celebrated around them.

And this is work that, as Kaitlin Barkley says, white people are not “forced to do” (Kaitlin Barkley). Recalling the relationship that she had with her “very white” and “very Catholic” host family while attending Concord Academy, Kaitlin had this to say about her feeling of being

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tokenized by them because of her identity as a Black woman attending the prestigious boarding school: “They would buy me food and stuff which is obviously what host families do but I felt kind of like, and I think this is part of the reason why we weren’t close friends, because it just, I don't know, it just felt like they like wanted to put me on a pedestal. But they would always be like, “Oh my God”, dah, dah, dah and asked a question. I would just be like, “Yeah, I mean, I'm here to learn.”

And so it was kind of weird in a sense. And I knew it came out of a place of like, it wasn't like malicious or anything. It was just kind of because they weren’t really exposed to all of that. I went to church with them and sometimes like on Easter and stuff and like they just, it's a very white space. And so I don't want to guilt them for not going out of that because like white people don't necessarily have the option, not option, but that entire need to do that. They’re not forced to. And so, I don’t know, it was just weird” (Kaitlin Barkley).

Kaitlin tried to piece together her identity of being Black in a white space while her host family was not “forced” to do the same work—they could navigate their white world with ease because of their white identities and thought it best to give praise to Kaitlin because of her differing identity being able to penetrate their space. The importance of understanding one’s racial identity is highlighted here. An inability to understand one’s own racial identity could lead to further confusion or frustration due to consistently feeling different and not knowing why.

In terms of performance of their Blackness, Bailey and Kaitlin came to do so differently over the years, but now do so nevertheless. Bailey listens to more Black music: hip hop in lieu of the “white” pop music that she once preferred when she had a friend group that was mostly composed of white girls (Bailey K. Norman). Kaitlin, in describing her migration from Concord Academy to Davidson College, talks of how the differences in the populations of minority students at her schools has influenced how she performs her racial identity through haircare: “So because I went to boarding school that didn't have a lot of Black people in it I would just not do my hair. I would really just put it two messy braids and people would be like, “Oh your hair's so nice” and I'd be like, “(Snaps) I know!” But no, not really. But coming here and having way more black people and a supportive group of black women, I really don’t have to look cute every day but I have to get my hair done somewhat or have to have an explanation as to why I'm wearing my bonnet out in public. Like, I don't even know. That was a big adjustment for me: actually having to like perform. I feel like at boarding school I didn't really have that expectation to do anything or look a certain way because everyone would be like scared to say anything. So they would just say that I looked nice or great job. And now I have that accountability. I'm just kind of like (laughing) damn, the work” (Kaitlin Barkley).

Before and after her migration performing her Blackness meant different things for Kaitlin. While her racial identity was consistent in both locations, the decrease in the importance of the opinions of her white peers changed the way that Kaitlin prioritized an aspect of her racial identity, in this case, the appearance of her hair. Black identity formation is not a one-step process and it is certainly not one that happens overnight. As evidenced by Kaitlin’s story, some parts of the identity may develop before others. Also evidenced by Kaitlin’s story is a larger point made by Daric

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McKinney about what how much more complicated the Black female experience can be because of additional performative racial elements such as hair: “Also in terms of interactions, being a Black male versus being a Black female at Lawrenceville was very different. who was very different. Because there were certain questions about hair, for example, that we wouldn't have to deal with and so we were able to maybe assimilate more into the larger Lawrenceville culture than black women” (Daric McKinney).

What remains true despite gender is that Black students in predominantly white spaces do not form their racial identities separate from whiteness as much as they do the work of fighting against the dominance that is whiteness to come into their own—to understand their appearances and overall Black identities alike.

Social Interactions It is a natural feeling to want to form a group of friends. Not everyone is immensely social, of course. Not everyone desires to be the center of a friend group of 20+ individuals, but it can be said that humans are inherently social creatures; we need to be social and to collaborate, to some extent, to survive and to generally be able to enjoy life. Bailey mentions how she came into Davidson with the intent of making specific connections with certain people: “Um okay so I did STRIDE. I did the STRIDE pre-orientation program. Um so I was friends with a lot of people or I knew a lot of people of color before um…school started. And within that program, I looked for people that were kind of like me like people of color but also not… Like kind of having white tend- characteristics” (Bailey K. Norman) In thinking of migration as a foreign experience and one that calls for a heightened sense of awareness to gather one’s bearings, it should come to no surprise that in the stories recounted there were a multitude of instances in which those who were interviewed described the social networks that they were a part of, found, or joined when entering predominantly white spaces. I argue that these connections, though scrutinized by some, were made as a means of survival.

And many of these survival links are associated with social settings linked to academia. As many of the migration stories collected were from younger individuals, the Black interviewees talked about their school friends and friend groups. Kaitlin, as a young Black woman who attended a predominantly white college preparatory boarding schools, talks of her lived dichotomy of social spheres. She had her white girlfriends, those who she “played field hockey with” and hung out with occasionally, but expresses that she always felt closest with “her friends of color” because they were able to talk about “real things” (Kaitlin Barkley).

In our society in which race is inherently political, Kaitlin realized throughout her time at Concord Academy that her being a student there, just like her white peers were students there, did not mean that they were the same. It did not mean that they went through life, at Concord or in general, similarly. This is a shared sentiment—the autobiographical occasions shared by the minorities in this study acknowledge, frequently, that it was not until an individual’s Blackness came directly in contact with an overwhelming amount of whiteness at some point that they stopped to think: why am I hanging out with these people? Or better yet—who do I actually want to be hanging around?

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“Um, I think like it made me when I was looking for colleges, like made me want to be in an environment with more people of color. Because, I don't know, I think looking back it was mostly my freshman and sophomore year I was kind of like oblivious at all and just enjoying everything.

And then my junior year I started reflecting a lot more and just being like…this is not really fun anymore. People were, I think my junior year, there was a lot of shootings in Orange and a lot of people I knew had people die. People my age too. And so I remember like, going in a car with my friends to get Sushi or something like that. And it had a lot of white friends. And they were just talking about whatever white women talk about. And I just remember being like, “No, this is actually not important because there's people--there’s actually real things going on” (Kaitlin Barkley).

As a Black female, Kaitlin remembers feeling that her social circle no longer was fulfilling by the time she reached her junior year; by the time she reached her junior year, Kaitlin began to long for company that would understand her feelings about the racial discrimination those individuals in her hometown were facing and that Black individuals nationwide faced as the Black Lives Matter movement began to take off. Though she later migrated to another PWI (predominantly white institution), as a now student of Davidson College, she stressed that Davidson’s financial aid policy and her desire to graduate without debt was the reason she came to Davidson. In short, migrating to another PWI was not what Kaitlin wanted to do. She longed for an environment that would be the opposite of Concord—one that would provide her with the opportunity to form more bonds with those people whom she felt she could discuss “real things” with (Kaitlin Barkley).

Even so, in migrating from one predominantly white location to another, there were still some ways that interviewees stated that they were able to take more control of their racial identities through making decisions about their social actions. More specifically, Bailey talks of her joining of the premiere historically black sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and what motivated her to join as well as what she feels that she has gained from her membership that merely existing in white spaces and interacting with white individuals could not have provided her with: “It’s not really what I expected it to be, but it’s definitely come help me like come to terms with my blackness I would say. Um just being part of this organization that was started (laughs) where our founders were one generation removed from slavery and were just working to help women and girls that look like us and maybe not even look like us but um minority women all over the world and just trying to be great. (laughs)” (Bailey K. Norman).

“I wasn’t really like prepared for Davidson like socially or culturally um I just didn’t expect it to be so white like I went to a private, catholic high school that was mostly white, so I thought I could handle it or whatever, but this is just like a whole other um ball-ball game. Um I think… sometimes when I go back to Atlanta it’s just like I forgot there were so many black people” (Bailey K. Norman).

In order to better understand her Blackness, to connect more with the part of herself that she did not feel very connected to, Bailey joined her organization to form more connections with Black women that she had not previously had before. This is no foreign phenomenon. In order to make sense of their migrations into predominantly white spaces many of the Black interviewees of this

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study talk of tapping into similar or even identical resources in one case. Dr. Angela Harris talks of her connection to the same sorority and how it is her first and constant go-to in order to make a place feel more like “home”: “Every time I moved, I’ve always tapped into the sorority first so every place I’ve moved within a week or before I’ve moved, I’m finding the nearest graduate chapter, and within a month I would say I’m making contact with the graduate chapter so for me I would say that’s my first go to. So I know if I wanted to move to Dallas, Texas tomorrow, I’m going to get on the website find the nearest graduate chapter and see when their next meeting is and I’m going to go. And from that meeting so that I can foster some type of relationship. So that’s what I did here, when I moved here I knew there were some graduate chapters here. I knew there was…Sigma Psi was here and within a week or two I knew [they] were having a program so I went to check and see and support…and the two graduate advisors were there. And we exchanged numbers, they invited me to the chapter meeting…And that was kinda the start of building my circle of people” (Angela Harris).

While none of the five interviewees talked solely of choosing to interact socially with people who identified as Black, there was a consistent sentiment shared that finding refuge with a group of people of color within the predominantly was a must for them during their migration times. These cases demonstrate what value Black individuals migrating to predominantly white spaces find in being able to come together with other Black individuals in order to combat the feeling of being displaced that can come about as a result of their migrations into these white spaces.

Expectations With migration into a predominantly white space, more noticeably a predominantly white educational space or institution, is the expectation that the Black individual is to be able to succeed and achieve as much as possible: this not only speaks to the pedestal that whiteness is placed on in larger society, but also the privilege that whites possess to have the resources making their privilege less theory and more fact.

Daric McKinney, who had not been a very competitive educational environment before attending the elite Lawrenceville School, found himself being consumed by the expectation that the institution had bestowed upon him. This “Ivy or die” mentality that Daric referred to many times over the course of his interview referred to the idea that to succeed at his college preparatory boarding school meant to leave the predominantly white college preparatory boarding school environment and then enter into the predominantly white Ivy league college environment afterwards (Daric McKinney). “Otherwise, like what are you doing? Where is that? I’ve never heard of it.” (Daric McKinney) And while Daric, a Black male, contended that the mentality affected the white students more than it did the Black students at his school, in reflecting on his acceptance into and subsequent attendance at Davidson College, a non-Ivy league school, he had this to say: “So I'm actually glad I ended up at Davidson, but it took me a long time, because even after I got accepted, even after the beginning of freshman fall I Davidson, I was still like thinking about transferring. And it wasn't until the end of freshman fall when I was like okay, I'll stay the whole semester. I kept thinking that I was going to transfer. I'm going to transfer. I'm not saying here.

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Because I still had that I-need-to-go-to-an-Ivy mentality in my head and I've realized, just based on hearing my friends’ experiences visiting them, I'm glad to be where I'm at, honestly.”

Black students entering predominantly white institutions of learning, whether they be high schools or colleges, may be susceptible to taking on the expectations of the institution as Daric himself was to an extent—measuring his success based on the desires of his peers and measuring success based on the institution’s ideals to make sense of his existence/purpose in that space.

Kaitlin Barkley and Dr. Angela Harris are two Black women who have obtained diplomas from predominantly white institutions—Kaitlin from her high school in Concord, MA and Dr. Harris earned her doctorate from Wright State University in Ohio. Both women describe respective changes in the expectations from their family members as a result of their, or their siblings’ attendance, of these institutions: “Hm. I wasn’t prepared for, I wasn’t prepared for my family to think that because I reached this particular level that [um] where people think that now you have a doctorate degree, now you just have millions of millions of dollars. Now I just recognize that in my family from cousins. Now you have to realize that I’m the first in my family to get a doctorate degree” (Angela Harris).

“So it started to be hey, can you pay this cell phone bill? Hey, can you pay this $100s? Hey, we need help with this Angela got it. I struggle with hat because I was in the position to take care of myself and I was in a position financially I still had student loans and things I needed and wanted to accomplish for myself. But I also didn’t want to let my family down” (Angela Harris).

“So my brother goes to Fessenden which is a middle, like, a junior boarding school. And he's probably going to stay up there, do boarding school, because he likes that area. My sister went to Asheville and then I went to Concord and so I don't know, like, in my family it's always that people would look at us as like, “Oh, so y'all are going to be like, y'all have to go and be these millionaires now” because they are also all West-Indian” (Kaitlin Barkley).

As evidenced by the interview excerpts, in the Black community, migration into white spaces is often associated with the accumulation of access to a plethora of wealth and resources. And while it is true, especially in the case of the private college preparatory boarding schools that Kaitlin and Daric attended, that students attending said institutions have more access to many opportunities and resources than most, what their family members setting new expectations failed to account for were the societal barriers existing outside of the white institutions that prevent Black students from perhaps being as successful as their white counterparts. It is one thing to be able to gain success within a predominantly white institution as a Black person, but it is a whole other thing for that success to be manifested as wealth and success in greater society because there are still large barriers that exist for Black people.

And so Black students are then left to make sense of feeling privileged because of their ability to migrate into the predominantly white spaces while also feeling disadvantaged because of their Blackness. Socially and otherwise they find that their migration into the predominantly white institutions do not deter harmful stereotypes and maltreatment as detailed by Daric’s experience his first day at the Lawrenceville School:

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“So I remember the first day I got to Lawrenceville, my next door neighbor who was ridiculously rich, who's white and ridiculously rich, thought I was going to be a football player because of my stature. And he was shocked that when he found out that I danced and I was immediately stereotyped in that way” (Daric McKinney).

As a result of such stereotypes, Daric goes on to describe the “self-policing” that he and his fellow peers of color would do while at Lawrenceville as not to get in trouble—as not to appear be the sort of Black students that some of the white students and faculty expected them to be (Daric McKinney). This self-policing, Daric says, comes about for Black students as a result of being “literally in a white space…nervous about how they [will] be portrayed” (Daric McKinney). As a means of lessening the feeling of being considered to be “the other” within their new environments, Black students adjust their behavior to account for the expectations of those white people occupying the spaces they are migrating into. Daric’s experience also speaks to how frequent generalizations/stereotypes can be attached to Black individuals as a result of their perceived racial identities.

Autobiographical Occasions Formation Often times people do not understand how they are impacted by a situation until they leave it; a migration becomes something significate that calls for reflection, turns to an autobiographical occasion, and it is by way of recounting said migration that sense is made of the happenings or the event. The Black individuals interviewed for this class redefine Zussman’s delineated meaning of autobiographical occasion in that the ways that they narrate their stories reveal that their individual experiences that occur within their larger experience of migrating into predominantly white spaces serve as autobiographical occasions in and of themselves. That is, the extent to which and the frequency at which they must confront obstacles to their success in these spaces, or to even gain access to these spaces, calls upon them to do the work of understanding their immediate experiences many times. They do not wait to reflect. They cannot afford to wait to reflect.

Honoré Missihoun is a 65-year-old professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Migrating from the current Benin Republic and former Republic of Dahomey in 1991 to the United States to pursue his PhD, Honoré talks of one of his motivation to pursue education when he was younger, saying: “You see, we, people from the Atlantic coast, because of our, I mean, location on the coast, we came to contact European very early, through slavery, so many of our people were brought to the America and then sold into slavery here. You know, but we are lucky because my dad and my mom, for instance, went to school. They went to school, so they knew, when they see their siblings or their cousins or they view their family, what education gave them as opportunities and possibilities to, I mean, to do, eh? It’s different. You can compare. Those who are educated and those who are not educated. You can compare. People are not educated, but if they went to school, they would have achieved one-hundred times more than what they achieved. You see? So, education is the—so those who have opportunity to understood the importance of education then, went to school, and took us to school” (Honoré Missihoun).

The reflection on family history demonstrates an attentiveness to positionality in relation to his migration. In this way Honoré makes sense of why his experience of coming to America to finish

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his doctorate is important—because those members of his family before him did not have a choice in migration as he did when he made his move to Ohio. And although that initial forced migration of his ancestors did not physically take place with his own Black body, it has since informed his experience in all of his migrations into predominantly white spaces of education. Throughout his time in America he has carried with him an understanding of how his African identity differs from the white Americans he encounters and throughout his experiencing of several instances of discrimination he concludes, “when you are a person of color, particular when you are African or black in America, no matter what you do [pause] I mean, the way you behave, you will suffer” (Honoré Missihoun).

Black individuals are constantly charged with the task of remembering and reflecting— recalling histories to inform the reason for their plights in the present and to generally attempt to make sense of what their identities mean to them and to those around them. While Honoré did not have to work to understand his Blackness as many of the other Black interviewees did, because of his initial migration from the Benin Republic, he did similarly go through a process of understanding what his identity meant in relation to the whiteness he encountered when migrating to America as a student as Black students must often do. Dr. Angela Harris herself did not attend a predominantly white institution, but after graduating from her HBCU found herself in many a predominantly white space much like Honoré. Here Dr. Harris details a story of a time that she faced a series of microaggressions: “I was at a conference where I was presenting my research. It was myself, two white males, and one female…my mentor was introducing me to this group and one of the white males throughout the conversation identified everyone as doctor but kept saying Angela to me. And that has happened so many times. It typically happens with white males. And sometimes I let it ride because I know what’s going on. I know I’m just like you know I’m a doctor just like she is. And you know I’m a doctor just like he is. And you know I’m a doctor just like my mentor is, But, you’re referring to them as doctor such and such and you keep referring to me as Angela. Even one time he tried to act like he forgot my name; “he was like what’s your name again” (Angela Harris).

Constantly having to assert one’s identity—to narrate one’s identity—that is the reality of being Black in predominantly white spaces. Despite the position that Dr. Harris held, her racial identity still placed her as different in the eyes of the white male who refused to refer to her by her doctoral title. Her “migration” into the conference is only one smaller instance in the larger scheme of her greater migration—her larger autobiography. But within is this one detailed instance that sits amongst that all called her to reflect in the moment due to the fact that her identity, her Blackness, was being challenged for existing amongst whiteness.

And this happens no matter the age of the Black individual. Below is an excerpt from Daric McKinney’s interview. He describes how he was forced to live with a faculty member that he did not like for quite a few reasons. His “house master” constantly drove him to come up against his Blackness in relation to the whiteness that surrounded him: “Besides us having two very different personalities and beliefs, um, in terms of life, he was very condescending towards me and he was kind of trying to act like a white savior towards me, which was very problematic.”

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“Yes, he was white, but he was white/ex-military/conservative, and that's just not who I am. That’s the best way to put that. Yeah. So we just had a lot of issues in terms of us engaging with each other. It was very fake. He was very condescending. He would, he would tell me to say certain things instead of other things. And not in like, not in a like, “Oh, let me help you.” But like in a “Don't say that like that. You need to say it like this.” Very, very condescending.”

“So what ended up—the problem with him was that he was also head of the, the crew team. And what happened my sophomore year when we all, when I finally went into Cleve, was that there was, I think most of the sophomores that came in were rowers. And what ended up happening was that he would focused all his attention on them and we were getting neglected. And I'm not saying that was a bad thing cause I didn't like him, but at the same time, as a housemaster, you should be equally treating students the same and that just wasn't the case. And I mean like, it's OK if you need to like, “Oh, let me just ask you this kind of question about rowing blah, bla, blah” or “Oh, did you need? How was this?” But he would spend an hour talking to someone or just even just trying to help them out with homework or whatever and he wouldn't think twice about the rest of us. That's what, that was one of the reasons why my sophomore year and in the house was very bad. Like, I really did not want to be in the house anymore and I really consider transferring to a different house” (Daric McKinney).

For three years Daric lived with his house master and was required to follow the rules that he set forth. In facing immediate and continued discrimination as Daric did, the migration experience of Black students into predominantly white spaces are rifled with continued strife. To simply label their migration into and out of these spaces as a singular stagnant autobiographical occasion would be to dismiss instances such as this one experienced by Daric, that depict how much work is constantly required of these individuals who gain access to these spaces. Though they may be spaces filled with opportunity, nevertheless it is important to understand that equality does not equate to equity and the inherently racialized experiences of these individuals affect their lives.

Conclusion Migration comes in many forms: it is sometimes by choice and it is sometimes by force, but what is consistently seen in each of the five interviews analyzed is that the migration stories recounted by the Black individuals include expressed emotional sentiments regarding their experiences of migrating into predominantly white spaces. Despite their differences, the individuals in the transcripts that I analyzed all call upon their remembrances of interacting with whiteness to then understand how and why they formed certain racial identities and aligned themselves with certain groups of people. The Black interviewees all had experiences in predominantly white spaces that led them to form separate understandings of what it means to be Black while in smaller predominantly white spaces as well as America at large, and internalize the expectations placed on them as a result.

The ways in which we remember our experiences reveals a tremendous amount about who we are as people, who we used to be, and why we perceive our futures to be what we perceive them to be. As oral historians continue to seek to give agency to marginalized individuals, highlighting the migration experiences of Black individuals into white spaces is crucial. It not only highlights the

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effect that racial identity had on the life of the individual, but it becomes obvious just how much learning and unlearning is constantly required of these minorities—how much they must defend their positionalities and their mere existences when entering a new space, a new place. Especially if that place is a predominantly white one: small or large, big or small, temporary or more lasting.

This is significant in that it provides evidence for the importance of the continuous study of the sociology of migrations.

The stories of migrations are autobiographical experiences in and of themselves: as minorities recount their tales, as the class interviewees took the time to talk to the eleven of us, they delineated for us their memories. It cannot be said with certainty that the Black individuals who told their migration stories did so not in the hopes of revealing something about their identity development, but inevitably, in doing so they did so. Whereas white individuals may have the luxury of living out their experiences without the context of race, the migration stories told of these Black students and former students were permeated with their racialized experiences. Not only that, but in migrating to the predominantly white spaces they reflected on just how much they were ostracized at times. They thought of those times when they felt “othered”. While autobiographical occasions serve as a time for minorities to work on their understandings of themselves, they have markers on their skin; they have melanin markers that compel them to be in a constant state of understanding. Of exploration. Of discovery and of reflection.

This concept of remembrance fuels their individual understandings of how they are and how they came into existing as themselves—as Black in America that celebrates whiteness. Each of the five Black interviewees of this study colored the voice recordings with individual paintings of the ways in which their migrations into predominantly white spaces affected them. It is important to note that autobiographical occasions have found to be at their richest once an individual has had time to reflect on a particular experience/place. The migratory experience is generally an autobiographical experience, but it is even more so for Black individuals and other racial minorities because of the nature of their existences and the ways in which they have to navigate existing—whether that be in a new space or if they are returning to an old one. Their migrations are inherently autobiographical occasions and, as such, are not singular stories but a culmination of many. The results of those autobiographical occasions, while perhaps heightened, are not exclusive to the occasion. Living as racial minorities the Black individuals interviewed, daily, live with the effects of their migrations. To be Black during and after these types of migrations means to carry those effects everywhere.

Work Cited Barkley, K. (2018). Kaitlin Barkley oral history interview/Interviewer: Karyn Bri’ana Raven Odom. Davidson College Oral History Program (Spring 2018), Davidson College, Davidson, NC. Harris, L. A. (2018). Angela L. Harris oral history interview/Interviewer: Serena Sewell.

Davidson College Oral History Program (Spring 2018), Davidson College, Davidson, NC. Khan, S. (2011). Privilege: The making of an adolescent elite at st. paul's school (Princeton studies in cultural sociology). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

McKinney, D. (2018). Daric McKinney oral history interview/Interviewer: Karyn Bri’ana Raven

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Odom. Davidson College Oral History Program (Spring 2018), Davidson College, Davidson, NC. Missihoun, H. (2018). HonorĂŠ Missihoun oral history interview/Interviewer: Cathy Xu. Davidson College Oral History Program (Spring 2018), Davidson College, Davidson, NC. Norman, K. B. (2018). Bailey K. Norman oral history interview/Interviewer: Serena Sewell.

Davidson College Oral History Program (Spring 2018), Davidson College, Davidson, NC. Tatum, B. (1997). Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? and other conversations about race (1st ed. ed.). New York: BasicBooks.

Willie-LeBreton, S. (2003). Acting black: College, identity, and the performance of race. New York: Routledge.

Zussman, R., Elias, N., Jephcott, E., Ellis, C., Feyerabend, P., Franklin, V., . . . Whyte, W. (1996).

Autobiographical occasions. Contemporary Sociology, 25(2), 143-143. doi:10.2307/2077159