Racial Battle Fatigue in Higher Education: Exposing the Myth of Post-Racial America

by Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner University of Nevada, Las Vegas (Editor), Katrice A. Albert (Editor), Roland W. Mitchell (Editor), Chaunda Allen (Editor), William A. Smith (Foreword by)

Overview

Racial Battle Fatigue is described as the physical and psychological toll taken due to constant and unceasing discrimination, microagressions, and stereotype threat. The literature notes that individuals who work in environments with chronic exposure to discrimination and microaggressions are more likely to suffer from forms of generalized anxiety manifested by both physical and emotional syptoms. This edited volume looks at RBF from the perspectives of graduate students, middle level academics, and chief diversity officers at major institutions of learning.

RBF takes up William A. Smith’s idea and extends it as a means of understanding how the “academy” or higher education operates. Through microagressions, stereotype threat, underfunding and defunding of initiatives/offices, expansive commitments to diversity related strategic plans with restrictive power and action, and departmental climates of exclusivity and inequity; diversity workers (faculty, staff, and administration of color along with white allies in like positions) find themselves in a badlands where identity difference is used to promote institutional values while at the same time creating unimaginable work spaces for these workers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442229815
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/23/2014
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kenneth (Kenny) Fasching-Varner is a Shirley B. Barton Endowed Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University who teaches classes on Critical Race Theory, Multiculturalism, International Education, and Elementary Education. He also serves as the director of the LSU Teaching in Chile Study Abroad Program.

Katrice A. Albert is the vice president for Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota. Albert also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Civic Engagement and Scholarship, and her works have been published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology and the Journal of Counseling and Development. Albert is also the co-editor of the forthcoming volume, Trayvon Martin, Race, and American Justice: Writing Wrong.

Chaunda M. Allen is the assistant to the vice provost at Louisiana State University as well as the Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs

Roland Mitchell is an associate professor of education at Louisiana State University and the editor of the College Student Affairs Journal and Higher Education Section Editor of the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. He also serves as the associate director of LSU’s School of Education.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Introduction Roland W. Mitchell Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner Katrice A. Albert Chaunda M. Allen xv

1 A Testimony of a Black Male Cadet Facing Racial Battle Fatigue Melvin (Jai) Jackson 1

2 Navigating the Academy, Creating Counterspaces: Critically Examining the Experiences of Three PhD Students of Color Laura S. Yee Roderick L. Carey Wyletta S. Gamble 7

3 "What Are You Anyway?": Racial Fatigue as a Daily Experience in Public Schools Boni Wozolek 17

4 The Ubiquitous White Shadow: A Counternarrative of a Doctoral Student in a "Liberal" Teacher Education Program Roberto Montoya 21

5 Traumatic Pedagogy: When Epistemic Privilege and White Privilege Collide Tapo Chimbganda 29

6 Black. Woman. NontraditionaS Other: Creating Hybrid Spaces in Higher Education Tammie Jenkins 37

7 Indigenous Peoples in the Racial Battle Lands Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy 45

8 "I Ain't Your Doc Student": The Overwhelming Presence of Whiteness and Pain at the Academic Neoplantation Cheryl E. Mafias 59

9 Assault in the Academy: When It Becomes More Than Racial Battle Fatigue Cleveland Hayes 69

10 Psychological Heuristics: Mental/Emotional Designs of Racial Battle Fatigue and the Tenure/Promotion Terrain for Faculty of Color Noelle Witherspoon Arnold 77

11 Examining Intragroup Racism and Racial Battle Fatigue in Historically Black Colleges and Universities Leslie V. Collins 91

12 Wearing You Down: The Influence of Racial Battle Fatigue on Academic Freedom for Faculty of Color Holley Locher Rebecca Ropers-Huilman 103

13 An Adopted Korean Speaks Out About His Racialized Experiences as a Faculty Member at a Predominantly White Institution Nicholas Daniel Hartlep 115

14 Two Narratives from the Allied Front: Can People Not of Color Have Racial Battle Fatigue? Walter S. Gershon Robert J. Helfenhein 123

15 Racial Battle Fatigue and/as Impostorship: Implications for Academic Mentoring and Psychosocial Development T. Eton Dancy III 133

16 "We Didn't Know You Meant THAT by Diversity": Contested Diversity and Strategic (Administrative) Responses in Collegesof Education Francisco Rios Karen B. McLean Dade 145

17 Standing on My Head Spitting (Indian Head) Nickels: Racial Battle Fatigue as It Relates to Native Americans in Predominately White Institutions of Higher Education Deirdre A. Almeida 157

18 Behind Enemy Lines: Critical Race Theory, Racial Battle Fatigue, and Higher Education Mark S. Giles 169

19 A Hyphenated Life: Power and Liberation within the Research Academy David M. Callejo Pérez 179

20 Exploiting the Body and Denouncing the Mind: Navigating a Black Female Professional Identity within the Academy Kristie A. Ford 189

21 Exercising Agency in the Midst of Racial Battle Fatigue: A Case for Intragroup Diversity Gregory J. Vincent Sherri L. Sanders Stella L. Smith 197

22 Racial (and Gender) Battle Fatigue: The Transdisciplinary Applied Social Justice Approach Menah A. E. Pratt-Clarke 207

23 Clashing with Tradition: The Chief Diversity Officer at White Public Institutions Charles Robinson 217

References 225

About the Contributors 243

Editorial Reviews

The editors of this volume have rightfully taken Smith's concept of racial battle fatigue to the "hollowed halls" of higher education. As time moves forward, it will continue stand as testament to the need for an explicit, concrete conversation on the layered, complex manifestations of racsim/White supremacy in people and systems. Thanks to them and their contributors for entering the difficult, but necessary work!

David Stovall

Racial Battle Fatigue in Higher Education is a timely book amidst an onslaught of color-blind racism and the over-representation of people of color in the prison-industrial complex. This book demonstrates the more personal and individual struggle of how racism operates in the micro-interactions of everyday life. A timely book indeed.

Abraham P. DeLeon

Post-Racial…Bah humbug! … Exponentially! There are many scholarly attributes to Racial Battle Fatiguein Higher Education. “Illuminating, grounded and instructive” are a few congratulatory words that can be offered about this volume on the myth of post-racial America.
I like Racial Battle Fatigue because it is practical and now. Practical in that knowledge and understanding about race and its intersecting companions gender and class that are on the loose in our global neoliberal society because of nuanced “dyconsciousness” and “blindspots”. Now because it addresses how and where the evils of racism (sexism and classism) currently exist in the academy, thereby continuing a legacy of personal and institutional hurt fortoward people of color and people who are othered.

Carl A. Grant

The myth that race no longer matters in our society or affects one's daily lived experiences is carefully and brilliantly tackled in Racial Battle Fatigue in Higher Education: Exposing the Myth of Post-Racial America. Through touching personal narratives, theory-building essays, and expositions of empirical research, this hefty volume assembles an eclectic gathering of voices – from graduate students and faculty, to diversity officers – to examine the effects of systemic racism in Higher Education.

Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz