Hegemons arise by smashing and terrorizing human diversity. They do so structurally, institutionally, and discursively—that is, through logics, rationales, and schemes. In this special issue, we grapple with the racism problem that pervades communication studies. In fact, the discipline has long had a racism problem, silenced by overarching structures that deploy the language of civility to erase conversations that call out this problem. This special issue, “Merit, Whiteness, and Privilege,” focuses on the racial, ideological, and epistemological logics, rationales, and schemes, such as falsely separating scholarly merit from diversity, that the status quo in communication studies employs to keep minority peoples marginalized. We contend that looking at the racism problem that pervades communication studies from a perspective of whiteness deepens our understanding of this problem in profound ways.
The road a predominantly white institution (PWI) takes to maximize diversity, inclusion, and equity can be fraught with challenges. One midsize institution learned through an assessment of its campus climate that its institutional practices and arrangements impeded diversity, inclusion, and equity despite white administrators' beliefs to the contrary. To help quell systemic racism habits, monthly campus-wide workshops focused on several key racial injustice habits and hurtful microaggressions generated from white privilege. A faux social justice allure to white allies who considered themselves advocates of nondominant people is one that should ultimately call into question the genuineness and true nature of their support. This semi-autoethnographic essay is a plaintive call to white colleagues in the academy to earnestly acknowledge white privilege and to use it to actively fight the destructive force of racial battle fatigue and institutional racism.
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