“You Hired Me to Do This”: Power, Identity, and Student Activist Support

Pete’s letter: A student activist’s message to campus administrators.

“…This move illustrates a desire to utilize activist strategies that better reflected their value of resistance. We recommend reading Stewart et al’s (2020) work where they explained the difference between traditional notions of activism and concepts of resistance. The authors proposed a Matrix of Resistance wherein everyday acts not traditionally associated with activism, such as showing up and coping, are indeed resistance.…”

“…Although Pete exhibited this awareness, on the other hand, they still, perhaps, perpetuated anti-Blackness by defining themselves in relation to not being Black. One can interpret Pete's comments as distancing themselves from Blackness given the pervasiveness of anti-Black sentiments in the United States and globally (Dumas & ross, 2016;Stewart et al, 2020). A critical race analysis helps you see how racism manifests in Pete's experiences, but more specifically, an analysis attuned to the lens of anti-Blackness provides a more specific way to think about anti-Blackness (Dumas & ross, 2016).…”

The need for more alliances in advocating for, with, and to others in higher education.

“…These staff tend to be responsible for centers of inclusion and not at the vice president level. They were also more likely to be people with marginalized social identities (Harrison & Mather, 2017;Stewart et al, 2020).…”

Strategies for supervising student and staff activists on college campuses

“…In White supremacist organizations, like institutions of higher education, people with minoritized identities experience greater negative consequences for actions that administrators deem as inappropriate (McElderry & Hernandez Rivera, 2017;Stewart et al, 2020). Activists, students and staff alike, are no exception (Harrison, 2010), making supervising activists that much harder-not because of the activist themselves, but because of the systemic barriers that activists must navigate.…”

“…The coordinator's supervisor, who also sees the fault in university administration, may disagree with the coordinator's approach to posting on social media resulting in tension between the two. Further complicating matters, staff and supervisors who hold minoritized identities, specifically racially minoritized identities, experience different consequences from White educators (McElderry & Hernandez Rivera, 2017;Stewart et al, 2020). This is troubling because White staff function within a system of whiteness that benefits them and are perceived to act on their own accord, while educators of Color, even more specifically Black educators, are seen as representing the whole.…”