Written by Dr. Clarissa Keen
Earlier this summer, I had the honor of attending a virtual symposium hosted by Community Change, Inc. (https://communitychangeinc.org/) and Showing Up for Racial Justice, Boston (https://www.surjboston.org/) which focused on the increase of white supremacist sentiments and activities in the New England region. While not specifically focused on education, there were many educators in attendance (both as participants and panelists) and the role of education in confronting and combatting white supremacy was discussed greatly. The symposium opened with a quote from Let This Book Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba which made a distinction between being an activist and being an organizer. I have spent much of my life up until now firmly in the activist camp: someone who shows up, who helps out, who bears witness, who engages in the activities to make change. But as I listened to the description of an organizer, someone who is involved in meeting longer term goals and organizing people and resources towards change, I was struck by how much this description resembled the DEIR committee in the Chemistry Department at Boston College. As educators and academics, we have students, colleagues, and resources at our disposal that must be organized towards change. Therefore, we must intentionally consider how we organize ourselves to confront white supremacy within our Boston College community.
My first takeaway from this symposium (which may be obvious to many of you) is that white supremacy is alive and well, even in Massachusetts. In the past year, there have been 684 incidents in Massachusetts of Hate, Extremism, Antisemitism, Terrorism according to the American Defamation League; 491 of which were specifically White Supremacist events. As a white person in a blue state, it can be easy for me to forget (this is my privilege showing) and regularly attending these events helps to keep me aware and focused. While students and faculty at Boston College range in their awareness of and interactions with white supremacy, part of organizing towards an equitable educational community is to offer these reminders of how white supremacy manifests in thought and action, as this symposium did for me. The question this symposium proposed was how do we recognize white supremacy and confront it so that we may move towards a more just future?
Dr. Emily Knox, an Associate Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, pointed out that kids’ voices are the best voices for speaking against unjust initiatives especially with regards to education, since it is their own education that they are speaking about. In this vein, raising issues of white supremacy and justice in the classroom is a crucial first step. Social justice is a Jesuit value and thus these topics align well with much of the mission of the university. We can use these interactions with students to understand their notions of white supremacy and work to confront white supremacist ideals with other perspectives and narratives. Dr. Mimi Arbeit, an Assistant Professor at Suffolk University, added that the best way to confront white supremacy is to proactively discuss it, to acknowledge where how students might encounter it and how they may respond. Asking students to then share how they recognize white supremacy, where they see it in their lives, and how/when they might confront it empowers them to move towards action.
However, before the educators can have these discussions with students, we must have them amongst ourselves. DEI groups and departments on campus must become familiar with the tenants of white supremacy that are upheld throughout higher education and actively seek to dismantle them. We must be able to identify white supremacist groups or movements on campus and acknowledge and confront these efforts. Ideas of white supremacy can take a myriad of forms as can how we confront them. Some recommendations that came from the symposium are: 1) consider your positionality and safety; your identity and relative power in the situation matter and may prohibit you from acting and 2) call it out and recognize it for what it is. It can be more dangerous for someone with a minoritized identity or in a decreased position of power to speak up against white supremacy. Therefore, it is imperative that allies among the faculty speak up, especially those in the majority (e.g., white, male, cis, straight, etc.). Ideally, this calling out would be done in the moment itself. However, sometimes you might not be able to address the issue in the moment, and so the next step would be finding a way to call attention to it after the fact or in a less direct way. This can be done by posting about it on social media or emailing a group to share your observations. The panelists also mentioned that many supporters of white supremacy will use “free speech” or humor as a way to protect their thoughts and actions and continue sharing their ideas. From my own experience, many folks will cite history or tradition as the excuse. It is important not to engage with these arguments, and instead clearly acknowledge the white supremacy in what is being demonstrated and offer a counter narrative when possible.
If you are wondering what any of this has to do with science or chemistry or Boston College, there are many examples of how science and chemistry have contributed to white supremacist narratives, which can be explained by people with a much greater expertise than I (see reading list below). I hope that upon reading this piece, we can recognize the need for continued education in this area, our role as organizers of change, and our responsibility to confront white supremacy in our classrooms, research labs, committees, and everyday lives. Having these discussions in every class and department is a way we can all make change.
Reading List:
Binkley, C. “Harassment Cases Revive Scrutiny Of Racism At Boston College”. The Associated Press; WBUR. Feb 18 2021. https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/02/18/boston-college-racial-harassment
Harris, A. The State Must Provide: Why America’s colleges have always been unequal and how to set them right; Harper Collins, 2021.
Leyva, L. A.; McNeill, R.T.; Duran, A. A queer of color challenge to neutrality in undergraduate STEM pedagogy as a White, cisheteropatriarchal space. J. Women Minorities Sci. Eng. 2022, 28, (2), 79-94.
McDonald, D. “In progressive Massachusetts, a long history of white supremacy”. The Boston Globe. Jul 15, 2022. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/15/metro/progressive-massachusetts-long-history-white-supremacy/
McGee, E. O. Interrogating structural racism in STEM higher education. Educ. Res. 2020, 49, (9), 633-644.
Wilson‐Lopez, A.; Hasbún, I. M. Countering science as White property through linguistic justice. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 2023, 60 (3), 449-677. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21838