Faculty of Color Navigating Higher Education by Harris Brown Karen;McHatton Patricia Alvarez;Scott Michelle Frazier Trotman;

Author:Harris Brown, Karen;McHatton, Patricia Alvarez;Scott, Michelle Frazier Trotman;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4745408
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

WHEN REMEDY IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

I met with my supervisor, who was a White male, to share the struggles I was experiencing with my students. I asked him for advice on how to respond to this situation because I wanted to believe this was not the first time something like this had happened. At that time, I did not know that he had already met with my students. It was not until days later when I found out that two of my students, both White females, met with him to complain about my teaching.

I listened as he told me that I was talking too much in the class about being culturally relevant and that I had to be “culturally relevant to my White students.” He went on to say that I had to meet students where they were. Apparently this meant I needed to smile more frequently, because these were “sweet girls from the South.” I did not believe this approach addressed the problem, but it was only the beginning; he had additional advice for me.

My supervisor proposed that on the first day of class I apologize for my accent and that I try and be more apologetic about my background being so different from my students. He stated that if I tried to appear to be more like the (White) group, the students would feel safer in my class. In other words, I could not be myself. The only issue, in his eyes, was that I was not like my students. I was told, in that meeting, that I had to become someone else.

This wasn’t simply silencing me; this was a blatant attempt to erase my very being. It left me feeling angry and helpless. I had been silenced by my students, and in an attempt to reclaim my voice, I had been oppressed by my supervisor, who was clear about who had “privilege” within the department. His comments were covertly explicit in highlighting what I did not have—the privilege that comes with being White in the United States. Privilege was defined for me, and it was based on the dominant culture. My culture and funds of knowledge were dismissed much like those of the children described earlier in those urban schools in the Southwest. They were not valued. The expectation was that they should be eliminated from the equation if at all possible.

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