What are some elements necessary to build a Black university?

I think a Black university, which refers to literally a Black American university, can symbolize a new, differentiated university compared to traditional universities by its unique characteristics. In a traditional university, the students just major in their concentrations and study materials given by their departments while Black university students learn not only those but also something related to their modern societies. In this regard, a Black university should be able to provide a society with creative thoughts and solutions to numerous social problems. As Bambara said, Black university students ought to know how to navigate the world in understanding various social phenomena and political powers. Escaping from doing research only about outdated academic inheritances by past scholars, they should be able to learn studies that can reflect on their present time. In addition, a Black university should make various departments dealing with different social areas such as Black studies, Hispanic studies, Asian studies, etc. 

To this end, it is significant to have adequate mentors who are trained and equipped with the abilities to read the world insightfully so that they can lead the next generations in revolutionary ways. Also, the accumulation of resources for making such a university is very important because operating without planning and strategies likely won’t lead to getting attention from students and won’t lead to building up a Black university that we long for.

We need to share the same purpose and goals in order to build the ideal university. If this criteria is met, then we need to effectively promote the agenda to the public. I was able to see how well Bambara utilized her writing, acting and teaching skills to express her claims for the Black people to the public in her era. Arts, documentaries, and social networking services are some of the significant instruments to make our agendas announced well to the public. We need to create various communication channels to deliver our message to the people outside and get feedback from them. Paradoxically, a very effective channel among those communication channels is also a university, and I hope many Black universities described above and in the text will come out in the future.

Gilmore’s conversation with Scahill made the relationship between anti-capitalism and anti-racism inseparable, which she first attributed to her childhood and her family’s multigenerational labor struggle. This link seems to be easier to grasp as someone disenfranchised by the fangs of capitalism, so my question is: what are strategies to support anti-racist, anti-capitalist work in mostly economically privileged circles (such as many higher ed spaces)? 

>> I think about this a lot and would love to brainstorm with a collective. From what I’ve been seeing during social movements of the pandemic is a kind of slacktivism where a lot of my social media acquaintances (who mostly come from my mostly wealthy liberal arts college) will “spread information” on their profiles to “show support.” Things like “top 10 ways you can support x communities” infographics or profile banners that say “Black Lives Matter.” I feel complicated about such things – sure, they can be helpful, but they can also be sanctimonious. I believe in the power of knowledge but I don’t believe it more in the power of wealth distribution, which I wish would happen in its place. I also think there is a substantial lacking among wealthy classes of grasping how the legacy of slavery/colonialism in the United States directly disenfranchised communities of color nowadays and how American meritocracy is a facade and that ignorance directly inhibits anti-racist work that is intertwined with socialism. I wish our education system would be able to fill in these gaps, to contextualize history & to redistribute resources to students. 

What are ways that we can introduce rehabilitation into our school systems in order to reduce harm and support students?

>> When I think of this, I think of initiatives for higher education within prisons – I think because the idea of rehabilitation is often linked to alternatives to prisons. I watched a documentary about Bard Prison Initiative, a program that educates incarcerated people at a Bachelor’s level, at a previous internship and was amazed by the amount of support (professionally, financially, emotionally, socially) it provided for individuals re-entering society. I also think of pedagogical strategies that give space to students whose social positioning/personal lives may affect their presence in class – for example, Matt’s chapter on poor queer mothers. At a structural level, I think of sufficient health care and leaves for teachers and student loan forgiveness. I would love to keep thinking about this. 

How can Bambara’s model of a “very little academic distance” between teachers and students be employed to affect students’ mental health and students’ learning beyond academics (e.g. social consciousness and liberation)?

>>I loved Bambara’s work and was inspired by the ways that it made education seem holistic, active, and connecting. It made me think about how a lot of educators act as authoritarians, particularly with communities of color (I’m having flashbacks to the powerful Simon Says spoken word). It seems that education, like social science, has a fear of the subjective/personal, creating boundaries between students & teachers/administrators. It seems like the more this wall dissolves, the more education can affect the lives of students. Bambara’s work made me also think of the idea of neutrality in schooling (like in social science) and the ways that breaking through that standard can affect restorative justice, support students, and create educational pathways that are actually rehabilitating. 

A punitive university takes pride in turning learning opportunities into punishments for its students, faculty and staff.  Public safety is highly visible throughout the campuses’ green space.  Any deviation from normalcy is punished. Not only are very public spaces, such as the classrooms, lounges, and departmental offices policed, but so is the concept of knowledge.  Knowledge produced by local groups, street-scholars and quotidian intellectuals hold little significance within the campuses’ learning communities.  Individuals that speak truth to power or the people are automatically met with resistance.  Groups learn how to just “fit in” without instruction on how to analyze, critique, or change the system.  

Newly emerging ethnic and LGTBQ+ studies are automatically placed within more traditional anthropology or sociology departments.  Individuals rarely ever question this placement; in fact it seems completely logical due an unquestioned hierarchy amongst the academic fields. Whenever questioned, a litany of  labor and budget restraints are spit fired, like a machine gun by divisional deans & department chairs to reinforce austerity norms.  These newly forming academic programs aren’t able to remain connected to their communities of origin while developing into well regarding fields.  Finally, they’ve grown so far apart that the people can no longer access nor understand the jargon found in its academic journals.

Next class (April 6) we’ll dive more deeply into Black Study and the University. The readings for that class are below. Please write your own prompt this time and then be ready to discuss your self-guided response with the class.

Need help? One idea: You may want to write a prompt that will help you connect these readings to your emerging final project (i.e., use this response as a form of pre-writing for that project).

Week 9, Apr 6 Black Study and the University

• Toni Cade Bambara, Realizing the Dream of a Black University (Intro)
• Fred Moten and Stephan Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (ch2)
• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “The Case for Abolition” (The Intercept, part 1 & 2)

While reading Professor Brim’s book (which I thorough enjoyed– especially the reference to A Room of One’s Own), I felt a common theme appearing– Queer Studies as a discipline, and the associated tension that comes with, represents a microcosm (or is perhaps the situation itself): where within The Academy does personal experience and knowledge through experience (a type of praxis) fit? We’re living in an age of increased awareness of intersectionality and the inherent politic of personhood, and while on the one hand individuals and institutions get brownie points for increased “wokeness,” we’ve time and time again failed to see fundamental priority shifts materialize. In other words, we’ve been offered conflicting narratives: the personal counts, but cannot be the basis of your inquire– not while we’re still referring to Foucault and Derrida. What Professor Brims clearly points out is there’s overlap in the material he’s teaching and the location in which the material is being taught. Is the only potential for valid personal academy inquiry within an underfunded/public institution like CUNY– and even within CUNY only schools like The College of Staten Island vs. Hunter or the GC.

My questions go back to a larger question I have thought repeatedly this semester– what does the Institution owe us (individuals) and what is it place in our lives outside of the classroom? It seems to me that to allow for Queer Studies to become commonplace is in some way to declare the institution owes us more than an education, but clear support in a type of conduct and wellbeing. This may be the way the world is now, but is it right?

Is there a way to hold a school accountable to the complex reality of students’ lives while maintaining a role as an only-academic space?

While trying to impact societal and organizational change on a fundamental level, in theory, to hear “yes” to a request for advancements is generally a good thing. But can this theory be applied to higher education? Theories, in essence, are fragile and require that a very particular set of underlying assumptions fit a scenario before they can be applied. Furthermore, beyond the assumptions, they depend upon lemmas and corollaries, assistants in the mapping of arguments to proofs, to take the assumptions and prepositions and align them to support the proof. The higher education realm is dynamic and, at any given moment, the conditions that fit a particular assumption can shift. Certain givens, as they are stated in proofs, are static. For example, minoritized subjects are at a disadvantage with respect to college admissions. As Brim states, “As a general rule, in higher education, riches harm the poor…Poor students are hidden by elitist educational institutions, not from them.” General rules govern the proof of theorems. Better yet, they contain them so that the results of narrowly defined suppositions do not fall outside of predetermined bounds. Though ambitious in scope, later, I hope to use many of the givens established in our society, along with lemmas and corollaries justified in our readings and class discussions, to prove an overarching theory regarding the subject matter of this class.

As I read through Prof. Brim’s book, I realize that queer studies are interconnected with different social factors such as class, woman, race, and poverty. Although queer studies are a somewhat unfamiliar subject to me, I could see a little glimpse of how queer studies are happening in the U.S. and a vivid description of Brim’s class’s authentic atmosphere. One of the fun parts of the book is that some young women students’ chief goal is not to graduate as quickly as possible so that they can forestall marriage or resist increased pressure to marry. On the other hand, one of the heartbreaking parts is about a queer homeless student holding back tears, “this is the first time they’ve kicked me out for good.” Although I could not fully understand the student and Poor Queer Studies Mothers’ difficult situations, it is nice to hear that queer studies could be used as an educational ladder for students’ social mobility. And it is also touching story that when a mother brought her child to one of the queer studies’ classes, every student there treated her child so considerably, and that experience led the students involved in the class to a deep level of understanding of queer words.  Additionally, it is interesting to know that continuing to live at a parent’s home while commuting to college is considered an overwhelmingly low-income and working-class experience in the U.S. (If what I understood from the text is correct). In Korea, students prefer commuting to colleges from their homes, and there is no such bias. This point makes me think that colleges should be considerate of not only for their students’ studies or grades but also of their socioeconomic status, which is the most significant determinant for their likelihood to graduate. Colleges should try to create as many part-time job opportunities on campus as possible for low-income students and provide them with a long period of study years so that many working students can finish their studies successfully while managing their lives properly.

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Pedagogy roundup: This is one of the ideas that came to mind as I took this higher-edu class. As an international student, sometimes I felt like “I do not know what this means” in the class. I think it might be due to language or cultural barriers, or it might be because I’m learning new academical terminologies (I’m not saying this negatively. I am enjoying taking this class. Please don’t get me wrong😊). I am still learning English, which I love to learn, and I’m also experiencing new cultures in NYC as a student who studies in a different cultural context.

Just as someone brought up some of the immigrant student issues in the class, I think my new cultural experience as an international student connect not only to other international students but also to many immigrants who are still coming to the U.S. This point leads me to question, “are American students (especially American-born students) ready enough to accept various immigrant students to their classes and their college lives? Are U.S. colleges well prepared to receive immigrant students as their actual members?”

To answer these questions, I think about pedagogy related to “understanding other cultures by experiencing those cultures.” As we talked a lot about “inclusivity” in the class, being aware of other people’s cultures from other countries or regions is important to becoming inclusive, and and should not be considered a trivial matter. Creating opportunities to understand and experience other cultures in class will allow American students to be knowledgeable about how they should interact with culturally different students. And creating opportunities to understand other cultures also would help American-born students have more open-minded attitudes toward immigrant students. Furthermore, this approach may contribute to making the U.S. society more inclusive to each other despite of racial, ethnic, and gender differences. So, I suggest this pedagogy:

-At the beginning of the college semester, every student in class presents about “introducing his/her ethnic or country cultures” in front of other students so that all students can recognize that they have been grown up in different cultures and family backgrounds.   

-During the presentation, immigrant or international students can use their native language sometimes to give American students opportunities to experience how a study using other languages is different from a study in their mother tongues. This experience can be called “becoming an exchange student abroad.”

-Second, third or higher generation immigrant students also should introduce their parent’s previous country’s cultures. By doing so, they could learn not to forget their original national identities.

-Students can share exotic foods of different countries and wear their home or parent’s home-country’s traditional dresses during the class with explanations about when they wear those dresses.

The field of queer studies is not excluded in classism; it overlooks scholars who have attended graduate or undergraduate schools that are not in the few top programs. Only those attached to the field’s prominent and privileged thinkers can be seen. It is sad to think that most women and queer scholars of color will not “write their way out of anywhere.” Most poor queer studies students will not leave an impact on the discipline like students in rich queer studies at elite institutions. However, it may be ‘poor queer studies’ that do more to translate and apply these transformative ideas into the real world, since it is the poor working-class students that go onto the non-academic workforce and community. They teach beyond the classroom, bringing queer studies to their coworkers, their family and friends. Mothers in queer studies want to bring the knowledge they learned in the classroom to their children and family. They are doing queer pedagogy in their own roles in life.

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I wonder how the shift to distance learning through zoom, has affected these students., now that there is a lack of distance between the student and their home/family.

The fourth chapter of Poor Queer Studies truly blew me away; it was rich and thoughtful, and I found myself connecting many sentences to wildly different personal experiences I’d had and I wanted to use this space to air some of them out.

Semantics: this chapter reminded me a lot of Ahmed’s work and attention to words, especially in relation to justice. The first time this struck out to me was when it was written that “these students can’t invite dates inside their own homes. But their mothers are not homophobic.” I was taken aback but his quote, especially thinking about our immense failure as a country in naming racism and homophobia. But this example seemed different and nuanced the ways that words are related to lived experiences and our understanding of concepts like queerness. It also made me think about how the word queer has crossed linguistic lines. For example, in Arabic, many queer activists have pushed to find an equivalent of the word queer in English, hoping to move away from homophobic translations in the Arabic language. Such words have the power to create space but also invade space. I also really enjoyed the anecdote about spelling and the multigenerational education and creative, spontaneous Poor Queer Studies pedagogies.

Personal/political: of course this is a common topic of conversation in spaces with similar commitments to our classes. I loved the tunchz quote that opened up readers to the connection between both worlds. I felt that the chapter spoke in very specific  examples about how the personal/political link affects one’s educational development. For example, the idea that many young women, especially queer women and women of color, may value education for their ability to exercise autonomy. This example reminded me of how a lot of my peers in Lebanon will view education globally, leaving the country to get a graduate education but more importantly, to emigrate. This topic has encouraged me to think about education not only as a means of individual intellectual/professional growth, but the ways that it is linked to community/cultural values. I truly hope that our educational systems can think deeply about how students’ personal lives are deeply related to their academic success.

Commuting/dorming college: relatedly, I  was interested in the class dynamic underlying commuter colleges and the way the commute can create the same sense of autonomy and psychological/physical distance that (I think) youth need to feel. It’s interesting when thinking about this topic because I’ve been debating how the pandemic, which caused many millennials to move home temporarily, made me question the relationship between American families and multigenerational homes (of course, class matters a lot here). Additionally, in Zoom courses, this distance is gone again for many low-income students, who may be uncomfortable talking about specific topics while their parents are in the same room. This also reminded me of a video I saw about a week ago which explained that dorming colleges are such a cherished part of typical American youth experiences because they give individuals a sense of community, social network, and a safety net that our neoliberal society has not afforded us.

I have a lot of thoughts on this chapter (clearly), but I’m grateful it probed me to think more expansively of how our systems are set up and how to effectively queer them. 

Reading Matt’s book reminded me of this very brief autobiographical essay by Rod Ferguson called Sissies at the Picnic (sorry for the format, I couldn’t find an electronic version other than photos on a friend’s Facebook page). In this essay Rod is thinking about rural Georgia as a Black queer space in ways that resonate with Matt’s understanding of CSI as a queer college. Also, I think this essay speaks to the question of motherhood in interesting ways. With this essay in mind, I would ask whether Rod is engaged in a practice of poor queer studies from within Yale University, among the most elite institutions of higher education in the world? Here I am thinking with Matt’s argument that “we are of our institutions” and Moten and Harney’s call to be “in but not of” the university. Is it possible to be in Yale but not of it, or to be of both Manchester, Georgia and Yale University—perhaps creating a sense of double consciousness?