Chapter 1: Ripple Effects and Shock Waves: The Impact of a Black Female Faculty Member’s Open Letter to Her Institution

These questions, posed to me by several colleagues, still send shock waves to my system. The seemingly innocent inquiries—and many variations of them—symbolize precisely why the dialogue surrounding diversity in the academy today is both difficult and stymied. Built within these questions is the (conscious and subconscious) denial of institutionalized racist practice that is still ubiquitous at many predominately White colleges and universities. Further inherent in these claims is the perception that underrepresented persons of color (inclusive of faculty and student populations) have the protected space and privileged voice to comfortably address racism and initiate “race talk” in the face of this widespread denial.