Dear Fabulous FEASTers,

I believe the following article should be required reading for all
faculty teaching in graduate programs and all graduate students.
Please consider forwarding this to your departmental list-serve,
posting it in the faculty lounge, or printing copies and handing it
out to your grad students.  That's what I will be doing.

http://theprofessorisin.com/2011/08/09/challenges-for-graduate-students-of-color-in-the-academy/

A brief excerpt:

"...the starting point and the ending point for so many graduate
students of color in the humanities and social sciences is frequently
(although not always) fundamentally different from that of white
students. While some graduate students of color most certainly do turn
their scholarly interests to subjects unconnected to their own racial
or cultural background, and that is entirely to be supported, for the
majority, I believe, scholarship starts and ends with the question,
“does this help or hurt my people?”

And that is a question that white people don’t get...

...When your people are dying, literally dying, from forms of cultural
genocide, your approach to academia is going to be different. It’s
going to be urgent. It’s going to be impatient. It’s going to be
angry. You’re going to ask questions about why their stories are not
being told, and why scholars aren’t asking how the discipline helps or
hurts a group of people, your people, who are already suffering from
so many histories of neglect and disregard."

Best,
Sophia

¨°¨¨¨¨¨°º°¨¨¨¨¨°º°¨¨¨¨¨¨
Sophia Wong, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
http://sophiawong.info