A Bold Vision Forward: a Framework for the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization Okay, Teacher
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©2018 ACPA–College Student Educators International LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We wrote this document in Detroit, Michigan, USA. We acknowledge that the land we met on has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples. Prior to the Indian Land Cession 66, the land now known as Detroit, Michigan was traditional territory to the Anishinaabek (Odawa, Potawatomi and Ojibwe), the Miami, the Peoria and Haudenosauneega Confederacy. We honor and respect the diverse Indigenous peoples connected to this territory on which we gathered. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We acknowledge the ACPA Commission Chairs for proposing the idea for this guiding document on the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization in June 2018 at the ACPA Summer Leadership Meeting. The 2018 ACPA Convention team was also instru- mental in facilitating caucusing for attendees for the first time at convention. We recognize their labor in developing a syllabus, which provided convention attendees with resourc- es to help them understand racial justice and decolonization. Finally, we thank the ACPA Foundation for their generous financial support of the retreat where we were able to engage in dialogue and write this document. ACPA–College Student Educators International // 3 BEGINNING… You have experiences and you become aware, The work is not about resolving the challenges; the then you reflect, and you think about who am I and work is living in the midst of the what I am doing, and how am I hurting people and challenge. -D-L what do I do differently? It doesn’t stop. All those questions are gonna come up. -Flo Slash. / All Occupying multiple sides Those Living in the tension Damn questions. Breathing… Too many of them. In and out So. Many. Inhale / Exhale This all feels so hopeless Seeking resolution Like trying to grasp air Screaming for clarity So futile. Like a calm wind on a spring day Fleeting. And also feeling with the frostbitten hands / That ache. Freeing. Like open wounds And seek fixing Freedom to openly practice ceremony on Even knowing campus. Not having to be fearful of getting That fixing sometimes / now in trouble for smudging in residence halls or Means bigger fixing / later university buildings. Learning from the land, whose land are we on? No more apologies, stop The whole time I just kept thinking, well, damn, apologizing. -Melissa I feel like I’m a settler colonizer. -Stephen I’m sorry. Whew. Are my sorries empty? I know. Like a speckle of dust It’s a lot. Thoughtless? We are asking a lot. Why do some apologize more? Resist that voice Darlin’, you know why. That squeaky, mouse-like voice Telling you, you are different What does it mean to be human? Who defines That you didn’t oppress humanhood? How does one prove humanhood to Assert your dominance the oppressor? I don’t believe in all this diversity Because work in the way that we think about it in our field You did. because if we don’t see each other as human, why would I even care to do that diversity work? I think But I’m a Black queer woman, so, surely you don’t the humanization piece is the core of what we mean me? But, also me. -Dre should be focusing on. What makes you actually see someone as human? -Dian It’s you. Not me. My child, do not talk to strangers. Surely, it’s someone else. Okay, momma. Not me. My child, do not take candy from strangers. I’m one of the good ones. Okay, momma. Not me. My child, do not open the door for strangers. I do social justice work. Okay, momma. Not me. My child, be careful who you talk to. Do you not know I’m oppressed? Okay, teacher. Not me. My child, you gotta do this work yourself. 4 // A Bold Vision Forward: A Framework for the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization Okay, teacher. My child, did you not notice that you hurt that person? They’re a stranger. In a world where racial justice and decolonization are present is that there is no hindrance to a genuine relationship with someone else. Structures and systems prevent these relationships and make them possible in only certain settings. -Alex We cannot force genuine relationships Force is, after all, what propelled colonization Allowed it to fester Allowed it to bubble up Allowed it to become a reality Boggs helped us see that [possibilities for racial justice and decolonization] without giving us a 1, 2, 3, here’s how you do it. So, if we can accomplish the same thing, I think we will satisfy and give people enough, who are looking for that tangibleness, enough to maybe go off on, while at the same time, holding what we have named here-that there is not an answer. -Rachel Won’t you tell me how to do it? I can’t. But, please? I can’t. What about a small answer? I can’t. What about some steps? I can’t. But, I’m afraid. I know. And I’m confused. I know. And I need help. I know. And I’m unsure. I know. Okay, then, how about possibilities? I can. ACPA–College Student Educators International // 5 WHY NOW? The question is how to create windows and doors Given our societal context, it is imperative we clear- for people who believe in justice to ly enunciate our intentions and direct our action enter. - Angela Davis (2016) toward the possibilities of being and becoming what activist and scholar Grace Lee Boggs (2011) envi- The realities of inequity and injustice, particularly sioned, “the leaders we’ve been looking for” (p. 159). targeting Indigenous and racially minoritized peoples in the U.S. and globally, continue to BRIEF HISTORY OF THE IMPERATIVE confront us. Systems of racism, White supremacy, There are moments in life when our purpose and and settler colonialism intersect with structures of perspective are reevaluated. ACPA came to this classism, ableism, genderism, heterosexism, and moment after repeated campus uprisings fueled nationalism to create situations of increasing by continued race-based oppression, a continued jeopardy for Indigenous and racially minoritized history of inequality, and the reemergence of peoples. Gentrification, mass incarceration, under- nationalistic movements in the USA. These events development, and disinvestment make these visibly impacted the job of student affairs educators communities vulnerable while normalizing and around the world. On November 17-21, 2016, the increasing the power and advantages afforded Governing Board, Assembly Leadership, and Interna- to whiteness, wealth, and coloniality. tional Office gathered in Alexandria, VA, USA to dis- cuss issues related to mission, values, and the future Our college and university campuses are not of ACPA. As Past President Donna A. Lee wrote to the insulated from these conditions. In fact, policies ACPA membership a week later: “We departed from and practices within postsecondary education that retreat inspired and energized, emboldened contribute to, exacerbate, and profit from these by our capacity to effect change in a world that has intersectional systems of exclusion and dehuman- been impacted by ubiquitous change, turmoil, and ization. As a result, colleges and universities become pain” (Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and homes for circumstances that reproduce outcomes Decolonization, history, para. 2). In this spirit, the of push-out and exclusion, as well as tokenism and Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice was exceptionalism. The institutional promotion of grit, created. During the 2017 Convention in Columbus, resilience, and belongingness subject Indigenous OH, USA, the Association held three Collective and racially minoritized students to rhetorics of Imagining Sessions. disadvantage that presume they are in need of fixing, instead of our institutions. We must put the During these sessions, almost 200 ACPA members focus on institutions, institutional systems, and provided feedback about the Strategic Imperative. the people who reproduce and profit from the Shortly after convention, ACPA leadership integrat- societal disadvantaging of Indigenous and racially ed decolonization into the Imperative in order to minoritized communities. direct our attention toward the settler colonial history and on-going violence pointed toward As former ACPA President Donna A. Lee shared in 2016: Native, Indigenous, Aboriginal, and First Nations people around the globe. Hence, the Strategic Our work as student affairs educators is Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization transformative, thoughtful, leading, and was born. catalytic; our commitment to equity, inclusion, and justice is even more present. The late addition of decolonization hinted to the This is a time for us to boldly move forward as shortcomings of some of our knowledge systems. a profession and as an Association. In order We have all been strengthened by the acknowl- to move in this boldness, it is important that edgement of the shortcoming and the continued we intentionally and strategically direct our work around understanding decolonization as a energies, time, and resources. (Strategic concept and action. Clearly clarifying how to Imperative for Racial Justice and Decoloni- respond to what we have long ignored, hooks zation, History, para. 2) (1994) proclaimed, “I never wish to see a critique of this blind spot overshadow anyone’s...capacity to 6 // A Bold Vision Forward: A Framework for the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization learn from the insights” (p. 49). Decolonization made and begin to draft it, we questioned if we wanted to sense to include because it complicated our under- mention explicitly the salient identities we hold and standing of the birth of racial injustice (namely discuss how those identities inform our perspectives anti-Black racism and white supremacy) and as authors. Several people immediately pushed continues to impact undergraduate and graduate back at doing so for the exhaustion of continually students, student affairs educators, university making known our minoritized identities and how administrators and staff, and faculty.