All That’s Black Is Black
The Reification of Race in Higher Education
In: New Framings on Anti-Racism and ResistanceSearch for other papers by Brieanne Berry Crossfield in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
This chapter examines what it means to be a Black student in Canadian higher education by asking how race is reified in academic institutions. By recognizing the historical and social effects of being negatively racialized as Black, questions of who is allowed to receive praise and under what circumstances are grappled with. Furthermore, considering how policies of inclusion inform contemporary education wherein diversity is identified as a desirable result, leads Berry Crossfield to believe that there are performative implications of being Black in higher education. Black students are forced to participate in “academic minstrelsy”, strategizing and negotiating their identities in order to find success in an environment that remains hostile to their presence, even as they are recruited to enrich the knowledge production within the academy. Through a reflection of personal experiences as a first-generation Black mixed-race Canadian student, Berry Crossfield posits that while Black students show resistance through their physical presence within higher education, race is reified through their participation in the institution of knowledge throughout their journey of academia. In this context, the Black student remains an object, specifically an object of exceptional circumstances rather than recognized as a complex subject.