“She’s a friend of my mind”: a reflection of Black sisterhood in academia

Race Ethnicity and Education ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cree20 “She’s a friend of my mind”: a reflection of Black sisterhood in academia Crystasany R. Turner & Kelly R. Allen To cite this article: Crystasany R. Turner & Kelly R. Allen (2022): “She’s a friend of my mind”: a reflection of Black sisterhood in academia, Race Ethnicity and Education, DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2022.2088724 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2088724 Published online: 15 Jun 2022. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cree20 RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2022.2088724 “She’s a friend of my mind”: a reflection of Black sisterhood in academia Crystasany R. Turner a and Kelly R. Allen b a Erikson Institute, A Graduate School in Child Development Chicago, Illinois, United States; bDepartment of Advanced Studies and Innovation-Augusta, Augusta University GA, USA ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY The authors draw upon their lived experiences as Black women in the academy to conceptualize a framework for Black women’s peer mentorship, or ‘sister scholarship,’ within academia. Through autoethnographic ‘sister talks,’ the sister scholar relationship is conceptualized as a sanctum from gendered and racialized trauma, an impetus for the co-generation of knowledge, an approbation of intersectionality, and a gathering of the whole self. This work is grounded in Black feminist understandings of resiliency, resistance, and grace within academia. In discussion, the authors call for the abolition of oppressive policies and systems that aim to marginalize and disenfranchise Black women and other Women of Color in the academy. Received 13 July 2021 Accepted 7 June 2022 KEYWORDS Black women in academia; black women doctoral students; black feminist thought; black feminist epistemologies; autoethnography; sister talk “She’s a friend of my mind. She gathers me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them right back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.” -Toni Morrison, Beloved Black women scholars and intellects have been a misprized source of skill, knowledge, and perspective within academia and other institutions founded and maintained by white patriarchal norms. The experiences, ideas, and practices Black women bring into institutions of higher education offer a critical counter-perspective to universalized, colonial knowledge. However, Black women and our1 perspectives remain highly underrepresented in the field of education. As of 2019, only 5.5% of earned doctoral degrees were granted to Black individuals, and only 3.2% were granted to Black women (NCSES 2019). As such, navigating predominantly white institutions of higher education is often a lonely and isolating experience. However, some Black women are fortunate to find a friend with whom to share the journey. The relationship and experiences we share in this article were developed over three years during our doctoral careers at an institution in the United States midwest. Crystasany began her coursework in 2017 while Kelly finished the last year of her master’s studies. We met when we were hired as graduate research assistants for a large grant. Through the years, we conducted research together, attended numerous academic conferences, and engaged in hours of reflective and critical dialogue. As time passed, we grew more comfortable sharing and gaining the other’s perspective about our personal CONTACT Crystasany R. Turner cturner@erikson.edu © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 2 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN lives outside of the academy. In the meantime, we continued to develop our own research interests – Crystasany in culturally relevant early childhood education and Kelly around hip-hop pedagogy in social studies education. While each recognized the other as a source of consistent support and friendship, it was not until Crystasany graduated and began work in another institution that we recognized how much we depended on the profound relationship we had developed and grown accustomed to. Like generations of Black women academics, we sought comfort and solidarity within the pages of the Black women’s scholarship whose work we seek to build upon (Nash 2020). Nonetheless, we soon realized that navigating staff meetings and mundane interactions with faculty and students at our respective institutions left us yearning for our sisterhood – support, validation, loyalty, and trust stemming from our shared understanding of life as a Black woman scholar (Collins 1989). From this understanding of Black sisterhood, we examine what we conceptualize as the sister scholar relationship. Although we recognize this relationship can be fostered between Women of Color of different heritages and even interracially, we frame our experiences within our own epistemic standpoint as Black women. Our intention in sharing the experiences of our sister scholarship is to offer other women Scholars of Color language around one of the various forms of resistance, regeneration, healing, and transformation in which we engage. Through the examination of the sister scholar relationship, we ask: What about the sister scholar relationship is so significant, and what institutional, personal, and sociocultural experiences allow this relationship to influence the lifeways of Black women academics so profoundly? The experiences of Black women in academia While there have been efforts to diversify the doctoral candidate pool, little has been done to abolish oppressive structures for doctoral Students of Color (Armstrong and Wildman 2012; Collins 1986; Võ 2012). Systemic racism and exclusionary practices are especially evident in the experiences of Black women doctoral candidates (Collins 1986; Niemann 1999). Due to the lack of interrogation of oppressive curriculum (Collins 1986; Niemann 1999), inequitable funding practices (NCSES 2019), and socialization structures of doctoral programs (McKinley 2014; Nagbe 2019; Shavers and James 2014), Black women in graduate programs experience higher degrees of isolation than their white counterparts (Ellis 2001). As a result, Black women often rely on mentoring relationships to cultivate a sense of belonging and sustainment within their doctoral programs (Patton and Harper 2003; Williams et al. 2018). Research indicates various factors contribute to Black doctoral students’ sense of belonging (Barker 2011; Fountaine 2012; Gildersleeve, Croom, and Vasquez 2011; Shavers and James 2019). For Black women, self-preservation through mentorship is especially crucial throughout their doctoral careers. Rasheem et al. (2018) found that Black women doctoral students’ faculty mentor relationships are most effective when they are founded with faculty who share identities or interests with the doctoral student. Further research has shown that faculty mentorship is important for helping Black women doctoral students navigate racial hostilities and trauma in academia (Gooden, Devereaux, and Hulse 2020). RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 3 While faculty mentorship is important for Black women doctoral students, underemployment of Black women in the academy (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 2018) has led Black women to seek other forms of mentorship throughout their doctoral programs. With only 6% of all full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions identifying as Black — while 76% percent are white2 (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 2018)— Black women rely on peer mentorship to establish a sense of belonging and to sustain themselves in the face of various gendered and race-based traumas throughout their studies (Apugo 2017; Patterson-Stephens and Hernández 2018). While this peer mentorship may occur interracially between Black women and their white peers, or even between Black women and Black male peers, there remain dimensions of the Black woman’s experience invisible to both groups, who possess neither the language or the epistemological capacity to fully elicit or understand the experience. For this, mentorship with another Black woman becomes even more desirable. Minnett, James-Gallaway, and Owens (2019) describe this peer mentorship as a key aspect of Black women cultivating one’s authentic, holistic self while they ‘reject the white supremacist heteropatriarchal norms in the academy’ (227). We draw on the work of these Scholars of Color in acknowledging our sister scholar relationship as integral to the successful completion of our doctoral studies. While the literature provides critical insights into the experiences of Black women doctoral students, we draw upon our lived experiences as Black women in the academy to conceptualize this framework and build on understandings of Black women’s peer mentorship and sister scholarship. Theoretical framework Our conceptualization of the sister scholar relationship is grounded in Black Feminist Thought (BFT). As the offspring of feminist and critical race theories, BFT validates the experiences and perspectives of Black women, while analyzing the meanings, social rules, values, and motives that govern action in a specific context – such as the academic setting (Collins 1989, 2000, 2016; Few, Stephens, and Rouse-Arnett 2003). In Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, bell hooks critiques white women’s call for solidarity in the feminist movement, asserting that the ‘sisterhood’ propagated by the contemporary feminist movement discounted ‘racist discrimination, exploitation, and oppression of multi-ethnic women’ (hooks 2015, 50–51). Because white women disregarded Black women’s intersectional positionality as both a woman and Black, Black women were continually left on the margins of the feminist movement. Similarly, when Black women turned to the Civil Rights Movement to advocate for their rights, they found that Black men could not understand their intersectional needs as Black women. In short, Black women’s need for sociopolitical justice were subordinate to others in each movement (Collins and Bilge 2016; Taylor 1998). Because of our unique positionality in the economic, social, and political arenas, the Black woman’s quest for autonomy and opportunity is often encumbered; and issues that uniquely affect Black women are often overlooked (Collins 1989, 2002; Collins and Bilge 2016; Crenshaw 1991; Hine 1996; Taylor 1998). Due to the lack of alliances within these political campaigns and other social contexts, Black women have developed a deep-rooted understanding that if we want to see 4 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN social and economic equality, then we as Black women must act as agents of our own empowerment (Pratt-Clarke 2013; Taylor 1998). This agency extends to educational research, where Black Feminist Thought has positioned itself counter hegemonically to acknowledge and preference the perspectives and experiences Black women. Therefore, Black women use BFT to self-define and reclaim power within academic structures designed to keep us marginalized. A critical component for the formation of the sister scholar relationship is the Black feminist understanding of sisterhood. Black women educators, scholars, mothers, intellects, and activists have been a force of justice and social reform for decades – creating collaborative networks in sisterhood to uplift themselves, their children, and their communities. The tacit bonds of Black sisterhood – a loyalty and connection to other women stemming from shared oppression (Collins 1989)— is deeply rooted in Black women’s cultural ways of being. This bond of kinship extends beyond traditional notions of ‘family’ and accounts for historical and communal bonds with others in the struggle across physical and social locations (Collins 1989). Rooted in our distinct cultural heritage and sisterhood, we (re)generate the energy and skills needed to resist and transform daily experiences of gendered racism (Collins 1989; Dillard 2000; Majors 2004; Taylor 1998). Embodying this legacy of resistance, healing, and sisterhood, the sister scholar relationship explicitly draws from four tenets of Black Feminist Thought. Self-definition and self-valuation The first tenet of Black Feminist Thought asserts that Black women empower themselves through self-definition and self-valuation, which enable us to establish positive selfimages while repelling negative, controlling representations of Black womanhood. Selfdefinition involves challenging the political knowledge and validation process that have resulted in externally defined, stereotypical images of Black womanhood (Collins 1989; Davis 2018). Further, Black Feminist Thought demands that Black women self-valuate to reframe this dialogue from merely focusing on the technical accuracy of an image to interrogating the power dynamics underlying the process of definition itself (Davis 2018). In this reflection, we draw on Black Feminist Thought’s understandings of self-definition and self-valuation to position ourselves as scholars whose perspectives and contributions belong in academic spaces. Interlocking identities Secondly, Black Feminist Thought asserts that Black women confront and dismantle overarching and interlocking structures of domination in terms of race, class, and gender oppression. The notion of interlocking identities recognizes that Black women are simultaneously marked by racial, gender, sexual, color, historical, socioeconomic status, and other stigmas. These stigmatized identities and the subsequent oppressions are not hierarchical; they are intersectional (Collins 1990; Collins and Bilge 2016; Davis 2018; Richie 2012). Moreover, Black Feminist Thought acknowledges that a Black woman’s socialization takes place at multiple familial, communal, and societal locations (Few, Stephens, and Rouse- RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 5 Arnett 2003). Acknowledging our interlocking identities allows us to reflect on the wealth of experiential knowledge and ancestral wisdom we carry into our work as scholars and intellects. Intertwined intellectual thought Third, Black Feminist Thought states that through everyday knowledge, Black women intertwine intellectual thought and political activism. Collins (2002) explains that not all Black women intellectuals are educated within traditional institutions of education; nor do not all Black women intellectuals work in academia. In contrast to the dominant perspective, Black Feminist Thought gives preference to Black women’s ways of creating synthesized meaning-making from an ever-shifting collective consciousness and the interpretation of collective wisdom, drawn from shared experiences (Collins 1989; Richie 2012). Through an understanding of intertwined intellectual thought, we recognize the sister scholar relationship allows us to expand each other’s funds of knowledge and move towards a deeper understanding of both our scholarship and womanhood. Standpoint epistemology The final tenet of Black Feminist Thought we draw from is standpoint epistemology, which argues that Black women possess a distinct cultural heritage that gives us the energy and skills to resist and transform daily discriminations (Collins 1989; Taylor 1998). Because of this unique heritage, Black women not only understand their own standpoint, but are in the best position to evaluate and make claims about the meaning of it (Richie 2012). Based on the assumption that Black women exist within systems of domination that objectively recast women’s experiences to serve the interests of the elite, BFT reframes this process for Black women. Black Feminist Thought privileges the expertise of those who have experienced a circumstance, rather than those who generate knowledge from an outsider’s perspective and thus lack an authentic understanding of behaviors, values, or historical antecedents (Davis 2018; Richie 2012). Methodology This research grew from a series of sister talks between the two authors throughout our doctoral careers. ‘Sister Talk’ is an Afrocentric colloquialism used to describe congenial conversations between Black women in which we share stories, personal narratives, jokes, gossip, and life lessons (Few, Stephens, and Rouse-Arnett 2003; Majors 2001). Sister talks between Black women are inherently autoethnographic as we describe and analyze (graphy) our personal experiences as Black women (auto) in order to understand a larger cultural experience (ethno). These discussions are part of our cultural funds of knowledge (Collins 1986) as Black women. As part of our communal, spiritual, and cultural funds of knowledge, sister talks represent a tool through which we reason and problem solve (Majors 2004). Bruner (1990) argues that through narrative traditions, our cultural systems represent values, ideals, and ways of acting and thinking that are institutionalized 6 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN in cultural histories. In turn, we use these narrative traditions as an interpretive framework to make sense of the world, our cultural histories, and our experiences as Black women. We entered our sister talks with perspectives of ourselves and society shaped by our lived experiences. Crystasany was raised collectively by her Black mother, father, and extended family members. In her early years, she was homeschooled by her mother who rooted within Crystasany a sense of pride in her cultural and spiritual heritage. Still, Crystasany remembers being ridiculed by other Black children for talking ‘white’ and the sense of loneliness from being the only Person of Color in the advanced courses of her predominantly white high school. Through these experiences, Crystasany learned that her Blackness was not ‘Black enough’ for many of her Black peers. However, to her white peers, Crystasany’s Blackness was her predominant trait which, in many ways, superseded the other aspects of her character. This persistent sense of double consciousness is one of the reasons Crystasany values the sister scholar relationship where she can be whole within her humanity, free from the weight of expectation. Kelly was raised interracially, having been born by a white mother and Black father. Further, she was adopted by a white family at an early age. This interracial experience deeply influenced the way she perceived and interacted with her Blackness. Throughout her childhood, she often felt she was an outsider in her own family, as her Blackness was always a barrier for full inclusion. She also experienced feeling like an outsider with other children her age, as she vividly recalls being taunted by kids at school because of her Blackness. Her classmates often told Kelly that they did not want to play with her at recess because they “didn’t want to play with Black people”. Despite this explicit racism, Kelly’s mother regularly dismissed the students’ acts as not being racially motivated. Kelly realized that no matter how included or loved her family attempted to make her feel, her Blackness was a constant reminder that her white family members would never understand some aspects of her identity. It is this experience that makes Kelly so protective over the sister scholar relationship that she has cultivated with Crystasany. Within the relationship, there is no mediating which parts of Kelly’s identity are accepted and understood. Black feminist scholars and activists (ie. Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Maria Stewart, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Zora Neale Hurston, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, June Jordan, Angela Davis, Michelle Wallace, Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, and various others) have long engaged in narrative storytelling and autoethnographic writing (Brown-Vincent 2019). The choice to use our sister talks as an autoethnographic method for this study was based in the feminist theorization of the personal as political (BrownVincent 2019). In sharing our narratives in Black sisterhood, we reflect on our experiences and the expression of our narratives within spaces created for us and by us. Through the catalytic quality of sister talks, we talk back to external hostilities as a way of resisting domination, self-empowerment, redefining oppressions, and transforming society (Davis 2018; Ladson-Billings 2000). In writing this article, we recorded our reflective conversations about our sisterhood and scholarship. Through a series of late-night sister talks, which occurred over FaceTime, Zoom, phone, and in our hotel rooms after attending academic conferences, we ruminated on how our sisterhood differs from other relationships we experienced RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 7 throughout our doctoral careers. We asked ourselves why the sisterhood of Black women scholars is unique from that of our white colleagues, who have also formed meaningful relationships through their studies and careers. As is the nature of sister talks, the reflections of our experiences in academia were entwined with stories of our family lives, laced with the latest ‘tea’ from happenings in the department, and punctuated with our laughter at shared memories. The recorded conversations were analyzed through emotion coding (Saldaña 2013). Emotion codes ‘label the emotions recalled and/or experienced by the participant’ and is an effective coding strategy for qualitative studies that ‘explore intrapersonal and interpersonal participant experiences and actions’ (Saldaña 2013, 105). As we reviewed the transcripts of our recorded conversations, we asked ourselves: What emotions does this topic elicit? What emotions are we describing in this conversation? The emotion coding categories were examined; and jottings (Saldaña 2013) were utilized to tie the coding categories to the lived experiences that elicited each emotion. The lived experiences and corresponding coding categories gave way to our findings. The transcripts from our sister talks are woven into these findings to illustrate not only the product of our collaborative process, but the nature of our conversations. Toward an understanding of the sister scholar relationship Through our sister talks, we came to see how our sister scholar relationship not only contributed to our sustainment and success in our doctoral programs but embodied the tenets of Black Feminist Thought. Understanding the sister scholar relationship as a sanctum from racialized trauma, an impetus for the co-generation of knowledge, the approbation of intersectionality, and the gathering of our whole (unbroken) selves, we illustrate Black feminist understandings of resiliency, resistance, and grace within academia. The sister scholar relationship as a sanctum As Black women navigate spaces and systems that are not created for us, we confront an onslaught of external hostilities. In her work, In this Place where I don’t Quite Belong: Claiming the Onto-epistemological In-Between, Denise Taliaferro Baszile (2006) compares Black women’s navigation of academic spaces to moving through the territory of a rival gang. Instead of guns, knives, and other physical weaponry, Black women in academia navigate racism, sexism, revisionist history, differential racialization, interest convergence, and white fragility (Berry 2018). From these experiences, we have come to understand our sisterhood as a sanctum or a sacred, inviolably private place made for us and by us. After operating within these inimical environments, we often retreat with each other into the sanctum of our sisterhood to process, support, and confide with one another. Within this space, we rejuvenate and empower each other towards healing, resistance, and transformation (Collins 1989; Davis 2018; Taylor 1998). Throughout our doctoral careers, we attended various meetings and academic conferences together. Over time, we recognized patterns of exhaustion that followed being in predominantly white academic spaces for extended periods of time. While at first we questioned whether it was social anxiety or introverted-ness, our sister talks and debriefing 8 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN helped us process the true source of the exhaustion we felt after these engagements. We recalled one session in particular where a group of white women researchers proudly presented their work in teacher education. They told stories of how they ‘partnered’ with Families of Color in the community around their campus to house their white women teacher candidates. The intention was for the teacher candidates to have a first-hand understanding of what it was like to live and work in the community they were preparing to teach in – yet the researchers reassured the audience that the women were safe because each family was required to install a lock on their bedroom doors. We watched another Black woman exit the session as the researchers began sharing pictures and testimonials of awe-inspired white women as they ventured into the local Baptist church to witness the call-and-response of Pentecostal pedagogy (Emdin 2017). We cringed in our seats with pictures of white women infiltrating Black barber shops to study the complexities of relationship building and narrative dialogue within the Black community. The researchers explained that they gave these white teacher candidates this immersive experience so they could later imitate these practices within their own classroom practice as a means to connect with their diverse students. We left that session and the conference that day frustrated and disgusted at how this educational research objectified and commodified Black cultural ways – questioning if our own perspectives and scholarship belonged in academia. Kelly: I was thinking... what if I didn’t have you to vent with after that conference, and like if I never had another Black woman to commensurate with . . . .I’m thinking ‘bout all our little late night conference chats . . . cause a lot of those were rooted in like decompressing from the day. I would probably think that conferences weren’t for me or academia wasn’t for me because it was so exhausting. I don’t know if I would be able to pinpoint why it was exhausting without you to talk about it. Like . . . I just left with such a bad taste in my mouth about that session I just wanted to be done with the conference. But then after talking to you, I’m just like “naw this that white people [stuff]” Crystasany: Yeah, ‘cause at the end of the day, that’s what whiteness wants . . . to make you feel so uncomfortable in that space that it pushes you out to maintain that in-group and out-group . . . .and reaffirm that you’re part of the out-group . . . But no, we reclaiming that [stuff]. Kelly: Yeah, it’s that validation for all of the microaggressions . . . and even in academia, sometimes it’s not even a microaggression. It’s just white people doing white people [stuff] that you just have to deal with . . . taking up space, talking about their whiteness . . . This is what was so exhausting . . . The white people at [the conference] were just . . . so focused on their whiteness. They thought they were critical, but weren’t critical at all. But we still had to sit there and listen to that [stuff] because we had to present after them. Crystasany: Yeah . . . it’s that feeling of being trapped. Kelly: [laughing] Like I wanted to raise my hand and be like . . . “I think you would benefit a lot from our presentation so you should like . . .” Crystasany: Stick around! [laughing] RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 9 Through our conversation, we recognized how our mental and spiritual energy was depleted by hearing white people consistently center their whiteness (ie. values, norms, perspectives, fragility, etc.) while misappropriating the work of Scholars of Color and exploiting Communities of Color. The feeling of inexplicable exhaustion and feeling trapped in that space was something that could only be understood by another woman with a similar standpoint of a sister outsider (Lorde 2012). In further reflection, we discussed how this exhaustion is not the result of participating in a single conference session. It is compounded over multiple experiences within the larger education institution where the perspectives, experiences, and epistemologies of Women of Color are consistently marginalized and misrepresented within curriculum, faculty meetings, and teacher education programs. Reflecting on this recurring trauma, Kelly said, That’s what scares me about Black people in predominantly white institutions that don’t have another person . . . who don’t have a sister scholar. That’s why they get pushed out of the profession because you literally go crazy. Like . . . you think there’s something wrong with you . . . that this space wasn’t meant for you, and so you leave. Considering the sustainment we receive from the sister scholar relationship, we recognize the dialogic space within the relationship as a space of communicative resistance (Davis 2018). Davis (2018) discusses how within communicative resistance Black women navigate conversations by avoiding certain topics, code switching, and refusing to compromise their authentic self in predominantly white spaces. However, the sister scholar relationship is a dialogic space that helps replenish the parts of ourselves that are depleted as a result of engaging in communicative resistance. The compounding layers of systemic oppression and repression, from both within and outside of academia, make it vital for Black women to have an outlet and a space to regenerate. Within this sacred space, our sisterhood transcends the mundane constructs of academia and encompasses the multidimensionality of our full selves – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, socially, etc. Collins (2002) explains how a Black woman is most often in the best position to understand other Black women. Finding a sister scholar means having a confidante with whom one shares a tacit understanding of one’s own standpoint. This understanding can manifest in a simple look across the table at a colleague’s off-color comment in a staff meeting, or can emerge in a late night sister talk where we divulge our hopes and fears about Black motherhood. Within the sister scholar space, we do not have to navigate through communicative resistance (Davis 2018) as all aspects of ourselves are welcome and sustained within the relationship. Instead, we recognize the systems and institutions in which we operate do not wish to see us whole. They do not want us to be healed, light, and joyful. Yet, within the sanctum of our sister scholar relationship we reject these external expectations of Black womanhood and choose to indulge in our human existence as we see fit. It is this level of familiarity and belonging that is absent in our conversations and interactions with white women, and even Black men (Lorde 2012). While white women academics can sympathize with the resistance we experience due to our feminine identity, they lack the capacity to connect with our intersectional experiences of Black womanhood. Similarly, while Black men are able to sympathize with the resistance we receive due to our Blackness, they remain detached from the aspects of our experiences related to our femininity. Having someone who can relate to 10 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN the fullness of one’s experience is at the core of what makes the sister scholar relationship so sacred. Through hours of shared reflection and countless moments of unspoken connection within the sanctum of our sisterhood, we realized we had undoubtedly become a friend of the other’s mind (Morrison 1987). An impetus for the co-generation of knowledge The intellectual thought of Black women academics is not solely a product of formal education, nor bound by the walls of the institution. Collins (2002) describes commonplace knowledge as ‘taken-for granted knowledge shared by African-American women growing from our everyday thoughts and actions’ (Collins 2002, 38). We act as conduits of Black women’s collective knowledge and ancestral wisdom that have been systematically excluded, marginalized, and devalued within institutions of higher education (Collins 2002; Nzinga 2020). With this understanding, a part of our commitment as sister scholars is to leverage our areas of influence to champion the voices of each other. While we are both familiar with the literature and the current research in our respective fields, our epistemic perspective is rooted in our dynamic collective consciousness and the synthesized meaning-making of our shared experiences. We realize that not only do our reflective conversations offer validation of our experiences, but they are a generative space in which we co-create knowledge and meaning. We describe this facilitation of thought as a ‘snowball effect’ in which each of us learns from and builds upon the experiential knowledge of the other. Within the snowball effect, our sister talks cultivate a generative energy, or an impetus, in which our thoughts grow exponentially as we each draw from our separate pools of knowledge to contribute to our collective understanding. Within our sister scholar relationship, it is common practice for us to call the other to mull over an idea or share a recent experience. Within these conversations, which often begin with ‘Girl, tell me why . . . ’ or ‘Am I crazy or . . . ’, we seek the other’s perspective to help us develop, shift, and fortify our understanding of the experience at hand. Kelly: When I call after a class or meeting I was in, a lot of times I’ll tell you that “XYZ was so messed up,” but I don’t necessarily have the language to tell you why it’s messed up. Then you’ll come in and be like, “oh my gosh, Kelly, this is exactly ‘insert this amazing wisdom from whatever experience you’ve had as a wife, as a mother, as an academic reading Black feminist literature’’’. Then, I’m like, “Yo . . . you just articulated what I’m feeling right now” because of some knowledge you’ve gained through your life experiences or scholarship that you’ve read. Then from there, I go even deeper into my feelings like, “that must be why I’m feeling like XYZ.” Then you continue to build off it. [. . .] Your experiential knowledge and perspective in Black feminism helps me understand myself better. It’s not like “oh my gosh this educational theory now makes so much more sense.” It’s like, there are things about me as a woman that I understand better because of your knowledge. And sure, that helps me to then be a better academic because I understand myself more fully, but it’s beyond you helping me be a better academic. You help me be a better woman . . . And I’m going to get emotional now . . . In recognizing that we exist and work within spaces that were not created for us, we create space for each other to reflect on the fullness of our experiences. We enter our cocreated space with distinct lived experiences and varying perspectives. Thus, the RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 11 multiplicity of our perspectives and nuances of our biographies add dimensions to our collective understanding of the world and the commonplace knowledge (Collins 2000) we share with one another. This process provides epistemic validation, cultivates a deeper, more holistic understanding of our womanhood, and fosters a sense of belonging within and beyond academia. Approbation of our intersectionality As stated in the introduction of our Black feminist framework, Black women occupy a unique social space where we experience intersectional oppressions due to both our womanness and our Blackness. This unique positioning has historically and presently left Black women on the margins of social justice movements both within and outside of the academy (hooks 2015). In reflection on how Black women experience persistent deprivation of social justice in academia, hooks (2015) states: Certainly, many Black women feel they must confront a degree of abuse wherever they turn in this society. Black women as well as many other marginalized groups in graduate schools are often psychologically abused by professors who systematically degrade and humiliate them for a period of years, as long as it takes for the woman to finish her degree or be so ‘messed up’ that she drops out (125). The persistent state of psychological abuse, systematic humiliation, and being relegated to the margins of institutional decision-making makes the sister scholar relationship vital for Black women in academia. The relationship moves Black women from the margins of academic spaces, where we have learned to present only fragments of our full identity in order to gain entrance. Parker (1999) articulated this self-fragmentation saying, “If I could take all my parts with me when I go somewhere, and not have to say to one of them, ‘No, you stay home tonight, you won’t be welcome’, . . . The day all the different parts of me can come along, we would have what I would call a revolution” (Parker 1999, 11). Parker’s (1999) description of forcibly deciding which parts of herself were acceptable in various spaces mirrors the experience of Black women in academia. Yet, just as Black feminism acknowledges the intersectional needs of Black women as racialized and gendered beings, the sister scholar relationship recognizes the interplay of Black women’s various identities both in academia and their daily lives. We are not solely academics. We are mothers, wives, educators, entrepreneurs, community members, and Black women. Each of these identities and social roles is inextricably linked to our work as scholars. As such, our conversations and academic work are intertwined with cultural symbols, language, metaphors, and ideological representations that reflect the dimensions of our social roles and identities. As we recalled the way our conversations often flow seamlessly from our thoughts of a relevant journal article to weekend plans with our families, we realized that our sisterhood allows us to fully engage with each other at the intersections of our social identities. As Black women, wives, and mothers who are also scholars, we cannot exuviate our various social roles, responsibilities, and identities at the door of the institution. Instead, we carry the fullness of ourselves, our families, and our communities into our work, which influence our scholarship and are in turn influenced by our scholarship. 12 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN Crystasany: “What we are experiencing as women within the walls of academia, is not unique to that space. It is informed by systems of larger society; and this work is our way of confronting or pushing back on the intersectional oppressions we face on a daily basis. We put on different hats and different layers to who we are, but we bring the fullness of ourselves – our communities, our histories – into this space and this experience of being a scholar. So, our intellectual thought is informed by all of those experiences, even those outside of academia. Kelly: Right . . . I’m thinking of how our understanding of feminism and womanhood would be if we were unmarried [shared laughter] . . . especially with being married to Black men... and the layers that come with that as being a Black woman. That too is reflected in our academics. It has so much to do with the way society views us, views our children, and our husbands. I mean, you can’t talk about being a Black woman being married to a Black man without acknowledging police violence in this country or the many layers of violence and injustice against Black men. And you can’t talk about being a Black mother without talking about how our schools are spirit murdering our children. I would be lying if I said that me raising a Black son has zero influence on my work as an academic. Crystasany: Exactly . . . and this, our work, is our way of pushing back . . . paving the way for our children and the next generation. We’re recognizing that the way we were educated growing up was not the best. We can do better for our own. The only reason to have these letters behind my name is so that I can influence and change what’s happening in my community. That’s something I can’t separate from my scholarship because that’s the reason for my scholarship. We acknowledge that other women, as well, have interlocking identities reflected in their own reasons and forms of activism and scholarship. However, the sisterhood unique to Black women scholars is fortified by the shared experience of gendered racism and the subsequent oppressions. Kelly: Those experiences of systematic oppression are rooted so deep that only another Black woman can understand on the same level why when I’m talking about the way Black children are assessed and evaluated in schools, I get so passionate about it. Crystasany: Yes, because I’m seeing my children, my daughter, my nephew, my niece. Kelly: So, it’s not just inequality in standardized testing. It’s about you treating my child wrong. That’s a level of depth that only another Black woman can understand. Crystasany: We got skin in this game. The sister scholar relationship reaches far deeper than the academy. It is about supporting each other across all levels of our identities. As sister scholars, we recognize that as we engage in conversations about our community, families, children, and spouses, these conversations are not separate from our scholarship. The sister scholar relationship rejects the notion that aspects of a Black woman’s experience and existence do not belong within the academy. Instead, these lived experiences are intertwined with how we perceive, interpret, and engage in our work as scholars. RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 13 Gathering of our whole selves As we reflect on the final description of our sister scholar relationship, we recall Toni Morrison’s words in her novel, Beloved. While the original text depicts a man’s sentiment of a female character in the book, we feel Morrison’s words describe the sentiments of our sisterhood. Morrison described the woman as ‘a friend of my mind.’ She explained that the friend gathers the pieces I am and gives them right back to me in all the right order. We feel these words illustrate the role we fulfill for each other. Kelly: What does it mean to feel gathered in the space of academia as a Black woman? I know for me . . . yes, you help me gather my thoughts and make my thoughts stronger; but it’s also that you support and hold me up. It’s like when you put fresh flowers in a vase, but they want to flop out onto the side. So, florists use floral tape to gather the stems and keep them upright so they’re not flopping out all over the place. That’s how I see you gathering me in academia. Like, I’m there . . . I’m existing . . . I’m just not always my best self because I don’t have the confidence, or I’m feeling imposter syndrome, or whatever. But you’re like the floral tape that says, “Naw, [girl]. You got this.” A true friend of your mind isn’t just someone who corrects the grammar in your writing or tells you that ‘this sentence isn’t clear’. It’s supporting you so you even have the self-efficacy to write that sentence in the first place. Like a flower in a vase, a Black woman scholar is exquisite in her own right; yet when placed in an arrangement that is not made to accentuate her essence, the support of a sister scholar can help her ‘straighten her crown’. Drawing from the Black feminist understandings of self-definition and self-valuation (Collins 2002), we reflected on the affirmation, support, and encouragement we have provided each other through the years. For example, it manifested in the way Crystasany supported Kelly during her first academic conference. Not only were there few Black scholars in attendance, the scholarship represented did not reflect the people or critical issues we center within our work. With this, Kelly was apprehensive about attending sessions by herself due to a strong sense of imposter syndrome in this new academic space. However, Crystasany took time to sit with Kelly and ‘straightened her crown’— instilling within her the belief that she undoubtedly belonged and had an invaluable contribution. That conversation not only empowered Kelly to attend conference sessions alone but gave her the confidence to network with other scholars with similar research interests. Similarly, Crystasany recalled the affirmation she felt as Kelly shared her sentiment at Crystasany’s dissertation defense. While it was already a poignant moment for Crystasany as she completed the long journey of her doctoral career, she was touched when Kelly began tearing up while congratulating her on the accomplishment. As we reflected on this moment months later, Kelly explained that she was not only excited for Crystasany as a friend, but she recognized that she saw Crystasany as a reflection of herself in that moment. Kelly: . . . For Black women who want to be academics, who do we have to look up to? It’s one thing to read work by Black women scholars, but I’ve never actually had a class with a Black teacher. It was like Black women only exist in academic spaces that I’m not a part of. So, when I found you – this is why I get so emotional – because for the first time, I saw . . . oh my gosh, she is me. She is me. That’s somebody I can relate to for the first time. 14 C. R. TURNER K. AND R. ALLEN That’s not saying that I didn’t know other Black people, but a Black woman in academia . . . who’s talking about the same [stuff] that I’m talking about? That’s rare. That’s why I get so emotional because now I know that by us doing this work, more Black women are going to see us and be like, “Wow, they are me” . . . And that is how we make a reality where students don’t have to grow up like I did where you open up a textbook and all you see is white people, and the only time you see a Black face, they’re talking about your pain and suffering . . . it’s saying you’re not crazy because I’m thinking this too, I’m feeling this too, I’m seeing this too. Due to the underemployment of Black women in academia (NCSES 2019) and the relentless attempts to dehumanize and marginalize the experiences of Black people in academic spaces (Brown and Brown 2010; King 2014), we realized that neither of us had ever ‘seen ourselves’ in education. The shared experience of being rendered invisible within education institutions was a significant motivation for us to pursue degrees in higher education – to pave a path for our own children and the next generation of young learners. In many ways, the conversations that occur within the sister scholar relationship not only exemplify the Black feminist understandings of self-definition and self-valuation (Collins 2002), but demonstrate what it means to be a friend of someone’s mind. As we witnessed, validated, and empowered each other by redefining ourselves as scholars who unquestionably and unapologetically belong in academic spaces, we began healing from the years of epistemic trauma and spirit murder we endured throughout our education experiences. Discussion Dillard (2012) asserts that the souls of Black people are a space of reconciliation, spiritual centering, transformative possibilities, and survival. Yet for too long, gendered racism, discrimination, marginalization, and isolation have eroded the souls of Black women and Scholars of Color in the academy. As Black women doctoral students, consistently being rendered invisible and epistemically invalid threatened our confidence in our standpoint and cultural funds of knowledge (Moll et al. 1992). However, through our shared experiences of navigating institutional barriers and systemic racism, we have established a bond of sisterhood based in resiliency and solidarity. Within the sanctum of our sisterhood, we share experiential knowledge forged in our lives as Black women, scholars, wives, and mothers. We affirm the facets of our unique identities that have been masked and repressed in exchange for our acceptance within the academy; and we (re)establish ourselves socially, intellectually, and epistemically— (re)membering ourselves as the legacy of Black women scholars and intellects before us. Our souls strive for the wholeness that comes from honoring Black women’s ancestral wisdom and ways of knowing (Dillard 2016; Love 2016). This place of wholeness necessitates a sense of belonging within an education environment that nurtures each intersection of our identities – not solely the parts that can be enculturated and assimilated to fit white ideologies. As we both move into tenure-track positions within separate institutions, we recognize this sense of belonging and epistemic affirmation continues to evade us far beyond graduation. Not only do Black women make up only 2.1% of tenured faculty in the U.S. (NCES 2020), but their journey to tenure is riddled with institutional barriers founded in systemic racism (Winkle-Wagner and Kelly 2017; Croom 2017; RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION 15 Haynes et al. 2020). Narratives such as Nikole Hannah-Jones’, the award-winning journalist and creator of the 1619 Project who was denied tenure from her alma mater, illustrate the vast measures institutions will take to silence the voice of a Black woman. Hannah-Jones recognized the ‘attack on academic freedom’ is a common attack ‘that Black and marginalized faculty face all across the country’ (NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc 2021, 1). While sister scholarship and other mentoring relationships can ameliorate some of the attacks and challenges Black women face in the academy (Davis, Reynolds, and Jones 2011), it does not suffice to simply teach Black women to survive in institutions in which we are not appreciated. We steadfastly reject rhetoric that insists Black women alter themselves to be accepted within academic spaces. Instead, we call for a radical transformation of the academy that liberates Black women and other Women of Color from oppressive policies and systems that aim to marginalize and disenfranchise us. We not only claim our space at the table, we demand the agency and autonomy to voice our truths within an institution that acknowledges, respects, and honors our whole selves. Notes 1. Throughout this reflection, we include ourselves in the collective “we/our” when referring to Black women and their experience in academic institutions. We position ourselves in solidarity and sisterhood with Black women academics and therefore reject the use of “their” or other distancing language when acknowledging Black womens’ experiences. 2. Ten percent of full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions identify as Asian/Pacific Islander, 5% identify as Hispanic, less than 1% identified as American Indian or Alaskan Native, and less than 1% identified as multiracial in these institutions (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 2018). Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). ORCID Crystasany R. Turner http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1846-6899 Kelly R. Allen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7741-5923 References Apugo, D. 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