Gender and Sexualities in Education
A Reader
Series:
Edited By Elizabeth J. Meyer and Dennis Carlson
32. Some of Us Are Brave: A Review of the Research on the Experience of Black LGBT Professors in Colleges and Universities in the United States
Introduction
Extract
Chapter 32
Some of Us Are Brave
A Review of the Research on the Experience of Black LGBT Professors in Colleges and Universities in the United States
Sheltreese D. McCoy
If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.
—Audre Lorde
In 1982, Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith sought to name or give expression to Black1 women’s studies in their groundbreaking anthology, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. In their introduction, Hull, Scott, and Smith (1982) stated, “Black women could not exist consciously until we began to name ourselves” (p. xvii). They went on to point out that the process of naming was the necessary starting point for the growth of Black women’s studies, for by naming themselves, Black women were able to speak to their unique experiences of gender and racial oppression. This process of naming is doubly difficult for individuals who bear identities that are fixed and unfixed at the same time. On the one hand, scholars have argued that race is a permanent social construct with material consequences (Brondolo, Gallo, & Myers, 2009; Harrell, 2010; Love, David, Rankin, & Collins, 2010). On the other hand, queerness as a social construct is commonly based on liminality, instability, and fluidity. What are the personal and professional implications of having...
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