Writer
Kwok
Pui-lan
William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality
Episcopal Divinity School
Contributor
Rosetta
Ross
Associate Professor of Religion
Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Spelman College
Several
years ago, a few senior racial/ethnic minority colleagues in the field of
religion reminisced about the days when they belonged to a tiny minority of
graduate students struggling to survive in the white graduate programs. Today,
the number of minority colleagues has rapidly increased. In 2003 the American
Academy of Religion(AAR) consisted of a total membership of 9,200. Of those,
about 1,300 full members (13 percent of total membership) and 500 student
members (19 percent of all student members) were self-identified as racial and
ethnic minorities. The actual figures must be higher because there are members
who have not declared their racial/ethnic background. Most of these
minority scholars are studying or teaching in predominantly white institutions,
often left to cope on their own with a lack of context and experience to assist
them in navigating the complex demands of their status and role vis-à-vis their
students, colleagues, institutions, and communities.
This
Career Guide offers help by providing practical professional advice and
guidance, from the doctoral training years through retirement. The Career Guide
is sponsored by the Committee on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in
the Profession, a standing committee of the AAR. The charge of the Committee is
to recommend policies and good practices to assure the full access and academic
freedom of racial/ethnic minority persons within the Academy and develop
programs to enhance their status in the profession. It started out as an ad hoc
committee in 1994 and was first chaired by Dwight N. Hopkins and subsequently
by Peter J. Paris. Over the years, the committee has initiated various programs
related to the recruitment of minority students to the profession, mentoring of
graduate students, and career development of those in the field. It has
sponsored special topics forums during the annual meetings to discuss a wide
range of issues, such as identity, scholarship, and teaching; the construction
of new knowledge; the public roles of racial/ethnic scholars; survival and
flourishing in the academy, and interracial relations.
Discussions
about publishing a career guide for racial/ethnic minorities in the profession
have been going on for some time. Many members have found the book Guide to the
Perplexing: A Survival Manual for Women in Religious Studies (1992) and its
sequel A Guide for Women in Religion (2004) put together by the
Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession helpful in navigating the
minefield of an academic career. The preparation of the Career Guide gathered
momentum when the ad hoc group became a standing committee in 2002 chaired by
Kwok Pui-lan. A planning group was convened, consisting of Karen
Baker-Fletcher, Mary C. Churchill, Miguel A. De La Torre, Kwok Pui-lan, Rita
Nakashima Brock, Anthony Pinn, Rosetta Ross, Andrea Smith, John J. Thatamanil,
and Lynne Westfield. We had very rich and productive conversations about our
own experiences and consulted other guides before we decided upon the topics we
wanted to include as well as the process of exploration. We intended to publish
the Career Guide online on the AAR website and link the guide to other
appropriate sites to make it widely accessible to all scholars in the field. We
then divided the job of drafting individual chapters and recruited Peter Paris
and other contributors. To include diverse voices and to encourage
participation, we sent out an invitation to members of different racial/ethnic
groups to contribute anecdotes and stories of their experience. We have
included some of these inputs with changes to names, institutions, and other
details to protect anonymity.
We
understand racial/ethnic identity as socially constructed and debunk any notion
of a fixed, essentialized, and homogenous identity. We recognize that the
marginalization of racial minorities is due to the interplay of complex
factors, such as racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, colonialism, and
ableism. Much of the cultural ethos, pedagogical assumptions, and standard of
excellence in North American higher education are shaped by Eurocentrism, male
privilege, and the neoliberal economy. Although there have been discussions of
multiculturalism and inclusivity in some quarters, many of the changes that
have taken place scratch only at the surface, without questioning the
fundamental presuppositions of racist social structures and values. The recent
economic downturn further exerts pressure on higher education, and
administrators often respond by reverting to "traditional ways" of
doing things, and cutting funding and support for sensitivity training and
innovative programs.
But the
pressure on a person belonging to a racial minority comes not only from
discriminatory practices of the white institutions and society, but also from
the conflicts and tensions arising out of the individual’s multiple social
locations. The works of bell hooks and Richard Rodriguez have highlighted how
the educational process has alienated racial/ethnic minorities from their
communities of origin. The lengthy schooling and certification process often
alienates one from one’s family and community, such that it is difficult for a
minority to go "home" again literally and metaphorically. Many
minority scholars lament that their families and communities often do not understand
what they do and their passion for scholarly work. Shuttling back and forth in
the in-between spaces, they have to negotiate very different cultural and
social worlds and do not feel a full sense of belonging.
The
pressure to survive and succeed in the competitive academic world can easily
lead to strains in family relationships and grievances from spouses and
partners. This is because minorities are constantly called upon to prove
themselves by fulfilling competing demands and working doubly hard. Gay and
lesbian minority scholars and those in interracial marriages often find that
their more fluid and inclusive notions of family are not understood or
supported by the white heterosexist academy.
Whether
persons belonging to racial minorities can negotiate the multiple demands and
challenges would depend on their perception of identity. Those coming from a
working-class background, who are the first to go to college or pursue an
academic career, experience more poignantly the intersection of race and class.
Those who are the first or only minority in their institutions suffer from
tokenism and bear the burden of markers of difference. The isolation and lack
of support often make a minority scholar wonder whether one belongs or even
deserves to be there. As a token in a largely white institution, a minority
student or colleague stands out and becomes highly visible, yet at the same
time, he or she remains invisible in the decision-making process and power
structure.
Despite
the odds and burdens faced by racial/ethnic minorities, many have found an
academic career both meaningful and rewarding. Some have become pioneers in
their fields of study, laying down groundwork and foundations for new
intellectual inquiry. Some have developed innovative theoretical frameworks and
brought to our attention new issues that have often been relegated to the
periphery in the field. Others have discovered overlooked resources and
repositories of knowledge, from slave narratives, oral tradition, spirituals,
artwork, indigenous rituals, to long-buried archives and texts. Together we
have cultivated and created a colorful and multifarious "intellectual
neighborhood" as Toni Morrison has challenged us to do. The ferment in
minority, subaltern, feminist, and postcolonial consciousness, as Edward Said
argues, resulted in so many salutary achievements as to have produced a
Copernican revolution in all traditional fields of inquiry. This exciting
development has attracted many talented young minority scholars to the field to
interpret and study the roles religious symbols, rituals, and personnel have
played in shaping the identity and meaning-making process in the history of
their communities. Even as the academy still discriminates against minorities,
it nevertheless provides a critical space for sustained reflection,
interdisciplinary conversations, and time for writing and research.
Although
this Career Guide is structured in a way that focuses on various stages of
academic life, we recognize that not all will pursue a teaching career or get
tenure-track jobs. The training in religious studies can provide good
preparation for various jobs, and some of our racial minority colleagues have
fulfilling and admirable careers beyond the academy. We include in the Guide a
particular section that offers advice for alternative careers, such as
administration, non-profit organizations, activism, publishing, and consulting.
Because teaching jobs have become more competitive, we include also some hints
for adjuncting and job sharing.
We want to
challenge the stereotypical image that the academy is an ivory tower and that
theoretical work must be abstract and isolated from concrete realities. In
fact, many racial/ethnic minority scholars continue to maintain strong links
with their communities of origin, playing significant roles in their religious
and civic communities. Instead of subscribing to a liberal paradigm which
assumes that scholarship must be "objective" and
"value-neutral," many minority scholars understand knowledge as
power, and academic inquires can be used to illuminate and serve the
liberation, decolonization, and empowerment of their communities. Their
research is not conducted in the libraries alone, but is often based on
interviews and field studies of actual subjects and social movements. Through
teaching and advocacy, they play the roles of "organic intellectuals"
in transforming their communities and society.
In the
Career Guide, we have provided candid and strategic advice for our colleagues based
on the wisdom we have gained and on what we have learned from others. It is our
sincere wish that racial/ethnic minorities will not only survive but also
flourish in the academy and in the professions they have chosen. The Career
Guide does not encourage acquiescence and indiscriminatory accommodations to
the white institutions, but speaks of the lure and danger of complicity with
the oppressive systems. Despite our best efforts at being conscious of the
various "isms" affecting racial minorities, we sometimes find
ourselves complying with forces that act against our best interests. In most
cases, our complicity results from unconscious internalization of negative
images and stereotypes about our own or another racial/ethnic group. In such
instances, behavior of racial minorities toward one another repeats biased
exclusion resulting from doubts about competency and/or immediate distrust of
one another. In other cases, when minorities work for several years within an
institution, complicity may emerge as inertia and failure to analyze the extent
to which we become comfortable in our socialization into an institutional
status quo. In this case, racial/ethnic minorities may find themselves
identifying with their institutions and less willing or able to criticize
exclusive institutional practices and their own participation in those
practices. Finally, complicity may result from the conscious or unconscious
desire to align oneself with sources of power. Here racial/ethnic faculty may
compete with and sometimes denigrate each other in order to secure or maintain
favor or proximity to power. Apart from these discrete instances of complicity
is the inherent difficulty of negotiating a place of accountability and
integrity within majority institutions. The distinctions often may become
blurred in view of the negotiation required of us. Moreover, the intersection
of gender with any of these cases compounds complicity. Coupled with
patriarchal practices of the larger society, the challenge of sexism within
racial/ethnic communities can amplify both the potential for acquiescence to
stereotypes as well as intensify the injury to racial/ethnic women that may
result from it.
It is
important for racial/ethnic minorities to recognize how easily we may become
co-opted by forces we struggle against. Conscious recognition of the potential
for any of us to act in complicity with the "isms" can help us
understand the need to remain vigilant about the precarious status we hold in
majority institutions. Recognizing our own potential for complicity also may
provide space for critical self-reflection when relationships with other
colleagues of color go awry. In institutions where there are two or more
racial/ethnic faculty, hopefully, awareness will result in honest conversation
between racial/ethnic colleagues about potential or actual complicity and
co-optation. Such conversation may be viewed positively as opportunities for
collaboration as well as places where people of color can mutually hold each
other accountable. For racial/ethnic minorities who are "the only
one," regular engagement with people of color communities is an important
source of ongoing accountability. Finally, we should not overlook relationships
with allies in the majority community whose politics on issues of gender,
class, heterosexism, etc., also may help with our own critical self-reflection.
To be able
to continue the process of critical discernment and to lead a balanced and sane
life, it is vital for racial/ethnic minorities to cultivate and maintain strong
supportive networks and honest friendships in different stages of their
careers. Self-care and attention to one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual
health are critical in the struggle for the long haul. We witness, with regret,
how isolation and stress have taken a toll on the mental and physical health of
some of our colleagues. It is not a shame to seek professional help and to ask
for support from friends and colleagues. When one becomes physically
challenged, it is important to know one’s rights and avail oneself of the
resources provided by the workplace and the community. To replenish our energy
and to sustain ourselves through joys and sorrows, it is often necessary to
cultivate a spirituality that nourishes our mind, body, and soul, and to be connected
to the sources of wisdom of our own people.
Although
this Career Guide is written primarily for racial/ethnic minorities in
religion, we hope that our white colleagues will also find it insightful. We
recognize and appreciate the significant contributions made by white colleagues
as they work to create an environment that is conducive to the hiring,
retention, and promotion of racial minorities. We have included a chapter on
good practices for institutions wishing to diversify and suggested other readings
and resources. We encourage readers to be acquainted with racial harassment and
anti-discriminatory policies of their institutions and to avail themselves of
services provided by offices for minorities. Since the rules and practices of
different schools and institutions vary, readers should use common sense when
following advice and suggestions offered in the book. Most important of all,
this Guide should not be the substitute for legal advice and counsel from
lawyers, because institutional policies, job and publishing contracts, hate
crimes, and regulations against discrimination have complex legal
ramifications.
We want to
express gratitude to those racial/ethnic minorities who have blazed a trail
before us. Their courageous examples have given us hope that the field of
religion is a vineyard that welcomes our labor. We offer this Career Guide to
those colleagues coming after us, and may they soar to new heights and find
fulfillment and joy in the profession.