I haven't published anything in several weeks. I have been writing but have been afraid to publish. This is not because of my ability or inability to write. I do not question the quality or validity of what I am writing. It is because of bullies and self-appointed authenticators in the academic, raced/black and adoption spaces. Graduate school was an ongoing endurance and authentication test administered by any bully that felt threatened by what I was studying, teaching or writing about. I have always failed the authentication test. I don't care.
I want to get a few things very clear as I start blogging again. First, I am an academic administrator. I still teach, research and publish. I study and publish through the multiplicity that is interdisciplinarity and lived experience. The three publications I have out this year are a book on womanism/anti-white feminism, a chapter on academic shared governance and an article on inclusion-disruptive behaviors in higher education. I am currently working on turning my dissertation into a book that focuses on the role of intimate realities in the development of racial identity and my memoir.
Spoiler alert! In my coming work and publications ... I will probably talk about race, blackness, adoption, reunion and higher education. I will probably talk about how blackness has impacted/distracted/redirected my career. I will probably talk about abuse at the hands of my adoptive family. I will probably talk about the difficulties, joys and resentments stemming from reunion and the search for my genetic parents despite the dysfunction of some of my older genetic relatives. These are 100 percent, legitimately my stories to tell. I do not need anyone's permission to tell those stories. I do not need people who do not do research, teaching and publications to tell me whether or not writing about my own lived experience is ethical. It is called auto-ethnography. Auto-ethnography and ethnography have always been my theoretical articulation regardless of what I am writing about. I will not stop writing and producing theory through the frameworks of my and other people's (who I have permission from and an IRB) lived experiences.
Here is what you need to know. I do not use anyone's information without permission. I might speak broadly and in the abstract-anonymous to shape context for what I am responding to. This is how I have talked about the bullies and authenticators in this piece. I will not disclose who folks are nor where those encounters took place without express permission. Should I decide to publish any of my writing in a for-profit space, I will make certain that I have done so legally. This is what academic scholars are trained to do.
Here is also what you need to know. I will not be denied access to my person, power, talents, skills, articulations and identities simply because someone decides they don't like me or what I am saying. I will not have clarifications and authentications demanded from me summarily out of hand and context. I work to be clear in my writing so there are no confusions. I am not perfect. I use the blog space to fine tune my thinking before moving my work to any other kind of writing. This has been an amazing way for me to develop longer works. I use social media as it was intended, to vent or exclaim. Do not confuse social media posts with thoughtful academic or creative writing. Does or can social media influence writing? Yes. So does the conversation on the bus, lunch line and in the bathroom. Informed thinking and citational plagiarism are two different things.
What does that mean for this blog? It means that you are welcome to read, to think, to like and to comment. If you comment, you are doing so in a space that is informing my and others' thinking about issues of genealogical inheritance and disruption. That is a choice, by commenting, you are making. Should anyone quote or refer to your comment on the blog, the blog must be cited along with whatever screen name you might have used. Work will and is happening. You have the choice to contribute and participate if you choose. You can also lurk, troll, and be snarky. What you cannot do is block my thinking, writing and other scholarly and creative activity. This story is mine.
The challenges to my being "authentic" enough to have conversations about genealogical inheritance and disruption as they pertain to blackness and adoption are obscene and abusive. These challenges actually say more about the bullies and authenticators than it does me or any other auto-ethnographer. Obtaining a PhD, publishing and teaching for a living, and not performing race and/or adoption like others does not make me a fraud. I won't be silenced by accusations of dishonesty or inconsistencies. I have something to offer. I have constructive ways to contribute to conversations about race, gender, sex, adoption, reunion and bully authenticators.
I am a Black Transracial Adoptee - they/them/their - PhD college administrator. Period. Proceed accordingly.
I will make a plea of sorts. I would like to call everyone who contributes to these conversations and shares these identities to be more respectful to each other. People outside these identities do enough harm. They do deep and deadly harm. We don't need to recreate that in our communal spaces. We don't have to agree. But we don't have to challenge people's identities in the same ways the dominant majority challenges and restricts. To suggest that someone like me is lying about my black lived experience or being adopted to profit off the pain and suffering of others... Again, this says far more about bullies and the assumed capital authenticators think is at play that they feel they alone should possess and/or give - afford - access to.. Stop it. It is ridiculous. The very few people who are lying to amass wealth off our oppression are and will continue to be found out and publically decried as frauds. What we are doing is keeping people from joining us in solidarity and shared lived experience.
I am always open to collaboration. If you want to write and think together... let me know. If you wish to challenge my authenticity. I am done with that. If you are trying to silence me, i will not comply. I will never hide again because of a bully. Never. I am authentic. Always.
more soon...
Baby Girl