The Navigationalist with Dr. Tsedale Melaku and Dr. Robert Reece

Today, we will discuss the impact of the scholar strike and reliving our trauma; what does it mean when you receive a grateful, secret, supportive email from your white counterparts in secret; and how to address one of the irritating microaggression of all, failure to differentiate.  In this episode, we have Dr. Tsedale Melaku, sociologist and author of You Don’t Look like a Lawyer:  Black Women and Systemic Gendered Racism, and Robert Reece, Assistant professor/ scholar.The podcast questions include:

1.  Hello, my name is Dr. Withers.  I participated in the Scholar Strike.  Well, I attended several forums that begged me to divulge my soul and now I am tired.  How can I continue this push for anti-racism in higher education?  How can I effectively do this without being perceived as too pushy and/or letting other people take credit for my efforts?
2. Hello, I am Dr. Lee.  Since the George Floyd incident, many of my white counterparts are calling me.  Even e-mailing me more than usual.  Some seem sympathetic.  One even said he was my ally.  What is that? Someone had to literally die for me not to be invisible anymore for them.  How can I address this with them? 
3. Hello, I am Dr. Louis Martinez.  A proud Puerto Rican.  Let me say, I usually experience microaggressions every day, but one that irks me is when they get me confused with another person of color.  Race does not matter.  They confused me with our president of our college.  And he is a darker African American, 7 feet tall.  How can I address these microaggressions with these people?

The Guest Navigationalists include:Dr. Tsedale M. Melaku is a Sociologist, Author, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas & the Caribbean (IRADAC) at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her recent book, You Don’t Look Like a Lawyer: Black Women and Systemic Gendered Racism (2019), reflects the emphasis of her scholarly interests in race, gender, class, workplace inequities, systemic racism, intersectionality, organizations and diversity. Dr. Robert L. Reece is currently an assistant professor of sociology at UT-Austin.  His research explores the question "what is race," particularly through exploration of themes related to the origins of racialization and racialized social outcomes, the slipperiness of racial categories, and how physical appearance maps on to and intersects with race. My work has been published in various peer reviewed journals and in public outlets such as the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine Teaching Tolerance and the National Housing Institute's blog Shelterforce.