Blackademics as prophetic witnesses and the continuing struggle for racial justice in higher education

Abstract

ABSTRACT This multidisciplinary paper illuminates white supremacist ideologies that serve to disenfranchise critical Black scholars in the U.S. academy. We situate the work of what we describe as the ‘Blackademic’ within the theological tradition of the prophetic witness. The conceptualization of critical Black scholars as a prophetic witness illuminates how they traverse the increasingly neo-liberal academy while they also navigate anti-Black white supremacist racism in higher education. This paper seeks to identify practical crossroads between the study of the experiences of Black scholars in academia and Blackademics (e.g. critical Black scholars). This paper also extends our previous emergent theoretical understanding of the actions of Blackademics.