My next writing project: Voyage into the matrix of race and the truly determined.

Voyage into the matrix of race and the truly determined

Rodney D. Coates  

Some years ago, near the beginning of my academic career, I found myself in a unique situation. As the newly hired affirmative action person of color, I was eager prove that I was more than a number used to demonstrate compliance, social justice, and progressive policies currently being prescribed at my institution. In this strange situation, I found my colleagues more than willing to ignore me while bending over backwards to help a more deserving, white male colleague.

So, as they worked to place his name on co-authored papers, taught him how to get the most out of student evaluations, and how to “correctly” phrase his tenure dossier, I sat in my office sure that my time of mentoring would come. Strange thing, it never did. Each day, week, month went by as I saw the deliberateness of my colleagues as they made sure this “truly advantaged” person would be ready when the time came, I refused to accept defeat. Here was a lesson that I was determined to learn.

Watching these practices, I decided that I needed to know all the rules governing promotion and tenure and maximize my opportunities despite the peculiar situation I found myself. Being the good ethnomethodologists, trained at the University of Chicago -no less, I decided to use this as my case study.   As an insider, I was able to see the underlying policies, practices and behaviors that sustained racial structures. Oddly enough this led to one of my first publications - an article and an edited volume entitled “Covert Racism”. When my “truly advantaged” colleague was encouraged to go up for P and T, I decided it was also a good time for me, as they had to get past me to promote him. And of course, knowing the rules of engagement, I made sure that I had more on the table. And in the process, came to understand that I was neither a member the truly advantaged nor truly disadvantaged, but something quite different -I was “truly determined”. In this volume I will explore what this has meant, not only for me and my life, but for blacks and the lives of countless others. These who, through a combination of circumstances and situations, attitudes and stubbornness found, and continue to find creative ways to not only engage but to overcome racist structures. Let us begin our voyage into the matrix of race and the truly determined.