In Observation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Hypersexualization, objectification, criminalization, and many more marginalization practices present themselves when we look at the history of black and brown Americans and their relationship to their white counterparts in the United States.???

Black and brown bodies have been subjected to both hypervisibility, through negative stereotypes, and invisibility, through their historical, political, and social erasure. This pendular movement denies them of their agency at best and deprives them of their basic rights at worst. Hypervisibility and invisibility are the two prevailing narratives that shape the perception of racialized bodies in America.?

There are many ways through which we can push back against those harmful narratives that still linger in our society. We can engage in civil disobedience when faced with an expression of racism from the government, from a corporation, or from other forms of authority. We can challenge some of the implicit and not-so-implicit rules that reinforce structural racism in our society. Big problems call for big and substantial solutions.?

But racism and bigotry many times manifest themselves in more subtle and intangible ways, and it is our responsibility to call them out. At times, we render others invisible through micro-aggressions — those situations in which we feel we can’t put a finger on it, but we know something does not feel right. When we are in meetings, discussing the many obstacles that black and brown students encounter in college, and someone abruptly changes the topic of conversation to address “other marketing needs,” we are perpetuating the narrative that renders black and brown bodies invisible. When we don’t create enough representation through more inclusive hiring practices, we are reinforcing the invisibility narrative. When a black or brown employee feels the need to adjust her identity by engaging in code-switching to fit in a certain organizational culture, we feed the invisibility narrative. When we enroll black and brown students, but we don’t create an infrastructure to retain them through graduation, we are maintaining an invisibility narrative that will spill over through the rest of our society. When we implement blanket DEI initiatives in an institution with a disregard for differences, we not only replicate the invisibility narrative, but also create the “illusion of inclusion.”?

Community colleges serve underrepresented black and brown communities more than any other institution. Therefore, we have a moral and ethical duty to render those communities visible by supporting them in their educational journey.

How can you contribute to creating an alternative narrative in which whiteness is not the norm nor the lens through which we decide how to view one another? We need a new narrative. One, as Dr. Martin Luther King puts it, that will help us “rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.”

-Paula Di Dio, Ph.D. Senior Director of Communications and Research Strategies at Interact Communications

Paula Di Dio holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a lecturer at several universities. She has conducted academic research on migrations, pop culture, cosmopolitanism, and political dissent. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion issues and worked as an instructional designer in the private sector.