The Complicity/Complexity Problem of Anti-Racism Work in The Academy

Abstract

This article is from a talk that was given on April 16, 2021, as the author's contribution for the anti-racism panel "Undoing BIPOC Erasure in the Academy: A Conversation about Race and Anti-Racism." The panel was hosted by the University of California Merced. Minor edits for print and publication have been made to the article for publication. The author discusses how the focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and initiatives and inclusion work in the academy is not focused on resistance at all. The focus is always on complicity. As a black associate professor, she addresses how one works within a system, with the expectation of complicity, to change and resist the very system where one works.