Witnessing Inequity

A lot of advice that has come up during this time of self-isolation and working from home has said that it is important to try to keep a schedule or have some sort of routine that would mimic your “normal” routine. There are some positives to this, but a statement like this suggests that things can be as they are “normally” and I have been cringing more and more every time I see the word normal anywhere. Because normal is ableist, because normal is always going to be defined in relation to something else that is usually privileged and white and upper class and square. The etymology of normal being from the Latin for “made according to a carpenter’s square”, something at a right angle (online etymology dictionary).

As I tweeted out this week a discourse of normal means that there’s an assumption that academe is business as usual, emphasis on the business. That academics everywhere should be writing and creating and teaching and doing what academics do even if people we care about are dying, even if you now need to balance or juggle child care, elder care, and working, even if you are sad and have no support because all your support networks are taxed and can’t be accessed in virtual spaces where community happens.

In my attempt at routine I usually take time on Saturday to put my brain on recharge and step away from thinking about my work responsibilities. This is a good way to try to be recharged for Monday and to tap into creative ways to solve issues or contemplate ideas that you have not had the mental space to process during the busy work week. Yesterday I read 2 books, watched 2 really great web series, and listened to many podcast episodes. It was a way of recharging that also allowed me to think deeply on aspects of quarantine that I had not formulated fully in my mind or to myself. One point of inspiration was Hannah McGregor’s Secret Feminist Agenda podcast for this week. Another point of inspiration (or more like discouragement) was a webinar that I was on hosted by The Chronicle this week on Inequity in Higher Education. And both of these experiences came crashing together yesterday.

On top of all the other work that some of us are doing, whether that is paid work, domestic work, or types of caring work, some of us who are committed to feminist and social justice values are doing the work of witnessing. This witnessing work is integral to this social justice awareness as it is through witnessing and calling out the inequities that inequities are addressed and hopefully barriers are removed (sadly this is often a slow process). But witnessing is work, and it is often forgotten work or work that many are unwilling to take on in times like these. Some do this witnessing work innately because it is part of their social values and life philosophy. Others don’t want to engage in witnessing because it means they need to acknowledge inequities that they feel powerless to change, OR they don’t witness because their social location does not allow them to actually realize the inequities around them because their frame is completely different.

So when I logged in to this webinar on Friday about Inequities in Higher Education I was excited for a discussion around things like access to technology, access to internet, perpetuation of a discourse of productivity that erases those with different productivity frameworks, and sure that was there, but do I remember it? No. Why? Because I was so taken aback at how this webinar was perpetuating its own inequities by not having live captions, and then actively ignoring the many participants who were asking about the captions, that I couldn’t concentrate on anything good that may have been said about race or class or anything else in this webinar. I was witnessing the inequities and was frustrated at how they were being ignored. And that is work; that is mental and emotional work that eventually takes its toll on the body.  Kelly Oliver has a great book, Witnessing: Beyond Recognition (2001), that interweaves concepts of witnessing with subjectivity, if you are looking for a read on this topic. A colleague mentioned to me later on Friday on reflecting about The Chronicle  that in its former form it used to be go-to reading, but that now in its digital form it has just become click-bait and I can’t disagree with that to be honest.

With the remainder of this day I am going to do a few things: read over an article, maybe start reading another library book. But another thing I am going to do is deeply reflect on how my ability and desire to witness engages with inequities daily and what power can come from witnessing as it relates to the pedagogical work I do daily. Also related to this is what care spaces need to happen for that witnessing. What inequities do you witness? Are these inequities “new” to you? Are you witnessing things you did not think of before, or is this all a continuation of what was already readily there? There’s much to discuss and much to change, but it all starts with witnessing and acknowledging it first.