Abstract

from my first courses as an undergraduate in African American studies, I have been concerned about the dynamics by which white and Black1 people discuss race. For one, I was troubled in my undergraduate African American studies courses by the ease with which white students would insert themselves into conversations where, it seemed to me, they simply did not belong, for example, conversations concerning visions for the future of the Black community and strategies for achieving such visions. Shannon Sullivan speaks of this phenomenon, accurately I believe, as “ontological expansiveness”: one central feature of privilege is a sense of entitlement to enter every room without first considering whether or not one is ..