Academic history leaves me very uncomfortable. I should note that my background is in the social sciences and prior to entering studies for my PhD, I had experience in public affairs (including public communications) and research for television production. For both my bachelor’s of science degree in political science and legal studies and my master’s of science degree in international public policy, I was trained to ask questions, to review the archive, to understand contextualization, to read in between the lines, to engage with theoretical concepts, to understand the dimensions of power (and challenge them), to meet people where they were – to see ‘both/all sides’ – and to write in ways that inform an audience with humility. I had hoped that the humanities angle of academic history would render space for creativity, for authenticity, for human-defined and transparent approaches to discourse and scholarship. Instead, what I have found is a discipline rooted in coloniality and othering of people who look like me.
In my professional experience, I have been trained not only to inform public audiences but to educate them, and, in some instances, influence them in some way or to sway public debate (drafting press releases and public statements, drafting speeches and public remarks, etc.).
As I moved into interdisciplinary study for my PhD, however, I find myself frequently at odds with academic history. That makes it even more troubling because I reflect fondly on History class in secondary school; my teachers were usually very animated, challenged tropes and stereotypes, and encouraged us to think about what was there, what voices were missing, and how the history that we were taught shaped our understanding of the world.
But now, as a doctoral scholar, I find the colonization of academic history to be particularly horrific – and there’s no sight of that shifting anytime soon. I wrote previously about the lack of Black historians in academia – is it any surprise? As an African American doctoral candidate, I am frequently put at odds with the scholarship and white Euro-American protection of the colonial norms that drive and dictate what is and what is not deemed legitimate academic history, pedagogy, and learning. Sometimes this violence is intentional, but more often it is baked into practice. Academic historians do not always see their own bias or exclusions because the discipline has taught them to treat those choices as neutral.
Some balk at the idea of race. ‘Why bring race into it?,’ they ask. The construction of race shapes the society that we live in; Euro-American conceptualization of race paved way for the mainstream legitimacy of what is and what is not historical; excluding from its inception my ancestors and those who look like me. I find that when I raise these concerns with some PRAW academics, their inclination is to defend the system, ‘but, what about those famous Black historians? Those who taught at HBCUs?’ HBCUs, learning and teaching for Freed Black folks, and independent African American institutions were: (a) often modeled after white Euro-American models of teaching and leaning; (b) in order to gain mainstream legitimacy, Black scholars were compelled to appeal to white audiences, which meant modeling their work to appeal to those individuals; (c) reliant on Euro-American institutions, such as publishing houses, funders, and partner institutions, in order to be considered legitimate.
I do not dismiss nor do I discredit the much-needed work of HBCUs – they remain a critical and safe place for Black American academics and students, especially now, at a time when work to conduct important research on Black Americans is so easily dismissed and parodied by federal leaders. However, there remains a racialized legitimacy system that HBCUs must adhere to in order to be deemed acceptable outside of them that I find problematic. PRAW dismiss that as an academic necessity; but, that’s not what it is. It is epistemic injustice and enforces a system that delegitimizes and marginalizes Americans of color in higher education because we refuse to embrace a relic of colonialism.
Historians like to tell us that time is linear and universal, that all lives move through it the same way. But those of us who question that story – particularly Black scholars – are sidelined or treated as anomalies, even as academia proudly chants “Black Lives Matter.” What about decolonizing the discipline so intent on preserving its reliance on white Euro-American norms and values, and which actively works to delegitimize Black and brown people in the classroom, in the literature, and in the archive? Why must the lives of people who look like me be told through the lens and processes made by the colonizer? PRAW historian academics insist that ‘we must bring a voice to the unheard’ whilst simultaneously othering them and placing them into the frame that oppresses them. It is colonialism in prose. It is inclusion in exile. The real problem is not whether academic history is objective, but that the discipline teaches itself to believe in its neutrality, even when that neutrality is a tool of domination. Hence why I argue that Audré Lorde’s The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House should be required reading for academia.
Academic history presents itself as neutral. But, nothing about it is neutral: the historian is not neutral nor are the mainstream methods – and, most importantly, one would be remiss if they ignored the violence of the colonial archives and their lack of epistemic and ontological equity. The discipline has been built by and for Euro-American power and it punishes those of us who refuse to mimic it. Black and brown scholars who critique that order are met with dismissal, tokenism, or academic violence disguised as rigor. Our contributions to this space feel conditional – we are welcome only if we bend the knee to the master’s methods. If this discipline is serious about decolonization, it must first confront its own need to control legitimacy, voice, and truth. I do not reject history – I reject the fantasy that it is neutral. If academic history wants to matter, it must stop demanding that the oppressed adopt the master’s tools and instead learn to sit with critique, discomfort, and multiplicity. Until then, its claims to rigor will remain exactly what they are: gatekeeping dressed up as truth.