Content area
Full Text
During an interview Anita, a Black woman attending Brennan University (BU; a pseudonym), a prestigious predominantly White institution (PWI), shared a story about how shocked her White peers often were by her "bubbly personality." At one point, she leaned forward in her seat, rested her elbows on the table between us, and ever so slightly turned up the corners of her mouth. In a lowered voice she stated: "They wanna know, like, 'Oh my god, 'Why are you this great person?'" She paused and leaned closer: "I'm like, 'Well, what did you expect?'" Later in the interview, I learned she believed her peers' shock was rooted in expectations that she would be unapproachable, angry, and needlessly loud—essentially, that she would personify the stereotypical Black woman. Anita's interactions with White peers and faculty who held expectations of her behavior based on existing racial narratives and tropes are not uncommon. Scholars examining undergraduate Black women's experiences on college campuses report they frequently encounter negative perceptions about them from members of the campus community (James, Marrero, & Underwood, 2010; Lewis, Mendenhall, Harwood, & Huntt, 2013; Patton & Croom, 2017) which leads to feelings of marginalization and isolation (Porter, 2017; Stewart, 2017), hostile learning environments and situations (Kelly, Segoshi, Adams, & Raines, 2017; Solorzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000), and few support networks upon which to rely (Winkle-Wagner, 2009). Given these documented challenges that negative perceptions cause for undergraduate Black women, the purpose of this article was to examine the manifestation of stereotype threat among Black women in a PWI.
Stereotyping as a Tool of Oppression
Racial stereotypes are not simply innocuous imaginings. They have long been used by the dominant group in society, White Americans, as means of categorizing and making sense of non-White people in a manner that justifies their continued oppression and subjugation ( Tuitt & Carter, 2008). Simply defined, racial stereotypes are the "projected thoughts and beliefs that members of one racial group hold about another racial group" (Torres & Charles, 2004, p. 116). They are "gross generalizations" (Johnson-Ahorlu, 2012, p. 637) that do not accurately capture the lived realities of the group being described, but rather, propagate narratives that distort truths and vilify their culture, identities, and capacities in a manner that positions them...