Licking Salt: A Black Woman’s Tale of Betrayal, Adversity, and Survival

My story of exiting is as much a story of healing as it is a story of being. It is a story that challenges the notion of a democratic, merit-based space. This story is one of existing in the cracks of the academy. As I explore my epistemology of being, I focus on the impact of race and gender and their effect on my interactions as I traverse academia. I offer a glaring account of my intimate thoughts about my exposure and response to race-gender trauma and to the betrayal I experienced as a “member” of the academy. My focus on the epistemology of being—both mine, critical scholars, and my grandmother’s—affords me with the opportunity to gaze (somewhat differently) at institutional failures that prompt exits and also how institutions may begin to address the structures and processes—particularly silence—that prompt such exits.