The words “Ivory” and “Class” are rich in meaning that have been used primarily to define one’s racial, social, and financial status. While it is no easy task to recover these words from their varying cultural and societal contexts, we will, nonetheless, try to approach them from our unique personal and professional experiences—that are at the same time similar and different. Our goals for this blog are not to misappropriate, dismiss, and/or reduce the stories of others who have been caught up in the marginalizing effects of these two words. Rather we hope to reappropriate, endorse, and amplify the stories—create a space that highlight the work and/in style of BIPOC in academia (here we would like to give a shout out to Dr. Shardé M. Davis and Joy Melody Woods for starting the hashtag #blackintheivory). Two good examples are the movements of subversion by the LGBTQIA+ community who reclaimed the word “Queer” and the community of persons with disabilities who rewrote the word “cripple” into “crip.” In a like manner, we start boldly by taking “Ivory” from the expression “ivory tower” that refers to the academe and aspiration for higher learning; and “Class” from the fashion industry where it is an undefinable taste for luxury—the ultimate cliché, “je ne sais quoi.”
Until now, these words have seemed like two distinct ambitions, marking a certain superior distance from the rest of society that justifies being able to dwell on one’s own high-brow pursuits. Some may still insist that they do not belong in the same blog, let alone side by side/top and bottom in the name. Yet, we cannot help but imagine that “Ivory Class” can bring these two desirable categories together into one attainable goal.
While others may be convinced our appearances deter from the quality of our work, we are in fact remaking the image of academia. “Ivory Class” is an interplay between style and smarts which are not mutually exclusive.
To say, then, that this blog is for anyone in particular is to draw the lines that we’re trying to blur. “Ivory Class” is open to anyone who sets their own standards in the world, defines their own style, defies expectations (with a wink and a smile), enjoys the exchange of ideas, might be in need of a little inspiration, or have somewhere to go or nowhere to go… &C.
So, in this fashion in academia blog we celebrate everyone’s unique styles, perspectives, and identities. “Other women’s bodies are not our battlegrounds.”
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