Education Commons^™

Teaching The Retrenchment Generation: When Sapphire Meets Socrates At The Intersection Of Race, Gender, And Authority, Pamela J. Smith

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article is about perceptions and the negative sociological factors that feed these perceptions as Black women attempt to teach the Retrenchment Generation. For purposes of this Article, the Retrenchment Generation is not limited to any particular age group or period of time. Rather, the Retrenchment Generation refers to a state of mind that makes race-based, sex-based, and race/sex-based microaggressions acceptable and in fact normal. The Retrenchment Generation is defined by the synergism that is created by racial isolation, particularly in the educational arena, retrenchment fervor, and the presumption of incompetence that inflexibly presumes that all professional Black women are …