Two White Supremacy and Capitalistic Habits I am Unlearning Post-Academia

Since starting graduate school back in 2016, I have noticed the ways in which my body and habits have drastically transformed in order to survive academia and white supremacy in general. Now that I am out of graduate school and have begun a new non-academic job, I am in the long process of identifying and unlearning habits that do not serve me anymore. Here are two that I am coming to terms with now:

1. Individualism:

Given the often-independent nature of humanities and social science programs, I have had a lot of experience working alone. I never worked in a lab or on a team with other researchers and can count on my hand how many group projects I had, during my first three years of coursework. With COVID-19 came more virtual work options, which ultimately allowed me to perfect working from home by myself, at my own pace.

When I took my current job, I knew it would be one that involved a lot of collaboration. As a social person, I did not think that this adjustment would be too difficult. This switch from independent to collective work, however, has been, at times, uncomfortable.

Don’t get me wrong- I love being with my co-workers. They have all brought a great level of sociality and joy to my life already, in such a short period of time.

But I have not had to routinely collaborate and work closely with others for years. And because of that, I often catch myself longing for my home office or thinking how much easier certain projects could be, done independently.

The thing is that academia constantly rewarded me for putting my head down and working alone. This is the precise process of my program’s qualifying examinations (you have two weeks to write three papers and a prospectus, on your own) and is how grant writing takes place. Graduate students are left to navigate the complexities of graduate school on their own, with little support from faculty or administration. First-gen, poor, working class, and/or graduate students of color struggle through graduate school even more, trying to navigate university systems with little resources and fit into these white, elitist spaces that were not even designed with them in mind.

This very nature of graduate school exists within a larger framing in the United States, which favors individualism over working with others. Capitalism, as we know, thrives off of self-reliance and the severing of relationships. If people feel like they are alone and that they as workers are disposable, this fear of disposability supposedly drives them to work harder. When workers begin to form together as a collective, rekindling the relationship that capitalism tries to break, they become a threat to capitalism itself (re: unions and union busting).

While working with others feels unnatural to me at times, I am having to remind myself that this is a symptom of white supremacy and capitalism; white supremacy and capitalism attempt to naturalize a very unnatural way of life.

We as humans are social beings, meant to work with others. Relationships are crucial to who we are as people and how we navigate the complexities of the world. We need others to survive and successfully building and sustaining meaningful relationships with others, in a capitalist society, is a beautiful, act of resistance.

2. Overworking/Scarcity Mindset

A common phrase that my graduate school friends and I would say is that we live off of, compete for, and accept crumbs as graduate students.

It is well-known that graduate students make very little money. Most years, I made under $20,000.

We are expected to live off of these stipends, while simultaneously teaching, taking classes, and producing our own work. Universities are dependent on the (scarcely) paid and unpaid labor of graduate students.

Many graduate students are also put in positions where they have to apply for grants to support their own research. For example, I had to find the money to conduct fieldwork, which was required to produce the data I needed to then write my dissertation (which I also had to find the money to do). The internal and external grants we apply for are also highly competitive, ultimately making it easy to operate from a scarcity mindset.

What I mean by a scarcity mindset is that as a graduate student, you often think that there is not enough funding to go around for everyone, so you must do everything you can to secure funding. Additionally, if you are able to secure funding in the form of a fellowship, you begin to feel like you have to make every possible dollar and second you are on fellowship count (since fellowships are often hard to come by).

COVID exacerbated this scarcity mindset for me (I felt very financially and physically vulnerable), which manifested into me working multiple positions, in and out of my university, at once. This past year at one point, I was working two research assistant positions at my university and working full time at my current job, all while writing my dissertation.

Now let’s pause for a second here.

I want whoever is reading this to know that I do not support this type of overworking behavior. While it was definitely helpful to be making more money, I did not need to work all of these positions, to survive. I understand that doing this much work should not be normalized or glamorized. And yet, just like my ability to work independently, I was often praised for my ability to overwork, being told that I was “such a good and/or hard worker.” Capitalism celebrates this toxic behavior by reducing it to the label of “hustle culture” and being a #girlboss.

Now that I am officially done with graduate school and only have one job, I am noticing how my scarcity mindset is still present, lingering in my body and mind. For example, during work when I am tasked to dream and think creatively (as if there were no monetary limits) I am often stifled by lingering thoughts of imagined limitations and find myself wanting to settle on certain issues, that could and should be explored more (re: accepting crumbs).

Additionally, when I am not working and have down time, I find myself feeling guilty and scrambling to find ways to fill it, that feel both productive and lucrative. This anxiety about how I am spending my time (re: time is money) makes the thought of rest always feel like an afterthought.

In my dissertation I write a lot about in/exclusionary logics of nation states. Across the Americas, Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are excluded from racial ideologies that are ultimately intrinsic to a country’s operations. At the same time, these ideologies depend on marginalized people to exist. That is, racial ideologies like whiteness and racial capitalism rely on racialized differences and divisions of power to operate.

Public universities were not meant for marginalized people and yet, they rely on the labor of these very students to survive.

In order to survive academia, I became an individualist, adopted a scarcity mindset, and overworked myself. These very habits of working in isolation and overworking myself for fear of not having enough, ultimately only benefit and further the cycle of white supremacy and capitalism. As Cara Nguyen pointedly suggests,

“the market was constructed and functions within a white supremacist society, which means that its outcomes uphold white supremacy [1]”.

And in turn for me, I and others who are workers in this capitalist society are left feeling alone and burdened with tasks, as well as burnt out from working too much.

These habits I have discussed take time and care to unlearn. I strongly believe that taking the time to unlearn them can lead me to living a more fulfilling and restful life.

Instead of saying “I work better alone,” I want to say and believe that “I thrive and crave working with others.”

Instead of saying “there are not enough resources to go around” I want to say and believe that “there is plenty, for everyone.”

Collectivity over individualism. Abundance over scarcity. Rest over grinding.

Two White Supremacy and Capitalistic Habits I am Unlearning Post-Academia

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