Striving to be Queer: How a White, Heterosexual Man Challenges Inequality in the Academe.

This paper explores some of the ways that those of us who occupy privileged social statuses can work toward social justice in the academe. As a White heterosexual male, I appear, at least on the surface, among the least likely people to challenge privileges in the Ivory Tower. Nevertheless, through a discussion of personal and professional experiences that have shaped me as an academic, I argue that it is precisely my occupation of these privileged categories that places a responsibility on me (and others like me) to challenge those very privileges and work toward social justice. Those of us who are privileged have plenty of opportunity to challenge inequalities—if we open our eyes and choose to see them. A rigorously critical understanding of how inequalities operate illuminates how mundane, ordinary institutional practices are riddled with privileges of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, privileges that get normalized precisely through mundane, ordinary practices in institutional settings. Challenging these inequalities is never easy. It is never "a good time" to speak up about racism, sexism, classism or homophobia because doing so disrupts the everyday goings-on that constitute academic (and other institutional) life. Putting Seidman's (1995: 118) notion that "queer politics mobilizes against all normalized hierarchies" into action is at the heart of what striving to be queer means in the academe. I use striving to be queer rather than simply being queer to underscore that action is required rather than solely having an identity as a "good liberal" person. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]