I stepped out of class. Rushed to a quiet spot out of sight from anyone. I pushed my back against the cold cement wall and inhaled. The exhale released a grunting cry. The tears fell from my cheeks and dripped on the paper I held in my hand. The red ink smeared the “F” grade I had received on my first written academic paper in my undergraduate career.
A note followed the “F” grade stating that the reason I had failed was because I had plagiarized. A warning followed, if I were to do it again, I would be reported to the academic senate for disciplinary action. I flipped through the paper and was failed for not citing a sentence defining the American dream. Up until that point I thought the American dream was common knowledge and did not have to be cited. I was wrong. What followed next was even more damaging.
The course would give me two required general education credits. One for writing and the other for a diversity requirement. Due to my grade on the first paper I was at risk of failing the course. Even though I feared having a meeting with the professor, it made the most sense if I wanted to resolve the issue. I scheduled a meeting, but in the meantime, I asked my peers what grades they received on their papers.
It had come to my attention that three of the five people in the course had also received failing grades. We were all women of color. One White female student had received a “B” and was told she was “flirting with plagiarism.” The professor was a White female. While I could interpret this as racially charged incident, I did not bring this argument into the meeting with the professor. Instead I let her lecture me about the kind of student she thought I was due to my “deficient upbringing” and the “lack of educational resources” I was provided.
I was spiritually murdered that day.
In 1987, legal scholar, Patricia Williams first conceptualized spirit-murdering as a product of racism which not only inflicts pain, but it is a form of racial violence that steals and kills the humanity and spirits of people of color. Education scholar Bettina Love, applies spirit-murdering to the lived realities of Black and Brown students in the educational system in the U.S. She defines spirit murdering as the “denial of inclusion, protection, safety, nurturance, and acceptance because of fixed, yet fluid and moldable structures of racism.” Love further states: “What I am talking about is a slow death, a death of the spirit, a death this is built on racism intended to reduce, humiliate and destroy people of color.”
More recently, my spirit was murdered once again.
