Campus Counterspaces: Black and Latinx Students' Search for Community at Historically White Universities

by Micere Keels

Frustrated with the flood of news articles and opinion pieces that were skeptical of minority students' "imagined" campus microaggressions, Micere Keels, a professor of comparative human development, set out to provide a detailed account of how racial-ethnic identity structures Black and Latinx students' college transition experiences. Tracking a cohort of more than five hundred Black and Latinx students since they enrolled at five historically white colleges and universities in the fall of 2013 Campus Counterspaces finds that these students were not asking to be protected from new ideas. Instead, they relished exposure to new ideas, wanted to be intellectually challenged, and wanted to grow. However, Keels argues, they were asking for access to counterspaces―safe spaces that enable radical growth. They wanted counterspaces where they could go beyond basic conversations about whether racism and discrimination still exist. They wanted time in counterspaces with likeminded others where they could simultaneously validate and challenge stereotypical representations of their marginalized identities and develop new counter narratives of those identities. In this critique of how universities have responded to the challenges these students face, Keels offers a way forward that goes beyond making diversity statements to taking diversity actions.

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 15, 2020

Reviews

[Aidan]

Read for my American Studies Methods course.

Even though I don't rate books for class, I still have opinions about this book.

While I found Keels ideas of Counterspaces fascinating and noteworthy, I found her research lacking. Keels does not give an example of a Counterspace as she defines it. She pushes back against safe spaces, but the clubs and organizations that the students she interviews belong to fit better with her definition of safe spaces. I have nothing against safe spaces and I think there is merit in counterspaces. But again, Keels does not show the reader counterspaces she merely tells the reader that the such spaces exist and even if the interviewees don't call them counterspaces or know what they are, they are in them. That could lead to parts where it felt like she was pulling at straws to convince the reader that she was proving her thesis.

I did find her sections on commuter students great, as a commuter myself I felt connected with the students and felt that my beliefs were being supported. So, I would say that those parts of the book are worth reading.