Graduate students are not people. In the academic hierarchy, graduate students are units of labor. They can be students, but not just students. They are academics in the making. They do not have any claim to authority among scholars. In fact, the most surefire way to get a real, minted academic to speak to you when you are just a graduate student is to introduce yourself by proxy: “Hi I am Tressie, student of Richard Rubinson and Sandy Darity, and I know five other people who you recognize as people.”
