I Have Been Waiting: Race and U.S. Higher Education. (2003). Jennifer Simpson. University of Toronto Press. 253 pp., $40.00. ISBN 0-8020-8779-5.

Review by: Karen Davidson-Thorne

Cultures and Communities Program

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

At many institutions, students are required to take at least one course in cultural diversity. Focusing on African American, American Indian, Asian American, or Latino/a culture, these courses often are designed so that students explore how racism is experienced by these groups in the United States . However, rarely are these courses used to examine what it means to be White.

In I Have Been Waiting: Race and U.S. Higher Education , Jennifer Simpson argues that White privilege is so woven into the fabric of U.S. society in general, and higher education in particular, that it becomes an invisible norm for those it benefits. By choosing not to analyze Whiteness, European Americans easily disassociate from and deny responsibility for a system in which those with White skin are privileged. As Johnson explained (2001, pp. 38-39): Privilege does not necessarily mean happiness or economic security, which "can prompt people in privileged groups to deny resentfully that they even have it. . . ." Rather, White privilege is a system of benefits suffused through daily experience. Advisors need to be cognizant of how this benefits system is integral to the advisors' and students' experiences of life and college.

Simpson explores her intellectual and emotional journey toward antiracist practice, reflecting on her experiences with racism and White privilege as student and teacher as well as in her interpersonal relationships with faculty members, advisors, and fellow students. The theme running throughout is that European American students, staff, and faculty members are racial actors whose choices and decisions ( racial agency ) sustain racism and White privilege. Simpson illustrates how Whites can employ raci al agency toward dismantling structures of privilege and oppression. Critical components of her suggestions include a) awareness and reflection on one's personal experience of whiteness, b) sustained and substantive dialogue and relationship building with people of color, and c) reading works by and listening to people of color.

Antiracist practice requires exploration of the roles of advisor, student, instructor, and administrator within a system that may reflect one experience more than another. In the section on race in the classroom, Simpson quotes an American Commitments National Panel: "It is relatively easy to conclude that if one is treated well by the system, the system is working well. Concomitantly, those who are not treated well must have somehow failed to take advantage of the system" (p. 165). If advisors interpret students' experiences of higher education through their own experiences and unexamined biases, what are the implications for advising practice?

How do students of color and White students experience college differently when 90% of full professors in the United States are European Americans (p. 126)? What systems of privilege and oppression are reinforced? These questions preclude advisors from making quick assumptions about the life and college experiences of advisees. In addition, they may deepen an understanding of student development, values, perspectives, and experiences.

Race is a subject that even veteran advisors are often reluctant to broach with their advisees; it can be an intensely emotional topic for both the student and advisor. Whether an advisee is protesting the need to take a cultural diversity course, or an advisee does not want to go to a class because the instructor calls on him or her to speak on behalf of all belonging to his or her race, students need advisors who are comfortable talking about racial experiences in higher education.

Advisors will appreciate the Appendix, which provides a wealth of discussion questions, exercises, and assignments that can be adapted for advising. For advisors who are already committed to antiracist practice and to those new to examining the dynamics of White privilege and racism in the academy, I Have Been Waiting: Race an U.S. Higher Education is an excellent resource.

Reference

Johnson, A. G. (2001). Privilege, power, and difference. New York : McGraw-Hill.