Epilogue

My position in the academy allows me to write this text. In spite of that, I find myself resisting so much about the US university. My focus is on a Black feminist legacy, aimed at freedom, which in many ways runs counter to the goals of the neoliberal university. Stefano Harney and Fred Moten (2013) wrote about the complicated relationship of the subversive intellectual to the university under the heading “The Only Possible Relationship to the University Today is a Criminal One.”

But certainly, this much is true in the United States: it cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge, and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment. In the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what one can. To abuse its hospitality, to spite its mission, to join its refugee colony, its gypsy encampment, to be in but not of – this is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university. …

After all, the subversive intellectual came under false pretenses, with bad documents, out of love. Her labor is as necessary as it is unwelcome. The university needs what she bears but cannot bear what she brings. And on top of all that, she disappears. She disappears into the underground, the downlow lowdown maroon community of the university, into the undercommons of enlightenment, where the work gets done, where the work gets subverted, where the revolution is still black, still strong. ¹

On the surface, there are considerable advantages to my life in the academy, including health benefits, a retirement plan, paid professional development (used to write this very manuscript), and vacation. At the same time, there is a constant tension as I resist the allure and appeal, lest I become too complacent to steal away what my (maroon) community needs, lest I forget the legacy into which I was born. In this vein, I do not want this book to be judged by professional association awards or scholarly critique. Instead, I 178hope it will be measured by its capacity to move forward transnational solidarity work that will advance liberation struggles. This manuscript honors the spirit of networks powered by women of color, networks designed to nourish our communities and expand life’s options. It is humbly written in solidarity, incomplete and awaiting the chorus of voices that might accompany it. May it inspire in the spirit of a June Jordan poem, a Lorraine Hansberry play, a Sweet Honey in the Rock song, an Octavia Butler story. May it be recorded as part of the soundtrack of the freedom movement.