Recreating Wakanda by promoting Black excellence in ecology and evolution 1285 comment Recreating Wakanda by promoting Black excellence in ecology and evolution Our non-Black colleagues must fight anti-Black racism and white supremacy within the academy to authentically promote Black excellence. Amplifying Black excellence in ecology and evolution is the antidote for white supremacy in the academy. Christopher J. Schell, Cylita Guy, Delia S. Shelton, Shane C. Campbell-Staton, Briana A. Sealey, Danielle N. Lee and Nyeema C. Harris Growing protests to decry police brutality and anti-Black racism have demanded sustained efforts for justice in the wake of the murders of Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Such injustices come at an especially challenging time in which Black communities are disproportionately being ravaged by the global COVID-19 pandemic1,2. These compounding issues have culminated in a watershed moment, in which non-Black colleagues, some for the first time, are beginning to legitimately grapple with the pervasive and pernicious nature of anti-Black racism embedded in our institutions and professions. Many scientific institutions, professional societies and individuals have swiftly and emphatically denounced anti-Black racism, pledging Black Lives Matter and acknowledging their support in deconstructing racial oppression and white supremacy in the academy. This support has largely come in the form of public statements and editorials that elevate Black voices, most notably from prestigious scientific outlets like Nature3,4 and Science5–7. A recent editorial in Nature Ecology & Evolution8 pledges to dismantle anti-Black racism in the annals of life sciences, which is a necessary step. But let us be clear: this is not enough and not even the minimum9,10. The road to anti-racism in academia is a long, arduous, uphill climb that will require institutional and personal reconciliation, resolve, discomfort and humility11. It is both necessary and urgent to promote inclusive excellence and transformative scholarship. Black scholars in the life sciences are grieving, traumatized, exhausted, infuriated, frustrated and experiencing many other disparaging emotions4,12. As we attempt to operate in a system that presents extraordinary barriers to our success, we also watch our white counterparts thrive in a system equipped with the resources made for them7. Yet despite the paucity of Black scholars in ecology and evolution13–16, repeated evidence emphasizes that scholars from underrepresented groups improve research innovation17. The concept of ecosystem integrity emphasizes that species diversity is necessary for ecosystem function, in which rare and keystone species play a disproportionate role in maintaining ecosystem equilibrium18. As such, Black scholars are keystone scientists: we play a disproportionate role in advancing diversity and inclusion19, while maintaining excellence in teaching and research, despite racial oppression within and outside our academic institutions7. In the Marvel comic series Black Panther, a universe is imagined in which the intellectual, cultural, social and scientific contributions of Black scholars are celebrated. In this fictional nation of Wakanda, the contributions of Black scholars are elevated, emphasizing that global scientific and technological advancements are realized in a world welcoming of Black excellence20. To fully realize the beauty and power of Wakanda in our own universe, we must employ anti-racist policies and actions (Fig. 1). Root mentorship, training and research in anti-racism Mentorship, training and research in ecology and evolution must be grounded in institutionalized and formalized anti-racist policies. This means being vulnerable and acknowledging your shortcomings in conversations about racial justice. White supremacy has purposefully suppressed historical narratives of Black contributions to ecology and evolution21. This necessarily means that scientists raised in Western society are poorly educated about systemic racial oppression and history by design11. Mentors and principal investigators need to be aware of this reality, and must talk to their labs, collaborators and research groups about confronting and dismantling structural racism, especially senior white male colleagues22. Importantly, this work extends beyond the white heteronormative male majority, including white women and other minority groups in science. Be humble enough to relinquish your power and privilege to elevate Black scientists’ voices (Fig. 1). Learn to identify microaggressions, guard against them in yourselves, and remain vigilant about eradicating them in your lab group and institutions. Persistence will be required, understanding that fatigue and discomfort will happen. Dig deep. Decolonize and broaden evaluation metrics The guidelines for tenure, promotion and hiring are all heavily steeped in white supremacy and racial oppression that prohibits the full participation and excellence of Black scientists9. Tenure, promotion and hiring guidelines customarily devalue community engagement and initiatives directed at promoting diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. This also includes internal and external funding initiatives, as Black life scientists are customarily not funded for large grants23. The invisible labour of Black scientists often goes unnoticed or disregarded but is substantial to the excellence of the department and institution24. Radical revisions to evaluation metrics also need to hold non-Black colleagues accountable for anti-racist work. Integration of outreach and engagement efforts should be tantamount to publication record on a CV. Too many non-Black scholars have ascended the academic ladder without substantive contributions to diversifying life sciences and societal justice, and this is unacceptable. Black scientists (students and faculty included) should serve on tenure and NatuRe ecology & evolutioN | VOL 4 | OctOBer 2020 | 1285–1287 | www.nature.com/natecolevol http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1038/s41559-020-1266-7&domain=pdf http://www.nature.com/natecolevol 1286 comment promotion committees, as well as hiring committees9. The voices and opinions of those Black scholars should seriously be taken into consideration when making all hiring or promotion decisions. Not taking these immediate actions will inevitably jeopardize our ability to create a welcoming environment that broadens participation in our disciplines. Recognize Black excellence in all its forms To authentically be a welcoming space for Black scholars, we need to accept the full expression of Black excellence in all its forms. Concurrently, that means interrogating how societal norms and stereotypes coerce Black scientists to conform or assimilate to a strict definition of professionalism6. We do not accept species uniformity in promoting healthy ecosystems, so why would we expect assimilation of personalities, values and cultures? Recent social media movements, including but not limited to #BlackBirdersWeek, #BlackintheIvory and #BlackinNature, illustrate the myriad forms of Black scholarship, education and outreach5. Undervaluing these stories, narratives and identities negates the positive contributions our non-Black colleagues make in fighting structural racism. Support and fight alongside your Black colleagues against racial oppression, especially when it is inconvenient and outside our academic walls. This is especially pertinent for field biologists, as our right to belong in nature without fear of persecution or violence is under constant threat25,26. The compounding and pervasive impacts of environmental racism in conservation and environmental movements all contribute to marginalizing Black scholars’ contributions to field ecology and biology16,25,26. Authentically recognizing Black excellence will likely mean confronting authority figures (that is, police, deans, chancellors, society presidents, department chairs and so on) and using your privilege to protect the rights of your colleagues. Sustained work is required The best antidote for white supremacy is Black excellence10. As James Baldwin famously wrote: “The future of the Negro in this country… Is precisely as bright or dark as the future of the country”. Simply put: our collective success in ecology and evolution rests with our willingness to combat anti-Black racism and white supremacy. Our success is also predicated on our ability Abolish anti-Black racism in ecology and evolution Amplify Black excellence in ecology and evolution Leave white fragility at the door, and be comfortable with being uncomfortable Make justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) sessions main events Deconstruct the evaluation process and guidelines for tenure and promotion Interrogate your own racial biases and privileges Cite Black authors, and compensate them equitably Fund Black-led grants with strong community engagement Celebrate public engagement by Black scholars Elevate Black scholars as institutional and societal leaders Invite Black scholars as editors and reviewers in prestigious journals Position Black scholars as keynote speakers, panelists and symposia organizers Hire multiple Black faculty through cluster hiring Do outreach at majority Black and Brown K-12 schools Require Black history courses and teach research through a justice lens Practice anti-racist strategies everywhere; do not cherry pick Fig. 1 | Recommendations for authentically amplifying Black scholars while abolishing white supremacy in ecology and evolution. Anti-racist practice and action means creating comprehensive policies that specifically target injustices and inequality at every level of an institution (for example, in lab settings, graduate cohorts, classrooms, conference venues and departmental meetings). creating sustained change and progress in fighting racial oppression in ecology and evolution requires a multi-tiered approach that incorporates aspects of education, support and personal and professional growth. Most importantly, institutional policies must be married with individual interrogation of biases and privileges, placing accountability at the core of authentically practicing anti-racism pedagogy and doctrine. NatuRe ecology & evolutioN | VOL 4 | OctOBer 2020 | 1285–1287 | www.nature.com/natecolevol http://www.nature.com/natecolevol 1287 comment to acknowledge and learn from the historical contributions of acclaimed Black scholars before us. Extensive and untold legacies and narratives of Black scholars in ecology and evolution must be heard16,21. We demand long-term solutions that disrupt white supremacy in all areas of ecology and evolution, while simultaneously elevating Black scholars (Fig. 1). Our current declaration builds on an already exhaustive list of scholarly work addressing anti-racist strategies11. May our call to action serve as a preface to lifelong engagement with eradicating systemic racism in our institutions. ❐ Christopher J. Schell   1 ✉, Cylita Guy   2, Delia S. Shelton   3, Shane C. Campbell-Staton   4,5, Briana A. Sealey   6, Danielle N. Lee7 and Nyeema C. Harris   8 1School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, USA. 2Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA. 4Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. 5Institute for Society and Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. 6Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. 7Department of Biological Sciences, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL, USA. 8Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. ✉e-mail: cjschell@uw.edu Published online: 24 July 2020 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1266-7 References 1. van Dorn, A., Cooney, R. E. & Sabin, M. L. Lancet 395, 1243–1244 (2020). 2. Yancy, C. W. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 323, 1891–1892 (2020). 3. Nature 582, 147 (2020). 4. Subbaraman, N. Nature 582, 155–156 (2020). 5. Langin, K. ‘I can’t even enjoy this.’ #BlackBirdersWeek organizer shares her struggles as a black scientist. Science (5 June 2020). 6. Spikes, M. Science 368, 1506 (2020). 7. Lewis Jr, N. A. What I’ve learned about being a Black scientist. Science (16 June 2020); https://doi.org/10.1126/science.caredit. abd3589 8. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 893–894 (2020). 9. Roberts, J. White academia: do better. Medium (8 June 2020); https://go.nature.com/3fkqpnH 10. Gewin, V. Nature 583, 319–322 (2020). 11. Kendi, I. X. How to Be an Antiracist (One World, 2019). 12. Dzirasa, K. Cell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.028 (2020). 13. Tabuchi, H. & Schlossberg, T. As scientists, we have yet to close the racial disparities. The New York Times (10 June 2020); https://go.nature.com/2DDdteI 14. Leslie, S. J., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M. & Freeland, E. Science 347, 262–265 (2015). 15. Harris, A. The disciplines where no Black people earn PhDs. The Atlantic (19 April 2019); https://go.nature.com/32jTID0 16. Abrahams, R. S. The brief history of African Americans in evolutionary biology, and why that is the case. The Molecular Ecologist (17 February 2020); https://go.nature.com/3eql1hE 17. Hofstra, B. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117, 9284–9291 (2020). 18. Garibaldi, A. & Turner, N. Ecol. Soc. 9, 1 (2004). 19. Jimenez, M. F. et al. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 3, 1030–1033 (2019). 20. Johnson, C. ‘Black Panther’ and its science role models inspire more than just movie awards. The Conversation (21 February 2019); https://go.nature.com/2Okaaer 21. Lee, D. N. Anim. Behav. 164, 273–280 (2020). 22. Mehta, D. Nature 559, 153 (2018). 23. Hoppe, T. A. et al. Sci. Adv. 5, eaaw7238 (2019). 24. Matthew, P. A. What Is faculty diversity worth to a university? The Atlantic (23 November 2016); https://go.nature.com/2BY37pr 25. Gatheru, W. It’s Time for environmental studies to own up to erasing Black people. Vice News (11 June 2020); https://go.nature. com/2OxMmEd 26. Finney, C. Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (Univ. North Carolina Press, 2014). Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. NatuRe ecology & evolutioN | VOL 4 | OctOBer 2020 | 1285–1287 | www.nature.com/natecolevol http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2073-9852 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5344-8971 http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5807-7786 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9778-7302 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9206-5570 http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5174-2205 mailto:cjschell@uw.edu https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1266-7 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.caredit.abd3589 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.caredit.abd3589 https://go.nature.com/3fkqpnH https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.028 https://go.nature.com/2DDdteI https://go.nature.com/32jTID0 https://go.nature.com/3eql1hE https://go.nature.com/2Okaaer https://go.nature.com/2BY37pr https://go.nature.com/2OxMmEd https://go.nature.com/2OxMmEd http://www.nature.com/natecolevol Recreating Wakanda by promoting Black excellence in ecology and evolution Root mentorship, training and research in anti-racism Decolonize and broaden evaluation metrics Recognize Black excellence in all its forms Sustained work is required Fig. 1 Recommendations for authentically amplifying Black scholars while abolishing white supremacy in ecology and evolution.