A Place at the Table: Etiquette and Invalidation in the Quest for Cultural Capital at Spelman College

Placed on the auction block, women of African descent have been scrutinized since the first slave ships arrived at North America. While their personal identities did not begin or end with slavery, to the outside world slavery turned these women into chattel—bought and sold, stripped of their autonomy, hypersexualized, deemed morally corrupt. With the end of slavery came the legal recognition of these women as persons, but it did little to alleviate the stereotypes created during slavery. Denied rights because of their sex, many used their newly won freedom to create economic and social capital for themselves and for their children. Education provided the foundation for their efforts. Many looked to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as a means to create economic and social prosperity. These institutions provided the cultural and social capital to propel former slaves into the middle class. While many descendants of HBCU graduates now attend Historically White Institutions (HWIs), HBCUs retain their mission to advance lower-income students into a different economic and social reality (Graham, 1999). These schools continue to create the embodied and institutional cultural capital necessary to move their graduates into the middle class. 1 While these institutions serve as a nurturing haven for underrepresented students, their very attempt to create cultural capital may invalidate the experiences of African American low-income women, as well as those who do not ascribe to hegemonic forms of femininity and heteronormativity. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.