Sakénya McDonald, PhD
@sakenyamcdonaldphd.bsky.social
Recovering academic ✍🏿 Slytherin 🐍 Black Feminist 🖤♀️Grand Empress of FAFO 👀
LinkedIn: @sakenyamcdonald
LinkedIn: @sakenyamcdonald
Pinned
"I can no longer justify my presence in academia, for example, with words that exist in the English language.
The moment I find some symbol of my presence in the rarefied halls of elite institutions, it gets stolen, co-opted, filled with negative meaning". - Patricia Williams
The moment I find some symbol of my presence in the rarefied halls of elite institutions, it gets stolen, co-opted, filled with negative meaning". - Patricia Williams
This 👇🏾
Piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Request denied.
Piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Request denied.
There’s nothing I hate more than having to organize last minute when I’ve been asking about something for weeks. I need to visualize the task and get mentally ready for it before hand so I feel confident /1
June 27, 2025 at 11:18 PM
This 👇🏾
Piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Request denied.
Piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Request denied.
Fact.
one of the hardest truths I've had to learn
Several years ago I bought cards from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social that read "The Institution Cannot Love You" and boy oh boy do academics need to relearn that one every five minutes.
June 26, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Fact.
👇🏾
We live in a rogue and dangerous country.
Do what you need to do to maintain your internal peace. Hold the core of your spirit. Pray for peace. Commit yourself to justice. And just rest.
Do what you need to do to maintain your internal peace. Hold the core of your spirit. Pray for peace. Commit yourself to justice. And just rest.
June 22, 2025 at 5:12 PM
👇🏾
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
According to the New York Times, roughly 0.5% of recorded history over the past 3,500 years is about women. That's only 17.5 years.
This (and many other issues) is why I spend every day speaking up and out for Black women. It's why I fight for us to tell our stories.
I want more folks to join me.
This (and many other issues) is why I spend every day speaking up and out for Black women. It's why I fight for us to tell our stories.
I want more folks to join me.
June 20, 2025 at 12:37 PM
According to the New York Times, roughly 0.5% of recorded history over the past 3,500 years is about women. That's only 17.5 years.
This (and many other issues) is why I spend every day speaking up and out for Black women. It's why I fight for us to tell our stories.
I want more folks to join me.
This (and many other issues) is why I spend every day speaking up and out for Black women. It's why I fight for us to tell our stories.
I want more folks to join me.
This is hot.
What are the African values and ethical theories that can inform responsible data science practices in Africa?...We conduct a thematic analysis [and]...derived an ethical framework consisting of six major principles rooted in the realities of data science work in Africa arxiv.org/html/2502.16...
African Data Ethics: A Discursive Framework for Black Decolonial Data Science
arxiv.org
June 19, 2025 at 3:57 AM
This is hot.
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
They colonized her people's land. The bill was breaking a treaty. Decorum does not apply here.
But colonizers gonna colonize. Every time.
But colonizers gonna colonize. Every time.
I saw this disruption. And it's NOT acceptable. It's not noble or brave or decent or chic. Legislatures are where we go to solve our problems. From my perspective, this isn't any different from a Jan 6 situation on a smaller scale.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
#NZPol #Auspol #PAHouse
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
#NZPol #Auspol #PAHouse
New Zealand MPs who performed haka in parliament given unprecedented punishment
Co-leaders of Te Pāti Māori and its youngest member to be temporarily suspended from parliament after performance protesting controversial bill
www.theguardian.com
May 16, 2025 at 2:07 PM
They colonized her people's land. The bill was breaking a treaty. Decorum does not apply here.
But colonizers gonna colonize. Every time.
But colonizers gonna colonize. Every time.
👇🏿
I envy all of you who mosquitoes don't like.
May 15, 2025 at 2:38 AM
👇🏿
"If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable" - June Jordan
May 14, 2025 at 2:06 PM
"If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable" - June Jordan
👇🏿!!!
Refusal. Withdrawal. Assertion.
This IS the movement.
Refusal. Withdrawal. Assertion.
This IS the movement.
“What then, is the responsible course of action? For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging. My resignation represents such a refusal, not a surrender of responsibility but an assertion of it.”
May 13, 2025 at 1:46 PM
👇🏿!!!
Refusal. Withdrawal. Assertion.
This IS the movement.
Refusal. Withdrawal. Assertion.
This IS the movement.
"I have encountered barriers to the exercise of honest counsel. These repeated obstacles of procedural circumvention, particularly insidious to those of us who have advocated for more democratic and inclusive knowledge systems, represent not just personal frustration, but institutional regression"
Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress
I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.
time.com
May 13, 2025 at 1:42 PM
"I have encountered barriers to the exercise of honest counsel. These repeated obstacles of procedural circumvention, particularly insidious to those of us who have advocated for more democratic and inclusive knowledge systems, represent not just personal frustration, but institutional regression"
"Contemporary mammies should be completely committed to their jobs" - P. Hill Collins
In the workplace, though, Black women are (daily) confronted with unrealistic expectations and coded messages reminding them they are expendable.
Make it, make sense.
#iconoclast
#feministphilosophy
In the workplace, though, Black women are (daily) confronted with unrealistic expectations and coded messages reminding them they are expendable.
Make it, make sense.
#iconoclast
#feministphilosophy
May 13, 2025 at 1:35 PM
"Contemporary mammies should be completely committed to their jobs" - P. Hill Collins
In the workplace, though, Black women are (daily) confronted with unrealistic expectations and coded messages reminding them they are expendable.
Make it, make sense.
#iconoclast
#feministphilosophy
In the workplace, though, Black women are (daily) confronted with unrealistic expectations and coded messages reminding them they are expendable.
Make it, make sense.
#iconoclast
#feministphilosophy
And we ALL saw what our Mayor is capable of so...move on up from 'round us 🎯
You mean to tell me that Chicago gets to claim Michael Jordan, the first Black President AND the first American Pope? Good lord you ain't going to be able to tell them NOTHING.
May 9, 2025 at 12:28 AM
And we ALL saw what our Mayor is capable of so...move on up from 'round us 🎯
👇🏿 stop. read.
From 2021, on Pulitzer finalist Gayl Jones www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/m...
She Changed Black Literature Forever. Then She Disappeared. (Published 2021)
www.nytimes.com
May 8, 2025 at 11:23 PM
👇🏿 stop. read.
That moment when you realize your gifts are too big to fit in the life-sized container you are painfully trying to squeeze into.
When it becomes clear that that your function is to do that ONE thing.
Better.
I feel like Michael Jordan, circa 1990.
#blackfeminist
#iconoclast
When it becomes clear that that your function is to do that ONE thing.
Better.
I feel like Michael Jordan, circa 1990.
#blackfeminist
#iconoclast
May 8, 2025 at 1:24 PM
That moment when you realize your gifts are too big to fit in the life-sized container you are painfully trying to squeeze into.
When it becomes clear that that your function is to do that ONE thing.
Better.
I feel like Michael Jordan, circa 1990.
#blackfeminist
#iconoclast
When it becomes clear that that your function is to do that ONE thing.
Better.
I feel like Michael Jordan, circa 1990.
#blackfeminist
#iconoclast
"I can no longer justify my presence in academia, for example, with words that exist in the English language.
The moment I find some symbol of my presence in the rarefied halls of elite institutions, it gets stolen, co-opted, filled with negative meaning". - Patricia Williams
The moment I find some symbol of my presence in the rarefied halls of elite institutions, it gets stolen, co-opted, filled with negative meaning". - Patricia Williams
May 7, 2025 at 10:34 PM
"I can no longer justify my presence in academia, for example, with words that exist in the English language.
The moment I find some symbol of my presence in the rarefied halls of elite institutions, it gets stolen, co-opted, filled with negative meaning". - Patricia Williams
The moment I find some symbol of my presence in the rarefied halls of elite institutions, it gets stolen, co-opted, filled with negative meaning". - Patricia Williams
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
CfP
Basel, 26-28.08.2026
Joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany e.V. (VAD) hosted by the ZASB Research Network Africa at the University of Basel.
www.sagw.ch/africa/aktue...
Basel, 26-28.08.2026
Joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany e.V. (VAD) hosted by the ZASB Research Network Africa at the University of Basel.
www.sagw.ch/africa/aktue...
Call of panels: African Perspectives on Global Transformations (Basel, 26-28.08.2026)
Joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany e.V. (VAD) hosted by the ZASB Research Network Africa at the University of Base...
www.sagw.ch
April 11, 2025 at 10:09 AM
CfP
Basel, 26-28.08.2026
Joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany e.V. (VAD) hosted by the ZASB Research Network Africa at the University of Basel.
www.sagw.ch/africa/aktue...
Basel, 26-28.08.2026
Joint conference of the Swiss Society for African Studies (SGAS/SSEA) and the Association for African Studies in Germany e.V. (VAD) hosted by the ZASB Research Network Africa at the University of Basel.
www.sagw.ch/africa/aktue...
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
Liette Gidlow @profgidlow.bsky.social
@jwomenshistory.bsky.social welcomes applications for 2025 Scholars Research Grants to support travel, research, or writing in women's and gender history. Deadline 23 May 25. 🗃️
See jwomenshistory.org/announcements/ for more information.
Please repost.
@jwomenshistory.bsky.social welcomes applications for 2025 Scholars Research Grants to support travel, research, or writing in women's and gender history. Deadline 23 May 25. 🗃️
See jwomenshistory.org/announcements/ for more information.
Please repost.
April 7, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Liette Gidlow @profgidlow.bsky.social
@jwomenshistory.bsky.social welcomes applications for 2025 Scholars Research Grants to support travel, research, or writing in women's and gender history. Deadline 23 May 25. 🗃️
See jwomenshistory.org/announcements/ for more information.
Please repost.
@jwomenshistory.bsky.social welcomes applications for 2025 Scholars Research Grants to support travel, research, or writing in women's and gender history. Deadline 23 May 25. 🗃️
See jwomenshistory.org/announcements/ for more information.
Please repost.
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
Love this from Rebecca Solnit in The Guardian today on how deep social change is non-linear, and takes faith and creative persistence and eyes to see.
May 5, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Love this from Rebecca Solnit in The Guardian today on how deep social change is non-linear, and takes faith and creative persistence and eyes to see.
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
We are in an interesting point in understanding whiteness and American politics. How much shit are white folks willing to eat from Trump in order to uphold the racial hierarchy? Are the wages of whiteness getting too high? 🙃
May 5, 2025 at 8:22 PM
We are in an interesting point in understanding whiteness and American politics. How much shit are white folks willing to eat from Trump in order to uphold the racial hierarchy? Are the wages of whiteness getting too high? 🙃
Well this is fucking horrifying
the republic has fallen
May 6, 2025 at 12:49 PM
"Coloniality and its relations of domination, she claims, are also reproduced in the knowledge production of academic scholars of decoloniality, primarily from the global North".
👀
#blackademics
👀
#blackademics
May 6, 2025 at 12:46 PM
"Coloniality and its relations of domination, she claims, are also reproduced in the knowledge production of academic scholars of decoloniality, primarily from the global North".
👀
#blackademics
👀
#blackademics
Just... weird.
Hating women and then being angry that they hate you back is weird af.
May 5, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Just... weird.
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
Finally updated my Blackademics starter pack, now including Katherine McKittrick, Imani Perry and others.
Grad students and other scholars: follow the #Blackademics feed to participate in the conversation. Thanks as always to @rudyfraser.com for hosting us on Blacksky!!!
go.bsky.app/SSc7tNL
Grad students and other scholars: follow the #Blackademics feed to participate in the conversation. Thanks as always to @rudyfraser.com for hosting us on Blacksky!!!
go.bsky.app/SSc7tNL
April 24, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Finally updated my Blackademics starter pack, now including Katherine McKittrick, Imani Perry and others.
Grad students and other scholars: follow the #Blackademics feed to participate in the conversation. Thanks as always to @rudyfraser.com for hosting us on Blacksky!!!
go.bsky.app/SSc7tNL
Grad students and other scholars: follow the #Blackademics feed to participate in the conversation. Thanks as always to @rudyfraser.com for hosting us on Blacksky!!!
go.bsky.app/SSc7tNL
Yes. This 👇🏿
📣 We’re excited to announce our next webinar on Autism, masking and intersectionality with @drtiffanynelson.bsky.social 📣
Tickets available now on Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/why-educat...
Tickets available now on Eventbrite: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/why-educat...
May 5, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Yes. This 👇🏿
Reposted by Sakénya McDonald, PhD
I want to be as happy as people in medication commercials as horrible side effects are being listed
May 4, 2025 at 11:26 PM
I want to be as happy as people in medication commercials as horrible side effects are being listed