‘If you are silent about your pain, they‘ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
—Zora Neale Hurston
As a Black feminist scholar, being personally accountable, showing researcher responsibility (Dillard, 2000), and engaging with an ethic of care (Collins, 1990) is integral to my scholarly research practices. In all of my studies, those center Black women and otherwise, I work to maintain the highest ethical and moral standards, to be accountable for how I frame and (re)share people’s stories and experiences, and to tread carefully with the privileges bestowed upon me as a meaning maker in academic research.
I cannot commit to always getting this right, I can commit to doing my best to do so. Accordingly, I know that I am responsible not only to the people who agree to be a part of my research, but also the communities and families from which they and I come from. I do not and will not, ever, purport to be neutral in my scholarly agenda and research practices as it is important now, more than ever, to do right by the realities of the people before me.
I am grateful to every participant, past and present, mentor, and scholar-friend who will read, correct, and challenge me on my work. I am better for it. The field is better for it. And doing so will help me to maintain my researcher’s responsibility.