The BIPOC/ACCUTE First Person Interviews series is adapted from the CBC First Person series. It captures the stories and perspectives of “BIPOC” members of ACCUTE from different parts of Canada at different stages of their teaching, research, or graduate student careers. The interviews are presented in dialogue style to enable us to present participants’ stories and experiences in their own voices. We hope to encourage other BIPOC members of ACCUTE and future members to join the conversation. Please reach out to cezenwa@mun.ca or info.accute@gmail.com if you are interested in joining the First Person BIPOC/ACCUTE series. We hope you enjoy reading our members’ stories and we look forward to hearing from you.  — Chinelo Ezenwa, Member-at-large, BIPOC Caucus

In particular, we would like to invite BIPOC members of ACCUTE who reside and teach outside of Ontario to participate in this series!

Chinelo Ezenwa:  Hi Erica! My name is Chinelo, and I am an Assistant Professor at Memorial University. I was really excited when we got your e-mail saying you wanted to join our conversation. Thank you for that. Please could you tell us about yourself. 

Erica Cardwell:
Thank you very much Chinelo, and congratulations on your appointment at Memorial. My name is Erica Cardwell. I teach in the Arts, Culture and Media department at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC). I previously taught in the English department at UTSC and have recently transitioned into this new position. I specialize in feminist labor practices, collective leadership, experimental and hybrid prose, art criticism, queer literature, and more.

Chinelo: Nice to meet you, Erica! Your chosen first question is what does it mean to be BIPOC ACCUTE? So, we will start with that. 

Erica: The acronym BIPOC often feels a bit recent to me, “recent” as in the past four or five years. I think it became more politicized after the uprisings of 2020 – the acronym wasn’t being used the way that it is used now. I am also American, and a lot of my teaching experience is based in the US, in New York. In my experience, BIPOC is not something used most of the time there. People reference each other as people of color or Black people. I still find myself adjusting to it mainly because there is a way that BIPOC can frankly oversimplify experiences. Honestly, I find the word “racialized” to amplify the context that these distinctions place us in. For instance, in affinity settings, like the ACCUTE BIPOC faculty association, it is helpful for all of us to share and discuss micro and macro aggressions, our actual experiences in the classroom, decolonial, antiracist pedagogy work, and ways to activate our allies and be more visible. I was thrilled to see that there is an affinity group within ACCUTE and don’t see why a group like this shouldn’t exist.

Chinelo: Other colleagues have discussed the lack of specificity with the term BIPOC in previous conversations. And I can suggest it again be put on the agenda for our next year’s conference, whether it’s something we want to continue using or prefer to have a different way of addressing ourselves. I’ve been in groups that use terms like “racialized,” “equity deserving,” “equity seeking,” etc. But none of these come without any questions or problems, I think. If you are at the conference, we hope you are able to join us for the meeting. At this point, we can move to a more “fun” part of our discussion. What’s the most fun or most critically relevant BIPOC book or movie you’ve read or seen recently? Or if you were to write a book or direct a movie, what would be the title? You can pick one of the questions. 

Erica: My most fun and critically relevant recommendation is called The Fire Inside and it’s about the young Detroit-based boxer Claressa Shields. The films shows her progression from becoming a boxer to winning national and international competitions. The film also depicts how the media rarely focused on Shields’ success and the difficulties she faced being underrecognized despite being so talented.

And I did write a book that came out in March. It’s called Wrong is not my Name: Notes on (Black) Art. It’s a hybrid book, a collection of critical art, writing, and memoir. And it talks about the experience of losing my mother when I was 20, how my grief process inspired my writing, and my relationship to visual art and culture. The book is framed as a rhetorical strategy – taking a question and writing around it. And the question was, “was my mother an artist?” The early process of writing the book was challenging because it felt like a brand-new way of approaching memoir. I had to become a “critic of my own life” in many ways; I had to find a way to let my early grieving process be a source of self-study and research. 

Chinelo: First of all, I’m really sorry to hear about your mother and I am glad that the writing of this book helped you through the grieving process. I also now recall seeing your book title in your email and thinking it quite intriguing. It reminded me of Lawrence Hill’s Book of Negroes with the alternate title Someone Knows My Name. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you arrive at your title and what does it mean within the context of your book and to you?

Erica: The title is from June Jordan, the poet and activist, and it is taken from her poem called “Poem about my Rights.” There is a phrase in the poem where Jordan states, “I am not wrong. Wrong is not my name.” She is speaking from the position of being a Black woman who has been completely rejected and neglected by society. In this moment, Jordan is speaking to herself, talking to herself. When I first encountered that poem many, many years ago, I found it to be incredibly empowering. I would write it in the margins if my books. And I think it was kind of echoing in my head as I was finishing my book. And so that’s why I chose it for the title. I also really wanted people to say those words. I wanted the words to be said almost like an incantation to really speak Jordan’s words, to honour her.

Chinelo: Because you put it like that, I really have to read this poem and those words. Are they connected to you mother; you also mentioned that you were considering your mother as an artist.

Erica: So I referenced this question as rhetorical because in a very literal sense, I knew my mother was not an artist. She didn’t have a secret artistic practice or paintings hidden under her bed or anything like this. I was more so wanting to believe in her greatness and in her power and her magnificence and in her brilliant mind. My mother died almost 23 years ago. I am 43 years old. I was so young when I lost her. A lot of my processing, my mourning, required curiosity, and I needed to really look at her life with this distance. Thinking of her as an artist elevated that understanding for me. I think it also serves as a way of examining the archetype of Black womanhood. It is similar to how Jordan says “wrong is not my name” as a way of ripping the archetype away from a white supremacist viewpoint. Thinking of my mother as an artist is my attempt to honor her as well.

Chinelo: That’s such a beautiful way to think about your mother. Thank for sharing that with us.  I have one last question. I don’t want to put you on the spot, but are you working on something new now?

Erica: I am, yeah. It is in the early stages. I continue to be quite fascinated with inheritance. And as a writer, I enjoy looking at the way inheritance shows up in my creative work. I’ve also become really interested in textile, fabric, and quilting in particular, and the way that our ancestors, our grandmothers passed on love and tradition through quilting. I’m also looking at the ways inheritance is present beyond biology; instead queering familial connections and focusing more on kingship and chosen networks of care. 

Chinelo: It sounds fascinating. I’ll look forward to the book or books that come out. I admire creative writers particularly because I am not sure it’s something I can do. I think I have been taught to be too self-criticizing and if asked to write something creative might never get to the point where I actually give it to an editor to say yes or no. 

Erica: That is a such a common and very relatable feeling!

Chinelo: So, the last thing I have on here is the open question. Would you like to share any words of wisdom for present and potential BIPOC ACCUTE identifying members? 

Erica: Find your people. When I first signed up for ACCUTE, I immediately started looking for affinity groups. This is not a small thing. If we don’t, we begin to internalize difficult experiences or microaggression without a sounding board of like minded and supportive friends and mentors. We need peers who will listen and offer support, and vice versa, of course. At orientation, I met colleagues, who became friends. And that’s been very helpful for me. 

Chinelo: I appreciate your joining us in this conversation, Erica, and for your words of encouragement! It’s great that you have that friend from your orientation. That’s also the type of community that we are trying to build within ACCUTE, so that people don’t feel so alone. Hopefully, we can carry on some of these discussions during our BIPOC ACCUTE meeting at the 2026 ACCUTE conference in Montreal.