This article investigates my lived experience as a black queer writing
center tutor for the purposes of theorizing the transformative
power of learning centers. Drawing on several perspectives and
methods offered in Praxis’s special issue on Access and Equity in
Graduate Writing Support, this article argues that the antiracist
potential of writing centers depends on more comprehensive
analyses of how writing centers function as racialized places. Using
the metaphor of the “academic ghetto,” I signify on the
misconception of writing centers as places for correcting
deficiency. I apply my analysis to both an Undergraduate Writing
Center (WCs) and a Graduate Writing Center (GWC) space to
systematically discover how racial biases mediate and construct
these learning spaces. In particular, I structure my discussion
through a blend of personal narrative and critical analysis that
illustrates the epistemic conflict and character of the “academic
ghetto.” The article concludes with a call to invent antiracist
practices for writing centers that model more inclusive methods of
living in these spaces.University Writing Cente
