IRA: Conventional professionalism is part of the market system, based in individualism, careerism, managerial control, political policing of dissent, and the "normal" dominance of elite white men in all fields.

If, instead of being taught global responsibility, social awareness, and self-development, we are taught materialism and careerism, we will lose the very essence of our humanity.

In "At Close Range: Being Black and Mentoring Whites in African American Studies," Barbara McCaskill unfavorably contrasts the careerism of many of the predominantly white students at the University of Georgia where she works with her own commitment to African American literature and culture; however, she openly wonders whether it would not be more appropriate for her to teach at a historically black institution rather than at a school whose undergraduate black male population hit a low of 1.