Intro to Multicultural Literature 002

Through her writing, M. NourbeSe Philip expresses the many layers of material that history carries on its back. While reading her poems, one could analyze multiple layers of context. The style that Philip writes in depicts the thoughts and feelings of the Africans on board the Zong. As she relies on the written law of the Zong case to write her story, Philip humanizes the African who had previously been dehumanized by being considered property, which is “not capable of being murdered” (Philip 191). The African people on board the Zong were stripped of their own names, only referred to as “negroe woman, man, or girl.” Their financial value for insurance purposes were recorded instead (Philip 194).

By relying on the Gregson vs. Gilbert case, Philip “tells the story that must be told” (Philip 189).  The story that is such a monstrosity but is not necessarily taught in schools or made known, besides through the poems that Philip strategically pieced together. The slave ship, Zong, set sail from the West Coast of Africa in 1781, heading towards Jamaica and steered by Captain Luke Collingwood. Due to navigational errors, the voyage took nearly an extra two months (Philip 189). This setback caused the ship to deplete in water and food supply. Once slaves began dying of dehydration or throwing themselves off the ship, the Captain gave orders to forcibly throw slaves overboard. 150 Africans were then thrown into the seas, in hopes to collect insurance money due to the “loss of cargo”.

When reading the first poem, confusion and panic immediately erupts. Trying to understand the meaning while rereading and arranging words is equivalent to the senselessness of the slave trade. Philip breaks down these sentences and words to convey the true feelings and thoughts of the Africans who were being sold off against their will. The spaces in the text represent the absence In the Africans voices, freedom, and bodies.  The fragmented text symbolizes the mutilation that slavery brought upon Africans lives (Philip 195). The random selection of phrases or words represents the random selection of Africans for enslavement (Philip 192). Philip compares the interest that slave owners have in their slaves working together with her interest in her randomly selected words working together (Philip 193). The style of poem requires the reader to make sense of them, leaving questions unanswered, and forcing meaning into the fragments.

Qs:

What do you think that Philip is trying to convey through her style of writing these poems?

What feelings or emotions do you experience when reading?

 

Before I delve into the chaotic sea of words that M. NourbeSe Philip calls Zong! I feel like it’s important to discuss briefly the history in which she is writing about. As a former lawyer, Philip is inspired by the legal decision of Gregson vs. Gilbert. Through a chain of poems, Philip writes of how 150 African slaves were murdered in order to collect insurance money; telling the story that cannot be told yet must be told: attempting to bring existence to these African slaves that were erased as people and were, instead, written off as disposable commodities.

Very notably, upon opening the book, we can see that the writing is very abstract. As mentioned in class, Zong! is a found poem, that is, a poem created by taking words, phrases and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new meaning. Philip writes, “I murder the text, literally cut it into pieces, castrating verbs, suffocating adjectives, murdering nouns, throwing articles, prepositions, conjunctions overboard…” (193). She takes the legal document of the court case, destroys it, thus untelling the “story” and actually depicting the truth of what happened to these people. As it is told to Philip by Sataey Adamu Boateng, the way in which the words are placed on the page resembles memory, remembering the horrors of what happened on the slave ship. The torn apart and reconstructed words mimic the dehumanization and destruction of black lives lost, and it is hard to find meaning among them. Philip writes, “When I start spacing out the words, there is something happening in the eye tracking the words across the page, working to pull the page and larger “meaning” together — the eye trying to order what cannot be ordered” (192). By acknowledging that the words serve a purpose as they appear unorganized and scattered on the page, Philip gives way to and embodies the chaos that occurred aboard the ship. Also, there is a lot of white space left on the page where no words are written, which is symbolic of the silence that these slaves were forced to succumb to.

To borrow a phrase from Ian Strachan’s Diary of Souls, “I begin reading Zong! out loud. “w  w w w       a wa” (3). Very quickly, I am whispering, my voice and breath ragged. The letters far from each other sound like voices calling out from the water, like voices mourning. There is a sense in which words are not the thing here, that words must get out of the way for something else to come through. White space fills these pages, like water. I want to weep, or vomit. Something is pushing, rising up or out and I don’t know what it is. What I feel is an urgency in the coming apart of words to tell a story, or to let a story emerge, a story that is lost in the water.” Despite it being difficult to pull meaning from the words, readers of Zong! acknowledge that the words and the way in which they are spewed across the page haphazardly, do in fact, invoke a significant meaning. Philip writes, “The poems resist my attempts at meaning or coherence, and at times, I too approach the irrationality and confusion, if not madness, of a system that could enable, encourage even, a man to drown 150 people as a way to maximize profits” (195). Even the author acknowledges the fact that these unorderly, dissected words make it hard to excavate any meaning from the pages; yet she also believes that the story of Zong can only be told through untelling. She believes this because despite having the facts of the legal document, the log book with the slave names was lost, and therefore the entire story cannot be told.

Throughout the collection of poems, Philip repeatedly uses the same words to enhance their “meaning.” We see words such as water, overboard, drowned, negroes, dead, rains, sustenance, suffered, throwing and justify many times while reading. These words themselves, despite being seemingly thrown together, exude the story of Zong! and show the importance of telling this story, even if it’s difficult to understand. By emphasizing these words from the legal document, Philip is eliminating any ambiguity of what truly happened. The truth of the matter is these slaves were thrown overboard because there was an insufficient amount of water to sustain everyone aboard the ship and the crew wanted the “important” people to survive, as well as to cash in on the insurance of the slaves. Literary devices such as hyperbaton and juxtaposition are also used throughout, which lends to depicting the chaos of the Zong Massacre. Hyperbaton is the inversion of the normal order of words, especially for the sake of emphasis. For example, “the some of negroes” (6). Philip is emphasizing that only some of the African slaves were thrown overboard, which leads us to wonder why only some were and how it was decided who would be thrown overboard. Another example is, “exist did not” (6). Here, Philip is emphasizing the word exist to show that the existence of these slaves was not important to the crew members on the ship. Juxtaposition is the fact of two things being seen or placed together with contrasting effect. The best example of this I could find is when Philip writes, “sour water” (10). I think this is important because we don’t usually think of water as being sour. We think of it as cool and refreshing, and as a necessity of life. The Gregson vs. Gilbert legal document describes the overthrowing as, “ an action on a policy insurance, to recover the value of certain slaves thrown overboard for want of water” (210). By describing the water as “sour,” Philip is trying to showcase how the water of the ocean has been tainted by the greed and selfishness of those who threw the slaves overboard for profit, and now water is death instead of life.

Overarchingly, the poems of Zong! bring light to the horrors that these people faced. Philip brilliantly destroys the only public document related to the massacre, the Gregson vs. Gilbert legal document, and recreates it into the actual story of the Zong Massacre. A story that, unlike the legal document, illustrates the existence of these people, and the injustice they went through.

Discussion Questions

1. As mentioned, there is a lot of white space left on the page where no words are written. How does this lend to the ways in which we read the poem? Should these spaces be accounted for? Why or why not?
2. I talked about the repetition and importance of words. Why did M. NourbeSe Philip choose the words that she did and why are they put together in the way that they are?

When we hear the word “citizen” we often assume that citizens come from the same place, therefore, the same rules apply to all citizens. Also, it is common to believe that all citizens of a given place should be treated equally. Rankine proves that citizens are frequently treated unfairly in comparison to each other based on race throughout the lyric with the use of examples. One example is when Rankine refers to Trayvon Martin. Rankine brings up Martin because he was killed for nothing but being a law-abiding citizen. Rankine says, “Trayvon Martin’s name sounds from the car radio a dozen times each half hour. You pull your love back into the seat because though no one seems to be chasing you, the justice system has other plans” (Rankine 151). This example is ironic because one of the reasons why the justice system was created was to protect the innocent. Trayvon Martin was innocent and the justice system had other plans for him because he was an African American citizen. Citizens are aware that our justice system has failed multiple times. 

The title of the book is very broad. You have to read through Rankine’s examples throughout the lyric to understand that she is talking about a specific group of citizens. Rankine focuses on African American citizens. Rankine says, “Even as your own weight insists you are here, fighting off the weight of nonexistence” (Rankine 139). This quote relates to the feelings of African American citizens. More specifically, African American citizens know that they are considered to be citizens but instances keep happening that set them aside from everyone else. Racism makes African American citizens feel like they stand out. One of Rankine’s goals is to prove to her readers that there are extreme disadvantages that African American citizens face simply due to their race. One piece of artwork that Rankine proves this through is Wangechi Mutu’s Sleeping Heads. The artwork shows a figure that appears to be a human head with a human hand around the neck. The hand around the neck symbolizes the person being choked. There also appears to be blood coming out of the person’s eye. These details in the artwork are used to show the pain that African American citizens faced when dealing with racism. The artwork that Rankine includes in her lyric creates a stronger message than the message of words alone would create. 

One reason why Rankine talks so much about feelings is to identify what her true feelings are about instances of racism. For example, Rankine says, “Can feelings be a hazard, a warning sign, a disturbance, distaste, the disgrace? It’s not that (is it not that?) you are oversensitive or misunderstanding” (Rankine 152) to understand that she can use a feeling such as anger as a way to create a strong message about racism. Rankine’s feeling of anger helped her throughout her lyric by creating a strong argument filled with passion. Although feelings are used to enhance Rankine’s message, she also says, “What feels more than a feeling” (Rankine 152). An action could feel more than a feeling. Throughout the lyric actions are mentioned and feelings are the results of the actions. One of the most important quotes in the lyric is when Rankine says “Yes, and this is how you are a citizen: Come on. Let it go. Move on.” (Rankine 152). This is an important idea because it relates to how African American citizens felt that they had to brush off racism and pretend that it didn’t hurt their feelings. Rankine wanted to eliminate this act of ignoring racism so she tried to make a difference through informing readers about instances of racism throughout her lyric.

Questions:

1. Were there any other examples of irony throughout the lyric that stood out to you? 
2. Is there anything that you think feels more than feeling? Why is it more important? 

Throughout the lyric Citizen, the speaker brings up many examples of racism that she has faced throughout her life, and how she is trying to cope with these situations. In the final section of Citizen, a quote that stood out was, “Yes, and this is how you are a citizen: Come on. Let it go. Move on.” (Rankine 151). This quote stood out because it relates to the speaker’s message throughout. The fact that she is a woman of color defines who she is in society to many others. She often questions this throughout the book, yet she is still treated as less than her white peers. This is tiring, and she begins to stop caring about this treatment. When she hears a racist remark instead of instantly trying to question the reality of the statement, she says that, “what happens to you doesn’t belong to you, only half concerns you” (Rankine 141). This shows some of the speaker’s defeat. She recognizes here that who she is as a citizen cannot be changed easily. She still cares about this mistreatment, but begins to realize that this is just who she is as a citizen and loses motivation to seek change.

A coping mechanism that the speaker uses to deal with this reality is humor. The speaker is able to laugh with her friends over many situations where she is treated unfairly. For example, when she pays for dinner the waitress gives the debit card back to her white friend. Instead of reacting poorly,  “you laugh and ask what else her privilege gets her? Oh, my perfect life, she answers. Then you both are laughing so hard, everyone in the restaurant smiles” (Rankine 148). This shows how she laughs off white privilege and the microaggressions that she faces in society. It is ironic that the rest of the restaurant smiles at the girls, because they are likely guilty of similar behaviors as the waitress.

Laughter also has a negative impact on the speaker. When she does choose to act out against racist behaviors, she is seen as a joke. She feels upset because when she chooses to call out a microaggression, “everyone you ask is laughing that kind of close-the-gap laughter: all the ha-ha’s wanting uninterrupted views. Don’t be ridiculous. None of the other black friends feel the same way and how you feel is how you feel even if what you perceive isn’t tied to what is…” (Rankine 152). Those laughing at her will accept no views but their own, and laugh in her face when they have no idea how the statement may have impacted her. They compare her reaction to those f all of her friends, regardless of the fact that everyone has different experiences.

This is another theme throughout. African Americans are grouped together as being the same in every aspect, even how they look. The speaker struggles with this, as she feels as though she is overreacting to a situation simply because her friends were not upset. This is another example of a microaggression towards the speaker, as all individuals have different experiences that will draw different reactions to the comment. This laughter shows how people believe that blacks have a certain role as a citizen. For the group that was laughing at her, she was a target for their jokes, and was expected not to react to them in a negative way, but to simply laugh along. She feels conflicted as of how to react, since others were not bothered. When trying to ensure that this was not an overreaction on her part, she says that “It’s not that (is it not that?) you are oversensitive or misunderstanding” (Rankine 152). This shows how she is confident that her reaction is normal, but due to her widely accepted “role” as a citizen, even she begins to question herself.

1. What other coping mechanisms have you noticed the speaker using to deal with racism in society?
2. What are some other examples of white privilege in the lyric?

As I read the first two chapters to Citizen I found one particular quote that stood out to me. On page 25, the narrator quotes Zora Neale Hurston in saying “I feel most colored when thrown against a sharp white background.”. This, to me, is one of the most powerful phrases I have seen. This is a statement clearly made about racism in America and states that she feels most colored when around white people, but also uses the word “sharp”. She is describing how it feels and the challenges you have to face being a black person in a world full of white people while also stating that it the color difference is only so noticeable when she is treated harshly for being black.  Throughout this chapter the most potent example she makes is the tennis player Serena Williams.

Today she is very well known being a very skilled tennis player, but she has had a rough and challenging career to say the least. In 2009 Serena Williams had an outburst on the court over a bias ruling that caused her to lose the match. The ruling was a foot fault meaning she had overstepped the bounds while serving. During this call Serena was already a game down and had 1 point left to lose the match. This call was made on a play where Serena had scored to tie up the round, but because with the call being made the rulings gave the point to her opponent and lose her the match. That being said it is a known custom in tennis to not make such trivial calls at such climatic points in a match that could decide everything. And even so others in the sport including McEnroe, a professional player, and the ESPN tennis commentator at the time all agreed that it wasn’t even a fault at all. In a fit of rage Serena swears at the lineswoman making the call. Although what she said was very offensive, There was much leading up to this scenario. That including the 2004 US open where she had been robbed of a match due to Mariana Alves’s aggressively bias calls forcing Serena to lose another important match.

All of this led up to her having a match in 2011 where a call is made, rightfully, and she gets into a small argument with the umpire asking if she was “screwing her again”. Aside from the fact the 2004 and the 2009 umpires were different she had many other instances of discrimination against her on the court. It is easy to assume this is probably an umpire from one or multiple of those instances. At this time Serena had become a very well known and well liked athlete, but it seems that all of that aside the community is very harsh towards her in particular. The quote “I feel most colored when thrown against a sharp white background” is personified by Serena so well because of her career as a tennis player. In her attempt to grow as an athlete Serena is constantly reminded by her white colleagues that she is black because of the poor and unjust treatment she constantly gets on the court.

Yet now she has slowly changed after achieving a few gold medals on the court she becomes less and less personal in the public eye. The narrator references “how to be a successful artist” by Hennessy Youngman on Youtube. This is a mock at society stating that in order to be successful you have to be white.  This is referenced here because we are getting into an era where time after time Serena is winning and slowly becoming less and less expressive about her racial pride. Even to the point of stopping her boycott of indian wells in 2015 after she is called out for lack of “dignity” and “integrity”over it. Serena had to separate herself from her career in order to be where she is today and to overcome the discrimination she is constantly faced, but instead of fighting it she eventually gives up on expecting better of her peers. She ultimately conforms to the white community in order to succeed.

Questions:

Can you think of other athletes that experienced such extreme abuse throughout their career as well?

What do you think of the phrase “In order to be truly successful you have to be white.”?

“Yes, and it’s raining. Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, her mouth? The moment stinks. Still you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walk out and stand among them. And as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you.” (Rankine, 9). This paragraph was extremely powerful to me because the rain represents the microaggression that people deal with on a daily basis but don’t speak up. The narrator wants to walk out and stand among those who are dealing with the same issues as her but then she mentions that “as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you” which I interpreted as her saying that the rain, being the racism, may seem like it’s just misunderstandings and slight mistakes people make without even realizing, are affecting her day to day but aren’t big enough to bring up and make a scene about. In this paragraph she says that there will only be an end to this when everyone experiences this for themselves, when we sit back and actually think about what we say and mean. Examples of this are thrown at us all throughout the first section of Citizen. One example is on page 7 when the narrator felt hurt about being called the same name as her friends housekeeper. She couldn’t even tell whether she was more hurt because it was an “‘all black people look the same’ moment or because you are being confused with another after being so close to this other?” (Rankine, 7). Yet the narrator doesn’t speak up about this mistake, and neither does her friend who eventually stopped doing this but never acknowledged the mistake. Another example of micro aggression in Citizen is on page 15 when the narrators neighbor calls the police on the narrators friend who the neighbor assumed was “not the nice young man that he’s met” but an intruder pacing around the front of the house. When the narrator finally comes home she is greeted with only her friend and her apologetic neighbor. The problem in this passage was when the narrator says that the friend should have been speaking on the phone where he might have been safe, even though he was causing no actual threat to anyone in his surroundings instead of facing the real problem which was the neighbor who didn’t mind his business and assumed the worst.

The first section of Citizen includes many different scenarios of racist interactions. The memories are written in second-person point of view to allow the reader to experience them and be able to step into the narrators shoes, instead of just reading through it. When first reading through all the scenarios you may pass right through them and think of them as simple misunderstandings or mistakes but as the section progresses, so does the anger and negativity of these scenarios. You begin to no longer accept these “misunderstandings” as just misunderstandings but as unacceptable racism that just so happens to be passed through because we let it. That is called microaggression. Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental insults whether intentional or unintentional which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target people based solely upon their race, gender, or culture. 

On the very first page of the section, a memory is told about how the narrator has barely spoken to a girl in her class who has asked to cheat off of her. “You never really speak except for the time she makes her request and later when she tells you you smell good and have features like a white person. You assume she thinks she is thanking you for letting her cheat and feels better cheating from an almost white person” (Rankine, 5). This quote was especially eye catching to me because it is a memory from when she was very young in her life, and was already dealing with microaggression from one of her classmates who probably doesn’t even know she’s saying something wrong. However, the classmate stated that the narrator has “features like a white person” after thanking her for letting her cheat. The narrator stated that she assumed she felt better cheating off of someone who has features “almost like a white person.” Do you think the classmate knew what she meant to say?

Questions:

1. What are ways that Rankine could have prevented further abuse from those around her?
2. Do you think microaggression can really be unintentional or does it define who we are when it comes to certain scenarios?

As much as I hate to admit it, diversity in academics is very rare. Only recently have steps been taken to include more diverse perspectives in everyday classes. This is a fantastic step in the right direction— but it isn’t the full journey. Even the diversity that has been introduced to our classes is limited.  Speaking from personal experience, as the years go by, I have been assigned more and more literature written by black authors. This is great! 100 years ago, this would not have been heard of. Heck, it was unheard of 34 years ago when Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference was copyrighted. In it, Lorde comments, “The literature of women of Color is seldom included in women’s literature courses and almost never in other literature courses, nor in women’s studies as a whole. All too often, the excuse given is that the literatures of women of Color can only be taught by Colored women, or that they are too difficult to understand, or that classes cannot ‘get into’ them because they come out of experiences that are ‘too different.’ I have heard this argument presented by white women of otherwise quite clear intelligence, women who seem to have no trouble at all teaching and reviewing work that comes out of the vastly different experiences of Shakespeare, Moliere, Dostoyefsky, and Aristophanes.” (117)

The situation is quite simple. If you can teach Shakespeare, you can teach Maya Angelou, Alex Walker, and Lorraine Hansberry. If you can talk about Shakespeare’s life and how he rose to fame, you can talk about the significant evidence that he was bisexual. If you can make high schoolers read thinly-veiled phallic humor, you can make them read about the experiences of a transman. It’s not a question of if you can, it is a question of if you have.

You can not expect women of Color to educate you on their own work, or the work of other women of Color. To put the burden of education on their shoulders is wrong— it is not their job to teach us how they have been oppressed. There is no reason that a white woman can not learn— and therefore, teach— about the oppression a Woman of Color faces. However, a line must be drawn. White women can teach about the experiences of a Woman of Color, but they must be careful not to appropriate these experiences and claim them as their own. You can not fully understand what you have never experienced, and it is cruel to appropriate another’s experiences for your own personal gain. It hurts those you are trying to help— those you are trying to understand.  

In the same sense, do not erase their anger. The oppressed have every right to be angry at their oppressor. This anger is strong and ancient. It will not disappear because of half-hearted apologies. Still, it is important that this anger is used in constructive ways. Do not be afraid of anger, “[f]or it is not the anger of Black women which is dripping down over this globe like a diseased liquid”(Lorde, 285). To quote Lorde, “ Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.” (282) I would argue that not only is anger reasonable, it should be encouraged. Or, at least, it should be encouraged when it is the kind of anger that motivates you to produce change. Purposeless anger and guilt are worthless— feeling bad does not change the world. Actions that stem from such feelings is what changes it.

The question remains— what can we do to write these wrongs? In the words of my friend Ron, “We can take baby-steps.” Do your classes lack diversity? Encourage the teachers to pick up new authors and topics (as long as they fit the curriculum). Become a teacher yourself. Teach the lessons you wish you were taught. Become an author. Write about your unique experiences. Listen, rally with, and help your fellow people. Most importantly, be a better you.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”- Mahatma Gandhi

1. What would you define as “purposeful anger” and how does Lorde show this in her work?
2. What does Lorde suggest we do to rectify the lack of diversity in academics?

In her writing Age Race Class and Sex: Women Redifning Difference, Audre Lorde profoundly writes of (white) feminism: “There is a pretense to a homogeneity of experience, covered by the word sisterhood that does not in fact exist.”(116) Both homogeneity and a sisterhood  are non existent because–as she proceeds to examine—a sisterhood cannot exist under the pretense of homogeneity. “As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define woman in terms of their own experience alone, then women of Color become “other,” the outsider whose experience and tradition is too “alien” to comprehend.””(117) Something Lorde highlights throughout the text is that it is the differences within feminine identit(ies) are not only to be celebrated, but that in understanding these differences there is an advantage that could lead to true progress. Denying room for difference is to deny room for progress.

At this day in age, the feminist agenda continues to be full of shortcomings involving the exclusion of women of Color in the name of fearful white-guilt. White guilt is one of the pillars upholding our countries modern institutionalized oppression, a notion from which delusional ideas such as a ‘post racial society’ or being ‘color blind’ were born. “Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying.” (119)  This excerpt follows a point Lorde makes involving this willful ignorance of white women upholding the patriarchy and in turn oppressing women.  Lorde states: “For white women there is a wider range of pretended choices and rewards for identifying with patriarchal power and its tools.” She continues to name points of seduction to align with the patriarchy, suggesting that if white women “…hate the right people, and marry the right man, then you will be able to coexist with the patriarchy in relative peace…”. This holds true for modern feminism as is has since women joined the work force.

The white-toxic masculinity that we hear commonly  used in progressive rhetoric involving social reform extends to women as well in these areas of which Lorde addresses. White toxic feminism mirrors it exactly. For instance, white women taught to adopt practices of climbing social ladders and advance oneself in the workplace by tearing other women down by highlighting what makes you better than they are.  Lorde concludes “The old patterns, no matter how cleverly rearranged to imitate progress, still condemn us to cosmetically altered repetitions of the same old exchanges, the same old guilt, hatred, recrimination, lamentation, and suspicion.” (123) Here she summarizes one of the key points of the essay, the refusal to use history as a means of learning how to make real progress. To divide and conquer may be an effective means of dismantling a corrupt power, but it is also the most heavily used tool of the patriarchal structure in suppressing the feminist movement. By ignoring racist actions and by excluding the voices and experiences of Colored women, the feminist movement is no movement at all.

Two questions I propose are:

What parts of the text stuck out to you and reminded you of something you’ve either observed or participated in that could have been oppressing to women of Color?

How does Lorde address the issues surrounding  the so-called ‘progressive movements’ that prevent progress from happening?

Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984).

The panel of the four professors was so much more than I bargained for. With Professor Daniel Radus as the moderator, the speakers all gave great personal insight into how they teach, without losing the uniqueness of their personalities. It was interesting to see the inner clockworks of how my current and future professors process their jobs. Personally, I had so much fun listening to Professor Jackson. As a video game buff, it was fascinating to me hearing how he incorporated his passion into his work. Just by listening to him speak, I felt engulfed by his tone of voice, and could hear his joy in talking about his work; that is something I hope to accomplish when I start to teach. The concept of unlocking new tasks just like you would unlock levels or gear in a video game is a genius way to make a classroom environment more relatable. I feel that students will accomplish more with that goal in mind to get to the end if the game and makes the work load more fun. Another panelist I loved to listen to was Laura Dunbar. As a musician, with a trained ear, I never realized how much environment sounds can sway a classroom. The way she described her audible and visual cues in a classroom will be something that sticks with me when I one day have my own classroom. Another interesting factor was having Professor Danica Savonick on the panel. Since I have her as a professor, her panel insight helped me recognize the parallels in what she was saying and how she handles herself in the classroom. It was also cool to learn about what she was working on outside of my English 252 course, and how it also drives her lessons in class. Overall the panel was very persuasive and helped me understand what it takes to be an educator. Furthermore, I am glad I went because my learnings from this panel have altered my understanding of how to run a classroom.