Blog 11

 I forgot to mention this oxymoron in my last blog that also fails to calm my anxiety but calms my anxiety at the same time: "If fluidity and multi-directionality are central to the nature of plans." (Rose 11) I just think this is cool and encapsulates the nature of writing.

Anyway, I'm talking about Grobman now because she brought up a lot of things I think about myself. I am interested in teaching about African diaspora literature, and am actually writing my thesis on that. It's not the only thing, but it is one of the subjects I am most interested in because I feel it necessary to educate people on the multifacetedness of blackness. There are sooooooo many Black ethnic groups, but we tend to ignore them. Grobman said, "For many students and instructors of Color the classroom is a hostile space virtually all of the time, and especially so when the topic is race," which I could not agree with more. (Grobman 8) I have been noticing that there it is nearly impossible to determine what and who is Black. There are all these things going around in social media saying things like if you don't look Black, you're not Black- but what exactly does black look like? They say if you're not at least 40% African in your DNA test, then you're not Black. They say if you are biracial then you are not Black. People are renouncing the one-drop rule. They are saying if you pass for white, then you are white. There are sooooo many things going around that I wonder what exactly is the definitive definition for what a Black person is. These ideals may be acts of activism, acts of unity, acts of separation, acts of self-discovery because Black people have had to constantly claw their way into prominence and existence in a country founded by white supraacy: "We talked about the deliberate erasure of evidence of Black American history and the ways Black history - largely written and controlled by Whites - is sanitized and whitewashed to deflect criticism of the United States." (Grobman 9) It is a very sensitive subject, rightfully so, but how can we teach it and make sure that the Black students are safe? Grobman points out that a collective safe-space would still not be a safe space for Black students: "When we instructors allow open discussions that follow guidelines that include respect for all opinions, assumption of good intentions, and no judgment, we by necessity harm students of color and perpetuate racist narratives. Sensoy and DiAngelo rightly suggest that "there are times when 'dominant knowledge claims must be silenced' in our classrooms. . . . when - in service to 'fairness' - instructors give equal time to dominant narratives, we reinforce problematic discursive effects by legitimizing the idea that the conversation is equalizing only when it also includes dominant voices" (3). This work is especially tricky given my university's prohibitions against being "political" in the classroom, as if using the n-word is blatantly racist and impermissible but supporting Black Lives Matter marginalizes White conservative students." (Grobman 9) I don't care about marginalizing conservative white students because the very philosophy they follow is the one marginalizing the other students in the first place. I think their eyes need to be opened to the problematic ideologies associated to their philosophy. I'm not saying that everything about being conservative is terrible, but the parts that compromise other people's livelihoods are. If we keep trying to protect everyone's thought processes, we will be in the Black Lives Matter movement for another 300 years and there will be an insurrection every term. Right and wrong can be subjective, but when it comes to certain things, right is right and wrong is wrong. Black people should not be killed for no reason. 

Ok, sorry, I went on an unrelated rant, but yes, I agree that a collective safe space is also a safe space for people to be racist, so I think this is where the difference between equality and equitability comes into place. The classroom should be equitable. However, I was trying to say earlier that I aspire to study and hopefully teach about more African Diasporic literature and cultures and histories. Because we can't agree on what Black is, that adds a whole other layer of complication on top of the unity, I hope to promote by enlightening people of more hemispheric definitions and experiences of Blackness. I guess my research is cut out for me. It is not just about having the right information about how the history of Black people is so ridiculously similar in other locations because of colonialism, but about delivering it without erasing or discounting anyone's history and plight. Aside from being a Black woman, why did I have to choose to be interested in such a sensitive subject that seems to have no definitive conclusion or solution because the world we live in sucks because of greedy and murderous old ideologies that for some reason are still here wayyyyyy past their welcome? Anyway, this article opened up my eyes to things I will have to look out for in the classroom moving forward.