Johnnetta Cole, President of Spelman College, speech titled  Women\u27s Studies/Minority Studies: A Necessity for Us All . Addresses issues of gender and race in modern society, the place of these issues in college curriculum and ends with this quote from Sojourner Truth:  Sisters, I ain\u27t clear what you be after -- If women want any rights more than they got, why don\u27t they just take them and not be talking about it

Cole, Johnnetta

English

Denison University

Denison UniversityDenison Digital CommonsLooking Back, Looking Forward Women's and Gender Studies2-22-1990Johnnetta Cole keynote speech for the 10thAnniversary of Women's Studies and MinorityStudies at Denison, 1990Johnnetta ColeSpelman CollegeFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.denison.edu/lookingbackThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Women's and Gender Studies at Denison Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Looking Back, Looking Forward by an authorized administrator of Denison Digital Commons.Recommended CitationCole, Johnnetta, "Johnnetta Cole keynote speech for the 10th Anniversary of Women's Studies and Minority Studies at Denison, 1990"(1990). Looking Back, Looking Forward. 55.http://digitalcommons.denison.edu/lookingback/55"WOMEN'S STUDIES/MINORITY STUDIES:A NECESSITY FOR US ALL"Keynote Speech for the 10th Anniversary Celebration Given BySpelman College President Johnnetta ColeThursday, February 22, 1990, Swasey ChapelI appreciate the opportunity to participate in your celebration-- a celebration of 10 years of Minority Studies/Women's Studies atDenison. But I cannot just celebrate by jumping up and down andshouting: yeah, yeah, yeah! I've got to say something meaningful,and that's no minor task!First of all, let us acknowledge that your efforts over the past10 years, in terms of curriculum reform, must be applauded. Youtook certain steps 10 years ago. In doing so you were ahead of manyinstitutions and many individuals.Remember, it was only a couple of years ago that formerSecretary of Education Bennett chastised Stanford University fordaring to include in their core curriculum the realities of those whohold up at least half the sky (women), and those we call minorities.Perhaps we call 60% of the world's people minorities to hide thefact that we are the numerical majority in the world. The thenSecretary of Education was vigorously protecting the three "W's" ofAmerican education: Western, white and womanless.June Jordan, writing in her 1981 publication, Civil Wars, saidof her undergraduate years at Barnard:"...no one ever presented me with a single Black author, poet, historian,personage, or idea, for that matter. Nor was I ever assigned a singlewoman to study as a thinker, or writer, or poet, or life force. Nothingthat I learned, (there), lessened my feelings of pain, confusion andbitterness as related to my origins: my street, my family, my friends.Nothing showed me how I might try to alter the political and economicrealities underlying our Black condition in white America."Yes, we can say that you were ahead of the times. Indeed, inour nation today we seem to be going in reverse. These are timeswhen tolerance, not to mention respect for differences isparticularly low. From many quarters of our country comes themessage: all people of color are in the category of "other" inrelationship to white Americans; the proper place for women is in3435the house; heterosexuality is the only "normal" way; and the poor arethat way either because they prefer it to being "normal" middle andupper class folks, or their plight is, for a host of other reasons,their own fault.It is 1990 and still white supremacists openly scream "kill theniggers." Racial incidents on our college and university campusescontinue day after day and grown men and women maintain that theyare protecting unborn life by bombing abortion clinics.It seems clear then that such a climate of intolerance demandsthat we in the academy redefine our sphere of inquiry to moreseriously include a concern for all of us. Such a climate alsorequires that we rededicate ourselves to analyzing andunderstanding such violent reactions to difference. And surely, sucha climate of bigotry requires that we reinstill into our departmentsand programs the kind of activist component that would make usamong the leaders of community responses against racism, sexism,anti-semitism and all forms of bigotry.In celebrating a curriculum that claims to explore the realitiesof the human condition, I challenge us to do just that. Let us notcontinue to do the half-way reforms that have characterized a gooddeal of the curriculum changes of the past. For example: In the1960's, Black Studies was a response to the near absence of theperspectives and experiences of African Americans in our curricula.But notice how often Black Studies concentrated on theexperiences of Black men! And how often Women's Studies hasfocused on the experiences of middle class white women! And thusone could pose the question: Where are the women in Black Studies?And where are the Black folks in Women's Studies?Thus as you celebrate 10 years of a Women's Studies/Minoritycurriculum, I urge you not to go half way, not to do some of the task.Your core curriculum must reflect the realities of all women and allfolks of color. For if you have seen one of us women, or one socalled minority, you have not seen us all. We are as diverse as anyother group of people. For while we are bound by shared oppression,we are also divided by differences in race, ethnicity, class, age,sexual preference, religion, geography and physical ableness.36The task is a truly tough one then -- for the realities of eachof these folks must be captured without trivializing or homogenizingwhat are in fact very serious and diverse streams of the humancondition. But as one says in Spanish: IVale la pena! (worth theeffort!) .I think that understanding and respecting differences among usis one of the questions of the 21st century. In our colleges anduniversities, in our society and in our world, either we learn to dealwith diversity or we will be "unified" in our destruction!Because it is difficult to bring such diverse voices into thecurriculum, let us be clear about why we must do it. Very simply,because excellence requires it! There is an enormously destructivemyth -- that excellence in education is impossible if there isdiversity. I am convinced that excellence in education is onlypossible if there is diversity: diversity in the content of thecurriculum; diversity among the students, faculty and staff whomake up an academic community; and finally diversity in thepedagogy of our academies -- the kind of dynamism which can flowfrom diversity in who is teaching and learning and what is beingtaught and learned. I want to develop each of these three points:First, excellence in education requires the incorporation ofdiverse perspectives and experiences in our curricula. Forexcellence, we need our students to confront, explore, wrestle withShakespere and Robert Frost. But they should do no less with theworks of Chinua Achebe, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Jose Marti. Theyneed to read Joy Hargo and Paula Gunn Allen on Native Americanwomen's realities; the works of Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich, andthe powerful words of Gwendolyn Brooks and Toni Morrison.To make this point about diversity in the content of what weteach, I want to draw on an exciting passage from a speech recentlydelivered by Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall of Spelman College. "Studentscome to us having learned a particular perspective on the world,having been taught to see and analyze the world in particular waysand having been taught that there are normative experiences, andthat they are those of white, middle-class, Christian, Western men,and to a much lesser extent, women of the same group. One of ourmost difficult challenges ... as faculty and administrators is ... howto foster in our students the ability to CENTER (their own)experiences. How do we help our students to overcome years of37notions of what is normative, which is in many ways the antithesisof who they are as human beings? ...This is not merely anintellectual process -- providing students with the appropriatecontent. It is also about coming to believe in the possibility of avariety of experiences, a variety of ways of understanding theworld, a variety of frameworks of operation without imposing,consciously, or unconsciously, a notion of THE norm.Dr. Sheftall then says: "Let me explain that CENTERING inanother experience, even when it means centering in your ownexperience, does not mean that one has to invalidate someone else.One does not have to decenter the experiences of men in order tocenter women or decenter the experiences of Euro-Americans inorder to center African Americans or decenter Europeans in order tocenter Africans. How is this possible one might ask?" Dr. Sheftal!offers three African American cultural practices, one from thevisual arts, one from linguistics, and the other from music, whichprovide us with the frameworks to be able to do this.The first is the distinctive practice of African Americanwomen's quilting. Traditionally, Black women quiltmakers operatedfrom a different aesthetic sense than Euro-American quiltmakers.The colors of their stripes are different from the colors in the rowsof blocks or designs. And two distinct movements can be seen --one along the stripes, the other within the designs. They don't seemto be interested in a uniform color scheme. Contrast, rather thanuniformity or symmetry is used to structure and organize. There isalso the African American linguistic practice of GUMBO YA YA, theCreole phrase for "everybody talks at once." In a book calledJambalaya. Luisa Teish describes what for her was a family norm,mainly passed on through generations of women in the family. Whenshe returned home to New Orleans to visit and was met by her familyat the airport, they all crowded into the car and everyone talked atonce -- gumbo ya ya -- and it went on for days. To an outsider thiswould be labeled chaos or the absence of communication. How cananyone be listening to everyone else at once while they are alsothemselves speaking? But we know as African Americans that thisis possible. Finally, the notion of polyrhythms is also characteristicof Black musical traditions (African and African American). Jazz isreferred to by Professor Ojeda Penn as an expression of "truedemocracy" because each musician has to listen to what the other isdoing and know how to respond while each is at the same timerequired to work on his/her own improvisation. Each person is38allowed to be an individual, to go his or her own way, and yet does soin concert with the group — one is an individual then within thecontext of the community. What a shame to rob students of thesedifferent voices, different ways of seeing, different ways of being!Second, excellence in education also requires that the veryparticipants in the process bring to the academic table differentideas, different perspectives, and different experiences. Withrespect to the need to diversify our faculties, we know that even onthe most progressive of campuses, it is difficult to instantly bringabout a more multi-racial/multi-ethnic composition. I hope that we also know that taking abusiness as usual procedure will never bring color to our all whitefaculties. And so, we must be creative, we must demand of thewhite American teachers who are there that they struggle to bringfolk of color to their campuses. But they must also struggle to raisetheir own consciousness and engage in the kind of study and humanempathy that will permit them to teach, as my mom would have said,"as if they had a touch of color."Anthropology has taught me the power of empathy. And thus, Ithink that with enormous hard work, men can come to empathizewith the realities of women; Gringos with the realities of Hispanicfolks; and White Americans with the realities of Black Americans.In terms of increasing the number of students of color that weattract and graduate, American education has a long way to go. It ishelpful here to turn to the words of the President of KennesawCollege, Betty Siegel. Her ultimate concern is the creation ofcommunities of diversity in the academy. Most immediately Dr.Siegel argues that we must seek to increase the number of Blackfaculty and students on our campuses. Toward that end, she arguesthat we must affect every aspect of the academic environment. Hereare her words:"Enhancing minority participation in higher education is not just amatter of establishing special scholarships for minorities or offeringundergraduate degrees in Black studies or improving the relationshipbetween white and Black students. American higher education must cometo grips with the fact that virtually every aspect of the collegiateexperience has been tainted by a subtle bias against minorities -- that ithas been unintentionally disinviting."39When our curricula reflect the diversity of perspectives andexperiences which constitute the human condition, and when thosewho teach and learn in the academy mirror that diversity, there is athird need. It is this: Excellence in education requires attention to,experimentation with, and diversity in pedagogy.Of course we need to be concerned with what we teach --that's scholarship. But we also need to be concerned with theprocess by which we teach -- that's pedagogy. You see, I think weneed to develop liberatory classrooms. In an article in the Women'sStudies Quarterly. Carolyn M. Shrewsbury wrote about suchclassrooms."The concept of a liberatory environment suggests a new wayto be with one another in the classroom. A classroom characterized aspersons connected in a net of relationships with people who care abouteach other's learning as well as their own is very different from aclassroom that is seen as comprised of teacher and students. One goal ofthe liberatory classroom is that members learn to respect each other'sdifferences rather than fear them. Such a perspective is ecological andholistic. The classroom becomes an important place to connect to ourroots, our past, and to envision the future. It is a place to utilize anddevelop all of our talents and abilities, to develop excellence that is notlimited to the few. The classroom becomes a place in which integrity isnot only possible but normal. The web of interrelationships in theclassroom is seen to stretch to the local, regional, and globalcommunities, and potentially, even beyond the boundaries of our earth.You see, changing the process of how we teach is often more difficult andrisky than changing the content of what we teach.Process and content are in fact inextricably intertwined -- and thus westruggle for cooperative, integrative and democratic approaches tolearning that will empower our students to create personal and societalchange."And so, colleagues, as you continue, 10 years into it, to take onthe difficult but do-able task of diversifying and democratizing yourcurriculum; take comfort in the fact that excellence is the reward,and that what you are doing is in the interest of all of us.I want to end with the words of a great Black woman whosevery name stands in opposition to false images: Sojourner Truth, thegreat 19th Century soldier in the battle for the rights of Blackpeople and women."My friends, I am rejoiced that you are glad, but I don't know how youwill feel when I get through. I come from another field -- the country of40the slave. They have got their liberty -- so much good luck to haveslavery partly destroyed; not entirely. I want it root and branchdestroyed. Then we will be free indeed. I feel that if I have to answer forthe deeds done in my body just as much as a man, I have a right to havejust as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men gettingtheir rights, but not a word about colored women; and if colored men gettheir rights, but not a word about the colored women theirs, you see thecolored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad asit was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things arestirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to getit going again. I want women to have their rights.""Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as muchrights as men, because Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christcome from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman!Man had nothing to dowith Him....""If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn a worldupside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn itback, and get it right side up again! And now they are asking to do it, themen better let them.""And a final message: Sisters, I ain't clear what you be after -- If womenwant any rights more than they got, why don't they just take them and notbe talking about it?"

Johnnetta Cole keynote speech for the 10th Anniversary of Women\u27s Studies and Minority Studies at Denison, 1990

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Johnnetta Cole keynote speech for the 10th Anniversary of Women\u27s Studies and Minority Studies at Denison, 1990

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