HOW TO TEACH DIVERSITY 101

(Adrienne Booth, Sever Hall, Harvard, 2000)

My friend Adrienne Booth is currently working on a master's in Media Arts and Computer Science at New Mexico Highlands University. She's also taking a graduate level course in the Geology Department on mining and environmental policy (very relevant to her interests in natural and cultural resources interpretation/environmental education). After a field trip taken by the class earlier this month, she asked for time to speak to her classmates about something which had occurred. Her talk, and the class's response to it, is after the fold. Feel free to comment as if to Adrienne, because she'll be reading what you have to say.


This talk is a variation on something that I presented at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Managing Parks Operations training course.

Let me begin by sharing some photographs with you.

(A baseball player)







(An old woman)










(A smiling young stewardess)











(A child on a city sidewalk, wearing purple pants and cowboy boots)









(A woman on a horse)










I’ll tell you more about the photos after you all have a chance to look at them, and while you’re looking at them, I am going to continue talking.

There was a movie that was in the theaters a couple years ago -- it’s a story about two people who meet and fall in love while working at a summer job in the Rockies. Time passes, and one of them ends up being brutally murdered, beaten to death with a tire iron; his grief-stricken lover travels to ask permission to bury that person’s ashes at the place where they met and fell in love, but the person’s father refuses his request.

Can anyone tell me the name of that film?

The movie is Brokeback Mountain, and I bring up now because there were some folks on the field trip who were making jokes about it – “heh heh” sort of innuendoes, just casual banter among friends; I guess the opportunity was too good to pass up, when the bus drove past a dude ranch in Cerrillos called The Broken Saddle….

I think the people cracking those jokes felt okay doing so, because they figured that nobody on the bus, or at least no one within hearing distance, was gay. Would you crack jokes using the “N” word, if you were sitting next to an African-American person? Would you make snide innuendos about “wetbacks” if you were sitting next to a Mexican-American person? Would you make innuendoes about homosexuality if you knew that you were sitting next to a gay person?

But the more important question, and a main point of this presentation, is this:

If the assumptions and implications behind what you are saying are offensive, is it okay to say those things at all? And especially in a college setting that is supposed to be a safe and supportive learning environment, is it okay to say things that are based on hateful stereotypes, and to say things that are potentially threatening to your classmates and to others in the university community, and indeed in the community at large? Please understand: your words may not just be rude or “politically incorrect” -- they can cause people to feel threatened and vulnerable. Why, as a civil person and educated human being, would you permit yourself to think in such stereotypical terms, much less open your mouth to say something so stupid and offensive?

Sometimes we avoid saying offensive things around individuals of a particular group, because we think we can tell who people “are” based on superficial characteristics. But gay people, in particular, often try hard to blend in and be invisible, despite the prevalent stereotypes about flamboyant gays. (And this is true for members of other marginalized groups as well; fear is a powerful motivator to encourage you to assimilate and “blend in.”) I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard about Matthew Shepard, and about Brandon Teena (who is the main character in the film Boys Don’t Cry), and I saw what happened to Jack in Brokeback Mountain -- and I, personally, have been harassed at various times in my life, mainly by macho but insecure and immature heterosexual men. Fear motivates me to be quiet, and to blend in as best I can.

But today I want to use that fear for a higher purpose, as an educational tool, which I why I am sharing these stories with you.

I’d like you to think about the photographs I passed around the room. There’s a baseball player; an old woman; a smiling young stewardess; a child on a city sidewalk, wearing purple pants and cowboy boots; a woman on a horse.

The people in those photos are incredibly important to me.

(Adrienne's grandfather, Michal "Mike" Pankiewicz, 1932)

The baseball player is my grandfather, Mike Pankiewicz. He was born in Russia and came to the United States as a child. He learned English as a second language, and he self-consciously spoke with a slight Polish accent all of his adult life. He taught me how to catch, throw, and hit a baseball.

(Adrienne's grandmother, Bernice Pankiewicz)

The woman is my grandmother, and in the photo she is 61 years old, which is just 12 years older than I am right now. She worked as a seamstress, and in the photo, with hands that are deformed from illness, she is threading a needle.

(Adrienne's mother, M.J. Panke, as stewardess for Northwest Airlines, late 1950s)

The stewardess is my mom -- and that photo was taken right before she was forced to give up her job with Northwest Airlines because she was pregnant with me.

(Adrienne at age five, early 1960s, Chicago)

The child is me, in front of a tiny, old apartment where my family lived, in Chicago. My grandmother made the shirt and the pants I am wearing in the photo, and she made many of my other clothes when I was growing up.

(Adrienne's partner, Marsha Rippetoe)

The woman on the horse is my partner, Marsha. I couldn’t be attending graduate school here at Highlands if it wasn’t for her support, emotionally and financially. Among other things, she is a breast cancer survivor, and she has taught me a lot about toughness and perseverance. She can’t be with me here in New Mexico, although we both want her to be here, because she is back in Texas caring for her elderly mother.

I can tell you a bunch of facts: That my ethnic heritage on my mother’s side is Polish; that my grandfather worked as a laborer in a steel mill; that I have to this day never met my father; that I played intercollegiate fast-pitch softball; that I was the first person in my immediate family to complete college, and that I graduated from Harvard with honors -- and yes, I can tell you that I am gay -- but without me sharing these photographs with you and explaining them, or telling you about my fears and dreams, you don’t really know me. And if you allow yourself to see only a stereotype when you hear the word “Harvard,” or any other word associated with me, you don’t see the person that is me.


On the bus the other day, Professor Lindline mentioned the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If you wonder what all this has to do with studying Geology, think about this: the Civil Rights movement served as a seed to raise public consciousness about many social issues, not just race. If you are a woman, or if you are Hispanic, Native American, or a member of any other group that historically experienced discrimination in the U.S., you can in large part thank Dr. King for the opportunity to study at a public university and the opportunity to compete successfully for jobs in your chosen field. But stereotypes persist, and the trivialization and marginalization they support is harmful to all of us, individually and collectively.

Whether in economics (as we’ve seen in our studies of mining towns), in biotic systems, in professional work groups or in other human communities, diversity is not just a “good” thing, it’s critically important to survival and success.

I ask you to have the maturity to get beyond stereotyped assumptions.

How will you ever learn about our common humanity and the ways we can work together, if your words and actions scare people away and make them hide their true selves from you? In your words and actions, respect and nurture diversity.


------------------------------------------

Adrienne wants me to let you know let that: "1) it's a small class (12 people), and it's mixed undergrad and grad students; 2) my Geology professor was incredibly supportive, and gladly allowed me class time to do the presentation; and 3) the class burst into applause at the end of the talk; at least one person cried, and a number of people came up and hugged me afterwards; one woman said I was brave, and a number of folks thanked me for doing the presentation. One of the guys who made the Brokeback Mountain comments came up to me, hugged me, and apologized; the other person wasn't in class that day.

"And the class doesn't know it yet, but I am going to use the Broken Saddle 'dude ranch' as a featured example in my final project: The entire class will be doing short presentations on issues surrounding the proposed oil & gas drilling in the Galisteo Basin, and I will be discussing its impact on tourism (which is a very big economic driver in New Mexico); after the field trip, I went back the next day and took photos and interviewed the owner of the Broken Saddle, who is vehemently opposed to the drilling."

Read More...

Summary only...

REVEREND KING: A CHILDHOOD DIARY ENTRY

(Diary of Meg Barnett for years 1965, 1967 and 1968, kept in Dilley, Texas)

Another judiciously worded set of diary entries.

For some reason I cannot comprehend, I entered my comment on the killing of Reverend King on April 12 instead of April 4. I just looked at the original diary, and the space for April 4 that year is empty. Perhaps I turned ahead a week accidentally. I was definitely not in the habit of going back and writing entries after the fact -- if I wrote at all, it was concurrent with the event. (Mostly I didn't write.) So, while the date is completely wrong, I trust the entry itself.

I was twelve in April 1968, and if it were not for this notation, I would not know what I thought at the time. My parents did not see eye to eye about Reverend King, which is an understatement. My father hated him. My mother, who had absorbed nonviolence as a strategy during our years in India, thought he was a successor to Gandhi.

I'm not sure why I pointed out that James Earl Ray was from Missouri -- perhaps it was being emphasized in the news for some reason, perhaps it was a way of deflecting attention from Texas because we were complicit in that other assassination, the one of President Kennedy. "Leader of the Negroes" is a telling phrase: As if they are not Americans. I'm sure I'm repeating what I had heard, there. And the "of course are rioting" could either be me parroting what I'd heard in a cynical way or, more likely, given the fact that I had no guarantee of privacy in this writing and the person most likely to read it was the most racist member of our family, an ambiguous way of stating my sympathy.

One huge clue is the fact that I mispelled assassinated. I didn't mispell words. Ever. I'm much more lax about it now than I was then. So I take this as a sign of stress. The handwriting is bold, too, indicating I was bearing down hard. I was about to become a teenager, and the larger world was melting down around me, not just my swamped family.


The entries for 1967, for April 11 and 12, are a litany which can be found over and over in this diary: I wrote down when I missed school. I didn't indicate what I did those days except stay home -- it was always the same, read whatever books I could find and listen to my mother's stream of consciousness. I hated missing school. I wasn't popular then; class and race issues made that elementary school a cauldron of horizontal oppression. But I was beloved by my teachers, kept in from recess, given special assignments, allowed to go to the library whenever I finished my work, and while these circumstances made some kids hate me all the more, I made the most of it. I liked being there more than home, most of the time. Unless I was well enough to get outside, with my little brother, and play in nature while keeping him safe.

(Maggie and Bill in front yard at 401 Hugo Street, Dilley, Texas, 11 April 1965)

The Easter entry for 1965 gives us a date for the photo above that I've copied here more than once, me and Bill in our finery about to head off to the Baptist Church. We went in alone -- my mother wouldn't join us, partly because she didn't like Baptists any more, partly because there wasn't enough money for her to have a new dress. Not for several years in a row. Also, my father was in the hospital recovering from surgery on a pilonidal cyst, so Mama probably went to see him while we were being preached at. She picked us up afterward and we went to the hospital, as I stated, to show Daddy our clothes.

What's omitted from my entry is that since Bill was not allowed into the hospital (visiting age started at 12), Mama left us in the courtyard where there was a small fountain and pond, plus a bench. She was going to get Daddy to the window that looked out on the courtyard, so we could wave at each other. I sat obediently on the bench, but Bill got up and began walking the ledge of the fishpond, despite me yelling at him not to. Inevitably, he fell in, just as my parents reached the window. His new suit was ruined. It became a family story we laughed about, eventually. But at that time, my father's screams of rage could be heard through the hospital window. Bill sobbed and sobbed. Mama had to leave and drive us home in shame. None of that's in the diary. I stored it where it was safe, in my memory.

In June of 2003, I went back to Dilley and explored the scenes of my childhood. The tiny hospital and courtyard were still there, though the fountain had disappeared and the pond was filled in with plants.

(Hospital courtyard with filled-in pond, Dilley, Texas, June 2003)

The Baptist Church was also still there and looked exactly the same.

(First Baptist Church of Dilley, June 2003)

The house we had lived in was standing, but barely. (I think it is gone now, blown down by the stray winds of Rita or perhaps another hurricane.) It was filled with junk. I sat on the porch where my mother stood in 1965 to take the photo of us in the yard.

(Maggie on porch of house at 401 Hugo, Dilley, Texas, June 2003, in rainbow light)

We left right after this photo, and when my energy worker saw it, she exclaimed "Oh, you cleared those memories! The house remembered you, and through you all the evil that occurred there was released -- look at the rainbow light!" Certainly I stopped feeling haunted by the place as I had to that point.

(The "middle room" at the Dilley house, with Bill, Mama and me at a typewriter; my bed is on the left; circa 1965)

After I got home from that trek, I was able to rewrite and finish a poem I'd written about the years I spent in that house, sleeping in what was the dining room but we called "the middle room".

THE MIDDLE ROOM

In that square house the middle room was square
with four doors at the compass points. All its light
came through the doors from other rooms and from
a fixture overhead that once was gas
but now held bulbs. They don't make houses
any more with middle rooms instead of
halls, whose entryways were never meant to
lock or even hold a door. The only
door that locked was to my mother's bedroom.

In the middle of the middle room was
a round and massive oaken table. The
matching bureau held Mama's radio
with two long dials that picked up every wave
on earth, I did believe. One corner of
the middle room was filled with ironing board
beside an overflowing hamper of
clean clothes. Another corner, behind the
swinging door to the kitchen, was claimed by
Daddy's little desk where he would demand
no interruptions as he wrote out his
field manager reports on the every
other weekend he was home. Next to that
stood the three-shelf bookcase with my
Bobbsey Twins and Tom Swift rows
my Trixie Beldens and Donna Parkers
Every horse book by Marguerite Henry
No boring Nancy Drews for me -- I would
sneak mysteries from the stack by Mama's
bed. Beside the shelf was the tin trunk that
held my clothes, then a TV tray which served
as bedside table to my sagging iron
cot with mended sheets and several quilts.

This was my room. I went to sleep with lights
still blaring overhead, the gasps of steam
from Mama's iron, the smell of just-pressed shirts
for next morning and always, until
Mama went to her own bed, the radio.
The radio was left on all but the hours
she and I both slept. It stayed on when she
had to go out to the store, the hour or
two we would be left in the care of my
eldest, almost-grown brother.

I woke at six when Mama got her fresh cup
of Maxwell House and sat down sighing at
the table. She'd strike a match to start the
first of her three packs of Winstons a day.
As soon as she could tell I was awake
she'd turn and flick the switch to warm up the
radio. Then she would fix my Bosco
Heated in a Revereware pan, poured
into a jelly glass, and stand there till
I drank half down. She'd give me all my
morning meds, the yellow Tedral syrup
full of phenobarbital, the orange
stuff to drain my nose, the cortisone, the
Isuprel, placing each dose in my mouth
while holding in the corner of hers a
Winston, squinting at the smoke that drifted
up to stain the ceiling and the sheetrock
walls a darker yellow. She'd hand me my
book and start her chores, doing as much as
she could in the middle room, where the world
came in invisible and free, and she
would hear the voice of another adult.

The only door that locked was to Mama's
room -- my father slept there also when he
was home. It locked with a skeleton key
and had a keyhole just the height for a
toddler to look through. One friend asked me why
I have a photo of my parents' bed --
When film was such a luxury and all
the pictures of those years are scattershot
Dressed up for Easter, Thanksgiving dinners --
Why did I sneak my mother's camera
Stand in that locking doorway and take a
photo of that bed?

My little brother is dead now before
his time, before I found the way to ask
what he felt when I was pulled into that
room begging no, no and then he heard that
key click round. What did he see that made
him pound upon the wood and scream in rage?
I want to ask, what did he think when I
heard in my ear the laughed and whispered
Make him shut up or I'll bring him in here
too -- what did he think when I yelled at him
on the other side to go away, yelled
it with cruelty enough to slice through
all his love for me?

There was this guy they sometimes brought on the
radio, he was our favorite of all
When he was there, they'd open up the lines
so people could call in. He would answer
one by one, getting folks to talk to him
for just a minute, never more, and then
he could tell them where they lived, what Texas
county they were raised in, and often
he could name the places where their people
came from. In those days, most everybody
lived in pretty much one place for years, TV
had not yet wiped away how the terrain
we walked upon arranged the contours of
our vowels. Mama used to wish we could
call in, to see if he would be able
to decode the Crosstimbers in her speech.
I never joined her in this fantasy.
We count on the people who love us most
to not see our secrets. Strangers were a
risk our family did not take. But that
station was in San Antonio, which
meant the call would be long distance. After
the first year in the house with the middle room
we didn't even have a phone at all.

(Maggie beside windows of "middle room", 401 Hugo Street at Leona, Dilley, Texas, June 2003)

© 2003 Maggie Jochild
Rewritten 8 June 2003

ADDENDUM: Shadocat has written her own first person narrative about the day Reverend King was killed at her blog, linked to this post, and I highly recommend reading her memories as well at Forty Years Ago.

Read More...

Summary only...