But actually, now that you mention it that’s problematic in itself, isn’t it? I keep thinking of our literary selection as diverse because we have a fair number of women and black authors, but it actually isn’t that diverse. I’ve taken a lot of literature courses between my undergrad and graduate education (granted the undergrad was at a different university), and I don’t know a darned thing about Native American literature, Latin@ literature…

I’ll bring it up. I’m sure I can get the lit instructor to incorporate more diverse material; she’s pretty open to such discussion. Actually diversifying the student body, on the other hand, will be a bit more challenging… I’ll start asking questions and poking around next week.

This isn’t just a problem for my students, but for me, too. It would be nice if we could have a class session focusing on the Black Arts movement, and actually have some Black voices. Race comes up in the grad literature classes a lot — which I think is a good thing, our reading selections are very diverse — but the only voices in our class that are actually represented are white liberal ones. And that’s a problem.

If I can offer a suggestion as a fellow educator — I suspect this isn’t a problem of one classroom. It’s probably endemic in the university. (It’s telling that your course textbook contains no content on race and little on gender.) If so, then the only real thing you can do to help ease the isolation of SoCs in your class is to *get more of them there.*

You need to remember that you’re not a “lowly grad assistant”. You’re a student of the school; your tuition pays people’s salaries. That means you, and your fellow students, have a great deal of potential power if you choose to use it. University administrations listen when students start agitating about something, so you should start agitating for a more diverse campus. This doesn’t necessarily require an Affirmative Action policy; it could just be that your university isn’t advertising itself toward potential students of color, etc. Or it could be that students of color are being admitted, but not supported enough to stay; see if you can find out the school’s retention rate by race. This isn’t something you need to do alone, either; see if you can get the graduate students’ association on your campus involved. Or maybe join forces with the ethnic orgs on your campus. You’ve all got a vested interest in having a diverse student body, after all.

“You do not know what it feels like, as a person of color, to walk into a room full of white people. So don’t even try to belittle my experience by reducing it to ’shyness’. Anyone who knows me knows I ain’t shy. It doesn’t mean I’m always comfortable.”

This has absolutely nothing to do with the original topic btw, and I apologize for that. Anyway, I’m interested in your thoughts on what the best thing to do is when you see that situation. Which is to say, I teach introductory writing at a large university in which most of the students in my classes are white. When I do have a person of color in my class, it’s probably just one person. And I do think those students tend to be isolated, very shy.

What do you think I can do about this? I’m a grad assistant, bottom of the ladder as far as the school hierarchy goes, so I have no control whatsoever in who enrolls in my classes. I can determine the material we read and I try to be inclusive (we have a textbook, but I also assign separate readings on race and gender since the textbook only addresses gender a little bit, and doesn’t bring up race at all). I have individual conferences with every student over the course of the semester, which I think helps. But the isolation is palpable.

So as a sort of general question. What can we, as white (or mostly white) instructors do to make the space more comfortable for our black students?

I knew someone was going to ask me that question and I’ll be damned if I can find the name of it. It’s a fairly new con, one i hadn’t heard of until last year. I considered going, but money kept me from it. I’ll see if i can find it for you.

oh wait, no…. what i should say is: I’m not allowed to tell you because you’re a white man.

At first it was weird, not so much because of race but (sorry fellas) the guys go nuts when there are women about at many of those cons, really–I have never felt more female.

Thing is I know what you mean about characters of color with any substance. I have been hoping to find a writer to collaborate with on a black woman character some day.

I have been uncomfortable as an artsit many times going intially because of race but later because I have never been hit on so much in my life. It’s flattering but tiring.

I guess I am saying I totally understand, but well, people aren’t gonna make an effort to reach out to other ethnic groups ot religious groups-we just have to take it on oursleves to go. If we wait for them-it will not happen. As you said, I just don’t think it crosses their minds, not for any malicious reasons, they just aren’t in the same mindset as minority groups.

Peace Liv