Get out my row!

Well, in a Black church we have a phrase we use when the preacher is preaching about something that pertains directly to us. We tell him out loud to "Get out of our row!" What this implies is that the pastor is on target with his message and is embarassing us because it seems as though he is talking to us. Typically, the comment is encouraging to all around and it riles him up because his sermon is touching us on a personal level. I had this exact experience when reading bell hooks.

Some time ago, bell hooks wrote an essay entitled "Confronting Class in the Classroom". This essay hit home for me. It was as if she were having a conversation with me about what I was feeling and thinking about. It was as if she was saying, "Ayanna, everything you are feeling is normal." She was conforting me about being estranged in a classroom designed to be inclusive. If she were there with me at that moment I would have given her a high five on several statements she made. I reflected later about it and retorted, "Get out of my row, bell!"

I felt the need to share this in light of the fact that bell and I having similiar life and educational experiences. In her essay, she mentions cases of students, including herself, being silenced during class discussions because their commments would not be accepted , but be judged. Yet, her passion for knowledge forced her to digest the psuedo justice and equity that dangled in front of her and sit in silence and just learn. She and I have learned many lessons and our classroom status from a working and poor family was one of them. The most important lesson was not about the content of the course, but about how to cope and tolerate people's opinions of how they view your standing.

This hunger for epistemology caused her to remain silent and not be calculated, for the class was not about class at all, but class standing in society. Her dialect, comments, mannerisms, and critical approach to discussion would reveal her families economic background. This was not accepted, to talk about classism despite being in the most liberal setting. Even though her setting was often a platform for equity for all humans mainly women, she remained silent, because her contributions to the conversation of her reality would not be accepted. Her contributions rested upon the backs of poor women in her past that beared the double burden of being Black and being a woman.

In many ways, I am bell in our doctoral program. My thoughts and feelings are not welcomed because it isn't the nice or frilly reality many people live with. My life is a reflection of all that went wrong with poor black people, like a news channel, 75% negative and 23% positive and 2% who cares. bell made me accept or at least to ponder about normalized conversation and eccentric comments. because I received confirmatio, that I was not alone, I am able to move on with out despair and dissapointment. I am convinced and calmed from reading her essay that society makes baby steps when it comes to true equity. It not the fault of the class, but a sign of the progress we have made with classim.

I am not dissapointed in my peers because at least they are trying. I am not upset that I can't voice my opinion as openly and as widely as everyone else. I am simply anxious. I am anxious for a moment when we can all openly share without any race or class of people feeling guilty. My favorite quote from her is:
A distinction must be made between shallow emphasis on coming to voice, which wrongly suggests there can be some democratization of voice wherein everyone's words wil be given time and seen as equally valuable....