Lisa Hacker

Where do We Go From Here?

Refining the Boundaries of Self/Other in Minority Literature and Looking to the Future

While reviewing class notes for the final exam, I came across a scribble, a tiny morsel, a stray quote at the bottom of a page with other miscellaneous musings long forgotten. (My father would have called it the mouse-that last, lukewarm, not-quite-full sip of beer left at the bottom of the can that you just can't leave behind) This question, which Dr. White gave as a prompt before our midterms, is something that I can not turn away from as we are asked to write our final thoughts:

"What do you think about in relation to this course when you are free to think on your own?"

The more that I thought about this question, the more I thought how wonderful it would be if every professor asked this question at the course's end. Perhaps it would even merit inclusion in those end-of-the-semester evaluations. Because the measure of success in any course is most often determined by how well a student is able to engage in dialogue that is centered around specific learning objectives and texts that often come with predetermined values and outcomes. It is not often that students are allowed to freely express those extraneous thoughts that the above question elicits.

I don't mean to say that we don't get to express individuality or personal opinions in our classrooms; on the contrary, I have found that my professors allow me to speak, consider my words, and respond to me with respect, often in a manner that makes me feel more like a colleague than a student. But what is missing, and what I refer to here, is the ability to go completely off course with my train of thought. I used to teach my junior high and high school students to beware of the rabbit trails. But perhaps rabbit trails aren't so bad after all.

When I am free to think on my own, free of the inhibitions that frequently prevent me from speaking up in class and free from the tongue that often trips over itself between my teeth, there is personal revelation. And I feel as though I have had a significant amount of personal revelation throughout this class.

One of the first things that I began to think about this semester was that it has been far too long since I have taken time to read. Sounds hard to believe since I have been doing full-time college non-stop for almost 8 years. But the truth is that I have not been able to read for me. The boxes of books that my son moved to the garage apartment this week are testament to the number of books I have been required to read in the last few years. But where are the books that I have chosen to read?

There aren't many. There has not been time. But in the pages of my notebook for this class are so many "notes to self" reminding me that when the required reading lets up next semester, there are books calling my name. Some of those notes in the margins of my notebook for this class include:

Professor White reading Deer Hunting with Jesus...sounds interesting

Need to read Beloved...hearing so much about it

Check out Lakota Woman and AIM

The Witch Holocaust

He had a rabbit under one arm and a bottle of vodka under the other...

(Okay, I cheated. The last one came from Dr. McNamara's lecture last week in Literary Theory. It is connected to some random story he told about Turkey, but I put it here because it has inspired a future story of my own, so I think it's a fair fit.)

When I think about the kind of reading that I want to do, I find myself craving more of the voices I have been listening to this semester: the voices of the 'other', the voices of those who had no choice, the voices of those whose dreams are not the same (objective 3). I don't mean to be an arrogant, voyeuristic, white "self," but there is passion in the writings of those who have to fight so damned hard. The characters don't leave me, even after the book has been put away on the shelf; I still feel their hurts and sorrows, their aches and angst.

My heart broke for Hagar when I pictured her manic shopping spree, and more so as she walked home in the rain. All throughout the novel I had seen her as the oppressed black woman. But as she stood there, disheveled and disillusioned before her mother and grandmother, I didn't see her sad, black face reflected back in their eyes. I saw my own. Because I have been there, too. I have been beaten down and used by a man, just as voiceless and choiceless, just as much on the outside as the other. I know that one of our objectives is to "discover the power of poetry and fiction to help 'others' hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience" (objective 5a). But I don't share Hagar's pain in the sense of her ethnicity. I share it as a woman. We are the same.

Yet we are not.

How is it that the voice of the other often works to unite us? And is it okay to jump on for the ride?

I felt like something had clicked inside of me the night I gave my presentation on Harriet Jacobs. My favorite literature in this class, and some of my favorite literature period, has been by black writers. I told my husband that if I made it into a school for my PhD, I wanted to concentrate on African American literature. He thought it made sense, considering my passion for it. When I got home, even though it was almost midnight, I spent an hour or so searching the literature programs at Texas universities to see which ones had specializations in this area.

But then it hit me. Would it be incredibly odd for a white woman to get a PhD in African American literature?

That is just one of the thoughts I get when I am free to think on my own.

Another thing I have spent a lot of time thinking about is the definition of the minority 'other'. It made sense at the beginning of the class to talk about African Americans because that is such an expected and comfortable place from which to begin. But in the end, we found ourselves somewhere that I did not expect with gay literature.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Best Little Boy in the World, but talk about polarizing. I would have never expected to consider sexual identity as something that qualifies one as a minority in the sense of the literary. I actually read this book before we even started the class because it looked so interesting, so I was able to reflect back on it with hindsight as we read other things. As we progressed through the course and I considered the definitions in our objectives, it certainly made sense that the status of being gay was similar to the voice and choice issues of other minorities (objective 2a). And then to add on top of that the issue of class division, which causes one to consider whether TBLBITW is as much of an 'other' as he could be, and the whole issue becomes so much more complex than originally it seemed.

Yes, it was an uncomfortable topic at times, but not for the reasons one might think. I have very conservative personal values. I have very strong religious beliefs. Yet one of the things that reading this book and discussing the 'otherness' of gays as minorities did was help me to realize how much of an 'other' that I am in my own family and church. I have friends who would no sooner read this novel than they would shop at Target, God forbid, with its pro-gay marriage "agenda". I say that tongue-in-cheek, please understand, because I think that such ideas are foolishness.

So what does that make me? I'm just not a perfect fit, no matter which way you look at it, into either side of the debate. In a sense, I am the 'other' within my own faith, my own church. Could I be considered a minority? Just how narrow can we winnow a community in order for it to have both a 'self' and an 'other'?

It certainly feels that I'm an 'other' at times in certain classes. It always amazes me how one can't get away with taking jabs at people of different ethnicities or sexual preferences, but it's okay to lift your leg high and kick the Christians in the back of the head for a good laugh every now and then. Whether 'we' are being ridiculed for bringing Creationism into the science books or blamed for all the hate in the world, it's not always easy being a Christian at UHCL.

Perhaps we need some texts that focus on the religious minority. Religion is one of the most divisive markers of identity in this country. We choose our religion, yes, so that is a slight variance from the idea of having no choice or voice. But choice and voice can still be oppressed to the point of restricting or affecting identity and self-actualization, so in that sense I believe a new category could be added to this course. We have explored 'otherness' based on ethnicity, color code, dominant culture, class, gender, sexuality, forced immigration, and social dislocation. What a new and complex relationship to then consider: the Christians whose explorers and missions took a chunk of the blame for helping to create the 'other' are now becoming the 'other'. There are some fascinating dynamics to think about.  

What happens when the 'self' splits, but the 'other' does not see the new? Like paradigm shifts in theory, the old may make way for the new, but a remnant of the old is still left behind. Can a new thread of dialogue weave the disjointed and often antagonistic seams back together? And is one considered part of the 'other' if one is compassionate to the group's struggles? Is it necessary to become the 'other' in order to not be the 'self'?

That would be just another one of those things I think about when I'm free to think.

We began this course talking about the most agreed upon place we could: the oppression of slaves. No one doubts the validity of their 'otherness'. But we ended up in a place, with gay literature, where some dissention still exists, even if it is faint. Part of what has made this course so fascinating for me is the ability to see how it's components could shift and have shifted.

And wondering where they will shift in the future.