African American Literature

This semester I am taking African American Literature with Dr. Patricia H. Perry. Though I've enjoyed the readings and think Dr. Pat is a great professor, I have very mixed feelings about the class. First off, the class is only 50 minutes long, 3 days a week, which I think really limits the possibility for starting some great discussion. The minute we get going on a topic I'm interested on, usually something that's an aside to the readings, we have to get back on schedule because time is so limited. What is also frustrating about the class is the sensitivity of the topic we're dealing with. I think Dr. Pat has done a good job of prefacing the class with the need to respect others, both black and white students alike, and to not say anything that would insult anyone else. She wants her African American students to know they should not be ashamed of slavery, and for the white students to not feel the blame of slavery. Though everyone is generally very P.C. about their comments, Dr. Pat has been relatively open about her opinions on the government and race. For instance, we all know she's a democrat and Obama fan. She is also not religious - spiritual perhaps, but not affiliated with any particular religion. She told the class that the bible was a collection of stories which offended some religious students, but they chose not to say anything more about it. Sometimes Dr. Pat will get on a tangent about oil, the Iraq war, the Bush administration, or her frustrations with society. But the second she really gets going, she stops herself, before she gets to the point where she might offend someone.
Dr. Pat is also very open about explaining white privilege, though I don't know how many white students took it to heart and actually thought about it. She has said that slavery is not a part of whites' culture, and therefore they have the choice to learn or not learn about it. But African Americans do not have that choice - it is an essential part of their past and heritage, and give meaning to understanding the current state of our race relations. But due to white privilege, whites don't need to know about African American history and slavery. Being white does not affect them in their every day lives. Though no one, black or white, commented on this statement, I was aware of the awkwardness among some of the white students. I think I might have felt the same if I was not aware of white privilege myself, but I'm glad Dr. Pat was open enough to address it in class.
I started to realize the difficulty in addressing whiteness and white privilege. I don't think I will ever be able to persuade someone into accepting it unless they are already in some ways slightly aware of it. People who believe that being color-blind is the way to go are not wrong, because ideally that is the goal everyone is trying to reach. But what they don't understand is that whites and blacks cannot just magically become equals because 300 years of history has done otherwise. I am very much dedicated to my belief, but at the same time am discouraged by the blindness of those who cannot see it or believe it. Because learning about whiteness answered a lot of my questions and just seems to make sense to me, I thought it would be just as easy for others to accept it once they had the knowledge available to them. But that hasn't been the case, which I've seen from both senior portfolio and my African American lit. class. No matter who says it, whether it be a black professor, a white student, or many many different scholars, some people are just not willing to understand it.

William Christenberry

William Christenberry received his masters in painting at Alabama University in the 1960's. He claims to "know nothing about photography," though he clearly has an eye for it. He started to take pictures in the 1960's as a way to help him understand his southern upbringing. He would revisit his hometown of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and document the change over the years with a Brownie camera he received as a child.
I am very inspired by Christenberry's work because of its content and the method in which he works. Everything is very reactionary - He uses his images as inspiration for other works in different mediums as sculpture, painting and drawing. Each house or barn he documents is brought to life in a miniature sculpture of almost exact likeness of the building he documented. He also paints more abstract images based on the color and shapes from his images. Christenberry's method of working has made him produce over hundreds of works, all based off of his reaction to his documentation of Alabama living.

Christenberry gave a lecture at Emory University in 2007 that discussed his work and experiences with southern living. Though he told some background stories of a few images, he did not go into depth about his opinions on the South. Christenberry's images do not uplift the South, but rather show more of its downfall. He documents old buildings, many that appear to be abandoned, vacant stores, overgrown brush - all things that signify a place that is behind the times, looked over, and not worthy of anyones attention. But despite his lonesome images, Christenberry says he cherishes his Southern upbringing, and would not have asked for anything more.

I think in watching the lecture I was looking for a little more emotion behind Christenberry's words in reaction to his images and discoveries. Because I feel I am dealing with a similar content, I was interested to know how he felt about his discoveries. His work is more grounded in the past, documenting a town's demise during the Civil Rights movement to the current day. But he is still dealing with issues that are controversial and rarely addressed, and I wanted to know how he coped with exploring such a difficult topic.

In the late 60's at the height of the Civil Rights movement when Christenberry was still in school, he heard word of a KKK meeting that was to take place in Alabama and knew he had to attend. He re-tells his experience of walking up three flights of stairs in the house in which the meeting was to take place, seeing nothing until he reached the third floor. At the top of the flight of stairs, a Klan member stood decked out in his white robe and hat, remaining completely still except for the slow turning of his eyes underneath the slits of his hood. Christenberry got one good look at him and ran out as fast as he could. This experience set off his series of work known as the Klan Tableau, a room filled with GI Joes dressed as Klans men, coffins, flags, and other Klan inspired works. He has documented his small Klan members so as not to reveal the scale to make it as realistic as possible. In 1978, the Klan material was stolen out of his studio; the suspect unknown.