ISSUE 16 | FALL 2013
again reveals a gulf between whites and people of color. And so, conflict ensues.
In other words, I am arguing that what the MFA student of color experiences in a predominantly white institution is not simply an obscure or numerically insignificant occurrence. Instead, it is symptomatic and revelatory of the ways the voices and consciousness of people of color are suppressed in our society. The essay below was originally written specifically for student writers of color. It was written to let them know they are not crazy, that what they perceive around and the way they and their work is received, is real. It was written to let them know that what they experience as an individual is actually a social practice, a political practice that involves a clash of power between two groups, whites and people of color. It was written as a manual for battle and survival. II
Here is an all too common scenario MFA students of color face in their mainly all white MFA programs:
Another student, usually white, brings in a piece with racial stereotypes or which presents people of color as the other or in a manner which negates their humanity as three dimensional individuals. In the same class, other students, usually white, also present pieces with similar problematic representations of people of color
Confronted with such a piece--or pieces--the writer of color must decide whether to voice an objection to the stereotypes or two dimensional portraits of people of color or the offensive racial slant of the white student’s piece. Since such situations have played themselves out for so many MFA students, what we know is this: Invariably, neither the white professor nor the other white students will formulate and express the critique of the piece which is occurring in the mind of the student of color. In other words, the student of color will be the sole person voicing her critique if she chooses to do so.
If and when the student of color voices her objections to the piece, more often than not, neither the white professor nor the other white students 59