Black Women Scholars on Identity, Research, and Black Women’s Studies: A Roundtable with Anita Gonzalez and Taifha Alexander
In the following roundtable, Anita Gonzalez and Taifha Alexander share how their identities as Black women impact their work and shapes their advocacy. This piece is a part of our Spark series: Celebrating Black Women and Girls — 50 Years of Black Women’s Studies
Questions by series curator, David Green.
Identity
This series celebrates 50 years of Black Women’s Studies in higher education. What inspired your interest in research that address Black women + girls? Does your own identity inspire your interest? Did your undergraduate institution offer courses that addressed “the Black woman?”
Anita Gonzalez: My identity somewhat inspires my interest in Black girls and their expressions. I am primarily interested in self esteem and how Black girls and Black women come to understand their beauty, their capacity. I work in theatre and dance. I see empowerment in Black women as they take control of their bodies, expressing their femininity (or masculinity) through sound and gesture. Internalized traumas can be released through physical embodiment. This is why African diasporic people of all cultures gather to sing or dance — releasing emotions through physical expressions. Often, a group experience of self expression helps to build self esteem and a sense of community within communities of color. I wonder what occurs in private spaces as well. Would a daily dance of self affirmation help Black girls to cope with the frustrations of living as undervalued humans within American society?
Taifha Alexander: My interest in scholarship focused on Black womxn and girls stemmed from my own experience as a Black woman engaged in the study of law at Georgetown University Law Center. It was there, in my coursework that I was able to, for the first time, engage in research that centered issues Black womxn and girls face in scholarship. It was in courses like Advancing Educational Equity through the Federal Regulatory Process with Civil Rights Advocate Professor Janel George, Education Law School Reform with Professor Eloise Pasachoff, Poverty Law with Professor David Super, and Contemporary Bias & the Law with Professor Jamillah Bowman, that directly exposed me to the inequities Black womxn and girls face in the law, education, healthcare, wealth, safety and overall. However, in spite of the barriers to access and equity Black womxn and girls face, we are still the most educated group in the United States, which really inspired my study in this space. Just thinking about how AMAZING that is. Black girls are criminalized, unprotected and very often overlooked, but, still we rise.
Research + Practice
What questions does your research address regarding Black women and Black Women’s Studies? Why do these issues matter?
Anita Gonzalez: My research addresses Black women because I am interested in telling stories with Black female protagonists. These issues matter because historically, African American and other diasporic women have been absent from the theatrical mainstream or reduced to stereotypical or exoticized representations. These issues matter because without seeing positive images of ourselves reflected back, we trend towards trauma, depression or self hatred.
Consequently, I write stories about Black women — African American and Afro-Caribbean — to depict fully realized characters and their experiences to a broad audience. This helps to build self-esteem and a feeling of belonging for women who too often don’t see themselves represented.
For example, my current project is a chamber-sized musical (4 performers) about a woman named Key who seeks to recognize her own worth, using her skills as a beautician and business woman to cope with her negative self-image. Narrator characters, Sophie and Draft, reflect her inner life, pushing her to reflect upon her repressed abilities to thrive. Complementing Key is the male character, Malik, an itinerant shoe shine man who also sells footwear on the internet. When the characters intersect, they challenge one another physically and emotionally, eventually finding the strength they need to keep on with the struggles of life.
Stylistically, the production is a jazz/blues chamber work where composed music reveals the internal journey of Malik and Key. The characters communicate with one another through dance narrative while two singers/storytellers, using text drawn from Hurston’s descriptive writings, narrate aspects of the story. The “world” of the play functions within a time and space continuum where contemporary struggles of African American characters find resonance in the text of Hurston’s 1930’s reflections on African American cultural expressions.
Productions like these help to change the narrative about Black women’s experiences.
Taifha Alexander: The barriers Black girls have to overcome to join the ranks of America’s most educated group are vast and daunting. My research examines institutional racism, specifically within education, that frustrates Black girls’ ability to successfully overcome institutional barriers to access and equity. These issues matter because, as co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, Monique Morris, demonstrated in her book, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Black girls are devalued based on how others perceive their appearance, speech, dress and actions and are either overlooked or punished as a result. The societal expectations that are thrust upon young, Black girls impact the perception they have of themselves and are directly correlated to the success they achieve as young girls, adolescents, and eventually as womxn.
What is the role of Black Women’s Studies in higher education and what has been its reception in your discipline?
Anita Gonzalez: Unfortunately, Black women’s studies and Black women’s perspectives are seldom addressed within theatre curricula. Many of the most well-known African American playwrights — Alice Childress for example- seldom see their works produced. Other Black playwrights, like Lynn Nottage, Suzan Lori-Parks, Dominique Morriseau and Donnetta Lavinia Grays, are working to tell new narratives about African American women in their work. They are receiving accolades and recognitions, yet their work still has not penetrated the mainstream. As a result, university theatre departments seldom produce plays by African American women. The argument is always that there are not enough Black performers to justify a production. Of course this is not a problem at HBCU’s where African American theatre can more easily flourish. A truly neglected area is Afro-Caribbean theatre and its artists.
Taifha Alexander: In my opinion, Black Women’s Studies in higher education should allow for the intentional and introspective survey of the state of the Black womxn experience at each level of education, both nationally and internationally. However, I do not believe that intentional study is happening. Instead, like Black womxn and girls, I believe Black Women’s Studies is also overlooked and undervalued.
You each express concerns about Black women in the workplace. Can you share a bit about the importance of talking about Black women’s work conditions? What are some of the trends that you’ve noticed in your research that can negatively or positively influence Black women’s working condition or ability to thrive?
Taifha Alexander: As a Black woman with a J.D. from Georgetown Law, in the diversity space within higher education, my experience has been…interesting. Within my previous roles as Assistant Director of Student Life for Diversity Initiatives, Coordinator for Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives, and now Assistant Dean of Students for Diversity & Student Leadership, I have often been either the only Black woman on my team or one of two, and as such, students who identify as Black womxn have gravitated to me as an “other mother.”
So, in an attempt to detangle this web of race, power, and privilege dynamics, I, and some of my colleagues in this space, feel as though we have to be everything to everyone at all times. I have to be an administrator who executes the institutional mission, but I also have to be an advocate for students who often disagrees with how the institution addresses issues as it relates to race and gender.
One thing that can be helpful for Black womxn in higher education is to have a supportive supervisor who understands the minority tax that their direct report is experiencing and brainstorm ways in which to best support their employee, especially considering the sociopolitical barriers Black womxn have had to overcome to be in this space.
Activist Implications + Research Offerings
Would you consider your research political? Does it intersect with ideas of activism? If so, in what ways?
Anita Gonzalez: My research is political. I work with activism within the university and within the theatrical profession. The effort to fight for inclusion of Black, Latinx and women’s perspective is ongoing. It is exhausting to continually need to advocate for what I believe should be a universal consideration of the validity of a multiplicity of stories.
Taifha Alexander: I would consider my research political. Often, my research requires some systematic change or call to action.
What do you want people to understand about your research as it relates to Black women + girls?
Anita Gonzalez: I want people to understand that Black women’s stories matter and that theatre is an ideal place to write and share those stories. When Black women and girls perform, they embody a history where they are able to be themselves, let others see who they are, and work toward the empowerment, which happens when we center in self affirmation.
Taifha Alexander: I want people to understand that there are current institutional biases and structures that exist to frustrate a specific group’s ability to succeed — a group that has been undervalued and under-appreciated since the founding of this country. I want people to understand that my research on this specific group does not operate to diminish or devalue other groups’ experiences or issues, but instead, serves as a reminder that in order for us to prosper as a country, issues that impact our most marginalized segments of the population must be brought into the spotlight so that we may all succeed, together.
What do you hope to add to the discussion of Black Women’s Studies over the next decade?
Anita Gonzalez: I hope to add plays to the body of literature about Black women through directing, producing and writing stories about our experiences.
Taifha Alexander: I hope to add tangible, evidence-based solutions to issues that impact Black womxn and girls. Often research illuminates problems that exist, but may not provide solutions to those problems. I hope to provide solutions to the most pressing issues facing Black womxn and girls.
Anita Gonzalez is a professor of Theatre and Drama at the University of Michigan. Her most recent book is a co-edited anthology with Tommy DeFrantz (Black Performance Theory, Duke University Press, 2014) that theorizes Black performance in the new millennium. Gonzalez is also a director and writer who has staged dozens of productions. She views theatrical practice as a laboratory for artists and audiences to explore new ways of interacting and considering world issues at a personal level. Current writing projects include: The Living Lakes, a collaborative dance-theatre performance with Joel Valentin-Martinez about Black/Native/Latino migrations along the Midwestern Great Lakes
Taifha Alexander, JD, is the assistant dean of students for diversity & leadership development at Wofford College. Taifha is currently working on two research projects. The first project is entitled “How to Avoid the Fire This Time,” details how student life professionals can assess repressed racial tensions within the campus environment and redress those tensions before a racist incident results in an even more divided campus. Her second project, “Chopped & Screwed,” focuses on how the law has unjustifiably used hip hop, and not other forms of artistic expression, to contribute to the mass incarceration of African American men.
