Wellesley Writes It: Conversation with Sumita Chakraborty '08 (@notsumatra), author of ARROW
Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, scholar, and a graduate of Wellesley College, class of 2008. Her debut collection of poetry, Arrow, was released in September 2020 with Alice James Books in the United States and Carcanet Press in the United Kingdom, and has received coverage in The New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian. Her first scholarly book, tentatively titled Grave Dangers: Death, Ethics, and Poetics in the Anthropocene, is in progress. She is Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, where she teaches in literary studies and creative writing.
Sumitaâs poetry appears or is forthcoming in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry 2019, the Academy of American Poetsâ Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. Her essays most recently appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her scholarship appears or is forthcoming in Cultural Critique, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment (ISLE), Modernism/modernity, College Literature, and elsewhere. Previously, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in Womenâs, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, at Emory University.
Wellesley Undergroundâs Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels â10, had the chance to chat with Sumita about publishing, reading, and writing. E.B. is grateful to Sumita for willing to be part of the Wellesley Writes It series in the middle of her book debut!
EB: Thank you so much for being part of the Wellesley Writes It series, Sumita! Iâm excited to get to talk to you about writing in general, but especially your debut collection Arrow. Can you start off speaking a bit about how this book came about?
SC: Thank YOU so much! This is such a joy.
The book thatâs now Arrow went through about seven prior full versions.
EB: Oh my gosh! Wow.
SC: While thereâs a lot going on in there, the most fundamental story I wanted to tell was that of the experience of living in the aftermath of severe domestic violence, other entangled forms of assault, and grief (in my case, particularly for my sister, who died in 2014 at the age of 24). The word âaftermathâ is a tricky one, because there is no neat and tidy âafterâ violence or grief, particularly when one considers the varying scales on which various devastations and mournings take place. One of the main narrative arcs of the collection, though, is that of becoming someone who can embrace love and joy and care and kinship even when those concepts have been weaponized or altogether foreclosed for all of oneâs childhood and adolescence. And thatâs a narrative that requires a sense of an âafterâ that I am deeply fortunate to have personally experienced. Thatâs the main tightrope the collection is invested in walking, which forms the through-line around which and with which its other preoccupations and obsessions orbit and collide.
EB: Wow, thank you so much for sharing all that, Sumita. I especially like what you said about the lack of a âneat and tidyâ ending -- isnât that always the case when it comes to writing about things from our own lives? We want real-life closure but sometimes have to settle for just narrative closure instead.
I meant to say also congratulations on the publication of your collection not only in the US but in the UK as well! What was it like to put that version together? The same? Different?
SC: I was wildly lucky in this regard. Some years ago, I published the poem âDear, belovedâ in Poetry, before it was in Arrowâand in fact before this version of Arrow even existed. At that point, the editor of Carcanet reached out to me to say that the press would be interested in bringing out my collection in the UK. I kind of panicked!
EB: I totally would have, too!
SC: As I mentioned, there was no Arrow yet. I was on a much earlier version that was âcomplete,â but when I looked at it, I knew: This ainât it. And querying US presses was therefore not something I was prepared to do at that time; UK publication was even less within the realm of my imagination. I essentially told them the manuscript was in progress and asked if I could reach back out when it was ready and if I had secured a US publisher. Some years later, the collection was picked up by Alice James in the States and I reached back out to Carcanet to see if they were still interested, and they were! Alice James and Carcanet worked together during the production process, so while there were certainly some differences in approaches across either side of the pond, much of it was really streamlined, and that is all thanks to the outstanding and immense labor of the extraordinary editors and staffs at both publishers. Â
EB: How did you begin writing poetry in the first place? What was your path to becoming a writer?
SC: I didnât come into much of a sense that I was interested in poetry and in literature until college. When I got there, I didnât have a sense of really any passions and skills that I had, and thatâs not imposter syndrome speakingâitâs because I had a terrible record in high school and found nothing inspirational there, and I was also pretty busy attempting to survive the violence I was experiencing at home and working toward moving out, which I did before college. In my first year and my sophomore fall at Wellesley, I took a really broad smattering of courses, including (with wild, and probably inappropriate, disregard for prerequisites in both cases) Advanced Shakespeare with William Cain and Advanced Poetry Writing with Frank Bidart. I was very much not good enough for both of those courses! But even as I was flailing around in them, something in my mind clicked: this was something I was willing to be terrible at until I started to understand it a bit better. These were puzzles that I liked, questions I liked, problems I cared about dwelling with. It was pretty much âlove at first confusion.â
EB: I love that idea: âthis was something I was willing to be terrible at.â That 100% nails how I feel about writing, too.
So, obviously, as you just said, Wellesley was very important in your trajectory as a poet -- the title of your book is a reference to a Frank Bidart poem! Which other faculty, staff, fellow students have influenced or inspired you? Are there any professors or classes you would tell young Wellesley writers that they 100% have to take?
SC: Following âlove at first confusion,â I essentially made a second home of the first floor of Founders, so my answer to who at Wellesley influenced or inspired me could fill multiple pages!
EB: I love Founders. I miss Founders.
SC: I will invariably accidentally leave someone out and feel guilty, so I offer my mea culpas in advance. In addition to Bill Cain and Frank Bidart, I am beyond grateful to Dan Chiasson, with whom I worked on both my literary studies (including my thesis) and my poetry, and who graciously offered me more mentorship than Iâd ever experienced in my life before that point; to Kate Brogan, from whom I got the bug for twentieth-century poetics, which remains the focus of my literary studies research; to Yoon Sun Lee, who taught the theory class when I took it, and planted a hugely important seed that I didnât even know had been planted until much later simply by being a brilliant Asian American literary scholar (not a role I had ever before seen filled by someone of this subject position); to Larry Rosenwald, who was the first person I had ever met in a literary context who both knew that English was not my heritage language and, in his infinite and genuine passion for multilingualism, viewed that fact as a strength.
I wish Iâd had more of a chance to get to know my peers while actually at Wellesleyâmy life circumstances while I was in college differed from the typical Wellesley experience in ways that made doing so challenging (for one, I worked multiple jobs the entire way through), but Iâve gotten to better know many people I knew at Wellesley more in the years since and thatâs been a wonderful experience.
EB: Iâve also made a lot of Wellesley friends post-Wellesley. The Wellesley experience never ends, in that way.
SC: Since Iâve already spoken to the coursework that inspired me, Iâm going to zig a bit where your last question zags: there isnât a single course I would tell young Wellesley writers or literary enthusiasts that they 100% have to take. I donât think one could go wrong with anyone Iâve named here (and Iâve been really excited to learn about the new additions to the English department: I would have loved to have learned from Cord Whitaker and Octavio GonzĂĄlez, and have heard wonderful things about both!). But I think that what made the Wellesley experience truly influential for me was that I had the opportunity, like Whitmanâs âNoiseless Patient Spiderâ (though, um, not very noiselessly or patiently), to âlaunchâd forth filament, filament, filament,â and really listen to what spoke to me. I came in with no preconceptions, no expectations, no firm career plan (or even career plan). Knowing what undergraduates at environments like Wellesley frequently pressure themselves or feel pressured to do (or achieve or produce or attain), I donât want to offer advice along the lines of a âmust-do.â Rather, try things out and truly listen to yourself. Whatâs your âlove at first confusionâ?
EB: I know from personal experience that writing can be a really lonely practice. Who did you rely on for support during those really frustrating writing moments? Other writers? Your spouse? Friends? Fellow Wellesley grads? What does your writing/artistic community look like?
SC: All of the above! The thing is, for me, I donât think writing is a lonely practice. When I feel most energized about writing, it is because I feel like I am in a conversationâor, to put a finer point on it, when Iâm in a conversation that is nestled within hundreds of thousands of other conversations that have happened for millennia, are currently happening all around me, and will continue to happen after Iâm a hunk of dirt. Tapping into that is often what brings me to the page in the first place.
EB: Thatâs such a good point.
SC: So when students, for example, feel really isolated or alone in their writing life, my first recommendation is to remind themselves of their beloveds. These may be actual living ride-or-die humans in their lives; these may be ghosts of writers and artists past that are important to them; they might be their most frequently bustling group text or their favorite TV show. Honestly, if oneâs thinking of this question as broadly as I recommend, those beloveds probably belong to all of the above categories, to some degree. When you write, even if none of these beloveds are your subject or your audience or anything quite that easily analogous to the process, they are with you, and they have formed who you are before youâve even picked up a pen or turned your computer on, so they are with you when you are writing, too.
EB: What is it like to now be teaching poetry to undergrads? Are you channeling your inner Dan Chiasson?
SC: Ha! Thank you for thatâI just got a visual of myself trying to go as Dan for Halloween and I cracked myself up. (Dan, if youâre reading this: sorry!) I teach undergraduates and graduate students at Michigan, both in literary studies and in creative writing, and I love it very, very much. My students of all levels are brilliant, thoughtful, curious, and wildly imaginative people who often help bolster my faith in the ongoing importance of literary work. Honestly, particularly during this year, I have frequently been in awe of my students and have felt overwhelmingly lucky to be able to work with them.
EB: I know that you are also currently working on your first scholarly book, Grave Dangers: Death, Ethics, and Poetics in the Anthropocene. How do you approach writing poetry vs. writing an academic work? How is your creative process similar or different?
SC: For me the two have been inseparable since Wellesley. I essentially ask similar questions and have similar preoccupations no matter what genre I write; in terms of deciding which thought belongs to which genre, or which project a particular moment is better suited to, thatâs often a matter of thinking carefully of what shapes that I want the questions to take, and what kinds of âanswersââin quotation marks because I donât strive at certainty or mastery in either genre, or in anything for that matterâfor which I imagine reaching or searching. For me, the processes for writing both are very, very similar: I draft wildly and edit painstakingly. Itâs more a matter of closely listening to my patterns of thinking on any given subject or day in order to find out if the rhetorical patterns of academic prose would better suit them or if the rhetorical patterns of poetry would better suit them.
EB: What are you currently reading, and/or what have you read recently that youâve really enjoyed? What would you recommend to read while we (are continuing to) lay low during this pandemic?
SC: 2020 was such an incredible year for books! Which feels somewhat perverse to say, considering everything else was dismal and it was hardly an easy year to put out a book, either. In terms of new poetry releasesâand this is not a comprehensive list, so my mea culpas here too to the many that I have loved and will end up accidentally leaving offâI have this year read and loved: Taylor Johnsonâs Inheritance, francine j. harrisâs Here is the Sweet Hand, Craig Santos Perezâs Habitat Threshold, Jihyun Yunâs Some Are Always Hungry, Eduardo Corralâs Guillotine, Rick Barotâs The Galleons, Jericho Brownâs The Tradition, Shane McCraeâs Sometimes I Never Suffered, Victoria Changâs Obit, Danez Smithâs Homie, Aricka Foremanâs Salt Body Shimmer, and Natalie Diazâs Postcolonial Love Poem. Two prior-to-2020 poetry collections that I reread every year are Brigit Pegeen Kellyâs Song and Lucille Cliftonâs The Book of Light. Iâm currently reading Claudia Rankineâs Just Us and Alice Oswaldâs Nobody.
EB: Also what about Lucie Brock-Broido? I know she was a teacher of yours at one time, and she was a professor in my MFA program. I had the pleasure of once sitting in on her lecture, and it was life-changing. Are there any particular poems of hers you would suggest?
SC: I joined Lucieâs summer workshop held at her home in Cambridge, MA the summer after my sophomore year at Wellesley, and I stayed in it until I moved to Atlanta for graduate school in 2012. âLife-changingâ is rightâin fact, it feels a little too modest. She was transformative. A cosmos-realigner. A hilarious, brilliant, extraordinarily kind meteor. A fox with wings. A unicorn. I could go on, and on. For a reader new to her work, Iâd recommend starting with her posthumously published âGiraffeâ in The New Yorker. I think âA Girl Agoâ and âYou Have Harnessed Yourself Ridiculously to This Worldâ from Stay, Illusion (2015) are also remarkable entry points. After that, I would probably recommend reading her collections in this order: first Stay, Illusion; then A Hunger (1988); then The Master Letters (1997); and finally Trouble in Mind (2005). The sequencing here isnât intended as a ranking in the leastâmy own personal favorites toggle back and forth depending on where my own âtrouble in mindâ lives, and each collection is dazzlingly strong and has its own raison dâĂŞtreâbut rather because I think the story those collections tell in that order would let a new reader have a full sense of Lucieâs poetics outside of the story that mere chronology can tell. Â
EB: Any advice for aspiring young poets?
SC: Filament, filament, filament. Let your writing life be as huge and wild and disparate as the whole person you areâdonât feel like thereâs only a part of you thatâs âworthy of poetry,â and donât let anyone else tell you what kind of writer you should or shouldnât be.
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Wellesley Writes It: E.B. Bartels â10 (@eb_bartels) on financial privilege and writing
From the new series on Fiction Advocate --Â
How I Got Here: You Learn, I Pay
Privilege is a topic that doesnât always receive the subjectivity and nuance it deserves. In âHow I Got Here,â writers reflect on their experience of privilege (or lack thereof) in their writing careers. We hope these personal essays will help us appreciate the complexities of individual experience and view each other in a clearer light.
An MFA is a shot in the dark. It is a degree that costs thousands and thousands of dollars to pursue and yet has absolutely zero (0) guarantee of any type of employment. You get an MFA out of sheer love or delusion. When I applied to writing programs in the fall of 2011, I did so simply because I knew I loved writing and wanted to get better at it. I also applied because I had, and have had for my entire life, my own personal patrons of the arts.
There have been many calls lately for writers and artists to be more transparent about their financial situations, from the Twitter hashtag #PublishingPaidMe to essay collections to this very series. I remember when I first read Ann Bauerâs essay on Salon about how her heart surgeon husband âsponsorsâ her writing career and how much I appreciated her honesty. So, let me lay it all out there for you. When it comes to education, the rule in my family is: they pay, no questions asked. Itâs like that scene in The Sopranos, when Meadowâs boyfriend tries to pay for Tonyâs dinner and Tony is pissed. But instead of âYou eat, I pay,â itâs: âYou learn, I pay.â
Education has always been a big deal in my family. Both of my parents have Masterâs degrees, my motherâs specifically in Music Education, which she used as a piano teacher. Both of my grandmothers achieved higher ed degrees at a time when it wasnât common for women to even complete high school. My paternal grandfather nearly completed a PhD from MIT in engineering (everything but the dissertation); my maternal grandfather dropped out of law school, but he did so to take over a local driving school because he loved to teach kids how to use cars. Classes, studying, learning, teaching, booksâI was taught that these were the most valuable types of currency. I knew from a very young age that there were limits to what I was allowed to ask for in a toy store or a clothing boutique, but the local bookstore? The word ânoâ did not exist there. In middle school, I memorized my dadâs credit card number so I could order books on the Barnes & Noble website without bothering him (so advanced for 1998!), and he never questioned what I was buying, as long as it was books. He also never questioned how much I was buying because he had access to that other, more literal type of currencyâmoney.
Wellesley Writes It: Interview with Patrice Caldwell â15, Founder of People of Color in Publishing
Patrice Caldwell â15 is the founder & fundraising chair of People of Color in Publishing â a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting, empowering, and uplifting racially and ethnically marginalized members of the book publishing industry. Born and raised in Texas, Patrice was a childrenâs book editor before shifting to be a literary agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.
In 2018, she was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree and featured on The Writerâs Digest podcast and Bustleâs inaugural âLit Listâ as one of ten women changing the book world.
Her anthology, A Phoenix First Must Burn â 16 stories of Black girl magic, resistance, and hope â is out March 10, 2020 from Viking Books for Young Readers/Penguin Teen in the US/Canada and Hot Key Books in the UK! Visit Patrice online at patricecaldwell.com, Twitter @whimsicallyours, and Instagram @whimsicalaquarian.
Wellesley Undergroundâs Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels â10, had the chance to converse with Patrice via email about publishing, reading, and writing. E.B. is grateful to Patrice for willing to be part of the Wellesley Writes It series, even with everything else she has going on!
EB: When did you first become interested in going into writing and publishing? Did something at Wellesley spark that interest?
PC:Â For as long as I can remember, Iâve loved writing. Itâs how I best express myself. That love pretty naturally grew into creating stories. Iâve always had a very vivid imagination. Iâve also always been pretty aware that publishers exist. I remember at a young age noticing the logos on the spines of books (notating the imprint/publisher), so by the time I was a teen I could recall which publishers published my favorite books (served me very well in interviews, haha) and was curious about that process. But I was a theater kid, intensely, thatâs what I thought I would do, but then I decided to go to Wellesley and majored in political science (especially theoryâI took ever class Professor Grattan, sheâs brilliant) but then dabbled in a bunch of other subjects, including English. I think English courses definitely strengthened my critical thinking, but I absolutely do not think you have to be an English or creative writing major in order to work in publishing or be a writer. My theater background is just as helpful as is my political theory one. (I have friends who are best-selling authors who did MFA programs and others who never went to college.)
Wellesley was my safe space. I came back to myself while at Wellesley. I wrote three (unpublished) manuscripts during my time there, starting the summer after my first year, and I held publishing and writing related internships. I also took a fantastic childrenâs literature course taught by Susan Meyer (whoâs a childrenâs author herself!) that changed my world. I highly recommend it. We studied childrenâs literature, got to talk to an author and a literary agent, and we wrote our own stories. I later did a creative writing independent study with her, and I truly thank Professor Meyer for expanding my interest in writing and publishing.
EB: How did People in Color Publishing come about? What goals do you have for the organization? What would you like people to know about it?
PC:Â I founded People of Color in Publishing in August 2016 to allow people of color clearer access into the book publishing industry, better support networks, and professional development opportunities. It really is about sending the elevator back down for others after climbing (& maybe even assembling) the stairs.
Weâre currently working towards nonprofit status. You can learn more about us and our initiatives at https://www.pocinpublishing.com/ and sign up for our newsletter, which is incredibly well done. As youâll see when you visit the site, the organization really is a team effort. I donât and couldnât do this alone; Iâve had an amazing team with me from day one. We each play to our strengths and work really well together. (The org is very active on Instagram and Twitter, too!)
EB: I am really excited about your collection A Phoenix First Must Burn, coming out from Penguin Random House on March 10, 2020. What inspired you to put together that anthology? What was challenging about the process of compiling the anthology, and what was rewarding about it?
PC:Â Thank you; Iâm so excited for it as well. I talk about this more in the bookâs introduction, but I was inspired by my eternal love for Octavia Butlerâthe title even comes from a passage in Parable of the Talentsâas well as similar adult market anthologies like Sheree R. Thomasâs Dark Matter, and wondering what one for teens would look like. The answer is power and imagination like Iâve never before seen, in the form of a kick-ass, #BlackGirlMagic anthology thatâs hella queerâI love it and wouldnât have it any other way.
Before I became a literary agent, I was a childrenâs book editor. The editing of these stories was the easy part. It was super fun. The hard part was wrangling of everyone, haha. Thankfully they were amazing to work with and I wasnât doing it aloneâmy then editor Kendra Levin also has a fantastic editorial eye.
As for what was rewarding, my younger self needed this. Like I said, itâs Black and queer. Since Toni Morrison passed, a day hasnât gone by in which Iâve thought, about how she wrote for Black people, especially Black women, unapologetically. I feel that deeply. I got to work with some of my favorite writers writing today. How often does someone get to say that, you know. And, I grew a lot as a writer. I never thought I could write a short story, but I did. Weâve been getting some really great early reviews (like this beautifully-written starred review from Kirkus, OMG!) But going back to how my younger self needed this, the most rewarding thing has been the people whoâve reached out how excited they are to read it and how much theyâve been craving a book like this. Itâs a dream come true. A dream I strategized to reach, worked my butt off on, and so yeah, Iâm over the moon.
EB: You're also the author of a YA fantasy book (publication date TBD) in addition to the anthology. How is the experience of writing a fantasy novel different and/or similar to compiling an anthology? What advice would you give to someone writing their own book (of any genre)?
PC:Â Itâs such a different experience in that writing this novel is all me, especially because it hasnât sold yet (Iâm finishing revising it now). My agents are amazing, with an excellent editorial skills, and so theyâre certainly there to help and advise me should I need themâand then I have author friends I can ask for advice tooâbut ultimately if I donât write this book, it doesnât get written. Thereâs no one else to nudge.
The similarities, however, between novels and short stories are that ultimately, Iâm the same writer, Iâm the same person. For instance, I love experimenting with structure. My story for A Phoenix First Must Burnbegins in the present, goes back in time, and ends again at the present. The story I just wrote, for Dahlia Adlerâs Shakespeare-inspired anthology, is epistolaryâtold partially in journal entries, and my third short story (for an unannounced thing) takes place partially on the set of a scripted reality TV show, so thereâs definitely going to be script excerpts throughout. My novel is similar in that itâs told through three women, but two of them are narrated in first present tense (like, I am) whereas one is in third past (she was). And then every few chapters I have an excerpt of something from this fantasy worldâs archivesâoral myths passed down about various gods, peace treaties made over the years, accounts from the war that just ended, etc. Itâs been a huge challenge and lot of fun.
I didnât have the skills to pull this book off when I started writing it, which is something I think a lot of writers deal with at some point. Therefore, I had two options: put the book down and write something more manageable or take the time it took to write this. Neither option is better than the otherâthe best option is whatâs right for you, and I didnât have anything more manageable that I was as passionate about, so I had to write through it. When youâve tried everything you can possibly try (including breaks, theyâre important!) to unstick your story, you have to write through it. You have to deal with the voices (including sometimes your own) saying you canât, and the only way to truly deal with those voices is to show up to the paper, the screen, whatever it is, and write. In writing and believing in my own work before anyone else has, Iâve found my confidence. Confidence in your own writing is key because only you can write the book you want to write <3.
EB: What are you currently reading?
PC:Â Realm of Ash by Tasha Suri. I just loved herdebut novel, Empire of Sand, and Iâm so pumped to be diving into this one. Badass women, incredibly rich worldbuilding, and very cool magic as well as a lot about access to forgotten history and assimilation into other cultures.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. It is getting fantastic early reviews and was pitched as a 21stcentury Lolita (by one of my agents who sold it actually) and given all the #MeToo conversations, it has ended up being super timely. I hated Lolita (could not finish), and I love this book. Oh, and Stephen King loved it, which for me is an auto-buy. Itâs out March 10, 2020.
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski. You definitely donât have to love someoneâs books to be friends with them, but in this case, Marie is a friend whose work Iâm obsessed with. Itâs set in the same world as another one of her seriesâone of my favorite series thatâs like game theory in a fantasy world and begins with The Winnerâs Curse. Marie is brilliant, this book is brilliant, and itâs also very queer. Itâs out March 3, 2020.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. This book has been getting the best of reviews and praise, so itâs been at the top of my to-reads list for a while, but I started reading it because a friend mentioned that it has multiple POVs all in first person (which is very unusual), and like I said, I love playing around with stuff like that. This is book is a masterpiece.
As you can tell, I love reading books. I also love book hopping, so Iâm always reading a bunch at once. Iâm on a bit of a fantasy streak right now. But from October to December 2019 I read like a romance novel a week (sometimes three a week, haha) and revisited my favorite urban fantasy series, so if youâre into those check out Chloe Neillâs Chicagoland Vampires + Heirs of Chicagoland series, Tessa Dareâs Girl Meets Duke series and of course our very own Jasmine Guillory, my favorite of hers thus far is The Wedding Party). After Iâm done with my revisions, I wanna take a writing break and sink into Emily Wilsonâs translation of The Odyssey and Dan Jonesâs The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors.
EB: What future projects/goals do you have for yourself and your career?
PC:Â I spent most of Wellesley working towards two goals: being published and working in publishing. In doing so, I accomplished a lot in a very short time, and I totally wrecked my mental healthâit took most of 2019 to rebuild that. Iâm trying to live more in the present and enjoy that. Career wise, Iâm just gonna trust that Iâm already doing the work I need to do and that I have the support systems I need to help me keep doing that. And for a personal goal, I have been wanting to spend more time in ParisâI went back for the first time in ten years for all of February 2019, and just loved it. My whole soul felt at home, so Iâd like to take some French lessons to fill in the gaps (I took French from middle school through sophomore year at Wellesley and achieved proficiency, but I want to become fluent). And then I want to visit more for longer and see where that takes me.
EB: I so admire your freelance hustle, and as someone attempting it myself, too, I know that sometimes it feels like you have to work 24/7 to make it possible. How do you set boundaries for yourself and your work? How do you take care of yourself?
PC:Â So, Iâm a literary agent and a writer, which means my entire income comes from commission I make from the writer client projects I work on and sell as an agent and advance payments (and hopefully royalties down the line) as a writer. That said, I didnât become a literary agent until June 2019, and didnât get the first payment from a client book I sold until November, so most my income is still coming from writing (for reference, I received my first advance check in fall of 2018).
As of now, balancing the two isnât that hard for me. But you have to understand that I was first an editor and a writer, so I had to do most of the deadlines for A Phoenix First Must Burn while also going into an office 5 days a week, from 10-7/8pm. Now, I manage my own schedule.
My main âfreelance lifeâ struggle was that I was diagnosed with ADHD this year. When I left my full-time, salaried job, at the end of 2018, I didnât realize just how helpful that structure had been. To me, that structure was only ever a limitation. I felt like it was ridiculous with all of this technology that we all had to be in NYC, I felt like editors needed to be more proactive, I preferred to travel to book festivals and teach at workshops and meet writers where they are, etc. etc. But then, without that structure, everything fell apart. Suddenly, tasks that used to take me five minutes could actually take me five hours because I only had myself to answer to. I would hyper-focus on everything but what I needed to be doing. It was a really hard time for me because I had all of these things I wanted to do now that I finally had more time to do them, but ADHD had other plansâI constantly felt like I wasnât achieving what I knew I could because I had done it before.
I had to learn to forgive myself. This is how my brain works, and there are a lot of strengths to it (like if I remove distractions like the internet, I can hyper-focus for hours, Iâm a fantastic problem solver, and I thrive in chaosâall things that help me excel at my work). Learning to forgive yourself for not accomplishing all the things, whether you have a mental illness or not, is really important.
You also have to be hyper-aware of your strengths and weaknesses. What are things you know youâre just not good at? Can you pay someone else to do it? Is there an app you can download that can make that task easier? I delegate and outsource every detail-level thing that I can because Iâm horrible at details and Iâve finally accepted that thatâs okay. One person cannot do everything forever; itâs not sustainable.
And then you also have to say no. If you can afford to say no to something that doesnât really interest you / have a high payoff, do so. That is how you set boundaries. My health has become so much better ever since I started saying no to more things. Why? It gives me time to do other things, those things Iâve been saying forever Iâm going to make more time for (like French lessons and reading books for fun). Now, my evenings and weekends are for non-work things. I love my jobs theyâre still jobs.
Trust that youâre on the right path. Trust that you have the support systems you need and if you arenât or donât, dream and strategize towards those.
Ultimately, I am the happiest Iâve ever been and thatâs because I finally stopped focusing my whole life around my jobs, stopped caring what people who arenât paying my bills think, and started living my actual life.
EB: What else would you like our readers to know about you and/or your work?
PC:Â I have a website, Twitter, Instagram, and a newsletter. If you enjoyed this interview, definitely sign up for my newsletter (& check out past issues) as I always give creative life pep talks, share recipes and what books and tv shows Iâm loving. I think of my newsletter as a longer form version of my Twitter. My website is a pretty standard websiteâyou can find out more about my own books, my clients, events Iâm attending, etc. there. And my Instagram is slightly more personal, with pretty pictures of my face and my book haha, and I share daily/weekly updates about my writing there via IG stories.
And, of course, buy my book: https://patricecaldwell.com/a-phoenix-first-must-burn
Thank you so much for having me and for reading. Happy New Year!
Wellesley Writes It: Interview with Kwan Kew Lai â74 (@KwanKew), infectious disease physician & author of LEST WE FORGET: A DOCTORâS EXPERIENCE WITH LIFE AND DEATH DURING THE EBOLA OUTBREAK
Kwan Kew Lai â74, M.D., D.M.D., is an infectious disease specialist who has volunteered her medical services all over the world and the author of Lest We Forget: A Doctorâs Experience with Life and Death During the Ebola Outbreak. In 2004, after the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, she spent three weeks in India, caring for survivors. She soon left her position as a full-time Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine at UMass Memorial Medical Center and created a half-time position as a clinician, dedicating the other half of her time to humanitarian work.Â
Since 2005, Lai has volunteered as a mentor to health workers addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Vietnam, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Malawi and has provided earthquake relief in Haiti and Nepal, hurricane relief in the Philippines and drought and famine relief in Kenya and the Somalian border. She has also worked with refugees of the Democratic Republic of Congo and internally displaced people in Libya during the Arab Spring and South Sudan after the civil war and treated Ebola patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Most recently, she served as a medical volunteer in the Syrian refugee camps in mainland Greece and in Moria refugee camp on Lesvos, Greece for refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and the countries of the Sub-Saharan Africa and in the worldâs biggest refugee camps for the Rohingya in Coxâs Bazar, Bangladesh. Lai has blogged extensively about her experiences.
Originally from Penang, Malaysia, Lai came to the United States after receiving a scholarship to attend Wellesley, where she studied molecular biology. âWithout that open door I would not have gone on to become a doctor,â Lai wrote in her Doctors Without Borders bio.Â
Lai has received numerous awards for her work, which include being a three-time recipient of the Presidentâs Volunteer Service Award. In 2017, she was awarded Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award. In addition, Lai is the lead author of many publications and presentations. Her research has included HIV studies, infection control, hospital epidemiology, and antibiotic trials. She has served on many committees, task forces, and boards, including the Governorâs Advisory Board for the Elimination of Tuberculosis in Massachusetts. She is also an avid marathon runner and paints when she is inspired.
Wellesley Undergroundâs Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels â10, had the chance to converse with Lai via email about Lest We Forget and about her experiences at Wellesley and beyond. E.B. would also like to make note that Lai made time to answer these questions even while busy with her 45th Wellesley Reunion!Â
EB: How did Lest We Forget come about? What inspired you to write the book?
KKL: I first became aware of the Ebola outbreak in March of 2014, I began to follow it very closely. I read about Ebola when I was in my training as an infectious disease specialist. It is a deadly viral infection but it usually occurs in Africa and I knew that it would be unlikely for me to see a patient with this infection. In the summer of 2014 when WHO finally acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, the nightly TV images of people desperate to get into a hospital and bodies lying in the streets because they were too infectious to be touched, moved me. I knew I had to be in West Africa to volunteer.Â
I started blogging a few years ago when I went to volunteer to enable my family and close friends to keep abreast of my situation and so I did the same when I started volunteering in the Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU). Deeper into my volunteering I was very moved by the courage and resilience of the patients and the dedication and dogged determination of the people who worked alongside me and who risked their lives working in the frontline. After my first stint in West Africa, I was interviewed by NPR international health correspondent, Nurith Aizenman, about my experience and she had urged me to write a book. I had thought about that as well before she brought it up but I was too taken up into my second stint of Ebola volunteer by then. When I was in Sierra Leone doing my second Ebola volunteering, I was also contacted by an agency who wanted to represent me with either writing a book or making a documentary. However just before I left for Sierra Leone, I signed with my first agent about my book on Africa which is about my experiences as a volunteered doctor in HIV/AIDS and my work in the refugee camps. I did not feel it was ethically right to deal with another agency. Nevertheless, writing a book about Ebola became more urgent, I wanted to write this in honor and memory of the people afflicted by Ebola and the frontline bola fighters who put their lives on the line. It took me awhile for me to convince my agent to present my book on Ebola first before my book on Africa.Â
EB: Lest We Forget is a work of nonfiction and, not only that, a book about a very intense topic. What was challenging about writing about that subject? What kept you wanting to write the book, even if it was difficult? And how did you handle writing about people's personal experiences, especially when dealing with sensitive medical information?
KKL: Keeping a daily blog helped to lighten the burden of writing about the trauma of the people all at once. The blog became my fact book that I could go back to if I did forget an event or a person. As I stated before, the book was written as a tribute to the people I wanted to honor and remember, that helped the process a great deal. I changed the names of the people as much as I could to preserve confidentiality. Keeping a blog daily also provided me an emotional catharsis while volunteering in the ETU. I also wanted to rejoice with the people who recovered from this grave illness.
EB: Is Lest We Forget is your first book? What was challenging about writing it, and what was rewarding about the process?
KKL: No, it is not my first book. In February 2014, I signed with an agent for my Africa book which I had been writing for a couple of years before Lest We Forget, which is about my volunteering experiences in Africa. Before then I attempted to write a book, a sort of coming-of-age story for my children, this has not been presented to anyone. My years of writing on my own have taught me that I still have a lot of work on that book and it would have to go through many more draughts. Keeping a blog or diary helps with oneâs writing. Reading a lot and writing, both help with my writing.
I also learned a lot through trying to find an agent or publisher for my book, if there is no market for the topic of oneâs book, it will not likely to be accepted by either. My book on Africa, tentatively titled, Into Africa: A Journey from Academic Medicine to Bush Medicine has been accepted a few months ago for publication next year, I found a publisher without the help of my agent. It will now go through many months of work with the editors, etc. before the actual date of publication. I was told nine to fifteen months from May.Â
EB: What advice would you give to someone writing a book? Perhaps someone also writing a nonfiction book about an intense topic?
KKL: Writing and rewriting many times over. Keep a blog on your experiences, despite the intensity, you would be surprised how your mind works to block the painful parts of the experiences. If you have some willing readers, it may be helpful to let others read your draughts.
EB: In addition to your work as an infectious disease specialist, have you always enjoyed writing? Did you write at all before this book? Did you study writing while you were at Wellesley?
KKL: As a professor of medicine, I presented in national and international conferences, wrote and published many scientific papers, and a few medical essays. As foreign students, we were all required to take a course in English as second language during our first year, I did not find this very helpful but it was required. In my junior year, I took a writing course in which we were required to write and critique each otherâs writings. We met once a week at the professorâs home. I did not find this helpful either. It seemed quite subjective and I think it was an easy course for the professor who I think did not offer helpful advice on our writing. I find scientific writings tend to be precise, cut and dry, very different from creative writing and as my background is in science, I have a great deal to learn.
EB: How did your time at Wellesley influence you and your career path, if at all?
KKL: I was more influenced by what I read during my teenage years. Wellesley provided a safe and secure place for me to grow. Coming from an Asian background, we are not taught to seek guidance and friendship from the professors, they are often put on the pedestal to revere and not as someone you could seek advice, reveal your vulnerabilities, or share your ambitions with. In my later years, Iâm often jealous of Wellesley classmates who kept up friendship with their professors after they left college. My foreign student advisor at Wellesley advised me not to apply to medical schools because many excellent foreign students in the past did not get admitted and that I should apply to other allied health professions instead. I was accepted at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine after my junior year but I realized that Medicine was still my first love and after my dental degree I went back to medical school.
EB: Who at Wellesley made the biggest impact on you and your career? Faculty, staff, fellow students? Which particular individuals?
KKL: As I expressed above, I wished I was freer in finding advisors in my professors. Jeanette McPherrin, who became the Dean of Foreign Students during my last years at Wellesley, will always be remembered by me as a friend who kept up a correspondence with me until she passed. I found her to be non-judgmental, genuinely kind, and interested in all foreign students as individuals.Â
The biggest impact for me was when Wellesley College offered me a full scholarship, this gave me the opportunity to get an education and fulfil my ambition to be a doctor. I remember being inspired by Dr. Tom Dooley and Dr. Albert Schweitzer who went to underdeveloped countries to provide medical care and Wellesley Collegeâs motto of non ministrari sed ministare also spur me on to pay it forward.Â
EB: What else would you like our readers to know about you and/or your work?
KKL: I currently live in Belmont, MA and have three children. Last week, I received a letter from the Dean of my medical school that they have selected me to receive their Distinguished Alumnus Service Award in October 2019.
Thank you to EB Bartels â10 (@eb_bartels) for this monthâs submission!
Malina Dumas is definitely the most badass lawyer in the state of Maine, perhaps in all of New England, maybe even in the entire United States of America, and possibly the whole world?!Â
Malina graduated with her J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law in spring 2018, and passed the Maine bar exam in the fall to become a 100% official real lawyer. (Her swearing in ceremony was on October 12, 2018!) That by itself is pretty impressive, but Malina is more than pretty impressive. She is outright amazing. During her time in law school, Malina chose to focus on legal issues that impact Indigenous groups in the U.S. and Canada, particularly in the Arctic region. She was a Hazleton Fellow at the University of Washington, assisting with researching and drafting the 2016 and 2017 Arctic Law and Policy Year and Review, plus she worked on the Washington International Law Review. Malina was a summer law clerk at the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, she was an Arctic Fellow in the International Policy Institute at the Jackson School, and she also volunteered with the Refugee Assistance Program. She speaks English, Russian, German, French, Romanian, and, in law school, she got a grant to study Inuktitut. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE ELSE WHO SPEAKS INUKTITUT???? Oh, and, casual, she also has a Masters from Georgetown in Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies, she did a Fulbright in Moldova, and she was an Albright Institute Fellow. NO BIG DEAL.
So, clearly Malina's LinkedIn profile is out of control, and I feel smarter by my association with her alone (we were two of three Russian language and literature majors in the class of 2010 -- shout out to Joan Buck who was number three!) but more than that, in addition to all her crazy impressive credentials and the fact that she is super smart (did you SEE how many languages she speaks???), Malina is kind, extraordinarily empathetic, and has an unwavering sense of right and wrong. She uses her skills to help marginalized groups and people in need. She truly embodies the Wellesley motto Non Ministrari sed Ministrare.Â
 In summary: Malina better be Secretary of State one day.Â
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In my first Wellesley Writes It interview of 2020, I emailed with Patrice Caldwell â15 â literary agent, writer, founder of People of Color in Publishing, and editor of the anthology A Phoenix First Must Burn. Hereâs the beginning of the interview:
Patrice Caldwell â15 is the founder & fundraising chair of People of Color in Publishing â a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting,âŚ
Wellesley Writes It: Interview with Dr. Crystal M. Fleming â04 (@alwaystheself ) on her new book, HOW TO BE LESS STUPID ABOUT RACE
Crystal Marie Fleming, PhD, is a writer and sociologist who researches racism in the United States and abroad. She earned degrees from Wellesley College and Harvard University and is associate professor of sociology and Africana studies at Stony Brook University. Fleming writes about race, sexuality, and politics for publications including The Root, Black Agenda Report, Vox, and Everyday Feminism, among others, and she has tens of thousands of followers on social media. She is the author of Resurrecting Slavery: Racial Legacies and White Supremacy in France, which was published by Temple University Press in 2017, and How To Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide, which was published this past fall by Beacon Press. Dr. Fleming is also writing a childrenâs book Rise Up! How You Can Join the Fight Against Racism, to be published by Henry Holt in fall 2020.
Wellesley Underground Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Shelly Anand, and Wellesley Undergroundâs Wellesley Writes It Series Editor, E.B. Bartels, had the opportunity to speak with Crystal about her new book, her evolving education around race and racism at Wellesley and Harvard, and her thoughts on the state of race and racism in the U.S., France, and the world.
Crystal: Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my book and to feature it on Wellesley Underground.
Shelly: We saw people talking about it on Twitter and both E.B. and I had a chance to read it over the holidays.
Crystal: Thank you for reading it!
E.B.: Of course! I am always excited to read a book by a fellow Wellesley alum.
Shelly: We were both interested in hearing about your process for how this book came about and when you realized that you wanted to write it. How did you make this book become a reality? What sparked the idea of I need to write a book about how people need to be less stupid about race?
Crystal: The short version is after the 2016 election I was feeling a lot of things: disbelief, despair, and anger, but also really motivated to write a book for the general public. My first book, Resurrecting Slavery, was an academic book, which was based on my dissertation. That came out in 2017. And while I was really happy with that professional milestone, I didnât want to restrict my writing to a small group of academic specialists. So, I wanted to write something for a broader audience but I wasnât sure what it was going to be. Then, finally, the idea for How to Be Less Stupid About Race crystallized in the aftermath of the 2016 election. As you can tell from the title, it was really about me being fed up with a lot of the racial ignorance I saw across the political spectrum. After I came up with the title and the pitch, I found a literary agent (Michael Bourret of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret), wrote a chapter that spring, and then really completed the bulk of the writing between summer 2017 and early 2018.
Shelly: E.B. and I loved the bookâs blend of your personal experiences, pop cultural references, and citations to academic works in sociology and critical race theory. How did you find the balance in what voice to use, as both an academic and a younger black woman on social media?
Crystal: Thatâs a good question. Â I would say that blogging and social media really helped me bring together the academic topics with language that could, hopefully, reach more people. Iâve spent a lot of time learning how to write clearly about my scholarly work and interests on social media, where millions of people have read my writing over the years. I wanted to write beyond an academic context so my blog was a space for me to reactivate my creative writing and to share some of my thinking in public and that was very different from strictly academic manuscripts. Once I started writing on my blog, and then eventually on Twitter, I developed a new way of distilling and explaining really complex ideas.
The great thing with social media is that people will tell you what they think about what you are writing. Sometimes folks will ask you: âWhat do you mean by that?â That helps with that distilling and clarifying. I started getting feedback from people and what I found was that a lot of people understood what I was saying, which was pretty reassuring.
Academics usually donât receive any special training for writing in an accessible manner, so it took me a long time to develop that skill and find my own voice. Â I really wish graduate schools and doctoral programs included more opportunities to learn to write clearly so that academics can broaden our teaching and impact, but instead we typically learn to write with a lot of jargon.
E.B.: Shelly and I also were hoping you could talk more about your academic work, before you started writing for a broader audience.
Shelly: Yeah, we were both also really interested in your dissertation and your research on white supremacy in France.
Crystal: Really?
Shelly: Yes! Iâve been to Europe and have experienced racism there as a brown woman. In France, people have always assumed that I am of North African descent. When I was reading Ta-Nehisi Coatesâs book, Between the World and Me, and read all his glowing passages about the âlack of racismâ in France, I got really annoyed.
Crystal: Me too!
Shelly: Coates didnât touch on what Algerian French, Moroccan French folks have gone through. What Muslim French have gone through.
Crystal: Or black French people, right?
Shelly: Right, absolutely. You touched on this topic in your book a bit, but we wanted to hear your thoughts about this widely lauded writer, particularly on topics of race, glossing over the black French experience in his book.
Crystal: I found that part of Coatesâs book annoying as well, but also pretty typical. I also understand it as a genre of African-American expat writing that fits well into the narrative white French people want to tell about their country. Coates is far from the first first black American writer to go to France or some European country and feel that they are experiencing some personal liberation from U.S.-style racism. Thatâs a long history.
Shelly: Yes, he definitely adopted from Baldwin. That was another question I had.
Crystal: Baldwin though was more sophisticated in many ways in terms of his racial analysis and his analysis of racism in France. I donât agree with everything he says about racism in France. One of the things he said that was that the Arab or North African is âthe n****r of France,â which is problematic because it erases black French people and Franceâs history of enslaving Africans and their descendants and building the worldâs largest plantation economy and what would later become Haiti. But, nevertheless, Baldwin did have analysis of French racism. I know that Ta-Nehisi Coates has some awareness of it, but, in his book, I didnât see any rigorous engagement with the work and experience of French people of color or prominent black French writers, for example, with Franz Fanon, to just name one black French intellectual, activist, and anti-imperialist who has been widely ignored in France but is well known in Francophone studies outside of France. So I was disappointed, but I was not surprised. Itâs part of a long tradition. Itâs understandable for me, but itâs lamentable, this tradition of black U.S. citizens myopically focusing on how well they are being treated and not paying attention to the racialized minorities, most of whom are there in Europe  because of a colonial and racist relationship.
E.B.: So, while we are criticizing Coates, another critique of Between the World and Me is that he was writing it for a white liberal audience. I know a lot of black people who have read his book felt like he wasnât writing anything new, and clearly he was pandering to and writing for this white liberal crowd. You said that with your newest book you were trying to write for the general public, but who was the intended audience of your book?
Crystal: Thatâs a great question, thank you. I wanted to shift from a strictly academic audience to a broader audience to help educate and inspire people to mobilize against racism. But the way that I write, the tone that I take, the nature of my critique, the fact that I am wig-snatching people across the political spectrum, I thought, Wow, I am going to alienate a lot of people. I have no idea what kind of reader is going to be ready for this. I wanted to write the book for myself first and foremost, and I wanted to express what I had to say about racism and white supremacy and what I know about the topic from studying it in a way that was authentic to my style and that was reflective of my values and knowledge. I wanted to be uncompromising in that. But I also knew because my style includes occasional cursing and sentiments like fuck the New York Times, all of that presents a certain kind of challenge in figuring out who your readership is going to be. Although I wasnât exactly sure what kind of reader could roll with my punches, I had some reason to believe there was an audience for this book. One was my community of enthusiastic readers on social media. Having tens of thousands of followers, as well as millions of readers, engaging and supporting my writing has been very powerful for me as an author. And I also had a lot of brilliant academic colleagues, scholars and experts on race and racism, who encouraged me to write the book and told me it was necessary. My girlfriend also encouraged me throughout the process, when I worried about how the book would land with audiences. To tell the truth, Iâve pleasantly surprisedââthroughout the book tour, and seeing people react to the book onlineââthat it has indeed resonated with quite a few people. And that has been surprising to me, because I didnât know who those people would be and I was sort of hoping they would exist! The response has been incredibly positive. The book has only been out a few months and itâs already sold thousands of copies!
To answer your question: It was not my intention to write to only a white liberal audience. The book explores my own reflexivity and my own difficulties dealing with and understanding these issues as a black woman, so my imagined audience included people like me: black folks and people of color, because we have a learning process, too. As I say in the book, no one is born woke, and no one is except from internalization of racial ignorance. We all have work to do. And for those reasons, I didnât want to just write this for white people.
E.B.: Thanks for explaining that, Crystal. I always feel like you can tell the best writing is when the writer is writing for themselves, and people who get it, will get it.
Crystal: Itâs tough though! Part of me wants to find the widest possible readership. Everyone wants to have a bestselling book, of course. But, ultimately, I am committed to saying what I have to say and in the way I need to say it. If you can hang with me and engage with what I have to share, thatâs great. If not, it is what it is. Iâm not religious, but I did grow up in a Pentecostal church, so, to paraphrase Jesus: âWhoever has ears to hear me, let them hear.â Whatâs really paramount is knowing that I have my integrity, which for any writer or artist or creative is really the most important thing.
Shelly: You were very self-reflective in your book about on your education in critical race theory. We were wondering about your education at Wellesley. You talked about coming into your own in terms of critical race theory in your 30s, ten years after your graduation from Wellesley. So how did your education at Wellesley start or not start that process for you? And what should Wellesley be doing to help students learn about these issues sooner rather than a decade after graduating?
Crystal: My time at Wellesley laid the foundation in very important ways, for my understanding critical race theory years down the line. When I write and speak about my education, I often say some pretty critical things about my experience at Harvard. Comparatively, I have much fonder memories about my undergrad education, though I canât say I was particularly happy socially at Wellesley. But I learned about systemic racism for the first time at a sociology class at Wellesley and that was  life changing for me.  I took a course on African-American Sociology with Professor (emeritus) Judith Rollins, a black woman sociologist, and the course introduced me to the works of W.E.B. Dubois and other black sociologists and critical thinkers. At the time, I did not have the historical and political literacy to understand the significance of  all that work at the time, but it was an opening for me and it paved the way for me to eventually deepen my knowledge of race, racism, and white supremacy. For example, we had to read to read a book in Dr. Rollinsâs class entitled The Death of White Sociology, an anthology that came out in the â70s and, it appeared to me, I was twenty-one at the time, to be a super radical text. I didnât understand why black sociologists had to write a book challenging âwhite sociologyâ. I didnât realize the extent to which white scholars imposed their epistemological frames and practices to the exclusion and marginalization of black people and people of color. It would really take me a number of years to really  understand what occurred in the United States in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. It was an era where it became increasingly difficult to discuss white supremacy because of the rise of empty rhetoric around diversity and inclusion, the myth that we have already arrived in post-racial america. As I learned much later, this was exactly the problem that critical race theorists were dealing with when the legal system and political culture pretends to be color blind.
The Death of White Sociology is really not taught widely outside of Black Studies and African-American Sociology courses that very few people take in school. I am one of just a handful of professional sociologist who have taken a course like that because it is not required. So indeed, Wellesley really laid the foundation and opened my eyes.
What can Wellesley do to improve? That is really good question as I imagine the context has changed somewhat since I graduated in 2004. I am not sure what courses are being taught now in Africana Studies and Sociology. Weâd also need to know more about what the institution is currently doing to meet the needs of students and faculty of color. They can always do things to diversify, not just the faculty but also the administration. We can see that now with President Johnson, but frankly, it shouldnât have taken so many years for us to have an African-American president. But diversity is not enough. We also need to make sure  our institutions, our educational institutions included,  are centering perspectives of people of color. It is not always a guarantee that just because you have brown black faces that you have radically different pedagogy, curriculum and institutional practices. This is all ongoing work.
E.B.: Great points. Thank you.
Shelly: There were two things I wanted to ask for our Wellesley Underground readership. I really appreciated your discussion of being a woke black woman in a biracial relationship. I know there are a number of alums, myself included, who are folks of color and are in social justice and racial justice circles and are partnered with white folks. I know personally people who are surprised when they learn that my husband is white. What advice do you have for people when they encounter that? And my other question is for people who are dating: what are the signs that you would look for in a white partner, that this person shares the same values as you? I know for me one moment was when I was in a mostly white space with my now-husband and a white person referred to another white person using the n-word and my husband called out that person. I was like ok I can be with this guy.
Crystal: Did this happen this during the trial period [of your relationship]?
Shelly: Yes we were still dating. We were at this party and a white woman called out to her friend hey my n-word and my husband was like woah woah woah you donât get to say that! The woman said, havenât you ever heard of reappropriating? And my now-husband said, you donât get to reappropriate shit!
Crystal: So she was appropriating reappropriating?! Oh my god!
Shelly: After that, I realized that I could be with this guy. I didnât need to do anything. So my questions kind of dovetails into two areas: dating white folx but also how white folks need to call out other white folks, both of which are topics you address in your book.
Crystal: Well, first, I definitely identify with people acting surprised when they learn you are in an interracial relationship. I was recently on C-SPAN and some ignorant woman called in to say your message is that you are hating on white people and I want to know what you think about interracial relationships, I would guess that you would hate that kind of thing. I told her I had a whole chapter of my book just for her--the chapter on interracial intimacy and love, where I actually discuss being in an interracial and interethnic relationship and share scholarship on the subject as well. There are people who have a really warped, racist understanding of anti-racist activism, who assume that people of color who want racial justice and human rights hate white people. Itâs a deeply racist perspective and a typical racist trope. Itâs absurd, offensive and it is gas-lighting. But you know, itâs also not particularly surprising, because racist whites accused peace-loving Martin Luther King of being a hateful terrorist. The FBI treated him like an enemy of the state. So we have to be mindful of that. I also think thereâs a general problem, that your question is getting at, about white people being unaccustomed to calling out white racism. So when whites who are used to ignoring and tolerating racism encounter a black person or a person of color who opposes racism, many assume that person hates them personally. Itâs a sad commentary on the poverty of their understanding of loveââwhich seems to require keeping quiet about oppression. People with good sense and a functioning moral compass understand that being anti-white supremacy is not the same thing as being âanti-whiteâ.
Shelly: I go through this with my children who are biracialââpeople say, how can you talk about white people when your children are half white? When I talk about white people, Iâm not talking about specific individuals, I am talking about a system. And when white people get defensive, I always say, donât make it about you.
Crystal: Very few people would ask women who partner with men, well, if you are dating a man, how can you talk about sexism? How can you talk about gender inequality if you are dating a man? Since when does forming a relationship with a member of a majority group mean that you canât address power dynamics and critique the behavior of the majority group?
In terms of things to look out for when you are dating, I mean, I think itâs important to assess whether the people you let into your life have a moral and political commitment to standing up against all forms of injustice, including racism. There are very obvious things, right? Does the person you are dating or partnered with make racist comments? I mean, if they do, and you keep dating them, what does that say about you? I mean, thatâs a pretty low bar. I recommend a higher standard. What are they actively doing to build a better, more just society? What are they doing to learn more about the experiences of marginalized groups? How willing are they are be self-reflective and check their own privilege? What are they doing to address discriminatory policies and practices in their community or workplace? How do they handle uncomfortable conversations about race, gender and other forms of difference? If they arenât even willing to have the conversation, then what are you doing with this person?
Shelly: That is really good advice. I always tell my friends who are dating that they need to bring up something [about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.] so they know what this person is about.
Crystal: Exactly. You need to know someoneâs politics. You donât want to waste time dating  someone who is a committed racist or a transphobe. Thatâs pretty bad. At the same time, you know, I think we all have blind spots and problematic politics. Weâre all learning. So being willing to get called out by--and learn from--the people we love and the people who love us is critically important.
Shelly: But POC are often burdened with having to be the person to bring up these issues, talk about these issues, explain these issues, in addition to experiencing daily micro- and macro-aggressions. So what are some self-care things that you do for yourself, and self-care tips you would recommend to POC, especially women of color?
Crystal: Self-care and community care is such a complicated conversation because it has to do with resources. My access to resources has changed over time. I remember what it was like trying to practice âself-careâ when I was broke, and itâs a challenge. Of course, over the years, Iâve progressed in my career, and now have access to the more resources. But when recommending self-care we have to remember that we donât all have the same access. Thatâs important to acknowledge, and the self-care conversation can get really annoying when that is not addressed. Therapy, for example, is a really important part of self-care, and I am grateful to have excellent insurance that allows me to access that, but not everyone does. Another part of my self-care is making time for my spiritual practice, which includes mindfulness and meditation. And also making time for fun and pleasure! I love to laugh. When some people read my book they may be surprised to find humor woven into a very painful and serious topic, but thatâs because of the kind of person I am. I use humor constantly, my partner and I crack each other up every day, and taking time to laugh is really part of my self-care. I also love really good massages. I get a massage as often as I can afford.
Shelly: Thatâs actually what I am off to do right now!
Crystal: Good!
E.B.: Now I want to schedule a massage.
Shelly: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, Crystal!
If you enjoyed this conversation with Dr. Fleming and you live in the Boston area, be sure to come to her talk at Framingham State University at 4:30pm on Monday, February 4, 2019! E.B. will be there!
