Black Women Writing Autobiography

Black Women Writing

Autobiography

Autobiography in Multicultural Education

Meta Y. Harris

Autobiographical Introduction

As a young Black woman coming of age and living in the Deep South during

the civil rights movement, I had a deep concern for how Black people were

perceived and judged, especially by people who knew nothing about us. My

experiences during that time period fostered my fascination with writing auto-

biography. Historically, Black Americans have commonly employed the genre

of autobiography to tell their stories (Harris, 2003). It was originally a means

of appealing to White society for acceptance as human beings.

I find that writing autobiography gives me the opportunity not only to

explore my history from a personal perspective, relative to the political hap-

penings of the times, local happenings, Black community events, academic

experiences, and other occurrences that somehow impinge on my life, but also

to revisit those times from a “removed” perspective. I am able to visit my life

as an “other.” I also examine my autobiographical writings in light of the many

ways I identify myself. The impact of these facts also affects how I respond to

my life events today, not only in my personal interactions but also in my inter-

actions as an educator, with my colleagues, and with my students. Certainly

each teacher’s identity and understanding thereof also impact his or her inter-

actions with his or her colleagues and their students, depending on the back-

grounds and the identities of those colleagues and students.

Autobiography can also be a means to share one’s history and culture

with others. The production of autobiography opens avenues for individuals to

examine how the things their parents taught them, their formal education, and

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Black Women Writing Autobiography—37

cultural and life experiences all impact who they are and how they perceive,

react to, and interact with others. The sharing of insights gained from writing

autobiography allows others to have a better understanding of the writer.

Autobiography is therefore a valuable tool in multicultural education, where

students and teachers both desire to learn about each other.

This chapter specifically examines Black women writing autobiography

and how the use of autobiography writing by teachers as well as students can

be employed in multicultural education to develop better interactions between

the teachers and students and between diverse students in the classroom.

Although this chapter is primarily based on research related to the autobio-

graphical writings of Black women, this research is transferable and useful in

the application of autobiographical writing in multicultural educational and in

other multicultural settings.

Why Use Autobiography in Multicultural Education?

When I enter a new class of students, I always begin by introducing myself and

asking them to tell the class and me about themselves. My effort in this exer-

cise is to get the students to think about their classmates and to consider and

realize that there are different cultural perspectives. As time passes in the con-

duct of the class, I provide the opportunity for the students to share more and

more of themselves and their experiences that are relevant to how they perceive

the concepts we are studying. I find this to be effective in getting the students

to open up to each other and to me in the classroom, and I have discovered that

it fosters more camaraderie among the students.

Autobiography by Black people in America, as indicated previously, origi-

nally took the form of slave narratives, produced to show White people that

slaves were indeed human beings, with all the same human qualities attributed

to White people. Slave narratives were written also to appeal to the mercy of their

White readers. These narratives would eventually be useful beyond that, how-

ever, to help uncertain Black people, generations later, define their identities from

the life stories of former slaves. The slave narratives would give 20th century

Black Americans brief encounters with their past in the words of their ancestors.

Despite the fact that most Black people during slave-era America could

not read or write, or even had the time or freedom to think in terms of “self-

identity,” the importance of the slave narratives to the lives of 20th and 21st

century Black Americans cannot be overestimated. The descriptions of Black

women were particularly negative in the early literature about Black people,

often presenting them as fat and doting mammies or as seductive temptresses

and Jezebels, seducing and conquering with sex (Christian, 1985; Fox-Genovese,

1988). Still other stereotypical images of Black women include the submissive,

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unattractive, cooking-and-cleaning Aunt Jemima and the manipulative,

controlling “Superwoman” (Bracks, 1998). The only way these images can be

changed is for Black women to do it themselves, by writing their own stories

about their lives (Christian, 1985; Harris, 2003). This simple act of penning

one’s own stories is a way for Black women to create their own identities, rather

than those formerly created and promoted by White authors, filmmakers,

television producers, and other Whites with access to the media (Coltrane &

Messineo, 2000; Gray, 1989).

It has become necessary, for many reasons, for Black women to dispose of

these exaggerated, negative, and false images of themselves and to create their

own self-images. One major reason is that the previous sources of these images

were unreliable and based their constructions on stereotypical, prejudiced,

and distorted representations and ideologies. This is particularly troublesome

because, generally, society in America bases its interactions with, and opinions

of, Black women and men on those false stereotypical images. The need to

challenge and reinvent the images of Black people and other people of color,

and particularly women of color, has lead to the establishment of autobiogra-

phy as an important primary way of creating new images and encountering old

images in multicultural classrooms. The redefinition of the self through the

writing of autobiography places power into the hands of the writer to define

who she is and to share her self-identity with the readers. This is the initiation

of the changing of global societal views of Black women.

The Autobiographical Process

Aside from the fact that previous sources were unreliable, another major rea-

son for destroying these historically negative images is that they have resulted

in Black women being neglected or treated as inferiors in American society.

This has impacted how Black women perceive themselves, as well as how they

interact with others. There is a need for Black women to write their lives, as

much for the correcting of the history of their lives as for the personal benefits

they gain from engaging in the process of developing autobiography. The auto-

biographical process permits the writer to think deeply about her life and to

develop a positive self-identity. The creation of autobiography is, in these ways,

a therapeutic process that is useful to all who write their lives.

When I first wrote my autobiography for sharing in a classroom setting,

I was able to express my anger against the “boxes” to which I was confined by

society, especially by people who knew nothing about me. It gave me an oppor-

tunity to vent my feelings. The descriptions and images that were identified

with me simply because I am a Black woman impinged on my self-esteem, self-

concept, and ultimately my self-identity. This came out in my autobiographical

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writings. It was depressing, and it impacted all aspects of my life, but, in my

writing, I was able to let go of some of the animosity that was keeping me from

moving away from the unwarranted depictions that held me in a place that did

not reflect who I really am.

Very often when I read the autobiographical writings of other Black

women I am enthralled by their stories. I realize, however, that audiences who

know no better may think that the story of one Black woman is the story of all

or most Black women, including my story. This disturbs me because the con-

tinuing implication is the old, worn-out cliché that “all Black people are alike.”

Although Black people are still judged as a group, we are not all the same, or

even nearly so, and I see that the sharing of my story will add to the literature

on Black people, and especially to that of Black women.

One of the things I consider it most important to do in my autobiography

is to acknowledge my love and pride in Black people globally. However, I also

find it necessary to inform readers that I am a Black American, not an African,

and cannot claim any particular African heritage, as I have never traced my lin-

eage. The act of tracing my ancestry beyond my great grandparents would be

most difficult because of the rape of Black women by White men both during

and after slavery, the absence of records documenting the family lineage of

Black people in the South, and other circumstances that grossly impact the

accuracy of such an effort. I also add in my writing that I know definitively that

I am not pure anything and that my heritage is most certainly as mixed as it can

possibly be, considering that I am definitely a descendent of slaves.

Until recently, self-ethnographic writing was considered suspect and

largely ignored by the academic community because it was considered to be

too personal and subjective to be of any real value in the world of scholarly

research. Now, however, the self-ethnographic research tool is considered to be

a primary resource for the scholarly investigation of peoples and cultures

(Cobham & Collins, 1987; Stanley, 1993), which is why autobiography is an

excellent tool for the study and discovery of other cultures.

Black women are beginning to experience the documentation of their lives as

an important way to utilize their experiences and knowledge, for the expansion of

their knowledge of self and others (Davies, 1999), as well as for sharing this self-

discovery device with others. At the same time, the self-ethnographic process is a

form of self-reflexivity that is at the core of methodological principles, “not in

terms of self-absorption, but rather in order to use the interrelationships between

researcher and other to inform and change social knowledge” (p. 3). This self-

reflexivity is a turning back on oneself, a process of self-reference (Davies, 1999)

in which the writer considers deeply the content of her writing with the intent

of answering questions that she has about her own life story and of anticipat-

ing the questions that readers might have. The following brief excerpt from my

autobiography illustrates this point:

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Before I started school at six years old, I had experienced riding in the back of the

city buses, and sitting in front with my aunt or my mother when they were taking

the White children in their care some place. I realised that I was Black and lived in

a society where the White majority hated me because of the colour of my skin, that

my family was poor, and that I would have to work like mad to get myself out of

poverty. I think that I must have started working hard from the day I realised these

things, and I’ve been working hard ever since, to rise above the racism in America.

This was not the way childhood should have been and it made for some pretty

tough kids. Some of us would survive the marginalisation, while others would

surely perish. Many of us have perished. (Harris, 2003, pp. 122–123)

Although autobiography as ethnographic research has been criticized as a

self-indulgent and narcissistic literary genre (Davies, 1999), wherein a linear

and goal-oriented description of the individual achievements of a significant

person, usually a White man, is given, the autobiographies of these men are usu-

ally widely accepted and highly respected documents. By the same token, the

autobiographical writings of the nonfamous—women, and especially Black

women—are usually criticized and afforded very little purposeful relevance (see

Butterfield, 1974).

The writing of these autobiographies as self-ethnographic,

cultural, and self-reflexive processes can offer the implementation of a new and

different approach to both the interrogation of the personal experiences of

Black women and the exchange of cultural knowledge in multicultural educa-

tional settings and in other settings.

The Parameters of Autobiography

Autobiography theorists and analysts have only recently begun to consider the

importance of Black women’s autobiographies in any scenario (Jelinek, 1980).

Thus, the relevance of this genre in the multicultural educational setting is in

dire need of significant scholarly research and further interrogation and exam-

ination. Aside from recognition of the importance of Black women’s autobi-

ographies, the past several years have seen considerable debate among theorists

about the definition of autobiography. Stanley describes it as “ideological

accounts of ‘lives,’ which in turn feed back into everyday understandings of

how ‘common lives’ and ‘extraordinary lives’ can be recognised” (1992, p. 3).

According to Stanley, the writer essentially tells the reader the story that she

wants them to have and writes with that purpose, and not from the perspective

of simply revealing her story to the world. Bearing this in mind, the autobiog-

raphy writer may or may not decide to write a “true” story. That is, the writer

may decide to present her story using fictional details and characters that for

her may more fully convey the important themes of her life.

Autobiography is a genre of writing that is encompassed in the term

auto/biography, which has over the past decade become representative of the

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many ways an individual can tell her life story (Stanley, 1992). Auto/biography

includes fictional writing as well as “biography, autobiography, diaries, letters,

social science productions, and uses of written lives or all forms of life writing

and also the ontological and epistemological links between them” (p. 3).

The practice of auto/biography involves the compilation of the history of a life,

as perceived in memory and depicted by the person who lives or lived it

(Harris, 2003).

Comprehensive auto/biography includes information from interviews

with the writer (Smith, 1954), the words of acquaintances of the writer, any

written documentation about the life of the writer, spoken communications,

video and photographic data, fictive literary devices, and even other writing

genres such as memoirs, diaries, journals, poetry, and novels based on the life

of the person being documented (Stanley, 1992; Stein, 1933/1971, 1937/1985.

See also Emecheta, 1972/1994, 1974; Jabavu, 1963). This opens incredible vis-

tas for the creation of auto/biography and for increased accessibility to people

wanting to create auto/biography. It also allows the opportunity for making

life stories and life choices more understandable, both to those creating the

auto/biography and to those reading and observing these auto/biographies.

This interpretation of auto/biography is empowering to those who want to

exercise the right to determine their self-identities and how their life stories

will ultimately be told.

Initially, autobiographies such as the slave narratives were historical trea-

tises that documented the lives of the people associated with the writer, as well

as the life of the writer. Black writers of autobiography were especially rooted

in this historical format and often left out any information that might be a clue

to the reader about the writer’s personal life. They wrote strictly about the

general lifestyles of their time and place (Prince, 1831/1993, 1856/1990; Truth,

1850/1968) or about their professional accomplishments or their travels

(Seacole, 1857/1988). More personal works came out of the religious testimo-

nials of the times. Recently, Black women have started writing more personal

autobiographies that pay attention to the personal details of their lives, such as

how they handle different kinds of relationship situations, family issues, finan-

cial problems, and personal events that could affect their acceptance in their

communities (Harris, 2003), their workplaces, and society in general.

Black women are expected to focus their autobiographical writing on

political issues instead of personal lifestyle issues (Smith, 1984), which is some-

times problematic for them. Sometimes Black women want to tell their stories

from personal perspectives. Although political issues are important, there is a

great deal of knowledge to be garnered from the autobiographical writings that

depict personal lifestyle issues as well. This is not saying that it is necessary to

omit the political aspects of the writer’s life, but rather it is necessary to iterate

the importance of other aspects of life. The discussion of personal lifestyle

issues can undoubtedly reveal how the writer copes with everyday hardships

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that rarely, if ever, come up when autobiography is written from a primarily

political or historical perspective.

When writing my autobiography I found it difficult to write from a strictly

personal perspective, because it was just as important for me to write about

political issues that were happening at certain times in my life that also affected

me personally. I could not have written my autobiography without writing

about the civil rights movement or about moving from the segregated South to

the home of my White foster parents in the northeast. I therefore intertwined

the two perspectives to tell what I feel is a comprehensive story.

Although I have written quite openly about particular issues that I consider

personal to me, I have been reluctant to write explicitly about my sex life

and intimate relationships. Those experiences and relationships have deeply

impacted the quality of my life and have made the difference in many of the

decisions I have made in my life. My reluctance to make them a part of my auto-

biographical record comes from the exposure that writing and publishing

would give to these personal aspects of my life. It also comes from my attempts

at exercising discretion and my desire to protect myself and others from unwel-

come scrutiny by unknown readers who might not have my best interest in

mind when scrutinizing me closely, from my own revelations.

In my close reading and analysis of the majority of the autobiographical

writings in this research, I found that the authors often do not give their physi-

cal descriptions to the reader. Many Black women writers, including myself,

give more details of surroundings when describing events than they give of self-

descriptions. The reader will rarely find information in these autobiographies

such as height, weight, face or body descriptions, or other indicators of appear-

ance. Self-descriptions are strong indicators of the writer’s self-esteem and self-

identity and are important pieces of information for the reader in developing

accurate perceptions of the autobiography writer. This is true for me as well. I

do not describe my perceptions of my physical attributes or what I feel about

how I look. I do, however, include photos of myself and of my family.

Many Black women writers of autobiography are now including more

personal photographs in their books, in lieu of the previously absent, written

descriptions of their physical appearances. The avoidance of physical descrip-

tions also points to the deeply personal nature of autobiography. Most Black

women autobiography writers are reluctant to reveal information that their

families or communities might consider to be too personal and an invasion of

the privacy of the writer or the privacy of others who might be mentioned in

the autobiography. Ultimately, the inclusion of personal information in auto-

biography presents a more rounded and complete picture of who the person

really is, even though it may leave the writer open to attack from the reader:

Bracks suggests that when producing autobiography, the author must be open to

the revelation of things that are usually kept secret, and that may even be so buried

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that they are nearly completely forgotten. However, the choice to fully reveal

themselves and admit their vulnerabilities to an openly hostile world requires lack

of shame, as well as pride in who they are. (Harris, 2003, p. 56)

Some Black women theorists believe that the writing of autobiography is

a way of creating self and community (Harris, 2003; Kolawole, 1997), as much

as of sharing it. The creation of self and community are as much sociological

explorations of the writer’s environment as an examination of the individual’s

life. It is also accepted by feminist theorists that the social and individual are

symbiotically linked (Davies, 1999; Stanley, 1993), therefore making the use of

autobiography as ethnographic social research acceptable as a reflection of the

communal values informing the writer’s unconscious as expressed in the auto-

biographical writings (Harris, 2003). The Black woman who writes autobiog-

raphy thus becomes a historian of her Black community.

Black Women Sharing Their

Lives in Multicultural Settings

My autobiographical writing expresses my perception that certain things,

both positive and negative, that happened in my Black community affected

my self-identity as much as the positive and negative things that I encoun-

tered outside that community. Certainly, the fact that I am a child of the

civil rights era significantly impacted my identity. My writing reflects those

themes most important to me—equality for Black people and my self-

identity, gender, personal challenges, and family issues. I think, write, and

speak from as the perspective of a Black woman living in a significantly racist

society, where the majority of the people have some sort of bigotry toward

Black women.

Sometimes, people who are familiar with me and who have read my auto-

biography will express to me that our memories of the same events are slightly

or even grossly different. This is one of the reasons why autobiography is some-

times considered to be unreliable for research purposes. It is usually based

entirely on memory, which is always subjective, and more often than not, on

faulty memories. Autobiography is nonetheless a useful tool for learning the

attitudes and beliefs of the writer and can provide a wealth of information

about his or her culture and environment.

The sharing of autobiographical information with my students, and

between the students, has positively affected the dynamics in my classrooms.

When the students learn about their teacher, and about each other, and per-

ceive that they can trust their environment, they become more open to partic-

ipating in class and to sharing and learning. In a recent sociology class that I

taught, there was a Gullah

student from South Carolina, who expressed to

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me that she was often not comfortable in her classes because she spoke

in a different dialect from the other students, both Black and White. At the

beginning of the class I had the students introduce themselves, as I always do,

and because many of the students had been in my classes in the past, they were

very open and spoke about their lives and goals quite easily. When the Gullah

student heard the stories of the other students, she decided that she would be

comfortable speaking in this environment and felt that she could tell her class-

mates about her discomfort in expressing herself in class. She was well received

by the other students and became one of the most outspoken students in the

class. This initial self-revealing act of sharing autobiographical information

made a significant difference in how this young woman was able to become a

viable part of the class and in how her peers were able to accept her and show

her the respect she needed, so that she was able to freely and willingly partici-

pate in class discussions.

Readers’ and listeners’ reactions to personal autobiographies often prevent

Black women from revealing important personal and cultural information.

This almost always happens in the classroom as well. The concern with reader

responses calls attention to the fact that the readers impact the interpretation

of the autobiography, based on the readers’ cultural backgrounds, personal

idiosyncrasies, and other factors, such as geographic location. Therefore, it is

important that the readers (or consumers) of the autobiographical products

engage with the stories from culturally sensitive positions. This means that the

reader has to be willing to hear what the writer is saying, without prejudging

the writer’s perspective.

The reader has the responsibility of giving the writer the opportunity to be

heard, to be safe to write, and to speak freely. The reader should engage with

the autobiography with an open mind rather than an overly critical attitude,

paying attention to whether, and how, the writer moves from a childlike posi-

tion to one of empowerment, this is a more appropriate critique of the life

story than for the reader to engage with the work with the attitude that he or

she is going to try to find holes in the story and to figure out whether or not

the writer is being truthful. An effort to find the message in the text, not search

for problems in it, will afford the reader a deeper understanding of the writer’s

world and of her real story.

The reader needs to keep in mind that the Black woman writing her life

story is probably writing her autobiography in order to free herself from the

stereotypical and derogatory images that have been inflicted on her historically

(Bracks, 1998; Davies, 1994). The reader should also be mindful that the writer

is sharing her intimate details, such as how she defines or identifies herself, the

things that are important to her, and her beliefs and desires (Harris, 2003). The

stories presented are in the words, voices, and artistic crafts of the women

creating them and are their ways of obliterating the notions that previously

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hindered them, keeping them in the margins. These autobiographies challenge

the readers to know the writers and to see how they live.

Carole Boyce Davies (1994) advises readers that

Black women’s writing...should be read as a series of boundary crossings and

not as a fixed, geographical, ethnically or nationally bound category of writing. In

cross-cultural, transnational, translocal, diasporic perspectives, this reworking of

the grounds of “Black women’s writing” redefines identity away from exclusion

and marginality. (p. 4)

The readers’ consideration of these factors is a way of constructively lis-

tening to what the writers are saying about the condition of their lives relative

to their feelings of belonging or not and their prospects of dealing with and

overcoming their feelings of alienation (Harris, 2003). These writings require a

reading that incorporates the examination of the layers of meaning incorpo-

rated into the texts, which lose their meaning when read simplistically. The

reader who wants to gain something from the reading of the Black woman’s

text must read it with an understanding of the struggle of the author and while

making a linguistic interrogation beyond the language on the pages. Bracks

(1998) suggests that the readers explore the writings, keeping in mind the

“multidimensionality they express in language choice while being sensitive to

the risks they [the writers] are taking making community knowledge available

to an outside audience” (p. 21). Still, in any critical examination of the autobi-

ographical writings of Black women, certain aspects of the writing must be

highlighted and even deconstructed (Bracks, 1998). This examination should

not be a hostile act, but one in which the reader engages with the text and

accepts the possibility that the examination will yield useful information for

better understanding the writer, her community of origin, and especially how

she self-identifies. The same holds true when the writer of an autobiography

shares his or her work with a group of people, such as in a multicultural edu-

cation environment. This sharing can be between teachers of different cultures,

between teachers and their students, or between students and their classmates.

In a recent class that I taught on Black women writers, I engaged my

students by having them write about specific events in their lives that impacted

them greatly as children. Although the students were all Black women, in the

sharing of their writings we learned very important differences in lifestyles,

backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs. The sharing of their stories allowed

these students to see their classmates in a more personal light, which helped

them to bond in the class and feel safe to share their lives with each other.

In another more multicultural and diverse class setting it was harder to

establish a sense of togetherness among the students. The number of students

was significantly higher as well, which is always a hindrance to the establish-

ment of feelings of safety and camaraderie. However, when the students were

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requested to share personal experiences related to the social sciences concepts

that they were learning, the students became eager to participate once the shar-

ing started, and often the discussions had to be cut short so that the class could

move on, because so many of the students wanted to share their life experiences.

The discussions were even more involved and participatory when the students

were sharing written autobiographical pieces on the topic of discussion.

As a writer of autobiography, I deliberately attempt to read my own

writing in ways in which I think most readers will read my work. I try to be

aware of the reader’s impact on the text itself. I pay particular attention to the

“hostile” reader. Although some of my writings are okay for me to read pri-

vately, the same text must be reconsidered and revised with the hostile reader

in mind. I sometimes decide to change my text to prevent negative repercus-

sions resulting from my revealing too much of my beliefs, my feelings about

myself, and my feelings about others in my life. Ultimately, I often determine

that the privacy rights of others in my life deserve the highest consideration.

Even though I may alter the details of my text, I write to express what life has

been like for me, as well as to release some of my anger and pain over perceived

mistreatment and marginalization that I experience as a Black woman in the

often hostile society in which I live.

Unfortunately, Black women writers of autobiography often fail to discuss

feelings of anger and rage that may accompany their experiences of marginal-

ization, harassment, and hostility associated with racial bigotry. Instead, the

writer will usually focus on diplomacy, forgiveness, and humility. The writing

of autobiography is a means of harnessing the negativity that these women

encounter and survive. Audre Lorde writes,

Women of Color in America have grown up within a symphony of anger, at being

silenced, at being un-chosen, at knowing that when we survive, it is in spite of a

world that takes for granted our lack of humanness, and which hates our very exis-

tence outside of its service. And I say symphony rather than cacophony because we

have had to learn to orchestrate those furies so that they do not tear us apart. We

have had to learn to move through them and use them for strength and force

and insight within our daily lives. Those of us who did not learn this difficult

lesson did not survive. And part of my anger is always libation for my fallen sisters.

(Lorde, 1984, p. 129)

When students in the classroom write about anger in their lives, they tend

to express their anger in frustrated or muted voices and seem okay with the fact

that they are only beginning to be comfortable enough to write about their

anger. The “muted voices” refers to the lack of development in their writings

on the topic of anger. The students might express that they are mad or angry,

without giving any details about the extent of their anger, how it is expressed,

or how they deal with it.

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The issue of validation of the autobiographical text is another common

concern for Black women autobiography writers and may very well be a

concern of students in writing their lives for the first time. Proving the truth of

the autobiographical work can sometimes keep students from writing “true”

documents and others from giving their full consideration to what the author

is saying in her autobiography.

Some theorists say that all autobiography is fiction or that the retelling of

past events inherently employs the use of fictive devices (e.g., Eakin, 1990;

Stanley, 1993; Stein, 1937/1985). The fictive devices are many and virtually

impossible to delimit and categorize because they are limited only by the mind

of the imaginative writer. Students should be encouraged to make use of fictive

devices to convey their stories. The autobiographical work should not only be

a retelling of the facts as the author sees them but also be a way that the author

conveys a sense of something that has deeply impacted her life and who she is

and that she wants to share with others because of its great importance to her.

The use of autobiography in multicultural education is a concept that is

rapidly taking hold in teacher education. It is one that should be actively pro-

moted by educators for its value to multicultural education, as well as in help-

ing teachers and students to identify where they can improve their interactions

with people who are different from them. Autobiography is a way of introduc-

ing students to different cultures when the students are required to write about

themselves and to share those writings with their teachers and classmates.

The art of writing is an important form of self-expression in modern

culture. It can be extremely helpful in the formation of self-identity. However,

the absence of good writing skills does not mean that those who lack them are

lacking in the only acceptable form to express their self-identity. People who do

not have good writing skills have other ways of developing and expressing their

self-identities. The tradition of passing along history and life stories orally has

been significant for centuries across many cultures, but the use of other artis-

tic forms such as painting, drawing, sculpture, quilting, weaving, dance, music,

and other activities are also effective ways of expressing self-identity.

The writing of autobiography for the purpose of sharing with others who

are different and who want to learn about the writer is significant in the mul-

ticultural education setting because the writer is challenged to write about

himself or herself as an individual and as part of the community. When writ-

ers are challenged to recognize their connection to their community, their birth

families, and their separateness as individuals, they are apt to learn something

about themselves and their communities. In this respect, I had to view myself

beyond my identity as a Black person, or as a woman, and even as a member

of my particular family and to see myself as who I am, separate and individual,

a human being who happens to be a Black woman. The presentation of my

knowledge of my “self” to others through the writing of autobiography is

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significant because it provides the readers or listeners with personal perceptions

that determine my self-identity, which is necessarily reliant on my culture,

environment, upbringing, and general background, as well as on my sex,

sexual preference, and other factors that impact my life.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the misperceptions and stereotypes about Black women not only

are historical concepts but also still pose problems, as indicated earlier, with how

Black women are perceived today. The current generations of youths are buying

into stereotypes about young Black women that persist even when they are

disproved and shown to be irrelevant. For instance, some young Black men will

refuse to date young Black women with dark complexions because they claim

that these young women have “attitudes” that make them undesirable. These

young men thus choose to date only light-complexioned Black women or White

women for their supposed better attitudes (Golden, 2004). The sad reality is that

most of the dark-complexioned young women that these young men allude to

are really in a defensive mode because they “have to work harder to be seen,

heard, valued, accepted” (p. 59) than their lighter-complexioned counterparts.

These Black women are often seen as unlovable and in many cases unsuitable

for long-term relationships. They are considered to be the new “Sapphires,”

now called “Sheniquas” (p. 61). They are marginalized, “humourized,” and

considered “dark and ugly” rather than “dark and lovely” (p. 62).

The negative attributes with which these young Black women are labeled

are perpetuated by youths who may have learned this attitude in their families,

schools, or society in general. What are the personal experience stories of these

women? How do they handle the challenges of being Black in societies that

devalue them because of the color of their skin? These are the questions that

can be answered by these young women and shared with their peers in their

classes. How do other students relate to these young women, and what are their

experiences in dealing with dark-skinned Black girls and women? When people

are required to write about such issues from their own perspectives, they are

challenged to confront their own prejudices. In the sharing of their ideas, feel-

ings, and perceptions, they are displaying a willingness to be confronted about

their attitudes as well as presenting the opportunity for others to challenge

them to reform their misconceptions.

Educators must take responsibility for becoming actively involved in

dispelling these negative images. Very often this will require that the educators

start with themselves. One of the very viable and positive leads that educators

can take in this effort is to encourage the writing and sharing of autobio-

graphical writings by both faculty and students in the multicultural setting.

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We can address specific themes for the focus of these writings, as well as allow

the students to decide on the particular aspects of their lives that they want to

address in their writings. We can direct how these writings will be shared

within the classes and groups where they are discussed.

As indicated earlier, the educator must first address the topic from his or

her own perspective. The discussion begins with each of us. This means that as

educators we have to question ourselves about our own backgrounds and atti-

tudes. We have to go through our own quest for the truth about ourselves as

individuals. We have to be willing to get together and objectively discuss our

attitudes about people who are different from us. We have to examine our own

cultural experiences, how and what we were taught as children, and how our

upbringings have made us who we are today. Furthermore, we have to deter-

mine whether our attitudes are being negatively imposed on the students and

colleagues that we teach and encounter. The knowledge that this yields would

set the stage to determine how we may need to make changes in our interac-

tions to create more equity in our classrooms, better ways of interacting with

students who are being negatively affected by our classroom behaviors, and

better relations with and between our students and between our students and

colleagues, thereby creating a more comfortable atmosphere.

We can initiate these discussions by creating an atmosphere of trust and

safety in our classrooms. This is no small task. Most people are able to discern

discriminatory attitudes and are more likely to be unresponsive when asked

to reveal information about themselves and their communities in the face of

them. In order to initiate such discussions in the classroom, students should

not feel threatened, even if there is known discrimination in the attitudes of

some of the class members.

The creation of a trusting environment might require that the teacher

be willing to be the first to take the step of sharing a personal event that has

impacted who she or he is and discussing the impact of that event. The creation

of a trusting environment that leads to understanding also requires that those

in the position of authority—the teachers and professors—be receptive to all

students, and not just the ones like themselves. When the educators in charge

are able to display receptivity to all students in their classes, the classroom

environment becomes open, and the atmosphere becomes one in which the

students will feel safe to express themselves, without the fear that they will be

disregarded because of their lives and their cultural heritage.

It all comes down to finding avenues to understand and accepting people

who are different from ourselves. Aside from helping race relations, autobiog-

raphy can also help with gender relations, the relationships between persons

with different sexual preferences, and even religious differences. Educators who

are willing to challenge themselves by practicing autobiography as a way of

tackling their own attitudes will find that they can become enlightened in their

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classrooms, and they will be able to encourage the same enlightenment among

their students.