Lou: Monkey on down. I’m a monkey to you. Joke, juggler, clown, three races as they walk into a bar, three races as they walk into bar, three races as they walk into a bar, three races as they walk into a bar, three races as they walk into a bar…
Evan: We’re going to record for...we’re calling it Write.Think.Teach., right.
Genevieve: I think that’s the right order.
Evan: Yeah, okay.
Genevieve: You’re listening to Write.Think.Teach., a product of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at the Ohio State University.
Nora: You just heard Lou Maraj reading an excerpt from his poem, “Monkey on Down,” that won the Academy of American Poets Arthur Rense Prize. Lou is currently a PhD candidate and writing instructor in the Department of English at the Ohio State University.
Genevieve: Lou is a poet, scholar, and educator who has thought a lot about this issue.
Nora: If you’re wondering what microaggressions are, Lou describes some of them in his poem, but he also talks about them in his writing courses so we interviewed him to get his thoughts on how other instructors might adopt some of his teaching strategies in their courses.
Lou: I...so every time I ask my students what they think microaggressions are, I get the same response. This has happened three or four times. I don’t get a definition. I get an example and the example is...a microaggression is like when a white woman sees a black guy on the street and she clutches her purse. And, that’s true, that’s definitely a microaggression, but what I think students sort of have trouble with seeing is how language can be microaggressive. And so that’s what I hope to open them up to when I deal with them in the classroom. And that’s sort of what I think people get that kind of very real, very tangible someone grabbing their purse because they sense danger and how that can be problematic, but they don’t necessarily always think about how are the words that I am using racist, sexist, or ableist.
Nora: Here’s Lou’s definition of microaggressions
Lou: Yeah, sure, so this is a definition, sort of a working definition that I use when I teach and also sort of how I conceive of microaggressions. I think microaggressions are everyday, sort of casual expressions of discrimination. They aren’t necessarily overtly discriminatory. It might not be something that is overtly sexist or racist or ableist, but inherently is so through words or through actions, yeah. I usually talk about microaggressions specifically on the day that we read Claudia Rankine’s “Citizen: an American Lyric,” which I would highly recommend. It is a series of vignettes of accounts of microaggressive interactions. The...it’s a long poem. I’ve taught...I usually teach short sections of it. We get into this text and we think about how 1) why is Rankine using the second person, like what’s the effect of doing something like that, what is the impact of thinking about everyday interactions that aren’t really necessarily that interesting. You know, as a piece of literature, it’s not like...you know, there are no explosions. There…you know, it’s not like an action movie. So why focus in on these everyday, casual interactions with, between individuals. And in doing so, we get to think about how people talking to each other and about each other in different ways. And why language really is powerful.
Nora: We asked Lou what he suggests other instructors might do if they want to introduce the concept of microaggressions in their courses and here are his ideas.
Lou: So, I always do, so in terms of recommendations for the classroom, I always do on the second day of class, after we get through the syllabus, I do a positioning exercise where I have my students, get students to think about what our systems of power are like. What do we mean when we think about power? And we break down, okay, you know, there’s the church and there’s the state, etc. And then I say, okay well, who is, what kinds of identities are marginalized by these powers and what kinds of identities are privileged by these powers. And we make a huge list. Students are great at coming up with these identity categories. And then I ask them to write a reflection on the ways in which that they fall, which type of categories they fall into, the ways in which they are, you know, they have felt marginalized or they have benefitted from privilege. And that’s how I start my class off. And in the first few sessions, I really, sort of, try to remind them of the language of privilege and marginalization. And so that it’s not just necessarily just saying making the move of ‘I recognize that I am privileged because…’ but also thinking about what are the ways in which we can use privilege to help marginalized people and what are the ways in which marginalized people can have voices or be allowed spaces to have voices.
Nora: Yeah, so just like hearing you talk, it sounds like you have a really, almost like a top-down approach to microaggressions. Kind of helping students see a very big picture of power and power structures and then how that works in something like a poem or something like, you know, interactions and speech.
Lou: I want students, after we talk about these things, and people after they read my poem to really, sort of, think about how these things are operating on a larger scale. The poem actually opens with a comparison between myself and Barack Obama, specifically because, and this was sort of the impetus for writing the poem...the question, I was on an online dating site and I came home one day after having a really rough day in the classroom, and I open up my inbox and there is just the question ‘Obama’ question mark as a response to my profile, my dating profile. And so that way why I decided to write this poem. So I had this idea actually with this poem to print it out and make like a 150 copies and put it into everyone’s mailbox in the department. That’s how I felt when I wrote that poem, after I wrote the poem. And I talked to some colleagues about doing this and they thought this was a great idea. And this was the end of a fall semester, maybe I want to say two years ago, it might have been one year ago, I’m not exactly sure. And I decided not to do that because I really wanted to put my name behind it. And I didn’t...the concept behind doing that was to just put it out there without a name on it. And I really wanted to own my words and my experiences. So that was the risk in publicizing it and letting people know. And so instead of doing that I went about trying to get it published and I submitted it.
Genevieve: So, when you wrote this poem, did you feel that you faced any risks in writing the poem?
Lou: It was really more of...the risk factor was in terms of publicizing it because I had these experiences. Their very...I have lived and continue to live the experiences in the poem.
Genevieve: Yeah
Lou: After it was published, I got a lot of notes from people, people came up to me in the hallways to say, ‘oh, thank you for sharing that poem’. I’ve...and I actually remember specifically going to, there’s a black graduate caucus that I’m a member of, going to the caucus and another caucus member coming up to me and saying like ‘this poem like is like everything....like my, you know, the kinds of things I feel on a daily basis. You really like were on point in this poem in sort of bringing that up and getting it out to other people so that they are aware of the kinds...those kinds of experiences’, yeah.
Nora: If you want to read or hear Lou’s poem, go the Academy of American Poets website or loumaraj.wordpress.com. That’s l-o-u-m-a-r-a-j dot wordpress dot com. He has additional information on anti-racist pedagogy on his website as well.
Genevieve: Thanks for listening to Write.Think.Teach, a product of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at the Center for the Study of Teaching and Writing at the Ohio State University.
Lou: I’m a monkey to you: joke, juggler, clown,
three races as they walk into a bar.
“Has anyone told you that you look, sound,
like Barack Obama?” Yes. My ears are
large. My skin’s brown. Yes. I articulate
the slight academic jargon you like.
D’you like me to dance, twerk, dougie my skit
on out your white community? My bright
gold teeth skinned, jeweled dental treasure chest?
We sit. The black asks ayo what’s goin’ down?
The brown thinks how do I best word this mess,
an always already terrorist? Found
gut warns bite down tongue. Anger’s insistence
tastes good. Chew the cud of most resistance.