A Rhetoric of Difference:
The Student Literary Magazine as Critical Pedagogy

Alphonse Keasley has spoken about the importance of giving students of color the opportunity to voice ideas that in some ways challenge the "acceptable" "minority perspectives"; that is, the perspectives that have been deemed acceptable by the dominant culture, when expressed by members of those cultural groups labeled as "minority." Typically such perspectives uphold the ideology of integration, often suggesting that successful integration involves the assimilation of "minorities" to "dominant" ideologies. They often stress that people look beyond differences to see how we are all the same beneath the color of our skin. At the same time, ironically, cultural studies student programs are often filled with students classified as "minority" based on the element of "race" alone.

When writers of color challenge these mainstream views of diversity they are often labeled as racist. In other words, cross-cultural students are often pressured into being, to use a phrase of Alphonse's, "the kinds of minorities the dominant culture needs them to be."

As Assistant Director of the Student Academic Services Center (SASC) at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Alphonse Keasley aided a group of students in organizing a cross-cultural literary journal, called Belonging. As Writing Program Coordinator for SASC, I am concerning myself, in this essay, with an examination of portions of different discussions relating to two specific essays published in Belonging. Each discussion reveals something about the kinds of issues that culture, authorship, and pedagogy bring up within the university community, and with the critical thinking that can result from a consideration of marginalizing voices.

One issue of Belonging opens with a powerful piece written by Jerold White, an African-American student, called "Why Shouldn't I Hate." (appearing in this issue of STANDARDS under the title "It Hurts Just to Think: Notes from a Native Tongue"). The essay begins:

The discussion went well about Malcolm X today. The whole class participated, but I have never heard so much bullshit in my life. Someone had the nerve to compare Malcolm X to the Ku Klux Klan. I think that it is better that I did not comment. If I did, I would have said some terrible things. I just cannot understand how some people can feel that Malcolm X was wrong to hate white people. "Two wrongs don't make a right," explained Miss Caucasian-skin. It is not worth my time to even answer this.

Jerold wrote this paper during his first semester at the university.(1) No one may have ever known of it, if he hadn't walked into Alphonse's office near the end of the semester and stated that he had written a paper for his expository writing course, but then decided not to hand it in to his white, male instructor. He wrote and turned in a different paper for the class, but wanted Alphonse to read the original paper, "Why Shouldn't I Hate," with the stipulation that the paper not be shown to the instructor.

It so happened that I was sitting in on another writing class taught by this same instructor. One day I brought up Jerold's paper, which Alphonse and I had both read, but that the instructor had never seen. Without mentioning the student by name, I told the class about a paper that had been written by a student who was reluctant to turn it in to his writing instructor. Then I briefly described the paper, adding that I found his thesis, put in the form of a question which places the burden of proof on the reader, a very compelling and effective rhetorical strategy. I said that, although I may have had some answers to his question early on, by the end of the paper I felt that my reasons for not hating were a lot less convincing than his were for hating. Several students pointed out that the writer probably had some good ideas, but that he was probably going to offend a lot of people with that question, and should phrase it some other way if he wanted his audience to listen to him. The instructor added that, although the writer probably had something to say about racism, he didn't see how adopting a belligerent tone was going to get his ideas across to his audience.

I had initially suspected (and hoped) that Jerold had underestimated his instructor. After all, this person had assigned his class to read the piece by Malcolm X to which Jerold referred. There are a number of content and stylistic parallels between Jerold's writing and that of Malcolm X--even to the point of calling white people "devils." Although this instructor certainly had an appreciation of such writing, he was unable to grant it legitimacy, when it came to students in his own class. This instructor, as well as some of Jerold's own colleagues (some of whom were students of color), seemed uncomfortable with his anger; they felt as if they were personally being attacked -- which was true, to some extent, within the perspectives presented in the paper. And, while white readers may be willing to accept such critiques posed by famous black authors writing in another time and place, a kind of denial seems to become operative when the critique becomes too personal.

Other readers respond to Jerold's perspective as a way of dealing with "white guilt." Feeling empathy (sympathy?) for Jerold's perspective relieves white guilt, but it doesn't necessarily do anything to diminish the racism that exists our shared U.S. culture and continues to affect people's lives. Indulging one's white guilt is dangerous in the sense that it allows us to have the illusion that we are doing something to change society for others, when we are only making ourselves feel better.

Jerold's ideas are reflective of an image that is becoming more common in shared national culture: that of the angry young black man, an endangered species prone to violence. This image has become popularized (and has led to the creation of some stereotypes) through rap artists (N.W.A., Ice Cube, Public Enemy, et al) as well as recent films (Boyz in the Hood, Juice, etc.). I would argue that this image has become popular among some white youths, because it allows them to relieve their own guilt about the continuous oppression of African-Americans, through a logic that maintains the illusion that, even though racism still runs rampant in this country, they don't approve of it, and have joined in a pop cultural sense of solidarity, so they aren't part of the problem.

Although Jerold's paper did not initially find a place in the classroom, it was published in the student journal, Belonging. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of a publication like Belonging, in terms of its power to promote diversity within academic discourse, I am including here part of a panel discussion of Jerold White's essay. The discussion took place in a class of the University of Colorado-Boulder's INVEST program. This program allows students to receive college credit for identifying problems in the community and creating ways to address those problems. The students engaged in this particular discussion were all white, except for Anthony, an African-American and one of the editors of Belonging, who was facilitating the discussion. A transcript of a portion of that discussion:

Rich: I've read these ideas before in Malcolm X, but this piece felt closer than Malcolm X. The fact that a student is writing this -- that had a big effect on me.

Dave: It had a big effect on me too. That word, hate, is really powerful. I was taught we're not supposed to hate, but I do.

TJ: It's racist from the opposite perspective: reverse racism. These are legitimate feelings, but it says a lot about the damage that's been done by hate for the person writing this. Look at the kind of effect that hate and anger has had. He's turning the racism back toward other people. Reading this was very painful. It said a lot to me.

Dave: There is no "reverse" racism; it's all just racism.

Scott: Yeah, but the hate started on our side.

Jim: But the author never says, 'I hate white people'. He's asking 'Why shouldn't I hate?'

Scott: He wants people to reflect: he's presenting questions for the reader and reflecting on his struggle to get through this...

Kate: Racism is part of everyone's life. It's not whether you are racist or not, but to what extent you are--how much you allow racism to rule your life. I don't think anyone can say, 'I'm not racist' without being ignorant.

(1) Editor's Note: Often, within outreach programs for at-risk students in their first year of university study, a level of culture shock prevails: povertized students regularly express shock at the material advantages displayed by high-income classmates or dorm residents; re-entry students express amazement at the naiveté of high school to college classmates; students of color in predominantly white schools, like CU-Boulder, express despair at the "assimilationist" agenda Richards describes in this essay. Each of these groups, and many others, are startled, in their first year of "higher education," in realizing that they have as much to teach as to learn. Empowering those voices to speak is a central goal of the work of the Student Academic Services Center at CU-Boulder.