By: Nyakoar Wuol
The Black experience at McMaster University is not monolithic. I can and will only be speaking in regard to my experience as a Black woman at McMaster.
Being a political science student, I often find myself being the only Black woman or Black person in a tutorial or sometimes even an entire lecture hall.
Within the political science courses, discussions on race, intersectionality and different waves of feminism do not go as in-depth as I would expect them to. After listening to the opinions of white students in these tutorials and their views, it makes sense why these discussions are so limited.
Discussion on race can only go so far if individuals are not sure what to add to the discussion or do not know enough to engage. In tutorials, I feel that when certain topics arise that I find interesting or am knowledgeable of, my opinion is not understood in the way I want.
A perfect example of this would be in my recent tutorial. The tutorial was set up as a debate with around five of us sitting at the front table. We were meant to briefly discuss the key elements of our paper, then answer any questions or rebuttals. For the sake of context, my paper was speaking about the result of Apartheid and its impact on Black South Africans, namely their struggle to be financially independent.
The white man who made the rebuttal made statements along the lines of, “why can’t they pick themselves up by their bootstraps? why don’t they just buy land or a farm? you don’t need a post-secondary education to make money”. All the statements he made would have been answered had he listened to the points I initially made.
I responded by stating that there are systemic barriers in place which limits Black South Africans from attaining wealth or having any form of mobility in their social class. In the wise words of W. E. B. Du Bois, “a system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.”
And yet after stating that, he was still not satisfied with my answer. He responded in a condescending tone but before I could defend my position, the teaching assistant moved the conversation to the next topic.
What I found most astounding was that this student was willing to stand in his ignorance than to believe that there are systemic barriers in place against Black folks not only in South Africa, but around the globe.
Another thing I noticed mainly in my sociology class and at a workshop I attended was that whenever there was a presence of Black folks, there was an underlying element of censoring from the white students. It seemed like they would mainly stick to saying socially-acceptable answers.
I feel that in order for anyone to learn they should not hinder themselves. White students seem to have this fear that if they say something that is not “acceptable”, then they will be vilified and have their opinion disregarded.
But choosing to only say what one thinks is acceptable does not result in any form of growth. If you fear that your true opinion or view is problematic, then perhaps ask yourself why that is?
Essentially, I feel that as a Black woman at McMaster there is much more that is needed to be done within academic spaces. This is mainly in regards to the limited discussions on race, and the lack of representation within the institution.
I, and many other Black students reading this, may feel that we are given the unasked role of being an educator of all things Black to white people. They may very well have certain questions or are limited in their knowledge on the Black experience.
However, it is not Black students’ job to inform and educate. As a great friend of mine said, “Google is free and it’s a great research tool.”
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The McMaster Libraries Archives is more than just a museum for books. Their collection includes original works that once provoked mass outrage and book burnings.
Freedom to Read Week is an annual celebration sponsored by the Freedom of Expression Committee that runs this year from Feb. 24 to March 2. The week was initially founded as a result of attacks on Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women in 1978.
McMaster Archivist Renu Barrett took The Silhouette through three particular works that McMaster owns as part of an exploration of formerly banned books.
McMaster owns a first edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, which is no. 332 of the first 1000 published. The work was considered so contentious that publishers refused to distribute the work, so it was originally sold by subscription. Ulysses was banned from being published in the UK.
Barrett speculated that Ulysses was considered so controversial because Joyce wrote it from his stream of consciousness and was very free with his language. The work is so full of obscenities and sexually explicit language that Joyce was warned during an early review that he would need to revise his work.
Joyce refused and in 1932 US Customs seized a copy and declared it “obscene.” Eventually, in a landmark censorship decision, the novel was declared not pornographic and was allowed to be published.
McMaster also owns a copy of Dialogo by Galileo. Dialogo is considered to be extremely rare given that most copies were seized and burned following it being banned by the Catholic Church in 1633.
The work was considered heretical for endorsing a heliocentric view of the universe, which ran counter to Church teachings. McMaster acquired this particular work in the 1960s.
Barrett gave Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners as an example of a more contemporary work that was highly contested for its language and exploration of sexuality, race, class and abortion.
In 1974 The Diviners won the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s top literary prize. But by 1976 the book was banned by local school boards. In the 1980s the book was again subject to criticism, this time from the Catholic Church. McMaster has part of the original manuscript in Laurence’s handwriting.
Barrett explained how freedom to read week continues to remain an important part of both retelling literary history and discussing current works, stating that “it highlights the value of access to information and allows ideas that may be unpopular or unorthodox to be voiced.”
Barrett reiterated how, as an academic library McMaster, has never banned works from its collections.
But she also noted that censorship in public libraries can still exist in more subtle an innocuous ways explaining that “a public library may take a book off of the must-read or top-read list if community groups rally against a certain book.”
In the past few years, works such as His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman or the Harry Potter series have attracted intense controversy. But Barrett notes that the internet provides a valuable tool for mediating knee-jerk reactions and calls for book banning.
“Book banning and censorship is a less prevalent issue because of the access available through the internet or book downloads. So in one way we have less control over publication, but on the other hand, the internet can provide a forum where different groups can engage in dialogue to reasonably discuss their objections.”
