How do you choose who teaches black literature.?

By Cliff Brock | October 30, 2021

This is my experience choosing the best university faculty member to teach black literature.  How much should the race of the faculty member play in making my decision?

Many years ago, I was dean of a division that included literature and humanities. During the course of building the schedule I met with faculty to decide who should teach what. With 20,000+ students both our faculty and our offerings were quite varied. One year many on the faculty opined that our (only) black faculty member should teach our black literature class. The thinking was that he was best apprised of the “black experience.”

Having taught black lit several years earlier I was a bit uncomfortable as an avowedly white person. My students seemed to get something out of the classes I taught and ranked them highly in annual student evaluations. As I listened to the black lit arguments, I asked myself what the implications of such a decision might be and how the various faculty members might react.

As dean I tried to listen carefully at these times and then see if I could somehow how help the unit pull toward a consensus decision.

“So, only a black faculty member should teach black literature?” I asked.

“Certainly,” said the literature chair. “As a black man he will best know what the students have experienced and be able to relate it to the art that has come of the black community.” Most of the faculty agreed. At least those who were willing to speak up agreed.

Since we were employed in an institution of higher learning, I thought we should explore the implications of such a position. “Errol” (not our black faculty member’s real name) did not take a position. Twenty years later I still do not know how he felt but having taught James Baldwin and William Shakespeare, Jane Austin and Ursula LeGuin, Mark Twain and Ivan Turgenev, various genders, nationalities, ethnicities and races, I asked myself, “Did you shortchange your students by having a lack of understanding of different perspectives?”

Errol was obviously black and he was coincidently one of our best faculty in the literature department. Perhaps he was the best instructor for the class. But was he the only one? He was in fact our only black faculty member (of ~eight staff).

So I began to ask a series of difficult questions.

“Should women no longer teach Shakespeare?” They could never hope to see the world the same as a male. “Would I be forever banned from teaching my beloved Jane Austin?” I would sorely miss Miss Bennett. Would our faculty member from Bombay no longer teach American lit? Would our German only teach Remarque? All would certainly be quiet on the western front if that were the case.

Needless to say bedlam followed. Many were incensed that I would even suggest such a thing. Many of these faculty had long histories of scholarship in just the disciplines I questioned. Several had published in areas that would not be “appropriate.” I was not popular that afternoon.

In the end I said “Errol” might teach the black studies class if he wished. His academic background certainly supported that. But, so could any other faculty with sufficient background. The women continued to teach Shakespeare. Our German was quite good at Twain. Our Indian was a whiz at Dickenson. In some quarters I was even less popular.

Fast forward a few years and I had moved on. I was a president of a college in a small town in the high desert of California. We were in the process of hiring a dean for a unit at the college. Our two finalists were very close in qualification, experience, training and background. One was Anglo and one was Hispanic. One of my two Hispanic board members questioned why I selected the Anglo over the Hispanic. “We do not have enough Hispanics on staff,” he rightly said.

As I pondered his question, I admit I questioned my own judgment. Did I harbor some deep-seated antagonism toward brown people? I did not and do not think so. What turned the decision in favor of the Anglo was not his ethnicity but rather his entrepreneurial spirit. He had come from Alaska and proven himself very adept at grant writing and fund raising. Several years after I made that decision it became clear that he was the right person and he was lured away by a much bigger college.

But as the discussion continued right after the hire I told the board member I was not hiring an Hispanic dean. Or and Anglo dean. Or a Chinese dean. I was hiring a dean, the person I thought would best run the division. He did not know I had promoted into a vice presidency the first black vice president in the history of a small college in a racist community in Georgia. I am pretty sure he just thought he was looking at yet another racist cracker.

He did not know that with a black population of 39 percent in the county my team and I had moved black student enrollment from 23 percent to 51 percent—not totally popular with the genuine crackers in the small Southern town.

Maybe those who see racism under every rock are right. But we, as a society, would be much better if we truly could look to the “quality of our character rather than the color of our skin” (or country of origin, or gender or any other superficial characteristic).