Anthropology Times

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

So, it came to me that one of the main attributes that singled out some of the social scientists and aid workers who visited the Mississippi Delta as racists was that such people communicated that they didn’t just find Southern, black culture to be different than theirs; they thought it inferior. Though the condescending sentiment was invariably delivered with a smile and quite often with great subtlety and charitable zeal, the blow was not softened. Since being in California and being mistaken for someone who grew up in a housewife paradigm, this same attribute has been what I have found disturbing. A number of people appeared to be of the opinion that I should feel complimented to be considered such, that traditional housewife was a step up on the cultural development scale for black women. And while in Mississippi the notion that a black person was exactly like a middle class white person complete with every item of learned cultural behavior was tied to skin color and hair texture, some of my more recent acquaintances seem to tie this notion to income level and level of education… and they appear to think that this is less racist than the skin color notion or not racist at all. I found the latter more dehumanizing in that it appears to more specifically deny the existence of black culture. While I have met black people who are more culturally similar to middle class white people than to me, it usually had to do with having grown up in that type of community and never with skin color, income level or education.

When a black woman is falsely assumed to be middle class white, the depth and breath of knowledge about middle class white culture she is deemed to have is considerably more than for a black man. And unsurprisingly, within the radius of those with whom I found it the most challenging to interact, the black people present, if any, tended to be male. The knowledge of learned cultural behaviors I was deemed to have was knowledge to which I did not have access. While I did have friends of various backgrounds growing up (and beyond), I did not spend a lot of time visiting middle class white households. In Mississippi in the eighties and nineties, neighborhoods were highly segregated and too many social household visits across color lines, even when just children, was something to be avoided for safety considerations. And though television shows often featured middle class white households there were limits to what one could learn from such episodes with no context. For instance, it may have been easy to discern that an interaction between a man and woman was funny because of an exaggeration, but how much of an exaggeration was it? Was the exaggeration limited to just the verbal language or was the body language part of that, too, and so on… (Will continue next week.)

With continued devotion,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Before moving to California I had never had the experience of anyone assuming that I lived somewhere along the spectrum of either being in agreement with or in strident opposition to the traditional housewife paradigm and that my position along that spectrum dictated all my interactions with women and men. These novel experiences have left me with an even greater appreciation of my first anthropology professor. She seemed to have an understanding that when she spoke of her experience as a middle class white woman, she was not speaking on behalf of the experience of all women. More specifically she said that as a middle class white woman, she had great difficulty conceiving of a woman who grew up outside the housewife paradigm. In the next couple of weeks, I will speak some of my experiences with people, social scientists included, who appear to have the same difficulty as my first anthropology professor, but don’t show any awareness of that fact.

I had written quite a bit more, but it became clear that I would not finish tonight.

Until next week then,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I grew up in a economically poor, “culturally rich” area, the Mississippi Delta. Social scientists and aid workers often visited this area and they were most often white and middle class. And sometimes they were also racist. And it was uncomfortable, to say the least, to interact with racist people who were in the midst of performing work or providing services that could be helpful. Of course there were also many wonderful people doing excellent work, but the overall feeling was one of suspicion from both black and white residents of the Delta.

The thing I want to mention at the moment is that often the white, middle class social scientists/aid workers seemed to think it a mystery which among them were considered racist. And I don’t know whether it was they didn’t understand that their behaviors were different or whether they did not view the differences as significant. Some were mean or grouchy, but not racist. Some were very uncomfortable being around so many black people for the first time, but not racist. Even I find it easier to say what was not racist. My more recent experiences with social scientists/aid workers have reminded me of this dynamic.

I’m searching for a way to speak about my experience in a manner that is thoughtful and instructive. The experiences in my home area, my own as well as the stories of the experiences of others, definitely shade my thinking about social science and social scientists, and believe it’s important to explore this more as I continue to consider further study in social science. More on this next week.

My warmest regards,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I haven’t had a chance to start my anthropology lectures as of yet. I do hope to be caught up and into a more regular routine with my classes (chemistry, chemistry lab, and precalculus) by the beginning of next week. I continue to learn things about my study habits and abilities such as I can do my math well while more tired than I can do chemistry. I’m making adjustments.

While browsing around for female chemists for a report, I came across a black, female chemist and anthropologist, Eslanda Goode Robeson (1896-1965). She received a B. S. in chemistry from Columbia University, and later a degree in anthropology from the London School of Economics . She engaged in extensive research in Africa and she lived for a long period in the Soviet Union. My local library has a copy of one of her books, African Journey. I will add it to that list of books that hopefully I’ll get around to soon.

Yours truly,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I’ve been preparing for a small grouping of exams, and time has been short. I find that I’m still more confident as far as my math studying abilities than my chemistry study skill. I believe the fact that many of my family members were were math positive when I was growing up helps on this front. My mother used to make a game of adding up the checkout cost in the grocery store. If she were off by any noticeable amount, it usually meant there was some checkout mistake. Simple lessons like these in the usefulness of very basic math seems to have cemented a lifelong math positive attitude for me.

With that, I must get back to studying chemistry.

Yours,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I don’t know much about the College Confidential website, but while browsing the net for “physics and anthropology” I came across a posting on the site from a freshman considering anthropology and physics as majors and asking for advice. I thought the response from ABC260 was a good one and it spoke to some of my thinking on the matter.

The original poster liked that anthropology is a broad field, as do I, but felt that it wasn’t as analytically challenging as physics. ABC260 pointed out that while at the freshman level physics classes may seem more analytical and anthropology classes more descriptive, later level anthropology classes that delve more into the theoretical side of anthropology may provide the analytical challenge the poster appears to be seeking. ABC260 also cautions that undergraduate study for either major may not give the best idea of the level of thinking required for graduate level study saying, “Sadly, intro courses in math and physics belie the theoretical sophistication required for higher level studies, and most undergraduate anthro courses(not just the intro ones) do the same.”

It seems to me that too many people think that all that’s required to be a good anthropologist is being able to read and write at the college level. The need for dogged analytical skills as applied to both outer environments and the inner environment of one’s own mind is daunting. If I may out myself as a Trekkie… I love Captain Kirk as much as the next Trekkie, but I think many would mistakenly place anthropologists in a camp with Captain Kirk when really anthropologists would be more accurately placed in a camp with Spock. Or perhaps I should say that when I think about the type of anthropologist that I would want to be, I see myself as more Spock than Captain Kirk.

Back to the books,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I continue to go through an adjustment phase with being back in school. I hesitate to take the week off completely, so I will give a quick tale about growing up in the the Mississippi Delta:

In elementary school my best friend and I were teacher’s pets. We made very good grades and we scored well on standardized tests. While occasionally we were teased in connection with our pet status, what stands out in my memory is the group of students who said that if my best friend and I were unfairly favored, the blame for it lay with the teachers and not the students, and that any hard feelings should be directed toward the teachers and not us*. One friend with whom I often worked on school projects said to me that we could play normally outside of school, but while we were in school she could not be as friendly because she didn’t want to appear to support unfair favoritism.

I loved the beautiful, brilliant children with whom I went to elementary school.

(Edited to add:  Just to be clear, with a couple of the older teachers in particular there was something other than normal praise for doing well.  Sometimes the language used to say that smart, black people were important in the struggle against racism, implied sentiments about the value of people that were unfortunate and untrue.)

Gotta run,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Toward the end of last year, I had a thought about my deceased friend. It flashed momentarily in my mind that “maybe it was his time to go.” I have no special connection with the meaning of those words, but they were often spoken around me growing up. I take the passing thought as some indication that I have accepted his death more fully as those words were often spoken in that light. And though I don’t necessarily feel this way on a conscious level, I wonder whether that flash of words spoke from my subconscious.

Recently, my phone was reset to a much earlier point, a point when my friend was still alive. Looking at my recent calls I was confronted with the record of our daily call routine. I was happy for the reminder. I continue to wonder how recent technologies may affect how we grieve and how we think about the dead. An acquaintance (with two young children) who lost her husband often “speaks” to him using his account on a social networking site. I wonder how children who experience adults in grieving through use of social media may come to view death and/or grieving differently. I’m reminded of the show Caprica, in which one of the characters promoted the view of heaven as a location in cyberspace.

I still feel uncomfortable with the idea of using social media as a grieving medium. Others post to my friend’s social media page on his birthday and at other times, but I feel held back from that. I did take comfort reading some of his last postings after his death though. He had thanked a bunch of people individually for their birthday greetings to him. When an acquaintance committed suicide, it was surreal to read his final and somewhat cryptic words on his social media page particularly during the moments of uncertainty when some were still hoping that things would turn out alright.

Perhaps I should interview people as to the role social media has played in their grieving process. I certainly look forward to reading the studies that I am certain will be done in this area.

Ever yours,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

It’s becoming clear that I need to take some time away to get used to my new schedule of classes and to get a bit ahead on the homework. So far, my math and chemistry classes have been enjoyable along the lines that I thought they would be. However, I continue to reflect on anthropology and the path that lead me to consider graduate work in anthropology.

I’ve been hesitant to speak of my more recent anthropology classes. In the beginning, I feared that the fact that my mind was fuzzy and that I might not immediately remember something big and obvious would cause my anthropology professors to cringe. I still think that now, but I worry slightly less. I had excellent classes, and some of my classmates were quite exceptional. But for the quality of the instruction that I received, I would never have found myself in the position of considering graduate study in anthropology. My sense of cultural disconnect did not melt away, but still my more recent classes left me with a hopefulness that some of my concerns about study and work in anthropology would be less of a worry in the future.

A particularly unpleasant work-type experience in anthropology outside the academic setting reminded me that I could not depend on the positive local classroom experiences being reproduced in the industry at large or in further academic study. It wasn’t an experience that I would expect to be repeated, but still it felt like a wakeup call to the fact that I needed to give serious consideration to what it would be like to work in anthropology, to work in a field that was overwhelming dominated by middle class white culture. I think some of the difficulties I’ve had moving from the South to California may be very instructive. California is the least black place that I’ve ever lived. I think often people outside the South hear that I grew up in Mississippi and automatically think that it’s a state that is worse in every possible way for a black person. This is not the case. I grew up in a majority black county in Mississippi and there are cultural advantages to that. I hope to write more about this soon.

Until next time,

S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I got great results from my chemistry preparation.  My score on the California Chemistry Diagnostic Test placed me in about the 98th percentile (the percentile rankings I found were from years gone by).  And I will not have to take intro to chemistry. This gave me a boost of confidence as far as my study skills. It’s been twenty years since I’ve taken chemistry, so I made up a lot of ground with my four or so weeks of intensive preparation.

I started to think about how I learned good/effective study skills early from watching family.  My maternal grandmother didn’t finish elementary school, but still she never shied away from reading things, and out loud even, because the passage was difficult for her.  She had good basic math skills and she used them at the grocery store and other everyday situations in which I’ve observed people with higher math education not go through the bother.  My grandmother had a fearlessness and healthful shamelessness in the face of learning and pressing the limits of her abilities.  This behavior was presented as an ideal in black Mississippi Delta culture; an important measure of intelligence was how well a person made use of the skills and abilities she had*.  “Smart” people with inactive mental habits were often called on it.

A study skill that comes out of this tradition is to read from one book and then as a test do the exercises from a sufficiently different book of the same level; and then as a further test, attempt the exercises in a book of a higher level — seek out the limits of your abilities and then push forward from there.  In reading anthropology I tried not to shy away from articles simply because I found the jargon overwhelming.  I tried to stay focused on taking from the reading anything I could.  I sometimes felt like I could say embarrassingly little about an article, but having the weekly deadline helped me work past this uncomfortableness.

I haven’t forgotten about Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics.  So far it’s been a helpful read and I definitely have more to say on that reading.

edited to add *This manner of thinking was also promoted as a way to combat racism and build self-esteem in the black community — the fact that more privileged people had access to better education did not mean that they were smarter.  Being smart had a lot to do with how your mind worked and not with the accumulation of information you did not employ or the regurgitation of information that could be looked up.  Being smart was a matter of honing thinking abilities.  One of the things that attracted me to physics when I was younger was that physicists often talked about intelligence in this way and somehow the words used and/or the manner of speech used resonated more with me than when similar things were said in other disciplines.

Until next time,
S