Tatum Debates Ideas of Race

Beverly Tatum, President of Spelman College, joined Harvard students yesterday to discuss issues of racial identity and education.

Tatum is the author of “Choosing to be Black, the Ultimate White Privilege,” an essay about the decision of one white student to check the African American box on his college application.

This year’s freshman class was required to read Tatum’s essay for freshman orientation.

Tatum’s visit was intended to be a continuation of the conversations that took place in the fall.

One issue addressed during the discussion was the ability of students of different races to identify with texts that only dealt with black and white racial issues.

According to Assistant Director of the Harvard Foundation Loc Truong, this was also an issue brought up after the freshman discussions.

“I think there were unfinished conversations during freshman week and I wanted to see where else they could lead,” said audience member Alyssa T. Yamamoto ’12. “I wanted to ask about the Asian perspective, I didn’t feel that was addressed.”

Tatum said that she believed that the challenge was to create multiple conversations, because one conversation about race would be too broad. But she stressed the importance of creating an inclusive environment.

“This is an important conversation that we don’t talk about much. It’s about the multiple identities we have and how we embrace them,” Tatum said in an interview before the event.

And students did not hold back from raising the questions on their minds. The conversation touched on issues that ranged from the importance of appearance in identifying race to the financial difficulties for historically black colleges and universities.

“One reason for this event was so students can feel more comfortable talking about a topic whether they agree with it or not,” said Truong.

Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 asked Tatum to compare the dialogues on race she has had at single-gender and single-race colleges to the one at Harvard.

Tatum answered that other factors like religion add to the diversity of opinions at single-race colleges like Spelman. She also said that people could be put in groups or separated in ways to create an atmosphere conducive to discussion.

“The willingness to have difficult conversations is the key,” Tatum said, “If you avoid things you don’t learn that [they] can be liberating.”

—Staff writer Jillian K. Kushner can be reached at kushner@fas.harvard.edu.