This post falls along the lines of a theme in variations. In her last blog, Yen the idea of “taking the temperature of the room in order to put your best foot forward.” For her the room was the cosmopolitan city. For me the room is behind closed doors.
I would wager that most academics have this innate thermometer to qualitatively assessed public opinion and recalibrate. Of course, I’m basing this on my own perspective of an academic “in the humanities” (wherein the quotations denounce all the egocentric characters we encounter in the field). For academics in art, language, literature, philosophy (to name a few), this ability to read what’s what is essential to doing our work with a modicum of integrity and diplomacy: from entering a classroom and assessing the students’ attentiveness, and then readjusting lesson plans on the spot; to stepping onto a podium to deliver a paper and defending your argument against would-be critics who are more interested in performing their own expertise.
For BIPOC scholars, “taking the temperature of the room” is a prerequisite because we are often one of few in a space at the same time. The urgency for doing so has many implications. To explain this in a different way, I will use a reiteration of the same idea form Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker. (My summary certainly does not do justice to the text, but it’s worth a try.)
The protagonist walks into a room where some very important people are seated around a table (insert here: the democratic metaphor of Arthur and the knights of the round table). As he approaches the group who had been impatiently waiting, he recalls the advice he was given by his mentor: When you are even invited to sit at the table, first look around to identity the fool in the room. If you can’t see who it is, then you’re it!
This passage problematizes the simple act of silently gauging the crowd and hearing out the conversation. It is not about trying to fit into the space, to get comfortable, but what happens once the needle settles—what will you do when it is your turn to speak? how will you flip the discussion on its head?
As a Black woman my being is always hyper-visible. A slight digression, in my youth I struggled with food. I did not want to eat my mother’s Haitian griot because it would make me fat when all I wanted was to fade away. Back to my point, I’m always aware of my own presence in every space I enter; always watching them watching me watch them….
I’m also a Black woman who inherited my sense of style from my seamstress grandmother who would dress me in reds, yellows, indigos, corals. I loved the way my grandmother’s homemade clothes made me feel… pretty.
My love of fashion and my awareness of myself as Black woman in a world of body politics are then an ongoing internal debate. I sometimes feel guilty that I am an unwitting agent of Black respectability, of passing, of going along…
Recently, at my new job I was invited to attend the faculty meeting to kick off the academic year. It was my very first time entering such a space, so I was well aware that my presence was bound to disrupt the normal order. I decided, then, to wear a crisp white shirt and midi beige pleated skirt. These are not colors that attract attention, but on my body they could never signify neutral. When I walked into the room several attendees noticeably marked me from head to feet. No need to rehash the details… or may be some of it.
Picture a classroom with assistant, associate, and full professors. The motion sensor lights that were themselves monitoring the room flickered on and off as if the lingering spirit of some emeritus/a professor still wanted to have their say in the dealings. When the lights flickered off for the third or fourth tine, a white female professor suggested that I contribute to the meeting by doing jumping jacks in the middle of the room in order to keep the motion sensor lights on. I casually answered that I was not wearing the proper shoes for it and smiled lest I give the impression that I was insulted or angry. She then looked at my feet and smiling back said, “Oh yes, I know.”
Many friends and colleagues came to my support uttering Michelle Obama’s famous soundbite, “when they go low, you go high,” as advice. Not to sound ungrateful but dam it when you are always the one having to take the high road, you get tired really fast. I’m tired! And I know they, my friends and colleague, are tired too.
I suppose the point that I want to make is that there will always be things that you can and cannot explicate from taking the temperature of a room. However you then choose to engage should not bankrupt you of your energy, integrity, and/or values.
So, in those rooms and under the circumstances when I am expected to control my emotions, regulate my expressions, minimize my presence, for the love of all that I do, I will refuse to curb my enthusiasm if only to make my grandmother proud.
Then end!
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