Quotation:

“It began to strike me that the point of my education was a kind of discomfort, was the process that would not award me my own especial Dream but would break all the dreams, all the comforting myths of Africa, of America, and everywhere, and would leave me only with humanity in all its terribleness. And there is so much terrible out there, even among us. You must understand this.” (Coates 52).

Comment:

This quote is the culmination of the thoughts that Coates has been having regarding his education and his status as a black man. He’s been searching for answers in the pages of many famous authors, which often disagreed and conflicted with one another. He’s at a level of enlightenment and yet still feels this discomfort with the knowledge he’s gathered. However, he does not see this as bad but rather necessary in order to move forward. 

I chose this quote because it reminded me of another class I have been taking called Human Behavior and Social Work Theory. We’ve been studying the ‘isms’ (racism, sexism, etc.), prejudice, and oppression, but more specifically where our beliefs surrounding those topics came from. We wrote a paper last semester (as it’s a two part course) about precisely that, though our professor had warned us that to look so deeply into ourselves and our history might very well be uncomfortable. That we might realize things about ourselves that we had tried to ignore. 

Any investigation into oppression may lead one to realize the role they might have played in it (if the reader is part of the oppressors) or the impact it has had on their life (if they are a part of the oppressed). If someone becomes upset by certain assertions, they have to ask themselves why they are upset and the roots that feeling has. This is not necessarily a fun experience, but it is a necessary one if any change is to happen. 

Coates and I have had very different life experiences, to be sure. I have always had the privileged status as a white, middle class woman, and as such I’ve gotten to live most of my life without having to think about prejudice and oppression. This isn’t to say that I’ve never thought about it, but that I never had to think about it in the same way he and other people of color must. That’s what privilege is, and that’s why it’s so discomforting to have to learn about it and face it head on. “Humanity and all its terribleness” is not something that we as the more privileged group like to focus on, because it puts us in the spotlight (52). It makes us see all the conscious and unconscious moves that we have made and the impact it has on others. But again, we must have that discomfort or else things will stay stagnant. There is indeed a great deal of terribleness in our world, in our country, but one way that we can challenge it is to examine ourselves and the people around us with a more critical eye.

Question:

When it comes to difficult conversations, what can we learn from our own discomfort?

Class Discussion and Impact:

We didn’t get to my QCQ, but in a way I feel like we did. We spoke about education, and how it as a system is complicated and at times biased. We spoke about race and racism, and the ways we learn about and accept them. I think within all of that there is some discomfort in learning about the world and its complications. That it’s awkward having to challenge your worldview or the worldview of your friends and family. I enjoy taking part in conversations about these topics, as well as hearing from my classmates about their reflections.