Dr. Roxane Gay delivers Center for the Arts and Humanities keynote
by James Burnett
Doctor Roxane Gay delivered the Center for the Arts and Humanities keynote speech in Lorimer Chapel on April 23. Due to high interest, the College also live-streamed the event in the Lovejoy Building.
Gay is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, Difficult Women and the New York Times best-seller Bad Feminist. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel.
The talk took the form of a conversation between Gay and Assistant Professor of English Arisa A. White.
In her speech, Gay discussed how it is a privilege to feel safe in an environment, saying that “one of the greatest problems of our age is the fact that safety is a commodity.” Gay elaborated that “when you’re a wealthy white man, the world is your safe space.”
Gay addressed Akon Day, a party that took place on Nov. 3 in which Colby students wore racist outfits, describing it as “pathetic” and commenting, “often times racists are very dumb and unimaginative, and so banal.”
Speaking about the administration’s response to the party, Gay stated, “the administration has to do more than say we don’t tolerate racism.” Specifically, she said the administration can “do better than making empty statements and making students of color feel isolated.” The administration needs to “call people out.” Gay added, “it’s not a Colby problem; it’s an American problem.”
After discussing the College’s administration, Gay talked about her family’s significant role in supporting her both personally and in her career. She said, “we don’t hear enough about supportive black families and nuclear intact black families.”
Gay fondly described her father as a “fan-girl” who rearranges bookstores to put copies of Gay’s book in the front of the store.
When asked what she had learned about love in the course of her writing, Gay emphasized the importance of redemption. She said that when people do wrong, we need to consider “how do we create space for them to re-enter into a community?” Gay went on to say, “we do need to find ways to allow for redemption, and that can be love if we allow people to apologize and repair.” However, she acknowledged, “we are often times still so angry because we don’t want to talk about redemption, and that’s because redemption comes into the conversation too soon.”
During the question and answer session following her talk, Gay was asked, “how do you shame the shameless?” specifically in reference to the Colby administration.
Gay replied that she thinks we have to find ways to “work around the shameless. Energy is finite, and you can exhaust yourself doing the impossible.” She noted that the College’s administration “counts on that temporality, because they know you are going to go after four years.”
Another person asked, “how do you hold the administration accountable when they’re not?” In response, Gay recommended that students bring important Colby issues to the attention of large media outlets, such as the Boston Globe, to get the attention of the administration.
White told the Echo after the talk, “Roxane [Gay’s] honesty and her willingness to offer some willing and realistic answers to students for these hard issues on campus was amazing.”
Center for the Arts and Humanities Coordinator Megan E. Fossa told the Echo that Gay visited four classes at the College. Fossa also invited students from
various clubs/groups to meet with Gay during her time at the College. Fossa described Gay as “an extraordinary advocate for making marginalized parts of America’s diverse populations. As a culture critic, she gives voice to people of color, the LGBTQI community, people with body image issues, and more.”
