A Seat at the Table
by Yasmine Hachimi
From the moment I first became aware of RaceB4Race, I knew it would be a game changer. It’s not often that time and space are dedicated to scholars of color and their work, and as a graduate student in the dissertation phase, it was something I longed to be part of.
Since entering graduate school four years ago, I’ve attended only two conferences, including the most recent RaceB4Race symposium. Beyond the usual imposter syndrome that can cause much anxiety and hesitation, I had heard enough horror stories from young white women in academia to convince me that the last situation I wanted to put myself in was an environment that left me vulnerable to attacks on me and my work. If young white women weren’t comfortable at conferences, then what would my experience be like? And what is it like for scholars who experience colorism in ways I never will?
These questions and concerns have often been a topic of conversation with my dissertation advisor and mentor, Professor Fran Dolan. It was Professor Dolan who encouraged me to connect to RaceB4Race (and ensured my trip was funded) because she wanted me to find a community and experience what it was like to be in a safe space amongst other scholars of color.
Her hopes for me became reality when I attended the 2019 RaceB4Race: Race and Periodization in Washington, D.C. Not only was I surrounded by wonderful scholars whose work I had read and many of whom I had engaged with on Twitter, but I also was welcomed, quite literally, with open arms by Professors Kim Hall and Margo Hendricks and so many other brilliant scholars. RaceB4Race creates opportunities for BIPOC scholars who have been overlooked and undervalued by the academy and gives them a platform to share their work. It’s also a space where scholars at any stage in their careers can come together, find community, be seen and heard, and be themselves.
What was truly important and affirming for me occurred on the first full day of the symposium. The schedule included talks by two scholars who led me to acknowledge my identity and cultural background in relation to research and the archive. When Michael A. Gomez explained the development of racial logics in Medieval West Africa, I was surprised to see so much interest from the audience, not because the talk wasn’t thought-provoking, but because I didn’t think academics were really interested or invested in North Africans. But that was not the case at RaceB4Race and clearly for scholars like Gomez, whose ongoing commitment and work on the African diaspora was reflected not only in the research he shared but also in his use of Arabic while giving his talk. I can’t describe what it was like to realize people cared about my community and to hear a familiar language being spoken from the stage. When Mira Kafantaris greeted Gomez in Arabic during the Q&A, it was a pivotal moment for me. To be able to share her enthusiasm at hearing Arabic spoken in a U.S. academic environment without judgement was amazing. I felt at home. I felt comfortable. I felt free.
But this doesn’t mean I didn’t experience moments of discomfort. On more than one occasion throughout the day, the term “Berber” was used when referring to North Africans. This term, given by colonizers, is often used to refer to indigenous North Africans and continues to be used today despite resistance from the named community that the term is, in fact, racist.
Indigenous North Africans refer to themselves as Amazigh or the plural Imazighen, which means “free people.” As scholars, and especially as scholars of color, we cannot continue to use racist terms without contextualizing how they were used, why we are using them, and noting the various oppressions that many of these tribes and communities continue to face today. This is one of the reasons why, when my undergraduate professors encouraged me to study North Africa and the Middle East, I swiftly declined. It was too personal and to be quite honest, I didn’t want academia to exploit my culture for the benefit of white scholars. And yet, as I sat in Grossman Hall that day, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and unexpectedly forced to acknowledge that my subject position inevitably influences every aspect of my life, including how I relate to my field, the archives, and my research.
Luckily, I was in an environment where I could easily approach other scholars of color to work through my feelings and concerns. Instead of letting my discomfort build, I sat down with Professors Hall and Hendricks to explain my concern about the use of a word that might seem harmless and explain the continued oppressions that Amazigh communities in Morocco experience today. I was immediately met with validation. Hall and Hendricks encouraged me to share my concerns during the Q&A but sensing my hesitancy, they assured me that my voice would be welcome and is needed in critical conversations about indigenous North Africans. It was in that moment that I finally felt like there is a place for me in academia and within premodern studies, and one of those places is to advocate for my community, whether it be within my research or through other modes and means.
While the first day of RaceB4Race demonstrated the importance of safe conference environments, the second day was an education in how to create those spaces when giving a talk, within the classroom, and in our respective fields.
While presenting his work on empathy as a colonial tool that mediated affect in Chaucer’s works, Wan-Chuan Kao defined his terms in his presentation slides. Although it might seem obvious, defining terminology is a way of ensuring your work is accessible and doesn’t assume everyone in the audience knows or should know specific terms.
Offering another great model of inclusive scholarship, Carol Mejia LaPerle included a slide that emphasized the importance of the premodern critical race studies archive and encouraging scholars to “cite backwards and forwards,” reminding everyone to acknowledge the scholarship that preceded our work and giving a platform to work being done by less well-known graduate students and early career scholars. LaPerle ended her talk with important questions about how we can commit to anti-racist efforts in our classrooms.
Ruben Espinosa connected racist and violent moments in Shakespeare’s plays that demonstrate white rage with the recent attack on brown and black bodies in El Paso, Texas. He shared a YouTube video of high school students in Texas who adapted The Merchant of Venice as part of the Qualities of Mercy project. They were encouraged to use their own languages to challenge imperialist narratives and rewrite Shylock’s story.
Challenging notions of race and periodization in Anglo-Saxon England as wholly white and having minimal contact with ‘others’ outside of Europe, Mary Rambaran-Olm demonstrated how the early medieval period in England was actually one rich with migration, trade, and exchange. The periodization dates reflect a restrictiveness and gatekeeping that limits our understanding of the past and prevents ‘others’ from contributing to the field. She also shared her experiences as a woman of color and early-career scholar in the professional organization formerly known as ISAS, as well as the challenges of teaching a field that is regularly used to bolster histories of white supremacy.
The ongoing conversations on Twitter in the wake of RaceB4Race is an important reminder of the stakes involved when teaching premodern literature and histories. BIPOC are regularly attacked by online trolls and gatekeepers, risking their safety to advocate for their communities and for more inclusive fields. We need to continue to connect the past with the present in order to fight the ongoing racism in our fields, communities, and classrooms. Of course, my growing interest in premodern critical race studies doesn’t mean I’m changing my dissertation on early modern queens and scandal, but it does mean that there is a seat at the table for me in premodern and critical race studies. And RaceB4Race fam, I’m ready to take my place.
Yasmine Hachimi is a PhD Candidate in the English Department at UC Davis, where she is currently working on her dissertation, “Networks of Scandal: Queens, Sex, and the Circulation of Knowledge in Sixteenth-Century England and Beyond.” This project places the material love letter at the heart of sexual scandals that swirled around early modern queens in order to think about how epistolary surveillance, forgeries, and lost letters shape popular histories of Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth of York. Yasmine’s research interests also include adaptations, performance, media and fan studies, digital humanities, and premodern critical race studies. You can follow her on Twitter @YasmineHachimi.
