For a while, I was designing and grading coursework for adult remedial education in prison. The students were almost all black or brown. So I gave assignments from writers of the same -- Robert Hayden, Lorna Dee Cervantes, and so on. Joy Harjo was one of them. I wanted the guys to see that people like them could write things, and in fact wrote about experiences they could relate to. Every class, one or two of them would just catch fire with it. That remains one of the most subversive things I've ever done. Nothing scares the shit out of white people like a black man with a book in his hands.
Wow!
For a while, I was designing and grading coursework for adult remedial education in prison. The students were almost all black or brown. So I gave assignments from writers of the same -- Robert Hayden, Lorna Dee Cervantes, and so on. Joy Harjo was one of them. I wanted the guys to see that people like them could write things, and in fact wrote about experiences they could relate to. Every class, one or two of them would just catch fire with it. That remains one of the most subversive things I've ever done. Nothing scares the shit out of white people like a black man with a book in his hands.