Broadening the Contours in the Study of Black Politics: Citizenship and Popular Culture by Michael Mitchell

Author:Michael Mitchell [Mitchell, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138519817
Google: 1sGLswEACAAJ
Goodreads: 39228393
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Names of Speakers:

Nikol Alexander- Floyd (hereinafter “Alexander-Floyd)

Nadia Brown (hereinafter “Brown”)

Wendy Smooth (hereinafter “Smooth”)

Alexander-Floyd: I have with me Dr. Wendy Smooth and Dr. Nadia Brown. Welcome. We are going to be conducting a discussion about Black women in political science and research on Black political women. There are different questions we will be talking about, so let’s jump right in.

The first one: How did you become political scientists? I know that we have different paths. We all know people who are third-generation academics. And, then there are those of us, like myself, who are first-generation graduates with bachelor’s degrees and PhDs. This first one is inspired by an interview with Octavia Butler, who, as you know, is a wonderful science fiction writer. One interviewer asked her what inspired her to become a writer. What encouragement and inspiration did she have?

What stood out to me was that she said that she did not have any. She did not know any writers, and people did not think it was something one could do to make a living. Actually meeting some [writers] was an important step for her, but her mother made an off-handed comment one day and stated, “Well, maybe you will be a writer.” She said, “It was like a balloon going off in a cartoon and that she had not actually thought about that possibility until that moment.”

How did you both come to this profession? Did you meet someone? Did you have encouragement to do that? What was the process that brought you to becoming a political scientist?

Smooth: I always loved politics. I had an opportunity in high school to work on a political campaign with an African American woman who would become the first African American woman chancery court judge in the state of Mississippi. Working on that campaign and being in the mix of things solidified my interest in doing something around women in politics.

I thought, in my limited vision of what was possible, that I needed to run for public office. That is how I translated the experience. When I went through all the pomp and circumstance of my high school senior year and being asked, “What are you going to do next with your life?” my answer would always end in, “And she wants to become first Black female Governor for the state of Mississippi!” The crowd would go wild and this kind of shtick worked for me.

Then I went to Xavier University of Louisiana as an undergrad. It is a historically black university, yet our faculty was majority white. I was one of the students on the campus at the time who protested that we did not have enough Black faculty, Black studies, nor Women’s studies.

I had a professor, Dr. Derek Rovaris, who once said to me, “What are you going to do about that?” I said, “What do you mean what am I going to do about it? I am doing something about it right now! I am out here, writing a letter to Dr. Norman C.

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