Interview Oral History

Race and Gender Many of the course issues we've looked at were addressed in the interview that I engaged in with a woman named Anne Demars, an African-American woman who grew up on the Southside of Chicago. Born in 1970, Demars had just missed the bulk of the civil rights era, and was entering a world that her parents had hoped would afford her greater opportunities and a greater shot at equality.

Unfortunately this interview revealed that racism has left a true legacy in the United States, one which will take hundreds of years to fully undo. Much of the interview with Demars was spent trying to pinpoint the unique experience and perspective that Demars has had in the world as a result of the fact that she's both a woman and an ethnic minority.

However, as Demars consistently reminded me, she can't comment upon how her experience has been unique or distinct from others, she can only share her experience with me, as she felt like she didn't have a strong sense of comparison to other (such as Caucasian) perspectives. One of the ways in which the interview was conducted was that I read to Demars a quote from one of our readings and then I asked her for her response.

Many of the quotes were tailored to the idea of power based on race. For example, one of the first quotes that I read to her was: "I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege.

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks" (McIntosh). Demars explained that this was something she entirely agreed with and something that she had observed throughout her life.

Demars discussed how she had observed this level of white privilege growing up as a little girl in Chicago, and that she soon concluded that it was simply "better" to be white. When her mother and her would shop for school clothes, she noticed that it would take her mother longer to get the attention of the salespeople. In Chicago, most of the people taking the bus in were blacks.

She explained that if you took the red line in Chicago from the south to the north, one could see the changes in race on the train -- something that is present even to this day Demars explained. The city still has a degree of lasting segregation where more white people live in the affluent white side and more poor people (which happen to be African-Americans) live on the less wealthy, less safe black side of the family.

When asked about where she fits within the power structure, Demars explained that because of her gender and her race she's at the lower end of the ladder and the general totem pole of society. Demars said this with a degree of matter-of-fact-ness. However, Demars explained, because of her work ethic and her education she's been able to climb out from under this lower tier. Demars is a professor at Columbia College Chicago where she teaches courses on gender studies and race within cinema.

Demars says that her PhD and her work, along with her published writings have been able to command her a level of respect and authority that other women of her race and gender simply do not get to enjoy. However, she says that when she leaves academia and interacts simply as a citizen in the world, she's still on the receiving end of discrimination.

For example, she said she was recently on an airplane and when it came time to de-plane, a man pushed her out of the way and said "move it, willya?" Demars wanted to be clear that it wasn't just that the man had pushed past her, it's that he physically pushed her out of the way, by putting a hand on her back and moving her forcefully. Demars explained that she was completely taken aback and that the whole experience seemed to be highly racially charged.

Demars said that it reminded her about the works she had read from a variety of scholars on gender, racism and America -- namely about remarks which concluded that African-American women aren't human. Demars explained that she felt this acutely in that none of the other passengers came to her aid, nor did they ask if she was okay, nor did anyone report this man as being aggressive. People just watched and then went back to gathering their belongings.

Demars explained that she viewed this not only as a clear manifestation of racism, but also the power structure inherent in racism: the white man, the person at the top of the pyramid, was able to do exactly what he wanted, even if his behavior was violent, grotesque and socially unacceptable.

One of the elements which disturbed Demars the most, she explained, was the fact that the incident happened when she was surrounded by (white) women, something that she saw as another clear manifestation of power and racism along with skewed patriarchy. Demars explained that it was at once as if the white women around her were conceding power to the white man who was present.

Demars also felt that there was a general lack of solidarity between women; as a black woman she felt that the white women around her had othered her. The entire experience is evocative of An Open Letter to Mary Daly, where Audrey Lorde comments about Daly's tendency to exclude African-American women from some of the biological and experiential instances that she describes.

As Lorde wrote, "Have you read my work, and the work of other Black women, for what it could give you? Or did you hunt through only to find words that would legitimize your chapter on African genital mutilation in the eyes of other Black women? And if so, then why not use our words to legitimize or illustrate the other places where we connect in our being and becoming? If, on the other hand, it was not Black women you were attempting to reach, in what way did our words illustrate your point for white women? Mary, I ask that you be aware of how this serves the destructive forces of racism and separation between women -- the assumption that the herstory and myth of white women is the legitimate and sole herstory and myth of all women to call upon for power and background, and that nonwhite women and our herstories are noteworthy only as decorations, or examples of female victimization.

I ask that you be aware of the effect that this dismissal has upon the community of Black women and other women of Color, and how it devalues your own words. This dismissal does not essentially differ from the specialized devaluations that make Black women prey, for instance, to the murders even now happening in your own city. When patriarchy dismisses us, it encourages our murderers" (Lorde).

This is highly significant as it demonstrates the tendency of white women to exclude African-American women at times from the shared experience of gender. It also demonstrates another way in which African-American women are othered and separated from white women, and how there's a racism that exists even within their gender. Furthermore, Demars also discussed a time when she was sitting in an upscale restaurant with a friend (who was also African-American) and that they were both dressed up (and thus appeared to be on a date).

Demars over heard one member of the wait staff refer to her table as "the hot dykes by the window" as she.