Africana Sex Studies
The title of this entry is metaphoric of a symposium I attended entitled "Sexuality and Africana Studies." The discussion focused on the issue of sexuality as it surrounds, penetrates (pardon the pun), and permeates African Studies from music, to matrimony, from politics, to pedagogy, and of course from man, to woman.
There was a great panel of speakers:
* _Herman Beavers_ - an Associate Professor of English at Penn
* _Mary Frances Berry_ - the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of History at Penn
* _Melinda Chateauvert_ - Undergraduate Studies Director in the African American Studies Department at the University of Maryland at College Park
* _Michael Eric Dyson_ - the Avalon Professor in the Humanities and African American Studies at Penn
* _Barbara Dianne Savage_ - the Geraldine R. Segal Professor American Social Thought at Penn
* _Rebecca Maynard_ - the University Trustee Professor of Education and Social Policy at Penn
What really got me shook up were several shockers beyond the "normal" shockers one might expect from Dyson et al.
1. "We have to 'out' some of our Black leaders," said Melinda Chateauvert, such as George Washington Carver or Carter G. Woodson. That threw us all for a loop!
2. Rebecca Maynard let us know know that the true reason many welfare mothers were not going to school or work was not because of the oft assumed laziness, but for reasons such as staying up all night keeping *rats* off your baby or dealing with a hostile so-called man who is threatened by your intelligence and independence. **That** stopped everyone in their tracks.