"HOW I GOT OVER"

So this is how it started: I got more interviews than any doctoral student in my graduate school cohort. No joke. I literally had so many interviews at that 1989 MLA meeting that I had to schedule one after the other. I got many offers for campus visits--so many that I actually had to turn some down. And then there were the schools who wanted to hire me without even a decent interview. Far too many to name. 1989, and even then I had emerged as an oddity. I was one of a very few African-American women graduating with a PhD in English. I was a good student--not exceptional, but good. So were many of my classmates. It didn't take long to figure out the why of my popularity. I (meaning we) was in short supply, and "diversity" was the word of the day. My white professors and mentors were thrilled by the success of their "most illustrious" graduate. Some of my classmates were pissed. My African American professor was furious: "You got a better job than I have." Although I was never interested in teaching at a research institution, my mentors and advisers demanded that I direct all applications to such institutions. Just as I was applying for jobs, I got an offer. It was my dream job. I got a call from the headmaster of the newly developed Mississippi School for the Arts, a public/private high school for gifted kids. The offer? Chair of the English Department. I was thrilled. No one else was. Profs told me that it would be a "waste" of my degree and their time and energy. How could I not represent my institution at a research university? I applied to 18 schools. My classmates applied to 50 or more. Of the 18, none was a small liberal arts college. When I left Vanderbilt off the list, my dissertation director demanded that I apply. Though I said "no," I applied.

Even then I had to wade through the circus that affirmative action had become. I had to find ways to figure out what schools were interested in ME, Margaret, the person. I created a litmus test. In addition to getting through the interviews, I had to determine which were demanding and rigorous, and which were simply pro forma. I was grateful to the search committees that rejected me, and I suspected all the committees that wanted to interview me further. The campus visits were even worse than the interviews. One dean offered me a remarkably reduced course load from other English faculty. When I asked him how he would explain such a move to my future colleagues, he said: "They know we have to use extraordinary measures to get professors of your caliber." I was neither fooled nor flattered, but with each campus visit, I was vigilant about looking for signs that suggested some perverse interpretation of affirmative action. After many trips, and a candid conversation with the dean at Vanderbilt, I believed that they chose me for more than my skin. I didn't want the job, but I took it. That was the beginning of the trial by fire, and let me tell you that my feet are still burned and scorched after all these years. In other words, the trial period is over, but the fire still burns.

Lest you think I'm opposed to affirmative action, let me correct you. I'm not. What I'm opposed to is the patronizing and condescending way in which it has been used by white folks to encourage the stereotype that black folks simply can't compete--that the standards must be lowered for us; that they must make deals to lure us. I still refer to that MLA meeting as a slave auction. That's how degraded I felt by the process; the questions they asked; the patronizing ways in which I was treated. But even more important is the way in which it made ME feel about ME. The abuses of affirmative action fall on the heads of black folks. We feel the stares. We hear the questions of those who believe we don't belong. White people know about the deals, the offers, the shortcuts. I have never wanted money enough or a job enough or a reduced course load enough to take the deal, and I have no respect for those black folks who do. None. It makes us complicit in the selling of our souls and bodies. Don't give me nothing cause I'm black and you feel obliged or liberal and guilty. I don't want your money or your pity. Don't cut me no break. Don't make me your cause. Your abuses of affirmative action diminish my accomplishments!