A Letter to Students Spring 2014

20 January 2014

Dear Students:

In Brazil, I never got used to being five hours ahead, so I would sit in the loft at the hostel in Pelourinho which is in the historic center of Salvador, named for the whipping post or pelourinho Africans were tied to and beaten often to death-- and look at the time on the wall clock and compare that with my computer and sit and sit and then look up and decide to go to bed at 4 a.m. and then before my eyes could shut properly, the sun would be shining through the window. The thin line between night and day is almost absent the closer we move towards the equator. The weather is always warm, the changing seasons a bit of heavy rainfall.

I hope this New Year has started well for you so far. I usually open each session with a letter outlining my goals and objectives for the semester and a little bit about myself. This year I have started this letter multiple times.

I am just back from a funeral of what I consider one of the brightest minds on the planet, Imamu Amiri Baraka. I’d just returned from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil a week ago today when I was off again this past Friday morning to New York for his funeral Saturday, January 18, 2014.  See http://www.nj.com/newark/lisadurden/index.ssf/2014/01/amiri_barakacelebrated_in_life.html  I bid on plane tickets and found a deal. Last semester, I had students reflect on a poem, Baraka wrote as poet laureate for the state of New Jersey, “Somebody Blew Up America.” To read student responses see: http://professorwandasposse.blogspot.com/search?q=amiri+baraka

I stayed with a friend of mine in a historic Harlem home and then we got up early Saturday, 5:30 a.m. to take the subway with a friend to Newark, New Jersey, where the funeral took place. My friend, Robert Hilary King is the only free member of the Angola 3. He spent 29 years in solitary confinement (31 years in prison) for his political beliefs --he is a Black Panther. He was in New York on a speaking tour: panel discussions, radio interviews, a dinner for Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, a Tribute to Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson, and a film series put on by the Black Panther Commemoration Committee.  

His comrade, Herman Wallace was released last year, and died a day later Albert Woodfox is the only man still behind bars. His case has been overturned multiple times and reversed on appeal. We are hopeful he will be released this year. He will be 65 next month. I believe he has been incarcerated since he was 17 years old.

That Friday evening the day I arrived was the film festival where King spoke. The next day the funeral was an overwhelming, but a fitting tribute to Baraka who was a revolutionary poet, activist, writer and human being, whose life was revisionist as it was reflective. A cold front hit New York, ice and sleet and sub-degree temperatures hit January 9 through January 19. I recall my father’s expression “freeze on it”— Baraka's exit a glacier pause. Certainly the planet stopped or ‘’froze” as he bid us adieu.   

Just two weeks ago, I met the senior member of Irmandade da Boa Morte, a group of women who honor departed Africans who’d been enslaved.  One week later she died. She told us that 2013 was good; she was up and about, but this year she wasn’t getting around as well, but she planned to participate in the annual ceremony in August.  I went to Brazil specifically to meet these women, I am happy I met her and two other members of the Sisterhood of the Good Death. I guess her soul couldn’t wait.

I also got to visit a kilombo which is modeled on historic quilombos or formally enslaved African settlements in Brazil along the coastal areas whose members resisted reenslavement after their escape from bondage. We stayed in the forest and literally ate from the land.

It was so funny –Gonzalo Rodriguez, who started the permaculture arm at Kilombo Teonde lives near the Fruitvale BART in Oakland when not traveling. Chilean native, he and I met on-line through a mutual friend, artist Rigo 23. He and I were emailing back and forth before I rented a car with another friend and drove to Valenca where I saw him our second day there. He is a good friend also of Robert King, my friend I spent the weekend with in New York. He, Robert and Rigo visited two historic quilombos a few years ago together for an art project –an ark, Rigo was building.  It was at the University Art Museum. To read about it see: http://bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibition/human_nature  and http://www.artistsrespond.org/artists/rigo23/

These historic communities or quilombos which were under threat from current Brazilian government structures for their land were given protected status during President Lula’s term in office. Caporiera Angola is a New Afrikan martial arts form that enslaved black Brazilians used to liberate themselves from captivity. It is connected to Condomblé, a religion developed in the New World using Catholicism as the cover religion for African spirituality.  The Condomblé houses can be identified by a white flags somewhere near the roof. White, of course means peace.

This semester I am contracted to teach a few English 1A courses and one short term English 1B. None of the classes is full except the on-line English 1A (ENGL 1A-A11L (23973) which is too full (smile). I am not certain if the Hybrid English course (21951) Tu 6:00PM - 7:50PM A 202) or the Saturday English 1A (24853) Sat. 9:00AM - 12:50PM A 200) will fly unless more students enroll. We shall see tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 9 a.m.  The short term English 1B (23974) which begins March 20-May 22 has time to fill, 3 units, TuTh 1:00PM - 4:50PM, C 210. If you have friends who need an English course, I have room in all my classes except the online English class.

I teach thematically. This semester we are looking at the term “happiness” and how it is defined by Gretchen Rubin, an attorney turned writer in her The Happiness Project Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle and Generally Have More Fun. Students will also have an opportunity to find a book with a character or author who exemplifies "happiness." The last essay will look at a person whose happiness comes from service to humanity. You will write three major research essays.

We will watch a film, Happy, which gives a great overview of the topic. Our textbook is a collection of 50 essays by Samuel Cohen whose selection is both contemporary and classical selections. Our other two textbooks are nuts and bolts texts: They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (Second Edition) by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein and Diana Hacker's Rules for Writers with 2009 MLA.

Just found out another dear friend, Mary Rudge, poet laureate for Alameda died Monday morning at home. I have so many regrets. She published a new book last year and I missed the readings at the public library and never got a chance to have her over for tea since I moved to Alameda a year ago to date. Now she is an ancestor. What a wonderful generous woman! I’d planned to have her come to my class in March to share her work (smile).

This song was also in my mailbox. I thought is fitting, freedom is something we contemplate a lot, but do almost nothing to safeguard. Is death the ultimate "freedom"? I think we can be free while still occupying this corporal jacket. Death is often the easy way out. Max Roach played what some term, "free music," others call it "jazz," a term he loathed.  http://www.jazzonthetube.com/videos/max-roach/freedom-day.html

Addendum:
Written late December 2013 after reading Eric Fromm’s To Have and To Be.

Over the years I have chopped off parts of myself to fit into the shoe which still felt snug despite the loped off toes and heel I have sacrificed to look presentable. After Epsom salts and liniment, I have decided to buy new shoes that fit and say, who cares if it is not popular or stylish to be me—I am after comfort first, fashion second.

This will be the first semester in many years that I have worn shoes which feel like me. Gone are the restrictions which kept me closeted or hiding out hoping against discovery. I have decided to bring all of myself to the table, even if that means there are fewer people seated here by the time dessert arrives. At least there will be no false advertising— you won’t come to class one day and find an impostor where I once stood.

I am an African centered womanist free thinker. No I am not an atheist, but I have no problem with views which I do not share. I was raised Muslim in America, San Francisco to be exact. The cosmology of the Nation of Islam differed from that of Sunni and Shiite Islam, but how I interpret and live my faith is a garment that suits me.  I believe in the vastness that is this world and in a creation that lends itself to multiple paths to episteme, so as long as you don’t occupy the entire sidewalk, we can proceed together—as the goal is the same for most of us.

I am being intentionally esoteric. Perhaps it’s my philosophy background or my current studies in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Community Psychology, Eco Psychology and Liberation Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Who knows? I think I was born deep (smile).

I started writing this at midnight in December without a destination in sight. I just knew that I wanted to start being honest with myself and confess that somewhere along the road I lost myself and I am looking to find her where she last occupied space long enough to make a difference. I was reading an original Brothers Grimm volume which lent itself to the Cinderella bloody shoes example (smile). 

Looks can be deceiving. I am not easy to read and even when you think you might know me, you really don’t. Assumptions can cause us to miss a sunrise or an eclipse-- In one of the Harry Potter episodes, he discovers a cloak which covers or makes invisible whoever wears it. I can cloak aspects of myself I want to hide.  This is what I have been doing for the past five or six years—blending in, fitting in, disappearing.

People talk about diversity in all things: gender, race, class, education, abilities, ideas, but really it is just lip service. Look at who holds the power and how similar that elite set of individuals look. There are no apologies and there is no attempt to diversify the thoughts of these people whom some of us will never meet, yet continue to feel their impact nonetheless.

Sometimes the term privilege is attached to these people, but why give up such language? Privilege used to have a positive meaning, now it means your get the goodies without effort; it is an inheritance unearned. I think about the privilege of being a descendant of a people who knew how to work hard when the rewards were beyond any conceivably tangible gesture or promise. Look at Solomon Northup who was kidnapped and enslaved for twelve long years. He knew freedom, the others could only dream and some could not do that. Obviously my ancestors were those who could dream and believe in something better, such is my inheritance, an optimism and believe in destiny even when I can't see it on the immediate horizon. I think such an attitude a privilege earned by those who came before me.

When I first started teaching, I used a book called We Are America. It is something I believed too, that we—the People, are America. I don’t  anymore.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Full-time employment comes with a cost to one’s soul I have found no matter how much you love the work. Once the company owns you there are sacrifices one has to make to belong.

Oh my goodness, you are probably crying out, what the heck have I gotten myself into?! Well an English class, of course. A place where one writes for answers to questions unasked, where one reads for information, where one adds to the discourse one’s findings which often come from the space we occupy as human beings—short and longer term contractual agreements.

Yes, there is in simply being, an agreement made. Often the agreement is unspoken or unacknowledged. These relationships are not always optimized or beneficial, so own your life, occupy your space with intention—and if you choose to be occupied do not sleep on it—engage.

We have to be awake to be free. Freedom is the first loss when we move from consciousness to sleep or unconsciousness. Just because a person’s eyes are open, does not mean she is awake. Just because you sit in class looking like you are engaged, does not mean you are. Bring all of yourself to the space and fill it up with your person: mind, body and spirit.  When you decide to participate in a on-line discussion, make sure you are mentally clear and have adequate time to be fully engaged. This means different things for different students: quiet or solitude for some, for others they just need to focus.

It's my job, so I will read everything; however, I enjoy writing with sincerity. I like an honest voice –I don’t get turned off by grammatical errors—yes, I notice them and I wonder as I read if the person really did not notice the errors or perhaps did not have the skills to correct them. When I later learn that the writer was just careless, it makes me wonder why the writer didn’t respect herself enough to present her best work. What if she doesn’t get a second chance? What if this is it for all times? Who wants to be remembered so poorly, if she could have done better?

I make mistakes in my writing, in the syllabus, in my letters—even on corrections on papers, so I understand slips of the pen, but I do reread my writing at least twice before submission preferably on separate days.(I have reread this letter too many times, which happens when one is tired (smile). Try to write when you are rested, you make less mistakes.

What I publish is not intentionally drafty. I am a writer who teaches writing, so I give perhaps too much feedback and I push student writers when they are ready to take the C when I can see an A. Let me know if you want more or less feedback (smile). This is not to say multiple revisions will produce an A. Sometimes a C is as good as it gets for some topics or essays. Everyone does not enter with the same skill set, which means your best might not look like your classmate's best. Know this, writing is a craft which yields benefits when you put in concerted effort.  Can you imagine that this writer had to take remedial writing classes at UC Berkeley and again at Holy Names College when I transferred? I didn't know what a thesis sentence was or anything about essay structure until I took a teaching writing course in graduate school. I learned about MLA and how to document when I started teaching. None of this is intuitive; of course there are the geniuses, but most of us have to work for our donuts and stardust (smile).

I don't know how I got As in my literature and writing classes without these skills, but I did.

I have had a bi-weekly blogtalk radio show since August 2009 and a monthly column in a newspaper for about 20 years. I am also a doctoral student so I am reading and writing all the time, literally. It is my favorite pastime, that and travel and biking and walking and sunsets and sunrises and dancing (smile). Oh, I love theatre. I am all for the fieldtrip--let me know if you'd like to attend live performances--author talks, gallery openings, theatrical events, even concerts (smile).

If you'd like to read any of my writing let me know. I wrote a great paper, at least I liked it, about Jackie Robinson and the metaphor of home for my Psychoanalytical Tradition class and another paper I liked about Constructing an American self for my Depth Psychology class last quarter (smile). 

Peace and Blessings,

Professor Wanda Sabir