Mr. & Mrs. Can’t Get Right: A space of becoming white…

I just received my own copy of the “Everyday Writing Center” in the mail and as I placed the book on my bookshelf I considered the ways in which I might revise or utilize my book summary/reader echo. I have begun to think about trust a word that has been present throughout our class considering Trixie’s work with LBGT students. I’ve even asked myself if I trust the writing center? Was it/or is it a safe space for me-and my black body? In “The Everyday Writing Center” the desire to re-negotiate writing center norms and traditions got me to thinking about collaboration, it’s chaos and Lunsford’s notion of it’s “damnable difficultly”. With this I am also considering Mary Pratt’s Arts of the Contact Zone-where she analyzes the presence of the dominant groups influence in an autoethnographic texts-contending that in many ways present in many autoethonographic texts is the theme of marginalized group’s entry into the dominant culture.
Now I will talk about race: So it seems in my experiences as a African American women that I have had to introduce race or apologize for my understanding of races influences in writing-especially when I am the only African American student in the class-with respect to my own research conclusions-when presented in class-as in the past-There seems to be that one white person who empties out the same rebuttal: “but that isn’t about race”…which has altered and complicated my own understanding of academic writing, social conditioning and contact zones.
I’ve come to consider the writing center in such a way, as a space where acculturation or assimilation through writing might occur. I wonder how many African Americans negotiate the “becoming” of their writing identities particularly those who consistently utilize the writing center.
For me, an insider and outsider to the writing center culture. I find the ideals outlined in Melissa Nicolas text to be quite interesting, especially the dialog and research concerning collaboration and negotiating authority. What I wonder or at times seem to see an absence of is voices of African American and Latinos with respect to writing center research. What if we looked at how authority is negotiated in collaboration with consideration of race of cultural differences? What about the lack of representative voices of “others” of whom speak out and speak up in writing center rhetoric?
I ask these questions because I can recall someone who was African American who ranted about how they hated working with ESL students for multiple reasons-I felt were ridiculously stupid…I was token off by the comment as I thought…how can the marginalized marginalize. I refuse to acknowledge a “dominant” voice/writing style because I believe that to say that there is one, admits its rule over me (African American Me)…Ok so although this might be fragmented writing..I do believe I am on to something…