We spoke to UA professor Trudier Harris about race, feminism and meeting Hillary Clinton

During this election year, influential people across the nation are speaking up. They’re not only sharing their opinions on who should be the next leader of the U.S., but they’re also tackling major issues and starting discussions on race and equality as a whole.

The Tab spoke with esteemed professor and distinguished researcher Trudier Harris at the University at Alabama. She shared her opinions on feminism, how feminism differs within the African American community and whether or not Hillary Clinton is the best advocate.

What does feminism, specifically feminism within the African American community, mean to you?

Feminism to me means that women are treated fairly and, where appropriate, equally within our society. There is a difference between fairness and equality. For example, fairness implies sameness in terms of how women are paid for the work they do in relation to men who do the same work.

On the other, as referenced in connection with our military, treating women equally might not be the best thing. I’m thinking here of muscular differences that enable men to carry 90 or 100 pounds or more into combat when it would be unreasonable to assume the same muscular strength for every woman.

Photo credit: UA News, 2012

What specific struggles do African American women have to face when dealing with the issue of female inequality that women of a different race do not have to deal with?

As a couple of my African American female graduate students argued recently, stereotypes about black female personality still reign. These students have difficulty asserting themselves at times because the stereotype of the “angry black woman” is still prevalent in our society.

Once a black woman is so labeled, the labelers find it easy not to take her seriously or to dismiss her completely. And of course, in the broader African American communities, there are always issues of economic inequity and insufficient educational training.

Then, too, there are class issues within African American communities, which is something that most cultural watchers outside the group fail to note with any consistency. Strikingly, skin color still makes a difference (colorism, pigmentocracy, skin privilege), and African American women have to deal with that both within and outside their communities.

Do you feel that Hillary Clinton would be a beneficial leader specifically for women and even more specifically for women of color?

I believe that Clinton is responsive to women of color. Is that a predictor of how she would advocate for them as president? Obviously I don’t know. Also, I am not sure who she is listening to among African American feminists, so that’s not a part of the question I can answer.

I met Hillary Clinton in the spring of 1987, long before she became “Hillary Clinton.” At that time, she was the relatively unknown wife of the Governor of Arkansas, and I was on leave from my faculty position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to serve as William Grant Cooper Visiting Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Upon learning that I would be in Arkansas – and Little Rock no less – a friend of mine in Health Sciences at UNC had given me contact information for Clinton and urged me to call her when I arrived in the city because she was “good people.” Adjustment to my duties delayed that call until mid-February. Clinton was gracious and invited me to join her for lunch at the Arkansas Museum of Art. I volunteered to pick her up since her address was on the way to the museum.

On that fateful morning, when I asked a colleague how to get to the address Clinton had given me, he informed me that I was going to the Governor’s Mansion. “No,” I said. “I’m going to have lunch with Hillary Clinton.” “She’s the governor’s wife,” he responded. After my dropped jaw retracted to its normal position, I collected my nerves and began the journey.

To say that Clinton was gracious and down to earth would be an understatement. She was keenly inviting and, to my mind, not the least bit wrapped up in her position. I can’t remember what we ate, but I do remember that our meal was interrupted constantly by folks who came over to greet Clinton. She gave warm attention to each one of them. Then, following lunch, she suggested that we go to see the current exhibit of Arkansas artists.

Photo credit: UNC University Gazette, 2012

As we walked into that exhibit hall, I noticed a painting at the back of the room, perhaps 50 or so feet away, and I said, “I want that.” We walked up and discovered that it had been done by Henri Linton. “Well,” I said, “there’s only one Henri Linton who spells his name that way, and he is from my hometown.”

At that moment, the world became smaller, because I learned that this was indeed Henri Linton from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Clinton proved as excited as I was as I made plans to get in touch with him – he was teaching at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. I made the contact, bought the painting and thus have dual memories of a fantastic day when I visited a woman who knew nothing about me but who welcomed me with a friendliness and an inviting manner that keeps those memories vividly in my mind these 29 years later.

What is the one thing you want people who don’t have an understanding of female African American life and feminism within their community to realize or understand?

Understanding comes only through interaction. Reading can only get you so far, so folks should reach out across racial and class lines and get to know other folks. Stereotypes could be reduced and perhaps some of the judgmental reactions to other people could be eliminated. African Americans have issues that other communities at times cannot fathom, especially those in middle and upper class white communities. So, again, I would simply advocate openness to difference instead of judgment about difference.