Interview with Anita Hill
Anita Hill teaches Social Policy, Law, and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brandeis University. In 1991 she testified against then Supreme Court Justice candidate Clarence Thomas. Her testimony lead President George H. W. Bush to continue with a bill that gave victims of harassment more opportunities that he had previously tried to prevent. It also caused several companies to start training around sexual harassment.
Matilda Fletcher
What is your definition of including someone?
Prof. Hill
Well, I think that the term almost speaks for itself; it’s about allowing people to be seen and heard, and a space to be seen and heard for who they are their authentic selves and to, to not only see and hear them, but make sure that the people you're including see and understand each other. So, inclusion really, it's no pun intended, is a very inclusive term. It really is about making space for everyone without regard to their status, class, or their identity and really being able to appreciate what they bring.
Matilda Fletcher
What is an encounter you've had with racism? What did you say or do? When you had that experience, what feelings did it bring up during and after the situation?
Prof. Hill
Well, I remember a cache of probably quite a few experiences that I've had with racism. The interesting thing about that is that so many of our experiences with racism are at a level that we know it's racist, but we don't necessarily respond at the moment, because, you know, it seems so mundane. I don't mean, minor events, but because it's so typical that there, I guess we could call them microaggressions that are racist. We don't necessarily respond in the immediate, but typically, what happens is that, you know, when people do things, like they asked me questions about, oh, your hair? Well, you know, the silly questions about and even can I touch it? It's something that we may or may not react to immediately, except to say yes or no. We don't necessarily call out the comments as racist, or, you know, and let me give you one example. So one example was a woman who was a friend, and who said to me, you know, I don't think you should wear your hair like that. I thought about it, it's both sexist and racist, but in particular, that this person who was not a person of color, should tell me how I should wear my hair. At the moment, all I did was respond to fate, but this is the way I prefer my hair. I think there are ways that we can, if these are people who you have some relationship with, you can engage them in conversation about why what they have said or done is inappropriate, and, you know, I didn't do it with that person at that time, but with some other folks, if they had made comments like that, that were inappropriate, I would engage them.
I've had much worse, racist events in my life. I've been called the N-word, just when I was just walking down the street and approached by a car full of white males. I was walking with a white male colleague, and I think it was an effort to shame both me and my colleague, so that was an instance, that kind of sticks out in my mind because what they were doing, I felt with me drawing the line between what was appropriate for me to be doing, as well as what was appropriate for him to be doing that he should not have been walking with me, and I should not have been walking. So those are two things that comment on one, as I say, it's one of those things that the immediate threat is not one of emotional violence, the hair thing was, but the threat for two of us walking down the street was much more emotional, and potentially physical.
Matilda Fletcher
What did you do after the encounter with your colleague?
Prof. Hill
We kept walking, and neither one of us spoke about it at that point. I think later on, he apologized to me, but beyond that, we really didn't have a real conversation about it. I think we both were hurt for each other, as well, as far as ourselves, and I think it was enough to have an apology or recognition that this was inappropriate and hurtful behavior for me. I don't consider our injuries as being the same, but I think we were both injured.
Matilda Fletcher
What would you tell middle schoolers about racism? What would you have wanted to know about racism in middle school?
Prof. Hill
I think I would want Middle School children to understand that many of the ideas that they absorb about race, especially as the negative ideas are coming from society, and that it is their opportunity, as well as their responsibility to challenge those ideas, to question them by themselves to think about whether that's the way they want to see the world, or do they agree with these assessments? If so, you know, why is it that they agree, or why is it they disagree? How do they, how does it make them feel? To interrogate, interrogate their feelings, interrogate their thinking and really try to ponder whether there's a better way to interact with people who maybe have a different race?
Matilda Fletcher
What else do you want to tell middle schoolers?
Prof. Hill
I think that were, you know, when you look at different kinds of polls, and when you look at them, generation by generation, about attitudes around racism, what you find is that increasingly, we find that younger people are much more inclusive. I won't use the word tolerant, because I don't think that's what they're trying to do. I think that they are trying to really move to a world where the differences that they see are not seen as negative differences. I hope that that thinking will continue, but I also would tell them that there will be pressures to conform to old ideas, to racist ideas and stereotypes, to choose friends who are like them because of those stereotypes and racist ideas. They should resist it because the world is really full of people who bring in different experiences, some of them related to their race, and that we shouldn't. We should all be embracing them to really understand the world because none of us are going to be able to live in a world where everybody looks like us. So to prepare yourself for the world as it really is; you need to embrace others.
Matilda Fletcher
Why do you like to teach?
Prof. Hill
I like to teach because for me teaching is a conversation. It's a conversation about ideas and behavior that matters. It's a conversation about how we as a society can grow and what we can do to help people who do not have the advantages that we have. That's the nature of my teaching anyway and how we can truly be engaged in creating a better world. So, to me, that's fun; I learn things from people, so it's not teaching is not just like me, telling people what they need to know. It's also an active process of engagement so that I learn every year and, and I also learned that every, every class, even though I may be teaching the same subject matter, every class is different, because the classroom experience is made up of the experience of a collective of people, and that collective student body changes every year in a class, so it's always changing. There's always room for growth, there's always new information, new knowledge to be gained. It's interactive, and that's why I like it.
Matilda Fletcher
How would you explain your testimony against Clarence Thomas to middle schoolers?
Prof. Hill
I would simply say that in 1991, I provided information about the character and fitness of an individual who was nominated to be on the country's highest court. As a lawyer, you're the country's highest score means everything to me. I mean, it means everything to me as a lawyer and also means everything to me as someone who benefited from cases that were decided by the Supreme Court. So I tell students that No, I was born in 1956, two years after schools the Supreme Court ruled that school should not be segregated. It changed. The schools that I went to; I went to integrated schools all of my life. Two of my siblings went to integrated schools. I have 13 siblings, and 11 of them started in segregated schools, and 10 of them graduated from segregated schools. While those schools were wonderful experiences for them, in those schools, the resources were limited, the funding was limited, the opportunities were limited, and just opening up the schools to be more inclusive, provided greater opportunity for those of us who had the benefit of an integrated education. And open it up, not only physically in terms of the resources that were available, but it opened him in terms of our understanding of who we were and the world about.
Matilda Fletcher
What can middle schoolers learn?
Prof. Hill
Well, I think that we can learn that each of us has the right to be heard. Our stories matter, our experiences matter. You may not be called upon to testify in a public hearing, like a Supreme Court nomination process where, you know, the world is watching, but every opportunity that you have to talk about your experiences, why it's important, what it should mean for other people can help you be a part of our democracy. That was a public conversation about our democracy in 1991, and I felt privileged to have been a part of it, but your experience doesn't have to mimic mine. It doesn't have to be a supreme court hearing. It can be speaking up about your experience in your classroom and interrogating information in your classrooms. You're going to be taught history, and there are some ways that you can challenge history and, and the concepts that are being taught by drawing on your own experience or experiences of people in your family and people who you know, in and to be able to, to share is to make a contribution.
Matilda Fletcher
Is there anything else that you would want to say,
Prof. Hill
I would just end that sentence with, being able to share is to make a contribution, I felt that I was contributing to our democratic process as a public hearing, but you could also make a contribution to learning and knowledge if you're working, if you're talking about speaking up in your classroom and make a contribution to different organizations that you belong to, I mean, if you could make a contribution, if you are going to a museum and you see a, an exhibit that needs more content, because somebody experience of being left out, you can make a contribution to our so there are many ways but but being engaged, many things that we can contribute to, but each of those things, requires our engagement in our participation, and bringing our entire selves to and that's what a good looks.
Matilda Fletcher
Thank you!
Originally Published 02/12/2022
