Creating a "Scene" as Royster does

In my blog for Royster's essay, I mentioned one experience in a class. For this "Scene," I was reminded of another experience from that class in which I witnessed a "cross-boundary exchange." Our professor had us fill out surveys in which you circle a number corresponding to either end of the scale for specific races. For example, one of the opposite pairs was "rising in society, or declining in society" and another pair was "athletic, or intellectual." We filled out this survey according to what we thought of Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. Afterwards, we went through the results that most of the class had in common and discussed why we might have those perceptions.

Our professor, who is African American, asked one person in class what she put for the question of “athletic versus intellectual” on the survey. She, like most others, put athletic. Our professor then asked “why can’t a black person be intellectual?” This completely put the girl in a corner and created much dissonance in the classroom. This was a “cross-boundary exchange” because the girl, who was white, was trying to make inferences about the race to which her professor belonged. She was trying to belong in a discourse community without being able to have all of the holes of knowledge filled in, since she was not actually a member of the race being talked about.

Everyone in the class knew exactly what stereotype our professor was trying to dispel, but the fact of the matter is that “athletic vs. intellectual” is a leading topic because, truly, those are not opposites. Black can be both and the fact that our professor was asking why we did not believe that created much tension in the class. It was not that we did not believe that, but rather that it was not a choice on the survey. The effect of this lecture and those leading questions were not beneficial to the class because it pushed us into a corner of saying things that we did not necessarily believe, but had to answer for the sake of completing the assignment. While I can see how some activities like this could lead to a better learning environment, I believe this simply discouraged many people in the class from speaking up with their own voice in the future, for fear of being pushed into saying something they do not believe.