7 min read
In this interview, A’Dorian spoke about her journey with Union, the influences of her family, and her cultivation in Black Womanist Theology.
You can read more about the article inspired by A’Dorian’s journey here.
Thank you so much for speaking with us. So, what brought you to Union?
What originally brought me to Union was a recommendation from a friend. I was looking for a Master’s degree in Education, and a friend who would come to Union, often by way of Columbia, asked me if I had ever heard of this place. She started telling me about all the great leaders and thinkers who work here and come from here.
So I started looking into it and found that one of the professors here, Dr. Timothy Atkins Jones, was actually my pastor in Newark. So I felt like I was getting all these signs that this was the place to be for me, and the rest is history.
So, it seems that your grandmother’s life story had a significant influence on your work. How did her story exemplify the womanist ethic of using everyday experiences to survive and resist oppression?
I mean, my grandmother taught us how to pray, you know. I grew up in Newark, New Jersey with my mom, but we spent our summers in South Carolina–the place where my grandmother grew up, where she had a joyous, love-filled childhood, but she spent her entire life in segregated schools. Klan members owned the local grocery store, you know? We went to church and prayed in New Jersey like my grandmother taught us. But I didn’t necessarily know the roots of those prayers, why it was so important to her that we prayed. I don’t even know if she ever really fully named them for me, but in her own way, she did.
I think my grandmother has inspired me by using what she knows, and what she knows is that God will provide to teach me how to survive. My grandmother taught me how to pray because it worked for her, and I’m trying to do what I can with young people, with my community, to give in the same way things were given to me.
Even though my grandmother’s stories and lives are very different, both of them teach me the power of everyday tools like prayer, family, hard work, and sacrifice to survive and how you might repurpose what’s given to you to make the lives of those around you better as well.
How would you say your history helped you to define womanism, and how does it differ from feminism or other forms of social justice that you’ve studied?
I give so much credit to Dr. Andrea White, particularly in the class I wrote this paper in, the Critical Race Theory and Womanist Theology course, helping us flesh out how womanism is about everyday tools of survival.
To me, womanism feels like it just validates the mundane, the everyday aspects of existence and survival strategies for the most marginalized. And so, I think that all of those theologies or rather ideologies from feminism, womanism, all the other things, are all super useful, but womanism speaks directly to me about what it means to work with what you’ve got, so you immediately self-actualize.
How do you apply the concept of oppositional gaze to the misappropriation of critical race theory in the public square?
We were talking about this today in class about the object versus the subject and about black women often being objects in music, culture, film, and capitalism, the object of commodification, the object of desire, but not the subject of the story. So I wonder if the value of oppositional gaze in this conversation around critical race theory and womanism is the black woman choosing to say, “This is what I’m going to see, and how I’m going to see it. This is what I’m going to name, and this is how I’m going to name it.”
With my grandmother, there are only two real subjects in her life right now, more than her own life, honestly. Her subjects of focus are God, Christ, and her children. She showed my mom and me what it looks like to live in total surrender where you love someone or something so much that that’s all that matters. And everything in the world, everything racist, everything sexist, everything it tried to do to you, it doesn’t matter because you got God and you got your babies.
But to answer your question, I think the oppositional gaze is about becoming a subject and not the object, and choosing who, when, how, and what you will recognize on your terms and not anyone else’s.
What are some challenges and opportunities that black women face in engaging with womanist theology and scholarship?
I wonder if one of the challenges is the unlearning of misogyny, of respectability politics, of misogynoir, that’s still happening within the collegial spaces, that’s still happening within the black church, black ecclesial spaces, and within black women in these spaces. No one is above reproach when using Paul Freire or Pedagogy of the Oppressed-type points of view. There are ways in which the oppressed can assume their oppressor’s energies, tools, and tactics.
I think that expansive versions of womanism, particularly when you look at folks like Alice Walker’s definition, who’s one of the coiners of the term, are so intersectional and so out of this world that there’s no way to me that you could look at Alice Walker’s definition of womanism and not see how revolutionary it is when it comes to class, gender, sexuality, all those types of things.
It’s just a way in which sometimes certain womanist theologies have been appropriated to constrain black womanhood. That is part of the reason why there’s so much debate, but the debate is also healthy. And I think that when there’s debate, especially in scholarly circles, much can be learned and gained from the discomfort.
How do you balance the tension between survival and liberation in your personal and professional life as a black woman?
I think in the roles that I inhabit, you realize how powerful you are in being able to contribute to mindset shifts to craft policies and practices that can actively work against systems that are trying to hurt people. You also understand that these systems weren’t built overnight and won’t be destroyed overnight. So there’s a degree of understanding your value and contribution to a space, but also understanding that it’s so much bigger than you.
So I know my contribution and my mere presence in this space matters, but it’s not the full act of liberation or resistance, just being in the room. It’s about how we contribute to the other tables and rooms being built, and I’m thinking critically about what else I’m doing to both disrupt systems and build new systems.
I think the way I’m working on liberating myself and surviving, is just trying to practice joy, like finding joy with friends, family, people, exercising, and rolling around in my rollerblades. Finding joy for me not only helps me survive everything that is like actively working to kill my spirit, my very existence, and the existence of those who look like me, who occupy black, brown, women, and femme bodies across the globe.
What goals or hopes do you have for the impact of your article on readers and wider society?
I’ve written minor things before, but I’ve never done an academic article, so I thank God that it was something someone thought was worth telling. I hope we tell our stories and create places for the women, the othered, the outsiders in our lives, our families, and our communities to tell their stories. As the younger generation, I think we are responsible for telling the stories of our mothers and grandmothers. We are responsible for listening to them when they speak.
We have a responsibility to ask for guidance, for forgiveness, for not always understanding, and for never being able to imagine what they went through. I think that my grandmother’s survival and joy, her joy of being an usher at church, in going to feed folks at the food pantry, all of that is salvific, needs to be told, and needs to be loved on.
And I think that the responsibility it asks of us is that we create new worlds of possibility for those coming after us. It’s finding space for quiet and reflection and listening more than we speak. I think it just offers new cosmologies of possibility. I think that we create worlds when we listen, sit still, pray, listen to the prayers of others, and express gratitude for the prayers that have been prayed over us.
So, I hope that somebody records their grandmother talking about what happened when she came here from Berbice, Guyana, and ended up in East Orange, New Jersey, where she saved up money for her children Arleigh, Pam, Rhonda, and Kwesi to come to the USA. Because she did that, Arleigh would meet Dana–whose mother came to New Jersey from South Carolina. And a few years later, they made me.
I think our ancestors, our foremothers, and forefathers leave codes, signs, and answers in their stories. Even in the unanswered, there are answers in the unsaid. And I think it’s up to us to be curious enough to try to understand and be inspired by what they offer in the multiplicity of their offering.
For your experience at Union, which particular professors or mentors inspired your work the most?
First of all, I’m so grateful for Dr. AJ because he’s a big part of why I’m here. When I first learned about Union and became curious about it, I saw that he worked at Union, after I went to his church for the past couple of years. I was so inspired by his theology and his hermeneutical prowess, so if it weren’t for him, I’m not sure I would be here. I’ve learned from Dr. West, Dr. Azaransky, the Honorable Kelly Brown Douglas, Dr. Rodriguez, Dr. Vesley-Flad, Jerusha Rhodes–I’m in a class with many of them now and they’re amazing–and Dr. Bridget Kahl, so many giants. I think they’ve all shaped me, but frankly, when it comes to womanist theology for me here at Union, Dr. Andrea White.
She’s amazing. She listens to her students, she makes time for us, and I’m not sure where I’d be without her deep understanding of womanist theology and what that means for us in the here and now. All of my professors have shaped me, but I was deeply inspired by the readings from this course, by the discussions, and by her help in unlocking a theological and spiritual door inside of me that was like living there, waiting to open that I didn’t even know existed, so I’m eternally grateful for her.
About Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary (UTS), founded in 1836 in New York City, is a globally recognized seminary and graduate school of theology where faith and scholarship meet to reimagine the work of justice. A beacon for social justice and progressive change, Union Theological Seminary is led by a diverse group of theologians and activist leaders. Drawing on both Christian traditions and the insights of other faiths, the institution is focused on educating leaders who can address critical issues like racial equity, criminal justice reform, income inequality, and protecting the environment. Union is led by Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, the 16th President and the first woman to head the 187-year-old seminary.