Rooted Against the Win

Spelman College English professor Wade-Gayles (Pushed Back to Strength) writes with wisdom and texture about issues personal and communal. First, she muses on the burdens faced by older black women, including the ways their sexuality is denied in popular culture; she inventories her life and finds herself ""pregnant with the promise of new joys."" Her careful, angry recall of the attempted rape she suffered leads her from academic to visceral understanding. Recalling how her lesbian students challenged her syllabus, Wade-Gayles reproaches herself for homophobia; though it approaches breast-beating, the essay reminds us how black activists, perhaps fearful of competing claims of moral legitimacy, sometimes ignore the agendas of other minority groups. Better is her essay folding in student comments about interracial marriage, in which Wade-Gayles decides that anger against black men who marry white women is unproductive. Further, she finds herself unwilling to reject interracial children and recognizes that black men who intermarry can remain committed to their people. Most intriguing is her essay on the role of historically black colleges like Spelman. ""[W]e are the womb: warm, life-giving and theirs,"" writes Wade-Gayles, noting that casual racism is common on white campuses. Taken together, these essays show a mind hard at work at maintaining the marriage of passion and reason. Author tour. (Oct.)