Tag Archives: "wishes for sons"

We Benefit When We Check Our Privilege

By Robin Bates | Published: January 15, 2017

Do be blind to one’s privileges is to live in a world of shadows and phantoms, as Ralph Ellison and Lucille Clifton both make clear. Life if much richer if we identify our blindnesses and engage with people as three-dimensional beings.

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On Walls: A Letter to the Incoming Class

By Robin Bates | Published: August 14, 2016

Talk about walls and keep people out of America is beginning to seep down to high schools and colleges. It is therefore important that students understand how walls operate. Daniel Defoe and Lucille Clifton has some useful insights into how walls both make us safe and entrap us.

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Lit for Handling a College’s Race Problems

By Robin Bates | Published: April 6, 2016

After a series of arson fires and racist incidents, I turned to works in each of my courses to address the situation. In Intro to Lit, Lucille Clifton’s poetry; in Early British Literature survey, Aphra Behn’s “Oroonoko”; in British Fantasy, “Perdido Street Station.”

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Trump, Lucille Clifton, & Menstruation

By Robin Bates | Published: August 14, 2015

Donald Trump assumed that Fox’s Megyn Kelly was menstruating when she aggressively asked him questions. Aside from his sexism, we should listen to Lucille Clifton, who points out how impressively women function even when they are having their periods.

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