Dr.Ashe

During the interview, the speaker discusses their experience teaching during COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. They mention that there was conservative pushback on campus, but the administration did a good job handling the situation. They also talk about the protests and the role of professors in supporting the students. The speaker explains why they didn't write a book during COVID-19 and their future plans for writing. They share a personal experience at the historic Stonewall Cafe and mention the show Pose. They express satisfaction with their teaching during COVID-19 and wouldn't change anything. I didn't pick up that there was this sort of, and I'm not surprised either, I didn't hear about campuses that had, you know, conservative, pushback, don't tell us what to do type of approaches to the administration that themselves were just trying to figure it out on the fly. Nobody saw this coming. There were not protocols in place. I came up with that, but that was just me thinking, you know, what would work best in my class? I'm the president of this thing and parents are talking to me and people are like, you know, people are dying out there. We don't want anyone dying on this campus. I'll tell you what, I don't know how much Crutcher was getting paid. He earned every cent of whatever it was he was getting paid to make this the safest place that he could, and I feel like he did a good job from my vantage point. I'm sure they're critics and I respect their point of view as well, but yeah, I felt like they got what they needed. I put it this way, I didn't hear very much complaining from students about that sort of thing, and if they did complain, it was more complaints that were wayborn out of the screwy, unfortunate nature of the pandemic itself, not necessarily how the school was relating to the pandemic, you know what I mean? Okay, and in 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement happened and all of that, you were teaching post-blackness. What was the culture on campus around that? Because I know there were a lot of protests and stuff around that time, so what was it like teaching a class about post-blackness in a predominantly white institution? Excellent question. I'm trying to get my timeline right. When exactly did the church? Was that 2021? I think it was May 2020. We were out of school at that point. Yes, we were out of school at that point. It was right when the pandemic happened. I'm pretty sure it was May 2020. It was a very politicized time for black students here on campus, and not only am I proud of the way that they handled their business, but I'm happy with the way that professors played a role, had an advisory role in helping them handle their business. They did the work. I don't know if you've read the document that the students came up with in terms of pushing back at the names of certain buildings or the Africana Studies proposal. I mean, it was just spectacularly well-written, just superbly well-considered and well-thought-out and well-presented. Professors, again, played an advisory role, but the students did the work, and it was there. The professors were, I don't know, like... What's the thing in a car that has gears? Transmission. Right? We weren't the engine. We weren't the wheels. We definitely weren't sitting at the controls, but the movement between gears, like the transmission, I felt like we did that. Some more than others, and yet whenever I had... And I had a number of the most influential, the students who were driving things in my classes, and they would come sometimes. They would come to my office and say, what do you think about X? What do you think about Y? I would tell them what I thought about X and Y. They would walk away and either do X or not do X or do XX or whatever, and I think that there were a number of professors who took that role and took it seriously, and I think it worked out. What I said to them was, you guys have changed this institution in ways that many age cohorts do not get a chance to do, and they took the mantle and they ran with it and they got it done, and I'm literally getting goosebumps right now thinking of that time. It was really something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know you have your book Twisted. I do. That came out in 2015. Yes. And you have your other book, I have it here, From Within the Frame. So what made you not write a book? During COVID? Yes. That's a fascinating question. I was looking and I was like, I wonder why? So let me ask you a question first, then, because that question presupposes that there is a imperative, a kind of COVID, wait a minute, shouldn't you have X? Why didn't you Y? Yeah. Question looking back on COVID, yes? Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. Well, let me first say, this is the first time that anyone has asked, where's your book? I can get it for that book. Right? Yes. Writing books are a very difficult undertaking. I love it. It took me the better part of 15 years. Wow. Obviously, I was working on it every day, and there would sometimes be good stretches in between going back to the book, mostly because I kept trying to get an agent. I never did. I kept sending it out and having people say wonderful, really nice things about it, and then there would always be a comma, and then there would be a, however, and then there would be a, it's not for us, or we can't figure out how to market it, or what have you, right? And whenever that would happen, and I would get my hopes up, and then I would get those hopes dashed. It took some time to marshal my forces to get back to work on it yet again. Got it. I have a book that I'm thinking about that I have a draft for. I hope once I retire that I will be able to devote all of my time or most of my time to it. But Twisted took a lot out of me in a way that, you know, what I've said before is this book, I think I'm getting this right. I need to look it up and fact check myself. But when I was writing my dissertation, I read a book that was titled How to Complete and Survive Your Dissertation. And the implication of that title is you can complete your dissertation and not survive it. And what it took for you to complete that dissertation was so bruising and so tossed down a flight of stairs or throw a body off of a roof that you, you know, you completed it, but you're basically, you know, a bunch of broken bones at the bottom of a staircase or a body that doesn't work anymore as a result of being thrown off of a roof. And therefore you don't have what it takes to write books anymore. I don't want to be that guy. I'm going to try my best not to be that guy. But until I write another book, I'm that guy. I didn't survive it. I wrote the book. I completed it. I did not survive. So I don't want to be that guy. I'm going to try my best to finish this book that is about blackness and the black vernacular tradition. And much of it is set in Berlin, but I want to expand it to situations like I had in New York last week. Have you ever heard of the Stonewall Cafe? No, that's crazy because I'm from New York. Well, the Stonewall Cafe in 19, I want to say 1969, but it might be 68, was the place where the queer civil rights movement began. Yeah. Okay. Cops came in and tried to bust up folks and, you know, be, you know, arrayed like they've done a million times before, except that night. It's, it's, it's analogous to Rosa Parks saying, you know, and it wasn't her on a whim. And it likely wasn't, you know, the gay dudes or the, or the lesbians in that bar that night on a whim. Often these things kind of build up, but that was, that was the bar and it still exists. So I was at a jazz club around the corner in the West Village, my wife and I, and we were like, let's go, let's go to, you know, pop our heads in the Stonewall. It's a historic, you know, it's like going into a historic landmark. It was amazing. What happened in there? Have you ever seen or heard of a show called Pose, by any chance? You never heard of it? Watch it. It's terrific. Pose? Yes. Okay. Yes. It's on Netflix. Okay. I will watch it. Okay. And you're going to enjoy it. But what happened in that bar was that there was a performer whose name is Dynamite or something like that. Plus size, white singer, trans. And she was singing on a platform that was maybe like yay. And in front of her were these black dancers, but not dancers in a choreographed sort of way. It was a classic. You know what the black vernacular is. They were in a circle. People were soloing. It was like, we were standing near the pool table. It was covered, but there's a pool table in the daytime, I'm sure. And it was so absolutely fascinating to sort of stumble upon a classic black vernacular event. Right? Yes, it is. And the thing that was even more magical is that what people often do is they have those sorts of moments. And if they're white, they don't want to racialize the moment. Right? This trans performer, when it was over, said, I've never felt this white in my entire life. That's perfect. Because it was funny, but it also spoke directly to the tension between her being white, them being black, and this ability to improvise, this ability to blow up the spot, to improvise and then get back into the circle and have somebody else go. It was like, this is insane. It's the sort of thing that I would love to make a chapter in the book that I want to continue to write. That is very interesting. The fact that we just stumbled upon it as well, right? At that particular time. Because if we hadn't gone in there at that exact moment, if we had been a half hour earlier, we'd have missed it. If we were a half hour later, we'd have missed it. You're meant to be there. The reason I mention Pose is because Pose is a show that shows a lot of those sorts of things. It's just a fictional rendering of the Harlem drag balls of the 1980s and 90s. That is just a terrific show. It breaks my heart whenever people don't know about it. It's okay if you haven't watched it. But not knowing about it, it's like, ah! I will watch it, and I will email you after I watch it. Good. Excellent. My last question is this. Would you change anything you did? You've got a four o'clock. I'm late for it now. Oh! Oh, no. Let me just tell... Okay. Shoot. Okay. No, no. Ask your question while I'm doing this. I was going to ask, was there anything you would have changed when teaching during COVID? Would I have changed anything? Yes. I don't think so. Like I said, I, you know... Yeah, we've talked about it. I'll bet there were professors who were not as... Oh, her number's here. Hold on a second. Let me call her. I'm going to pause it. Go ahead.