When I reflect on my life, I often linger on those small moments of embarrassment and shame that have disrupted my sense of self. Ian Williams’ Disorientation: Being Black in the World is somewhat of a memoir that lingers on similar moments, but specifically with a racial layer that my being White shields me from. That is the sense of disorientation: moments when race makes itself visible and distorts a racialized person’s sense of themselves in the world.
One of the most explicit examples of this, in both senses, is when Williams recounts his niece being called the n-word by a young White girl. The first time she is called the word, she feels herself at a disconnect from the world around her, disoriented from her usual experiences and reduced to her race. Other moments seem more innocuous (generally what are described as microaggressions), but nonetheless create a profound impact on the person experiencing them. For example, Williams discusses being in middle school and having to select instruments for music class. He initially wants to play the trumpet and is told that his lips are too big. He switches to the French horn and flounders at it. The narrative seems like it ought not matter much (I was told I couldn’t play the trumpet in grade 7 because I was going to get braces), but the exchange with his teacher lingers. He considers the comment about his lips as a form of biological determinism that is pervasive and causes him to question his own place based on his racialized features.
The book is replete with personal stories, and therein lies its strength. If you’re looking to read about race from a more theoretical framework, there are other texts that serve that purpose more effectively. If you’re looking for a more personal connection to issues, Disorientation is the way to go, since it gives the personal touch with a hint of the wider systemic issues. Consider, for example, his brief commentary about how racialized professors are routinely ranked lower on University course evaluations—which he ties to the moment when he had to leave the room for evaluations and when he returned a student announced that his green card was ready. In the context of being a Black academic in the United States, Williams also discusses the use of African American as a general term for anyone Black, regardless of citizenship status (American) or place of origin (Africa vs. Jamaica, for instance).
One of the highlights of the book, in my mind, is a chapter that uses traffic stops as an anchor. Williams recounts driving with his friend and the chapter drifts in and out of anecdotes of being stopped by police. Williams’ friend’s disorientation is poignant because there’s an element of self-doubt. Everything he describes, as Williams notes, is racially motivated. The police officer keeps his hand on his gun, approaches the car from the passenger side window, repeatedly asks if the driver is the owner of the car, and so on. Yet, the driver was going over the speed limit. It’s a rich chapter for exploring the standards of perfection that Black people need to achieve in order to feel totally guiltless in situations where their race is leveraged against them. The pathos of the chapter is beautifully wrought and presented in such a literary mode that it’s hard to ignore William’s strengths as a writer.
Something I need to question in myself, or at least continually keep in check, is that the sections of Williams’ book that I find most engaging are the pieces that also appeal to my White sensibilities. For instance, Williams has an excellent section about his troubled relationship with David Foster Wallace. The famed writer has an essay about the dictionary in which he talks about how he teaches standard White English to Black students, essentially out of a kind of tough love—they need to learn how to write White because that’s the standard of the Academy. Williams offers a beautiful commentary on how he imagines DFW might treat that Black student today, given DFW’s sense of curiosity and willingness to engage with others. It’s a loving consideration of an author, flawed perhaps, and a generous reimagining of how the same author might address racism in the institution today. Williams adds dimension to the argument that I find particularly resonant.
I’m going to quote a section of the chapter at length here, since it offers so many wonderful insights and dispositions towards writing that I find valuable. Williams writes the following, nearly a eulogy, about David Foster Wallace:
Why must the work fall on the Black student to close the breach between groups? [...] Would it be any more work to appreciate SBE than it would be to appreciate Black music? But the fear of contamination keeps White people from engaging with Black expression until it becomes profitable economically or culturally. I’d like to believe that if David Foster Wallace were alive today, and paying attention to the current racial conversations in America, he’d have a significantly revised version of this speech: that it would have become a conversation, not a speech. Instead of expecting the student to step towards Whiteness, he would step towards Blackness. I see in him [...] over the course of his work, the potential of White people to become less casual about the psychic violence they do to Black people. I know he’s dead, and I know there’s no way to confirm his trajectory, yet the evidence of his thoughtfulness and humility indicates a White man with capacity for growth. His curiosity and self-analysis prevent him from being willfully ignorant. Can we forgive a person their ignorance? Can we take heart that dead White people might yet change their minds?
This passage is the culmination of the discussion and identifies some central problems with Academia—that systemic change relies on the system’s victims to reshape it. It is strange, after all, that we have an appreciation of Black arts and yet insist that White English is the standard. I also appreciate the generous reading of figures from the past, which gives us the opportunity to select what is valuable and dismiss that which is not. I fear that when clearly influential personages are dismissed wholesale that it leads to a culture of conflict, so to be willing to give DFW the benefit of the doubt, that he would switch from a speech to a conversation, seems to be the most productive way of having the conversation. I also really love that question at the end: “Can we take heart that dead White people might yet change their minds?” I find that such a rich question, contrary to nature and yet at some level it resonates.
Disorientation is a short work that offers a number of specific moments that are worth discussing at greater length, especially in conversation with others. Williams offers his perspectives in an approachable, personable tone which I think appeals to many potential audiences, including ones who may hold more overtly racist views. Since Williams is less dense theoretically than some other texts in the same field, it’s much harder to feel that the argument is controversial. It’s another person’s experience, which has a universal quality while remaining effectively focused on its particulars.
It’s a good book. A short book that is a great introduction to conversations about race—and one that is more personable than controversial. Like moments of Disorientation, perhaps the book will stick with you—but this time in a positive and productive way.
Happy reading!
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