Womanism and feminism can be studied and understood by everyone, said an ASU communication professor on Saturday.
Members of Olga Davis' fall 2003 black feminism and womanism class performed "Looking Forward, Looking Black: Student Narratives in Black Feminism" Friday and Saturday at the Empty Space Theatre in Tempe.
Empty Space is an intimate 60-person theater between Mill Avenue and Priest Drive near University Drive and is used by the school of communication's performance studies students.
Communication graduate students Kami Hoskins, Michelle Gordon, Lucas Messer and Karma Chvez on Saturday performed narratives based on their own life experiences dealing with racism and oppression.
"In using narratives, rather than a more formal speech, we were able to better intimate our experiences," Hoskins said. "Through personal stories, the audience can understand this thing we call life in a whole different way."
Hoskins' narrative was about her black paternal grandmother and white maternal grandfather, who have had vastly different lives, based partly on their skin color and sex.
Messer, who was the lone white male in Davis' class, said "putting yourself in someone else's shoes is the most important part of learning how to communicate."
He was describing how he was able to relate to everyone in the class, regardless of their race, gender, sex or sexual orientation.
Messer, who is gay, focused on his relation to black women. They deal with the similar "in-your-face prejudice," he said.
Chvez spoke about being a light-skinned Hispanic woman, and being friends with a black woman at the University of Alabama, a school in the South that is still very racist and segregationist according to Chvez.
"Knowing where people have been, hearing what they've gone through, helps you better communicate," Chvez said.
Gordon spoke about being a white American female in Denmark in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
Gordon said the class forced her to deal with "being white."
"[It] was hard for me at first, because the class was about discussing oppression and discrimination, neither of which I have any experience in," she said.
Business finance senior Lauren Hays said she learned from the narratives, especially Gordon's.
"Being white myself, I never thought I was oppressed," Hays said. "It really opened my eyes."
Davis, a performance studies professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, said everyone in her COM 691 class had to create a narrative as part of their final grade last semester. The best ones were performed Friday and Saturday.
Davis added that her class is trying to bring the show to the November National Communication Association conference in Chicago.
Reach the reporter at annemarie.moody@asu.edu.
