Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America

TRAVELING WITHOUT MOVING

Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America

By Taiyon J. Coleman

The constructs of race, gender, class, orientation, culture, etc. in this country have been like, in the words of our author, “trying to stand straight in a crooked room,” when it comes to those of us who are BIPOC. With Black History Month segueing into Women’s History Month, I bring to you facets from Taiyon J. Coleman’s upcoming memoir, Traveling Without Moving: Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America.

Born in Chicago’s South Side with roots in Randolph County, Illinois, Coleman shares her cultural history growing up as a Black girl of the 1970s and 1980s who was considered big for her age, darker-complexioned, full-figured, natural hair, and way too inquisitive. The adults around her shut her down for asking too many questions, citing “grown folks’ business”; looking back, certain admonishments were done out of fear. Some, like her Aunt Reola, recognized the storyteller in her and found ways to affirm her. In spite of the negative voices, her inquisitive nature prevailed into her adult life, and ultimately to a career in English and composition, and women’s studies as an associate professor.

Through her essays, Coleman, as a Black woman who grew up in poverty with four siblings and a divorced mother, by the standards of the dominant constructed (white) culture, wasn’t supposed to be where she is. She shares her experiences as a BFGS (Black Female Graduate Student) in composition and creative writing in a predominately White university and the implicit bias in its programs. In addition, her essays speak a powerful truth in regard to the disparities faced not only by a Black woman in housing, medical care, employment, and education, but by marginalized communities as a whole.

When speaking of a visit to a school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for grad school and her experience in grad school in Minnesota, Coleman realized later, “There are Confederate flags everywhere, even where we can’t see them.” Later, when she becomes an instructor at a community college where her students are Liberian, she learns valuable lessons from them and about herself as an educator.

In addition to her associate professorship at St. Catherine University, Coleman is a 2017 recipient of a McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship, and a recipient of the 2018-19 Mirrors and Windows Fellowship.

Coming in June 2024, Traveling Without Moving will be available through the University of Minnesota Press.

Thank you, Taiyon, for sharing your story with us, and with it, “strength, hope, and healing.” Your story, and the steps toward equity in our classrooms and the other institutions, is needed now more than ever.