Uproar after white professor tells conference her life would be easier if she was Black
A prominent white historian sparked outrage when she told a conference that her professional life would have been easier if she were Black.
Lois Banner, who wrote a well-known biography of Marilyn Monroe, claimed at the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians she co-founded in the 1970s that being Black would have given her a professional advantage, and also wished aloud that she was a lesbian because they're good at organizing for their community, reported The Daily Beast.
“She was immediately called out for her blatantly racist remarks, and refused to apologize, let alone listen, to the reason why her remarks were horrifying wrong," tweeted Stephanie Narrow, a doctoral student who attended the session. "‘You won’t change my mind, I’m 84 years old.’”
“The room is shaken, it’s palpable,” Narrow added.
Banner's remarks came after historian Deborah Gray White of Rutgers University had discussed Black women in the profession. Another attendee said her comments were odd and rambling even before her "very problematic" statements on race.
"So when that happened, the awkward, sort of strange response that many in the audience had to the remarks that came before kind of mutated into almost sort of just complete discomfort and revulsion,” said Paul Renfro of Florida State University. “Some people gasped audibly, and some people began to walk out.”
Attendees of color began walking out after organizers failed to act, and Deidre Cooper Owens, a Black historian at the University of Nebraska, denounced Banner's comments from the podium.
“The Berks Conference was a beautiful one until it was soiled by Lois Banner’s hatefully racist comments," Cooper Owens later tweeted. "Yes, I did speak out forcefully against her vitriol because she needed to keep Black women’s name out of her mouth."
“More urgently, I needed that room to acknowledge the strength, brilliance, and bravery of Deborah Gray White, period," she added. "I refused to let a bigoted racist take away from Deborah’s powerfully truthful speech.”
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