A well-known author came to Ohio State recently and told about 20 students she is against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Pearl Cleage said it is time for the American people to stand up against “the terrifying republic” of the Bush administration.
“Not only as Americans but as human beings we have to begin to explore new means of leadership,” Cleage said Thursday at the Fawcett Center.
In her lecture, “The Writer’s Role in Wartime,” which was part of the President and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series, she criticized the dominance of white men in the current and past presidential administrations and discussed her “baby theory.” She said government officials should think about babies before they implement policies that could lead to war.
“What if the care and raising of healthy, happy, peaceful, literate babies was at the center of every public policy decision, not only here but all over the world?” she said. “Everything would change at every level. It would have to.”
Tiffani Clyburn, an African-American literature graduate student, attended the lecture.
“What (Cleage) said is true,” she said. “There is a feeling that you are outside the law, and it doesn’t protect certain people the way it should.”
Cleage wrote the novel, “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day,” which was selected by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and gave her national attention as a novelist.
She has had 10 novels published and has written a multitude of plays and articles for a variety of publications. She currently works as a guest English professor at Spelman College in Atlanta.
Cleage identified herself as a feminist and is proud of her strong black nationalist background. Her father, the Rev. Albert Cleage, was the founder of The Shrine of the Black Madonna, a church that gained notoriety by claiming Jesus was of African descent.
Jacqueline J. Royster, executive dean of the department of English, said Cleage is not a separatist but believes everyone can do better by getting along.
Cleage called for a change in leadership and in conflict resolution in the United States.
“(We need) new methods of conflict resolution (and) new perspectives on the creation and execution of public policy that are not based on the old male model,” she said.
At the end of the lecture, Cleage gave advice to writers living in times of war.
“At the heart of it, all I am trying to say is (as writers) tell the truth,” Cleage said. “Don’t say what you say because you’re going to get paid for it. Don’t say what you say because they’re going to put you on TV.”
Michael J. Wyen can be reached at [email protected].
