‘Slave persona’ assignment sparks outrage. CA university calls it ‘misunderstanding’
A professor who teaches Africana Studies found herself in hot water over an essay about slavery that she assigned her students.
Professor LaShae Sharp-Collins instructed her students at San Diego State University to read excerpts from diary entries written by enslaved people and then ”create a ’slave persona’” for themselves and construct a narrative from the perspective of that persona.
The assignment required them to include specific details and historical elements to “demonstrate understanding” and “reflect experiences” that enslaved people encountered, according to a photo a student shared of the assignment.
Those details would include the type of household their imagined person lived in, what kind of family owned them, what kind of work their persona is expected to do, whether they have relatives they lived with — as well as thoughts, questions, goals, dreams, and plans, including the circumstances surrounding their persona’s ”escape and process.”
The students had been told to give a presentation about their personas, but the professor ended up canceling that element of the assignment due to class size and time constraints, according to one of her student’s posts on Instagram on Tues. Oct. 11.
The student, Amari Jackson, criticized the assignment on his Instagram page.
“Should never have to act like and ‘create a slave persona’ for one of my Africana Studies classes,” Jackson wrote in the caption. “But hey, at least my professor canceled the in-class presentations where she wanted us to act and dress in our personas. (She canceled them because we had too many students and not enough time.)”
Jackson did not immediately respond to a request from McClatchy News. Details about how or whether Sharp-Collins described the assignment directly to the class were not available.
The post sparked outrage and disbelief from other Instagram users.
“This is so ridiculous,” one user wrote. “Why are we still dealing with having to tell staff how inappropriate and tone deaf this is.”
Another wrote that the assignment was triggering and felt disrespectful.
Sharp-Collins, who is Black, did not respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
Department chair Adisa A. Alkebulan shared a statement from the university’s Afrikan Student Union that said he and Sharp-Collins met with student leaders and other African American staff on Tuesday to discuss the assignment and offer clarification, and that the issue was being handled within the Africana community at the university.
“Through our dialogue, we determined there was a misunderstanding regarding the nature of the assignment,” Alkebulan said in the email. “To be clear, there was never a requirement to dress as slaves or speak in “broken English” as has been falsely reported in some news outlets. Professor Collins is an outstanding educator and a valued member of our faculty and university community.”
The statement from the Afrikan Student Union called the incident an “unfinished narrative.”
“Professor Collins met with students to dialogue today because she cares,” the statement said. “It is to be mentioned that the next day after the unfinished narratives were posted in news outlets, Professor Collins ensured that the student was both heard and understood in her classroom.”
According to the statement, Sharp-Collins has worked at San Diego State University for 24 years and within the Africana Studies department for 19 years.
“We as students know that Professor Collins would never do anything to harm students and is committed to ensuring that every student is heard and respected inside and outside the classroom,” the statement said. “This unfortunate misunderstanding is being resolved within the Black community between students, faculty, and staff as a collective.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 10:12 AM.
