Nine Madison College faculty and staff sit in a circle in a Truax Building classroom, discussing how culture creates and enforces insecurities.
One woman shares how she was relieved to take a singing class because there it was acceptable to breathe and have a “big” stomach. She also recalls being astonished when a Chinese student told her that in China, where thin legs are considered ideal, some considered Beyonce ugly and called her “Hippo.”
This February meeting was the second gathering for the book club — one of 14 clubs that are meeting around Madison ahead of a March 11 lecture by Sonya Renee Taylor, author of the landmark 2018 book The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love. The queer black poet, educator and social justice activist has launched a massive social media discussion about race, body acceptance and intersectionality, the idea that marginalized people face multiple forms of oppression.
Madison College donated books to the clubs, which were organized as part of some organizations’ racial justice initiatives.
“[Taylor is] really pushing a message, not just in our community, but in our country, about those layers of oppression that exist out there and she’s exploring all of that through the body and body image,” says Lucía Nuñez, Madison College’s vice president for equity, inclusion and community engagement.
The discussions served as an introduction to Taylor’s “four pillars” of practicing radical self-love. She believes our potential for self-love has been crowded out by external messages, including those in the media, which tend to celebrate whiteness and thinness. Taylor challenges readers to not only explore the roots of their feelings about their own and others’ bodies, but to change the way they think and act.
“By the time we finished, we were in a profound state of reflection,” says poet, writer and consultant Araceli Esparza, who participated in a book club organized by Community Shares of Wisconsin. “It’s given me language and a witness to what I’ve seen, and what I feel. It’s radical, it’s intimidating, it’s scary.”
Nuñez says that Taylor’s message resonates with the growing LGBTQ community in the college and region, and creates greater visibility for various expressions of gender and racial identity.
“At a deeper level, we’re dealing with racial inequities in this country that she also addresses,” says Nuñez. “We see a lot of disparities in our educational systems — K-12, as well as higher education — for our black and brown youth.”
Sonya Renee Taylor will appear on March 11 at Madison College’s Mitby Theater in the Truax Building, 7 p.m.
