Composing a Life

diaspora to Spelman College to affirm and proclaim that there is more than one way of being black, just as there is more than one way of being female. This, for her, is education for choice. When you talk to her about what she hopes to achieve, she returns again and again to the idea that Afro-Americans and women need to discover their own diversity and in that discovery be freed from the notion that there is only a single possible direction of aspiration. “I’m on the case of the white folk about diversity, but I also think that Spelman has that responsibility. And by diversity, I mean to go beyond self. One of the ways that can happen is to have a community of students who are black women from other parts of the world. Who says that here at an all-black women’s school we don’t have to be concerned about diversity? You can’t argue that there is insight and strength to be gained from diversity over there but you don’t need it over here! But I don’t think the two issues are mirror images, either.”
    Aspiration is elusive without models to aspire to, but following a single model has its own dangers. The son of a physician growing up in the suburbs can aspire to be like his father and close his eyes to the evidence that his life will necessarily be different. The daughter of a business executive can aspire to be like her father and understand that such an aspiration depends on change in the society, but she may still be the captive of a single vision of excellence. It was still hard, when Ellen went to medical school, for women to become physicians; beyond that, it was necessary for them to become a different kind of physician, to reshape the existing role. There has been a recurring debate in the women’s movement between those who fought for the chance for middle-class white women to be like middle-class white men and those who affirm the many ways of being female, the needs and problems of other kinds of women, and the need for freedom for men and women to move in different directions. For some of us, “chauvinism” is simply a shortening of “male chauvinism.” For others, it is a reminder of the dangers of devotion to the superiority of any group, gender, race, religion, or nation, or even to the truths of any era.
    The real challenge comes from the realization of multiple alternatives and the invention of new models. Aspiration ceases to be a one-way street—from child to adult, from female inferiority to male privilege, from exclusion to full membership—and instead becomes open in all directions, claiming the possibility of inclusion and setting an individual course among the many ways of being human. Even this is not an adequate phrasing, because it suggests the possibility of choosing an existing model and following it toward a defined goal. The real challenge lies in assembling something new.
    There are no singular models, but only resources for creative imagination. Many people grew up seeing my mother as a model, which is fine and helpful from a distance, but it would have been a mistake for me to try to be too much like her. I am like Ellen with her housewife mother: loving and determined to be different. At the same time, you cannot put together a life willy-nilly from odds and ends. Even in a crazy quilt, the various pieces, wherever they come from, have to be trimmed and shaped and arranged so they fit together, then firmly sewn to last through time and keep out the cold. Most quilts are more ambitious: they involve the imposition of a new pattern. But even crazy quilts are sewn against a backing; the basic sense of continuity allows improvisation. Composing a life involves an openness to possibilities and the capacity to put them together in a way that is structurally sound.
    It had not occurred to me how much the capacity to combine new roles to create an innovative and integrated whole might depend on exposure to another culture. I knew, of course, that membership in a minority always involves an awareness of difference, but that is only a first step. Belonging to a minority group, especially when that membership is associated with poverty and limited education, may foster a lack of self-respect and a lack of the confidence to draw purposefully on one’s own background, This has been true for the children of immigrants when their parents came from the very bottom of their own societies—Irish peasants fleeing from famine, Chinese coolies imported to work on the railroads, poor