A Conversation With Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum

Issues of race and integration have long concerned Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College and author of the upcoming book, Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations In An Era of School Resegregation (Beacon Press, 2007). Tatum is a clinical psychologist by training and has focused on Black families in predominately White communities, racial identity in teens and the role of race in the classroom. She is also the author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race.

DI: The Supreme Court will soon make a decision on two public school integration cases. What will be the impact if the justices decide schools can’t consider race in admissions?

BT: Significant. Many people have the perception that schools are desegregated. Private schools and higher education are more diverse, but not public K-12 education, especially not in the South. So they created magnet schools, which would be attractive to Whites and Blacks no matter where they live.

But if the Supreme Court says you can’t look at race, how will even these schools achieve diversity?

DI: What is one of the benefits of a diverse school?

BT: If you have young people who haven’t been exposed to diversity, they sound awkward or worse because they haven’t had the opportunity to learn from each other.

DI: Could one make the same argument about Spelman,
a historically Black, all-female institution?

BT: This is a paradox. I say the problem of K-12 is the students are not given the opportunity to mix. There’s value for students who make that choice to mix, and diversity of choice in high school is valuable. During college years, a place like Spelman is beneficial because historically marginalized students, like Black women, become the center of the experience. But we also create the opportunities for them to mix.