"The book is about dialogue," said Tatum. "It is about exploring the cycle of racism in society."
Students saw the value in Tatum's message but felt that many are already aware of her what she said. "I think she's stating the obvious for some people," said Ignatius Lin '04. "But for others who have never been exposed to it, it's something they should hear."
Tatum compared this cycle of racism to a moving airport walkway, which everyone stands on and participates in. "There is a way in which we're born on to this walkway-this cycle of racism-and we get carried along," explained Tatum. "But there are moments when we might notice it. And some of us might notice it more than others."
People need to consciously disrupt this cycle in order to deal with racism, according to Tatum. "If you want to interrupt, then you have to be intentional about it," she said.
Tatum said that she believes one of the main ways to raise more consciousness about race within societies is through dialogue and noted that many misperceptions arise when people do not communicate about race. She said that each person can affect the cycle in different ways. Tatum explained how she interrupts the cycle when she talks about issues in her "Psychology of Racism" class at Mount Holyoke. "We all have a sphere of influence in terms of thinking how to interrupt the cycle," Tatum said.
"Some of us have a bigger sphere of influence than others. I have a sphere of influence in my class."
She added, "My own sphere of influence was getting bigger as a result of talking to people who had their own sphere of influence." Many, however, do not discuss racial issues because of reactions that they received from parents or friends when they were younger, according to Tatum.
"There is a way in which young people, even six or seven, have figured out that [race] is a topic you're not supposed to talk about," said Tatum.
"What I've learned is many people don't want to have that conversation themselves," she added. "They just want to witness other people having it."
Interrupting the cycle is not an easy task, according to Tatum.
"We need to make this cycle more visible to other people," she said. "But it's very difficult to make this cycle more visible without experiencing some discomfort." Tatum said that only by overcoming this discomfort can people progress in dialogue about race.
Tatum said that she believed people need to be comfortable with their cultural identity in order to facilitate discussion of racial issues.
"Everybody has a racial identity and the way that you feel about it is important," she said.
Tatum added that in many cases, students of color think about their racial identities, but white students usually do not. "Dominance gets taken for granted," she said. "It goes unnoticed."
"My biggest problem is her point about how we should feel proud about our race," said Steve Collins '03. "Speaking for myself as a white person, I don't think I should feel proud just because I'm white. I can understand feeling proud about a specific culture that's part of your ancestry, but the idea of 'white pride' is vacuous."
To encourage discussion, Tatum asked the audience a series of questions about when they became conscious of racial issues, how they dealt with them, and how they felt. She then expanded on audience responses and said that people sometimes form stereotypes from the environment and background.
"We all get misinformation about people different from ourselves growing up-not that we have actively sought it or not that it has actively been given to us," said Tatum.
According to Tatum, everyone can have misconceptions about race, even those who belong to a race about which misperceptions exist. "The fact that I grew up as an African-American female doesn't mean that I wasn't exposed to the stereotypes of African-American women," said Tatum. "I remember growing up and hearing about happy slaves. I remember watching Tarzan movies thinking that was an accurate depiction of Africa."
Some students said that they believed Tatum raised important concerns that many do not think about often. "As a freshman, I feel I'm sort of naive in some ways in our little bubble at Amherst," said Tom Scott-Craig '04. "It's great to see such a large turnout at an event like this because if many other students are like me, they don't think about these issues very much whereas to the people they affect, they're extremely important."