This evening, on Friday, Dec. 5th, slam poetry duo Sister Outsider performed at the FACE Equality Coffeehouse in Reid Basement. This event marked the sixth annual coffeehouse put on by FACE, or Feminists Advocating Change and Empowerment. The event was sponsored by FACE, the Black Student Union (BSU), Club Latino, the Gender Studies Department, the English Department, the Rhetoric Department, ASWC, WEB and the Intercultural Center.
The event began with performances from Whitman’s slam poetry club, Almighty Ink, who performed poems relating to sexism, sexuality, race and inequality.
The highlight of the event was the performance by Denice Frohman and Dominique Christina, who make up the duo Sister Outsider. Their poetry addressed racism and sexism in many contexts, including dating and the American education system. A central theme of their performance was race-related violence in America.
While all of the poems had substantial emotional content and had a deep impact on the audience, the most moving poem of the evening was one of the last ones, “For Emmett Till,” written and performed by Christina. Christina prefaced the poem by talking about her experience as a mother, and that it wasn’t until she had children that she truly recognized the devastating horror Till’s mother must have experienced when she could not recognize her son. Christina wept while performing this poem. She did a beautiful job and received a standing ovation.
Overall, the poems Frohman and Christina read were moving, thought-provoking and extremely well received by the audience.
“Erica Nkwocha and I are just so happy to have brought Sister Outsider to campus,” said sophomore FACE co-president Tara McCulloch.
“Their intersectional approach to politics is just incredible, and we feel that they’re a really great group to bring to campus, especially in light of all the recent events that have happened in Ferguson and with Eric Garner.”
Christina’s book “The Bones and the Breaking” is for sale in the Whitman College Bookstore and Frohman’s album “Feels Like Home” is available on iTunes.
Photos by Marra Clay.
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