It is useful to talk about race before it comes up specifically in reference to students' work. More important, providing information may remove the burden on black students to be the primary sources of information about blackness and let them get on with their own work. A provocative video about images of blacks in the media, Ethnic Notions , should stimulate useful dialogue. Of course, teachers should include writers of color in their lists of required reading. Hayes Davis, a student in my senior seminar, wrote this poem in response to a white student's complaints.
Race is a scary subject.
Discussions about it in a diverse community are fraught with dangers. People walk on eggs. My husband uses flip charts when he makes presentations in the corporate world. Being the only black person in the room most of the time, he feels people hear him better when they aren't looking at his face. But we as writers are told to reveal ourselves.