Dialogue with Dunkley

When Leon Dunkley first applied to be director of the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture four years ago, there was a similar position opening up at Guilford College, a Quaker school also in North Carolina. "Religiously or morally, [Guilford's] a place I was drawn," Dunkley says. But for Dunkley, who received his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and jazz studies from the University of Pittsburgh, religion took a backseat to another passion. "I'm much more powerfully driven by music and the idea of working in a center with Mary Lou Williams' name is such an honor," he says. Dunkley, now the center's director, teaches music, sings, plays piano, guitar, percussion, gamelan--a set of Indonesian percussion instruments--and has studied two West African percussion traditions.

Born in New York City, Dunkley grew up in Englishtown, N.J., and attended Tufts University as an undergraduate. He came to Duke in the summer of 1999 after teaching for a year at the Conservatory of Music in Brooklyn College.

The Center, which Dunkley describes as a "site to celebrate African-American culture," was founded in September 1983 in honor of Williams, the famous jazz pianist and composer who served as Duke's artist-in-residence from 1977 until 1981.

Below are excerpts from a 75-minute conversation with Dunkley on Duke, race and, of course, music:

TV: Are you working on anything academically right now?

LD: A book. It's still in the really early stages. There's a book by Toni Morrison called Playing in the Dark and she brings up this great idea.... She says, "I have to think about how free I can be as an African-American woman writer writing in a wholly racialized, sexualized and genderized world." I'm interested in looking at the limits of a creative artist in the context of a certain social reality. How far can they go? What's the limit of that creativity? I'm interested in the pianists, particularly people like Thelonius Monk... people who really pushed the envelope. And I'm interested in that sort of cusp, that sort of leading edge, where the creative abilities of an artist become imperceptible to their audience. The book will probably be about how we acquire the tools to understand what we're trying to say to one another from our separate, or seemingly separate, places in this wholly racialized world.

TV: So can a writer of one race or gender, in your view, write effectively about another race or gender?

LD: I think writers write. About our world. There's a great quote by Maya Angelou in her documentary about James Baldwin, and she says, "In this world, we're so contained. Men are supposed to be men, women are supposed to be women, and really not need one another at all. The courage to say, 'Will you be my brother? Will you be my sister?' That's often lacking." I feel we're struggling with that far more than... with what it means to be black, white, Jewish, Islamic, whatever container you want to put on. Within the circle of discourse it is fabulous and enriching, but the challenging one is, "How can I be one thing in the context of another thing?"

TV: Have you asked for one?

LD: We're working on that. We'll see what happens. It's not a new request.... We're in the third year of that conversation. I don't know if it's time to become impatient.

TV: Overall, have you found the [Duke] administration responsive to your needs?

LD: I've seen incredible effort going into the Mary Lou Williams Center. We're sitting in a room that was newly designed. Until a [few] years ago, this room had old yellow and orange elementary school plastic chairs. We didn't have a VCR. We had a television from 1970. We had a piano in horrible shape--I could not ask a professional musician to play it. And there were artists that would not show in this space. I think there has been a lot of support to create a good gallery space here, bring in the pianos. Jerry Allen, arguably one of the best pianists in the world today, gave a concert here for three hours!

TV: What's the biggest challenge facing you as [director of the center]?

LD: Remaining complete. We ask for fractions of each other. I run the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture. What is my responsibility when a student is sexually assaulted in Perkins? What is the responsibility of a center of this nature to respond? That's certainly something Mary Lou faced in her life--sexual assault. Is that something we respond to, or is that the purview of the Women's Center? So I think a challenge is standing up in the face of that. Maybe the most profound example, post-Sept. 11, dealing with issues of race and social difference, is with [Professor of cell biology Michael] Reedy.

TV: Has the center addressed the Reedy issue?

LD: We have not of yet. And I've been regretful of that. I'm struggling with how to do that. I wrote him immediately as soon as I learned and I asked if he would be interested in being part of what we needed to do to move forward, because I do think that the problem is not solved by just talking about how terrible that letter is. I think we need to talk about what it means to be afraid, right now, post Sept. 11.... [Reedy] responded. And I don't quite know how to move forward on that... But, in terms of the leadership the University needs to provide, I think the University could be more aggressive, and I, as part of that University, I have to shoulder some of that responsibility and figure out how.

TV: How would you define "community"?

LD: The way we use ["community"], I could get rid of the word. I think what we really need is the ability to be compassionate toward one another. And open. That's the best word. Open.

TV: There seems to be a rift on this campus--or, rather, at least a rift on the editorial pages of The Chronicle--between students affiliated with certain cultural groups--the Black Student Alliance, Asian Students Association, Spectrum, I'd even include the Progressive Alliance on that list--and a vocal group of more conservative, white students. Should this be a concern?

LD: I wonder about the health of the editorial page or our health in our use of it. Rather than having a group of people saying, "I would like to get together with you to try to work out this issue," we write a [column]--a fairly provocative, inflammatory, sometimes irresponsible [column] saying, "I think this, you think that." We use the editorial page rather than seek genuine connection.... When we have forums we usually have cat-and-mouse forums where we say, "You believe in the death penalty and you don't--now argue!" And you as the audience are supposed to ask, "Whose gonna win? Which one is right?" I think it's much more challenging to say, "You believe in the death penalty. Why? And where does that bring us? And is that valid? Is that real?" Really ask those questions.

TV: A lot of students are very distressed by the departure of Phillip Shabazz, the center's artist-in-residence. What happened?

LD: I'll be honest, I am not professionally at liberty to say everything that I know, nor do I think it's particularly valuable.... I can say honestly and professionally that the program that Phillip Shabazz developed for the four years that he was here was a phenomenally successful and enriching program and I miss the program quite a lot. I wish that there had been a way to continue that work with his presence here.

TV: It seems like the new residential life plan, in part, is designed to reduce self-segregation on campus. Now, I suppose that presumes the campus is self-segregated. Is it? Is the plan a good way to deal with that?

LD: I have to deal with the word self-segregation first. I feel like it's a misnomer. Self-segregation to me means equal playing field. "Self" empowers you to make that choice.... I believe there has been an inclination in the existing housing plan that forced people to live as we see here which was a fairly intensely racially segregated living environment.... Is this a solution? I don't know. It feels like what we're not doing is saying, "Look at what we've created." Let's do the work of culture, which is human-to-human, to say, "We've created this social reality. How are we gonna get out of it?" I see us rather saying, "This is where you will live." And the assumption feels like that where you will live will automatically erase these racial tensions that we seem to be instituting. So let's just un-institute it by moving the bodies. I think that's naïve.

TV: Final question. If you could present a challenge to the Duke--and I do hesitate to use the word---the Duke community, what would that challenge be?

LD: I have a particular perspective from this chair that is very real. [The Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Life program director] Karen Krahulik would have a perspective from her chair, [director of the Freeman Center for Jewish Life] Roger Kaplan from his chair, [Women's Center director] Donna Lisker from her chair. That's the team I feel like I'm most closely connected with. And if we bring all of our challenges to the table and are able to understand how we are all challenged, we might be able to best create a genuine community.