My main interests are technical writing and communication in academic, business, and community areas; the rhetoric, discourse, and computer-mediated communication of online communities; visual representation of African Americans; the rhetoric of African American women writers of the early nineteenth-century period; and the intersection of critical race theory and computers/technology in composition studies.

My secondary interests are the military service of African Americans; the status of African American neighborhoods and community; African mythology as a precursor to Greek mythology (and by extension, African rhetoric as a precursor to Greek rhetoric); science fiction's portrayal of the future; and the paucity of African Americans in higher education.

I consider language use, cultural and social agency, and the widening gap between the economically rich and the economically poor among my foremost concerns. My continuing interests in computer systems, computer technology, computer communication, and the reported "digital divide" that separates people from computers and associated technologies by class, race, education, and economic factors has led me to consider ways to bridge this evasive divide. I say evasive because this divide can be described in various ways, depending on one's point of view. When defining access to computers and associated technologies, some theorists describe the digital divide as an economic factor that is complicated by class and race. Access to computers and associated technologies in academic settings reveals a digital divide defined by other theorists as a display of inconsistent and problematic use of computers and associated technologies in teaching and learning situations--and a divide also complicated by class and race.

However, my interest in the discourse of nineteenth-, twentienth-, and twenty-first-century African American women has challenged me to consider the use of their discourse as voiced by my contemporaries in electronic spaces, as well as the discourse of my foremothers not born in this land. Thus, rhetoric has become a means for me to examine and analyze African American communication in social spaces, especially as used in online communities. The uses of rhetoric becomes a focal point for me to explore, examine, and analyze my interests in discourse analysis, technical communication, and visual communication & representation. Most importantly, I seek to locate ways that the uses of online community rhetoric can become an empowering factor in offline people's lives.

Sometimes our research efforts take us far afield from our personal interests, but most of the time the research and the personal function together. Kathleen Weiler, in Women Teaching for Change: Gender, Class & Power (1988), notes that a “weakness of liberal feminist research is that it ignores other relationships of power than those based on gender” (p. 64). She suggests that because white teachers do not consciously consider race as part of their identity, they “are not even conscious of their relationship of power and privilege” (p. 77) and consequently may be less likely to address issues of racism and classism in the classroom.

Duafe: the wooden comb which signifies beauty, hygiene, and feminine qualities

My secondary interests, however, take me back to the personal. These areas reflect those concerns that shape me, as they evolve out of personal experiences that make me go "hmmm?" As I learn to acknowledge and appreciate that which 'makes up' me, I find that the dedicated research directed by curiosity allows me to interact with those ideas that offer me a more nuanced perspective.

Can the African American woman move beyond classism, genderism, educational-challenges, political divisions, and religious mis-positioning in order to heal herself? What tools and resources does she need to develop this self-healing capability? While the African American woman embarks on a self-healing journey, the community must continue to nurture and raise the young, and respect and serve the elders. Too often these tasks of nurturing and raising, respecting and serving fall only on the African American woman and on no one else. A community is composed of many individuals, all of who can contribute to the formation and maintenance of a balanced and self-empowered community. When the contributions of the community serve to deface and denigrate the African American woman, an imbalance occurs. This imbalance produces ineffectual individuals and disempowered communities. To consider how the rebuilding of empowered communities can impact all lives means that African American woman must be nurtured, raised, respected, and served. Only by regaining the balance of contributory efforts within communities can the healing begin to take place.

These interests, along with my life experiences and the wisdom from my elders, have served to prepare me to instruct better and to learn from my students. These varied perspectives I take with me into any teaching and learning situation--in the classroom and in the community.

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