-: My name is Raymond Edward Janifer, Sr.
and I teach English and African-American Studies
at Shippensburg University.
I do about the different ways, different times
that Africans were introduced into North America.
People typically talk about the slavery experience
but there was also a free African experience.
When you look at the American Civil Rights Movement
from the African-American perspective,
it brought along other groups like women,
Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans.
So, it was kind of a springboard movement
that they typically don't get credit for.
And so, the other thing that I kind of argue with them
is well, why do we have to find out about this stuff
in African-American Studies if in fact,
we're studying American history,
we should know about this and it should be integrated
into the regular history course.
You have to be careful because everyone comes
with what I call selective perception,
how they were raised, how they worship,
how they were educated, et cetera.
So, you don't want to attack that.
But what I like to do is convince them that perhaps
there might be another way of looking at it,
another perspective, have you ever thought of?
And if I'm effective with that,
that will kind of germinate a seed for them to investigate.
Well, it actually begins early in the morning
when I'm either grading or reading, preparing for class.
But the day can start with either class or an office hour
and then approximately two to four hours of teaching.
Possibly another office hour
and then more reading and grading and writing.
I'm reading my scholarly material to prepare for lectures.
I'm grading papers and then with what time I have left,
I'm usually working.
And I write scholarly material
but I also write creative material
and I also write journalism.
So, I might be working on a polemic piece,
I might be working on a scholarly piece,
or I might be working on a piece of fiction.