New School Students Host A Twitter Discussion About Solange’s New Album

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Illo by Alex Gilbeaux

On Thursday morning, a group of students at The New School hosted a Twitter town hall, or discussion, for their Womanist/Black Feminist Theatre class discussing Solange Knowles’ new album, A Seat at the Table. The discussion was called #Solangetaughtme, and although hosted by New School students, was meant to reach a broader public audience beyond the limits of the university.

“While this event is open to everyone — above all else, this discussion is meant to be a safe space for Black individuals to share their thoughts and experiences,” Hunter Stewart, a sophomore at Lang and moderator of the discussion, said.

The students, Car’ynn Sims, Hunter Stewart, Maria Sidibe, Diamond Ward, Alex Briceño, Bella Olivo, Nayomi Spencer, Mecca Russell, and Kay Goodhart, created this town hall partially as a project for their class, but also with a bigger goal in mind. The organizers of the discussion wanted to create a space for women of color to have a healthy dialogue and unpacking of an album that offers a large commentary on race and womanhood.

Solange’s album, A Seat at the Table has been recognized by many women of color as a huge topic of conversation for all of the political and social issues it addresses. From ongoing conversations about hair and beauty politics, to cultural appropriation and claiming certain aspects of black culture, the album discusses several different social issues. Knowles touches on these ideas specifically in songs like “Don’t Touch My Hair” and “F.U.B.U. (For Us By Us).” Knowles also touches on issues of identity and coming of age by including different interludes during which her parents speak about their experience of growing up black.

One of the main points that the students wanted everyone to remember during this discussion was to, “maintain a safe space for Black individuals and other POC to share thoughts publicly.” The group organizers wanted to make sure that black people and other people of color had somewhere to state their thoughts and opinions on this topic. According to some of the group organizers, it is not always easy for students of color to open up about their experiences of dealing with racism or discrimination. Talking about such a heavy and relevant topic can often make people uncomfortable if they don’t experience the same things. The student organizers felt like there should be somewhere to openly state what is on their minds without fear of being shut down by those who aren’t comfortable discussing these issues. That gave rise to their idea to host this discussion on Twitter. Using the hashtag “#takingourseats,” students were able to curate a conversation in which they asked questions about specific songs and lyrics from the album that offer some social criticism.

Their questions garnered a large number of responses from other twitter users that were quite complex. New School student and discussion moderator, Hunter Stewart asked:

For those unfamiliar with how a Twitter discussion works, it is very simple. Whomever is initiating the discussion decides on a hashtag that everyone will use for the conversation. Once that hashtag is created, anyone participating can include the tag in their tweets, and they will all appear in one organized thread.

The town hall resulted in an extensive conversation about A Seat at the Table between New School and non-New School students. Although Twitter only allows 140 characters for a single tweet, users were able to express their extensive thoughts and opinions despite that limitation. It turns out that many people have ongoing thoughts and questions about the chart-topping album.

Here are some of the top responses to the questions asked by the moderators:

The student organizers of this discussion chose Twitter as their platform because of the accessibility that it allows. They kept feeling as though their discussions in class would end there and not be carried into their daily conversations.  By using a platform like Twitter, the organizers were allowed to expand the conversation beyond the classroom and the students in them. The organizers of the town hall wrote on their official Facebook page for the event, “Often times in our classrooms, our discussions don’t carry out into the world beyond the room’s four walls. We’re mixing that up a bit by hosting this discussion on Twitter, where we can archive the tweets and allow others to learn from and interact with what everyone has to say.”

Illo by Alex Gilbeaux