Author Nicole Dennis-Benn Speaks on Identity

Author Nicole Dennis-Benn spoke about finding her voice as a member of the Jamaican middle class, a black lesbian, an activist and a writer at Friday’s assembly. She also held a lunch in the Latin Study, attended English classes throughout the day and signed books at the Water Street Bookstore on Thursday night.

Born and raised in Jamaica, Dennis-Benn came to the United States to escape the more oppressive sides of her country and to attend Cornell University. Though she began her career working as a researcher at Columbia University, she realized eventually that her true passion lay in writing. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn with her wife.

At assembly, Dennis-Benn read excerpts from and discussed her first novel, “Here Comes The Sun,” which she published in July and referred to as her “love letter to Jamaica.” “Here Comes The Sun” has received a starred Kirkus Review and recognition from The New York Times, NPR, BBC, Buzzfeed, Book Riot, Bookish, Elle, Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, The Feminist Wire and Cosmopolitan, among other publications.

Dennis-Benn discussed the importance of speaking up and self expression, as well as addressing issues of racial and social inequality and how the media propagates them. She also provided insight on how to solve them. She described the power of writing and of finding a voice.

“When you think about paradise you don’t think about people shaming you or rejecting you.”

Here Comes The Sun highlights Jamaica’s complexities and documented the lives of people who are often silenced there. The novel reflected Dennis-Benn’s own experience as a queer woman of color in Jamaica, a country often portrayed as a kind of paradise despite its reality of harsh classism, homophobia and misogyny.

According to Dennis-Benn, she wrote her novel in part to give voice to the silenced working class women in her home country. “I really want to shed light on stories and dispel myths that people have,” she said. “I really wanted to capture the individuals who aren’t usually capitalized on the page.”

She also hoped to dispel the false perception many have of Jamaica as a dreamland. “When you think about paradise you don’t think about people shaming you or rejecting you,” she said.

The passage Dennis-Benn read at assembly portrayed a 15-year-old character’s hatred of her skin tone, describing “dark patches that need to be rubbed” away with bleach.

Following her reading, Dennis-Benn spoke about the dangers of silence and the importance of speaking up. She explained that she returned to Jamaica following the release of her book and found a more open dialogue about Jamaican women’s identities and sexualities. “I come from a country of secrecy,” she said. “[But] being a writer has empowered me to shed light on these issues. You never know who’s listening.”

She went on, referencing Audrey Lorde’s belief that our silences do not protect us. “If you let your silences cripple you, that won’t help. You’re hurting yourself more by swallowing a lot of things,” she said. “The minute we start speaking up we realize that we are not just liberating ourselves, we are liberating others.”

Lower Gabrielle Brown, who lived in Jamaica until she was nine, commended Dennis-Benn’s energy. “I liked that she spoke with a lot of passion about issues that were important to her,” Brown said. Brown celebrated Dennis-Benn’s message about creating conversation and believed that the Exeter community could take away the message to “step out of our comfort zone” to talk about important issues.

For lower Isadora Kron, Dennis-Benn provided insight on the power of self expression. “She inspired me as a writer to put more meaning behind what I write,” Kron said.

Many appreciated seeing the school bring a woman so representative of diversity to the campus. Lower Mary Provencal-Fogarty expressed gratitude for this. “We talk about racism on campus, but not nearly enough,” she said. “A queer woman of color coming to campus was exactly what we needed to open our eyes. I was snapping along to almost everything she said.”

As a black Caribbean, upper Robyn Smith said it was powerful to get to hear a woman that she could relate to.

“There really aren't that many role models in the media that are available to me, so meeting her and chatting with her made me feel empowered,” Smith said.

Brown also related with the juxtaposition that Dennis-Benn described of “being invisible in Jamaica,” but also feeling “self-conscious about being black no matter your skin tone,” in the US.

For many, Dennis-Benn’s assembly seemed a fitting follow up to last week’s assembly, which addressed issues of race on campus.

Senior Cady Crowley found connections between Dennis-Benn’s speech and the stories Exeter’s students of color shared last Tuesday.

“Since a lot of Exonians are international, her speech relates to how they come here, and [how] it’s a different culture for them,” she said.

Religion instructor and Assembly Committee member Kathleen Brownback explained that intersectionality is one of the themes the Assembly Committee chose for the year. “It was interesting to hear her describe that her racial identity is of course not an issue in Jamaica but her lesbianism is,” she said. “And race is an issue here but as a lesbian in Brooklyn she feels much more freedom.”

Smith too said that Dennis-Benn’s words reminded her of the idea of intersectionality. She emphasized the importance of reflecting on the diversity within the black community that Dennis-Benn brought up. “Often times people try to group everyone of a certain range of skin tones as one ethnicity, assuming that everyone is African-American,” Smith said. “But there are so many identities within the same race that are often forgotten.”