A white biographer and historian won’t retract or apologize for her flagrant comments at a women’s historian conference, where she reportedly stated that she wished she was Black so she would have had an easier career.
Lois Banner was adamant at the Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians on June 30 when she took the stage and professed to the crowd point-blank that being Black would have afforded her professional advantages.
She also brazenly claimed that she wished she was a lesbian because she alleges they’re skilled at community building and organizing.
History doctoral candidate Stephanie Narrow who attended the conference live-tweeted the session’s events, including when Banner made the comments.
She identified Banner as the scholar in a later tweet. “The room is shaken, its palpable,” Narrow wrote.
Narrow also tweeted that Banner voiced a desire to convert to a mystical Islamic religious practice called Sufism so that she could write a biography.
Paul Renfro of Florida State University told The Daily Beast that several people of color began to walk out of the conference session in response to Banner’s “tonally off” comments. He said that a white woman in the crowd yelled at Banner that she said something racist, which Banner denied on stage. When organizers didn’t step in to intervene, Renfro said he walked out too.
Adding insult to injury, Banner’s remarks conveying her thoughts on being Black came right after Black historian Deborah Gray White’s speech about Black women in their profession. After White was finished, she had to sit next to Banner and “keep her composure for the rest of the session,” according to Narrow. “She deserves an apology,” Narrow wrote.
Historian Deirdre Cooper Owens, another conference attendee, pushed back at Banner’s comments and tweeted that “she needed to keep Black women’s name out of her mouth.”
A tweet from the Berkshire Conference’s official account stated that the organization’s officers “do not condone or support the inappropriate remarks.”
The conference hosted talks a day after the conference to discuss how to create an inclusive space for diverse histories and historians, at which the board and trustees “took careful notes” to start “planning action.” They promised a formal statement and a concrete action plan would be released soon.
Banner, who notably wrote a popular biography of Marilyn Monroe, co-founded the conference in the 1970s.
Other historians, professors and segments of the Twitter community who heard about Banner’s remarks also denounced her comments.
