Clint Smith Goes Fireside

Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/DgQf1dUKUTM Sincerely Media

On Sept. 7, Marist College had the honor of hosting a “fireside chat” with Dr. Clint Smith as a part of the Common Read program. The discussion was headed by Dr. Patricia Tarantello, Marist’s First Year Seminar Director, and was centered around his 2021 novel How the Word is Passed. 

As opposed to a lecture-style presentation, Tarantello would ask Smith questions pertaining to the book, creating a dialogue that students could follow along with. Most of the questions dealt with his thoughts surrounding the book’s major social commentaries, with questions pertaining to his opinion on the education system and what he believes some effective strategies are in having difficult conversations. 

Smith, dressed in blue jeans and Nike Air Maxes. He wanted to be at level ground with the rest of the students and introduced the talk by reassuring the audience that he’s “been there,” referring to being a college freshman with an assigned summer reading novel. This is the tone that influences his answers throughout the discussion. 

One of the questions asks him about employing effective strategies for having ‘difficult, honest conversations with others’, and his answer involves understanding the opposing perspective: ”I wanted to understand why they believed what they believed… It would be so easy to go to a Sons of Confederate Veterans event and paint these people as racist caricatures.”

He clarifies that “it’s not that you excuse those beliefs, but that you understand where those beliefs come from.” Smith encourages his listeners to approach sensitive conversations with an acknowledgment of how the other person came to their conclusions. 

When writing the book, he realized that he had an opportunity to fill some historical gaps not often addressed. He brings up a quote from a woman he interviewed at Monticello Plantation, where they talk about her perception of Thomas Jefferson after a tour where Jefferson’s history with slavery is more fully addressed: “It really takes the shine off the guy.” 

“Jefferson is a microcosm of the larger American project”, he states. “[He’s] someone who wrote one of the most important documents in the history of the Western world, but is also someone who enslaved over 600 people.” He says that both of those things are part of the American story, not one or the other; therefore, the avoidance of one part of the story results in the retelling of an incomplete story. 

While not directly blaming the education system, he does point out that, until he reached college, he wasn’t equipped with the ‘toolkit’ necessary to unravel some of the social problems he would encounter, recalling the thought that “‘[He knew] this is wrong, but [he didn’t know] how to say this is wrong.’” 

A large part of his motivation in writing the book was to provide his readers with the information he wished he had back when he was still in school: “I wrote the sort of book that I wanted to read when I was in my high school American History class.” 

His ultimate point, in both the book and the talk, is to emphasize the importance of understanding the full story and that the importance of context cannot be understated.