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in the University of Colorado, Master of Humanities Michelle
Sisk. Poet. Performer. Ordained Minister. Wife. Mother. Historian. Writer. Counselor. Human
Rights Activist. TV
Reporter. Marketing Director. MH
Candidate. Walking away from my interview with Michelle Sisk, I marveled at the quality of her life and all she brings to the world around her. I had already known of her personal grace, eloquence and intelligence from a MH seminar course last year, but our talk uncovered so much more. Michelle is the daughter of an Oneida Native American mother and an African-American father. She was raised by her mother and white, Irish-Catholic step-father. And as one would expect in a small Illinois town, young Michelle heard name-calling based on her multi-cultural heritage. But when she went home, her mother taught her she was special – "a child of the universe.' She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Southern Illinois at Carbondale. Before graduation a professor told her class that two percent of them would find a place in the competitive field of broadcast journalism. Michelle's mother told her she would be in that two percent. Two weeks after graduation, Michelle started her career as a television news reporter in Savannah, Georgia. As a reporter, Michelle established ties with the community by talking to women's and children's groups. Eight years later, when she decided to move away from the news industry and its less than accurate standards, she helped the community full time. She joined a social services agency to work with women in poverty. Five days a week she conducted workshops to teach the women self-esteem and job skills. A year later, when the program ended, she became a marketing director for a cable television system similar to TCI. Her job was to devise and implement the advertising campaigns that would sell the product. On one of her business trips, she met the man of her dreams. Chet Sisk, of Denver, Colorado. Eight months later Michelle and Chet were married and began their family with Mario and Chase, their two sons. Uncomfortable with the educational environment in the public school system, Michelle home-schools her children. Other parents ask her to school their children as well, but Michelle prefers to concentrate on her own children for now. After she settled into Colorado, she picked up her academic studies again at the Community College of Aurora. A creative writing teacher noticed her talent and encouraged her to sell her work. Michelle became a poet. She began sharing her poetry with the community. She continues to perform today at organizations such as Challenges, Choices and Images in Aurora and the Black Arts Festival. After feeling the call of God all her life, She became an ordained minister this past summer. She often reads messages in church and counsels members of the congregation. She counsels independently as well as through the Excelsior Youth Home in Aurora where she conducts an African-Centered Rites of Passage program that prepares troubled young women for womanhood. Michelle's poetry brings her deep satisfaction. She writes openly about issues of race, indigenous peoples, African history and being a woman, often raising difficult issues, in order to heal them. "I think in this country we've been conditioned to just not talk about issues of race, but I believe the only way we're going to understand each other is to talk about things." Following her heart, Michelle is doing a Master's Project instead of an academic paper, as she had previously planned. She will produce a four-part performance based on her indigenous politics, race relations and intercultural communications MH studies. She will introduce the performance with an historical analysis of African history. Part one will explore the Kemet. The Egyptian grand civilizations that Plato and Aristotle came to study. The magnificent time when here was no sexism. When men and women shared an egalitarian society. The time when Ethiopia had the first black queens. Part two will deal with a part of world history that isn't taught in school. The Diaspora, the Mafa. The beginning of slavery in the Western hemisphere. The time when Africans were taken from Africa to either North or South America. The period when an estimated 30 - 100 million Africans were killed through torture, disease, beatings or by jumping over the slave ships. Part three will deal with the institution of slavery in the United States, while part four concludes with a call for a pan-Africanist, "21st-century African Renaissance. People of African descent all over the world must collectively start to help each other." She adds with a smile, "I'm optimistic about the future and I agree with the great Chief who said, 'although wrongs have been done me, I live in hope and I think that people who don't have hope don't have a future.'" When she graduates with her MH degree in May, Michelle will then attend law school, a goal she has long held. And although she seeks a law degree to protect, re-gain and expand the rights of humans, it will mean more than her own career. Her law degree will finally satisfy the same goal held by her great-grandfather, a minister who died before fulfilling his dream to practice law. "I believe in the spirit of the ancestors," she explains. "Law school is just my destiny, and when I get that degree he will be smiling with me." We all look forward to attending Michelle's Master's Project performance and shaking hands with such an amazing woman. And of course, like all our other graduates, we'll miss you Michelle. |
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