Award-Winning Writer Talks about Race Ignorance in America

Author and Emmy-award-winning television writer Dennis Watlington visited Westminster School Nov. 9 to share his dramatic life story and to talk about the history of race ignorance in America.

Born in Harlem in 1952, Dennis has had a remarkable life. Once addicted to heroin and in and out of various schools, he received a surprise scholarship to the Hotchkiss School, where he was elected president of his class. After attending NYU, he wrote and directed his first play, “Bullpen,” which was produced by the American Theater of Actors. He later founded the People’s Neighborhood Theater.

In the early 1980s, Dennis’ life took a downturn through an addiction to crack, and he returned to rehabilitation. On the road to recovery, he met author Gaily Sheehy who included a chapter about him in her best-selling book, “Passages,” where she described him as a “spirit inextinguishable.” She also prompted him to write about his addiction, which he did in an article titled “Between the Cracks” for Vanity Fair magazine. The article was optioned by HBO for a television movie, and he was hired to write the screenplay. His journalism career continued with regular contributions to Vanity Fair, the New York Times and American Way magazine.

The writer of numerous movie and television scripts, Dennis has focused his work during the past decade in documentary film. In 1984, he won an Emmy Award for writing “The Untold West: The Black West” for TBS. In 2006, he also published a memoir, “Chasing America: Notes of a Rock ’n Soul Integrationist.”

During his Westminster presentation, Dennis, who once lived in Simsbury for a brief time, shared the unusual way he was admitted to a prep school and how much his education there helped him. “I love the prep school atmosphere,” he said. “One of the greatest things about prep schools is that they have the time to care.”

He also gave readings from his book to highlight three major experiences in his life and present a “timeline about biracial America”: living in the south as a young child when Jim Crow laws were enforced, participating in a hallway mugging in high school and the “racial confusion” surrounding the birth of his child.

“The term I focus on is race ignorance,” explained Dennis. “Race ignorance is the lack of interaction and that is really easy to deal with. If people like each other based on merit, that is a huge improvement because it lies on both sides of the pigment line.”

He told the students that they are ready to take the nation to great heights. “I was born in an empty glass that had been empty for 400 years, and I watched that glass zoom to half full in 45 years,” he said. “When I was born in 1952, there was only one voice: the white male voice. That is gone, and now it is your show. And because you are diverse, you are in the forefront. I am very happy to have lived in these times and to get the opportunity that I did to share this with you.”