Commencement: Black and Hooded
Neophytes of the Academy,
Welcome. You have accomplished a great milestone in completing your Masters or Doctoral degree and you deserve nothing more than to take a beat to bask in your glory. You earned it. However, in the coming months, as you transition out of graduate student mode you'll find that your degree will take on new meaning.
For some, the crabs in a barrel metaphor holds and not everyone will be happy to see you win. That sentence will be all I say about those people. By and large, you will be a source of strength and inspiration for those around you. If you're first generation, you'll likely become the one-personal admissions/financial aid/student affairs info booth for your family. Take a breath. Remember what you wish you knew when you first began. Remember the questions you had that everyone else seemed to know the answers to. Take someone, anyone, under your wing and be for them what you needed.
Go back into your communities. This doesn't have to be the Ps. I, for one, went to high school in the suburbs at a school that was well-resourced. Still, I offered my services to the college counselors to help students refine personal statements, plan visits, and talk to parents about transitioning to college. I have to say--they never got back to me--but still, I have the receipts to prove that I was ready to pay it forward.
In any way I can, I try to encourage young aspirations of scholarship. I am honest in telling students that graduate school is.a.job. So when friends ask you if you are still in school, explain to them that this is your career and that just as they still go to work, so do you. Your education is an investment in yourself yet paradoxically, it may be one of the toughest times in your life. My program resulted in people turning themselves inside out and back again and sometimes the collateral damage was divorces, mental health traumas, jealous, and just in general drama. Graduate school (especially your PhD) will TRY YOU, HONEY!
I tell people all the time, higher education is not about intellect and aptitude. It is about insatiable curiosity and fortitude. It is truly a marathon and if you do not have the mental preparation to push through 26 grueling miles when your body is screaming stop? You will not make it. That is something we understand on the other side. We understand that it takes a special something to push through the rigor of the process and arrive on the other side victorious.
But then what? For me, I felt such freedom in being a black doctor that I felt I could finally be my whole self. That meant, I could openly divulge my love for trap music, dollar store jewelry, skating rink parties, lemon pepper wings, and brown liquor over red wine. I felt I'd earned the right not to have to fit in anymore. The freedom tasted so good, I wondered why I limited myself to having it only post-grad? Why did I think I needed a PhD just to validate my blackness as "okay"?
The years afterwards, for me, were a bit of a mind-fuck. I wrote about it in my PhD PTSD article which went viral and let me know that my AIRBNB into the crazy compound was not a solo journey. In the article I wrote:
Nothing was more illuminating than the job search that would soon commence. To say it was a mind-fuck would be putting it lightly. On a daily basis I asked myself:
Was it worth it to get your PhD?
With so many people obtaining graduate and professional degrees, do you even stand out?
Is your experience really rich?
Should I have spent more time researching?
Writing ?
Networking ?
Working full-time while in graduate school?
Then I got salty. Angry. Why is it so easy for other people? How are opportunities coming for them? What am I doing wrong? What if higher education is not for me and I need to completely re-evaluate my life? Should I have done faculty instead of administration? Am I qualified to do faculty? Am I even really qualified for anything?
My mind spun wildly trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble finding a job that fit my skill set that paid more than circus peanuts. I felt like an imposter. And then the cynical and honestly, quite cruel voice of depression grew. At times I convinced myself that people were upset with me. That perhaps I had some something wrong in my months, years as a graduate student and my committee or former supervisors were pissed, blackballing me from opportunities. It's irrational, I know, but trust me, at the time I was convinced (this is what depression does to you). I grew skeptical of relationships, questioned the strength of my professional network, doubted my skills abilities and assets, and flat out denied the possibility that the right thing had simply not come along yet. I was certain that my unemployment was caused by some deficiency in me. I was not good enough, and as a result, I was unemployed.
I had days where I stayed in bed and cried. I had other days that were easier to shake off the mean reds, and I found comfort in my faith and the belief that something wonderful was coming. Still, even after a wonderful interview with my current institution, when I did not hear from them after a few days with an offer, I started up my long list of "this is why you're not good enough" claims. When I accepted my position I did so with a small smidge of doubt; are they sure? Are you sure?
It seems so counter that after earning one of the highest educational accolades that anyone would feel so unworthy and insignificant. Yet, it was precisely that process that continually asks you to prove yourself that left me with anxiety so paralyzing I developed frequent migraines and muscle spasms to accompany my atrocious negative self talk. Even the fact that I felt so crummy served as a trigger. How ungrateful was I to not derive joy when I have such privilege? My lack of ability to have perspective and find the silver lining made me feel worse about my post-grad blues and paired with my distrust of those around me, my struggle was largely silent.
Now, my mind is quieter. I am able to soak in the smiles from the dining staff who see me, knowingly as "Dr. Williams" and have told me how proud it makes them to see me here. I think about my students who have never had a professor "keep it so real" with them. I am OPEN. I share my trials and I share my worries because I know they are not unique to me. We (women, people of color, people of size, people who are not rich, people who are not christian, people who are not american) have been told we have to work twice as hard to get half as much. I reject that. Maybe if you're working alone that's true, but that's why I have made it my mission to build an army.
A tribe of people who do not readily accept the status quo as a recipe for how to live life. I OWN that I can be a black academic who loves and thinks Roxane Gay is just as problematic as Kanye West (hyperbole, people). I love to interrogate "truths" and get to the crux of our beliefs that have us stuck living lives we don't think are extraordinary. In earning my PhD I found myself and my true life's calling.
My wish for you is that you do the same. You take a moment to see how much bigger this moment is than you. You think about what you represent to people who don't even know you. I had a girl come up to me who was a first year at my PhD hooding and she told me "i want to be like you when I grow up." I told her "I want you to be better". It was knee-jerk and something my mother always told me but I realized then that I was loosed from the competition. I knew there was much more to GAIN than to LOSE by having more diverse minds within the walls of the ivory tower.
For all it's flaws, I still believe in the purpose of higher education and I still believe that there is learning done in institutions of higher education that cannot be emulated anywhere else. Still, this thing I love is never too good for critique. Take your masters or PhD as an invitation to "the table" and do not be afraid to have conflict with civility. Do not be afraid to speak of injustices, do not be afraid to talk about systemic oppression, do not be fearful of "upsetting the white people" just because you're on scholarship or were afforded tuition stipends. No amount of money should by the complicitness to your own demise. In fact. James Baldwin said,
If I love you, then I have to make you conscious of things you do not see.
My new peers and colleagues, our work is just beginning. Even in our desire to change systems of oppression, our attending college to do so makes us somewhat complicit in the ideology that formal education is valued and privileged over other sorts of knowledge. We have likely compartmentalized our more unsavory ethnic traits (spoken softer, worn straight hair, never been grammatically incorrect) in an effort to be more accepted, collegial. But hear me when I say, we prayed to somebody before they gave us Jesus.
What I mean by that is, don't deny and discount the things that come from your community and who have made you who you are. Your swag got you to this point and to deny it is to do a great disservice. You were created to BE YOU, so do that. Fully. Intentionally and on purpose. Ceaselessly. Without apology. People shouldn't have to know that you're a doctor to extend respect and professional curtesy, but if they don't do not feel bad reminding them. And then close with kindness. Because a doctorate does not make you better than anyone else, it only makes you different.
And to my own mentee, Troy who I was priming to be a doctoral student since our first introduction. I say to you, put Atlanta on your back and carry her everywhere. The belief that you could be great came because black excellence fertilizes the soil of the of our city. Hosea and Maynard and Shirley and Rosa and John and Martin, Joseph and Evelyn Lowrey, they created the lanes that we now inhabit. We must always be mindful of the footsteps we follow and just how difficult it was to leave a trail. THEN we must leave a trail. We may not do it at home, but everywhere we go, we will be ambassadors for Atlanta, proving that greatness in black bodies is not an anomaly, it's a given when the environment is right.
Finally, I say to you graduates, congratulations. This is the time where you have just contributed new knowledge to your field. Do not be afraid to keep spreading the word of your work. Final defenses are only just the beginning of you using your voice and speaking truth to power. You owe it to your participants and everyone who made your research possible to DO something with it. To create real, sustainable change. To examine that change with a critical eye and to refine it relentlessly. You have been given the tools to create the new and innovated and to have it substantiated by a group of your wisest peers. It's not the time to shrink into the shadows. This is your time to shine.
Do it brilliantly, and do it for the world to see. The sun never cares how brightly she beams; and so shall you be. Radiant and singularly focused on giving all that you can to bring life to others. Ashe.