Dark Times at a White Institution
I do my best not to have regrets because I firmly believe every challenging experience has benefited my development. I only wished I had the language to name my experiences and the skill set to speak up about them. As a college student, I wish I knew phrases like implicit and explicit bias, whiteness, white savior complex, and racial trauma. I wish I learned not only how to navigate a predominantly white institution (PWI), but more importantly, I wish I wouldn’t have let my shame of being a teen mother mother prevent me from asking for help.
After high school, I planned to take the full scholarship I earned and head to a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). I had been accepted to five schools that would send me south after graduation. I changed my mind in the last hour because I was afraid to be far from home. I had only traveled out of state with adult supervision. Attending an HBCU meant leaving New England and standing alone in a foreign place. I was not ready. When a friend of mine needed support with his application essay to an in-state university, I applied and was accepted as well. Now I was only 45 minutes from home, and I had several classmates who would also be attending. I would not be alone.
Four months into my freshman year, I found out that those weekend trips home to see my then-boyfriend had resulted in a pregnancy. The news was devastating to my family and disappointing to his family. To them, having a baby meant that I was throwing away an opportunity for free education and that I was, in fact, not going to be one of the first in the family to earn a bachelor’s degree. To me, it was no big deal. I was due in July. I would have the baby and return to school, and all would be well. I had no idea of the arduous journey ahead.
Pregnancy meant an abrupt end to campus life. I would have to leave the diverse institution, the dance team, the parties, and my carefree way of life. I could no longer risk being a writer. A journalism degree was not guaranteed job security. After researching, I decided to switch my major to Social Work; the world always needs social workers. I had to transfer to a school in my hometown so that I could commute. The college I chose wasn’t my ideal choice. I was used to the campus because I had attended summer programming there since seventh grade. So although a PWI was not my ideal choice, but I needed to move quickly. It was familiar, I needed that with everything changing so quickly.
The year was 1997. I had my son on August 1 and was in my first a.m. class 24 days later. I was scheduled to work a shift two hours after that class. While the college offered a BIPOC support office, the social and psychological safety I felt there didn’t extend outside of that space. In every course, there were no more than three BIPOC students; in many classes, I was the only Black and the only person of color. My love of learning and desire to prove all of those who doubted me wrong were my motivation. Despite the constant exhaustion, I completed my sophomore year successfully while working twenty to thirty hours a week and sometimes with the baby in class.
In my junior year, it was time to focus more specifically on Social Work courses and a spring internship, or so I thought. Instead, I would experience a series of events that would result in the most traumatic academic experience of my life. I was assigned a group project and paper with three other students, all white girls. I was usually quiet in class but had an idea for approaching our project. When I shared it, it was ignored. I shrugged, did my assigned portion, and waited for my “I told you so” moment. It came. The professor made “us” revise it, and I was ready with my own version of the paper. When I tried to explain to the professor that my ideas were unheard and I did the bulk of the paper we now earned an A on, I was told that since it was a group project, I had to share credit. I knew it wasn’t fair, but I didn’t have the language. They disregarded me and without any repercussion, inconvenience or even a thank you.
Then, in another class, a liberal white woman and head professor of the Social Work department approached me after, concerned I had a 73 in her class. To pass, I would need 77 or higher. This was not a challenge; I decided to make it up with my excellent test-taking. I still had half the semester. Then, she mentioned my attendance. The policy was at most three a semester. I had missed three classes, mostly due to oversleeping. Now that my son was walking, it was much harder to get my work done, so I often had to wait until he went to sleep. I defended myself with my high test scores and the many 100’s I earned on papers. She went on to say that she was concerned for me as a single mother and wanted to create a support team to “help” me. She arranged a meeting that afternoon with all of the other professors, including those classes I had a 100 average. I was upset for two reasons. First, I didn’t feel like a “single mother.” My child’s father and I lived together. We were engaged, and despite their initial reactions, my family and his were supportive and helpful. I had a village. How dare she assume I don’t have a support system? Secondly, I told her I couldn’t attend a meeting at such short notice because I had to work that afternoon, every afternoon. Her response to my anger was an ultimatum…I would attend the meeting, or she’d instruct her professors to uphold the attendance policy and fail me, should I miss any more classes, no matter my average. I don’t do so well with ultimatums. The department head did, though, because she did as she promised.
Eventually I missed another day of classes. Because of her instructions, my core grades that semester were changed to three F’s and one A . Two of those three Fs were previously A’s. I didn’t have the language to advocate an unjust situation effectively. How could I articulate that in her efforts to “help” me, she was instead hurting me? How could I explain that her assessment of the kind of help I needed should not hold more significance than the type of help I felt would be beneficial. Could I tell her she was abusing her power?
My low GPA and refusal to do as I was commanded resulted in me being “suspended” for the second semester. Suspended in college! I didn’t have the words, but I had a reference point. That professor reminded me of Ms. Millie from the movie Color Purple, a white woman of privilege who thought she was kind and helpful to Black people. When Sophia, a Black woman, rejected her offer to be her maid, she used that privilege to get a court order, forcing Sophia to work for her after serving time in jail. That was the dynamic I felt.
In the darkness was a light; an angelic older Black man who served as my advisor. He helped me changed my major from Social Work to Sociology with a minor in Social Work to transfer as many credits as possible. When I returned in the fall, I wouldn’t have to see her face again, but much like Sophia, my refusal to take an offer from a privileged white woman would hurt me. I was already set to graduate a semester later than all my friends who went away to HBCUs. Now, a change in major, a failed semester, and another semester off would put me two years behind. It also meant I would run out of scholarship money and have to take out a$10,000 loan. Instead of receiving help, I suffered a backlash. I knew what was happening to me was wrong, but I didn’t have the words; I didn’t ask for help or for someone to push back with me. I was overwhelmed and exhausted.
I used the time off to work a full-time job in the day and a part-time in the evening. Returning for my senior year, I was excited about taking creative writing as an elective. I had wanted to be an author since I was eight. This course would be a reprieve from all the obligations. Everything I handed in came back to me covered in red marks. The young, white male adjunct didn’t understand my characters, language, or storytelling, and no one else in the class looked like me. He had no other frame of reference and apparently didn’t feel he needed one. Despite doing my best to revise every assignment, he gave me an F. I failed an elective course! I, a literary magazine writer in high school and a poet since I was 14, failed the poetry project! I didn’t have the language, but I knew it wasn’t right. I felt powerless once again.
I eventually crawled across the finish line and earned my degree in May 2002. I was not unscathed. The racial trauma I experienced at that college was a rude introduction to the power and privilege dynamics of the Northeast. The great-granddaughter of a sharecropper and Black History buff, I was well versed in the overt, southern racism I read about in books and watched in documentaries since middle school. This was different. One could be more prepared to protect themselves from threats of physical violence. The stealth violence cloaked in white saviorism left me blindsided. I wasn’t ready to respond; I didn’t have the language.
More than 20 years later, I still have no regrets. While I suck my teeth and throw out any alumni correspondence from that college, I recognized that intertwined with that awful academic experience were blessings. First, I learned to stop waiting for my talent to be for validated, self-publishing more than ten books (four poetry), co-writing a play that toured colleges in the northeast, and performing throughout the U.S as a spoken word artist. Secondly, in a civil rights class. I found a lifetime mentor in a Black adjunct professor who would save me working nights at a gas station. She would give me my first job working with young people, a passion that sparked a 20-plus-year education and youth development career. Thirdly, I became an advocate for so many middle and high school students who looked like me. I became a voice for countless students, especially those in alternative settings, doing my best to guard them from being stereotyped, discriminated against, disregarded, and criminalized. I armed them and their parents the language and support to speak up for themselves. It was well worth it if it meant I had to experience those challenges to impact their lives. I have no regrets, but I certainly understand the importance of having the words that describe our experiences (even if they are intermingled with colloquialism, slang, or AAVE) and feeling empowered enough to use them.
