The First Time: A Legacy of Silence
Originally posted by danneunscripted on January 19, 2021
The first time I experienced what I understood as racism was in my English Literature course in my first semester of college. I was 17. Being from the first “free” Black nation to overthrow their enslavers, I had experienced what I now know as colorism. Being from a working-class family with financial means, whose patriarch was a highly regarded member of the community, I had experienced the privilege of classism. Being an immigrant at a predominantly Black school in which the students had divided themselves by ethnic origin and I was, therefore, “not really Black”, I had experienced ethnocentrism. What further divided, or protected, me was the fact that I spent most of my early education in special classes: First ESL, then honors and AP. As such, my classmates were a multicultural bag of misfits. And I remember, most especially in high school, we had created our own micro-cultural enclave.
We were Pakistani, Ecuadorian, Indian, Jamaican, Guyanese, Cuban, Polish, African American, Haitian. We were learning from each other and supporting each other as we navigated what it meant to be a hyphenated American. We didn’t have time to talk about race, we were too busy trying to fit in!
Thus, my dominantly White college was a deeply rude awakening. It was still early in the semester and the fact that I was the only person of color in the class had not fully revealed its consequences. My mind was still wrapped up in presenting as “American enough” to my new classmates. Having excelled in English and writing in high school, even winning local awards and getting published in the local newspaper, I was prepared to take my writing to the next level. While my parents dreamed of my future as a nurse or doctor, I imagined myself as a writer. Needless to say, I was really excited about taking this course and, consequently, equally broken by the experience.
In discussing this activity of recalling one’s first race-related experience, Tatum (2017) notes that the actual event is not as significant as the emotions triggered by the experience. She asks her audience to focus on two important questions: How they felt and did they tell anyone.
How did I feel? In one brief moment, I felt like I had been swallowed by a void. My culture, my ethnic origin, my accent, my weight, all the aspects of my identity I had wrestled with were no longer visible. I had been erased. And without any recollection of someone explaining it, I knew this was happening to me because of my race.
Did I tell anyone? No.
Like Tatum’s participants, I did not discuss this experience with anyone for years to come, but the feeling has haunted me the rest of my life.
This “legacy of silence”, according to Tatum is part of the reason why we have such a difficulty talking about race. At an early age, we (particularly White children) learn that it is impolite to point out someone’s racial difference. White children internalize the superiority of whiteness, the silence regarding race promotes anything other than White as inferior, taboo, and lacking in some measure. Hence, we have questions like, “why are all the Black kids…?” instead of questioning the behavior of all the White kids. Hence, color blindness is praised while critical consciousness is perceived as judgmental and “causing division”. Hence, diversity initiatives often benefit the privileged at the expense of those who are already oppressed. Hence, I am where I am now. Thinking about the first time, which naturally triggers so many other times since. Thinking about all the ways I have changed and all the ways the world has not. Thinking about why I didn’t speak up then and why I am not inclined to speak now.
Originally published August 16, 2020 Dannemart Pierre (danneunscripted). This post is part of a series for a course on Diversity and Social Justice in Higher Education
Rage and Peace
“We are, largely, who the world around us says we are”
Originally Posted by danneunscripted on January 26, 2021
Ihave spent the better part of my 40 years on this planet trying not to be the very person the world says I am: An angry Black woman. I speak softly. I wait until I am addressed. I stay out of conflict. I act in a respectful manner. I use proper English. I stress out about timeliness and the size of my earrings and the patterns on my clothes, all in an attempt to avoid stereotypes. I check my tone and check my emotions and check my self, again, and again, and again. I have spent most of my life, shaping and fashioning this shell into acceptable versions of the world’s expectations until there was nothing left but a shell. A bitter, empty shell – burned and bruised and broken and utterly unknown to me.
Whether based on stereotyped versions of ourselves or glorified versions of those who are deemed beautiful and valuable, the world spends quite a bit of time giving us unsolicited advice about who we ought to be. These opinions shape our identity. Oftentimes, we spend our youth chasing them and our adult lives finding our way back. This has been the case for me. On the cusp of my 40th birthday, I was in the midst of an existential crisis. I was questioning everything I thought I knew, everything I had been taught and had taught myself to believe. What did I really believe? Who was the God I claimed to love? Who had determined what our relationship should be? Who had defined my role in life? Who decided I was Black? Could I be Black? Why did I have to identify as my “skin color” when my skin was not in fact black?
Who had defined me? Who had erased me? What happened to my story?
The more I explored these questions, the more they converged into one particular question: why shouldn’t I be an angry Black woman? I am more and more aware of what whiteness has done to me. How it has blinded my faith, dulled my knowledge, stolen my history, raped my body, and denied me my dignity. Why shouldn’t I be angry? All the female scholars I never knew existed. All the Haitian heritage hidden by deception. All the theology of a knowing God I do not know. All the lifetimes of learning that taught me lies. So, yes, I am angry! Why shouldn’t I be?
Tatum (2017) explained that unlike our White peers, BIPOC spend more time thinking about our identity. This is largely because we are constantly having to confront society’s narratives of us. As an ethnically Haitian, culturally American, racially Black woman, that exploration can sometimes feel like navigating three worlds and never fully fitting into either of them. I am never Haitian enough, or American enough, or Black enough. (Sidebar: Being from a Black nation, we didn’t think in terms of race. Therefore, Black, as I learned it, was an American phenomenon.) The point is, I blamed myself for the aspects of my identity that I was ignorant of, never realizing that they were intentionally hidden from me as a form of oppression. The very world that was wounding and grieving me, giving me reasons to be angry, was then criticizing my reaction, all in a brilliant plot to have me serve master of my own slavery.
Now, nearing 41 years on this planet, I understand the source of the pain and anger I have suppressed all these years. I have made peace with my rage. Now, I can say it with all the rage it so rightfully deserves, I can whisper it with all the peace I am claiming as my own: I am an angry Black woman.
Originally published August 9, 2020 Dannemart Pierre (danneunscripted). This post is part of a series for a course on Diversity and Social Justice in Higher Education.
Heavy Names
“Give your daughters difficult names.
Names that command the full use of the tongue.
My name makes you want to tell me the truth.
My name does not allow me to trust anyone
who cannot pronounce it right.”Warsan Shire
“But I need a job. I need a call back. I need an opportunity for an interview. And my name, as strong as it is soft, is heavy.”
“to the black girls with the heavy names
that make them feel ashamed and wish they could change.
sister.
love your name.
even if it’s as long as a thesis.
correct them when they say it wrong
then
watch them become speechless.”Nyakour
“But I need a chance. I need a call back. I need the space between ancestral dreams and present reality. I need the safety of a name safe enough for resumes. Scholarships. Business proposals. But my name, deeply rooted in heritage I can’t quite reach and stories I’ve not yet heard, is heavy.
This week alone, my name died a thousand deaths on unyielding tongues. I did not have to read the statistics to know that applicants with non-traditional monikers are 50% less likely to get interviews, even when their resumes are identical to those with normative names. I am living that statistic daily. I carry it with me wherever I go. Its weight, my shackles in this foreign land as much as it is my roots. My name, my calling as much as it is another closed door between me and a new opportunity, is HEAVY.”
To all the girls with heavy names
Correct them
when they say your name wrong then watch their tongue stumble
over its own discomfort
as it tries to find its footing
on a land it cannot stealElisabet Velasquez
“Still, it is my name. It is my “reminder that although I am far from home, home is still calling me by my name” (Nyakour). I have carried its weight for years. Together, we have survived the awkward stages of it not fitting me until I realize that I must grow to fit it. Together, we have mastered the balance of that weight: sometimes as a shield, other times as a crown. It is my name, and my love for it – buried deep within me – is complicated and heavy.”
Originally published August 4, 2020 Dannemart Pierre (danneunscripted). This post is part of a series for a course on Diversity and Social Justice in Higher Education.
You Are the Author
I like stories. I am a writer, so hearing stories, telling stories, writing stories, and even mentally creating stories while I cook or garden are kind of my thing, My brain is always full of stories. So, here's a story about a girl who discovered that she was more than just the main character of her own story.
I am sitting in a judge's office for a college interview. It's not just a college interview, it's an interview with one of the Ivy Leagues and my top choice. I am a junior in high school. I have no idea how I will pay for this if I am accepted and I am even less sure of how I will convince my parents to let me leave home. But, I am ambitious and my dreams are bigger than I can clearly articulate in my broken Haitian Creole.
The office is stuffy and dark. Not in a muggy kind of way; it's more like the overly formal kind of stuffy and dark. The deep mahogany shelves are neatly stacked with leather-bound books; the impressing desk with the antique-like lamps; the rich leather guest chairs that warn you not to get too comfortable. Looking back, it is surreal how stereotypically "judgy" the office is. This space was designed to play a role and it is doing so masterfully. I am uncomfortable. I know my feet are firmly planted on the ornate carpet because I can feel them sweating in my ill-fitting pumps, but everything about the room makes me feel so small that I imagine my legs are hanging off the oversized chair. I don’t fit in.
The honorable judge who shall remain nameless proceeds to ask me a series of questions. I am president of the National Honor's Society and the Library Council, he asks what else. I am on the Principal's List and the Honor Roll, he wonders why my GPA wasn't consistently a 4.0. I made excellent marks for reading and writing on the SAT, he is concerned about my math score. I am involved in several school clubs and volunteer organizations, he notes national ones I should have taken advantage of. I rank eighth in a class of over 300 students, he comments, "I assumed you'd at least be sixth". The honorable judge who shall remain nameless was there to perform one role and he is doing it masterfully. I am not good enough.
This happened 26 years ago! But I have been in that stuffy office, hoping the judge does not notice the tear in my second-hand blazer, ever since. I have carried that memory with me, begrudgingly, to dozens of interviews and important events. It made me doubt whether I belonged, often living in a third world and never quite fitting in anywhere. It led me to question my abilities. It forced me to hide my background in shame for fear of being ousted. It took nearly 20 years before I realized that as a first-generation, low-income student who was also an immigrant - oh and by the way, a Black woman - there were systems and barriers in place that complicated my academic and professional journey. I did not know how to navigate these roadblocks because I didn’t know how to identify them. I didn’t even know I had those identity markers as a student, much less that I needed to access the proper resources in order to succeed.
Fast-forward to June 17, 2022. I am in the gardening section at Home Depot. I can see the sky above is changing shades of blue, but it is not yet hot. The plants, still dewy from their morning mist, are calling to me. No more plants, I remind myself as I return my focus to the endless selection of planters in front of me. A dear friend of mine recently commented on one of my plant babies (Tradescantia zebrina), expressing a desire for one. I am propagating an arrangement for her from my growing collection. I have been out all morning attempting to run various errands with little success, but as I consider how to add one more great find to my already full arms, it dawns on me how perfectly content I am shopping for gardening items rather than uncomfortable high heels. When did I become this person? I ask myself while also musing on how this would be the making of a Hallmark storyline. Suddenly, the phone rings, interrupting the plot about breaking my heels while running through Home Depot. Placing the item in my hand back on the industrial metal shelf, I reach into the back pocket of my denim shorts. I recognize the area code and brace myself.
Last year, I purchased this framed quote. I had decided to create a women's empowerment wall and honestly, this piece is utterly basic and boring. Literally, plain black text on a white canvas. But, the words spoke deeply to me. "Trust the next chapter because you are the author." This quote, found at a time when I was so desperately trying to find myself, reminds me 1) to trust my voice and 2) that I am empowered to write my own story. So, a few weeks ago when I traveled to another Ivy League for yet another interview, I brought my memory with me. Except this time, it was invited. Not simply as a life-shaping event from my past, but as valuable information for understanding the present. This time, it is an origin story to the new chapter I am writing.
There are many things I didn't understand when I bought that "cliche" little saying. There are many clues and foreshadows that escaped me as I walked past it every day. There are even more plotlines and twists yet to be written. But, what I do know is that I am the author. In that moment, standing in the gardening section of Home Depot, I decided to start writing a new chapter as the Associate Dean of Students for Student Empowerment, and Director of First-Generation and Low-Income Student Support at Cornell University.
Hat. Check. Boots. Check. Warm Fuzzy Sweater Things. Triple check. Pen. Absolutely ready.
The Submarine and the Sea
When I was first laid off from my position, there were many words I used to describe the experience: divorced, ostracized, alienated, severed and amputated, no longer valuable. After all, the termination letter coldly stated that due to organizational restructuring resulting from the pandemic, my position - which had been "mission-critical" to get students back to campus; the same position that was essential for helping students navigate being on a campus where counts and cases were the new normal - was "no longer necessary." I had risked my mental, physical, and emotional health for this position. Like many other higher education professionals, I spent months in psychological turmoil as positions disappeared, as friends and colleagues lost their livelihoods, as anxiety and unrest settled in the pit of my stomach. So being let go felt more like being discarded.
I was not an isolated incident. Research on derailment and how higher education professionals process job loss discovered that many of us liken the sudden separation from our professional community to a divorce or some form of dismemberment (Strietzel, 2021). But in the midst of these roaring thoughts and raging emotions, one image became symbolic of how I was processing my experience: it was one of me, now out in the open sea on a dingy.
I don't know how to swim. In fact, I fear drowning, which has made it very difficult for me to learn. So you can imagine the feeling of being out in the open sea with nothing but a small dingy can be unnerving. And it was… it is unnerving. However, it has also been liberating.
In the 16 months since I was "let go", I reassessed my voyage out to sea as an adventure. I was not "let go", I was "set free" to explore the endless possibilities and unchartered courses of this sea. I challenged myself and took risks. I wrote and got published. I presented at conferences, and developed workshops, started a consulting practice. I went to therapy and invested in my own wellness and development. I learned how to use my voice in the service of my vision, as Audre Lorde urged us. I grew a fondness for the sea. Her peace and her rage. Her beauty and her violence. And even though I was in this dingy, restrained by the limitations of its limited provisions, there was - there is - this intoxicating freedom allowing me to be. Allowing me to navigate every new adventure as a more self-assured version of me.
Throughout this time, there has also been a recurring alternative: the submarine. Returning to higher education felt… feels eerily like signing up to live on a submarine for a few years. The submarine is large, much larger, and safer than my little dingy. It has provisions and sleeping quarters. It offers protection from the elements and from my fears. It provides stability with its guidelines and structures. Naturally, a submarine is a better option than a dingy on the open sea! Naturally to sacrifice the freedom to breathe fresh air, to feel the sun kiss my cheeks and dance across my eyelids, to suffer joy for safety was - natural?
I've been here before, at the intersection of sailing out to sea seemingly aimlessly or climbing on board a submarine. I made the natural choice before without considering what I naturally needed. I want - I am choosing differently this time. I have experience navigating the sea, this time. I know what I need to have joy and safety, this time. This time, it is not between the submarine and the sea, it is between the sailor and the captain.