Lives matter let me say it
again black lives matter. The chocolate sultriness of
my pigment all hues of brown bitter as the night or a dark piece
of chocolate sweet as the morning or a swig of caramel black lives matter. The roundness of my nostrils that help me
breathe and breathe out as Kanye West and ludicrous rhymed Breathe in breathe out
if you I stop pull your sleeves out black lives matter the nap an ace of
my hair well when I had more hair. The thick curls that maybe tear up as my
mom ca
lled my hair on my way to school rest in peace and
power mom black lives matter so if black lives matter when did I
learn to curse my blackness Well some time ago it started before
I even knew how it started and when it started they kept going
before I even knew Word went and when it went they moved before I even knew
how it moved and when it moved it became normal before I even knew that normal
had a sibling called natural and when it became natural it became
internalized before I even knew tha
t I started to believe and
when it became a belief Well you know the rest black lives matter. On that matter hear the question in my
cadence again certainty the tone of my voice the question mark one of
the most powerful forms of punctuation that punctuate has a tendency anxiousness
but if the question mark a single hesitancy know that it can also
conjure up confidence boldness for to question especially for the first
time is the boat leave name an alternate reality a reality not chosen for
me a
question mark. Disbelief challenge assertion to
not accept one's internal life the press of power so now I can say do
black lives matter and you hear how the question at the end of that sentence
is actually a declaration a statement. Will soon OKELLO taught me the concept
of rehearsal of practicing hearing how my voice sounds the clearer my
new reality and how it feels so today I rehearsed publicly for
you that black lives matter and I assert that with confidence boldness and
certainty that bla
ck lives matter. Good morning everyone I
guess it's afternoon now. So you know the weather is getting
a little bit warmer outside and it's the end of the semester. Some really appreciative that you chose
to spend a few minutes with us here today excited to join with you today and
talk about a topic that I'm thinking more about these days it's a new area for
me I'm going to talk a little bit about my research progression but this
is I'm testing out some ideas today so I'm really curious about you
r feedback
as I wrap up my talk at the end here as these are some new ideas that
I'm wrestling with here today. So I appreciate that introduction
Ebony thank you so much. So I am a scholar activist. I'm unabashedly a black
scholar activist for me my scholarship my scholar activism
exists at the intersection of my subordinated black identity my
dominant says gender man identity and my roles as parent faculty member and
scholar. At the intersection of these identities
and roles I engage in scholar
activism. For most of my career I have
developed a reputation. As a dialogue expert my research
agenda has focused on how people talk about difficult issues in
productive ways now when I say difficult issues I mean things like race
privilege power and oppression I have studied the strategies people used
to facilitate these dialogues as well as what students learn about themselves and
others from engaging in these dialogues. This topic has few the passion for me for
the first five years of my fa
culty career. And then August ninth two thousand and
fourteen happened. On August ninth two thousand and fourteen
Dan Wilson a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. This happened five days before I submitted
my promotion and tenure materials. Tenure didn't seem to matter in that
moment nor did my fall classes. Michael Brown's death affected me and made me feel fear in my black body in
a way I hadn't felt fear previously. Even though I was feeling numb following
Brown's death on my predominately white Miami University campus were eighty seven
percent of the students identify as why. Things seem to be moving
on as business as usual. How was it possible that Michael Brown's
death impacted me so gravely and yet it seemed like so many people around
me were moving through life unaffected. I felt angry at them for
their obliviousness and I felt envious of their ability to
just move through life giggling and carrying on seemingly without a care
in the world w
hile I was shaking and fearful of being the next black
person killed by a police officer. Now part of Michael Brown's death
I didn't identify as an activist. I was a scholar only. In many ways I felt forced into activism. Because I was feeling so numb and
unable to move through that into the fall semester I met with two
of my colleagues mahogany Shaw and dominant hill at a local coffee shop to
process and make sense of Brown's killing. Now mahogany as it is from
a town near Fergus and she too wa
s struggling with moving into
the fall semester amid so much pain. Our processing of Michael Brown's
death resisted the business as usual attitude that seemed to provide so
much of Miami University. Out of our conversations
at the coffee shop that day we decided that we were not just going
to move on as if nothing happened. We needed to be angry grieve and
mourn Brown's death. We started connecting regularly and
checking in on each other. During one of our chats we decided
that we wanted to crea
te a space for others to also grieve be angry and
mourn Brown's death. We planned a working town hall meeting. To process brownstone Now
coincidentally our work in town hall meeting occurred shortly after the grand
jury decision in the Michael Brown case. We called it a work in town hall meeting
because we wanted people to do some work during the session and engages
some sort of action moving forward. Ultimately we formed what we called
the mobilizing anger collective a group of faculty students
staff and Oxford Ohio
community members who regularly connect to address injustices on our campus and
the surrounding Oxford community. The mac the shorthand version of our
group has held a silent protest and open mic night community meetings and other events to mobilize our
anger into action and healing. The mobilizing anger collective provided. Munni for me and a place to blend my
forced activism with my scholarship. As we planned and executed more events I felt more
comfortable claiming my a
ctivist identity. Although I didn't want to
necessarily become an activist I embraced this role and
saw the blend of my activism and scholarship as a way to make
meaning of something so senseless. The purpose of my talk today is to
illustrate what scholar activism is and why I felt the need to blend my
scholarship with my activism. I connect my scholar activism specifically
with black lives matter as my activism. Has spurred my scholarship. Following in that I discuss shame and
guilt and fictive
kinship and how these three concepts
relate to scholar activism. And finally I talk about self care and
healing and the importance of working to heal in the face of
racism directed toward black bodies. Let's start with scholar activism. I should have said at the beginning I have
a Twitter handle down there so if you're wanting to share some feedback throughout
my talk I'd be glad to look at it once I finish so you can follow me and Q. and
then use the hash tag scholar activism. So prior to Darr
en Wilson killing Michael
Brown I didn't consider myself an activist as I said earlier as a faculty member
I talk classes on privilege power and oppression I researched how to engage
in dialogues about these topics. The primary population with whom
my work was graduate students teaching them in my courses advising
them chairing their dissertations and working with them on research projects. And then as I said August ninth two
thousand and fourteen happen and all that research writing teaching an
d
scholarship seemed so insufficient. And I felt empty. And I felt afraid and I felt angry. Researchers have found that
people with minority bodies often don't consider what
they do to be activism. They label it as merely surviving
in their minority identities. Many of the actions that campus
administrators praise and reward such as service learning
are sanctioned by the institution and lead to Student Engagement outcomes while
actions that are deemed more bolder or disruptive are not as rewarde
d. For example in a study
about student activism and intersectionality Chris lender noted that
when students advocate for systemic change on their campuses campus administrators
often resister advocacy and have developed strategies for ignoring or weeding
out the student activists and quote. In a different study on what student
activists say they need from campus administrators to feel
supported Chris Linder and I found that student activists who perform
actions not lauded by administrators face
the more resistance
from administrators. It's not surprising then that
these bolder seemingly more disruptive actions are more often done
by students with minorities identities. When Dominique mahogany and I decided to
start the MAC we did so out of desperation because we saw no other way to make
sense of our pain anger and fear. We needed to do something to
survive in our black bodies. We decided to call ourselves
the mobilizing anger collective in order to trouble anger
as a negative emotion.
Too often when black people
express anger we are told we need to calm down our being too sensitive or
overreacting. Stereotypes about and
about the angry black person. We wanted to see anger as an expected and necessary emotion when racism is so
rampant. And we also wanted to turn or
mobilize our anger into action. My work in the MAC transformed my
scholarship again I didn't expect to be interested in a scholar activism and
yet I am because I needed to be an activist to survive in my black
body
and move through my pain and grief. As a result of my activism and now blend
that activism with my scholarship. For example mahogany Dominick and I
recently published an article on the Mac. in the Journal of diversity in
higher education in it we write for us however we saw our scholar and
activist identities constantly blurred and blended although we have sometimes
wrestled with the tensions between these two identities more often than not both
of those exist in a connected manner. For instanc
e during the silent protest
recalled Ruskin's words of needing to talk our bodies and
places to promote change. Even the mere act of walking across campus in our black bodies served as
a reminder of our activism. At times we have needed to articulate
the goals for activism to get funding for various events thereby drawing on our
scholarship about the purpose and outcomes of activism and quote. Shame guilt and fictive. Are now three concepts I want to
discuss to illustrate how they connect to sch
olar activism. So let me start with an example to help
illustrate the difference between these concepts Now let's say I'm supposed
to meet my friend for lunch and it's twelve o'clock and my friend calls
me and says Hey Stephen where are you we're supposed to meet at twelve
it's now twelve twenty and you haven't showed up like what's going
on now one thing one reaction I might. I have to my friend might be something
along these lines my gosh I'm really really sorry I was working away
on this arti
cle and I totally lost track of time how can I make it up to you Do you
have time next week let's reschedule so that's one potential reaction
I have to my friend and other reaction might be
something along these lines. I told you I was really really busy and
you kept asking me have lunch on this day and now I've missed lunch and I'm really
frustrated whenever I tell you I'm busy you never listen to me and now I'm just
annoyed about having missed this line so hopefully you see the two
differences
in those reactions so somebody rather me telling you somebody
tell me what you see as a two differences what do you notice a about those two
reactions that I had to my friend. What else yeah. Yes Exactly thank you anything else
that people heard in two reactions. So I mean he said my tone so
you're going to. Yes. Yes. If I had some money I'll give that to you
right now because that was the exactly the answer so so all three so
at any point about the tone and then the other two around accountabi
lity to me
is a is a big difference going on here so in the first reaction my reaction is
is that way because I'm feeling guilt in the first reaction so guilt is
about focusing on your behavior or something that you have done that you
deem to be problematic and you're your desire that is to fix it is to move
through that guilt and resolve that kill. When you're feeling shame on the other
hand you think that you are a bad person and it's a more global assessment of your
entire being as wrong or p
roblematic shame is much harder to move through because
it's a much more internalize feeling. So a couple of things on this too that I
just popped my head that are not scripted so so the first thing is that there
is a time so I mentioned that I that a lot of the classes I teach are
around privilege power and oppression so I work on a campus on any given class
let's say and although my graduate program is much more racially diverse but
I taught a U.N. view when I wanted first year is experience c
lass for undergraduate
students last fall semester of the twenty four students in my class there
are two people of color in that class. And so inevitably when you're
talking about diversity inclusion issues a common thing that comes up
in these dialogues is white guilt. Were white folks feel they're being blamed
for racism a reaction might be well I wasn't around when slavery happened
why are you holding me accountable for these things that my ancestors did and
I'm really frustrated about how I'
m making how you're making me feel in my whiteness
right now so I used to think of white guilt as a negative emotion and
guilt is actually a positive emotion and I want white students to feel guilt in
their whiteness because what that means is that they want to do something to resolve
that guilt with guilt there's their actions steps one can take to resolve that
you want to change that you want to do better if you're feeling a white shame
however that's a much harder place to come from because y
ou're feeling like you're a
bad person that's rooted in your whiteness and so that it's harder to come
out of that place and so for me when I learned the difference
between transform my teaching in part because now I could see how I could
distinguish when guilt was happening and when the shame was happening now
the hard thing is that guilt can often manifest as guilt and then quickly morph into shame if one
is not attending to Baguio immediately. Talk a bit about sort of how one can
attend to sh
ame in a minute but for me that was to distinctions
are really really critical. The other thing that I want to say is so
when I was like probably seven or eight years old my brother
is two years older than me. We were throwing a baseball
in the house for the time that my parents told us we should
not to read baseball in the house but we're kids and so we don't listen so
we either through the base on my brother he didn't catch it see him or
any placing blame on my brother. But I think a baseball
the last he didn't
catch it and everybody of the ball hit a man knocked it off the table and broke
the lamp I heard my mom scream my name and I immediately darted to my room and hid in
my closet I didn't know at the time when I was seven years old I was feeling but what
I was feeling at that moment was shame because again when you're feeling
shame one of the reactions of shame is that your body literally feel smaller
like you don't want to be seen and so when you're feeling shame you often when
people are feeling shame like they were there the you will hide their face they'll
build sort of like not want to be seen and that's because you're feeling like you're
a bad person it's also feeling guilt in that moment you know I might have
stayed there and said to my mom mommy I'm really really sorry I know you
said I shouldn't be throwing a baseball What can I do to make it up I don't know
why I said I did as a seven year old but that might have been something that I
would have said in that m
oment because I wanted to resolve that guilt so
again to me guilt and shame are really two powerful concepts they can look
the same as you and work around. Diversity and inclusion but
they're actually very different concepts again guilt is a positive emotion because
you want to focus on your behavior and do something to change
it whereas with shame because you're focusing on your
entire being as bad or problematic or wrong it's a much harder place to come
out of when you're experiencing shame. A
ll right so let me get back
to how this all connects to. Scholar activism. OK. So now all of us have likely experienced
these two emotions of guilt and shame likely many times in our lives
however for some of us our feelings of shame are rooted in our identities
Melissa Harris Perry professor at Wake Forest University and author of the
book Sister citizen shame stereotypes and black women in America wrote about
the shame that black women feel and experience given the unique
intersection of their
race and gender she writes about how is that people
black women have continually experienced shame in their identity as black women and
that shame is called collective Cian. The reason it is collective is
because of a concept called kinship. Fictive kinship describes the feeling
of connection family ties or kinship to people who
we are unrelated to and with fictive kinship members of
a particular group can feel pride in the accomplishments of members of
their group this is why so many black peo
ple almost all of whom are unrelated
to then Senator Obama experienced such collective joy when he was elected
president in two thousand and eight. We had felt that whenever own
kin had finally made it and White America now on the flipside
members of the same group can feel collective shame when a member
of that group does something wrong or fails it's why I feel shame when
I see a black man in handcuffs. Now the reason I felt so much shame or so
much affinity rather toward Michael Brown and wif
e I felt so much fear was
because of fictive kinship I felt a strong tie to him like his
life could have been my own and it's this concept of fictive kinship
that's very my activism as an educator no matter my degrees publication's awards
for many white folks I'm just another black person whose life is not valued
in this society due to anti blackness. Given the prison pervasiveness of. Ignace rhetoric in United States society
it's not surprising that many black people develop shame in their blac
kness. And tunnel has the coach's
book Between the world I mean he writes about living in his black body
coats writes about the day they're in Wilson was exonerated of any charges for
killing Michael Brown and this year pain he saw in his son's face
when his son realized Wilson would not be charged he writes I did not tell
you it would be OK because I never believed it would be OK What I told you is
what your grandparents tried to tell me that this is your country that this is
your world that th
is is your body and you must find some way to live
within the all of it and quote. Related Lee and one of my blog post learning to love
my blackness I wrote the following. From an early age I was taught to
cover up to hide my black body. To shield it in uniforms intelligence
language control and a beating. For to open my black body to white
eyes was to risk bruising for me this was not physical bruising
that occurred on the streets it was bruising of my ego my heart and my mind the bruising that
happens when I
realize I inhabit a world not designed for me a world in which I am merely
a visitor an immigrant an alien beast like any human extraterrestrial
I'm just passing through eventually towards death and as each day when I make
it I lose a bit more of my black body. The schools are designed for this tricked out be it hidden purpose
to slowly eradicate the black body. To punish it control it force it
to succumb submit under pressure. Discipline was the force that erased
the blackbody m
emorization rote learning. Facts devoid of meaning. Each day I learned the white world
while lessons about my black body from black body authors were
nonexistent so I dressed up. On the streets you were your hoodies do
rags Nike Air Jordans Levi's timberlands earrings and massive chains in the white
schools you wear your khaki pants clean shaven face loafers and Ralph Lauren Polo
stuff then just like everyone else. As an adult I transformed and
increased this costume to Blazers Kangal had bow ti
es and
colorful playful pattern socks. Now Harris Perry coats and
I along with many many other black people have desperately tried to figure out how
to live freely in our black bodies for me living freely within this black body
means I'm learning internalized oppression the root of which I believe is shame. When we internalize our own
impression we adopt and believe the messages that white America
has fed about us that we are merely thugs gangsters and apt incapable of
succeeding in creating a l
ife. All of these ideas breed shame and
living in shame means one is unable to live freely and boldly in their body in
this case specifically their black body. Black lives matter was a rallying cry
to proclaim that black lives matter in a white world that is desperately trying
to kill the black spirit ego and body. Black lives matter is an attempt to and learn internalized oppression
through fictive kinship. Now let me explain a little bit further. Just this fictive kinship can
sometimes enable
us to feel shame when members of our group fail or pretreated negatively this same concept
can also foster collective pride. When I see.
Black activists chanting and tweeting black lives matter
I feel a sense of pride and collective love for these activists
most of whom I don't know personally. Black lives matter motivates me toward
living freely and boldly in my black body. All of what I have said thus far
brings me now to my final point for today healing and self care. To start off this sectio
n I want to
share a poem I wrote called both and. How can you experience joy if you are so
angry this is the question several of my white friends pose my anger it shines
as bright as my cleanly shaven bald head. I'm worried about you Stephen. Are you or
are you worried about your discomfort. I've seen a shift in you. Have you or
is how my black body used to make you comfortable now making you see my
body as the source of the stain. Why are you so angry. Why aren't you angry for
to live in fear i
s to be angry never settled always an easy and on alert. I'll keep both and
space the slash allows me to step in and out to put on my bow tie during the day
and my hoodie at night to smile at you but crying inside the slash means I can
see the joy in my son as I fear for his first realisation of
racism laugh with friends but be tormented that they just don't get it. To be both and means to resist either or
or to sometimes occupy the either and the OR or
to blend multiple i others and or. A.
Litt
le over a year ago I started seeing a counsellor. Turns out I engaged in a lot of negative
self talk and until I started seeing. Counsellor I didn't realize how much of it
was rooted in the racism I experience and the shame about my black body. I'm learning internalized
oppression is hard stuff and it's a process that is never ending. I had become so
consumed by Michael Brown's death that I didn't think I mattered
enough to take care of myself. Those of us who engage in activism
need to practice
self care. It is so easy to get burned now and
for me this looks like being impatient with my students and not experiencing
joy in my parenting because I'm so afraid of being killed by a police officer
and leaving Subash in my six year old. My healing process began with
acknowledging that I matter that my black life matters. For me healing looks like writing and
journaling because I ruminate a lot and overthink so many things in my life
writing helps me process I also say I am enough as many ti
mes throughout
the day to myself as I need to. I also imagine the worst case scenario
when I am afraid and doing this normalizes my fear and it turns out
the worst case scenario rarely happens. I also started running nearly two years
ago and this process enables me to process my feelings and emotions and
I unabashedly write black lives matter and every day blackness as a reminder
that I can move through the world freely in my black skin
even if it really feels possible. Finally I try and talk to
black people who also have
been told they are not black enough because it reminds me about my particular
kind of blackness is in fact black enough. These are the healing strategies
I have used over the past year. This summer I'm embarking on
a new research area healing and self care it's a pretty
awesome flyer right. And the first of these studies will be
interviewing black student affairs at. Creators across the country to understand
what strategies they use to Huel from racial battle fatigue.
Racial battlefield he describes
the exhaustion and mental and emotional pain black people feel
from continued exposure to racism. Racial battle fatigue has dilatory has
consequences on our health and mental and emotional well being and
it takes time away from being able to engage in more creative and
life giving activities. I want to know how black student affairs
educators work to heal from racial battle fatigue so that others myself included
can learn from their approaches. In closing I have
shared with you
today my journey as a scholar from understanding the process
of difficult dialogues to embracing my scholar activist identity
to learning strategies for healing and self care in the midst of
racial battle fatigue. Ultimately my journey as a scholar is
deeply tied to my identity in particular the salience of my blackness in a world
that tries each day to deny my existence. Black lives matter for me is an act of resistance as I try to
live boldly in all of my identities. I want to
leave you with three takeaways. First know that not every
scholar will embrace and use the label of activist for some
scholars merely existing is showing up in their bodies is an act of activism some
might prefer the term resistance or even see their survival
as a form of activism. Whatever term one uses we must recognize
and celebrate the varied ways scholars try to blend their activism
with their scholarship for some scholars their activism
is extra unpaid labor and often promotion and tenure
processes
don't reward and recognize this activism. Next the antidote to shame is to name it. However. Or naming shame is hard because when we
are feeling shame we don't want to talk about it particularly when we are feeling
shame that is rooted in our identities. We must name our shame with people who
have earned the right to hear our shame those who are validate that what
we are experiencing is real. Now not everyone has earned the right for us to name our shame with we must
name it with a tru
sted person who will meet us with empathy otherwise
the shame spiral will continue. Finally you matter enough to heal and
practice self care it's important that you develop healing
yourself your strategies that work for you I have shared some of my
own in this talk today but these may not work for
you my list by no means is exhaustive. We cannot effectively do
our work as educators if we are not taking care of ourselves. And I know the self care mantra
is overdone at times and I know why black f
olks in particular
are resistant to healing and self care and yet living freely in our
black bodies necessary necessitates that we heal from our own
internalized oppression and shame. So I appreciate you giving me the space
to share some new ideas on processing and I look forward to any questions and discussion that people have
at this moment thank you all.
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