#TheBlackertheBerry – Dr. Kiara Shanay Lee

Hello Scholar

An Open Letter about Representation in Academia from a Black Professor

Because there’s still more room at my table

Hello Scholar,

I want you to know why I am here. I want you to know why I choose to be in a profession where I am most certainly a minority, where across the board, people who look like me are far and few in-between. Did you know that only about 3% of full-time faculty are Black women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016)?

I am not here by mistake. This is not random. This is just as intentional as it is strategic.

“I teach because I need you to see a visual representation of what you can be…and what you can be better than.” — Yinde Newby, author and educator

Allow me to break this down a little bit.

“…what you can be…and what you can be better than.”

Please don’t for a second think I’m only here teaching you so you can see that you can be like me. Why would I place such limits on you and your beautiful mind? Why would I shame our ancestors, bound by the burdens of slavery and institutional racism, by curbing the leaps and bounds they’ve made for you…the hopes and dreams you were made for? I want you to see you in me and I want you to do bigger and better. I want you to surpass, to transcend, to outshine anything I’ve ever done or ever could do. Don’t see me as the goal or the limit, but rather, see me as the standard. The stepping stone. I want to give you a leg up, but only if you let me.

You may not be familiar with the leaps and bounds I’ve had to make to get this seat at the table, but trust me, I didn’t sit here intending to be the only one. I sat here because I was passed the torch and I plan to pass the torch off to whoever is up to taking the seat.

“…I teach because I need you”

The journey has been far from easy, and it’s far from over. You think you need me, but truth is, I need you. I need you to let me know it was all worth it, that I’m supposed to be here. I need you to justify what I’ve been through.

the dream killers

the “you’re not supposed to be here” stares and micro aggressions

the long nights, the sacrifice

giving college the last 10 plus years of my life

the failures, the questioning of what I’m doing and

who I am

And making God laugh with my own so-called “plans”

tests on material I don’t even remember to get to places I’ll never forget

climbing mountains to help people climb I don’t even know yet

Let me know.

This one is for the scholars, the ancestors and their successors.

With Warm Regards,

Your Black Professor

I Still Don’t Like History

jpg — Me, at an overlook of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 2016

I pass by the house

The childhood of my dreams

All the love I could ever want or need

Was in it

Y’all did it

The Black American Dream

Y’all did it

And I like to look back but

That doesn’t change the fact that

I don’t like history

I hated that class with a passion

The past

Because it’s almost worse than math

Because the numbers say the odds are against me

What’s worse than that?

House on the lake south of the river

Apartment building downtown

Still reppin for the hood

Y’all did like the white folk

I guess to some people that’s supposed to mean you done good

The perfect home torn asunder

By the perfect storm

It was warm

But I knew something wasn’t right

My tears burned when I would cry

When y’all would fight

But it was still warm

Forehead kisses in the middle of the night when y’all used to check on me and

tuck me in tight

Under my skylight

Under the stars

The tension was so thick between y’all I could cut it with a knife

But what does an 8 year old know about knives and

What does an 8 year old know about life?

You went your separate ways and it had to be done

It was for the best

Y’all had a good run

Somebody dropped the ball

The last inning, the end of the game

I was in the crowd, I was your biggest fan and

I still am

But I still don’t like history

Now I’m grown and

Whenever I’m alone

I am haunted

As yesterday whispers in my ear today is in tears because the what ifs of tomorrow burn

Like the tears from when I was 8

I am worried and afraid of

The childhood of my dreams and

All the love I could ever want or need

Worried and afraid of history repeating itself

Red

red

The school pays no mind and makes a little girl pay the ultimate price because the school clock says there is no time

No time for a woman to be a woman

Because outdated textbooks and sentence structure mean more than the period at the end

Of the day

There’s more than enough time they say but

When she rushes back to class, everything is

Red

The flow of life

The greatest abomination

Drips down her leg

It makes no sense

The thoughts placed in her head like

All the things her teacher should have said

It makes no sense

No time for a woman to be a woman

When everything is red

My Room

hygge-2985636_960_720

It don’t have to hurt if

I stay in here with my thoughts and with

My mind because sometimes

I rather spend time with them because

Sometimes it hurts too much on the outside

It hurts so bad when reality hits me

It hurts and I

I lie and

I say “I’m fine, I’m fine” but the truth is

There’s a very thin line between the lie I tell and the tears and the fears that lie on the inside

It don’t have to hurt if I stay in here

If I stay clear of the news and the television and

If I don’t hear about more Black children gone missin or

No longer livin

If I don’t have to let my cup drain dry from the alibis of people always gettin and never really givin then

Maybe it won’t hurt

If I stay in here I don’t have to be misunderstood and if I stay in here

I could get to know me better because

In here she doesn’t have to be censored or assimilated or inundated with masks or with doubt

In here I could really learn what she’s really all about

Too loud, too dark, too I-don’t-really-look-the-part out there but in here

the part is all mine

And the time is my time, because sometimes there ain’t no time for me on the outside

All the while I reclaim my time while the outside still has the nerve to still say it still ain’t all mine

Corporations make money off the sick

While we all chokin’ out here on air that’s too thick while they tell us that

Global warming “doesn’t really exist” and

We all play the part, but the lies

They really don’t stick

It’s sick

But as the ways of the world smolder outside my door

I look over my shoulder and turn my back to the fire

It’s far too much to bare

It don’t have to hurt

So until the smoke clears

I’ll be in here

Little Black Girl Armed

You

Can see the spark in her eyes when

She raises her hand and

When she writes her thoughts out

Or when she opens up a book

Meanwhile the others look

Down on her, the others think less

Of her because they’re shook

By this little Black girl armed

with a mind and a book

They

Don’t know what to do and

They don’t know what to say so

They cover their papers as she looks

The other way on test day because

they wanna say

She is copying their test knowing

Damn well she isn’t

Knowing damn well she knows

The answers

Knowing damn well the answer is

To never question the intellect of the

Precocious little kid

Because she is Black

While fighting what their parents taught them

About who is who and

What their parents taught them

About colors

She

Has it hard in high school

And so do her body, mind and spirit too

Too good for JV, too dark for AP and

Too “white” for the step team, so it seems

She

Doesn’t really know what all this means

Until she met this boy on her way to the bus

He approached her and he read in between the lines that

She was focused on something different

So he said “Listen.

If you keep your nose in them books like that you ain’t ever gonna get no man.”

Words meant to change her course and her plan did no such thing

She walked away and he was shook

By this little Black girl armed

With a mind and a book

She

Grew up and saw the spark

In another young girl’s eye and

She shed a tear and held in a cry because

It took her back to a time when

Being a little Black girl armed

With a mind and a book was

Revolutionary

Then she looked the girl in the eye again and it was a little scary because she

Realized the revolution is far from over for

This little precocious kid

Because she is Black

5 Things I Refuse to Take With Me to 2018

Happy New Year! So many people I know are talking about what they are going to do this year. Some people plan to work out more, others want to save money and so on. We always talk about New Years resolutions and the new beginnings we hope they bring, but why don’t we spend as much time addressing things we want to leave in 2017?

After a lot of reflecting these last few days, I’ve come up with 5 things I refuse to take into this new year to live my best life.

I refuse to…

Worry incessantly: I have spent a great deal of my time worrying. Will this be okay? Will that happen when I want it to? What if the worst case scenario is my reality? I’d be lying to myself if I said I’ll never worry again, but this year, I won’t let it consume me. I have a lot of irons in the fire this year, and the more goals you have, the more room there is for error, and I have to accept that possibility. I’m also a spiritual person who knows the power of prayer. Doing my best and staying prayed up is my mantra this year.
Believe everyone is happy for me: As much I have worried over the years, I’ve been blessed just as much or even more. Some of these blessings I’ve shared and others I’ve kept quiet. In the process, I’ve seen who’s rooting for me and who isn’t and even some of the ones “rooting for me” ain’t really rooting for me, if you know what I mean. Nothing to harp on, but definitely something to take note of. In the words of my momma, “everybody ain’t ya friend.” Put the fake cheerleaders on the bench; sometimes you have to be your own biggest fan.
Skimp on self-care: For the most part, I keep my hair done and nails done (unless you catch me on a hot mess day, which is more probable than not these days), but self-care is beyond surface level aesthetics. I typically don’t get enough rest, on busy days I don’t eat like I should, and on some gym days, stretching and adequate water intake fall by the wayside. Sometimes, I let the little stuff knock me down and forget who the bleep I am in the process. Addressing THESE things and more are also part of self-care. This year, I vow to step my game up.
Stretch the circle: We learned how to color in the lines in kindergarten, and to say the least, some struggled more than others. In hindsight, maybe I was one of those kids. Although I’m not necessarily referring to coloring circles with markers and crayons, the message is relatively the same: stay in the circle. I have a circle of family and a few select friends that I trust through and through, but at times, I’ve looked at other people who could possibly join this elite team that aren’t qualified for the job. Not a good look. Don’t get me wrong, making new friends and spending time with others isn’t a bad thing, but I won’t go as far as stretching my circle into an oval.
Seek validation outside of myself: I have come far on this one, but I still have work to do. When I was younger, schoolyard trials and tribulations had the power to influence how I felt about myself. As I grow more into adulthood, the ups and downs of relationships, my career, life changes and other things have played a major role in my self-concept. I feel that this is healthy and natural, but only to a certain extent. I have to make sure people and things don’t define who I am. If someone feels some kind of way about me, I can not internalize the negativity. If I don’t achieve the goals I intended to slay, I can not own failure. Why go broke on the account of people and things when you can stay rich off of self love, the gift that keeps on giving? I simply can’t afford to keep going broke.

I plan to stick to NOT doing these things and for real for real, I hope you will too.

On Her Way to School

car

Before she pulls off

He makes sure she’s safe and

Buckled in before they begin

Their conversation

The stimulation of his listening ear

The way he listens is

Not of this world and

Neither is she

The people in the other cars be

Lookin

They be looking at them half crazy

Crazy Like the crazy type that be talking to themselves

But she is never alone and

She knows it

And maybe they do too

As she drives and

As she stops talking she

Be listening and he

Be telling her everything she needs to know but

The silence is loud as ever

So loud that the people on the street

Are overcome by his words

The power of these words that

They haven’t even heard but

If they listened to him like her they

Too could have this stimulation and

This conversation

Some of the people called her a loon and

Some of the people called her a fool but

All she was doin was talking to God on her way to school

Stop Looking

oncar

Because we women too often look to everything and everyone else but ourselves…to find and define ourselves

Stop looking for her

In between the lines and

Squeezed behind the confines of

The words of others

She feels no need to hide her unfinished pages

Her book is still in progress and

Writing is a process so

She takes her sweet time

Stop looking for her

In a man’s lustful gaze

In his validation, in his temptation and

His inclination toward what’s on her outside

He can go sit down somewhere because trust

She’ll be just fine

And if chivalry don’t pull out her chair before he pulls out his or if

Chivalry don’t give her no goodnight kiss she’ll

Pull out her own chair and sit where she wants to sit

Chivalry died but she still sleeps at night and

Before she closes her weary eyes

God always tells her He loves her anyway

Stop looking for her

In her accolades or in her titles or

In her degrees

When the dust settles underground and

When she is no longer around, what does a piece of paper in a pretty frame really even mean?

In life, all that forms above ground will eventually cease

Only to return through the trees and

Through the breeze and the dirt but

How she gonna enjoy her stay if she’s too high on hierarchy to come back down to earth?

Stop looking for her

In other places other than

Where you should have looked already

Just because you think you’re not ready for

Who you may find

Dig deeper

Some extra help

Something like a search and rescue mission

but this one’s for your damn self

An Amber Alert, a missing person’s case

You better do something different before it’s too late

We Can’t Afford It

boysittin

We can’t afford it

We’ve been nickeled and dimed far too many times

To make fun of our sisters on the welfare line or

To make fun of the young queens on the payday loan line in a bind

Trying to pay fall tuition in the wintertime

No more change left to spare

There’s no room to instigate and

publicly humiliate our brothers

Behind on child support and

Sitting

On the bench of the court

The same court that pit them

Against their fellow sisters and brothers and their own baby’s mothers

It costs too much

We don’t have enough to share videos

of fights on social media and the news and

Spectate and point at black people like

animals in a zoo

We don’t have enough to plaster photos all over of our women and our girls with no clothes on bending over

over and over and over again

Because the slave master’s check was never enough for us to spend

We can’t afford it

This predicament this

Carefully crafted division

Impedes the vision of our ancestors

The best laid plans of our foremothers and our forefathers

Why are we not bothered enough

by the darkness driving out the light?

Tonight there are torches glowing in the night’s sky

This day is far from 1959

Or is it? Part of the plan?

Black woman

Black man

We don’t stand a chance if

We don’t even take a stand

The piggy bank broke when we turned our backs on each other and

now we’re stuck stealing coins from our sisters and our brothers because

We can’t afford it

Microaggression

girl-1868930_960_720

Microaggression

That thing that is a thing

That really isn’t a thing

It’s real in a scholarly article or

In a library database

But the minute the word leaves my lips

To describe how I live

It’s fake

Unreasonable doubt

Microaggression

Too vulgar for your after-school special

But not enough for a therapy session

Because there’s no cure for oppression

There’s no medicine for this disease

Even though I have symptoms everyday

Symptoms that you may not ever even see

That no vaccination or inoculation could

Ever prevent

This is a diagnosis; this is a dose of reality

My pain, my wound, my infliction, my condition – it’s there

Trust me

Blind faith

Microaggression

Is when you don’t like someone for no reason —

Wait, there is a reason, but it remains to be unsaid

Even though it’s in your heart and

All up in your head

But you can hear it if

You’re really quiet and you really listen

To your bias and to your intuition

Microaggression by definition is

Subtle discrimination

Every day, threaded

The fabric of this nation

Sight seen and unseen

Microagression

Is If I looked like you, I would have gotten the job that you do and

I really like your people, and

I just love their hair too

Can I touch it? I mean, is it okay with you? or

You’re my favorite friend of color, my brother

Who knows your truth better than me?

Microaggression

I find you in traveling lectures and

In fancy books by fancy smancy professors

But I see you more in the hallways

And in the mall

And at work and

At the bar and

On Facebook and

On the news

And in my neighborhood

And in my blues

Too close to home

Microaggression

But you go by another name:

The girl that sits next to me in class who

Covers her tests with her hands thinking

Her answers are the only reason I

Pass

Or the mother that grabs her child’s hand real tight

When I walk by at night

And in the daytime and

The co-worker who pretends to be my friend but

Soon as I turn my back, she’s criticizing me and the position

I don’t deserve to be in

Who’s who?

You’re with me everyday

Some of you I don’t even know

Yet and still, I know you better than I

Ever knew myself