Still Here
This university is trying to kill me. Some days, I think it will. It's pull is so enticing - harm masked by invitations of representation, empty promises of inclusion delivered with a glistening offer of a seat at the table.
Its knife is sharp, the way it pierces my aspirations - cuts deep to the bone. As I flip through syllabi and assigned texts, I wonder, where am I ? Where will I find myself in text and across the conference table? My grades rely on a reiteration of my otherness. I author lit reviews and roadmaps that lead me back to a canon colonized by tongue and mind. Discussions with one another merely teach me that this Black body does not belong in this intellectual community. This institution wants me to shroud my loneliness with gratitude and offer ingratiating thanks for allowing me to be here.
It was a bold chose to wear a full face of makeup only to sob my way home post meetings on campus. But I’m still here. Still fine and brilliant.
This university is trying to kill me. Its people want me to silence this rage and smile for brochures. I am supposed to push down my politic to make room for white tears and theorize about solidarity rather than demand it. I’m meant to stretch myself to shield other brown bodies, to allow you to exploit me and cherish empty friendships. I am supposed to be polite because the sound of accountability flays your complicit body alive.
Being here is a dance with power - the looming threat of institutional discipline and my refusal to relinquish my own power to move up on this plantation. It is an echoing well of passive cries and anxieties. I am weary of your apologies of not knowing what to do in the face of injustice while wearing your Angela Davis shirt and Audre Lorde tattoos. I’m exhausted by cowardice and performances of consciousness - vapid smiles and growing apathy.
This university is trying to kill me. It wraps diversity committees around my neck, invalidates my material reality, and renames our subjugation a teachable moment for my white counterparts. Syracuse wants me to place my hands on the hilt of the knife and mindlessly push the blade in deeper.
This university is trying to kill me, but I will never let it win.
