Message to Self: Your Degree(s) Won’t Save You
And they shouldn’t have to.
Recent speaking invitations have forced me to submit the one piece of writing that pains me — the personal biography. With every request comes another opportunity to revisit my academic accomplishments, scrutinizing every word, and achievement. I ask myself the same questions — Do I mention I graduated with honors from both Georgetown and Cambridge? Do I include that I received that prestigious fellowship or award? Oh, what about that time I spoke on that panel with a well-known scholar? These questions reflect both my anxieties about proving that I’m qualified as a junior scholar, and the messages I received throughout my entire educational career. Early on, I learned that high achievement would differentiate me from those people, demonstrate my worthiness, and protect me from a series of unfortunate events.
Who are those people? The “under-achievers,” the people who have regular encounters with law enforcement, and the college drop-outs. They are bad. I am good. And my degrees and achievements make me special.
In 2015, Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman, was stopped in rural Texas by officer Brian Encinia for failure to signal a lane change. Bland, who was one month away from starting a new job at Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black college in southeast Texas, drove from Illinois to Texas alone. Officer Encinia arrested Bland after she refused to put out her cigarette and get out of her car when ordered. According to the officer, Bland kicked him and consequently charged her with assaulting a public servant. Three days later, she was found dead, hanging in her jail cell. Similar to other incidences of unarmed Black people killed during encounters with the police or in police custody, Bland’s murder garnered national attention. Her social media pages revealed her frustration with police brutality and the mistreatment of Black people by the police. By most accounts, she was intelligent, well-spoken, and maintained at least a basic understanding of her legal rights as indicated by the retrieved cellphone footage of the stop. Yet, not a college degree, nor a articulation of her rights was enough to save Sandra Bland — #SayHerName.
Until recently, I only traveled in college sweatshirts. If flying to Washington, DC, I would sport a Georgetown shirt, and when returning home to Michigan, a University of Michigan crew neck. Sometimes, I would throw on a Cambridge jacket for a little razzle-dazzle. Like the achievements in my biography, I wanted the college sweatshirts to serve as my armor, a repellant to racists and elitists. Yet, I found myself responding to unsolicited comments about whether I actually attended the schools whose paraphernalia I proudly wore, or if I had simply purchased the shirts in the airport. Further questions about whether my Georgetown T-shirt meant that I played basketball for the university snapped me back to reality. They highlighted that no matter how well-spoken I thought (and was told) I was, the college sweatshirts, and the resume full of degrees and awards, my Blackness provoked the fragile sensibilities of those threatened by my audacity to be.
On Monday, I gave remarks to the graduating class of Renaissance High School in Detroit, the high school I graduated from just ten years ago. While preparing, I struggled with finding words that celebrated the students, responded to the moment, and challenged conventional wisdom about achievement and excellence. In hindsight, maybe I put too much stake in sharing a lesson with the graduates, especially since they already found themselves graduating virtually during a pandemic and global civil unrest. However, it was the unrest and the killing of unarmed Black people that compelled me to share a message that challenged what makes us phenomenal during this time.
Quoting both the poet and activist Maya Angelou and the rapper, Lil Baby, I encouraged the graduates to look beyond external validation and traditional markers of success in defining what contributions they wanted to make to their communities. Recognizing that the investment in meritocracy and individualism ultimately undermines progress, solidarity, and self-confidence, I wanted the students to not define themselves by their grades, degrees, and accomplishments as I have done for most of my life. I sought to plant a seed that seemingly contradicts the American approach to education and my own pursuits of success. In fact, one of the reasons I received the invitation to speak to the graduating class was because of my achievements. I was an example of a Detroit and Renaissance success story. I was good and special.
Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Shantel Davis, Atiana Jefferson, Jonathan Ferrell, Rekia Boyd, and John Crawford III won’t make it on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list next year. Despite meeting the age eligibility, their lives were cut short by the police. Still, attempts to show that the young victims of police brutality and hate were successful accountants, straight-A students, and medical professionals fuel the myth that we, Black people, have to be good and special to live. Our survival is predicated on our ability to achieve, and these achievements are too often narrowly defined by diplomas, degrees, professions, and diction.
When I told the high school graduates that they were phenomenal because of their tenacity and heart, it was a message that I too needed to hear. The elitism and classism that permeate academia can be blinding, and defining excellence in our own terms can be tricky (especially when the goal is to earn a doctorate). Though it may compete with our socialization and ways of knowing, we must never forget that our character and other intrinsic qualities make us phenomenal. Whether the students choose to obtain a college degree, join the workforce, or pursue other opportunities, they are phenomenal, and their lives matter.
If Breonna Taylor never served as an EMT, her murder would still be unconscionable. Today and always, her life mattered, just like the lives of Black people who don’t possess the social capital and credentials to galvanize social media or garner national protests. Wielded as a tool to divide, Black exceptionalism won’t upend racism or anti-Blackness. We must reject attempts to dangle our diplomas and accomplishments to support our right to live. Our degrees won’t save us, and they shouldn’t have to — #AllBlackLivesMatter.
