A (Race) Conscious Mind

today, my constitutional law class had our 1st of a two-day discussion on affirmative action. anyone who knows anything about these buzz words can already predict how tense and uncomfortable this discussion was. we have been leading up to this with desegregation cases, starting with Brown v Board and making our way up to the Gratz and Grutter cases. to give a bit of context, these cases hold a special importance to us because our school has been affected by the ban on affirmative action (i will not specify which one, but there are only a few) so the topic still has the ability to cause a lot of tension. which leads me to our discussion today...

i listened for about an hour as our prof challenged different classmates to defend their ideas on affirmative action, and i heard several of them make comments about reverse discrimination. eventually, they were asked to defend or refute whether diversity was a "compelling interest" which fell under the strict scrutiny standard the court uses when evaluating all racial classifications. many people skated around the direct issue. some of my white (and more socially conscious) classmates attempted to explain why diversity was important, or why in the UC Regents v. Bakke case, increasing the number of black physicians in the field, thus allowing more minority physicians to potentially work in under-served communities. as i listened, i heard them struggle to explain why it was inherently important to have more black or latino or native american physicians. when our prof asked what about if they didn't go into these communities, my hand finally shot up. i had heard enough. i admired and respected my few classmates who attempted to explain why these values were important, but none of them could quite articulate it because, well, it just wasn't their experience. as our Prof began to talk about a critical mass, i realized that i had to accept my fate in the class today.

i had to be the token.

by the time he called on me, we were in the last 5 minutes of class and my emotions were practically boiling over. my heart was racing as i prepared to speak, as if i was going to battle. but in a sense, i was. because this was one of the few times i had ever spoken on race, especially in dealing with current issues, in this class. unlike my years as an undergrad or a teacher, i had spent the majority of my 1st year of law school relatively lowkey, trying to absorb and not talk. part of this was because i was still learning how to adjust my way of thinking from an afro-am major and poli sci thinker, to a law student. the two were surprisingly not very similar, especially when dealing with race. so i made sure that if i spoke, it was valid and i could support it well. but also, i was tired. tired of being a token; or at least feeling like one. i accepted my fate a long time ago that i would have to sometimes take on the role of speaking up, at the risk of being perceived as the lone black voice and opinion in that space. that is not to say that i actually represent all black voices. quite the opposite. but, i knew that what i was feeling was often somewhat similar to what many other minority students, especially black students, tend to feel in academic situations like this. like we always have to be on point and sound very educated and precise, lest someone assume that we are not smart enough or articulate enough to be there. so this year, i held back on always talking and took a backseat and just listened. unless i felt like there was a huge thing that no one was saying, i tried to stay quiet a lot of times and just listen. but today, i lost that backseat mentality and the old, vocal part of myself bubbled up.

as my prof called on me, i prefaced my comment, while choking up on my words. i was so overcome with emotion (and lowkey anger) by this time that i had to speak very slowly and deliberately, being very careful not to lose control of my emotions or everyone would think i was crazy. i started by saying, very slowly, that i was hesitant to speak on this subject out of concern that what i said was going to be perceived as the majority view for all black people and that made me uncomfortable, but i felt like it was critical to speak anyway.

i proceeded to discuss and defend the importance of a critical mass in a law school setting, pointing out that the black critical mass in our section of approx. 90 people was 3, and 1 wasn't even in class. i pointed out that fact, and further emphasized that there is something inherently important about black physicians, lawyers, professionals and just career oriented people in general beyond simply going back to one's community. it is just as important to see these successful minorities, even if they are not necessarily in that community, because it is an indicator to our communities that success is in fact a reality. for many of us, there is nothing more frustrating than to constantly see negative images in the news, media and everyday life. so when those images are countered by a positive one, such as someone graduating from a law school and working at a (predominately white male) firm, that shows that it is possible to succeed. or the fact that i shouldn't have to be concerned about speaking about race in a con law class out of concern that i will be perceived as a lone rep for the entire black race. it is a burden that i bear, but not happily. experiencing a diverse educational experience in my secondary education, i have seen the benefits a diversity of experience and perspective can bring to a classroom and i challenged anyone to dispute that image. a critical mass was not something to be taken lightly, and it wasn't restricted to simply one group of people. a critical mass of minorities in general would be amazing because then people would really see how diverse and amazing minority communities really are. when asked if this would be equally important in an engineering class, i wholeheartedly emphasized yes! it is always important, whether in con law, property, contracts, engineering, business, etc. there is no realm of academia that our perspective is not important, regardless of how unrelated it may seem. because chances are, if it seems unrelated, we previously weren't given access to it so our very being in that field will break down walls that have been there for decades, if not centuries. needless to say, my comments were the only ones not completely challenged by my prof that day.

i left class feeling surprisingly drained emotionally. i didn't realize until later on during the day how much that class had taken out of me and i had mixed emotions about how it went. i was happy i said something but annoyed that i had to. it reminded me of why i was admitted to this law school- someone has to make those comments. but what was important was the responses i got afterwards. several people thanked me for being fearless enough to boldly acknowledge not only the issue, but how it affected our class specifically. it was a topic no one had actually discussed in our class all year, and i was the first to really come out and acknowledge the lack of a critical mass of minorities. and finally, it was the email i got later on that night. it was from a classmate of mind, a minority, and yet of a very different background than i was. she thanked me for speaking up for all of us, because she too often felt silenced in that class out of fear of being perceived as speaking for her entire race and ethnicity. she was also bothered by the class discussion but couldn't work up the nerve to battle it. i responded to her with gratitude and an understanding of her frustration. and the final thing she responded to me was that she too would try to speak up tomorrow, which would be day 2 of our discussion.

wow. if i can make someone else feel comfortable enough to speak up for themselves and advocate for their own experiences, even at the risk of alienating myself, then i did my job. that is why i spoke up. because if i didn't, no one else would. and an entire group of people- in reality, the most important group when dealing with affirmative action- would be silenced.

i can live with being a little too vocal. but i can't live in silence.

until tomorrow...