Drive On...(For my TKN brethren...)

"I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles."

-Christopher Reeve

"Victory belongs to the most persevering..."

-Napoleon Bonaparte

I know, I know...Its been 7 months or so since I last blogged...please forgive me...I'll try to do better, but I'll discuss why its taken me so long later.

I had a friend in grad school tell me some very disturbing stuff...

She's the only black person in her program and she's been called a monkey, colored, and a negro. So much for living in a post racial America...

Well, I've had more than my fair share of experiences similar to this. Some have infuriated me, others have served no other purpose than to make me amused at the ignorance of some... I'm writing this to explain the struggles of being a token in a "post-racial" America.
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To sit in a classroom and have other people automatically see you as inferior, a charity case, a quota kid...is daunting and frustrating. Especially when you've busted your ass, made the grades, and gotten the test scores that put you in the same academic/intellectual bracket as they are. You are a soldier without a country. Fighting for a cause yet unseen, standing for a people who will be ignored simply because of their intellectual and (by proxy) future socio economic status...

We came from a variety of backgrounds. More often than not...a privileged one. Then there are those of us who had to make it there based not on the privilege that was purchased by our parents...but by the sweat of our brow, the power of our brain, and the relentlessness of our spirits. We are the talented tenth of the talented tenth. Those who have had to fight to be seen as equal in two worlds...that of our privileged counterparts and our intellectual colleagues. But I digress...

We suffer from a more burdensome pressure than many others like us. Yes, like you our skin is our sin...but we are even more scrutinized. We are often the spokespersons for Black America. In the instance that a topic with racial undertones comes up in our halls of academia or in the office, we are often looked to as the authority. With questions like, "Well, Alisha, how do black people feel about this?" We are subjected to the ministrations of the overzealous liberal and the unrelenting conservative. We crumble from time to time under the politics of both our respective institutions administrations and our fellow students' attitudes.

In short, we wear the mask...

WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

-Paul Laurence Dunbar

How appropriate...

We wear a mask of stoic studiousness, constant professionalism, reserved contentment...We are not allowed to "be ourselves" because "ourselves" according to "them" often don't belong here...

Whether it be in the classroom or the boardroom...being a "token" is an arduous task...one that many shy away from.

However the "token" is an integral part of our society and, if statistics are any proof, a vital part of our continued progress towards solidarity as a country. Those of "us" who are allowed into the ivory towers of academia, corporate america, and whatever institution that allows our continued underrepresentation...have a duty, a calling even, to continue to excel and exceed the expectations placed upon us by those that see us a "quota filler" or a charity case. If not for us, for those whose shoulders we stand on....

Wear the mask...smile behind it...