"No one tells you how to survive in institutions that weren’t created for you. No one tells you how to navigate through buildings that are named after men that would have spat in your face when they were administrators. Your choices are limited: assimilate, drop out or fight like hell. Sharpen your nails on chalkboards that try to hide behind words like diversity, have white professors spilling out your history, acting like they know it better than you — a child of the Diaspora, the product of what they’re teaching. You’re their Ph.D.
The realization leaves you stinging for days."
FB: "I wanted to run away because the more I realized that my institution served the idea of a student, the more I learned about institutional problems, the more distanced and hopeless I became. I decided to stop placing my values in their hands. It wasn’t easy — as a student with a full scholarship I felt indebted. How could I speak up and see the bad when I was so lucky? Why couldn’t I just shut up and focus on the good? I still don’t know where I got the courage from."
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