The Trifecta (February: Part I)

This is when shit gets real. This month needs three parts, because I can’t even recall EVERYTHING that occurred. It was fast paced, emotional, eye-opening…and unfortunately the foreshadow of the end of a lot of things in my own college career. This month was the time that I expressed myself the most, while also feeling more boxed in and quiet than ever.

Before I dive in though, I need to catch you up to speed with my whole placement in this, and that’s being president of the National Association of Black Journalists. You need to know how it started, for the ending to make sense.

NABJ logo

When I was a freshman, in my college of journalism, there was always an organizational fair that showcased all the active orgs in the college. Back then, seeing color in groups and representation was not on my radar. I was a student athlete, so I honestly could care less.

However, it wasn’t appealing to walk around and see so many groups that didn’t have representation from my own race. That was until the assistant dean of the college caught my attention and brought me to her table with the letters NABJ on them. It stands for the National Association of Black Journalists (If you could count how many times I’ve said, heard and wrote those 5 words in my years here, you’d easily lose count). I didn’t know what the group was…but…I was intrigued because of that 4th word. I was young and adventures as a freshman (as we all were, I suppose).

I took on the challenge and joined. It wasn’t until maybe a few meetings in that I realized this group was virtually dead. There were always less than 10 people at the general body meetings. I’ve often gotten this question a few times along the way. “How did you become President of NABJ?”

Well, in all honesty, I got lucky and raised my hand for the position with my head down as to not see how voted for me. (Like heads up seven up kind of). The people in that room picked me after I read a note-card length speech of why I should be president. I didn’t know any better, I was young and just a freshman. I was the youngest leader they had in a while. However, unlike other organizations, where the people before you leave some trace of direction for the future…we started from scratch.

My whole first year was spent just recruiting people interested. There was one goal a friend of mine pitched, which was a website for students in my college of journalism (particularly ones of color) to express themselves, showcase their work and be updated on meetings and information NABJ would have. That idea was pitched in the fall of 2016, it wasn’t until practically late fall of 2019 that it was finally up and running. (Link to the website by clicking the NABJ logo). So, what happened after my freshman year as president?

It was non-existent.

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted out of the group. We had some meetings, but it was all a blur really. My junior year was my last year of not trying hard. I was able to get some people to join on the exec team that…well, they know how they ended up with NABJ, because they stayed. Junior year was the biggest slap in my face as the president though.

I was so preoccupied with my decision to leave track and harness my love of writing, that I didn’t focus enough on my presidency of NABJ. In that junior year I was also becoming an Ambassador and a President of another organization (which I can say I invested more time and energy in than NABJ). However, before leaving OU, I wanted to give it my all, to an organization that didn’t feel blended, but solid. This was a group of strong minded, soulful, and passionate black individuals who I had the job of creating a team out of us.

The senior year of NABJ was without a doubt the most influential. Instead of having four to five executive members with positions that overlapped and didn’t have as much definition to them, we had eight executives who got their jobs done. In the fall of my senior year, at our first exec meeting, we had to make decisions as to whether we wanted to continue with our positions. Going into that meeting, I thought I was done with NABJ. I didn’t feel a fire in me to continue it, thinking it was going to collapse all over again.

Then, my vice president the year before looked me in the eyes across the table and said, “If you don’t want it (alluding to my presidency position), I’ll take it.” She laughed, but had a serious nature behind it. I knew I wasn’t ready to hand it over yet, not while I still had things I wanted to see that I knew her determination by my side would bring out. I stayed and made sure that she would be by my side working together and growing the organization with the others. (Keep track of this). That fall semester, we put on five different events with guest speakers, games and valuable information people walked away with.

We not only had general body meetings with more than ten people, but had the time for executive meetings that we ran biweekly too. (It’s still weird to me to run meetings, I don’t know why, mainly because I always have a sense that what I have to say might not come across as important). I was wrong. I was scared I wouldn’t be listened to, because I knew some of the executives I worked with. I was wrong their too. The NABJ success train with my seven other passengers that were working along with me for a spectacular second semester though, met its greatest challenge in the most promising month for us as black people. Black history month we had things altogether. We even got a black jeopardy night in the beginning.

However, it only took eleven days for my role not just as president, but also my identity as a black student at the University of Oklahoma to be questioned.

Tuesday February 11th, 2020

If you don’t know much about what happened at OU during the month of February…it wasn’t pretty to say the least. (Link to the story by clicking the Gaylord Picture)

Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication

A tenured professor used a racial slur in a capstone class in our college of journalism. I found out about it on Twitter, from someone close to me…within the NABJ. I was shocked, but also…numb. I wasn’t sure of how to feel until I saw the emotion from them in person after they left the class. I wasn’t in the class, but I caught up with them, gave them a hug and told them to just clear their mind and try and feel better. Although, the investigator in me wasn’t satisfied with just a tweet as all the information I got from this.

We were supposed to have an executive meeting that night. By that night, news of the event was already spreading like wildfire. My mother didn't even know what happened, and saw on her news back in Texas me hugging the person who first broke it all. My advisor for NABJ asked me if we could turn it into a town hall sort of place where people affected by the news could voice their thoughts on what could be done going forward.

The set-up in the room where we conducted meetings was arranged where everyone is on the sides of the table, while I happened to be at the end of it, facing everyone. (Now that I’m looking back at it, I don’t know why I sat like that, mainly because I was always in that room thirty minutes before just working on assignments).

When it’s just seven other people, it’s fine, because it’s a small room. However, that night, I walked into a room of almost twenty. I wasn’t myself that night either. I made sure to do what I normally do, to eliminate stress in high pressure moments. It didn’t work this time though. I don’t intentionally put pressure on my shoulders; however, my executives weren’t all there that night. Most of them had other obligations to attend to which I was fine with. So, the room was filled with new people I had only seen on advertisements for black events, or people I passed by on campus or heard about through a friend. These people who were hungry for change were right in front of me…but I wasn’t starving. Instead, I was just observing the pain and discomfort they were feeling.

I tried to take off my neutral blinders that night and see and feel what they wanted, but the constant numbness eroded over my heart. I sat there and listened to how some said they would support anything that the NABJ was going to do moving forward. (Remember, this is the ONLY black organization in my college of journalism, and the event happened in the college, and the news came from one of us).

After the meeting, after hearing opinions, thoughts, and examples of what to do and how to take care of things going forward, I gave up on trying to fall asleep. That night, I didn’t gather enough sleep. I just drifted in and out as the numbness faded, and the confusion and pain settling in. The problem was that I didn’t know enough, so my mind felt incomplete of figuring out solutions. My mind didn’t settle until I had to do what a lot of people wouldn’t, just go straight to the source of it.

I remember walking into the tenured professor’s office. He was working on his response to my email I sent him about how I felt about the situation. I got some time earlier to figure out some more details about the entire event. It wasn’t until I spoke with him that I got a clear picture of how it went down.

This was much grayer than I thought it was. It didn’t come across like an attack like black people are used to when the n word is used, especially from someone white. However, it was inappropriately used to try and explain a lesson, or comparisons of isms. I don’t want to bore you with the breakdown, because what matters most is that I wasn’t told to talk to him.

Nobody directed me or instructed me to speak with the man who spoke the n word out loud in class and hurt people inside. I consciously had a feeling that by talking to him, I would see something a lot of people didn’t…humanity, I guess. I’m someone who sees both sides of things when needed. I already saw one side, I needed to see the other for myself.

I can’t repeat what was said in the room between us, because those conversations (yeah, I talked to him a couple of times) was information only to be exchanged between the two of us. To give it context though, let's just say I learned a lot more about not just the incident, but what happens afterwards too. I learned more about a human being if anything. Within the next few days, I got to speak with our college’s assistant to the dean. She also doubled as the colleges counselor that helped students going through hard times.

She made things slowdown in my mind. Everything else was running wild, because I was a black man with a team of strong black individuals, trying to combat a sense of racism that flooded the college. However, I needed my own mind to be a bit clearer. We sat in her office, and I learned things not just about her, not just about me…but about the college. Some things I’m proud I learned, others, not so much. I walked out of there though with a vision, some sense of moving forward in some way.

To me, in the beginning, with others help and guidance, it flourished quickly into a fast vision. However, like most visions, they grow when you expand them. You can adapt them, but most importantly, you are willing to embrace the criticisms and improvements/tweaks others will make to them. That last part I learned the hard way.

Gaylord Strong Wristband

When I put my idea in motion and introduced it to some friends, it resonated with them. It was a way of uniting people together through the racial turmoil we thought was going on. OU had already been through black face incidents just the year prior. Those were more direct, and easier to combat back with protests and marches. I pitched the idea of mass-producing a ton of black wristbands with the words “Gaylord Strong” in blue on them. They were a sign of unity and solidarity to get through this. Shifting the narrative from one person, to instead creating something stronger from it. The idea came from my own blue wristband I wear all the time with my mother, sister, and I’s names on it.

Elizabeth, Isiah, Shalisa wristband

Gaylord college is a family of students who all study something in the journalism field. We were pitched from the beginning as being a family. Not exactly a family that has equal numbers of every race and everything, but you just knew a Gaylord person because of who they were. My family and I might not be perfect, we have our own things we get through, but the wristband is a constant reminder that we are in this TOGETHER. I thought spreading that same kind of message was necessary at the time, ecspecially for this particular incident. When this incident happened, it divided us as Gaylord students. I saw people broken, thinking that the atmosphere of the whole college was racist. When, things happened in such a peculiar way, that was almost impossible to solve. Hell…I tired though, just messed up with the delivery. (We’ll get to that soon, I promise).

That same night I had my wristband idea in place, there was an actual town-hall that was put together by the black emergency response team on campus. For me…I knew I was going to see more black people in one room, than I ever saw collectively at OU in general. It was the first general assembly of just black people talking about the issue. I am a writer (as you can tell by how much I’ve written. If you’ve made it this far, damn, I’m happy).

Anyways, I am a writer, so of course I wrote a speech to give beforehand. Once again…nobody told me to have one ready. In fact, it just felt like something I needed to do…for myself. Up until that night, I hated how people thought I was about racial issues. I often felt like a black guy who could care less about these things, because they happened so often, and because I was so focused on being a student. That’s all I wanted to be, was just a student, not an activist. I didn’t take AFAM, I didn’t look in depth into all the things other people in that room knew that I didn't. It wasn't because I didn't care though.

I came from a high school that was extremely diverse, and interacted with people who weren’t like me, because I figured I knew what people like me had gone through already. I connected myself with other people, to get to know them beyond the skin. Of course I had dealt with racial terms, slurs and been through a lot of it during my earlier schooling year. I pushed it aside, because my mother never wanted me to feel bad about the color of my skin, no matter how anybody felt about it. There are so many terms for things about race, like being color-blind and whatnot. However, I knew people’s colors, the stereotypes people give each one, and especially the hurtful things one race can say about another.

I didn’t feel like this incident was an attack though. So, I got up in front of a crowded room of black students, faculty, and staff at OU, and told them how I felt. I openly was the first person that deleted labeling the professor that said the n word as being a racist. I said things in that room that I knew not everyone agreed with. Before my speech, I admitted something I never thought I would. Even though I was a black male here that clearly ran organizations, knew other black students and wasn’t shy to include myself in things, I felt distant from the general black community at OU altogether. (Man, oh man, how crazy it is to say that now).

Nevertheless, at the time, it was true. I saw my track friends from my freshmen year, of course my NABJ executives were there, and just other black leaders that probably have never heard me speak this way before. (I wish I had the speech for you to read, but I honestly can’t even find it, I think it’s better that way.)

When I finished and sat back down, something changed in me. I had never spoken with such confidence internally in my own words. I never felt so passionate about telling people how I FELT about something pertaining to racial issues. I didn't see this the same way It was initially perceived as. I didn't want to just go with how everyone else was feeling or let my emotions control me and blind me from the conversation him and I had, or the feelings I would see on peoples faces after the incident itself.

My whole life, I felt silent, like a black kid who didn’t get it, or didn’t care. But I did care. I didn’t force myself to care because I was the president, but because some of my closest friends believed in what I was saying and gave a shit, like it made sense. I had to be an adult about it. It felt good. However, it’s not just about how YOU feel. I was grateful to hear other people’s opinions and thoughts for what to do going forward. Of course since other much more horrific racial events had happened already at OU, this was like adding icing on a racist cake. Except, I noticed how people didn't even know what the cake was, they just looked at the icing. (Translation, they just read the title of the article, but didn't bother to actually read everything in it). Some people had ideas that were quickly changed because of the professors situation in the college. I took ideas in the room I heard and implemented them into my “Gaylord Strong” campaign (there are probably people reading this, cringing right now because of how this story continues).

February needs to be broken up into multiple parts because of just how much transpired. This concludes part 1 of February. Part 2 will highlight the conclusion of the 1st racial incident and introduce the second incident and how that concluded too.