Success and Loneliness

By focusing on issues of identity and identification, I attempt to examine the feelings of doubt and discomfort which face blacks who wish to succeed in a system which is structured to deny them access. How do systems of representation, and the portrayal of success both seduce and repel? I wish primarily to give voice to the psychic spaces in which exist both hope and frustration, faith and failure, and the compromises which must be negotiated in order to survive. This allows for an examination of the psychic conflict which results in a desire to both belong to and resist a society that denies blackness even as it affirms.

MICHAEL RICHARDS

As soon as I enter that room, I feel it. I am something like my father, the first one in his classroom at a university in Oklahoma, rearranging his notes as his peers file in. Each new set of eyes regards him cooly, taking the seats on his left and right, ensuring that he is surrounded. Now, I too am regarded with a mix of curiosity and boredom, in a room devoid of any trace of my father, of the home that built me up, and with a clamor of impatience, love, and discipline, pushed me here, promising that a better life awaited my efforts. A glance around the room reveals that I am not a part of the majority. The American Dream fights against my reality – I feel completely alone. This loneliness is almost inevitable. You aim high and push forward into spaces where there are so little people with faces like yours that your color becomes stark, undeniable. The word “mistake” comes to mind. Inclusion and diversity can at times become an attempt to usher in people of color in the name of progress and only do half the work. The structures built for them, if they exist at all, are built intentionally fragile because they lack a simple truth: access does not mean acceptance. How can you build yourself into the narrative of success, when, if you disappeared, all evidence of you and what you represent would be wiped clean, unnoticed? As in many immigrant households, the American Dream was sacred in my home – it became law. It necessitated studying, speaking, and assimilating to the American way of life. Although my father spent countless hours conversing with family, reading newspapers, and listening to traditional music from his home country, as soon as he left the house, he spoke only of software, stock, and the recession – in impeccable English. I was raised in an uproar of laughter and music and culture, but it was understood that there was no need to bring those things into our education, careers, or upward journey. In all the best places, my home was not present, and to me, this made complete sense. However, these numbers prove especially dismal: ascending into the top 1% means joining the 3.9% made up by people of color and diversifying a class that is 96.1% white. Despite the work and sacrifice, success in predominantly white spaces becomes a struggle all on its own. And on your own. The American Dream cannot hold against reality. For many people of color, striving for the Dream means reaching its peak – the top of the American socioeconomic ladder. A large part of the minority student experience is grappling with the fact that institutions like Stanford were never made with you in mind and don’t even put up a pretense of guilt about it. When I got into Stanford, the first thought birthed in my mind, the first thing that so easily slipped off the tongue of others as they uttered their congratulations was: “You made it.” And yes, from a certain perspective, I had made it. There’s something to be said about getting into the most selective school in the country. But while Stanford offers immense opportunity, it’s also the quintessential reminder that the American Dream is unattainable for people of color. Meeting with my Pre-Major Advisor was something I always dreaded: my classes, major questions, or even my general well-being never seemed to be at the forefront of her mind. Instead, her interest laid solely in my box braids. Without fail, every meeting we had would start with her asking me whether or not I washed my hair, how long the braids took to install, and if they ever started to smell. My dorm provided no haven for such ignorance. Throughout fall... and winter... and spring, my Black dorm-mates and I were frequently confused for one another, and when we confronted the perpetrators about it, it was brushed off and met with, “Well you would see why we would confuse you all. You guys look a lot alike from certain angles.” Stanford and its white majority not only love to make a spectacle out of students of color, but they also find pride in reducing us to a monolith. The microagressions I face on a daily basis have made me deeply question my place here and if it will all be worth it. Malcolm X once said that in order to free ourselves from the confines of white supremacy, we must recapture our culture and identity. Do- ing so at Stanford is far more easier said than done when the pinnacle of intelligence here was intended to be the antithesis of you. However, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who boldly proclaimed, “Next time someone tells Bronx girls to take off their hoops, they can just say they’re dressing like a Congresswoman,” empowered many students of color to wear our skin and our backgrounds proudly and with no regard for who it offends. In lieu of respectability politics, we boldly proclaim that we’re Stanford too. This loneliness can act as a purposeful call to action that can help develop points of connection. In the individual, it is the willingness to stand and make a “home” for oneself in the face of the unfamiliar, through small markers of culture like my skin, my clothes, my mother’s wooden bracelet, my father’s favorite proverb, and a willingness to reveal these parts of myself to those around me. If that familiar glance around a room reveals at least one face like your own, the opportunity for building a presence for experiences like yours exists. Even in spheres of success made intentionally and implicitly to exclude communities of color, we are not an isolated, lonely minority.

written by Allison Oddman & Esther Osmole

modeled by Alexa Davy & Mwengwe Mpekansambo

photographed by Helen Liu