On May 22, 2010, I will be in the Princeton University Chapel, adorned in my commencement regalia, eagerly anticipating the moment when my name will be called and I am welcomed into the company of scholars. As hard as I will try to maintain my cool, I know that inevitably I will be completely caught up in the events of the day – the array of costumes, the decorated words dangling in the air, the sheer pageantry of it all. It will probably seem surreal given my absolute amazement at how this little black girl who grew up in the inner-city of Baltimore found her way to the Ivy League. I imagine I will feel much like the character played by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, who, when she too discovered she was worth far more than she ever thought, dunked herself in baptismal fashion in the soapy water of the bathtub and upon her resurrection shouted in disbelief: “Holy Cow!”
This feeling will only begin what I expect to be a rush of emotions, as my mind drifts in and out of consciousness, going back and forth between the ceremony and the journey that will have brought me to this moment in time. I may want to burst out in laughter when I recall the time when my computer crashed and I lost a 45-page paper that was due the following day. Of course, it was no laughing matter then, just tears I had to suck up so that I could channel every ounce of energy into rewriting that paper in the three days I had been extended. I know I will probably shake my head in bewilderment when I reflect back on the numerous times I stumbled over questions in class because it seemed utterly impossible to admit: I don’t know! And I am sure I will run into moments of sadness when I take notice of the missing faces in my crowd of supporters – the fallout from those relationships that caved under the demands of this pursuit. Even though my head will be able to rationalize their absence as both good and necessary, my heart will only be able to remember how much I miss them.
On a much deeper level, the emotional rigor of this sort of mental trippin’ re-presents the kind of “mind work” Trudier Harris includes in the cost black women pay for earning doctorate degrees (“Mind Work: How a Ph.D. Affects Black Women,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 April 2003). When I first read Harris’s article, I had just received my acceptance letter to Princeton Seminary. At the time, I could not imagine why anyone would do this work knowing beforehand the risks involved: the idea that “studying too hard” makes you weird and may even cause you to snap and become mad; the presumption that having a Ph.D. means that you think you are better and smarter than everybody else; the feelings of guilt that stay with you because the work requires so much time alone, which means time away from family and friends; and let us not forget the alarming statistics that suggest the more educated you are the more likely it is that you will remain single. I thought if Harris is right, then the Ph.D. journey would put me at risk of becoming an “intimate stranger” (to use her arresting phrase) with my family, my community, and my potential mates. The cost seemed much too high. Though, I would not realize just how high until after starting the journey.
As bell hooks accurately perceived, I entered my Ph.D. program like
so many black female students, feeling quite reticent about the value
and importance of my intellectual work and failing to see its connection
to “real life” (hooks and Cornel West, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life
So, on Saturday afternoon when I enter Princeton Chapel to receive the official welcome into the company of scholars, I will celebrate not only academic achievement. More importantly, I will celebrate the journey that enabled me to see the kind of insurgency I can trigger just with the sound of my voice; the journey that brought me to the place where I recognize the weight of my presence and how it helps to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice (to borrow from Dr. King); the journey that helped me to appreciate the connectedness of our world and the part each self plays in holding it together. It is not a journey without sacrifices – no journey is – but after counting the cost I know for sure that it is a journey I could not afford to miss.
