The Trust Between Unlikely Friends
Check out our beginnings here before we trusted each other.
Colber’s TRUST
By the time I graduated my relationship with Vandy had grown to be positive and productive. Before I left for grad school, Vandy and I started a student leadership conference for students of color attending historically white liberal arts institutions. G.L.I.M.P.S.E (Gathering, Listening, Igniting, Mending, Persevering, Surviving and Empowering) the conference celebrated 10 years last year (2017). Vandy and I worked on several programs while I was a student and I could tell she wanted to do better. I grew to like her even more and respected her and her work. I mean we wasn’t buddy buddy, as we are now but we were cool. She was proving to me and maybe to herself that she could be effective in doing work around equity and social justice. And seeing her trying and failing and trying again was the foundation I needed to trust her.
I decided to get my Masters in College Student Personnel, which is Higher Education Administration degree. In one of my classes we had an assignment to interview an individual in a campus position you wanted to obtain in your career. I decided to interview Vandy, who was the Dean of Students and Vice President of Student Affairs. After our interview I grew to respect her more and marveled at all the work she did. She worked so hard and was responsible for so much. After I learned all that she did in her position, I had second thoughts in wanting to be a Dean of Students lol.
The next time Vandy and I interacted in a more significant way was when I was fulfilling my practicum/internship requirement for my program. I spoke to Vandy and Larry who was the Director of Multicultural Student Affairs about working at the college. They were happy to have me working in the Multicultural office. I reported to them both. Suddenly, my relationship with Vandy changed from student and administrator to colleagues. My position was the Diversity Programming Coordinator and I was responsible for organizing diversity programming across campus. I enjoyed that position because I was able to work with staff, faculty and students.
Mrs. Kemp was a great supervisor. She looked to me and others about issues affecting students. I looked to her for professional guidance and mentorship. We worked on committees, programs and attended conferences together. Our relationship was building to the next level. What really pulled me into really trusting Vandy and to consider her as a confidant was her humility. She was a middle age white woman in a position of power. However, she wanted me, a black male in graduate school, who reported to her to call her out on her ignorance and white privilege. In the white patriarchal imagination this was very strange. I’m not saying that we totally transcended the frame of thinking of the white imagination but we decided our friendship was more important than maintaining the status quo.
In my Fear blog I shared about the constant fear in the back of my mind of white people hurting me whether it was physical and or emotional. I feared that my white friends would place their privilege over our friendship and cause me pain. I feared that my white friends would rather maintain the status quo than to adhere to my thoughts and feelings. This was put to the test when I, Vandy and others attended several student affairs conferences.
In my experience I have witnessed my white friends act differently towards me when they got around other white people. It was really strange. Like 5 minutes ago we were cool and then this strange energy came between us when we got around other white people. They was actin like we didn’t have a deep meaningful relationship. I didn’t expect Vandy, a Dean and Vice President (who were mostly white in the field of higher education but that’s another story) to act differently towards me when she got around other senior student affairs officers at conferences. But if she did change up I wouldn’t have been surprised. I was kinda ready for it, ya know. Vandy being who she is remained authentic to herself and to our friendship. She spoke to her peers about the type of work we were doing on our campus. She shared how happy she was that I challenged her whiteness and used my own words to challenge her peers. Can you imagine the strange looks I got when this white woman was using my own words to inform or check her white colleagues? And then she’d refer to me and asked me to say more. I mean, as a graduate student I was happy to share my thoughts with senior level administrators but I was more proud of Vandy. Side note, there was some tokenism going on but we’ll have to unpack that later. Vandy remained true to yourself and our friendship when she was with other white folks. That meant a lot to me.
After working with Vandy for the school year I was like, “mane, I can bang with Vandy”. This meant that I saw Vandy as a real friend and her and I would be able to hold each other accountable. With all friendships ours isn’t perfect but we have trust and we both know we have each other’s best interest in mind.
Trust, something so important, so strong but fragile when lost. One of my biggest issues with different forms of oppression, like racism is that they keep people from trusting each other. The world benefits from a relationship between a white baby boomer and a black millennial. This may sound peculiar. But it’s doesn’t sound as peculiar as people not becoming friends because of somebody’s race. Doesn’t that sounds even more strange?
-CP
Vandy’s TRUST
We, Colber and I and the rest of the campus, recovered from that particular racial incident and resulting campus unrest, but it was difficult. I found my understanding and fundamental values challenged on a regular basis. I found the courage to challenge not only my staff, but my superiors as well as Colber and I joined others to form a coalition that would bring a determined focus to diversity at our college. Ultimately, the president encouraged the development of a strategic plan for diversity which involved a year of self analysis, collecting best practices, and identifying a set of principles and guidelines that pushed the college forward.
During this time, Colber completed his undergraduate degree, pursuing any opportunity to learn more about his heritage and about social injustice in our world. I perceived the the pressure that the uninvited role of “campus leader for Black students” placed on him as he was expected on a daily basis to speak and act on behalf of his peers. But he survived and thrived to graduation, and — much to my joy — decided to enroll in the College Student Personnel masters program at our local flagship state university. I had grown to love and admire him, and I was pleased that he had found a calling that would enable him to continue to positively influence higher education. I bade him farewell.
However, as it turned out, the Colber and Vandy partnership was not finished and, in fact, was just starting. Colber returned to our campus during his final year of graduate school to complete a professional internship in our Multicultural Center. This experience was our first at relating to each other as colleagues and fellow student affairs professionals. Again, I recognized that leadership potential in Colber as he honed his skills. And once again, I learned that he had more than a thing or two to teach me about campus diversity and intercultural leadership. We shared ideas. He taught me what students would respond to, and I taught him to plan events by projecting the learning outcomes first. He stopped me when I tripped into my autocorrect white privilege, and I pushed him to broaden his sphere of influence.
Six years later, Colber is a trusted colleague who owns his own successful consulting business and who pushes me to think more deeply and to dream bigger dreams. Out of our mutual fear and vulnerability, he and I have forged a friendship and a working relationship that enables us to serve others as we strive to tear down the systematic barriers that prevent equity in schools, colleges, businesses, and nonprofits. I trust him to respect me but to always challenge me; to care about me, but not let me off the hook; to make me better, dreaming bigger dreams, not limiting myself and the effect my work can have.
My greatest learning from this odd, unexpected, and wonderful relationship is that although college administration is often a lonely job, it is a wise leader who walks humbly, listening to voices which may be unlikely sources of wisdom, often finding solutions to the greatest challenges right in front of them. That is trust, and that is effective leadership.
-Vandy
You can continue to follow our story at https://dialoguefearwokenesstrust.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/colbers-wokeness/
