Black Rockette: Perspectives of a black female speech language pathologist in academia
The official qualifications are: Female, between 5’6” and 5’10” in height. The unofficial preference is white skin. These are not the prerequisites for admission to the field of Speech Language Pathology, rather to be a dancer in The Radio City Rockettes. The Rockettes are a historic American dance company founded nearly a century ago, known for perfectly poised and synchronized white women who high-kick in homogeneous harmony. It is an American cultural institution. Recent reports shed light on the company’s history of unofficially excluding women of color and insisting that white dancers stay in line by avoiding the sun to maintain their white skin. Not until 1987 was the first black Rockette admitted to the dance troupe. She stood out. I am one of the Black Rockettes of Speech Language Pathology.
Some “Others” Are Better Than Others. I was raised in the 1970s and 1980s in Canada by Jamaican, working-class, highly religious parents who immigrated to the ethnically diverse city of Toronto. At that time, I experienced little pressure to identify myself by race, instead, nationality and parents’ country of origin were given greater importance. Things changed starkly upon moving to Lakeland, Florida in 1990 where almost everyone seemed to identify as either white or black. I assumed all Americans would easily classify me as black, but that was not the sentiment among African Americans who I befriended throughout high school. They blithely explained why I was not truly black, including that I did not sound similar (my native dialect is not African American English Vernacular) and I did not share similar cultural references (my musical references were not steeped in the “Miami Bass” which was more popular and claimed native status even in North Florida), and that my parents’ accents were far too Jamaican. The most memorable moment that irrevocably positioned me as a pseudo-black happened when my African American friends were discussing how they like their grits. I blurted out “What are grits”?!? They literally ‘fell out’ laughing while trying to describe this food, and I came to realize that grits are similar to what Jamaicans call porridge. The word porridge elicited even more laughter because they had only heard white British people use that word on television. I was officially “othered”. Still, I had solid trust in my new crew of African American teenaged buddies. We laughed at one another (I poked fun at their out-of-date Jheri curl hair styles), but they also cared for and protected me. I was warned that white people in the south will not concern themselves with my ethnicity and that black is the only identifier that matters. I was told not to cross the train tracks, how to avoid the KKK, and where black neighborhoods could be found for hair care. I was learning how to navigate “at home blackness”. Simultaneously, I matriculated as one of 2–3 black students in the high school honors classes. Being othered by the white students immediately felt different. I was bombarded with questions like: How can you be Canadian and black? Does your dad smoke weed? Why don’t black girls shave their legs? Being “othered” in this way always felt like ridicule without reward, but would serve to assist my progress in a white profession that I had not yet heard about. Before you accredit these questions to the ways of Florida or curious young white kids in the 1990s, you should know that, as a doctoral student at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the early 2000s, I had dreadlocks and I was asked by a more senior scientist whether I wash my hair and, if so, do I use shampoo?
Black Rockette enters the world of science (fiction). The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is the national professional, scientific and credentialling association for over 200,000 audiologists and speech-language pathologists (SLP). The ASHA 2019 Member and Affiliate Profile reports approximately 92% of SLPs self-identify as white. White dominance was not as apparent to me during my undergraduate studies at the University of South Florida, perhaps because I matriculated with self-selected tunnel vision among a small black student cohort that made model larynges together. Completing my masters and doctoral degrees in Speech Language Pathology at Howard University (a historically black university) and my clinical fellowship year in the District of Columbia Public Schools further belated my realization that Speech Pathology was listed among the whitest jobs in America. I lived in a bubble. During my first semester of doctoral course work I realized I wanted to study a medical condition like swallowing and I would need to reach out to local Washington area institutions for research opportunities. I sent emails to scientists at the NIH and even spontaneously took the metro to the NIH clinical center to walk around and “case the joint”. I eventually obtained a Pre-doctoral Intramural Training Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke because two NIH scientists granted me an hour each to converse in person. These interactions spawned confidence in me to press forward and I eventually conducted my dissertation work with Dr. Christy Ludlow as my dissertation advisor. My immersion in the NIH’s Clinical Center ushered me into a very different culture. On one hand, Dr. Ludlow was primarily concerned with cultivating my brain power, which assured me that my natural inclination toward scientific thinking could outshine implicit bias against blacks while training at the NIH. On the other hand, much of the NIH world I experienced reminded me that I was either too black or not black enough and that Goldie Locks would always struggle to find her “just right” with me. The preeminent lesson I learned about the world of science was that pedigree determined prospects and potential. The rich get richer. The initial lab meet-and-greets to size me up naturally included the question “What university do you attend?” (Note: a pre-doctoral intramural award meant your degree was still conferred by a university, although you conducted your research at the NIH). My response (Howard University) elicited “I don’t know anyone there…” with a genuinely confused gaze. I once naively asked “Why do you need to know someone there”? I just didn’t get it. I suspect they were trying to figure out how anyone from my institution could make it into the ranks of the NIH with them. They retorted with some scientist’s name that they had worked with and seemed disappointed to see zero light behind my eyes because I knew no one in the world of science at that time. I hadn’t even read a research article all the way through! I would eventually learn their end game was to judge my potential as a scientist and, probably in their warped thinking, the trajectory of my whole career based on early exposure to famous names in science.
Before my first day as an NIH intramural fellow, someone muttered in my direction that I was the first Howard University student to hold a formal pre-doctoral partnership with the NIH and, as such, I needed to meet with the “elders”. I was summoned into several meetings with Howard University advisors, senior professors, department chairs and deans to both congratulate and warn me. Congratulations, you will represent Howard and have a responsibility to hold the door open for other black scientists! But, beware, you are black and you need to watch your back! My most assuring moments were with two former Howard University professors Tommie Robinson, Ph.D. and April Massey, Ph.D., both of whom pushed me to consider a PhD during master’s level training and ardently agreed that this NIH opportunity was a big deal, but “caution” was necessary. The “othering” experienced among my high school African American crew and the white high school honors students was, again, in full effect, but put to good use. I would spend the 3.5 years of my Ph.D. taking public transportation between the black world of Howard University and the white world of the NIH, decompressing and preparing on the 45-minute train ride. Then everything intensified when I became pregnant in the last year of my doctoral training.
There is a funny thing about being black in a white world. Funny turns into uncanny when you appear younger than your age while black in a prestigious white world. Uncanny is recast as downright paranormal when you are black, young, and visibly pregnant in a prestigious, pompous, white scientific world that has simultaneously handed you a golden ticket to the wilds of science. Attitudes progressed from “This girl must be lost” when I entered journal clubs of other labs to “Honey, the free clinic for young moms is that way”. The most interesting interactions were the irrepressible ones. Most initial in-person meetings with NIH folks outside of my lab were preceded by a phone call. Surprise! They thought they were talking to a white doctoral candidate on the phone, but a young, black pregnant girl appeared with that white girl’s phone voice! Twilight zone? My right bicep is over developed from lifting jaws. “Wait, YOU’RE the Ianessa I just spoke with who works with Dr. Ludlow?”. Here we go: It’s time to kill ’em with competence. It is time to do your high kicks in these ugly, but comfy shoes with Velcro straps for your pregnant, fat feet. If I had a dollar for every meeting that ended with “Wow! You ask really astute questions! And you say you went to Howard University? So, you’re pregnant! Are you even married?” … Well, I would have a lot of dollars.
“Race in American Science Fiction” sheds light on the lack of racial themes in stories about science fiction. The field of science fiction studies “has avoided discussing race and racism, as too many scholars have assumed the genre to be colorblind, an ironic dodge given the genre’s ability to depict radical otherness” according to one review. My experience is similar in science, including the lack of racial stories among budding and established scientists. Scientists also like to think of themselves as objective, dispassionate, and open-minded and that race shouldn’t matter. Many have confused their wishes for humanity with the expectations of science. Another lesson about the world of science: The worst kind of biased person is the one who believes themselves to be unbiased.
Black Rockette Dances on the Stage of Science and Academia. She was visibly flustered when I refused to sign the attendee list for the course that would commence in only 15 minutes. “You’ll need to claim your certificate of completion”, she called after me insistently “…if you paid for this course”. I moved swiftly toward the front of the large, filled-to-capacity auditorium. I knew why I did not need to sign the attendee list, but she did not. With my laptop, charger, adapter, and pointer in place and synchronized, I was ready to speak. Attendees began to gesture toward me as I stood behind the podium. No one thought I was the AV guy so there was quiet buzzing while trying not to look at me, while also looking at me. Alarmed, the flustered SLP saw me behind the podium and pointed me out to a more senior woman, who I assume planned the meeting. I returned their gaze as they muttered to each other about what to do about this person who does not look like an attendee SLP, the speaker, or the AV guy. Did we order catering? The senior woman prodded down the aisle with a concerned look on her face. “Should I make this easy or make this hard” I asked myself. Making it hard means that I allow them to initiate the interaction and politely watch them stumble through their nervous and disjointed request for an explanation for my presence. Then announce, after sufficient pregnant pause, “I am the Dr. Humbert you invited to give a talk today”. The hard way is, admittedly, entertaining from my vantage point. On the other hand, since my presentations rely heavily on audience interaction, I know engagement will suffer because a tone will have been set that is not easily reversed. I decided to make it easy for everyone’s sake. I extended my hand. I said hello. I addressed the senior woman by her name, since it was she who had invited me via email, and I mentioned something particular from our email exchanges to encapsulate the good will I hoped I engendered in our first in-person exchange. Her facial expressions morphed from concerned, to confused, to cognizant, to finally conscious of the close call she narrowly cleared. You see, this was before social media made it easy to confirm someone’s general physical attributes. At this emotionally heightened time, I was the Black Rockette who needed to kick higher kicks in much higher heels to overturn the low-status group traits (black people are not intelligent and thus less competent) that had (implicitly?) saturated the minds of the attendees and organizers. I didn’t have much time to perform. I had to make them blush before the first bathroom break.
Black Rockette learns about goodness of fit in academia. Success in academia is as much about who you know and who knows you, as it is about what you know. Success in academia is also prone to who likes you and where others believe you fit. Professional development programs that aim to foster development of researchers often discuss how to land a tenure-track position, uncovering that faculty search committees carefully consider whether candidates will fit into the culture of the department (“you’re picking life-long colleagues so you want to like these people”). What is fit? What is the culture? Kuh and Whitt define culture as ‘‘the collective, mutually shaping patterns of norms, values, practices, beliefs, and assumptions that guide the behavior of individuals and groups in an institute of higher education and provide a frame of reference within which to interpret the meaning of events and actions on and off campus’’. Studies show that (white) women in academia are devalued when there is ambiguity and lack of structure in job evaluation criteria, because the expectation of “fit” is vague and does not prevent search committees from selecting candidates who they prefer for subjective reasons that were never clearly outlined in position vacancy advertisements. Despite assertions of mediocrity in academia, the stories of black women and women of color from the book Presumed Incompetent: The intersections of race and class for women in academia further support the notion that black women and women of color suffer far more from perceived “lack of fit” due to the phenomenon of professionalization.
Professionalization is a process that occupations undergo to be publicly recognized as a profession. Mershen Pillay, Ph.D. asserts “The profession of SLP has its origins in a Euro-/American-centric, white, middle-class, male-dominated health care milieu largely influenced by the medical model”. The problem surrounding the culture of any profession is that they pull from the paradigm of class-privileged male actors at a specific period of history among particular societies who developed the idea of professions. This culturally specific, male-dominated frame of reference persists, even in professions that are highly gendered like Speech Language Pathology, which is among the most female dominated of all professions.
It’s not because you are a Black Rockette. It was Tuesday July 5, 2005 and I had only been in the state of Wisconsin for 5 days. After 17 hours of driving through cornfields with our 9-month-old from Washington DC, I was thrilled to begin my post-doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin with Dr. JoAnne Robbins. I had only defended my dissertation the week before and the transition from Howard University to the mid-west in just a few days was a whirlwind. My husband drove up to the front of the building where I would work with a trunk full of my study binders from the NIH and waited while I hustled up to my new work space to find a cart. No cart was available so my new lab mates suggested I use a rolling chair to carry up my heavy document boxes, a typical alternative when the research cart was out for a study. I rolled the chair down the elevator, through the front lobby, and near the entrance doors before I was abruptly stopped by a stern, middle-aged white man in a blue shirt who asked where I was going with the chair. I pointed to my husband in the car about 30 feet away, trunk open in the round-about, waiting and looking at me with our 9-month old in the car seat. The stranger stepped aside and allowed me to pass. Upon returning, I mentioned to my new lab mates that security seems to be tighter in Madison than in DC. No one followed my story because this building does not have front entrance security, they explained. After a few quizzical looks, I detailed the interaction. They surmised that the stern man in the blue shirt was likely a concerned citizen who saw me with institutional property and worried that it might be stolen. They off-handedly recounted how frequently they move around with all kinds of institutional property without suspicion or question. I asked “Why do you think I was stopped, then”? This was an important question because my post-doctoral research would require very long treks through adjoined buildings of the Veteran’s Administration Hospital, UW Hospital and other research buildings with expensive recording equipment on a weekly basis. My new white colleagues were visibly uncomfortable by my question. I sensed they wanted me to drop it. They suggested that it was probably nothing and that some people, like the stern man in the blue shirt, are just hyper vigilant where they shouldn’t be. Over the next 15 years of my career in academia, I would go on to be followed and questioned by campus security for merely existing on campus after hours, asked to justify that I am affiliated with the university and have a right to be in possession of certain lab equipment purchased with my own grant money, and pressed to justify that I am not a threat to others who might come into contact with me. For me, this was not uncommon at the Universities of Wisconsin, Florida, and Iowa. Similar instances have been reported by black women on other university campuses. I have observed an interesting contrast over my years in academia. The same white female colleagues who preferred not to validate the possibility that my differential treatment might be race-based would complain bitterly and openly about white males who are “keeping them down” and expect my genuine understanding and support. Some would go as far as suggesting that any mistreatment I endured was likely because I’m a woman and not because I’m black. After day one as a post-doctoral trainee at Wisconsin, I learned it was best to be selective about sharing these issues with white people because their comfort with my presence could influence our future collegial interactions. Day one at Wisconsin also foreshadowed my “badness” of fit in academia and that I might not be given the benefit of the doubt when vulnerable to the whims of white folk.
Easy to make. Easy to mar. Your achievements can only take you so far. Easy to make: The first time I attended the prestigious scientific meeting on swallowing disorders in 2006 was also the first time that I presented at this meeting. Dr. Robbins took care to warn me that this particular audience of scientists can, at times, be unforgiving and might harshly query the merits of my controversial dissertation findings (effects of electrical stimulation on swallowing). I was both hypervigilant and over-prepared to give my talk. I was also visibly pregnant with my second son. My presentation was on the last day of the meeting, which is sheer torture for a nervous newbie, but I had the opportunity to walk around and meet the scientists whose work I had read, since I knew very few people. I was starstruck! At some point during the weekend Dr. Robbins asked how I was enjoying the meeting and I hinted that people were not as friendly and open as I had anticipated. A true mentor, Dr. Robbins kicked into high gear and used her established, respected status to re-introduce me to her friends and colleagues. The curious part was the length and content of her complementary introductions. She talked gloriously about my pedigree, short as it was. Their transformation was like a speakeasy turned open bar. Faces lit up with mention of “NIH” and “Ludlow”, and “electrical stimulation”. What was I thinking? I had the nerve to simply walk up to a scientist and say “Hi my name is Ianessa. I have read and enjoyed your work” and actually expect them to give me the time of day? I was reminded of the preeminent lesson to prime my interactions with my pedigree, now that I had some, to more smoothly pave my prospects in science. You’re no longer naive, Black Rockette!
My presentation was an award-winning hit! A power-packed 15 minutes of speaking followed by an intense question-and-answer-period resulted in being recruited to the faculty of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine within 30 minutes of leaving the stage. Dr. Rebecca German’s exact quote was “If you want to get out of white-bred Wisconsin, come to Hopkins!” I remained on faculty at Hopkins for almost 8 years. This was a glorious time of intense, independent scientific training with Rebecca German, Ph.D. and Pablo Celnik, M.D. who nurtured my career. Along with their mentorship, I blazed a new trail of scientific investigation to understand swallowing physiology. “Easy to make” means that when individuals from the dominant culture (in my case, prominent white scientists and academicians) genuinely promote a minority with strong capacity, high kicks lead to high career heights. Easy to mar suggests the reverse. A lack of confidence or accusations from a member of the majority culture can cause irrevocable harm to an individual of a low-status group, who fights implicit bias regularly. Only 3.6% of SLPs self-report as black and, among all SLPs, only 2% report working as a college or university professor. As a black SLP university professor I am a rare sighting and one misstep is far more obvious and, somehow, more punishable.
Easy to mar: The University of Florida pushed hard to recruit me to their faculty. My research interests had expanded beyond swallowing physiology and into the practice patterns of Speech Language Pathologists. After 10 years of working in schools of medicine, it seemed like the right time to transition to a position in my home department where my SLP research interests and my PhD degree fit. Now, I fully experienced the culture shock of working almost exclusively with and for white women.
There were very strong synergies among fellow scientists who were research focused and whose areas of interest centered around medical populations both within the department and across colleges. The interest from the higher ups in the university lead to publications about our model growth and advancement. Still, there were prevailing culture conflicts (that preceded me) concerning where departmental and college resources were directed (research versus teaching, medical versus educational), stunting enthusiasm. Given the demand for PhD level SLPs, many easily voted with their feet, leading to significant staff and faculty turnover over a 4-year period. I was the sole Principle Investigator on 2 large NIH grants, so transitioning to another university would be easy, except for the part where you take funds away from the university you are leaving. Around the time that I submitted my resignation, I received notifications from several offices that I was under investigation. In the three months before moving to my new university of employment, my previous 4 years at this institution would be extensively reviewed (outside activities, Institutional Review Board, HIPPA Privacy office, Human Resources, grants administration, Title IX, etc). Before triggering this rash of investigations, I was not afforded an opportunity to provide documentation as explanations. Obviously, I needed answers but would not receive many. The directors and lead investigators from several offices were eventually told not to communicate with me and that I should direct all questions (even those belonging to the grant transfer office) to General Counsel. General Counsel would not communicate with me unless I hired a lawyer. This all transpired over a six-month period while transitioning between two institutions and ended around the time I was awarded a prestigious Fellow Award from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. The university’s decision to open these investigations obviously meant that I could not have a clean entry into my next position at the University of Iowa. I spent my first semester at my new institution in meetings with a vice provost, a dean, and more than one Human Resources director. The University of Iowa extensively communicated with and obtained documentation from my former institute and ultimately decided that there was no evidence that required them to take action or suspect me of wrong doing or that any accusations would harm their university. Still, the harm to me was already done.
No one remembers rebuttals, they only remember accusations. If someone asked “did you know that Ianessa used to be a psychic who read palms to get through college”, I will always be the psychic palm-reader-turned-scientist even as I scream “that is complete fabrication!”. Another troubling lesson learned about scientists and academicians: The tendency to demand evidence to support claims about the importance of data, but not the consequence of gossip. Some labs double as a set for the Real Housewives of Academia. The interesting part is that large research ventures do not happen in a vacuum. Every Principle Investigator has a team, often a large one, with employees whose job duties involve interfacing with various university offices. From my vantage point, the wording in the university investigations “protected” the (white) women colleagues and trainees from the big, bad, black Dr. Humbert. Didn’t I need protection too? In times before the interrogations started, many of my white female colleagues and trainees openly admired my strength in the face of adversity and would joke about “harnessing their inner Ianessa” to claw through conflicts they faced. Suddenly, the self-appointed Super Hero Ladies of Science wilted into unassuming victims.
There is a particular type of cognitive bias (mental short cuts that all humans use to simplify information processing, taking them down the wrong path) called representativeness heuristic, which involves estimating the likelihood of an event by comparing it to a prototype in our minds. Our prototype is what we think is the most relevant or typical example of a particular event or object. Speaking specifically to my case, I’m guessing a strong, fearless, and confident black faculty member is less frequently seen as vulnerable or worth protecting than white females who sometimes struggle to tamp down tremulous emotions during meetings where conflicts arise. This has been borne out in reporting about white women who both rise up against sexism but initiate investigations and call police on non-whites in instances when they feel “threatened”. Students who complain that black female professors are unapproachable (meaning not even worth trying to interact with because of their assumptions) may march straight to the department chair to complain. Casting aspersions by using the arm of investigation as a weapon where one knows that their high-social status will be favored over another’s low-social status is common and there are groups that are hitting back against this practice in university settings. Lesson learned from being involved in university investigations: the process is ETHICALLY diverse. Meaning, the morals and principles guiding the investigatory processes are not equitable, rather as biased as human perception is.
Black Rockettes Matter. Prior to the Black Lives Matter resurgence, I resigned from academia. I requested that the University of Iowa return all of my grants to the NIH. I saw no up-side to continuing on this path. There was a brief period before George Floyd died where I had mostly mentally reconciled the past and made plans to enjoy this reprieve from academia to conceptualize building my clinical education business. Vacation over! Suddenly I was bombarded with emails, text messages, and social media posts depicting white colleagues and former and current white students siding with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement! Strange, given that our past encounters illustrated their reluctance to even say the word “black”, much less in such an outwardly political manner. Prior to the death of George Floyd, many of my white colleagues confided that they were especially uncomfortable with conversations surrounding race, but could admit this to me as their only black “friend”. What seemed to be performative allyship could be overlooked, except that I was still affiliated with many organizations and institutions that had BLM and/or anti-racism statements that needed to be written. If you’re thinking that I was contacted because I was the only black scientist in swallowing or on current and past faculties, you’re wrong. I often learned about these statements after they were written and some only accidentally. After some tense conversations, I learned that I was excluded because I was black. The explanation was that they wanted to prevent emotional trauma. Given my almost 2-decade experience in this field, I remain skeptical that the emotional scarring they were protecting against was mine, and not their own. Whether I was excluded or not, its likely that readers of these statements were conjuring up images of me while reading them. Previously, my hardships related to race were excused as sexism, studying a lesser known area (swallowing), being a PhD in an MD world, looking too young, my hairstyle, or any other issue that could be summoned. Now, professionals are compelled to take an outward stand on a topic they had always avoided without consequence. As you can imagine, I have questioned the authenticity of these statements’ sentiments. The rush to stand with the BLM movement uncovered the distinction between diversity and inclusion. Many black and people of color in my field are aware that white colleagues are on the hunt for more color, but it’s not clear that they are as eager to endure the unfiltered messy process of inclusion. It reminds me of when white women tell me “I’ve always envied and wanted brown skin” and I reply, “but do you want the shorter life span, smaller bank account, and increased stress that comes with it?” Each of us will need to be willing to listen to specific instances where we each contributed to promoting bias, racism, and discrimination. This process may have begun in earnest in my very white field where a platform for sharing of stories was raised. I carefully curated the experiences I could share in this piece because many are not appropriate for public consumption. My success story is not an indication that the adversity was not significant, rather that I have had to acquire specific survival tactics alongside the traditional formal and informal training in science, academia, and professional development. Still, I have had privilege. I trained in a country with far greater access to a college education and funds for scientific development. If I lived in a country where everyone looked like me and I was almost never “othered”, but also had little to no educational resources for scientific training and advancement, my trajectory in science might have been stunted.
If I Had My Druthers on Being Othered, I’d Prefer it From Someone in My Race and Not Another. Glenn Geher, Ph.D, a psychology professor at the State University of New York, conducts an interesting experiment about ‘othering’ by asking a question: Think of two groups of people: College students and truck drivers. Now decide which of these two groups has more within-group variability related to physical, demographic, political and cultural factors? When college students answer this question, they typically determine that college students vary more widely and truck drivers are more homogeneous. This is an example of out-group homogeneity, where a group decides that members of other groups (outgroup) are all the same, but members of their group (in-group) have much more variability. These ideas and studies of in-group/out-group stereotypes date back to the early 1970s, are intrinsic to human psychology, and extend to any and all groups humans care to conjure up (occupations, sports fans, moms who work at home versus moms who work outside of the home). Othering happens before you can stop it, it happens to everyone, and it can be dangerous to certain groups that have been placed into a low-status category by society. Othering can also be dangerous in settings where subjective decision making, reputation, and “fitting in a culture” drive access to opportunity and upward mobility, which essentially defines the world of science and academia.
Solution: Talk about your whiteness. We are not black or people of color in a bubble. We stand out in the backdrop of prevailing whiteness. Talking about race is as unavoidable for us, as sexism is for women. To talk about department culture, you must embrace the white, male paradigm that we are all being expected to adhere to. Understanding where those expectations serve us well, have minimal impact, or are repressive and not conducive is critical to moving forward. If you cannot articulate tangible and measurable goals for increasing diversity and inclusion, similarly to goal writing in science and requests for administrative and clinical resources, what will ever be realized? Diversity is not just about “getting more” it’s about keeping more and allowing them to contribute in ways that the majority may never have considered. When you have always lived “out-the-box”, sometimes it’s the only way you know how to think!
Black Rockette for the win! So, what could academia have done to make me stay? The cathartic process of writing this piece (originally an invited “Viewpoint” for a journal in my field) has enlightened me. I am newly aware that I never belonged to academia. I am defined by the entirety of my life. Academia is only one part of my experiences and experience is the best teacher. I have had strong scientific training, but my early experiences where I was expected to be incompetent raised my threshold for excellence. My diverse background is an asset! Typical of Jamaicans, my communication style during presentations is no-frills and direct, but engaging. Along these lines, I never give Power-Pointless talks. My dad is a reverend who preached tirelessly with significant emotion and I attended church almost as frequently as I attended school. Typical of a sermon, my brain quickly conjures up analogies and parables to transform complex ideas into morsels that can be ingested and digested fully. I was raised by immigrants as a latch-key kid, taking public transportation through the big city of Toronto beginning at age nine and was expected to engineer my survival when my parents could not be there to help. This is why I am a big advocate for self-study among SLPs who feel poorly trained. My education style is Socratic and I aim to provoke critical thinking over recipe-dolling, so sometimes people leave with more questions than answers that they are compelled to answer on their own. I cannot tell you what to see, but I can tell you where to look. Going forward I will continue exploring the extent to which I assimilated to whiteness to succeed and where it may have stalled invoking my “otherness” to broaden perspectives and be creative. For instance, many in my family would be against feeding tubes and modified diets if they had a swallowing disorder, opting for death over a life without good Jamaican food. Have I used my platform to magnify this viewpoint? So far, I have been invited to speak in 32 states within the U.S. and in 18 countries. The advent and growth of social media has changed things drastically and allowed me to impact and educate thousands of clinicians around the globe with a single post. Being a Black Rockette now means others are “othering” me in fulfilling ways. When entering the stage before a sea of fellow white SLPs, I feel genuinely accepted because of their excitement to see me at meetings and when speaking, a professional embrace based on my scholarship and reputation. Imposing myself into an ill-fitting world is not inherent to my path and is an example of “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you wronger”. In the current SLP landscape I am a novelty shop, so I am enjoying the freedom to do my high kicks in high tops.
