The fucking race card all day every day. What the fuck? Maybe people treat you differently because you're expecting them to treat you differently. Maybe try to formulate some alternative interpretations? Maybe confront or challenge the behaviors instead of just gif-ing about it? Or, you know, you could go work for another university- you both have Phd's. You're past the finish line, you won the race. Stop complaining about your time.
Hey Anon, thanks so much for sharing your opinion
We chuckled when we read your comment - mainly because we wondered if you always get so affected and have emotional reactions to things in your life without knowing the whole of a situation or someone’s entire experience. We thought about what that must be like for those around you, and how that might influence your relationships with others. But that’s neither here are there, you are entitled to you opinion.
It is interesting how the frustration it seems like you have with our posts about race, are the same frustrations we have regarding having to experience those things regarding our race. “The fucking race card all day every day. What the fuck?” is probably what some of our professors might think on a day to day basis. If our frustrating them encourages them to treat all students regardless of culture or race with the dignity and respect they deserve, then we’ll call that a win.
We might be wrong, after all we don’t know your full experience and what spurred you to feel compelled to say all of this anonymously, but it appears as though you are telling us “shut up already with sharing your experience about being african american men in an all white doctoral program.”
There are probably some parallels between your message and what some faculty members want to tell some people of color all the time. Can you imagine if the people you worked for/with felt the same way you feel, but instead of saying how they felt, they treated you in ways stemming from that frustration? It would be very confusing for students like us who don’t know if our experience has to do with our race, or because we want to be treated differently, or because of some other reason. It almost feels like one of our professors made a mock tumblr page just to finally get this shit off their chest hahaha.
We use tumblr as our avenue to share our experiences with each other. It is a place where we feel safe to share. It is a place where we can let each other know our experiences. It is a place we feel is safe for us to share without it impacting our education or future. If we had no followers, we would still post our experiences because its how we take care of ourselves and each other.
You seem to have the delusion that we owe you something through our posts…like we should post our experiences so that you can get something out of it. We chuckled when talking about this part too, because we wondered if you do feel like people owe you something and should act in accordance of what they owe you. We again wondered how that might influence the relationships you have. It may be subtle, as it was in your comment/opinion above, but just enough to influence something.
You also seem to believe that we just gif about our experiences. Unlike you, when we are confronting someone, we do not do it anonymously. Part of our experiences as doctoral students and future professors was confronting our faculty and administrators directly, not just on the racial issues, but on all issues that negatively affected the clients we served and the students we taught. Our gifs are small glimpses into our experiences. Don’t assume you know us, our experiences, or our full actions before or after we’ve posted a gif.
“You’re past the finish line, you won the race. Stop complaining about your time.”…Sweet, naive anon follower, getting a PhD is only the start of the race.
Despite how misguided and ill-informed your opinion was, we still thank you so much for sharing, as it is your right. We want to invite you to confront us unanonymously the next time you feel strongly about our experiences, so that we can have a dialogue - it might spark further dialogue with other followers.
