Fortunately, I am not normal. Instead, I entered as a knucklehead 34-year-old staring down the double-barrel of wasted potential and enough detours behind me to shake Master Waller's hound dog off of Kunta Kinte's ass. At Mills College in Oakland (go Cyclones!) I had the great fortune of encountering a cache of amazing educators, from my Comp Sci prof to my African American Women's History prof, all of whom, in their own unique ways, helped me piece together what it means for me to be the fabulous black queer woman writer that I am today.
But the point is, none of this would have happened were it not for the eclectic cast of characters around me. If you're reading this, my peeps, you know who you are and what you did. I will never be able to thank you enough.
I wanted the opportunity to try, though. From the moment I laid pen to paper to apply to Mills, I dreamed of making a speech at commencement that would serve as a public display of gratitude to my ancestors, family and friends. Two and half years later, I received an email announcing a contest to determine who would deliver the undergraduate commencement speech. I had always just assumed that the student commencement speakers of years past were the valedictorians or similarly laureled nerds, handpicked by doting faculty to do the deed. In fact I would go toe-to-toe with any chick possessing the nads to match her literary skills against Yours Truly. [insert condescending laughter from my adoring claque here.]
Well I lost.
Boots' speech garnered a standing ovation at graduation, even from me, because it was genuinely great. I wasn't bitter because I thought my speech was better; I was bitter because [real reason deleted] I wouldn't get to fulfill that two-and-a-half-year-old dream of telling 3,400 people how much I appreciate everything my people did for me, and to speak for all black Americans then and now who never had the chance to do what I did.
If I had had the chance, this is what I would have said:
A summer or so ago I was enjoying lively and diverse conversation with family and friends at my cousin’s backyard barbecue, and eventually we turned to the subject of education. This is a hot topic in my crowd; we’re all really smart and well-educated, and those of us who aren’t are highly skilled at faking it. At one point a family friend mentioned her son who’d just been conferred his Masters degree from Harvard University. I was fulsome with praise and no modest amount of envy. But she just kind of shrugged and said, “Yeah, well, it’s no big deal. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?” The Reactionary Arwyn took it as slap in the face. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Damn, it’s a big deal to me! I’m thirty-whatever still trying to get my Bachelors!” I’m grateful now that she didn’t hear me because it gave me time to reflect. A few glasses of chardonnay later, the Mills Arwyn emerged. And she said, wait a minute—that’s a whole lot of heavy lifting that created the opportunity for this African American woman in her sixties, who’s seen and experienced God knows what, to sit back and say of her black son and his Masters from Harvard: no big deal, that’s what you’re supposed to do. The heavy lifting that fostered that mindset involved nearly twenty generations of collaboration.
The knowledge I have gained at Mills has fortified what I have always felt in my soul—that one by one my ancestors moved earth and heaven to get me here. Some labored with a conscious effort to construct a future worthy of their descendants, others labored just to live hour to hour, but all of their hands have touched me. I invite my sister graduates to look around you, not just into your physical space but into your emotional and spiritual spaces, and acknowledge all of your collaborators, past and present, who occupy this moment with you. We took the tests, we wrote the papers, we sweat it out in the labs. But none of our toil would have born fruit were it not for those who offered pep talks, who brought raffle tickets, the ones who took out second mortgages, who asked too many questions; the ones who were dragged here in chains, those who were born here, those who sacrificed everything to get here. Collaborators, look at us now, the glorious result of your ceaseless love and dedication to our success.
Sisters, if ever you find the fire faltering as your blaze your path to victory, pause…feel their fingertips resting lightly on your shoulders…remind yourself: This is what we are supposed to do, not only to honor them, but to craft ourselves into exemplary collaborators for those who will follow after us. Thank you.
Video available on YouTube: "Arwyn's Graduation Speech"
Disclaimer: I'm not actually that fat.
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