i have been writing since i was about eight years old.
i have written many things—
plays, poems, love letters... term papers, of course... prose, newspaper articles;
i even began writing a novel when i was a sophomore in high school.
this speech is easily the most intimidating thing i’ve ever decided to write.
during my four years here, i’ve felt a tremendous amount of frustration here on campus, for being one of a handful of brown people is no easy task. my freshman year i began sounding off about this frustration through the campus newspaper, and with my very first article, a tradition was set in motion, one that i’ve kept up during my collegiate career at Transy. it became my therapy. i have always felt so small in this group of 1100 or so, and i have always feared that i am a bit too easy to ignore. writing became the vehicle through which i was sure i would at least be heard, if not listened to.
with this speech, i want desperately to be listened to.
i asked my mother and close friends if i’d ever be let on the microphone and given unadulterated attention this way, given my rather inflammatory literary past. they all said no, jokingly, but with a hint of sad seriousness.
this fear of not being allowed to be listened to was in the foreground of my decision to write this speech.
as such, i tried to mold and tailor my story, aiming perhaps to be quietly subversive in the course of praising the institution, lauding our collective experiences, and lending a few optimistic words for the future. the task at hand was to write a speech that everyone in attendance could relate to, and i kept asking myself:
“how many people will be able to relate to a black girl’s story of feeling alone and afraid, and learning about others and herself and the world in the most unconventional ways, and smiling at her newly acquired strength once this leg of the race has been completed?”
this is when the speech became easy to write.
we are such a vastly varied group.
we come from different cities, different counties,
different states, countries, families, values, traditions, and backgrounds.
because of these fundamental differences, we each walked into this college experience with different expectations, and thusly lived different experiences-
maybe we were thrilled with the adventure of being on our own for the first time and took advantage of the new-found freedom and challenge of self-sufficiency. maybe we beheld it as simply another item on our checklists of things we must do reach the nadir of growth, maturity, and success. maybe we found ourselves paralyzed with shock and fear, feeling like islands that would not have cared to welcome visitors had they cared to explore them.
whatever our experience, i am sure the vast majority of us would agree that we have learned a great deal. we snicker at our friends at other schools who complain to us about having to write 5 page papers, when most of us were handed assignments for 15 to 20 page term papers our very first semesters here. we’ve read textbook after novel after journal after article; we’ve been tested over the material and we know it. we’ve learned it. we are the recipients of some of the best academic educations in this state, in this part of the nation, even.
but i am willing to wager that the lessons we have learned span far beyond the pages of the myriad of books we have read and papers we have written over the past four years. they are more than classes, projects, final exams and emails bearing our grades at the end of each semester:
they are life lessons. they are the trials that force us out of our comfort zones and test our composure and character. they challenge us to challenge ourselves and our beliefs, to speak up when we would previously fall silent, to be quick to question and slow to judge. no matter what walk of life we have traversed, we stand at this fork in our roads changed women and men, having been exposed to new branches of the world, each other, and ourselves.
revelation is as important as any revolution.
indeed, it is the essence of revolution itself.
and our own personal hearts and minds are not the only renovated structures standing on this day. i like to think that this institution itself has learned just as much from us as we have from it. we have borne witness to national tragedy and seen the advent of another war together. we all had different responses—some protested in the name of patriotic peace, while others rallied in support of overseas involvement. whatever our reaction, we reacted together, students with faculty, faculty with administration, administration with students and staff; and hopefully we all learned something from each other. this is how we come full circle—the trading and changing of ideas between generations is what will sharpen our senses, keeping us evolving and offering new, accepting light that encourages healthy growth in the classes and generations to come after us.
if this experience has taught me anything, it is that difference is rarely the only thing we have in common. four years ago i would have sworn that i’d never be able to stand here on this stage, telling my story to such a sundry group of souls, speaking of commonalities. as we sit here together today, we are proof that these four years of frustration, joy, ease, hindrance, resignation, success—whatever they have been—they have not been in vain.
there has been a revolution in all of us.
may we carry it with us beyond these walls and use our experiences, different as they may have been, to set little fires of revelation wherever the wind bids us travel, and may others see those flames and bid them grow.
