“Don’t Talk About It, Be About It: A Model of Material Support for Black Graduate Students”
by Lida Colón, Digital Black Lit and Composition (DBLAC) | Xchanges 15.1, Spring 2020
DBLAC Programs
The VWG is a virtual writing space “open to all writers across disciplines and communities” via web portal facilitated and utilized by members that encourages attendees to check in with their specific goals for that session and check in periodically with encouraging and affirming thoughts for one another, facilitating cross-cultural community and writing accountability (DBLAC Virtual Writing Group, n.d.). The open nature of these sessions encourages the kind of coalition building not only between Black scholars but other scholars of color and white scholars that is essential to equitable futures. VWGs are the most frequent of the Signature Programs—they met 41 times over the 2019 summer months; there are now 60 sessions each academic term. There are early, mid-day, and late sessions that last either four or six hours, and participants are welcome to enter and exit the group as their schedules allow. The accountability and flexibility of VWGs have personally served to relieve me of the pressure of working every minute of the session; I feel accountable to the tasks I’ve shared with the other participants and work in a more concentrated way, affording myself less guilty breaks from my work. VWGs also encourage students to be conscious of work stamina and expectations of productivity, which is essential for graduate students, particularly those of us grappling with imposter syndrome exacerbated by cultural alienation (Sales, 2020). Encouragement from Black graduate students is a powerful negation of the academy’s dismissal of our perspectives and concerns. The representatives of nextGEN (Kumari, Baniya, & Larson, 2020) discuss reactions to these concerns by professional bodies; there are countless anecdotes of Black students that speak to this as well. The community fostered in the VWG’s has been invaluable in building crucial confidence in my skills that provides the stamina I need to finish my program successfully and contribute to a necessary and growing professoriate.
The DBLAC Reading Series is the most direct exposure to Black scholarship. A book is chosen by founders Drs. Khirsten Scott and Lou Maraj, now both faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, who coordinate with organization members a book giveaway, a Twitter chat, and a webinar-style discussion of the book open to the public on the organization’s Twitter feed. The author participates in the chat, a crucial component of the program’s benefit to Black graduate students specifically. Not only are students in contact with the scholarship and each other, but with the author as well—a Black scholar in the field. These reading series also provide community in a space where my perspective as a Black student is not dismissed or tokenized—as can happen in predominantly white classrooms—but respected, considered, and constructively critiqued.
The most comprehensive of the three initiatives is hosted by the founders. The Writing Retreat gathers Black graduate students “in any field related to the study of Black people” and one Scholar-in-Residence (“Signature Programs”). Completely funded by DBLAC (food, lodging, a travel budget, even travel grants for scholars who are coming from far away), the weekend is filled with professional development, networking, and writing groups with guidance from supportive faculty. Perhaps most importantly, the Writing Retreat provides a space for Black graduate students to be their entire selves outside of the academic space. This immersion in an academic environment that both welcomes and mirrors Black graduate students—particularly regarding our investment in our communities—is invaluable.