I’m Going to Live the Life I Write About - Response Piece

Antar A. Tichavakunda, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Race and Higher Education, University of California Santa Barbara. 

         

Dr. Laila McCloud’s work (Jourian & McCloud, 2020) pushes me to have a more expansive view of Blackness, especially about what I take for granted in understanding Black student identity and their experiences. Continuing the push for an expansive Blackness, McCloud poses critical questions and provocations for anyone invested in higher education and/or diversity, more broadly, in her recent piece. 

“What do we believe about Black college students?” McCloud asks. She urges scholars to examine the complexity, dynamism, tensions, and beauty of Black students’ lives. Yet she offers a critical caveat. Indeed, we must seek to better understand and support Black students, but “not simply in response to the white imagination.” These fundamental provocations beckon scholars who profess to care about Black life to look inward, look to their scholarship, and look to their praxis.

The best questions compel one to respond with a story, taking the questioner on a journey to understanding. I do the same here in response to the piercing provocations McCloud offered.

In meditating upon McCloud’s post, I initially thought about ways that our work converges and my research on Black student life. I smiled, thinking about the circumstance of our first text exchange. She referenced some of my work in a conference presentation and wanted to make sure she had the correct pronunciation of my name. As any of my friends will tell you, I’m always eager to send a voice note. But I was touched by McCloud’s gesture. Rather than hitting the famous “I’m going to butcher this name, I’m sorry,” she reached out to me. The care of this gesture is, in part, what caring about Black life is about. Reflecting both upon such care and her writing pushed me to think about to what extent I model care and thoughtfulness with Black communities in higher education.

McCloud also pushes for intellectual care when studying the multitudes of Black student life. She offers areas ripe for inquiry and quietly outlines entire research agendas for burgeoning scholars—especially her provocations surrounding the labor of what being rendered the “other” or “diverse” does to Black students in predominantly non-Black contexts. In pushing for an expansive Blackness, McCloud is urging scholars to engage in intellectual care when studying Black student life.

Swelling underneath the research ideas swirling in my mind, however, was Mahalia Jackson’s voice over the piano and organ chords of “I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing About in my Song.” Jackson’s song is a proclamation to herself that she will live a life that’s in step with the lyrics of the gospel music she sings:

“I'm gonna live the life I sing about in my song

 I'm gonna stand for right and I always shun the wrong

 If I'm in the crowd, if I'm alone

 On the streets or in my home

 I'm gonna live the life I sing about in my song.”

Of course, Mahalia Jackson is singing about something unique—her song is about living a life more aligned with the Bible. In my work, I center on Black student life and hope to acknowledge and study the expansive Blackness McCloud writes about. My research, at its best, is an affirmation of Black life and an attempt to bend social science into a tool to support Black students and other communities at the margins. Am I living the life I sing about in my song? I wondered, to what extent, was my research, as McCloud put it, was “in response to the white imagination.” I wondered how much of my scholarship matched my praxis. I wondered if I was living the life I was writing about, living the liberatory theories I was thinking about.

My response to McCloud’s work is colored by my present interests, which orbit Critical Race Theory. Music is a common theme in what I’m reading. The Critical Race Theorist, Charles Lawrence (2007), for example, entitles an analysis of varied responses to his research with “What have they done with my song?” Relatedly, perhaps my favorite book by Derrick Bell (1997) is entitled Gospel Choirs: Psalms of Survival In An Alien Land Called Home. It was in Bell’s book that I first learned of Jackson’s “I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing About in my Song.”  

In thinking about if I am living the life I write about, I think about the day-to-day, the material, and the unseen moments. I think of Dr. McCloud texting me to make sure that she had the correct pronunciation of my name. I think of how her asking me has pushed me to be more thoughtful in my work and renderings of other scholars’ work. I think of how I need to do a better job of amplifying the work of scholars who are studying and supporting an expansive Blackness.

I continually reflect on who I am writing for, my audience, and who comes to mind when I think of who reads my work. Dr. Joanna Williams, an editor of a book I wrote a chapter in, recently gave me feedback. To paraphrase, Williams said, “Imagine that the reader is already bought into your argument—that you have a friendly reader. How would this section look if you spent less time defending and justifying your ideas?” Her feedback shifted my thinking about who I am writing for. I continue to reflect upon who I imagine reading my work.

Writing in response to a white imagination, I think, is hard to unlearn. I look at some of the footnotes in my book explaining certain Black cultural forms and practices (Tichavakunda, 2021). I go into great detail explaining what “giving dap” or what a crisp handshake is. I am unsure of if I went to such great lengths to explain it because I was thinking of a non-Black reader who had never heard the term or if I was explaining what such a handshake signifies to any person, regardless of race, who has never felt the satisfaction of giving dap, of creating the resounding thunderclap after a perfectly placed handshake.

Jackson reminds us that we should live the life we sing about, “not for gold, nor fame” but because it’s the right thing, because it’s the aligned thing, and because this way we practice what we preach. Similarly, I read McCloud’s post and thought of how I can continue to show up for all Black students in the capacity that I can on campus. In real life, I stumble through the work of advising Black Student Unions and supporting Black students, but I try my best. Like most things in life, I see this work as a process rather than a destination. The best work, I think, pushes the reader to reflect and grow. So, thank you Dr. McCloud for pushing me to think about how I can get closer to living the life I write about. 

 

References

Bell, D. A. (1997). Gospel choirs: Psalms of survival in an alien land called home. Basic Books. 

Jourian, T. J., & McCloud, L. (2020). " I don't know where i stand": Black trans masculine students' re/de/constructions of Black masculinity. Journal of College Student Development, 61(6), 733-749.

Lawrence III, C. (2007). Unconscious racism revisited: Reflections on the impact and origins of the id, the ego, and equal protection. Conn. L. Rev., 40, 931-978.

Tichavakunda, A.A. (2021). Black campus life: The worlds Black students make at a historically white institution. State University of New York (SUNY) Press.

 

About the Author

Antar A. Tichavakunda received his Ph.D. in Urban Education Policy from the University of Southern California. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Race and Higher Education at the University of California Santa Barbara. Born and raised in Washington, DC, Tichavakunda is a product of DC Public Schools and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education Studies from Brown University. Prior to his doctoral studies, Tichavakunda worked as an 11th grade English teacher in DC Public Schools. Using qualitative inquiry, Tichavakunda has engaged in research on college readiness, Black students’ experiences at predominantly White institutions, and more broadly the sociology of race and higher education. His published work can be found in Urban Education, Educational Policy, Race Ethnicity and Education, The Review of Higher Education, and Educational Studies. His first book, Black Campus Life: The Worlds Black Students Make at a Historically White Institution, is published with SUNY Press. Tichavakunda enjoys watching anime, eating soul food (especially savory grits), and writing in cafes.