Math Aunty

As a socially aware Black American woman in 2016, there are lots of things that aren’t math going on in the world that require my attention. I’ve got to keep a running tab of the growing list of implicit rules for black folks to have non-deadly interactions with police officers (even when so many will ignore the implicit bias that makes these rules necessary). I’ve got to pay attention to the deconstruction of political correctness in speech (passive violence) increasing active violence against certain communities (or what I like to call “The Removal of The Hood on White Supremacy”). I’ve got to make sure I never interact with a black man who forgets to add the “or I’m going to kill you” to “Can I get your number?” (Don’t worry white women, black men know not to fuck with y’all.) I’ve got to protect myself from white feminists who use me and my ideas to boost themselves and their egos, but fall back on their white privilege and willful ignorance as an excuse to even attempting to understand my experience. The list goes on and on. Math used to be my personal solace from thinking about these issues, but as it’s been getting harder and harder to isolate my brain from thinking about social/environmental/political issues, it’s also getting harder and harder for me to focus on math.

As far as those issues, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better because white folks are showing out as they’re realizing that the demographics of America have changed significantly. So what can I do to succeed in my program? To be clear, I firmly believe that I have the intellectual capacity to get a PhD in mathematics. However, I often doubt I have (or will have for 4-5 more years) the necessary tenacity. So, I decided to compare my environment in undergrad to my environment in grad school- what things are missing now that weren’t missing then? I came up with some pretty good answers.

1. A supportive friend group that I could be myself around. It may seem like the “supportive” part is the most important, but really it’s the “that I could be myself around.” I had been spending time with people who I was afraid to be myself around. Either I felt like they wouldn’t like me (those became the ‘oh wells’) or I felt like the brutal (but constructive) honesty that is my nature would hurt them. I prioritized their pain because I’m an empathetic person, but holding back in that way is actually kind of stressful. I realized that I can only be myself around people who I feel can handle my honesty and I’m working on rebuilding my friend group(s).
2. A physical environment to talk about those issues with people that generally have the same view as I do. Sometimes, I need to say the things that are floating around in my head so that I can stop thinking about them for a while. I’m slowly finding people that agree with me on these issues and also don’t mind talking about these issues. Granted, my class advisor has been suggesting (since last year LOL) ways that I could connect with people here that hold similar views, but I didn’t realize how necessary it is to have such a space.
3. A space to do work in that doesn’t easily remind you of all the other things you want to think about. At the present moment, this looks like a space without Trump paraphernalia or anything else that suggests support for the oppression of any group. So I need to make sure that my room is almost always clean enough to work in, because in Kansas, it’s kind of hard to get away from the other stuff.
4. Creating time for other passions. I am passionate about injustice, so for me, this looks like creating time to write. I’m working on a book and several blog posts right now, but I haven’t made significant progress on them because I keep convincing myself that I could use that time doing math. And then I’m doing math at way less than the necessary capacity to learn or retain information because I’m thinking about everything else. I’ve tried to do the “Okay, for these hours I’m going to do math” but that won’t work without the “Okay, for these hours I’m going to write.”
5. Not worrying about finances. To that end, I’m going to put a lot of effort into applying for fellowships and scholarships. Financial stress takes much more of a toll on me than even I think. I also have to be less proud about finances and stop being shy about asking people to help me. Most people in my program come from financially stable backgrounds so I have to stop beating myself up with thoughts like “They’re doing this with the same amount of money that I have” because they didn’t start with the same deficit that I started with.

Whenever any number of these five things happens in an isolated moment, I have “good math days” so I need to focus on making sure these five things are happening mostly simultaneously for increasingly long periods of time so that I can ensure my success in my program. I share this as a reminder for myself and with the hope that friends struggling through their own journeys start to think about the things they need to do to continue to build the tenacity to reach their goals. ❤