"They really ARE eating Fried Chicken!"* And Other Racist Things Said to Me in the Past 10 Days

 
Yesterday morning I overslept and was thankful my Indian Law class was over Zoom. For anyone, that would be enough to ruin their Monday however mine only got worse from there because of my identity.

Some context…

Last weekend, I spent 12 hours working on an assignment for one of my law classes only for my professor to tell me that my work “just wasn’t there.” That is was baffling to him how my work can be so inconsistent.” He went further to say that he had to stop reading my assignment because it was so inarticulate and nearly incoherent. These are the comments I have come to expect from him as I regularly have to send several drafts of one assignment before he agrees to issue a grade. This is true paternalism, in that the idea that an older white person believes that it is only at their guidance, that I would be able to succeed in an all-white institution. So, after a truly awful email exchange, I asked him if he was free to meet because I was at a loss as to what to do to improve my assignment so he would agree to grade it. He called me within five minutes. 

The phone call…

The first three minutes of the call he told me what changes I needed to make. Unsurprisingly it was to remove one of my arguments. That’s it! That’s all he needed to say in the email but instead he chose to write, “VAL, I STOPPED EDITING THIS BECAUSE IT IS A COMPLETE MESS.” And yes, it was in all caps.  

It’s the last 25 days of my law school career and I’m tired. When can I be mediocre? According to my white professor, I will always need to be twice as good because there will always be white colleagues who are waiting for me to fail so they can say the only reason I got the job is because I’m Black. He explained how “Blacks” being hired help the company’s bottom line so I should be extremely marketable if I could only “get myself out there.”

During this 26-minute phone call, he also exclaimed how easier it would be if I could paint my skin. He named all of the Black attorneys he has hired while explaining that his firm also has a good amount of gays. In all his infinite wisdom he regularly sends me articles about how to be a leader in DEI work. 

I wish I could say this is my first white faculty member trying to save me from…I’m not sure what, but it’s not. As incidents like this happen to me the most sickening part is, their familiarity.

As an aside… 

In the midst of this phone call my husband came in to give me my new social security card which was supposed to reflect my name but still had part of my deadname. The elation I feel when I look at my driver’s license and it says, “Val Day-Sánchez,” can only be described as ecstatic relief. I cannot wait to see that name—my name— on my law school diploma, and on my passport. So, to go through all the trouble of getting my supporting documents to the social security office for them to send the same deadname back was a punch to the gut. Their explanation was they are not used to changing people’s first names.

Yesterday sucked because when you are not prepared to exist, and by that I mean, if you don’t get a full night’s sleep, a balanced breakfast and are otherwise in the right headspace, the world is always ready to knock you down. To force you to question if you deserve to be here. And for some reason, it’s always our fault when things fall apart. 

That professor was convinced that if I was just better, then the world would have to see me. He continued his monologue of diminishing me at every turn. He talked about how Blacks and gays are getting good law jobs they just have to put themselves out there more. When I mentioned I have published ten books, and am on Tribal Law Journal, he said I should consider publishing where people would actually read it. 

This man, who is convinced that because I cannot paint my skin to look white, (yes, he actually said that, multiple times in fact) that I will just have to grin and bear it as the rest of the world figures out how to be anti-racist. This man who emailed me articles on how to adopt DEI practices (yes he knows about the business I own-training companies in DEI work), who is terrified to use they/them pronouns so he only uses my name. This man, who can only see me as a poor Black girl, so he gives me the harshest (and the most inaccurate) critique of any other student taking the same class. This man, who cannot see past his prejudice to actually give me a grade. This is the man who I get to spend my last semester of law school with. So yeah, this week, even though it’s only Tuesday, has sucked. 

*When the kids and I were enjoying a picnic last week, a white lady and her poodle joked that we were eating fried chicken and then when she saw we actually were, she said out loud, “Oh my God you really are eating fried chicken,” and then fled. Microaggressions at their finest.