Burning Sands, Dean Richardson, and Making Meaning of NPHC's Intake Position As An NPHC Collegiate Advisor

Like every other NPHC greek member by now (or at least a strong contingency), I have sat and watched Gerald McMurray's Netflix movie, The Burning Sands.  As soon as it was released, students from at least three of the five schools for which I have worked began emailing, calling and texting to get my position on the film.  And in some of those conversations, students compared me to both Dean Richardson and Professor Hughes.  Students saw my love and passion for NPHC as being equivalent to Dean Richardson's passion for his beloved fraternity, and at the same time students laughed about having set in my classes much like Zurich, where students confided about their processes and their inability to get work done because of the strenuous nature and time constraints of both the established Intake process that is mapped over the more beloved (and yet "heinous") pledge process.  But, if I'm honest, neither Professor Hughes, but especially not Dean Richardson's character actually describes the complexity of what its like to be an NPHC member working in a collegiate setting, helping to usher in BGLO members year after year.   For me, this makes 15 years of working with collegiate NPHCs (if I'm counting my Grad school years too).

If we are being honest about McMurray's tale of violence and "rogue" pledging, we see him pointing a lot of fingers at why NPHC organization's culture of violence exists.  It's the pledgees fault because they won't tell.  It's the brothers in the chapter because they are perpetuating the violence heaped upon them.  It's the professional university staff and faculty because they know and are either complicit in the hazing or sitting somewhere waiting for students to be the change agents.  It's the chapter alumni who come back to "haze up" new initiates.  But eerily and quietly, there seems to be no mention of the graduate chapters or the national headquarters or the regional leadership, who by the time an initiate gets to "hell week" would have been also knee-deep in national intake requirements.  Why is there no mention of that?  I submit that the silence of graduate chapter/regional/national leadership is intentional in the movie.  It is simply too difficult to imagine that a national intake process and a underground pledge process might be unconsciously working together to create this conundrum.  It would be too much like right to interrogate that our national leadership, since ending chapter pledging, is complicit in the creation of a dangerous underground culture.  It is too complicated to paint both the polemic of graduate/alumni/alumnae chapters as the hazing police, who are comprised of memberships who both despise and uphold the membership intake processes of 2017, but for the most part made through a "pledge" process.  So it is much easier to scapegoat the university by creating tropological antagonists in the characters - the "derelict" Dean Richardson or the "complicit by-stander" Professor Hughes.

However, being on the ground, working directly with NPHC HQs, local grad/undergrad chapters, university administrators (both greek and non-Greek), active/inactive NPHC alum (who significantly give back to their Alma Maters), and a number of community leaders give many NPHC advisors a unique vantage point that is necessary if we really want to tackle NPHCs woes around brutal hazing.  Over my 15 years of working with NPHC greeks as an NPHC greek, I believe that there are at least 5 things that are worth our consideration in these trying and complicated times.

1. NPHC REGIONAL & HQ LEADERSHIP MUST CHANGE THEIR THINKING

I have met some amazing NPHC leaders from HQs and Regional/District/Local levels, who are woefully under-informed about what it takes to manage and develop both local alumni and undergraduate chapters, on a day-to-day basis.  They are well meaning folk who have spent a lifetime going to Boule's and National Conventions, but most of them seem to live somewhere between the binary of their national policy and their own intake experience.  Simply put, that is not enough to make the critical changes needed in our organizations.  And what is worst is that all of the organizations have legal scholars, university leaders, organizational and cultural leaders who are not tapped on enough to train, advise, and develop each of the nine organizations' memberships particularly during the on-boarding of executive transitions.  Just recently at the Annual Conference for the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors, NPHC Advisors around the country asked our national/regional leadership to respond to a set of questions around affordability, LGBT inclusion, policing of undergrad members, hazing, moratoriums and rebuilding chapters.  Those questions not only went unanswered by leaders of each of our organizations, but University officials from around the country were told that they could leave the session if they didn't like what NPHC HQs were presenting, which amounted to the equivalent of Greek 101, which we all put on at each of our campuses because of our University roles  (How dumb are we, if you think that we don't know what NPHC is even as we are charged to work with NPHC on a daily basis as a part of our paid duties?). The "sit down and shut-up approach because you are NPHC" by NPHC leadership resulted in no less than 40-60 advisors executing a mass walk-out at the conference, and dare I say the fraying of relationships between national/regional leadership and university officials.  Be clear, it is not that University officials don't want change, support, or better relationships.  Many in leadership throughout NPHC think they shouldn't be questioned because of their role, and thus model an above-the-law approach that they despise and punish when it comes to both undergrads and alums who don't follow the intake process.

2. GRAD/ALUMNI CHAPTERS SHOULD NOT BE THE POLICE

NPHCs universal model is to have Alumni(ae)/Graduate chapter advisors who serve in a voluntary role to support undergrad chapters.  In the main, and you don't need a ton of research to know this, the model simply doesn't work.  And, it doesn't work for a variety of reasons.  There can be no brotherhood or sisterhood between graduate chapter and undergraduate chapters if the following are true:

- Intake processes between the two groups don't match up

- Grad chapters are dumping grounds for rejects of undergrad chapters

- Grad advisors are no less than two generations removed from the current undergraduate experience

- Grad advisors are only trained to administer protocol/compliance in regards to undergrad chapters

- Do not want younger Sorors/Fraters trained and serving on a undergrad chapter committee

- The legal liability of the undergrad chapter rests with the advisor

Ultimately, this results in grad chapters policing undergrad chapters, rather than mentoring undergraduate members.  I would stake my career that most undergraduate advisors around the country can't name most members of the undergraduate chapter that they advise.  Most undergraduate advisors (and therefore chapters) only see their role in the life of undergrad brothers/sisters as doing compliance work, while most undergrad brothers/sisters come into the organizations thinking that the advisor is going to serve as a mentor.  Most advisors and grad chapters do not know how to mentor...and while we have amazing mentorship programs led by dope NPHC members across the country who work in Public Education, Higher Education, and Non-Profits, not nary an organization has tapped those individuals to train the organizations' advisors.  And, the best advisors in most of our organizations go primarily unnoticed because they usually aren't looking for accolades or exposure.  How you can tell those chapters with great advisorship? Well, most likely the undergrad members talk about that brother/sister a lot...and the chapter is more or less in compliance and most likely flourishing in ways that make others go, "how did they do that there?"  It's true, mentorship matters...NPHC orgs just don't do it well in our own houses.

3. UNDERGRAD AS PLEDGED - GRAD AS UNPLEDGED IS AN IMAGINARY BINARY

So let's talk about the elephant in the room.  There is an imagined binary that undergrads pledge and grad chapters do not, even though they are technically being led by former undergrads who in fact did pledge.  So when brothers and sisters say they were "made" through grad chapters, they are often perceived as not being as thorough around their understanding of history, culture, and even the brothers/sisters in the organization.  Moreover, this binary puts in motion from the start interactions between brothers and sisters in the same organization, creating levels of distrust that have long-term outcomes for relationships.  However, its a bit more complicated than that, and it always has been.  There are grad chapters who don't follow intake guidelines, there are undergrad chapters that do.  There are lines in chapters both undergrad and grad that make it clear that they want (or do not want) a "process"...and sometimes these requests are obliged.  There is no real uniformity in processes from region or state or chapter or area.  Each time is a little different...and most processes, whether we are talking membership intake and underground, or just membership intake have tons of variables that are dependent upon chapter make-up, leadership, current trends, political will, line personality, etc.  What seems to be the constant is the learning of NPHC org information, the discourse around anti-hazing, and the lexicon of NPHC sorority-fraternity life.   Everything else is truly up in the air.  In my time as advisor, I have watched lines that have had a rigorous underground process, but the local leadership was incompetent so the membership intake process was poor.  I have seen a rigorous membership intake process and a weak underground process.  I have seen no underground process, and an average membership intake process.  And all of this has occurred for both undergrads and grads.  That said, we must interrogate the binary of undergrad as pledged and membership intake, and grad only as membership intake in order to have a better sense of the complexity of hazing culture in a 2017 context.

4. POLICY DOES NOT BY ITSELF CREATE CULTURE

In 1990, when NPHC, from a top-down approach, decided to get rid of above ground pledging because  of the severity of the processes and the death/harm of young people, they did so without mass buy-in.  And sense that time, we have sought to create policy and protocol after policy and protocol in order to change the course of the culture of the community.  We continue to miss the mark here because NPHC organizations are unique: they are lifetime, but they are also volunteer.  Thus, you can't mandate behavior if members don't opt in or don't want to comply.  And, getting up telling them to shut up, or that their opinions don't matter only works in a monarchy.  NPHC organizations are not monarchies...even though they sometimes lead with that kind of authoritarian perspective, supported by their own protocol police and policy patrol.  Even though NPHC members should follow policies and protocols set via the national perspective as elected leadership, there has been a strong sense of mistrust between HQ leadership and the local members (active or inactive).  For buy-in to actually occur, NPHCs are going to need to have a forward thinking campaign unveiled at conventions, modeled by leadership, supported by local leadership, and inviting all members to the table.  Treating brothers and sisters as though they are brothers and sisters would go a long way.  This is where NPHC is dramatically different from IFC/NPC, even when wrong-doing has occurred by a chapter, IFC/NPC usually seeks to protect its members. I'm not so sure that NPHC feels the same way about its membership.

5. COMPLIANCE MODELS ARE INCOMPLETE

Lastly, let's just be real clear, most of the NPHC membership intake training modules are woefully incomplete for making good greeks.  Here's how I know, I and every NPHC advisor has to conduct additional training beyond NPHCs intake models to ensure that NPHC chapters can conduct business meetings, hold events, forecast, and create brotherhood and sisterhood in their chapters.  What makes them so inadequate in this day and age is that most of the models only seek compliance.  They teach history, but not the context of history...which is why students can recite the history of their orgs, but don't know what it means in context.  They teach respect for "some" brothers and sisters, but not all brothers and sisters, which is why members cross with such arrogance not recognizing the many hands that made it possible for them to cross including inactive members who may have given money/time/talent, other NPHC greeks who signed off on dates and kept their members in line, University NPHC members who cleared dates, and all of the many non-greek brothers and sisters who are present at Neophyte presentations with gifts in hands (and who may have contributed to the intake fees that are at this point cost prohibitive).  We can tell that this is a compliance model, because you actually don't understand that brotherhood and sisterhood are beyond the bounds of our chosen organization.  The model is incomplete when chapters cannot run effectively, even when its just 1 line in a chapter.  Further, we know that the model is incomplete, because both alumni members and undergrad members have additional time to create (layer on) additional processes that do seem to do "work" that the official processes can't.  From learning the organizations information, to a stronger sense of protocol, to a stronger commitment to completing tasks assigned, to better relationships with others in the organizations...from my vantage point, it seems as though both processes actually feed off of each other...and yet are still incomplete.  Intake seems to teach value in the organization universal and offer some values expected of new members, while the underground process seems to teach information with a rigor to get through a New Member Presentation and to bond lines/people together.  Even still, I'd be lying if I hadn't set through a number of meetings and fix-my-life sessions, with NPHC greeks who still doubted their abilities to flourish.  The processes are both woefully inept at building new members up beyond the superficial exterior of being able to do Invictus with effortless speed and knowing minimally the founders of chapters and national organizations.  And I, for one, am over processes that actually don't support new members' development and wellness.

So, what I'm trying to say, if you've gotten this far, is that HigherEd professionals are well aware of the problems, but the trite simplification of whose at fault is actually more harmful, as we seek "to keep it real" about hazing, pledging, and membership intake.  Most professionals are worried about the state of NPHC and the many students that join.  We want for our students, what some of us didn't get, but what many of us model: meaningful relationships with mentors, brothers/sisters, and new members, an appreciation of brotherhood and sisterhood that shows up in our personal values, a pride about the unique cultural idioms and histories of our organizations, and a lifelong experience that equips us for working in a world that is racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and eurocentric.

After The Crash...(you just gotta get up).

Be clear, Life ain't fair.

And that's still no excuse.

Be clear, you may not reach your goals.

And that's still no excuse.

You may never get married, make a million dollars, have the job you want, raise the child, or earn a grammy.

And still, you are not excused.

I say all of this, because some of us are walking through lives, stuck and turned around.  It's like we were in a crash, and we have spun off the road and are in a ditch, trying to live out our lives by pitching a tent where we crashed.  Imagine trying to build a house at your crash site...cooking breakfast, showering up, and getting dressed, leaving your crash site every morning, only to return to it every night.  Doesn't that sound ridiculous?

Sadly, most of us live at our emotional crash sites.  We hear only the negative commentary about our skill sets, and instead of putting our name in the hat, we play it safe.  We remember only the brokeness of being in love/like/lust, and so we never put ourselves in a position to be vulnerable.  We remember only our hardship, never reflecting on our own triumph.  We are always reminded of others best lives on social media and sometimes in real life, and so we live in regret, never creating what we desire.  Instead, its just easier to be envious.

Okay, so let me be real clear.  It ain't easy to recover from crashes.  Losing mothers suck!  Living without fathers suck!  Having to take time off from school sucks!  Being fired from a decent job sucks!  Not getting in sucks!  Breaking up sucks!  Some things are indeed shitty.  And it takes a while to come to grips with loss, hardship, failure, delay, and disappointment.  In fact, some hurt you will just have to live with.  It won't be fair, it's just what has to be done.

The truth of the matter is that you only get one life to live.  So you must make the most of it.  And wherever you crashed, whatever you crashed into, if you survived, you really only have one obligation.  And, this is an obligation to self.  Honestly, no one else can do it for you, because if you decided to try to build a house around the place where you crashed, people will let you.  They will help you move a couch right in the ditch.  Only a few really close friends will ask the question that you need asked, "what are you doing here?" 

There is good news though, even prophets get scared and run from their gifts, and there is a passage of scripture where a prophet is hiding in the caves.  He's worried about being killed by an evil queen. And no matter, how he feels, God asks, "what are you doing here?"

This is an important question, because most of us can't answer it.  We would rather wallow in self-pity, than do the work it takes to get out of the ditch, and get back on track. By this time, you probably really think I'm talking about you.  In all actuality, I'm really talking about me.

I've had the wind knocked out of me more times than I liked to count.  And, I honestly have meandered down paths that almost invalidate every passion or calling I ever had.  I have never gotten over any death of anybody I love, it triggers me...and I know it.  I, especially, find it hard to go to funerals of children burying mothers.  So, please don't think I'm just talking about you.

What I'm saying is that I owe it to myself to get the help I need to get pulled out of my crash site.  I deserve to be lifted from the ditch, and to have somebody help me have my emotional car towed in for work.  I deserve to be in rehab until the scars have dissipated, and the bones have healed.  I deserve my own fresh start.  And so do you.

But most of us can't get there, because we are still so mad about the crash in the first place.  Listen, I'll write it simply; Forgive yourself, get help, move forward.  I know what I'm saying can take time, but you can't heal unless you realize that you have crashed, and that you aren't healthy to do it by yourself.

So, please get up.

Between Prisons, Death, and Every Aspiration I Ever Had

Both of my parents have been to prison.  They both served some form of time in the prison industrial complex while I was in college.  At least 3-4 of my first cousins have gone to prison. One young cousin went to prison the day I graduated from college in 1998.  At least 3 of my six siblings have spent some time meandering through the prison industrial complex.  And just a few days ago, I was made aware that my youngest brother, the baby of our family, is sitting in a jail cell facing a number of charges.

I, of course, have never been to prison.  I am a college administrator and professor who has the luxury of tying bow ties around my neck, putting on fancy socks, and going into my class or office to teach the latest theory around contemporary Black politics and life. I get to inspire a generation of students, supporting both the lucky and the privileged in their pursuit of academic excellence.  I get to teach Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.  I get to expose students and peers alike to the Ava DuVernay's documentary 13th: I am not severely mapped into the realities of prison life.  You see, I got out...I escaped the trap! At least that's what I think.  Because if I really begin to think about the comprehensive scope of the prison industrial complex, I must admit that I am extremely marred by its influence on my life through its direct effect on my family.

In 1997, I will never forget sitting in Duchess Harris' class about Black Public Intellectuals, when I was at Macalester and discussing the one thing that all Black people have in common no matter how much they (we) hate to admit it.  She said, "the one thing all Black people have in common is that we all have a relative who is either in jail or who has been to jail."  I'll never forget her saying that in a sea of mostly white faces as they pondered Black realities.  The profundity of that statement was so palatable that I sat speechless as I reflected on how my own mother had entered the prison industrial complex in 1995, just as I was starting college.  And, during Christmas that freshmen year, my grandmother had forced me to go up to the jail to see her while I was home on Christmas break.

So you can imagine that I was deeply overwhelmed as I sat in my faculty housing unit watching 13th on Netflix, as my middle brother texted me the news about my youngest brother being confined to a jail cell somewhere in South Carolina.  You see, my middle brother found out right around my birthday, but had sought to wait until after I had celebrated my 40 years of living.  As I sat on the couch reconciling text messages and documentary style visual images, I began to be overwhelmed with emotion vacillating between sadness, anger and helplessness.  And as I thought about all the shit stacked against my young brother's life, I began to cry.  And if I'm keeping it 100, I cried for a complete hour...a complete hour.

I think it was the knowing of the obstacles that really got to me.  I and my siblings' lives read like every vulnerable child's horror story: young dead mother, sickly father, shitty school systems, poverty, limited options, in and out of foster care homes, abuse, homelessness, easy low-level drug access, and the need to be hard in a world that makes your prove yourself.  It's almost cliche its so sad.  Its like Precious meets Color Purple meets Lifetime sad.  And if we really going to be real honest, its not like we couldn't see it coming.  But who am I to tell a father how to raise his son?  Who am I to hop in my Subaru to run down to South Carolina, and pack up bags, and say you are coming with me, all the while knowing I'm barely getting by on my salary?  We had tried it before with two other siblings and it had failed miserably.  So, like a lot of Black people who are striving to be Black excellence personified, I put on my blinders, and tried to just take care of my family...and pray for the best.

Sadly, I am not always so sure that Jesus answers these complex prayers.  I've never seen the end of generational poverty even as I've been faithful to a Black church that has an anti-convict culture, yet sees Paul "jailbird ass" as seminal to theological formation.  And, the inability to make sense of the prison industrial complex at church, makes it even harder to discuss it at Sunday dinner tables.  For the most part, the lucky ones, like me, just run around saying what one of my mentees calls "anything:" "if he had just made better choices," "it really isn't that bad," "you just got to let it go," "you live hard, you die hard." I know I'm not the only one whose heard this kind of respectable, its all your fault rationale.  But the reality is, my brother isn't in jail just because he made bad decisions.  This world is designed for him, and me too, to be commodities of a prison industrial complex.

Coming to that realization breaks my heart.  The prison system disrupts family.  It does not rehabilitate.  It breaks people.  It creates a disenfranchised criminal class, even if you are innocent.  It fosters mental illness.  It turns children into "super predators."  It builds intolerable space between those on the inside and those on the outside.  No one is better because of our prison system, instead it fucks us all.

Right now, I am thinking about the little boy who used to visit me during summers in Atlanta.  I am thinking about how even then you could see that he was brilliant kid, learning Spanish and French at four.  I am thinking about how his mother died when he was 7, and how he was bounced around from home to home.  I am thinking about him being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and how every once and a while he would Facebook message me asking to come live with me...and then change his mind.  I am thinking about how he was enrolled in a community college, after getting out of some form of juvenile detention center.  And, I am thinking about myself...and had I only been independently wealthy or a doctor or a lawyer, I could fix all of this.

I am considering the dissonance between my mentorship of young men in Alpha who will never see the inside of a prison hopefully (but hell, who knows), and my helplessness regarding my own brother.

If I'm honest, I am resentful and hurt and broken because I really don't know what I should do.  So I pray, with the kind of skepticism that says this may be my last time praying.  And right now, the most cathartic thing I have done in the last few days to work through what I'm feeling is to write this post...and to contemplate Prison as a trope of death in light of all the aspirations I've ever had.  And, like my middle brother said, "I close my eyes, kiss my son, and pray to God that he will never see the inside of a prison."

Selah.

A Conundrum of Feelings: On My Last Day in Blue Devil Country

I will never forget the day that I found out that I got in to Duke for grad school.  Both a feeling of wonder and terror filled me.  How wonderful to be considered smart enough to attend a place like Duke, when in fact, the only reason I applied was so that I could be turned down.  And in the same breath, it was terrifying to think that I might be attending a school that had a notorious perception for fumbling with race and class.  Only two years prior in 2006, I and several of my students at Paine College watched from a few hundred miles away in horror at the way in which Duke, with all of its privilege, had reminded us that white men could/can get away with anything.  So it was a little bit funny when I shared with my family that I was quitting Paine to return to school for a seminary education at Duke, to which they replied glibly, "watch out for those Lacrosse players."  It was as if they were talking about a sort of 21st century Klansman.

But my students, classmates, preachers, friends, and family all encouraged me to go, because they understood what "that" kind of credential could mean for my future successes.   My aunts, with their beautiful southern accents, would pronounce every letter when asked, "what is Sean up to these days?"  They would reply with an air of sophistication and pride, "Honey, my nephew is going to DUUUUUUUURKE," as they sat pretentiously waiting for the inquirer's mouth to drop.  Everybody enjoyed announcing that I was headed to a place where any dream I had could be realized.  And if I'm honest, I can admit that I really had only come to be credentialed, so that I could head back to some HBCU.  And if pushed too far by idiocy or black bourgeois tendencies, I too could pronounce that I had gone to "DUUUUUUUURKE"...in hopes that it would shut up the questioner.  

I, with my healthy spirit of distrust for white spaces (mostly brought on and cultivated by my undergraduate Alma Mater), attended Duke with an overwhelming feeling that I would NOT be here long.  But, its almost been a decade.  I am literally two years shy of that.  And, I could have never imagined that when I was coming to Duke and to Durham that I would be here as long as I had lived in Atlanta.  In fact, too much has happened to me at Duke, in Blue Devil country.

In my first year here, I lost my mother, and at the same time reconnected with my father. And since that first year, each year at Duke has teetered between one extreme of despair and another extreme of hope. I've had to witness the burial of two very close friends, even as I was on my way to the altar to get married.  I've had to deal with my disappointments around ministry, even as I found much purpose in unofficial pastoring/ministering to colleagues and students.  I've had to wrestle with my own insecurities as a former foster kid in a place where so many have beautiful and loving families.  And, I've had to deal with a lack of resources, even as I welcomed my son, and started a small business.  For me, the Duke experience isn't all bad or all good. It's probably a bit of both in this land of opportunity/inequity.

When I look back at my time at Duke, I actually find myself wrestling with an honest thought about the place.  I sometimes don't know what to think, because to feel only one way about Duke is...probably to not acknowledge the most complex set of feelings that I've ever had.  Maybe its best to think about it in short memories.  Duke is the feeling of gratitude, when students have shed tears as I packed boxes to embark upon a new journey, promising to never forget me.  Duke is the feeling of shame, when overhearing how some student or administrator made a worker feel during an interaction.  Duke is the feeling of success, when watching a classmate create the #LemonadeSyllabus or get into Med/Law School or run after their dream.  Duke is the feeling of inadequacy, when realizing you aren't one of those people...and that you may not be as brilliant as you think.   Duke is the feeling of love, when you go to or participate in two former Duke students' wedding.  Duke is the feeling of exploitation, when you realize that sometimes peers and friends have no idea who you are...and only want you for the things you can produce.

And, all of this is true in my life.  Duke seems to be a place that doesn't want to be pinned down in my cannon of feelings.  And maybe its this pendulum that made it possible to have more days than I'd like to admit in which I wanted to leave Duke.  Too, there were moments of sublime joy that came at the end of long hard work.  Right now though, I think I'm a little sad.  I am sad that too many black people never get to enjoy Duke, even as they work and go to Duke.  I am sad too many of us experience the traumas of nooses, even as we are told to keep pushing here.  I am sad that Duke's invitation to come, isn't an invitation to be.  I am sad that I am leaving students and peers here to fend for themselves.

I am, though, happy.  I am happy to be able to enjoy Duke as an alumnus.  I am happy to be in a position where I believe I will be able to make changes in others lives.  I am happy to know Duke as my own...and to be able to challenge it, having worked their.  I am happy for the change of pace, the opportunity to be managed differently, the possibility of new growth.

On my last day at Duke, I am reflecting on all of the conversations, all of the struggle, all of the camraderie, all of the brilliance, all of the heartache, all of the tears, all of the joy...

I'm reminded of something a classmate said years ago when I first arrived.  He said, "going to Duke as a Black man, is like having dinner at a Plantation."  And I would add, working at Duke, "is like making the food on a plantation."  I am thankful though that my guests were willing to eat what I prepared...even when they didn't know how it was being prepared.  So, when you ask me about this place...I have no idea what I have just experienced. Maybe as my grandmama would say, "I will understand it better by and by."

But it's my last day in Blue Devil country...so maybe its best just to take it all in...and consider "how far I've come from where I started from." Until I can figure this last take home test out, I'll just say that Duke will always be more than I hoped for, and eerily less than I expected.

A Sad but Open Secret: Durham's Black Young Adult Church Community Problem

By the time you read this, another Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance (IMA) City Wide Revival will have come and gone.   For five nights, IMA held revival at Union Baptist Church featuring some of the most well known and respected Preacher/Theologians/Pastors in the country.  I think all of the pastors featured were under fifty, began preaching early in life, and have strong Social Justice ministerial perspectives.  Representing no less than three main line traditions (Baptist, UCC, AME Zion), the preachers featured have been (are) known to draw a large cross-section of Black generations from teens to seasoned saints when they preach.  And for sure, two of the preachers featured, have large cross sections of a very elusive God conscious group - Young Adults (18-40).

However, even at this annual City Wide Revival with three preachers known to "say it," the packed crowd featured mostly Seasoned Saints, with very few people under 40 sprinkled throughout the cavernous Baptist church.  Some would say that this is business as usual for mainline Black church traditions, particularly in a place like Durham, North Carolina.  However, Durham is teeming with young adults who are attending one of the three powerhouse schools: the prestigious Duke University, the large historically Black North Carolina Central University, and the flagship University of the state,  University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.  Again, I say, Durham is teeming with entrepreneurial young professionals and families who have moved to Durham because of its economic development and careers in research, education, sciences, medicine, and engineering.  Again, I say, Durham is teeming with young adults who are creative types, entrepreneurs, social justice advocates, and just really cool people looking to make this city a unique and innovative community.  If I'm honest, I run into them all the time...out for dinners, at concerts and plays, at my job, in Greek life...they have even lived next door to me.  And if I'm really being honest, most of them are having a hard time finding a place to practice and share their faith.  If I had a nickle for every time somebody asked me about where to go to church in Durham, I'd be a rich man.

One would assume that since I had gone to divinity school at Duke and thus know quite a few seminarians, that we would all have the answer about where to go to church in Durham.  Unfortunately, for most of us, just like our non theologically trained counterparts, we are all having difficulty finding church homes in a city packed with churches, with few options actually available.

It goes a little something like this.  If you go to, let's say, Church A, that is theologically sound, meaning the pastor/congregation is studied, you will not see a single young person for the rest of your young adult life. There won't be any young adult programs at Church A (because you are it).  You will never hear any music that is remotely connected to where you are...or message about where you are.  Contemporary music is defined as hymns...and Richard Smallwood...seriously, Richard Smallwood!

If you go to say, Church B, and be clear, there is only one Church B, you will be in a sea of young adults (7-10K of them).  But, the church will not have a clear polity or theology, different from those of us raised in say a Baptist, AME Zion, or UCC church context.  You will not be connected to actual Durham, because Church B is situated on the outskirts of Durham, and the pastoral leadership of the church is not involved with the city, outside of the concerns of Church B, which seem to be only aimed at recruiting students from the local colleges.  Church B also has a horribly sexist reputation in dealing with women...so there's that. But in Church B's defense, the music is really good contemporary Praise and Worship.  If you are looking to see elder saints, they won't, in the main, find them at Church B.  Also, I would like to note that all of the other churches hate this church because they feel like it has created Young Adult drain (taking Young Adults, like a theological Pied Piper from all of the other churches in the city).  So, you will never see Church B's pastor in the company of Church A, C, D or E's pastor.

If you go to Church C, you will hear the thickest most problematic prosperity theology you will have ever heard in your life.  Let's just call it the church strip club because there will be $25, $50, and $100 lines.  Worship will be charismatic, but you will feel like you are constantly being hustled to keep the doors of the church open by giving resources that you might want to go elsewhere.  And, there will never, ever be a word or mention from the pulpit of Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, The Charleston 9...nothing.  There are lots of these types...so be careful.

If you go to Church D, it is literally DEAD.  The pastor might be well meaning, but his/her church is on life support.  And at these kinds of churches, their are usually many reasons why a church would be on life support...and all of them amount to a mix of inhospitable behavior, worship clashes, and church politics.  Again, there are no young people here...because young people's lives are messy enough that most of us don't want to go to churches like that.

If you go to Church E, you will be an ornament.  They will have 10 young people (who visit church B on occasion), which sit quietly biding their time to lead or sing or pray.  But ultimately, you haven't been in town long enough to do anything there.  To be fair, there are quite a few E's around town.  Too, you will notice something off that will make you question your membership...like an over the top theology of hell, or only a few people are favorites, or lack of pastoral leadership, or you are in church for 4 hours regularly...etc.

Then, if those don't work, there is always Church X, the multicultural/multiracial church...filled with a multicultural/racial congregation...but...most (if not all) of the staff are white.  Most of the traditions are culturally white.  Most of the songs are culturally white.  Let's just be honest and call it what it is....it's a church plantation.  So there's that.

And after you visit those churches for a few weeks/years/months, you are either resigned to fill your car with a tank of $2.50/gallon gas to travel to Raleigh, or to sit at home and stream your pastor from another city.  You could also accept defeat, and thus sit and whither away any life you have in A, B, C, D, E or X's congregation...ultimately hoping that God moves you to another city where the church culture is "poppin!"  

Now from the established Durham church community, they are going to say that you are looking for too much -  a perfect church.  When you run down what you are looking for in a congregation it doesn't appear to you that it is lofty:  Tradition and Innovation, Clear Polity/Theological Framework, Inter-generational, Youth/Young Adult/Family Programs, Music for a Variety of Age Groups, Regular Sermons that acknowledge the need for Personal Holiness and Black Liberation, Pastoral Mentors, and Connection to Durham.  In all honesty, its really not a challenging list of things that you are asking for.  Now people will say that it is, but you will have the experience of living in other parts of the state/country...and thus you can create a laundry list of churches from Winston Salem to Augusta, GA, to Atlanta to Philadelphia to DC that meet these basic criteria - and thus flourish because of it.

But just maybe established Black Durham churches have given up trying to provide opportunities for new comers who want an IPod experience in a haven of "record player" kinds of churches. It also could be that there is no major pastor under the age of 40 who is a part of the black church landscape creating a voice and visual for those of us wanting more from our Durham community.  Maybe, people have grown accustomed to really bad church, because they don't know any better.  Or maybe the seminaries in the area, who provide the lion share of education to preachers/pastors in the area have mis-shaped the theology of a community leaders who do not benefit from having young people in any of the churches, unlike the Durham community. Who knows.  

The sad reality is that there are quite a few people who live in Durham looking for church homes only to realize that what is here is ultimately toxic to what they've been given in other spaces already...and so they resign themselves to drift.  The real question is what would it take for Durham to have an actually dynamic and engaged Black church community?  A lot of my friends believe that we need to start more churches.  But I don't know if that's the answer.  Some people I know think that we will just have to be patient, until some pastor dies or is put out of his/her pulpit?  But, what about the myriad of young people grappling with spiritual crises now. 

I don't know the answer, but my thought is for Durham churches (and their leadership) to evaluate their strategic engagement plans (hoping they have some) for reaching the people who are charged with keeping the doors of the church open in only a few short years.  Moss, during the revival, mentioned how churches might need to adjust the way in which they engaged younger generations.  I'm personally thinking this is overdue, because even though we like vinyl for its nostalgia, the technology that produces the Ipod is the environment that we live and work in.  That's simply my way of saying that it is time that Black Church Durham engage its community...not as it was in 1990 when John P. Kee still lived here.  Instead, Black Durham must seek to push ahead sharing its legacy with new people who have a new way and bring with them all of the innovation that their work week requires of them.  From my eight years of living here though, it seems like Durham's old vanguard may simply be bent on standing alone in legacy...as it dies a slow and painful death. 

Until then, a few young people will wait patiently until the next IMA revival to be fed by pastors whose sermons speak and resonate with where they are.  Until then, seminarians will dream about when they are pastoring and how they will change things.  Until then,  Black Young Adults will have to make choices that are all...well...underwhelming.  What's more unfortunate is that the Black Church community really could do a great work by forming Black Young Adults at a time when quite a few are now giving up on the church altogether.  And, Black Young Adults could create the dynamic church environments lacking in much of Durham's Black Church landscape.    Maybe this is a great time to place a scripture.  Jesus said it best, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."

Standing On Unknown Shoulders: Why Black Kids at PWIs Need To Support and Appreciate HBCUs

When NPHC decided to name their greek week, "A Different World," after the famed Cosby Show spin-off about the HBCU experience that ultimately inspired millions of Black children to attend college, it was no surprise that the Mary Lou Williams Center (MLWC) saw a golden opportunity to inspire, educate and reflect.  NPHC week takes place on the same week Duke faces Durham's only historically Black University, North Carolina Central University (NCCU), in football.  While there has always been a strong connection and history between Duke and NCCU, particularly in the sports, NPHC's programming ultimately opens the door for other considerations beyond this mighty sports tradition.  We know for sure that NCCU's NPHC community helped to jumpstart Duke's Black greek community.  Too, quite a few of NCCU's students have studied at Duke, like Rev. Dr. William Barber...and quite a few Dukies have studied at NCCU, including our beloved Dean Sue Wasiolek.  But what more do Duke students, and Black Duke students in particular know about the HBCU experience?  

For members of NPHC, all roads lead to Howard University, as it is a critical place in the development of the Black Greek Letter Organization Movement.  However, for most Duke Black students, HBCUs are often seen as a caveat in the landscape of higher education.  And given class, race and prestige politics, some Black students (and administrators/faculty) might even see these schools as lesser than their own Duke experience, choosing only to engage (minimally) socially, and instead remain aloof to the critical intellectual, historical, and institutional legacies of HBCUs.

For the MLWC, we recognize the validity, magnitude, and beauty of an HBCU education...and its indelible fingerprint on the Higher Education landscape.  For us, invariably as a cultural center, we see HBCUs as having a rich and vibrant cultural tradition that seeks to be one of the mechanisms for educating their constituent communities.  Historically, HBCUs gave us students, who were the first to integrate places like Duke.  Educationally, most Black teachers (of a certain age) trained in the US were developed at HBCUs...so in our life times, if we have been taught by Black teachers, they were probably trained at HBCUs.  In our families, HBCU alums represent, in the main,  our personal advocates of excellence in education.  Lastly, the HBCU model of education, informs other culturally Black models of education around the world where indigenous populations have faced inequity in systems of apartheid.

So why should students at Duke have a thoughtful understanding of HBCUs even as they race to professions in Law, Medicine and Business?  Well, for one, without them, we could not be beneficiaries of a Duke education!  Too many of their fingerprints create the space we now inhabit.  At Duke, many HBCU alumni serve as resources and leaders.  From the esteemed Dr. Karla Holloway to the daring Dr. Paula McClain to the beloved Linda Capers, HBCU alumni make an indelible impact upon the Duke brand. Secondly, we continue to be in a place where many Black PWI alumni are leading (and have led) HBCUs.  Our very own Michael J. Sorrell, leads Paul Quinn College currently!  Thirdly, and probably most importantly, HBCUs continue to provide educational opportunity for a wider array of students (than most prestigious PWIs are willing to accommodate).  It is this point that the MLWC would emphasize as an ongoing social justice effort by HBCUs. And, as we embark on a journey to examine Black philanthropy, we believe that supporting HBCUs could be one easy way to ensure that the doors of education will always be available to anyone who seeks to access it.  

Moreover, this week's programming in the MLWC seeks to examine how "A Different World" poignantly addresses intra-racial conflicts.  And while we will be helping students consider how Hillman (the ficticious school of "A Different World") and Duke are both alike and different, we ultimately seek to help our students engage the HBCU experience even though they did not choose it.  We recognize that a current Duke student could be the next HBCU college president, philanthropist, and/or graduate/professional alumni.  At the same time, maybe a grandmother, father, friend, boss or future coworker is an alumnus of one of those institutions.  In this case, we seek to remind our students that an HBCU education is a beautiful stepping stone to success!

Join us all week long for programming around the HBCU through screenings and conversations about "A Different World."

Playing Dead In Order To Live: A Reflection on The Terrorist Act at Mother Emanuel

At 110 Calhoun Street, in Charleston, South Carolina, a little girl played dead, after a white male terrorist shot no less than five clips of ammunition piercing at least 9 brown bodies during what was a prayer service.  The gunman, now identified as Dylann Roof, sat through an hour of prayer service, at Mother Emanuel church before offering a cringe worthy diatribe on why Black people in the US had to go; and after offering it, he followed his words as he executed black preachers, teachers, elders, mothers, fathers, politicians, and ushers.  However, a little child survived this incident by playing dead.

The thought of what that child endured in that time period has made me cringe, cry, pray, and curse.  As I sat at a conference more than 700 miles away, I thought about that little girl, and the many who were directly involved in and victimized by the incident.  And, I thought about the many ways my story laid on the floor of that church bleeding out in agony.  You see, I am from South Carolina, and I am a graduate of Lexington County schools where Dylann Roof attended school.  I was raised in the AME church, and a preacher.  I am an Alpha, like brother Pinkney.  I attended CAU, like sister Cynthia Hurd.  And my family has been in the process of designing a family reunion in Charleston, where we had hoped to visit the famed Mother Emanuel AME Church.  For me, there are too many touch points that connect my life to those who went to church to seek Jesus' abundant life, and unfortunately found themselves dying after prayers that surely spoke of hope.

Meanwhile, in Indianapolis, I'd been seeking to make sense of my training institute where I had been putting difficult questions of race and culture on the table for Fraternity and Sorority professionals.  At the conference, I'd been pressing my colleagues to think about how conceptual frameworks of race work in our organizations, as we sat on the grounds of a Republican affiliated country club and hotel.  As many Black colleagues found themselves having taboo conversations about race, Black greek life experiences, and the challenges of working in predominantly white institutions, we began to form a small circle sitting next to each other as our facial expressions often indicated when we felt we were being fed political rhetoric, or outright lies about some southern fraternity/sorority traditions.  There were many times, we asked questions, but there were also quite a few times we set silent, seeking to not jeopardize burgeoning relationships and careers.

While we could have never imagined that the day before the close of the conference someone would walk into a Black church and shoot up the place, that was exactly what happened, pushing us to consider both the merits of our time at the conference, and how we might navigate the conversations that would later ensue.  It was a sobering and saddening moment.  While I found out late Wednesday night about what had happened, I really began my reading of the event on Thursday afternoon as I sat waiting in the hotel lobby.  Immediately, the stories of AME congregants sitting in the church caused uncontrollable tears to roll down my eyes.  I would periodically put down my phone because I couldn't take much more, but I would undoubtedly pick it up, seeking to know more, as my phone beeped with updates from friends around the country who wanted to touch base with me about the incident.

As I read the story of the young girl who played dead, I thought about the meaning of that - that a child would play dead in order to preserve her life.  What a heavy thought when we consider our lives.  This revelation manifested: it's funny how many of us play dead every day, trying to preserve our own livelihoods.  Now think about that for just a moment.  What does this really mean, you ask?  I'm wondering how many black people in places of leadership remain silent, IE dead, as black people wait for our advocacy.  How many black business professionals remain silent even as they note the depth of inequity in the economy? How many black education professionals stand silent in meetings where their ability to understand and advocate are necessary for student access?  I'm wondering right now, how many black pastors will overlook the nuances of race on this coming sunday morning, choosing to play it safe in the pulpit?  

Too many of us are playing dead every day that we live, work, and play in spaces of privilege.  Our respectability politics, our lack of cultural competency, and our lack of race consciousness, as well as a eurocentric, white supremacist system (along with its many actors) that leaves children lying on the floor playing dead as gunshots ring out.  Over the course of the past year, I continue to learn that while it may be unpopular, I have a responsibility to speak life and advocate for communities in peril.  The seminal question of the early 20th century asked in the Black Women's Club movement continues to be important:  "How will you move the race forward?"  Positions of advocacy are important in Republican Country Clubs, in meetings with Vice Presidents, at our Fraternity gatherings, and in our churches.  To sit in silence about racism and domestic terrorism, even as we advocate for better compensation packages for ourselves, is to stand outside of the traditions that make it possible for us to have access.  

Tonight, I don't just grieve the people who died, I also grieve a president who can't say race in a lame duck period of his tenure.  I grieve black pastors who talk about destiny and prosperity, but not about race, responsibility and community.  I grieve professionals who mumble under their breaths about things that should be voiced aloud.  I grieve students who collect opportunities for themselves, without asking themselves how they will use what they've been given to empower the world.  I grieve black people willing to say ain't that a shame, but nothing else.  I grieve. I grieve. I grieve.

Though Denmark Vesey's church is invoked in this passage, I am reminded of something that another radical black voice said.  Meet Nat Turner, who once said before his own death:"…I reverted in my mind to the remarks made of me in childhood, and the things that had been shown me – and as it had been said of me in my childhood by those by whom I had been taught to pray, both white and black, and in whom I had the greatest confidence, that I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any use to any one as a slave."  As such, I have decided not to play dead in times of convenience, because no child should ever have to lay down in pulpits meant for hope playing dead as gunshots ring out...hoping to live to see another day.