by Sean Novak, Department of Psychology
I was born in 1980, being raised in the city of Detroit up until 5th grade. I moved a lot during middle school, bouncing around to Farmington Hills, Linden, South Lyon, and ending up in Fenton where I went to high school. Through the early '90s I would come back home to Detroit every other weekend and stay with my dad. It was a lot of adjustment. Detroit is a predominately black community. These other communities were (and still are) overwhelmingly white. As difficult as that adjustment was it also provided me a particularly unique experience as it relates to race and inequality. My foundation in a predominately black community provided me an experience that was very different from most of my peers in those other communities I lived in. In fact, during the '90s as I navigated these communities, I experienced a culture that was largely not accepting and accommodating to black families.
As a young white boy coming from a black community, I certainly brought cultural aspects with me that reflected that community as I did what most kids do and replicate the culture of my peers. This was not received well in these predominately white communities. I was seen by many as a “race traitor.” It was not easy. I would never claim to know the "black experience” (not that there is a single, monolithic experience), but my childhood did afford me a level of racial consciousness as it relates to our black brothers and sisters. At the end of the day, I am still white and must be very intentional in deconstructing the garbage that the world has fed me about people who are not white.
When I went to college at Central Michigan University, I brought these experiences with me. I also brought with me the perception that I had developed about those who I did not have much intimate contact with. For example, I remember at 18 driving on the Isabella Indian Reservation and believing that I was going to see Native Americans in tee pees and loin cloths. At some point, I had to reflect on how I got to that point of my perception. I also remember assuming every person I met in college who was of east or south Asian descent was an international student. I also remember having a conversation with a man of middle eastern descent and asking him where he was from. When he answered with "a suburb of Detroit." I pressed further. “No, like where are you FROM from?” My racial and cultural ignorance was glaring. My world had been in black and white.
Looking back now, had I not engaged in some intensive self-work over the last 20-plus years I cannot imagine the substandard support I would be giving to students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds as myself. Part of that process was deconstructing my own socialization. What did I learn implicitly and explicitly about racialized others from my family, peers, media, the state, my religion, in school, etc.? What could I do to counter the messages that I received which were not accurate? This is a life-long process but ir has also been a liberating one. Letting go of perfectionism and starting to understand and embrace my imperfections without becoming complacent with them has allowed me to breath. It has also helped me learn how to serve others better.