I had student meetings today and I am emotional. That's my content warning.

Every year that passes, it is more likely that the black women on campus - any campus where I am - will find me. I love it.

I've also noticed a trend to our conversations. With some generalizations to protect the innocent, here that convo goes:

First and foremost, you. are. not. crazy. The thing that professor said to you? It happened. The implication your colleague made about you? It was said. That rule that seems to be suspiciously applied? Yep, it's a thing.

That's it. That's what I am here to tell you and if no one else has said it to you it is because, one, they don't hire black woman at your university and, two, if they do, they find a million ways to silence us. But if no one has told you lately: YOU ARE NOT CRAZY.

Now, the reason why you are doubting yourself? That's another story. Maybe you went to the good schools, k-12. They've told you racism ended. Or, your parents wished it were true and told you that too. Or no mentioned that gender would also matter.

Or, you went to less good schools in k-12 and no one had the time or the resources or the safety to tell you. Or your parents and family and community told you but they've never gotten this far and could not know how fine-grained the sexist racism could be.

Or you feel lucky just to be here. Hey, it's not picking cotton or working a call center or cleaning a hospital. Or we tell you that you are lucky to be here, implicitly & explicitly, and so you forget that you need the knowledge that you got from the community that got you here

After I tell you that you have not made it up, this thing did happen to you, I often tell you something else. It is something that was said to me and probably saved my life in graduate school:

"This place was fucked up when you got here, it will be fucked up when you leave here. All you can control is how much you let it fuck you up in the process.'

That is a pretty impolitic stance but I stand by it. I don't think these institutions can support us or love us. And I honor the many many people who work to make them more humane. But you, alone, can not do that. And you cannot do it, ever, by killing yourself.

You will have so many invitations to your own funeral. Folks who love you and like you and respect you will even send them. But you don't have to show up for that. If there isn't a collective movement happening? You can't stand in that gap alone. Don't let these folks kill you.

After all of that, I hope you spend that time when you would have been dressing for your funeral on the parts of this messed up system that *can* be enjoyable. Do that, get one skill while you're here, and get out as efficiently as you can.

There are just too many sisters, competent and worthy as they need to ever be, in my office or in some airport or a lobby somewhere crying. And I am hurt by it all.

And so that's the gist of my meetings in case you've ever thought about having one with me.

(I also have a whole thing about making up a dog to get out of violent exchanges as much as you can, but that's not for #onhere.)