Color: Brown
Sex: XX
Occupation: PhD student
What does that make me: Bottom of the academic food chain
As much as I want to act like it isn't, being a black woman trying to get a PhD is truly a struggle. There are people you work with that haze you because they were hazed. There are those who believe in you, and those who subtly, but constantly let you know that they don't think that you are capable. "What school did you go to again? How much research experience do you have? What classes have you taken." These are questions they ask you, it's there way of telling you that they don't believe in you. Yet, you have to find the courage to fluff up your tits and keep going. You have to constantly pick your face up, pull back your hear and dig in the work. There come's a day when you look around you and realize that you are the bottom of the food chain. You are the plankton and sea urchins; ripened for the palette of the villainous sharks. And they show no mercy. You just have to find your natural defense mechanism to fend them off. It's a struggle, but like a very wise mentor said to me, "F**k them! At the end of the process guess what they will say? DOCTOR."
