up
howdy now that doesn’t even sound right
coming out of my mouth these are some of
the things that you may not have to
think about but me I wake up every
morning and I look in the mirror and I
try to figure out how can I present
myself to this world without being seen
as a threat actually how can I present
myself to this world without being seen
as a threat and also remaining myself at
the same time that’s tough tougher than
you think let me tell you why that is my
name is Harold Wallace the third I was
born and raised in Los Angeles
California not the glamorous Hollywood
beautiful sunsets and beaches la that
you might have seen in the movies but
the real LA born in Inglewood California
lived in Compton lived in Hawthorne and
many other cities in the Los Angeles
County but Inglewood has this really
cool tagline and it’s on all the
billboards and all the signs and it says
city of Champions which is true that’s
where the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los
Angeles Kings played they’re in their
glory years in the 90s right there in
the Great Western forum in Inglewood
California so let me tell you a little
bit about my upbringing and why I have
some of the struggles I have today I’m
not sure if you guys are somewhat
familiar with the gang violence and the
gang culture that’s in Los Angeles but
did you know that there are over 450
active gangs in Los Angeles County with
most of them being over 50 years old
which means that there are Gen
on top of generations of generations of
gang bangers bangers with over 45,000
members currently active right now
outside of the prison system so imagine
this walking out of your house looking
both ways to cross the street and as you
cross the street somebody walks up to
you and says hey were you from I’ll let
you know now that those three words are
the most intimidating and threatening
words that you can hear as an
african-american male in Los Angeles
especially from someone that you have
seen and will continue to see in your
neighborhood daily so let me take a
quick second to basically tell you guys
and tell my parents thank you guys for
letting me be here today
my mother and my late father rest in
peace but also want to apologize to my
mother my beautiful mother because some
of the information that I’m about to
share with you all today is new news to
you and new news to her as well now
don’t get me wrong some of the things
that I’m about to say now may be a
little bit rough but can you imagine
seeing a man shot with the 12-gauge at
the age of seven and not being able to
tell anybody there’s a certain amount of
traumatic flashbacks and numbness and
anxiety that comes with that what about
being robbed at gunpoint at the age of
12
what about hearing sirens and gunshots
so often and so close and proximity that
they basically are regular day
soundtrack for you these are some of the
things that are amazingly wrong but
normal to people who come from where I
come from now I had to my business in
the classroom not took care of business
and actually around this time I was
almost labeled with the behavior
disorder because I like to talk during
work time it took me to get to third
grade before the teacher finally noticed
that I wasn’t simply talking I just
wasn’t being challenged my work was done
faster and my work was correct and I was
just wondering why everybody else wasn’t
done yet so because of the way I had to
myself in school my parents didn’t
really bother me much they didn’t care
about the moves that I was making I was
a lot more discreet about my moves
unlike my older brother who was a lot
more reckless and in-your-face with his
gang affiliation but I basically learned
how to carry myself on the streets and I
learned how to carry myself in school
and this is where the foundation is
built for code switching code switching
is basically the changing of one’s
language dialect and demeanor to fit the
atmosphere that you’re currently in one
of the best to do it and on one of the
biggest stages was our very own past
President Obama you see here him shaking
the hand of the assistant coach of the
u.s. basketball team and then right next
to him shaking the hand and embracing
and Kevin Durant just a little bit
different than the one before so he
definitely was a professional at
code-switch and you guys got an
opportunity to see it now some of the
things that come natural to the majority
don’t really come natural for me as a
minority not just a regular minority I
am a black man I am a bearded black man
I’m a big pretty black man actually I’m
a big bald bearded black man so I see
things a little bit different when I’m
walking down the street I noticed things
when I’m holding the door for someone I
notice things when I’m getting onto the
elevator I notice things
even working in higher education I
noticed things basically I have to put
forth an effort to do above and beyond
to make sure that people feel
comfortable within my presence so when I
am walking down the street I put on a
smile the closer I get to you to make
sure that you know I’m a nice black man
and then getting on the elevator I
purposely move myself to the far corner
so that you have as much room as you
need to feel how you want but I always
make sure that I ask which floor but
lastly when I’m holding that door I put
on the biggest smile possible because I
want to make sure that that person
understands that they are entering or
exiting that building with the
friendliest of black men so I was
blessed to make it through my undergrad
and my master’s program with very little
parental financial help and I’m very
proud to say that but definitely ran
into some obstacles and some walls that
probably were there because I didn’t
have as much guidance as I probably
needed which is why I’m in higher
education today I basically want to be
the person that I needed in college for
our college students of today it was
very discouraging to look on campus and
try to look for someone that looked like
me and I could not find them in
administration faculty or staff in my
university and if I did could they
relate could they relate to my
background in my upbringing and you know
who can really relate to the smart kid
from the inner-city hood then after
working in higher education for a few
years I quickly learned that one of the
major reasons why it’s not not many
people that look like me and are from
where I’m from working a higher
education is because of the pay we all
know that educators don’t you pay what
they deserve
especially for playing a major role in
molding our future leaders of tomorrow
but maybe another reason just might be
is that people who look like me
understand the atmosphere in which I
work in so
this is the hard part I need everybody
to get their mixing thing going
everybody get your arm going like this
for me okay I basically had to mix my
upbringing in my background with my
education and my schooling with my
stature and my race and my gender it’s
almost like mixing up oil and water so I
have my predominantly white institution
that I work at now at Pittsburg State
University I’m the assistant director in
the office of student diversity but I
just happen to want to work at the
predominant institution in the
predominately white corner of the
predominantly white state as you guys
can see here state of Kansas is 2.9
million with 86% of that being white
but luckily here at Pittsburg State we
don’t deal with so many issues with
blatant racism which is great but I
cannot help but to think about the
students that deal with microaggressions
on a regular basis microaggressions are
basically the comments or actions that
are usually subtle and unintentional but
express a I’m sorry expressed a
prejudice towards a marginalized group
so for instance asking a Hispanic
student hey where are you from and they
say oh I’m from Wichita and you say no
but where are you from from that’s a
microaggression or telling an
asian-american student in it hey you you
will really talk English really well
that’s a microaggression or maybe even
telling the african-american girl that
hey you’re really cute for a black girl
as if there are levels of cuteness based
on race I guess but those are a major
microaggressions then they become
overwhelming and more and more
there’s becoming more ways of showing
your allegiance to one side or the other
either that be your make America great
again hats or your oldie but goodie
Confederate flag anything you
fill-in-the-blank the Confederate flags
over everything but while you show your
allegiance do you think about the
discomfort that you may be causing to
our minority population due to our
current climate our current political
climate so we really have an opportunity
here the majority can really get rid of
code-switching you guys have the power
all you got to do is lie just lie I lie
sometimes I’m sure everybody in here you
lied before don’t lie li e learn
implement and embrace by learn I mean
learn a little bit about yourself learn
about your background learn about your
history
that’s where self identity comes from
but the most important thing is to learn
about someone that looks different than
you learn about a different race a
different culture a different religion
after you get that done you’re ready for
the next step implement use that
education to put it into effect deal
with that relationship with somebody
that looks different have those
conversations ask those questions I
guarantee when a person knows the
question is from a genuine place no
matter how you word it you will get
response actually I have a story about
when I was a ninth grader and I was in
world history class I was learning about
all of these awesome religions of course
the major for that really came up often
where Christianity Buddhism Judaism and
Islam three weeks later I found myself
at the kiosk in the mall trying to get
some new earrings you know trying to
stay fly and I saw the man had a Koran
next to his cash register so I said hey
is that a Quran and he said yes and I
saw oh that’s cool like so are you a
Muslim and with a little bit of
hesitation he said yes I said oh man
that’s awesome so are you Sunni or Shia
and when I said that he turned around
with such amazement that a 14 year old
black boy
knew about the two major branches of
Islam after that we had a 20-minute
conversation about his thoughts and my
thoughts and my assumptions and his
assumptions and it was an awesome
relation and at the end of it I ended up
getting an awesome discount as well
[Laughter]
embrace embraces to basically support a
belief a change a theory willingly and
enthusiastically and that’s the tough
part right there willingly and
enthusiastically we do all three of
those things and we lie a little bit and
we can make the world a better place so
it was a really smart lady there is a
really smart lady named Jane Elliott
some of you guys might be familiar with
some of her work but she shut down my
definition for diversity I used to
always say it’s like a melting pot all
of us just in there together just
enjoying life and it’s just harmonious
and great she shut that down by
basically saying we don’t want a melting
pot we want a solid bowl we want a salad
bowl with different vegetables basically
saying I want lettuce to be lettuce and
cucumbers to be cucumbers and onions to
be onions and tomatoes to be tomatoes
and all be in the same place and coexist
and be great and solids are good I had
one yesterday but envision this a world
where cold swishing doesn’t no longer
exist it’s simply a concept that’s
taught in psychology and history class
and we learn to love each other and a
breaks embrace each other’s differences
and put forth the extra – the extra
effort to learn about those differences
man honestly it’s as simple as this the
minorities put forth so much effort but
if the majority put at least 10% of that
same effort into learning embracing
understanding and engaging the minority
population then the states could
be a utopia for us all but that just
wouldn’t be America would it so until
then our cold switch away because I have
a family to feed and bills to pay thank you very much