Coffee with Chuck

All Praise to Allah in Every Situation

Buck breaking was a public punishment of an enslaved Black man. Often sexual assault accompanied this display of antiBlack violence enacted by white slave masters. Buck breaking was meant to emasculate the enslaved man. It brought the enslaved man shame, embarrassment, and a blow to their manhood. Buck breaking was a way to beat the humanity out of an enslaved Black man. Buck breaking also served as a reminder to other enslaved folks to stay in their place. Buck breaking did not come to a conclusion with emancipation. In fact it persisted with the violence of Jim Crow, lynchings, and the rise of mass incarceration. Buck breaking is one of the most cruel, heinous, and vile actions that someone can do to another person.

In April of 2024 I successfully defended my dissertation to obtain my PhD in American Studies and Culture. While I am happy about this accomplishment I have found myself in deep reflection. In this reflection I find myself constantly asking why must Black men suffer in graduate school? Yes, grad school is hard for everyone. Yes, there are the advisors who say I struggled so you are going to struggle. But the difficulties that Black men come across are rooted in antiBlackness. Only about 2% of the U.S. population has a PhD. Of that 2% only 3.3% are Black men. There is a reason for this. Like I said, grad school is hard. PhD students commit to a life of poverty for at least four years. 

At many research 1 institutions PhD students are the teaching force. They teach a lot of students and get paid very little. In most programs PhD students spend the first two years taking classes. Oh and then Black students experience antiBlackness; microaggressions, blatant racism, and isolation. On top of all that, PhD students must find time for their research. However, I actually did not mind the workload. I was getting to do what I love, which is reading and writing. I felt like I was prepared to do the work, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the antiBlackness.

For my PhD I went to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, which is literally 10 minutes away from Idaho. Needless to say, there weren’t a lot of Black folks. In my program and department I was the only Black person for my first two years and that includes faculty. I was truly a fly in buttermilk. Despite this I worked hard and took my PhD.

I wish I had a cool story to tell about my graduate school experience, but the reality is I don’t have a good story. I hated my graduate school years. I also hate the people that made me hate myself. I know I am not supposed to hate people, but I really hate some mothafuckas. I will tell you why in this piece. Now I am not trying to drag people, but hey, if the shoe fits. I am not also trying to trauma dump, I am just telling my story. Hopefully it connects and resonates with some of you. 

Now I am not gonna lie admittedly I have always been insecure when it came to my education. I was slow to develop as a kid. I did not speak until I was 4 years old. When I did begin to speak I had challenges with my speech which landed me in speech therapy. And I couldn’t read well, placing me in Title 1 reading classes. With these challenges I felt that I was stupid and I was covertly told by several of my teachers that I was. To combat this I became an actor. I acted as the class clown and the dumb jock. I acted rather than lived. I acted according to the script written for Black boys. This performance made me a shell of myself. I was hollow. I put the most beautiful aspects of myself aside. I had little confidence in myself and my academics. The real Charles Ross behind the mask is a quiet, sensitive, empath, who loves to be around his friends. But no one throughout my primary education knew this person. They just saw the mask. 

The mask hid my insecurities. These insecurities followed me all the way to college. But, when I got to college I found some confidence. In the fall of 2016 I arrived at Allegheny College. Something weird happened on the first day that I was there. As I sat in Carnegie Hall room 112 waiting for class to start, a beautiful Black woman wearing a black blazer with a graphic Hip-hop T walked into the classroom. The weird thing was during one of those gut wrenching awkward ice-breakers we went around the room and said our name, our hometown, or indented major, and what we thought we wanted to do with our lives. Now prior to this class I just thought I wanted to be a landscaper because I liked to be outside and I actually liked cutting grass. But, when it became my turn to share instead of saying I wanted to be a landscaper, I said for some reason that I wanted to be a college professor. I am not entirely sure the reason for me to say this. But, I presume because it was the first time I actually saw myself in the classroom. I left the classroom that day with a grin from ear to ear. I was excited for the possibility of me becoming something I have longed for my whole life, an intellectual. This lovely soul helped me find my confidence. She put the battery in my back. She was the person who encouraged me to go get my PhD. Needless to say Black Teachers Matter.

 When I hit the grounds of Washington State University for my graduate studies I found myself reverting to the little insecure Black boy. I was back to acting. I entered my PhD program straight out of undergrad at the ripe age of 22. Grad school started off  bad before the semester even began. Grad school for me began in the fall of 2020. COVID had the whole country on lock. I had to move across the country during a global pandemic to get my tuition fee waiver even though all my schooling was online. In addition to COVID, wildfires, something I have never experienced before ravished Eastern Washington. There were two weeks when I could not leave my apartment because the smoke was so horrific. There was smoke everywhere and it seeped its way into my apartment. Yeah, you could say a bad start.

The state of the world and the climate was not the only thing that had me messed up but I felt alone. In my PhD program, I was the only Black person in my program and it so happened that I was the youngest by several years. Given my identity as Black, young, first-gen, neuro divergent, and poor, I quickly found out that the academy is not designed for people like me to be successful. In fact it is designed to do the opposite. It is designed for people like myself to fail.  

Despite these conditions, the fall semester went well actually. I enjoyed my classes, I was learning a lot, and I was working hard to become the scholar I wanted to be.Though,  I was still acting and trying to project a certain image of myself to attempt to protect myself from feeling excluded. I put this facade on to prove to myself and to my colleagues that I belonged. But all in all it was a good first semester. Now when the winter break came around, that is when you can say shit hit the fan. Believe it or not, grad students in the humanities do not make a lot of money. I was broke! I was so broke that I could not afford to fly home to spend the holidays with my family. I missed my family a lot.  I missed the tradition of my momma cooking Chicken Parmesan on Christmas Eve. I missed the matching pajamas that my aunt would always give to my cousins, brothers, and myself. I missed waking up on Christmas morning and checking my stocking which was always filled with my favorite candy, starburst. I truly missed these beautiful traditions. I really felt alone at this point in my life. I had to sit in this loneliness for the next two weeks before the spring semester began. I was alone in my apartment and with my thoughts.But shit really hit the fan in the spring of 2021.

Going into graduate school I believe I was naive. My mentor from Allegheny told me her war stories from graduate school. The stories were painful to hear, but I thought to myself I can handle graduate school, I will be fine, it can’t be that bad. Boy, was I wrong? I am sure there are some folks out there who have great graduate school experiences. I however did not. Grad school was hell. Graduate school was a war of attrition. I can’t count the number of days where I felt like I had to fight like hell just in order to make it to the next day. I felt alone in this fight. 

Now, to be fair graduate school and academia as a whole can be very isolating. I definitely felt the isolation. I felt the isolation of being the “only one”.  The worst feeling a human can experience is the feeling of being alone. As people, we strive to find community. We find people who are similar to us to make us feel less alone. Like I said I was naive going into graduate school. 

In the spring of 2021 I was enrolled in a class that focused on the ways the United States intervenes in Latin America. To be honest I was excited to take this class. But that excitement soon went out the window. Early on in the semester we had to meet with the professor to discuss our plans for the final paper. I thought I had a dope project. I wanted to write a paper that investigated how the rapper 6ix9ine, a Mexican American, embodies the same American Exceptionalism that oppresses Latin American countries. I thought it was a good idea and it seemed like the professor liked it. I remember vividly that she told me “This is really interesting”. 

A few weeks later I submitted the abstract. She emailed me and tore up the project. She told me that this wasn’t the project she okayed and therefore wouldn’t accept it. She then went on to tell me that she thought I was doing a paper on a Chilean  movie that I have never seen before. So I took the feedback and tried to accommodate her wishes. I submitted the new abstract, but once again she was displeased because I did not address the project in the way she wanted me to. It seemed like I was doing her research for her. I am no one’s research assistant. This may seem trivial and silly but it devastated me. It killed my confidence. I once again felt stupid. I felt like I wasn’t good enough and could not produce good ideas. But I sucked it up and wrote a new abstract to please her.

After this fiasco we were in class one day and I don’t exactly remember how it came up, but we started talking about Afro-Latinos. As we began this conversation the professor kept referring to Afro-Latinos as Negroes disparagingly. I called her out on this. I explained to her how the way she was using Negro was dangerous and problematic. Her rebuttal was to call on my Cuban friend to find someone who would justify her antiBlack sentiments. My friend was at a loss for words not believing what he just witnessed. But there I was again, alone. I was humiliated in this moment. She othered me and did not respect my Black experience and perspective. I hate her. 

I hate her because she humiliated me in front of my mostly white peers. Here Black folks are seen as not intelligent and they are disruptive. Her chatizing of me made a very clear point that I a Black man,  who  did not deserve to be in this intellectual space, and that my humanity did not matter. I logged off zoom that day and cried. Two women from my class reached out to me to check in. I appreciated this but I felt terrible I was just a helpless nigga. The two women and myself devised a plan on how to move forward. We set up a meeting with the chair of the department.The chair heard our little group complaints. She also met with us individually. I thought things would get resolved but I was wrong. In fact for me things got worse. I do not blame the chair for this. I have great appreciation and admiration for the chair as a scholar and person. 

The chair got the class together on a zoom to discuss how we could move forward. During this conversation a white man in my program said that there was disrespect from the students (aka me) and that we should not challenge our professors. I hate this man. Soon thereafter word got back that he called me immature and too sensitive. Gossip usually does not hurt me but what he was saying did. He dismissed my intelligence, my character, and my lived experience. 

Following this conversation a solution was proposed by the chair. The solution was students could either stay in the class taught by the original professor or we could take the class with the chair. I obviously accepted the latter. However the majority of my classmates did not. This may have hurt worse even more than the actual incident because I now knew the politics, morals, and values of my classmates, and antiBlackness was not a deterrent for them. And once again I felt alone. I felt like I was the problem. I thought that maybe I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. But that thought quickly dissolved because I remembered how I was raised. I was taught by my parents to stand on business, to stand up for what you believe in. And NEVER let anyone disrespect you. But it’s easier said than done. I may have not been in the classroom that antiBlackness permeated but I still had to take 2 classes with these people who did not see antiBlackness as a problem. 

My favorite class that semester was a class on popular culture. At the end of the semester we had to do a presentation on the final we wrote. Once again I thought I had a dope project. I wrote about how Hip-hop artists use fashion to disidentify whiteness and provide opportunity for self-determination. Humbly, I crushed the presentation, but it did not matter. When I finished the presentation there was a Q & A. The same white man who said I was immature and too sensitive sat cowardly behind his computer screen and made a statement rather than a question (my biggest pet peeve). He said he did not understand the language and words in my presentation, specifically, the word flossin’. Well had he been paying attention to my presentation he would know that I defined the term, provided context on why I was using the term, and explained why flossin’ is an attempt for Black folks to express themselves by wearing cool outfits. He went on to say I did not speak “academically”. This pissed me off, what does it mean to speak academically? Does that mean talk white? Thankfully my professor intervened and said I did not have to answer the question and instructed that questions show focus on the project itself. Now what he said really pissed me off because in essence he was saying the way I speak is not intellectual and it does not belong in “academia”. In turn I do not belong in academia. 

I got over this but it took a long time. I learned that I am cool with not not belonging in academia because I do not think of myself as an academic. A lot of folks in academia craft their whole identity around the idea of being an academic. My identity is I am Charles Allen Ross and the “academic work” that I do that shit is just my day job. I actively choose to live outside and reject academia. I am glad I am in this place now. But that semester and a few of the semesters that followed I was not. That spring did irreparable damage. I fell into a deep depression. I could not sleep. I could not eat. I lost 20 pounds. I was the lightest I’ve been since my junior year of high school. The depression was overwhelming. I could no longer handle it by myself. So I got help. I spent over 10 days in a mental health facility. I finally got “good enough” to go home. That summer I spent at my parents house focusing on myself, rehabilitating myself, and learning to love myself. 

As summer was winding down I was in good spirits, so I headed back to the Pacific Northwest to continue my graduate studies. The first semester back was awesome. I was taking two classes with my advisor and one class with my eventual second reader. I love these two folks so much. They are amongst the greatest people I have had the pleasure to meet. Words cannot sufficiently describe what they mean to me. However, towards the end of the semester things took a turn for the worse. My mother back on the East Coast who was my confidant and best friend died of COVID. My mother was the greatest woman. She supported and loved me and my brothers infinitely. My mom introduced me to art. As I am someone who writes I always wrote to make her proud, and this is still true today. However, oddly, her death did not affect me then. It wasn’t until later that I understood the gravity of her loss. It hit me in the second semester of my third year.

I was not instantly affected because I consumed myself with my work. I worked to avoid my grief. Now everybody grieves differently. And grief looks different for everybody. I would caution against working to ignore the grief. The work will always be there. Take time for yourself. Allow yourself to begin the healing process. Despite this loss I finished the semester strong. My advisor was critical in the success. He recognized my pain and humanity. He gave me the time to be with my family and he was not focused on my work, he was focused on my well-being. 

After the winter break I was back in Washington. The semester went well. Nothing eventful happened. I finished my coursework. It was time to begin the research. I no longer had to focus on classes, I could just invest my time in my own work. The following semester was for my exams. I had to write a proposal for my dissertation and write two exam essays that were created by my committee. I got to work. I was loving this time to write and be alone with my thoughts. I turned in a draft of my proposal to the committee. My advisor gave me great feedback that was constructive, but he also gave me some flowers as he recognized the potential for the project. The same was true for my third reader. Now the second reader that was a different story. Her feedback took the form of a list of about fifteen things I did not do right. There was nothing productive or constructive about her feedback. But I tried to address these “concerns” with my final draft. After I finished the draft I had to defend it which meant I gave a forty-five minute talk and then fielded questions. The moment the Q & A began is when my second bout of depression began. 

My second reader posed her questions in the form of statements. There is one particular statement that eats at me still to this day. She bluntly said “Yeah, you don’t understand double consciousness”. Me? I did not understand the theory of double consciousness? I have studied this theory since the twelfth grade when I first read The Souls of Black Folks. I have been living with a double consciousness since the day I was born. But it’s whatever. She continued to hurl statements at me. And statement after statement I became less confident. One thing she also said that will stick with me and inspire me on who I don’t wanna be is I was answering a question from my advisor and I said “The change can’t come from academia. It must come from the people. As academics we need to connect with the streets”. I don’t think this is such a radical or problematic idea. But I guess she did because she said in her constant passive aggressive voice “You know you are talking to three academics, so I would rethink that”. This comment just shows how pompous and elitist academia can be. It was at this point that I began to feel like I failed. But miraculously somehow I passed. I remember right after I passed it was not a good feeling. But I went to get pho with two homies for lunch. At lunch I felt like I was having an outer body experience. I did not feel like myself. I was just in utter shock. I was very quiet during that lunch and in my head I was ruminating on the question of was she fucking with me? I couldn’t answer the question then. But it got answered the very next semester. 

That spring semester my advisor was once again amazing. We met routinely to discuss not just my project but life. I hold these conversations close to my heart. He gave me great ideas for the project but pertinent life advice as well. Towards the end of the semester in fact I remember the exact date it was April 19th, 2023. My committee was set to meet via Zoom to discuss where I was at with the project. I felt good going into the meeting based on the conversations my advisor and I were having. That good feeling quickly soon left my body. My second reader began with the statements. She went at me for what felt like an eternity. One statement she kept saying was “you’re focusing on the project and not the process”. I assumed she was talking about the writing process. But everybody’s writing process is unique to themselves. But I am also neurodivergent and I process information and express my thoughts differently than most people. But she kept saying it, and I kept getting more frustrated. Before I could ask her what she meant, she abruptly left the Zoom meeting because she doubled booked. She gave no direction to me on how to accomplish this “process”. I can’t confirm this but I felt like I was getting hazed, which is unfortunately common for PhD students especially Black men because the thought is Black men are tough and don’t have emotions so they can take it. 

When she hopped off of the Zoom I just sat in my chair and began to cry in front of my advisor and third reader. They tried to give me words of encouragement and lift my spirits, but I was humiliated. This was a lashing. And all I could do was cry. I felt so shitty. I felt like I was incapable and that I am not smart enough or good enough.  I was down bad. This meeting left a sour taste in my mouth and I thought about stopping my education. 

A few days after the meeting my department was at a tabling event to try and sell the Ethnic Studies Program. I hated going to department events because I always felt excluded and I found them to be abrasive. But I went to this meeting because my advisor personally invited me. Boy was that a mistake. At the event I was standing next to the one Black woman who was in her first year of the program. A white professor approached the both of us and asked us what we were studying. I explained that I research and examine the ways Hip-hop can be a site of Black resistance against antiBlackness. My sista said she studied Black women, mental health, and the church. To which this professor said “So you both do the same work”. A white colleague who I became friendly with overheard this and we locked eyes like “That shit was crazy”. The sista’s work and mine could not be any more different. In fact our work does not share the same sensibilities and politics. But this did not matter. To these white folks all niggas are just the same and their research is not rigours. This was the last straw for me. 

It was time to make a plan to move forward. I replaced my second reader. But it didn’t alleviate the pain I was feeling. During this semester was the first time I had the time to grieve. Grieving is horrible and it does not get any easier no matter how much time has passed. I became depressed again. I wasn’t sleeping or eating. I did not want to leave my bed. I just numbed my mind by watching reruns of Survivor. No matter what I did, no self care practice was helping. Yoga did not work, walks did not work, and I even thought prayer was not working. I was down in the dumps. I was far too gone. This was the first time in my life that I thought I was going to do something drastic to myself, this landed me back in a mental health facility this time for nine long days. In those nine days I learned something very valuable, and that is when you are at your lowest, that is when God is the loudest. This realization saved my life. But I still wasn’t healed all the way but I was able to go home. However, I did have a new appreciation for life which shifted my mindset in order to change for the better. I reevaluated my life. I counted my blessings and the aspects of life that make me whole. I recognized that I am grateful to be alive. I now say when someone asks me how I am “I am six feet above and not six feet below”.  

With this new mindset I thought about leaving my program and doing something different, but I met with my advisor and he convinced me to stay by showing genuine care for me. He helped me craft a plan in order to finish.The most critical thing he did was empower me. Talking through my project he said “Charles, I am just gonna let you cook”. And that I did.  I also continued the program because two friends who I consider brothers got me back to writing. They helped me find the passion and purpose for life. I am incredibly grateful for them. And one of the reasons I am here is because of their love, support, and encouragement

With the support from my new second reader and third  reader I wrote my dissertation in under seven months. Praise to The Most High I finished. I am glad that I stayed because I did not just suffer to leave that place without nothing in hand. Yeah,  the degree is cool but it only means I have three letters behind my name. But for me what I am most proud of is that I am healthy, and I can be comfortable living as myself. I also learned to not seek outside validation and I do not let invalidation bother me because what I went through made me HIM. I finished but I suffered. This should be something celebrated that I overcame my suffering, but that does not make me happy because I should not have had to suffer in the ways I did. But, this is the antiBlack world we live in. I can be bitter and hateful but I choose to accept that I can use my experience to ensure another young Black man does not get bucked.