ABSTRACT
Maya Angelou once said, “In order to be a mentor, and an effective one, one must care.” In pursuing my PhD, I have learned that this level of care and mentorship is different for everyone, especially for us Black and Brown people. Historically, the North Star was used by slaves to escape to freedom. Miles Davis said, “Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.” Like my ancestors, I used my own North Star, my mentor, during my PhD program to learn the skills needed to thrive as a Black academic. When entering the PhD program, I had no idea how challenging it would be for me as a Black man to navigate the world of higher education. I have experienced being told by White professors to use “African American” and not “Black” as it is more of an appropriate term to describe people who look like me. I have even been in a university classroom where a student and professor used the term “coon.” The problem is that if these professors taught through a culturally responsive lens, they would know that “Black” is a commonly used term that many people of color identify by, and that the term “coon” is a racist word used for describing Black people. When culturally responsive mentoring for Black and Brown students is not embedded in the everyday interactions that mentors use to support their students, the outcome can be troublesome. Without my North Star, I would not be the fearless PhD candidate I am today. Receiving culturally responsive mentoring from her helped me to reach deep down in myself and make connections to the 126academy that I did not see as being possible. My North Star helped me internalize and see the permanence of racism in society and how it exists and controls various social, political, and economic spaces, including higher education. My North Star helped me to understand and embrace the idea of being a voice of color to my White counterparts as my knowledge and experiences can challenge and transform racial dominance. She did this by engaging me in book studies and small group discussions surrounding critical race theory. I was included in her social network that was comprised of Black and Brown professors who shared the same challenging experiences that I face in the academy. These social connections were able to teach me things that textbooks were not able to. It is not enough to address challenges by reading books and research journals – it takes a person who has shared those same lived experiences to help you understand. The beauty of it all is that I see myself in my North Star – I see my race/ethnicity, my experience, my culture – everything that makes me who I am today. My North Star tapped into that, thus, leading to my success. For the sake of Black and Brown academics, culturally responsive mentoring must always be considered when mentoring students.
