One of my students told me that someone warned her about me in this way. “Tahiri is tough” echoed over and over through this conversation before I made a correction. Not my first name’s pronunciation. We will go over that soon enough and honestly, I’m getting more and more comfortable asking to be Dr. T or Dr. Walker in the academic spaces so it’s ok if someone calls me by the name of a yummy cumin rice dish or obscure Jedi character every now and again. But this “tough” thing? Nope. I had to push back on that. Higher ed and I have been at this too long for me to let that fly.
Being called “tough” at work feels a little like it did being called “fast” when I was a pre-teen. So many of the absolutely normal parts of my coming of age (interest in sex, interest in fashion, interest in hip hop) became carving tools to cut away anything certain people considered undesirable or unsafe. The thing is I felt undesirable and I was unsafe long before any of those interests took root. What was fast was the way I figured out that all around me was sexual danger and predation. Not the way I managed to control tiny pieces of how I expressed myself in that realm. And like the components of “fast,” so many of the normal parts of being a Black woman in academia (calling out oppressing structures, asking that curriculum be expanded to include us, wanting to offer students the most) is described as “tough.”
I stopped and said “hmmm, I wouldn’t say that about myself.” I am direct and thorough and I have a love for those things which are robust. I’m a gumbo girl, if you will. I don’t need bone broth. Bring me the thickest scholarship you have and I’ll join you with the thickest of what I have. I am not looking for students to be afraid of my courses. I want them to be excited. I want them to feel like they are attending an event where they are being loved and fed and nurtured. Not one where they are being tested and poked and prodded.
But also, and I have to be candid here, I don’t want to be painted as tough or hard. These things are too close to strong and resilient. I’m cool to take those tools out and apply them as needed but they are not core to my personality. I’m soft. I like to read on my deck and ponder words over coffee. I’m living in the space of killing rage that bell hooks invited me to occupy. I don’t have a fire breathing dragon alter ego and if I did, she would be exhausted. She would be resting after 2 decades of this work. I’m soft. I love finding things to laugh about and I love being silly in the face of so much pain. It feels like resistance to me when the expectation is that all I have is seriousness. Sorry, I refuse. I’m soft. I want students to feel at ease and peace with me. I want them to save anger and fear for the truly tough systems looking to tear them apart. Maybe this is so much softness that it feels tough. It isn’t.
My syllabi, my reading lists, my teaching style, my expectations, my work load…these things are thick. Not tough. I’m thick. Not tough. My care for students is thick. Not tough. Welcome.