I quoted Olu Dara. That moment hit hard. In an application for a fellowship, I lifted words he gave to Nas:
Quit school if you want to save our lives.
It shook me. Not because it felt reckless. Because it felt true. As an educator, I know what’s on the line for Black youth. But I also knew the survival instinct behind those words.
I had to look back. Who got us here? Why did my father leave before graduating? Why was my mother pushed out? What did the school system give to my grandparents, and who decided it was enough?
Maybe quitting wasn’t giving up. Maybe it was saving their souls. Maybe it was so we wouldn’t have to suffer the same way.
That question has dogged me.
I climbed over broken things. presidences that mocked anyone not white, rich, straight, male. I climbed over the splinters of grief when I buried every elder I knew. I climbed through a pandemic that finally lit the match to systems people had been screaming about for decades. The flames were real. The systems were burning.
As a fellow, I tried to fix it. I wanted classrooms to be free zones. Radical spaces.
I wrote four essays.
1. The power of Black literature to dream of freedom.
2. How joy can be emancipatory.
3. Why hair policies hurt Black students.
4. My role at a Montessori school in Cincinnati trying to build real inclusion.
It looked good on paper. I had awards. People clapped.
But you pay a price.
Black women in education don’t see the crash coming. We coach other women through it. I coach them. I am one of them.
I woke up one day. Three years had passed. I hadn’t taken a week off. Not even a real one.
I lay there mourning the mismatch. The work wanted to transform broken systems. The systems fought back at every turn.
I just wanted to sleep. To stay asleep. I was unhappy. Unfulfilled.
Was the radical possibility worth my sanity?
I was trading my life for it.
Nas said it plain: he didn’t care about America because he knew it didn’t believe in him.
So he walked out. He crossed the line. He took his own freedom dream and didn’t wait for permission from people who wouldn’t give it.
That’s what I’m doing now.
I am in the messy middle. The liminal space. And I’m granting myself permission.
To set myself free. To save my life.
I’m holding onto freedom dreams and healing-centered work. Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a practice. It’s enduring.
I’m trusting myself with it. Even if it means the work gets harder. Or stops altogether.
