University of Michigan senior student Josiah Walker shares his experiences being a student advocate bridging the gap between informal spaces on spaces and formal advocacy spaces. He also discusses his role as the first Black Vice President of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Student Government.

 

Interview conducted by Jamilah Willis
#UMSocial Intern and University of Michigan Class of 2020

 

Q: Hello, Wolverines. You’re listening to the Conversations for Change podcast. My name is Jamilah Willis and I’m welcoming Josiah Walker today. Congratulations on being elected the first Black Vice President of LSA Student Government. Can you tell me about how this came to be?

 

I decided to run for office because I thought it would be a good opportunity to bridge the gap between informal advocacy spaces on campus and formal advocacy spaces. As long as you are passionate about the causes that you care about, and as long as you have a thorough understanding of the policies that exist on campus, I think that you can be a very powerful advocate.

 

Q: What would you like the university to understand about your experience on campus?

 

There’ve been certain parts of my campus experience that have been absolutely amazing, like being in the Residential College, and living in East Quad and forming a really healthy community there, to some of the classes that I’ve taken. I want to give a special shout out to Professor Marlyse Baptista. She teaches a language and discrimination class that by far was one of the most impactful classes I’ve taken at the University of Michigan.

 

The challenges I experienced were definitely more so on a personal level. Some of the characteristics that you see in society as a whole are definitely present on campus, whether it’s dealing with difficult race relations or dealing with socioeconomic differences. Those challenges manifest themselves in different ways on campus, even as a student, and they definitely have a tangible impact on your experience. If I were to tell the university one thing, I would just say that, looking at what’s happening in the world, they can definitely assume that the same things are very present on campus as well.

 

Q: What advice would you give to a Black student representative?

 

I would highly, highly, highly encourage them to ask themselves what this identity means to them. What does it mean for them to be Black? I would encourage them to value their identity before getting involved in work that impacts other students.

 

At the end of the day, all of this work is interconnected. If you don’t ask yourself, “What causes are impacting me? What are my struggles? What are my challenges?” then at one point all of the work that you’re doing to advocate for other groups on campus is going to catch up. You might say, “I have put myself in a position to fly fuel into fire for all of these other groups and for all of these other causes, but did I address the causes that directly impact me?” I think that if the answer is “no,” the students aren’t going to be as satisfied with their work. Versus being able to say, “Not only did I show up in other spaces and support other people and other causes, but I also supported myself and my community and my causes in the process.”

 

Q: What do you hope to accomplish through your role in student government?

 

Goal one or principle one is to bridge the gap between those informal and formal advocacy spaces that I was just stressing. What I’ve noticed is that most of the hard work, most of the labor, it takes place in the informal advocacy spaces where students who are directly impacted by an issue do research on their own and draft the initial statements, and the student government comes in later and just provide an additional platform for students to make their voices heard. I think that if there isn’t a gap between the informal and the formal advocacy spaces, then all the labor and the work can directly translate into policy that benefits the student body.

 

My other goal is to advocate for policies or changes that primarily affect students who don’t necessarily fit the traditional Michigan student character. I want to make it easier for those students to communicate the changes that they’re interested in seeing. But in order to do that, you need to have relationships with the students who are being directly impacted by the policies, as well as relationships with administrators.

“Sometimes it’s not advocating for the strategy that you think is best. It’s about getting behind the groups that are directly affected and supporting the strategy that they want to take.”

Q: Who is your campus hero?

 

OAMI, Office of Academic and Multicultural Initiatives, is definitely my campus hero. I think that out of all of the groups on campus that help students who come from traditionally disenfranchised backgrounds, OAMI definitely has the strongest grip on the realities that students face once they’re in college.

 

OAMI is very focused on making sure that you’re developing effective study tactics or techniques, developing healthy coping mechanisms, and that you’re addressing some of the challenges that pop up in the long run. Staying at the University of Michigan and matriculating throughout all four years presents an entirely different set of challenges. OAMI, in my opinion, definitely has the strongest understanding of what those challenges are and they tend to provide the best help to students in navigating those challenges.

 

Q: Especially as a student of color, you’re in this grind mode and you’re super, super focused. Especially in this environment, the competition is really, really, really high. At least for me, and I feel like you can relate, Josiah, if you stop and you try to pat yourself on the back, then you don’t want to get too caught up in the relief of, “okay, this is over.” No, you got to keep going. You got to keep going.

 

I don’t want to tell myself: “I already accomplished a significant thing. There’s no more change for me to make.”

 

After coming to terms with the reality of what happened with George Floyd, that got me to do a lot of personal thinking. I realized that in terms of the things that I’ve accomplished, I usually don’t focus on them at all because in my mind I’m like, “You’re doing the bare minimum. You’re doing the bare minimum.” It’s like no matter how much I’m doing, I feel like I’m doing the bare minimum simply because I know that the challenges that are waiting for me are still very much still present.

 

Life is going to be unnecessarily more difficult at times because of my race and because of my current socioeconomic class. The second that I start thinking, “I’m making progress, I’m doing good,” is the second that I let my guard down against the X factor challenges that pop up.

 

Q: Would you say that you are fighting for your identity or that you constantly feel this need to prove that you belong on campus? Because I definitely feel like that’s something that has challenged me.

 

In a weird way, I only feel like I belong here when it’s proven. Someone simply saying, “You belong, you belong,” doesn’t necessarily make me feel any more welcome. But what really made me feel I belonged here was being able to stand my ground in class.

 

When I was able to articulate my points effectively and communicate my ideas without being belittled or invalidated, that was the kind of moment that would take care of the other challenges that I would see on campus. I would say, “not only do I belong here,” which is the given I would hope, “but I’m perfectly capable of competing with my peers on an academic level.”

 

Q: I can definitely relate to wanting to be able to be a competitive student in this space, and being able and making sure that you are standing your ground and using your voice. That’s one of the things that this podcast is for. I think that’s definitely something that more students on campus need to know.

 

You know more than anybody, actions are so much louder than words. I’m tired of having to prove to myself that I belong here. It’s a privilege to be welcomed with open arms and be openly understood without having to explain yourself, or go above and beyond, or be the top of your class to feel like you finally belong in a space.

 

I think that if inclusion efforts were shifted to educate disenfranchised students about their history and the power in their history, that would be way more beneficial. It wouldn’t matter if a student in a class said something that was out of line. It wouldn’t matter if a professor assigned a passage or an assignment that was out of line, because the student will be able to look at it and say, “I know who I am. I’m very confident in who I am. There are no questions that I belong here. There are no questions that what that person did was wrong. There are no questions that regardless of their actions, I am so valuable as an individual.” I think shifting the focus to helping students understand their own values and history would definitely be more beneficial in the long run.

 

What happens if I go work for a company that doesn’t have the same culture that U-M has? How am I going to stand my ground? Am I going to stand my ground because of what people are saying back at Michigan? No, I’m going to stand my ground because I’ll be able to look at myself, look at my history, look at the facts and say, “I’m worthy of being here regardless of what other people think.”

 

Even if students don’t say it out loud, if you’re a Black student specifically, you’re coming with the understanding that some people are going to think that you’re not intelligent enough. Some people are going to think that the background that you come from doesn’t match with the background that a Michigan student is supposed to come from. That thought sits or lingers in the back of your mind, so when you’re sitting in class, you could be giving a presentation, and you might think, “These students think I’m not as intelligent as they are because I’m nervous right now when I’m speaking to them.” Or if you’re writing an essay and you’re reading over someone else’s essay, giving them feedback, you may worry about giving them your essay because you worry that they’re going to say, “this student can’t write. He, she, or they shouldn’t be at U-M.”

 

There is a desire to prove that you do belong in the same environment and that you are equally as competent and as capable as your peers. I’ll just recall a specific example. One day I was sitting in class and we were having a conversation about personal responsibility within the context of improving your own social situation. For some students, it’s impossible to take that personal responsibility mindset. In order to take personal responsibility, you have to look at where you are—meaning you have to look at how the system impacts you directly so that you can respond to changes in a way that actually works.

 

For example, if you’re a Detroit Public School student, you can look at the school system and know that it is inferior compared to the school systems that many students at the University of Michigan are coming from. You can blame it on Detroit Public Schools. Yes, Detroit Public Schools is providing a poorer education than other schools. The personal responsibility comes in when you realize that if you want to go to a school like Michigan, and if you want to compete at a school like Michigan, then you are going to have to go out your way to acquire resources. You’re going to have to spend more time studying than your friends who went to this private school or that private school in order to gain an understanding of the content. Maybe everyone else in your class doesn’t go to office hours because they feel like they have a solid grip on the content, but maybe you will have to go to office hours.

 

When I think about personal responsibility and looking at the way the system impacts your position in the world, they are definitely not mutually exclusive.

 

Q: That is so true. Yep. I feel it.

 

It’s not a victim mindset to say the system sucks. It’s not a victim mindset. If anything, you’re taking ownership of your life and you’re realizing, “I’m not in the position that I want to be in. Part of the reason why is because of factors that are out of my control, but even though these factors are out of my control, I can come up with ways to circumvent these factors or to bypass these factors.”

 

Q: How do you think that we, as a Black student community, should be taking care of ourselves?

 

Self-care is definitely going to look different for every person. For me, self-care looks like learning the truth about the history of Black people, learning about Black people from a state of empowerment versus a state of slavery or being disadvantaged in the world.

 

Every person is going to have to find what makes them feel better. For some people, it might be taking a break from politics or taking a break from academics. For other people, it may be confiding in close friends and family. My advice is for individuals to find what helps them, but also I encourage them to not limit self-care to what mainstream society says self-care is.

 

Q: I definitely agree with that. I’m just going to give you the floor: Is there anything else that you want to add?

 

My life motto, as of recently, is to “always expect the best for yourself and of yourself.” I say that because I think subconsciously as a Black student, and I’m sure other students and other people run into the same problem, it’s okay for me to receive the short end of the stick in a lot of scenarios. I have to retrain my brain to know one, I’m receiving the short end of the stick and two, to know that I deserve better.

 

Then “expecting the best of yourself” goes along with understanding what your goals are, understanding what you want to achieve, and not limiting yourself to what you’re able to see. Instead, asking yourself, “What do I want to do with my life?” and making sure that that goal is as ambitious as possible and actually committing to achieving it.

 

Q: That was great. Thank you so much for being a part of the Conversations for Change, Josiah. It’s been amazing; I’m absolutely honored to talk with you and learn from you.

 

Likewise. Thank you so much for having me.