I remember when I visited EMU. It was a beautiful sunny day, and touring campus was the last thing on my summer to-do list before I was to return to Nairobi to start my Senior year. It was July 15, 2016. I remember that day because it was nine days after the brutal murder of Philando Castille, the video of his murder by law enforcement was the first I ever watched. A little over a year later, I was packing to move into the dorm when images of Charlotesville’s Unite the Right rally flashed across the screen. Now, as I write this article, news alerts from Minneapplis flood my phone.
They say that college is the best years of your life. I sure hope to God that isn’t true, because while I’ve traveled across the globe, danced countless nights away, tasted the most delicious cuisine, and met the most amazing people, these past four years have left me tired. These years have likely left a lot of us tired. My college career, our college careers have been marked by horrific losses of life. I can’t name all of the classes I’ve taken, but I can tell you where I was when I read about the murders Tony McDade and Elijah McClain. I can tell you who I called when I learned about murder of Vanessa Guillén. I can tell you how it felt to stand amongst thousands in D.C listening to Emma González after Parkland. I can tell you about the protests and rallies and marches and vigils. I can tell you about the tears I shed when the first person I knew lost their life to COVID-19.
I write about these things, because to not hold these things with us as we mark our commencement would be a failure to ourselves and a failure to truly live into the fullness of community. We may have made it through these last couple years, but so many others did not.
I am entering this season of celebration with bone deep heaviness and with profound gratitude.
Gratitude for the people, places, and spaces that have inspired and fiercely protected me. Gratitude for Parkwoods kitchen tables, the tippy top of the EMU hill, and the espresso machine at Common Grounds. Gratitude for readings that exposed me to new perspectives, for readings that resonated deeply and for the professors that assigned them with deep intentionality.
EMU and it’s people have held and carried me these past four years, and I know that I will leave EMU changed for the better. I hope also that I’ve helped, that we’ve helped, make EMU better, kinder, more inclusive and more equitable.
As I conclude this article, I want to leave you all with the words of Assata Shakur that I have carried close to my heart these past four years. I pray and hope that you take them with you wherever you may be going.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.” ― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography
