When You Bet On Yourself, You Always Win
A few months ago, I received an email that made me jump out of my seat:
“On behalf of the University of Michigan School of Social Work students, faculty, and staff, I would like to invite you to be our keynote speaker for the Winter Commencement ceremony. This commencement honors all Master of Social Work degree candidates completing their program during the Fall semester.”
This was a speech I didn’t know I needed to give, until I was given the opportunity to give it.
Twenty eight years prior, my mother graduated from this very school, and my experiences during her time there are a big part of why I am a journalist. Turns out this was a coincidence for U of M, they didn’t know my mother was a graduate until I told them.
For me, this opportunity was no coincidence, it was meant to be. A golden chance to affirm students headed out into this world to do important work.
Below is my call to action to the graduates. This is also a call to action for all of us who do mission driven work:
Transcript:
“Thank you to the University of Michigan School of Social Work and Dean Lynn Videka for inviting me here today.
It’s amazing and so heartening to hear the work that you’ve been doing so far.
As Dean Videka said, this is NOT the graduation day you envisioned when you started this program, but boy, what an honor it is to have your ear during what I like to call “thick history.”
THICK HISTORY is a momentous time, when the world around us shifts in ways that forever change humanity.
How we think. How we live. How we work and interact with each other.
In addition to talking with you about this exciting proposition, speaking with you today is an especially meaningful honor because 28 years ago in 1992 my mother, Marie Mosley, graduated from this very school.
So this commencement speech is not only a love letter to you, but also to her.
By choosing social work, each and every one of you, all 211 — have chosen mission driven work at a time when our country is at the precipice of a new beginning — and you are the helpers, the frontline workers, who will soon provide the empathy, insights and expertise to will help this country live up to its ideals.
So today I’m going to talk to you about this purpose, but first I want to share a little about my mom.
I saw what mission driven work was all about as a pre-teen watching my mother earn her Master’s degree, and work in the field for the State of Michigan for 25 years.
Those years were some of the most formative for me — and I’m not overstating when I say that my mother’s choice in work has informed my work as a journalist.
It starts with my grandparents who moved to Detroit from Mississippi in the 1940’s. The great migration they called it; my grandparents and 6 million other Black Americans had the hope and audacity to leave oppression behind and move up north for a better life.
My grandparents settled in Detroit where they were able to buy a home, and raise 6 children. And my grandparents’ children and grandchildren went on to choose fields that serve our communities — fields like medicine, education, social work and journalism.
One of my first memories as a child was watching my mother work.
For the first 9 years of my life it was just she and I, and sometimes after school or on snow days, she’d have to take me with her to her job as an occupational therapist working with adults with special needs.
The easy thing for her to do, would have been to have me sit off in a corner with Crayons and paper while she worked, but instead my mom always had me among her clients, interacting, talking with them, learning from them.
These were some of my first lessons on how to be human.
I learned from watching my mother — that the show of a good human being AND a functioning society — is in the way it treats its poor, its mentally ill and it’s physically disabled.
When I was 13, my mother decided to apply for the University of Michigan Masters of Social Work program. A church friend recommended she do so, and my mother, who was a single mom of two children by then, took that leap of faith and applied to the program.
I don’t really remember the day my mom found out she got into this program, but I remember how I felt.
The people who love you — who are proud of you — know what I’m talking about.
I was proud.
And it was also the first time I cracked the code.
We all remember what it feels like to crack the code.
It was when I realized that I could do anything I wanted in this world.
That circumstances were not fixed.
That we have the power and ability to take a step out on faith.
That when you bet on yourself — you’ll always win.
And my mother getting into the University of Michigan, felt like we won the lottery.
And over the course of two years, I’d watch my mother wake up before the sun rose each day, get us off to school and drive to Ann Arbor — a place that felt like a million miles away, from our home on the northwest side of Detroit.
It’s actually funny to think, of course it’s only 45 minutes away, but back then she could have been traveling to the moon and I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Twenty eight years later, standing before you, the Class of 2020, here are the things I remember about that time, and what these experiences taught me:
Those late, late nights where I’d wake up from sleep and catch a glimpse of the light streaming outside my dark room the sounds of my mother typing away on another school paper.
Those brutal winter days, when it’s too cold to snow OR for the car to start.
None of it stopped my mother from getting to Ann Arbor.
I also remember some of the fun too.
The illustrious U of M Campus.
And among the 19th century revival architecture buildings — the splendor and smells of fall…oh and the lectures, I went to a few!
The one that stands out the most, was one where the professor was talking about the HIV/AIDS crisis. I was so moved that I went on to learn more about it myself, and over the years I’ve volunteered my time as an HIV/AIDS educator. It is a cause I care deeply about, in big part because that experience, in that U of M classroom.
A glimpse into those experiences remind me of the lessons they taught me.
I learned, through my mother — that it was possible to build your own roadmap to success.
And that what makes success so sweet, is the sacrifice.
And maybe most importantly, the lesson I learned most, watching my mother spend two years earning her Masters Degree in Social Work is that there is always a way.
Early in my career as a journalist, I’d swap stories with my mom. Her job out in the field as a social worker was similar to my work as a journalist. And the reason why is this:
People trust you to help them.
To trust someone with your truth; it is the most human experience we can have. And when trust happens — it transcends race, religion, age and gender. Social work, this is not an easy field you’ve chosen. But it is the right field for this moment.
I mentioned earlier that we are living through thick history and if history tells anything, these are the moments of great change, where we are interrogating how we do things and why we do them.
And that interrogation leads to new modes and ways of doing.
You are headed to the front lines of a new beginning.
And I implore you to step out into the fields you’ve chosen with your degree, with an understanding of something very important:
Social work, since the beginning of the profession has been dealing with the ramifications and consequences of SYSTEMIC RACISM.
And what does systemic racism look like in our society?
It separates us. It vilifies Black, brown and poor people.
It manifests itself in the over policing of certain people and under resourcing of schools and neighborhoods in which those people live.
And your jobs are like triage. As social workers, whether you’re out in the field or a policy maker, you are on the frontlines of looking INHERITED TRAUMA in the face.
And you know what that looks like.
That looks like drug addiction.
It looks like abuse.
It looks like abandonment.
Homelessness.
Poverty.
And you are there to stop the bleeding.
Triage is important. But it doesn’t solve the problem.
Then this year happened.
Our country has grown 9 years in 9 months. The pandemic has laid bare not only the ills of our society, but for the first time an acknowledgment of how racism has harmed all of us.
And once you see something, you can’t unsee it. We can’t go back to the ways we USED to do things.
Your class is the class that will not only be leading the way — but creating a new way.
THIS is your purpose.
In 2018, the late actor Chadwick Boseman gave a commencement speech to his alma mater Howard University.
And in that speech Chadwick talked about purpose.
I’m going to read his words to you:
Purpose he said — is the essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill.”
I think about Chadwick’s words often, especially now because the world feels so chaotic. It feels like we’re not in control of anything. But what grounds me is my purpose, and with purpose, anything is possible.
Whether you plan to practice social work out in the field, work on policy, or take this degree towards another field, you ultimately are working with human beings.
We are flawed. But we have potential. And we all have purpose.
I asked my mother, what advice she’d like to give you.
She took a long minute to think about it and said this:
In the beginning you’re gonna be so excited and empowered to solve problems.
And you will solve some problems, but this field is not easy.
Systems are flawed.
Bureaucracy can AND sometimes WILL drain the life out of you.
There’s gonna be a lot of losses.
A lot of heartbreak.
A lot of false starts.
It’s gonna be a lot.
But there will be wins.
And those wins will stay with you for the rest of your life.
You have the power to fix broken systems.
And you WILL change lives.
And with that, YOU WILL CHANGE SOCIETY — for the better.
What an honor you have before you!
Congratulations to you, the class of 2020 University of Michigan School of Social Work…
Give yourselves a round of applause.
And one more thing, tomorrow is my mom’s birthday and she’s watching wish her a happy birthday!”
