20 Minutes of Sanity - From Board Rooms to Baldwin

Three deep breaths.

Right now, I'm feeling a bit anxious for a few reasons. I think it's settling in that classes have started and that my two weeks off from my summer courses have finally dried up, even though it is still very much summer in Nashville. We just opened a beautiful exhibition at work and the portraiture is just breathtaking. I am so proud and impressed with our curator and the work he does—his mind and intentionality is truly fascinating.

While at work today, I had some major wins pitching the comprehensive campaign to the executive committee of the board of directors, working with the staff team to fulfill the daily duties of our upcoming institutional summit and awards gala, and also managing my team/teammates through development activities and philanthropy generally.

I'm tired.

It's late (close to 10 PM CST). I've been at work, at home after school feeding the kids and chatting with the wife, then back at the museum for the exhibit opening and I could have gone to another event honoring my peers in Black philanthropy at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. It's a lot and there is ample opportunity to do the most. I'm pretty sure I maximized this day as much as I could.

One thing I did to advance my coursework for this Community Collaboration course was begin reading one of our required texts titled: White Women Cry and Call Me Angry by Yanique Redwood. It's a fascinating encounter of a Black woman who has worked in historically white (women) philanthropic spaces and bears the facts (with receipts) of the foul play that is caused by white fragility and microaggressions in the philanthropic workplace. One of the quotes she recited from James Baldwin resonated with me so much that I stopped in my tracks as I was listening to my Speechify (another AI student tool that reads text to you) on the Cumberland River during my lunch break. It read:

"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time."

I almost tripped as I walked with my Lilly Family School of Philanthropy notepad. I'd been there. I feel this. It's still relevant even in 2024. My ARP, the beneficiaries of this work I'm doing, the ancestors, all feel this rage that Redwood highlights through Baldwin's voice.

There is anger about the underfunding of Tennessee State University. The leadership, the alumni, the students, faculty, and supporters have cried to the mountain top and there must be a feasible way to develop a pathway to funding that provides a landscape where all students can be taught without needing to worry about the challenges that others in their same predicament don't.

This question/conundrum will be solved through this applied research project.

It's been 20 minutes and I've got to make sure these oxtails I've been slow cooking for the last 24 hours are looking right!

Here we go!

Dex