They Tried to Fail Me

Backstroke & Breakthroughs – Post #6

College was supposed to be the place where I finally got to focus. Where hard work would speak louder than where I came from. Baldwin Wallace gave me a degree, yes, but it also gave me some hard lessons in how racism still operates in spaces that claim to be “inclusive.”

I majored in Business Management, minored in Psychology. I showed up to class prepared, engaged, and determined. But there were professors—and a coach or two—who couldn’t see past their own bias. They saw a young Black man and assumed the worst. I was questioned more aggressively. Graded more harshly. Ignored when I asked for help. One professor even said I was “lucky to be there” as if I hadn’t earned my place. Another tried to fail me outright, despite my test scores and attendance proving otherwise.

It felt like swimming upstream in a river of silence, because these institutions are built to protect themselves, not the students they marginalize. And when I spoke up, I wasn’t just speaking for myself. I was carrying the voices of others who felt the same sting, but didn’t feel safe saying it out loud.

Still, I graduated. Class of 2016. Degree in hand. Not because they made it easy, but because I refused to let them write the ending for me.

This week’s takeaway:
You may walk into rooms where they don’t expect you to survive, let alone succeed. But you don’t owe anyone your silence. Stand firm. Speak the truth. And never shrink to fit someone else’s version of “deserving.”

You belong.
– J.R.