Demetrius T. Gary describes the impact moving from a multilingual, multiracial middle school experience to a rural, mostly white high school where he was the only Black person had on his racial identity development. He shares his experiences with assimilation, what led him to view code-switching as an asset, and how that unforgettable transition helped him realize there isn’t any one way to be Black.
Demetrius also tells the story of how disorienting it was to be the only Black student in his grad school cohort, and how having affirming supervision helped convert experiences of alienation into agency, including a supervisor whose attentive inquiry validated his experiences with racist dynamics at work; experiences that continue to inform his “why” for working in university housing, his approach to coaching, the ethics of supervision, and the value of deliberate, affirming leadership that deliberately chooses to face race instead of ignoring it.
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Social Justice Origin Stories is produced, edited, and hosted by Relando Thompkins-Jones.
00:00 Why Stay In Housing
02:19 Coaching Future Leaders
04:19 Seeing Students Up Close
05:16 Series Introduction
06:32 Meet Demetrius Gary
09:30 Education And Blackness
12:00 Assimilation And Identity
15:30 Code Switching Debate
19:35 Black People Are Not A Monolith
23:06 Representation In Media
28:33 Grad School Culture Shock
31:16 Finding Community And Being Seen
36:31 Learning by Observation
37:37 Socialization and Suspicion
39:04 Supervisors Who Grow
42:12 Equity in Supervision
45:25 Moments That Motivate
48:07 Why Housing Matters
51:11 Coaching Future Leaders
55:51 Checking Privilege at Work
01:02:03 What Keeps Me Up
01:06:56 Gratitude and Takeaways
01:09:07 Rapid Fire Reflections
01:12:18 Closing and Call to Action
