8 Things President Obama’s Howard University Commencement Speech Reminded Me of My Postgraduate Journey
November 4, 2008 would be a day I will never forget. I wrote about it in my first blog (pre-BrittneyOliver.com) on my experience during Election Day 2008. I was a college student attending Howard University in Washington, D.C. and that day was filled with glory when our nation’s first black president was elected. Eight years later, President Barack Obama delivered one of his last commencement speeches at my alma mater and that feeling I had on Election Day came back to me.
President Obama became the sixth sitting president to give a commencement speech at Howard University. This commencement marks five years since I graduated from the university. In 2011, I sat on the Yard, on a cloudy morning excited to use what I learned at my alma mater to impact the world. However, little did I know what was in store for me five years later. I moved to New York and started my postgraduate life, and it’s been a bittersweet road filled with self-discovery, growth and maturity. There were many things that Obama said throughout his speech that resonated with me and my journey after graduation. Here are my favorite quotes from his speech in relation to what I’ve learned since graduating from Howard:
1.“Oh, I feel important now. Got a degree from Howard.”
There was so much pride on his face when he received a honorary degree from Howard. It meant just as much to him as it meant for the graduating class and the alumni who’ve come before. He went on to talk about Howard’s place in American history and the alumni who’ve walked that very campus and created many firsts for blacks and their way of life. That pride was how I felt when I graduated, because I knew I was walking in the legacy of so many before me. I wanted so badly to contribute to what being a Howard Bison really means. It’s the very thing that kept me motivated in the pursuit of my dreams, even when so many roadblocks slowed me down and sent me on a detour. I knew that what I was doing was bigger than me.
2. “The ‘Howard Hustle’ has strengthened your sense of purpose and ambition.”
The very thing I learned about Howard is that if someone tells you “no,” find a way to get a “yes.” Almost everything about my university was a process, and instant gratification was foreign to us students, and it’s foreign in the real world, too. I would know because I wrote about my 100 rejections after graduating on Levo. I learned that everything worth having, doesn’t come easy and you will have to fight for it. I mixed my Howard Hustle with my New York grind, and I have created opportunities in spaces that people have doubted that I would be able to do. Although I didn’t get the job that I wanted or when I wanted it, I stopped wallowing in the “why me?” and started to ask “why not?”
3. “If you had to choose a time to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, “young, gifted and black” in America, you would choose right now.”
What a time to be alive! One thing that I continue to experience since graduating is meeting so many talented and courageous young black people. I’m so impressed yet so inspired to have peers who are turning lemons into lemonade. Jewel Burks lived on the same floor as me Freshman year and now she’s on Forbes 30 under 30. There are so many people creating opportunities for themselves, opportunities for others and breaking barriers in this Millennial generation. Be inspired by all the magic that is happening around us. We are the generation to carry the torch and we are doing some amazing things to help move the country and culture forward.
4. “Be confident in your blackness.”
I, too, have had my blackness questioned and I always wondered why people felt that there was only one way to look, dress, speak and act to inhibit what defines being black. It was one of the reasons why I left my hometown to attend an HBCU, because I wanted to be exposed to the Black Diaspora. I studied and worked alongside black people from every corner of the world and we were all so different. Beyond the obvious physical difference, there were significant cultural differences and influences that made each of us unique. Those four years helped me find confidence in knowing that I don’t have to be anything other than Brittney Oliver. I was able to be in a place where I could develop my identity and grow as a woman and not be limited to one image of blackness.
5. “That’s a pet peeve of mine: People who have been successful and don’t realize they’ve been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn’t nothing you did. So don’t have an attitude.”
It was New Year’s Day 2012 and I was having brunch with some of my colleagues from college and I’ll never forget what one of them said. He said, “I don’t know how anyone could be unemployed in New York. There is so many opportunities here. All you have to do is go to a bar, talk to a stranger and get a job.” He made it sound so simple and his ignorance annoyed me. He did struggle like did, and he was able to get a great paying job after graduation that was outside of his degree. He was getting paid so well he treated himself to a BMW after getting the job. I was so offended by his shade towards me and his lack of empathy. He wasn’t the first alumni or person that I met along the way, whose experience haven’t been as treacherous as mine. They’ve had it pretty easy, but one thing I do know is that we all have a period where we have to experience the valley before we can reach the mountaintop. You can’t count people out when they are down. People will rise again and they will remember how you gave them the cold shoulder. I think the thing we all need to remember is that every person’s journey is uniquely there’s to take. Our path to success will be different so there is no need to compare yourself to others or criticize one another. We have to be empathic.
6. “Passion is vital, but you’ve got to have a strategy.”
When President Obama started talking about this, he was referring to creating change in the political sense. However, I want to use those quote to reflect a personal passion. Many of us have passions that we dream about or speak about, but in order for them to come into fruition there needs to be a strategy. How do you see your passions realized? That was the very thing that I tried to answer, when my dreams of working for a PR agency didn’t happen for me after college. Communications is my passion and I didn’t know how I was going to get there because I only had a plan A. Sometimes the strategy will be unconventional and sometimes you have to open yourself up to opportunities that will eventually lead you to what you imaged. There is no one way to success.
7. Nobody promised you a crystal stair. And if you want to make life fair, then you’ve got to start with the world as it is.
Adulting isn’t easy. There’s a lot of things you will experience that is unfair, but that’s when you have to turn those lemons into lemonade. Take the experience and skill set you already possess to help create the life you want. Don’t let the systems that are in place discourage you from the outcome you are looking for. It may take longer than you hope, it may cost more than you were willing to pay, but it will be worth it in the end if you decide not to give up.
8. “And when your journey seems too hard, and when you run into a chorus of cynics who tell you that you’re being foolish to keep believing or that you can’t do something, or that you should just give up, or you should just settle—you might say to yourself a little phrase that I’ve found handy these last eight years: Yes, we can.”
There were times that I wanted to throw in the towel, leave NYC and return to my hometown. Life seemed so simple then, and that was all I wanted was a break from the bull. There were times that people told me that I wasn’t cut out for this city, and that maybe the slower South was more of my speed. I was even told that my little office assistant job was all I would ever have and I should be content with it. I would have never realized my talent for pitching and relationship building. I was told my voice was annoying and I was a terrible writer, and yet I have my first speaking engagement next month and I have been published in a major magazine. I would have never created a website, opened up to people about my postgraduate experience, nor created a brand that is inspiring and uplifting people to turn lemons into lemonade. Haters are going to hate and the naysayers will always doubt, but with resilience, determination and drive you can do anything you want to do.