SPEAKER 1: Welcome to the Towson University College of Fine Arts and Communications What's Your Story? podcast. In today's story, we hear from Erin Berry, professor in the Department of Mass Communications and Communication Studies. She tells us about how she realized her own self-worth. 

ERIN BERRY: The second day of Kwanzaa is December 27. And that stands for Kujichagulia, which means self-determination, defining ourselves, naming ourselves, and creating space for ourselves. I grew up in a household where we celebrated Christmas, followed by Kwanzaa. So we spent a lot of time talking about all these different Kwanzaa principles. 

But the one that stands out to me is Kujichagulia for sure. A quote that I once read, and I really hold dear, and I say it and I repeat it to myself often is by Audre Lorde. She says, "If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." And that connects very much to the story that I have to tell. 

So when I graduated from my master's program, I had a difficult time finding a job. And my stepfather would always say, you either need to go to law school or you either need to get a PhD, because you are arguing and debating way too well for this to just be wasted. So I heeded his advice and I enrolled in a PhD program, was really excited about that, and started school in 2012 studying language, literacy, and culture at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. My first year was filled with all of these new readings about DuBois, and bell hooks, and Foucault, and a myriad of other writers. 

And while I was reading and writing papers about this, my stepfather was also reading and writing things as well. And so we would have these awesome conversations about politics and religion and sexuality and gender. And I just felt so full that not only was I learning, but he was learning. And he only had a high school education, so this was blowing his mind. And we were having these awesome conversations until the wee hours of the morning. 

Unfortunately, in 2013, my stepfather passed from acute leukemia. And it was very sudden, completely unexpected. And one thing that I always consider is that, when you think about death, especially of a loved one, someone that's really close, you can't really prepare for it, so I never got to have a last conversation with him. I never got to talk about the final paper that I got, where I got an A, that I had turned in before and I got a B minus on it and how I had improved and had taken into consideration some of the things that he said I should add. 

So I was really devastated. And my family was devastated. And I had kind of given up on life. I decided that I was going to move back home to Durham, North Carolina, and stay with my mom and brother and go and work retail. I didn't want to do a PhD. I didn't want to do anything but go to work and come home, because death is so permanent. And I just felt tormented by this reality that this person that I held in such high regard and who understood me intellectually was no longer there to have those conversations with me. 

I stayed at home for about a month, and then something just clicked inside and just said, you should just go back to school. So, of course, I was welcomed back into my program, continued to go through classes. But the one thing that I consistently remember, and the one thing that really inspired me, was what my stepfather and I would always talk about as it concerns Kujichagulia, about how your self-naming and your self-determining and a part of that is you encouraging yourself. 

Now, while my stepfather was, and I think spiritually will continue to be, one of my biggest cheerleaders, I hadn't been cheering for myself. I had relied on other people to encourage me and to validate me and to find the value in me. As a black woman in America, that's extremely hard. So I decided, hey, I'm going to be my source of encouragement. And if people want to add on to that, that's great. But I know that I'm valuable and I am going to self-name. 

So not only am I Erin. Not only am I a PhD student, but I'm human. I'm a person. I live life. And I experience things through a specific positionality and that's so profound and that's so important. And so every time I get frustrated with what I call a baby dissertation, I continue to think about this notion of self-naming and how important it is to be able to establish for yourself who you are, the humanness that you have, and what you bring to the world, and how you have this unique value that no one else has.