Franklin's Self Assessment

My first year at UCSB, I was Undeclared, but I had been completely convinced that I wanted to be a radiologist. So I was taking math and science courses. Within the first two quarters, I had noticed that I was not getting the grades that I felt I should be getting, so I became a Sociology major. A friend of mine had asked me about my reasoning of not taking a Black Studies course, and like most people, I assumed that I knew everything about black history. My friends told me I knew nothing, and after taking my first Black Studies course, I truly saw that I knew nothing about the true historical narrative of this country. In Spring quarter of my sophomore year, I took Black Studies 1 with Professor  Robinson. If I had to take one thing away from this course, it would have the be when he told the class that history is a “closed” text. At first, I really had to think about it, then I was in awe since he was telling the truth. I had never taught to myself that the author determines what goes into the book. I saw the significance of the concept, since it truly limits interpretation and tells one side of the story. It was not until Black Studies 1, where I heard about events like the Nat Turner Rebellion. After my experience in Black Studies 1, I decided that I would do the minor, and it lead me to taking courses such as Black Studies: 4, 7, 38B, 118, 128, 153, 169 BR, and 171. For example, I loved taking Black Studies 4 with Professor Gaye Johnson, because she took an approach that I did not see in my other classes. She encouraged a lot of discussion and for this course, it was interesting to see what others were thinking. I still remember to this day that “racism is a system of advantages based on race.” This course seriously made me re-evaluate this normative belief that everyone is “racists.” From simply taking this course, I took 3 more courses with Johnson, and changed from a minor to a major. I found myself engaging in discussion in class and thinking about the various issues within the course in a complex manner that helped me write great papers. The fact of the matter is that I love the type of papers that I have the opportunity to write in Black Studies, since they are complex, and requires the student to really think about the topic at hand and draw connections across history.
    Black Studies is definitely not the easiest major, but I truly believe that there is no such thing as an easy major. But I have come to appreciate the existence of the program, since it is truly displays a narrative that is hidden from the history books. It is interesting to think that a lot of times, the knowledge that we learn in high school is shaped in a way that makes us believe that we know everything. Yet when coming to college, we really believe that subjects such as black history is only stories about slavery, Jim Crow Laws, and Martin Luther King. This was my reasoning of why initially I thought I knew black history, but I knew nothing about my own history. Yet being a Black Studies major has truly given me a new outlook on the world, and it allows me to draw conclusions from our past and present.