My entire life has led me to where I am today. I never saw myself as a researcher, academic, or scholar. My pursuit towards higher education are fairly new. Actually, my interests in education, in general, didn't kick in until 5 or 6 years ago. However, today, I feel confident to call myself a scholar. 

I've taken with me, through my academic journey my life skills, interests, hobbies, creativity, and experiences. In the McNair program, I've carried my yearning to heal myself as a Black woman, into my research. I didn't know what that looked like, what it meant, or how I was going to do it. I just had a constant gravitational pull towards inner work for the Black woman because of wanting to heal myself.

“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing ”

— Wernher von Braun

Rewind several years later, I've completed my Senior Capstone: This Sh*t is For Us: A Black Feminist Digital Autoethnography

What you'll see on this coauthored website is a accumulation of years of discovery. I feel incredibly proud of this work because with all the theories, revelations, methods, and research I now see that this is only the BEGINNING. I spent my life getting here which only scratches the surface of what I want to say. 

My senior capstone explores Black women's identity through a 21st-century digital framework. This work is important to me because being surrounded by positive representations of black folks affirmed me as a girl and continues to do so as an adult. Through my journey, I've learned that I'm not alone in seeking validation and representation. Today, there's an abundance of dope black television shows, black female illustrators, writers, artists, graphic designers, models, and actresses that affirm my black womanhood. Despite this being MY reality, it's not a reality for ALL Black girls and women. Therefore, I will always have work to do, to make sure ALL black females feel affirmed in who they are.  

The title of my senior capstone is pulled from Solange's song "FUBU" on her album A Seat At The Table. The tile serves as a double meaning. In my senior capstone, my study partly addressed the barriers to higher education within the research academy. This "shit" means higher education, degrees, scholarly research, and graduate school. This "shit" can also mean whatever YOU want it to mean beacuse this shit is taking up space in places that weren't meant or built for black people. This "shit" is love, marriage, healthy families, being on television, holding the executive chair, owning property, owning businesses, owning banks, having financial wealth, good credit, owning land, empires, and you get the picture.

Fill in the blank: _______________ Is For Us. #thisshitisforus

By using Weebly, digital studies, and social media in my research makes it a digital ethnography. An autoethnography is me using myself, my life, perspective, and experiences as a frame of reference to be incorporated as a part of my research. In addition to my own story, I interviewed my sister Magdaline for my senior capstone. To complete my study, I will be interviewing my 3 other sisters this summer. 

Click on the button below to scroll through my senior capstone, there's a lot of content to sift through, but there's also useful videos and beautiful imagery.

The website is coauthored and my research has the + symbol on them. 

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