Why Critical Reads?

For those unfamiliar with my story, my name is Neph Lesperance, and I am a proud Haitian woman born in Costa Rica and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida. My unique background began in 1987 when my parents got married and moved from Haiti to Costa Rica to pursue a medical degree. After the birth of my sister and me and finishing med school, my parents moved our family back to Haiti for a bit only to make the difficult decision to leave Haiti for good and move to the United States for a chance at the "American Dream." Over time, my family settled in West Palm Beach, where I had to navigate living as an immigrant in a world that would never see me as anything but black and "other." On top of that, I was battling familial pressure to study medicine, which led me to a season of anxiety and depression that was eventually addressed through therapy and deciding to pursue a degree in psychology at Florida International University. Because of my experiences at FIU (i.e., a student leader with college ministries, research assistant for community-based projects, etc.), I eventually decided to pursue a master's degree in social work. That decision led me to Loyola University Chicago, where I received master's degrees in Social Work and Social Justice.

During my last semester of classes, somewhere around April 2020, I was asked to reflect on my studies at Loyola through a capstone course, and I realized that I would never stop feeling frustrated by my chosen career path. When I initially enrolled in the MSW/MASJ program, I was invigorated by the idea of equipping myself to become an effective "social justice warrior." I wanted to learn from people in the field and form relationships with people who could eventually become allies. However, as I took more classes, it slowly began to feel like a pipe dream. Because most of my professors and classmates were white, they seemed to take more pride in appearing "not racist" and pro-social justice than actually taking steps to stand up for people or do the right things. For example, when Donald Trump was the president, many of my peers and professors would tell me in private that things were messed up but seldom took a public stand out of fear of things like losing status/money, fighting with family, etc. Although I understood having these fears, I often found myself envying them because they had the luxury to choose when and how they wanted to engage with social justice issues. After a while, it became tough for me to sit in LUC spaces and theorize with other students about black-specific social issues when I knew our traumas would only be used as teaching tools (especially for the white students). Unfortunately, my experiences outside of the classroom were not much better.

During my second year, a classmate ("D") and I presented in New York at a social work conference. While we were there, a LUC student ("V") got really drunk and almost fell into a wall, so another student who happened to be a black, male nondrinker ("F") ended up having to take her home. Later that night, as D and I were processing what happened with another roommate, she revealed that "V" was heavily drinking because she was going through a lot back in Chicago, including broken relationships and self-harm. This revelation led to an argument between "D" and me about how our group should have taken better care of "V." I understood that "V" is a grown woman and has the right to make her own choices, but as humans (and budding social workers), I felt like we all had a responsibility to make sure "V" did not harm herself. I was also furious because I could not shake the feeling that, to "D" and my peers, being thoughtful and caring was limited to when they were working their social worker 9-5 jobs. To make matters worse, "V" is a white woman, and we let "F" take her home by himself in an unfamiliar city. Thankfully nothing awful happened. However, the more "D" and I debriefed about what happened, the angrier I became because she was more concerned about not "spoiling her good time" than making sure "V" was okay or making sure "F" was not in a compromising position. The final straw, for me, was an incident at a nonprofit I was working for where it felt like the director disregarded my expertise because of my race and gender.

Now that I've lived through over a year of COVID deaths and my own health issues, I am finding that I am wrestling with a new reality: complete disillusionment in God, the church, and most of humanity. Because we all have to find ways to keep on "living," I took the past year not only to mourn over my ideals but also to explore ways I could channel my sadness into something more "productive." During my time of exploration, I was reminded that I love teaching and connecting people to resources. Through Critical Reads, I hope to connect you to resources that can help you critically analyze different aspects of our society. I also hope that these resources will inspire you to make changes within your own lives and communities. Join me each week as I learn and wrestle with themes that drive most people to the place of insanity.