One year ago, Brianna Melody White felt a calling. A California native with a job at California State University in Fresno, an established community, and a dog named Cupcake made the choice to uproot the life she knew and accept a position at UW. This Black History Month, White seeks to explore taboos and take blackness out of the box.
White never sought out her role as Black Student Program Coordinator with Multicultural Affairs at the University of Wyoming, but when her friend, a fellow Californian and UW employee encouraged her to proceed with an exploratory interview, she knew it was the right path for her. .
“California, to Wyoming? Yeah, not a very common transition at all. I was doing this exact work at another institution in California and one day I get this text and it was like, hey, like, are you interested in moving to Wyoming? My first answer was no. Girl, no.”
However, after flying out to the Equality State and touring the campus, she saw the need for an advocate for UW’s Black students.
“I got to meet the team, fell in love with everybody, and fell in love with me. And I just knew in my heart, I have to do this. I went back to my hotel room and I cried. I was like, but what am I doing? I’m literally moving across the country. Like that’s insane!”
With African Americans making up only 1.2% of Wyoming’s 578,803 population according to the U.S. census, White’s family and friends felt concerned over the lack of diversity. For this reason, White took it upon herself to learn about the history of Black Americans in the West, and used this knowledge to organize events for her first Black History Month at UW.
“I really wanted to just focus on and work on things that may be considered like stigma is like within the black community. We’re talking about things that we don’t usually talk about. We talked about mental health, suicide prevention, depression.”
Personally and professionally, White would see a more expansive definition of what it means to be black and how that experience cannot be contained within external expectations.
“I feel like we put blackness in a box. And I feel like that is just so wrong to do. When people say Black people don’t do this, Black people don’t do that, that’s not true because there are so many different experiences and different types of people,” White said.
“How can you tell me I’m not a black woman? How can you? People have told me that my whole life you’re not black– You’re white girl in a black girl’s body. You’re an Oreo, you’re this, you’re that, you’re not black.”
“I spent 26 years of my life not loving myself. It was just terrible.”
Through experience and through her faith, White described breaking free from the expectations around her own identity which weighed on her for so long. In celebrating herself fully, White has found greater strength in carrying out her purpose; a drive to help others.
“A lot of that mess that I was thinking about myself was because I was believing the other myths that people who were not safe were telling. For me, the Lord defines who I am. He’s saying I’m beautiful and I’m made in His image.” White said.
White emphasized the benefit of spending time with yourself for any student trying to break free from the many boxes individual identities are put in, and discover themselves in a more complete and genuine way.
With this personal and professional mission, White concludes Black History Month with the hope that conversations that began in February only continue through the coming months. White said,
“It does not stop on February 28. We’re still continuing to honor Black history, celebrate Black history and also make Black history, which we are absolutely doing here at the University of Wyoming.
