Ep12_Professor under threat_Dr. Malik Boykin.mp3
Ep12_Professor under threat_Dr. Malik Boykin.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Ep12_Professor under threat_Dr. Malik Boykin.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Emily:
Hey there, a quick warning before we start today's episode touches on depression, loss, racial discrimination, and there's a bit of swearing. Please be mindful if you continue to listen and reach out for support, if you need it. For today's episode, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with Dr. Malik Boykin, he's the first black professor in the Department of Cognitive Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, and he's also a hip hop artist. He studies the psychology of social hierarchy, discrimination, prejudice and algorithmic bias. As a musician, he's been involved in the production of a jazzy Afro Caribbean style single Dancing for Freedom, which has over 500,000 plays on tik tok. Blake opens up about early life experiences, how they led him to become a professor, and some of the challenges he's faced and continues to face as a black man and academic.
Malik:
People who study race have a much better time when there are people of color as editors of the journals. But oftentimes you're fighting an uphill battle. And the fact that if an editor doesn't think this is a valid thing to think about in the study, then you have to navigate the fact that you have a harder road to hoe to convince people that this is scientific, that it's worthwhile. And sometimes it might be a study that is actually threatening to the person that receives it as an editor. So you got to take that in that that resistance. It's extra drag over and above the fact that, you know, one of the other things and I don't want you to feel any kind of way about this because, you know, I'm on your platform to talk about this, but I'm often asked to talk about experiences that are racially charged and traumatic experiences as a part of my job.
Emily:
Welcome to Voices of Academia with Emily King. It's a podcast where researchers from around the world open up about their mental health. They might laugh, cry or say things you disagree with, but this is lived experience, not professional advice. We cover some sensitive material, but it's worth it to normalize difficult conversations, reduce stigma and help people feel less alone. Let's get into it. All right, so, Malik, welcome to the podcast. I I'm really interested to talk to you because someone that works for you actually e-mailed our team and actually very nicely said that she had listened to one of our earlier podcast episodes and said that she found it very inspiring and the content very thought provoking, which I really appreciate. And she presented you as a potential guest on your behalf. And I was really intrigued because she indicated that not only are you the first black professor in your department, but you're a hip hop artist and tik tok famous. So could you tell us a bit about how you got into that?
Malik:
Yeah, so hip hop has been a part of my life since I was pretty young. My older brother was a fan of early hip hop. And, you know, in the nineteen eighties, you know, listening to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and The Message and Slick Rick, you know, I just thought this was the coolest stuff on the planet. And then it was speaking to me in a way that that was really getting through. And I started trying to write rhymes and kind of imitate the characters that they were creating that were being broadcast into my living room from the video shows and or on the radio. And it was just a great outlet. And let me play with words. I always have loved to read them, always a vocabulary. And it just has been with me. It's been with me and it's been with me through tough times. And in the now and in the past couple of years, as I have been in this new role of assistant professor in my department, it is something that I used to help keep me grounded. So it is just continually has grown up with me and been a part of my identity.
Emily:
Yeah, I love that I'm a calculated about that as a management strategy for you. And in the second episode I'm a bit familiar with some of those names I watched the get down on on Netflix, which is a lot about the history of Grandmaster Flash, and I wish I could remember the name of it. But literally just last week I watched another documentary that was all about the hip hop movement. But yeah, so, so fascinating. So before we get into it, if any of the listeners would like to reach out to you on social media because of your what you share today, could you let them know where would be the best place to find you?
Malik:
The best place to find me find me would be on Instagram at Starz. Malique at Estie are alike. But my website, Malique Starcom, which is the website for my music, is also a place where there are several social media platforms that you can connect with me through. So either one of those and you have reached out to me, I'll respond pretty responsive on most things.
Emily:
Good to know. And we'll put those links in the episode description as well. So I think we'll get into I often ask people sort of what drew them into research, but I believe from what you've told me prior to recording, that will probably get into that as part of your mental health story. So we'll touch on that in a minute. But before we sort of shift gears a bit more into that part of your story, I'm I'm quite interested to know what is motivating you to sort of share your story today, if you don't mind.
Malik:
Yeah, I think that the underlying motivation of the platform in and of itself is one that I believe in a person who teaches a course called the psychology of stigma and prejudice. And there certainly is, as we know, a lot of mental health stigma, which is part of what I think about. But also, I am a person who is multidimensional. And I think that it is also important that people can hear from people about multi dimensionality and knowing that you don't have to pick one or the other person could be scientist and artist. And that all informs their humanity. And if that is who you are, then be just that they'll try to lop off a part of your identity to achieve some other identity. And I think that that is a lot of my motivation to share my story broadly and also to share this particular platform.
Emily:
Thank you. And that last point really gets me in the fields as well, because I think I was trying to kind of square peg round hole for a long time and. Now, I've tried to embrace, like all those different parts of me, so that's that's interesting. Thank you for our listeners. This is why you may experience some triggers are often wonderfully but disarmingly open. If listening today brings anything up for you and encourage you to reach out to one of your supports, contact your GP or access the relevant support numbers and resources for your country at www.checkpointorg.com/global.
Emily:
So I did want to do, I guess, a bit of a well being check. This is a recent thing that I've started doing in the recording. But I mean, given where in the second year of a global pandemic for you, particularly the threats to your community Malik, and just life in general, I mean, how are you?
Malik:
You know, I am... I am... I am OK. I think that that is just a very honest take on it. I'm not doing great. I'm not doing exceptionally poorly. I'm somewhere kind of around homeostasis. Yeah, but certainly the pandemic has been hard on the black community in America for sure. And as being a person who is not only black, but who grew up in a very black and brown community. The no, just the sheer volume of not only people that I know personally had covid or who have died from covid or who have had close family members die from covid has been very trying. And then there's also the ways that it has been reached, other kinds of havoc. You know, there's also the fact that there are some of my loved ones who are in isolation in ways that they would not have been and then being. The support system. To people who are really experiencing tough times because of their isolation, while you're also managing your own isolation, has been just something that I've had to actively manage how that feels for my for my mind and for my spirit. So when I say I'm OK, it is it is certainly a the the result of just really trying to actively manage well enough to be OK.
Emily:
Yeah. And it's I know it's a loaded question, particularly right now, but that's actually informative for me to hear as well, because, you know, I have a peripheral awareness of what's going on in America. But, you know, I haven't heard it sort of in those words and in kind of a personal impact before. So I'm just thinking about, you know, what it is to cope with the rigors of academia in Lacka Normal and then you throw these things on top of it, and that's extremely challenging. So I'm really glad to hear that you're OK. And perhaps that has to do with some of these management strategies that you've built up for yourself over the years that we'll talk about as part of the exercise. So, yeah, it is really a well being check just to say that you are still comfortable sharing your mental health story today. OK, great. So thank you. So you've indicated to me, Mike, that you have experienced loss, you struggle with depression, and you've had to actively manage burnout throughout your career. And as you've just kind of alluded to, compounding this is your identity as a black man in America and having to constantly negotiate the threat of violence that comes along with that. So from what you've shared with me so far, my understanding is that you'd like to discuss the intersection between race, academia and mental health. Is that correct?
Malik:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I think that there's also kind of the stories that preclude those as well that I think are very important to me as well. Just given that some of my most trying experiences with loss happened when I was a relatively young person. And I think that it would be it would be hard to contextualize any of it without talking about that. Also, there was a period in my life, probably from about the age of eight to maybe 15, where I lost about one family member per year, you know, just kind of back to back to back to back, you know, being both of my grandfathers, aunt and my mom. And, you know, it was just a formative period, but it was a formative period, both while while I'm falling in love with hip hop, but also having to just negotiate tremendous amounts of loss. And so, you know, there was a I mean, I remember a period in middle school, my mother was sick through fifth, sixth grade for me, and then she died when I was in seventh grade. And I just remember that period in school being one.
Malik:
But I can just remember sitting in the class with my head now, like not even engaging at all. Like there is a lesson going on. I probably should not have even been in school at that period of time. But there really is not like bereavement breaks for K through 12 or something like that. It just doesn't exist. So I'm just in there like having to, you know, be accountable for tests or whatever and not doing well in class because, you know, I didn't really give a shit because I mean, you're telling me about the historical period of blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, given my immediate contingencies, how important is that to really. So I was over experienced with loss relative to my cohort or what would be normative, given the context? I mean, I imagine in some other parts of world, it's pretty, pretty normative experience, that much loss. But it was atypical of an experience. And I was, you know, as tough as formative, it definitely was a place where I think my experiences in journey with depression really get rooted in that that period. Yeah. Mm hmm. Wow.
Emily:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing such difficult experiences to manage when you're so young. Is my first experience of of real loss was probably when I was about 17, so I just can't imagine, you know, being so young and losing some of your you're really, really close family members. So that must have had a really big impact on you.
Malik:
Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely did.
Emily:
So I admit in this space, I'm I'm a little bit nervous because I have limited experience and exposure in in talking about race, but about I would really like to learn, I guess, from the little bit of reading that I've read because I was nervous about this, I believe responses to language in this space, a quite personal. And I wanted to ask you how you would prefer that I refer to your community that comes up because I don't want to unintentionally, you know, be be offensive in any way.
Malik:
Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate. The question is, for me, black or African-American is perfectly fine. I know that the term black is one that has gone through some shifts. But I think when members of the black community began adopting that term, it was like a political orientation and or a commitment to the expansion of rights and, you know, political power for black people. And so then being black was a choice. It wasn't just the demographic category. I think in the in its current dispensation, it has been stripped of that meaning. And now it's just a demographic category when it's used. But I prefer to think of it in its original context, because I do think of myself as a person who is actively thinking about expansion of rights for for black people, not just in America, but globally, since it's pretty it's pretty tough for black folks everywhere on the map.
Emily:
Yeah, OK, cool. Thank you for that. Sure. So I obviously I can't relate. I can appreciate you live quite a different life. And so again, I just want to thank you for being willing to to talk to us about that today. And I guess for our listeners, you know, it might be obvious, but I did just want to acknowledge that, you know, while academia can impact life experience, life experience can also impact how we cope with the rigors of a research career. So people with a whole range of temporary or ongoing life challenges might have a hard time navigating academia. And I think on this platform, it's really important to talk about that as well. So I guess referring back to what I've just said about about my nerves, I do apologize if I make any mistakes during this interview. I do have the best intentions, but please feel free to call me out on Twitter and I can I can try and do better. So I'm available at ating underscore S.I for science summerlike, I guess in terms of those early experiences of loss. And, you know, I can I can totally understand, you know, trying to learn about some of the school curriculum while you're experiencing these things that are immediately very important to you. I imagine that would have had quite an impact on your. Yeah, you even said, you know, on on how you're performing at school and you've obviously now made it to professor. So I'd be interested to know how did those experiences early on kind of negatively impact your career trajectory because of the impact that they had on your on your grades that sort of impact your ability to get into the university courses that you wanted to get into?
Malik:
Well, yeah, totally. I mean, there's a that is a really long story and I'm glad have time to talk about it. But, you know, I repeated the 10th grade. I was not a very motivated student. I had gone from being like the gold medal science winner in my elementary school and one of the top students. And a lot of my the motivation in that time was really tied to my relationship with my mom, who herself had been an educator and then had become an attorney after she found that kids in her classroom were experiencing a lot of struggles at home. And she then became a guidance counselor. And once she really heard some of the stories of what kids were going through, she became an advocate for children as an attorney. And, you know, I don't know this to be necessarily true, but I do feel like there is some level of potential that the stress of having to hold the weight of so many stories from children was part of what potentially advanced her illnesses and, you know, caused her to die. So I'm actually in this moment the same as she was when she died. And so there was it to me when she got sick. There was an immediate drop off in my grades, you know, just was not as.
Malik:
Interested, and as her energy was diminished, she was not able to devote attention to my. Education, you know, and so without that particular engagement, I did not necessarily have strong relationships with my teachers and we know that students perform well for teachers and the like. But for me, the teacher that I like was in my household. So it didn't matter if I like the teacher in the classroom quite as much. But when that kind of consolation in my support system was altered, there was just a radical shift in my performance. And as I advance out of elementary and middle school and high school, then, you know, I'm coming in contact with teachers who have no memory of me being a great student. So they just, you know, black kid not performing well in school must be just like all of the other kids who are stereotyped as being not very talented and so on and so forth. And it became, you know, this kind of experience that. I understood the material, you know, none of it was really going over my head at all, I just just didn't really give a shit to engage with it. And I didn't really have much care in the relationship with the teacher. And, you know, it's also annoying to deal with somebody that's underestimated.
Malik:
And so that ends up being kind of a negative component of the loop. And you just never really got back on course. Now, one really privileged protective factor for me is the fact that my father is also a psychology professor and he was a psychology professor at Howard University. And he helped me get into a summer bridge program after I graduated high school that I was able to demonstrate knowledge in the summer bridge program doing calculus when I never even taking calculus in high school, you know? And he was like, well, you know, this cat clearly knows college level work. So I was able to get admitted. But even at that time, you know, I just I don't think I was ready. I don't think I was ready to be a student. I think that I was still more focused on art and more focused on trying to heal from some of the things that I had gone through and really just kind of. You know, finding my my place in all of it, and it wasn't really until the experience where navigating my life as an independent musician, where I had this unfortunate issue where my car exploded and my then significant other came and picked me up off of the highway after what I thought was an electrical fire and, you know, pulled over on I-95 and got out to look under the hood.
Malik:
And I don't know, I was looking for a kind of, you know, much about cars underneath the cars. The car was on fire. It's after midnight on a major highway. I grab a few things out of the car and I'll walk. And it explodes 15 paces up the road. And that night and into that morning, it was really like, man, I dropped out of school to pursue music. My lifeblood, my this this particular vehicle that was getting me to all of my gigs and helping me to sustain that had gone up in smoke. And so then in that moment, did I feel like my dreams was like like my dream was deferred in a car explosion. So I that night into that morning, I was like, you know, the rest of my life has the potential to really suck. Like, it's unforgiving out here for a black man with no degree and no with rap is like you either make it or you're like the shoe salesman or something. And like you kind of, you know, fall off into something that is like the trajectory for black men who don't have college degrees in America. Right. And so I decided then to go back to school and went back with just a sense of urgency about my future.
Malik:
And that was the first semester that I got a 4.0 in my entire life. And the music industry is harder than school. It is. Right. And I went in with this think that I want to turn everything in on time to the best of my ability, whatever that is, to the best of my ability. But the amount of time that I was given and, you know, put a lot of care and planning into my assignments for 4.0 and followed up with a 4.0 and another semester and then a semester of three point eight, I think I got to be in one class my last semester and I really turned the tide for me and a lot of ways and this was know me as an adult student, me graduating at thirty one and with all of the kinds of urgencies that were indicative of me fighting for my future. And that kind of is like the other side of that coin where yeah, I think I was on the other side of depression at that time. And I think I also was on the other side of of just having had the kinds of experiences that inform self motivation as opposed to a motivation that's tied to my mom and me.
Emily:
Yeah. And so obviously that would have opened up some opportunities for you, you know, that you were feeling this intrinsic motivation to do well. And we studying psychology.
Malik:
I sure was. Yeah. So that part of my childhood I think is is just so unique in ways that I think are still unfolding for me in the fact that, you know, so while I'm the first black professor in the history of the psychology department with Brown tenure track, I know that they've had some adjuncts before me and lectures before me. But my father was the first black tenure track professor in the history of Cornell Psychology Department. So we have this this weird link where like twenty five percent of the Ivy League, first black professors where my dad and I. But he had left Cornell after becoming a tenured associate professor and went to Howard and has been a professor at Howard ever since, and he came to Howard at a time where a luminary, just a visionary, got Leslie Hicks was building the PhD program in psychology at Howard and just had this vision where we're going to go get Curtis Banks. Curtis Banks was like a black professor at Princeton Psychology at the time. And you brought this dream team together. And these are the people who you know, when I went to work with my dad and I like, you know, if I'm like my dad used to bring me to work one day, I'm just in a psychology department full of black psychologists and black PhD students.
Malik:
And where that just seemed totally normal to me. I had no reason to think that was not that I was I had no reason to realize that I was literally in the only place in the universe where this was happening. Right. So black people becoming psychologists just seemed very normal to me. And there was a then also a course that I took when I got to social psychology course where a professor, Agia John, who has actually left the academy to become a poet, but he would open up a class with poems and let people come to the front of class for 10 minutes to express themselves in ways that that they could make relevant to the material. And I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever. I was like, you know, when I did this music thing doesn't work out. I want to do this. I want to be the social psychology professor who is authorizing art and a conversation between art and psychology in the classroom and that that. Really, as much as anything was my motivation to to pursue psychology specifically,
Emily:
And it just to me really highlights the importance of having a visible role models for you saying that, you know, I imagine it would have made you feel like, you know, that's possible for me because I can see other people ahead of me that are doing that. And I think for a lot of people of different backgrounds, that's such an important thing that we don't always have. So, yeah, that that's really interesting to hear that that's part of how you've got to where you are.
Malik:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, there is a part of it too that I hope I'm not like diving too much into things that we're going to talk about in the second episode. But there's a part of me that I've gotten so much positive feedback from people who have been like closeted, apologetic artists, scientists, you know, people that are like, you know, I make music, but I want to be a neuroscientist. And I just did not know that a person could do both. Like, you are a role model in this for me, much in the way that that Jiah was was a role model for me in that way. So that is a just a very important part of why I do what I do and why I feel motivated to do it. So I had to really let people know about it.
Emily:
Mhm. Definitely. Yeah. So I mean I find, I find you very fascinating and really easy to listen to as well. I'm sure our listeners are going to love that. I do try to keep out episodes to sort of 30 to 40 minutes. So I'll ask a couple of questions. But and I do really want to give you the opportunity to tell the parts of your story that you'd really like to, but we might just need to be a little bit mindful of time. So this second point of new beginning that you previously mentioned to me was your car burning up when you moved to California for graduate school?
Malik:
Yeah.
Emily:
So what did that instigate for you?
Malik:
That was you know, there was a real. Crisis moment there. Well, I also felt like the people in my department were kind of like, man, that sucks, but hey, there's deadlines. It's like, you know, for better or for worse, I feel like my very first semester in a PhD program at Berkeley was my hardest. It's like I moved to Berkeley at the end of July. I landed on a Thursday. I packed my car with all of my belongings thinking that I was going to save money in shipping and then I shipped the car. So it's like, well, if I put my stuff in the car and ship the car, then I'll have to ship the car and stuff, you know, and I get to California like, you know, in my apartment, don't have furniture yet. I'm sleeping on the floor and my stuff is supposed to arrive on Sunday. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday comes and goes and it's Monday morning. And I call this company like, hey, you know, where my things. And, you know, they're like, Mr. Boykin, I don't want you to cause I don't want you to yell and I'm just trying to live. But what is not going to be for another week or something, you know, and it's like your car was lost in a fire and I immediately started cutting and yelling like, oh, you are like, fuck you like ya-da-yadda and so on and so forth. And I had this idea that maybe they're trying to scare me, like maybe they saw all my cool stuff and then sold it, shipped it someplace.
Malik:
And, you know, the guy's like, well, we could send you a picture, send me a picture. And sure enough, there was 18 wheeler with burned up charred cars and my car burnt to a crisp with some of my recognizable belongings, like hanging out the back of a truck burned up. And I was furious. And one fortunate but also unfortunate thing that had happened is that I arrived on Thursday, Friday, to open up a renter's insurance policy. So by the time Monday came and I realized I had all my stuff on that very same league and taking out like a ten thousand dollar claim on my renters insurance policy that I just opened up like five days earlier. So now I'm under investigation. I'm on I'm being audited. So it's like, welcome to graduate school. Here's this exceptionally hard statistics test. You don't have any clothes. You don't have a car, you don't have any belongings. You don't have any books, and you're under investigation. Welcome to California. Right. So that was just a lot of a lot. And, you know, there was this there were definitely moments of just like looking in the mirror, how the fuck am I going to do this? Like, you know, like I can't drop out. Like, I've worked so hard to get to this place. And, you know, my advisor had asked me to work on the Institutional Review Board application, and I just had a lot on my plate. And I'm having to compile all of the documents for the audit or whatever for my insurance company.
Malik:
And it was just it was really trying and it just took a lot of. Pep talks, a lot of leaning on friends and my father and just having people let me know that, you know, you can get through this and also just telling myself that I had been through harder things. You know, it's harder to come back from losing my mom than it is to come back from losing all my stuff. Right. And it was harder to recover from having an awful GPA and dropping out and then repairing my academic record enough to get into the PhD program at UC Berkeley with a full ride. And so, you know, there was a lot of just positive self talk and a lot of having, you know, as the Beatles say, you don't get by with the help of my friends. You know, just having my friends just remind me that, you know, that I could do it. This was definitely a period where I do what I did a lot of what I call Marrawah work, which is just looking at myself to I in the mirror and letting myself know, like, you're going to get through this, you can get through this to do this, you know, and you know that exercise is harder than it sounds. Mm hmm. But for me, it is exceptionally a valuable exercise, because if I could convince the person on the other side of the mirror that I can do it, then I can do it.
Emily:
I'll have to try that one. So I think I'll probably offer you what the support was like from the academic environment at the start of your day through that experience. And then in the next episode, because I think you touched on a really good point that, you know, it's unforgiving when we have these experiences, but there's still deadlines. I still think that sort of need to get done. So I'd be interested to touch on that in the next episode. The final question I guess I have, if you feel comfortable sharing in your personal experience, how do you feel you're treated as a black man trying to navigate the academic environment? And how has that impacted your mental health?
Malik:
Yeah, I think that there is kind of such a complicated question and I feel like it's been different at different stages. I think of where I am currently is, you know, you do get people that don't necessarily authorize you the same way. And you also have you know, there's a really great paper by a gentleman named Steven Roberts who talks about just the fact that people who study race have a much better time when there are people of color as editors of the journals. But oftentimes you're fighting an uphill battle. And the fact that if an editor doesn't think that this is a valid thing to think about or validate the study, that you have to navigate the fact that, you know, you have a harder road to hoe to convince people that this is scientific, that it's worthwhile, and sometimes it might be a study that is actually threatening to the person that receives it as an editor. So you've got to take that in that that resistance. It's extra drag over and above the fact that, you know, one of the other things and I don't want you to feel any kind of way about this because, you know, I'm on your platform to talk about this, but I'm often asked to talk about experiences that are racially charged and traumatic experiences as a part of my job. Right. And so there's also that where, you know, people get to consume this part of it, of me baring my soul. And that is, you know, that has some amount of that. That's labor. It's labor intensive. It really is. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, so all of those things are at play in addition to the fact that, you know, I'm often the only one in the room.
Malik:
And so then sometimes there are things that are said that I can't look at anybody and say, oh, did you hear this or whatever. And so, you know, there's also just this this kind of like being an alien often in various spaces. And, you know, I'm not calling out any specific space. It's it's been all of it like this, the whole trajectory post Howard University, which is the only place that I've been where it's normal because most of the people there are black. Yeah, yeah. You know, but case in point, you know, I had a lot of tough run ins with law enforcement, but my fortunes with law enforcement really radically shifted during the time that. I was at Columbia and, you know, it really was the power of being able to pull out of Columbia University, I'd get pulled over and be able to express that, you know, you're not the riffraff of their imagination. And not to say that anybody needs deserves to be treated like the imaginary friend. But I very I have like a get out of being treated like a riffraff free card that I constantly get to pull out. There's a level of knowing that you're participating in a hierarchy that is problematic, that you're benefiting from in real time. But it's also, you know, like a go to survival tactic because I have not felt like I was going to be killed by police since the ability to pull out of Columbia University, University of Berkeley or Brown University. This is like the first era in my life where it's feels like a less perilous position to be in.
Emily:
Yeah. And yeah, I appreciate you sharing some of those points because I, I do get the feeling that's a very complex question. And, you know, there are so many places that you could go with trying to answer that question. But I think even just a few points that you brought up now briefly is, you know, things that I I certainly haven't thought about, you know, in terms of who is editing manuscript. And it just made me think of I'm not sure what your funding structure is in the US, but also who's on the panel are looking at funding applications and all of that kind of stuff that you have to navigate as well. And then, yeah, potentially kind of being the only voice in your department. So the limited amount of, I guess, social support that you have in the professional sphere and how much strength that would take for you. Yeah, the emotional fatigue that's associated with potentially being lack. I don't know how to say this in a way that's appropriate, but kind of like the poster boy, if that makes sense, like I've become aware that, yeah, people are often asked to share traumatic experiences that they actually don't want to share. And yeah, I guess I appreciate what you said before, you know, about this platform. I guess hopefully we are a little different in that we invite people to come forward if they would like to, and and only share what they're comfortable with.
Emily:
And and for us, it's really about diversity of experience. So, you know, we're very aware that our team is, you know, middle class, white and largely female. We've now recently added on on Sereda, who is a black woman in America, also with a disability. And, you know, she brings a great element to our team because there are so many things that we just aren't aware of and sort of don't think about. But, you know, we do think it's important to share all of these different experiences. And for me, I guess that's a little bit confronting because there's so much I don't know about and I can definitely make mistakes. But I think it's really important to to give everyone a voice if they would like to have that opportunity. So we thought I probably will wrap up this episode and just thank you again for sharing some of those experiences, because for me, it's been really informative. And I think for a lot of our listeners, it'll be either informative or something that they relate to and particularly for the black community. You know, saying you as a black professor are learning a little bit about your background and some of your role models. And what helped you to get to where you are, I imagine will be an inspiration for a number of people as well. So is there anything quickly that you'd like to add at the end of this episode before we wrap up this?
Malik:
You know that I am thankful for this conversation and for this platform. Glad to be a part of it.
Emily:
So, again, as a reminder for our listeners, if anyone would like to get in touch with Malik or learn more, the best place to find him is probably on his Instagram @StarxMalik. And we'll be sure tp put a link to that in the episode description.
Malik:
And my two websites www.boykinlab.com, if people want to find out about our research or at www.malikstarx.com, if people want to learn more about my music.
Emily:
Perfect. And we'll put those in the description as well. Thanks. So thanks to the listeners, you guys, for listening close to the end. Stick around for details on how to share your own story. And I look forward to having you back in a couple of weeks to hear the next part of Malik's story. He'll talk us through some of the support resources he's discovered, which includes art therapy, such as music, dance and writing life. Now, before you go, we have some supporters. Sources and information for how you can share your own story if this episode brought anything up for you, there are mental health resources and emergency numbers available for various countries at www.checkpointorg.com/global. For information found in this episode, refer to the episode description or is it the podcast section of our website www.voicesofacademia.com. There you can also access the full transcript of this episode made available by our lovely voices of academia team member Daniel Ranson. This podcast was written, hosted and produced by me, Emily, with support from some very special people in my life.
Emily:
You can find me on Twitter @EKing_Sci, for science, but I'm part of the larger voices of academia team. We have a website, a Twitter account @AcademicVoices and also share stories in blog form with the option of them being anonymous. If you like this podcast and want to hear more stories, please leave a review. Subscribe tell me what you think on Twitter and tell your friends. The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and most other major listening platforms. You can also follow the Voices of Academia blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Just head to our Web site www.voicesofacademia.com to sign up. If you have a mental health awareness story to share, we absolutely want to hear from you. Whether you're a team leader, research assistant, postdoc, student, x academic or any other type of researcher. Follow @AcademicVoices on Twitter. Visit the link in the episode description or visit our website www.voicesofacademia.com. for details on how to share your story. It's time someone gave you a voice.
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