No higher compliment

"One of the ways that Len has both proved being a good friend to me and modeled good friendship is saying to me, personally, on more than one or two occasions that he took inspiration to complete his PhD, from the work he saw me put in to achieve my own. Most people, upon me telling them how hard I worked to get there would nod and smile and say something vaguely affirming or complimentary. But Len went further. He told me that he used my discipline as an example for his own work towards his doctorate. I can’t think of a higher compliment that anyone has given me.

This compliment is a kind of recognition and is particularly meaningful to me since I’m very aware that as a black man, people who look like me are rarely held up as models for behavior. He really saw that in me and conveyed that to me. He did so casually but this was a noble act. Race and power colors almost everything I deal with, and in particular colors my relationships. But with Len I find myself forgetting that we are racialized beings in a particular social order. There is something in his spirit and his integrity that sees beyond this circumstance we are mired in. I not only value Len; I admire him and want more of that generous loving vision too."

submitted by Seph Rodney