The Power of the Counterstory

Welcome to the discourse with Dr. Shetty, where storytelling means scholarship, rigid knowledge, culture, and lived experience. I'm your host, Dr. Shetty, higher education scholar practitioner and truth teller. And this podcast is a space for honest, unapologetic conversations about race, power, identity, and institutions. Here we break down the realities of higher education, explore how systems impact black professionals and communities, and connect research to real life. Let's get into the discourse. She had been working on the event for weeks, not just putting something together, but really thinking about it. Talking to students, listening to what they were experiencing, trying to create something that would actually speak to what was happening on campus. Something honest, something that didn't just sit on the surface. And she knew going in that it might be uncomfortable. That was the point. The goal wasn't to make people feel good, it was to make people think, to name things that were already being felt, but not always said out loud. As part of the process, she had to submit everything ahead of time. The agenda, the programming, the framing. It all had to be reviewed before anything could move forward. And when the feedback came, it wasn't unexpected, but it was telling. Some of this might be too much. Some people may be offended. We want to be careful not to make this feel accusatory. Maybe we can tone down the language here. Maybe we can reframe this so it feels more inclusive. And none of it on its own sounded unreasonable. That's what made it so hard to push back. But as she moved into the planning meeting, she could feel how those comments were shaping the conversation before it even started. What had already been flagged, what had already been softened, set the boundaries for what this could become. The meeting itself followed that same rhythm. Suggestions layered onto suggestions, adjustments that seemed small in the moment. The examples that made it real were taken out. The language that named what was happening was rewritten into something more neutral, more general, more comfortable. And at some point, she realized she was no longer refining the event. She was negotiating how much of it would be allowed to remain. By this time it was finalized, the event was still on the calendar, the title was still there, the structure looked similar, but it wasn't the same. When the day came, people showed up, they nodded. Some even said it was a good conversation. But she knew the difference. It didn't land the way it was supposed to land. It didn't say what needed to be said. It didn't do what she intended it to do. And then came the follow-up. Questions about engagement, feedback about impact, subtle comments about how it could be stronger. And she sat there listening, knowing she had been in the room when it was slowly taken apart. A few weeks later, the conversation shifted again. Not about the event this time, but about the office, budget constraints, change in priorities, a need to move in a different direction. But what she also knew to be true was that there had been complaints. Complaints that she knew nothing of or was privy to, but had been told by other parties. This is too woke. This is too political. Nobody wants to come to work and hear that they're racist. Nobody wants to come to work and hear DEI. Nobody wants to come to work and be told that not they're not being inclusive. We come to work to serve students or to serve the community or to serve the university, not race, not people. She knew it was coming. And just like that, it was gone. Not just the office, not just the work, but the space where she had been trying to do something that mattered. And what stayed with her wasn't just the closure, it was the realization that the work had been shaped long before it ever reached the room, that it had been softened, contained, and redefined through processes she didn't control. And yet, she had still been held responsible for what it became without ever being given the power to fully do it. You see, if you remember, the work that she really wanted to do was eliminated. And yet, people were still offended, people still didn't like it, and in the end, she was still punished for doing the work that she was told not to do. That was stripped, that was softened, that was made not accusatory. And in the end, she paid for it with her position, her livelihood, her work. That is erasure. And it is violent, it denies your humanity, and it erases the work that you have done to move forward. And the thing about that story is that for a lot of people listening, it's not just a story, it's familiar. Maybe not in the exact same way, but in the feeling of it, the slow shifting, the quiet edits, the language being softened until it no longer says what it needs to say, and then somehow being held accountable for what it becomes. And I think that's the part that we don't talk about enough, not just when the work disappears, but what happens to it before it disappears. Because for many Black professionals in higher education, the work doesn't just get taken away, it gets reshaped, it gets contained, it gets negotiated until it becomes something that no longer reflects what it was intended to do. And then when it no longer has impact, when it no longer performs the way it's expected to, it becomes easier to question it, easier to scale it back, easier to remove it altogether. So today I want to sit with that process. Not just the loss of roles or the closure of offices, but the erosure that happens before that. What it means to do the work that you were never fully given the power to do, what it means to be held responsible for the outcomes you didn't control, and what it does to you when something like that felt purposeful for you is slowly taken away in front of you. Because when we ask the question, what happens when the work disappears, we also have to ask, what was done to the work before it ever had a chance to fully exist. And if you've been listening over the last few episodes, then you know this isn't happening in isolation. We've been moving through this, we've been naming it from different angles. We've looked at policy shifts, the restructuring, the closures, the thing I called the massacre. We sat with what it means to witness that level of institutional change in real time. And then we moved into lived experience, what it looks like to navigate these spaces while it's happening, not after. But today I want to go deeper. Because once the decisions are made, once the offices are closed, once the work is no longer institutionally supported, something else begins. There is an aftermath. And that aftermath doesn't live in policy, it lives in people. It lives in the space between what you were doing and what you're now being asked to do. It lives in that moment where the work hasn't fully left you, but the institution has already moved on from it. And that creates a specific kind of tension because you're still there, still expected to produce, still expected to show up, still expected to solve problems without the same authority, without the same resources, without the same backing. And what that creates is something I want to name a kind of responsibility without power. Because you are still being held accountable for outcomes, but you no longer have control over the conditions that shape those outcomes. And if we connect that to what Derek Bell gave us with the idea of interest convergence, it helps us understand why this is so unstable and while it feels unstable. Because for a period of time, the institution's interest aligned with this work, supporting equity, funding DEI, investing in belonging. It served a purpose. It made sense within the institutional framework. But when that alignment shifts, when those interests diverge, the support shifts with it. And yet the expectations don't. You are still expected to create belonging, still expected to support students, still expected to do the work, even as the structure that once supported that work is being pulled away. And that's the trap. Because now you're being asked to produce outcomes within conditions that were never designed for success. And when you think about what Sarah Ahmed describes in her work on diversity, she talks about how institutions present themselves as welcoming, as open. But the barriers are built into the structure itself. So you're not just doing the work, you're pushing against something over and over again. And eventually it's not the wall that breaks, it's you. And that's where we have to pause. Because when you are forced to negotiate the terms of your own mission, when you are asked to soften it, to reshape it, align it with shifting priorities, you are not collaborating. You are being managed into obsolescence. You are being asked to build something that the institution has already decided it no longer wants to sustain. And what sits underneath that, what doesn't always get named, is something deeper. Because what we're navigating in this moment is not just structural, it's not just institutional. There is a kind of harm happening in that process. And the closest language I have for it is moral inquiry. In clinical psychology, moral inquiry occurs when we are forced to act in ways that transgress our deeply held moral beliefs. And for a practitioner, being told to stop using words like equity or justice, that's not just a memo. It's a violation of your professional integrity. What I keep coming back to as I sit with this, and even as I think about that counterstory, is that what we are witnessing right now is not just change. It's a kind of forced migration. A forced migration toward what I would call institutional neutralism. And you hear it most clearly in the language. You can hear it in the shift from naming things directly to describing them in ways that feel softer, safer, more acceptable. It's the difference between calling something what it is, something rooted in systems and history and power, and reframing it as community wellness or access. And those words sound good, they sound thoughtful, they sound like progress, but what they're actually doing is redirecting the meaning. They take something that was specific, historical, lived, grounded, and they turn it into something general, something neutral, something that doesn't disrupt the space in the same way. And that shift isn't random. Because when you think about George Orwell and what he argued, he made it clear that language becomes vague when it is being used to defend something that cannot be plainly justified. When the action itself is difficult to explain directly, the language softens. It becomes less precise, it creates distance. So instead of saying we are removing this work, we say we are restructuring. Instead of saying we no longer want to support this, we say we are realigning our priorities. And in that shift, the language doesn't just describe the action, it protects it. And for those of us who are inside these spaces, especially for black professionals, language has never just been about description. And this is where I think about Geneva Smitherman, who reminds us that Black language is not broken, not informal, not secondary. It is a system of meaning. It creates history, it carries that history, it carries culture, it carries ways of knowing that are rooted in lived experience. So when language is shifted in institutional spaces, it's not just about tone. It's about which ways of knowing are allowed to remain intact and which ones have to be reshaped to be accepted. And that's where the tension begins. Because now it's just not about what is happening, it's about how we are allowed to speak about what is happening. And that creates a double bind. Because if you speak plainly, if you name what is actually happening, if you use language that reflects lived experience, you risk being labeled as unprofessional, as too political, as not aligned. But if you adopt the institutional language, if you soften it, neutralize it, reframe it, you are seen as appropriate, as collaborative, as safe. And in that safety, something gets lost. And this is where I think about Bell Hooks, who wrote what it means to speak in the language of the oppressor, to use a language that was never designed to hold your full reality, and the tension that comes with trying to make it do so anyway. Because when you're operating in that space, you're constantly negotiating what can be said, how it can be said, who has to be or what has to be held back in order to remain legible. And when you bring that back together with what Rashawn Young talks about with code meshing, the idea that multiple ways of speaking and knowing can exist together, you start to see the contrast. Because what is happening in these institutional spaces is not code meshing, it's constraint. It's being asked to leave part of your language, and by extension, part of your knowing, outside the room in order to be heard inside it. And when you layer what W.E.B. Du Bois described as double consciousness, it becomes clear that this isn't just about language. It's about self. It's about holding two realities at once: understanding what is true and understanding what can be said, seeing clearly what is happening while also navigating how you are being seen. And that space between those two things, that's where so many of us are operating. So what happens in practice is not just silence, it's translation. And that's where I think about resistance differently. Because sometimes resistance doesn't look like refusal. Sometimes it looks like what I call internal translation. You write access in the report, you frame it in the language that will be approved. But in the room, in your interactions, in the way you show up, you are still holding on to something deeper. You're still understanding it as justice. You're still naming it, even if not always the same words. And that internal translation becomes a way of preserving meaning. Because if the language shifts completely, if the language meaning goes with it, then the work doesn't just change, it disappears. And so part of what it means to continue in this moment is not just navigating institutions, it's holding on to the original definitions, the original intent, the original truth in a way that allows it to survive. Even when it can't always be spoken the way it was meant to be, and I think what stays with me, even after sitting with all of this, is that the question isn't just about what institutions are doing. It's about what happens to us in the middle of it. Because when language shifts, when work is reshaped, when meaning is softened to the point that it no longer reflects what we know to be true, we are still there. We are still expected to move in those spaces, still expected to produce, still expected to make meaning out of something that already has been redefined for us. And that's not a neutral experience. That does something to the way we think, to the way we speak, to the way we understand ourselves in relation to the work. Because over time, if everything around you is being reframed, if everything is being renamed, if everything is being softened, it becomes harder to hold on to the original language. It becomes harder to hold on to the original meaning. And that's where internal translation becomes more than just a strategy. It becomes kind of a preservation, a way of keeping something intact, even when it can't always be expressed in the way it was meant to be. Because the reality is many of us are already. Doing this. We are writing one thing and holding another. We are saying one thing informal spaces and understanding something deeper in informal ones. We are navigating what can be spoken while still knowing what is true. And that is not weakness. That is not inauthenticity. That is survival. That is strategy. That is a way of ensuring that the meaning doesn't disappear even when the language is being reshaped around it. But I also think there's a tension there because internal translation protects the work, but it can also be isolating. It means carrying something that isn't always fully shared. It means knowing something that isn't always fully spoken. And over time that weight adds up. So maybe part of what we also have to consider is this not just how we preserve meaning internally, but where can we still speak it externally? Where can we still name things fully where we don't have to translate? Where the language doesn't have to be softened in order to be heard. Because internal translation may be necessary in certain spaces, but it was never meant to be the only space where truth exists. And so as we move through this moment, through these shifts, through these changes, through this continued reshaping of language and work, the question becomes what are we holding on to? What are we preserving? And where are we allowing the truth to live beyond ourselves? Because if the language changes and the meaning changes with it, then the work doesn't just evolve, it disappears. And I don't think that's something we can afford to let happen. And I think this is where the conversation shifts. Because underneath everything we've been talking about, underneath the language, the restructuring, the slow erosion of the work, there is something deeper happening. And that is identity. Because for many professional staff, especially those of us from marginalized backgrounds, this was never just a job. It was a way of being, a way of showing up, a way of making meaning inside institutions that were not designed with us in mind, but that we still commit ourselves to anyway. And that's why when the work shifts or disappears, it doesn't just feel like a professional loss. It feels like something more personal, something harder to name, because it disrupts how we have come to understand ourselves in relation to the work. And part of that is because higher education, like many public servant institutions, operate in ways that draw you in. It asks for your commitment, your energy, your emotional labor. It invites you to align yourselves with its mission to see your work as part of something larger. But what administrative theory reminds us, particularly through scholars like Dwight Waldo, is that public institutions are never neutral. They say they are, but they are shaped by values, by politics, by competing definitions of what the public good actually is. So when institutions shifts, when priorities change, when certain kinds of work are no longer supported, that is not just an operational decision. It is a value decision. And yet, the language doesn't always reflect that. Instead, those shifts are framed as strategy, as alignment, as necessary adaptation. And that's where system thinking becomes important because systems are designed to sustain themselves. They absorb pressure, they adjust language, they redistribute resources, but in doing so, they often preserve the institution rather than the people or communities it was meant to serve. And I think this is where sort of my background of public administration comes in, because even though we know that human resources, i.e., people, are the heartbeat of institutions, the system, the institution itself, still operates as self-preservation. It will preserve itself over people. And if we think about this through a systems lens, what we're seeing on the surface, these office closures, these restructural roles, these events that don't quite land the way they should, that's only part of the story. Because with systems thinking, that's what's often referred to as the iceberg model, where what we see above the surface are just the events. But beneath those events are patterns. Patterns of whose work is supported, whose work is questioned, patterns of when equity work is prioritized and when it becomes expendable. And beneath those patterns are structures, approval processes, reporting lines, decision-making power, who gets to shape the language before the work ever reaches the room. And then at the deepest level, there are the underlying beliefs. Beliefs about what counts as legitimate work, beliefs about what is considered too political, beliefs about whose knowledge is allowed to stand on its own. But what we are seeing are not isolated moments. They are outcomes, they are the visible part of something much deeper. So what you begin to see is the system continues even as the work changes, even as people are displaced, even as meaning is reshaped, and within that system, you are still expected to function, still expected to produce, still expected to make something that no longer fully aligns with what you know the work was supposed to be. And that's where epistemology comes in. Because this isn't just about what is happening, it's about what is recognized as knowledge. So scholars like Venus Evans Winters remind us that black ways of knowing are rooted in lived experience and narrative and community and history. They are not detached, they are not neutral, they are deeply connected to how people move through the world. And when you bring in other scholars like Lara Esposito, who emphasizes the importance of narrative and qualitative ways of knowing, you begin to see that what often gets dismissed in institutional spaces is not a lack of knowledge, it is a different kind of knowledge. And this brings me clearly back to an example in a class where we were discussing positionality and how we are positioned in relation to qualitative research and how we approach our research. And in my description, I talked about being a black woman, um working in these spaces, particularly in the South, and how I position myself to my research. And I had a classmate who really was confused, I guess, in how I described my positionality as a black woman, using CRT as a lens to which I view my experiences working uh in these spaces. And she was just really trying to really understand. And she sort of prefaced it by saying maybe her lack of understanding was because she worked for the federal government, she worked in policy, and the entire time that um listened to her video, she sent like a video. The first thing that I thought of was that, well, policy is not neutral. Policy is definitely shaped by politics, um, by experience. Policy is not, it's far from neutral. Uh, and so this this example that I'm talking about here is very much connected here. And my response to her was I disagree that policy is neutral. It is not neutral. Every influence of policy that has been made in this country has definitely been influenced by politics and race. And how I view the world, how I position myself to my research, and anything that I approach in in this space is definitely influenced by being a black woman, and my lived experiences are definitely a part of that. And I don't get to separate being black from being a woman. They are one in the same. I don't get to just be a woman. I'm always a black woman. Black is first, and I am a woman next. My experiences have definitely shaped that. And when you hear scholars that validate that and you get to be able to understand that, then you view things very differently and you can respond in very different ways, but you also understand what it is when it happens. And so that knowledge that doesn't always fit into metrics and doesn't always translate into reports, a knowledge that is lived, it is felt, it is experienced. And when institutions shift towards what we talked about earlier in trying to be neutral, when they move towards these neutral languages, towards abstraction and distancing themselves, they are also making a decision about which forms of knowledge are legitimate and obviously which ones are not. So what happens is not just about reshaping of work, it is about the narrowing of what counts as truth. And that brings me back to this moment of rupture because when your work is rooted in lived experience and community and justice, and the system begins to move away from that, then you're left navigating the space where what you know is true is no longer fully recognized. And that's where the concept of the after-professional begins to emerge. The after-professional is someone who's come to understand that the institution is not the sole site of meaning, that the mission statement is not the mission, and that the value of their work has never been fully contained within the structure of the organization. They begin to see the system for what it is, not as something to be fully trusted, but as something to be understood and navigated and at times resisted. And it's really interesting when you come to that realization that this is not a safe space, because then the shift comes. A shift away from tying identity solely to the role, and you shift away from measuring impact only through institutional recognition. And that shift is also towards understanding that what you know, what you've experienced, what you've built that exists beyond this institution. It has to because systems can redefine or redefine priorities, they can eliminate roles, they can close offices, but they cannot erase what you carry. They cannot erase the knowledge that was built in relationship, and they certainly cannot erase the impact that lives beyond documentation. And what they are trying to do is erasure, as we've discussed before, but they cannot define the meaning of the work that was never theirs to define in the first place, and so you begin to decouple, not from the work, but from the idea that the institution is the only place where that work has value. And you begin to understand that you are the scholar, regardless of the title, still the practitioner, regardless of the role, still connected to a purpose that is not dependent on whether the institution continues to recognize it. And that shift is not easy, but it is necessary. Because if identity remains fully tied to institutional validation, then every shift in the system becomes a personal loss. But when that connection is loosened, when identity is grounded in something deeper than institutional utility, then as the system changes, something remains intact. And that matters. Because in those moments like this, when everything feels like it is shifting, what you hold on to becomes just as important as what is being taken away. And if I'm being honest, this is not an easy space to sit in. Because what we're talking about isn't abstract, it's not distant, it's not something else happening somewhere else. It's happening in real time, in real institutions to real people. And for many of us, it is personal because this wasn't just work, it was purpose. It was a thing that helped us make sense of being in these spaces. It was how we showed up for students, how we created meaning, how we held space and environments that were never designed with us in mind. And so when that work is reshaped, when it is softened, contained, renamed, and then eventually removed, it doesn't just leave a gap in the institution, it leaves something in us. And I want to acknowledge that for many people, this is not theoretical, this is loss, disruption, and uncertainty. And we have to hold space for all the black professionals who were impacted by the black massacre, the disruption, and I've seen firsthand what that looks like, what that does to an institution that you poured so much of your heart and your work into, and to see something completely erased or restructured or realigned or eliminated, it does something to you. Because for us, it's a it's never about a job, it is about a calling, and for some, you know, in the religious space, it it is a ministry, it's about shepherding, mentoring, other mothering black students and black folks in spaces that aren't predominantly black, right? It's about being a safe space, and when that disappears, so much of that impacts you professionally and individually, and professionally, you know, you may lose your position, so that your income, that your livelihood, that your ability to provide for your family. So it doesn't just, it's not just an office closure, it is a disruption, but it is also violent, and there's nothing easy about that. And I think that what we've been sitting in with this episode, not just what happens when the work disappears, but what happens to us after we've watched it being taken apart. Because the before the work is ever removed, it is negotiated, it is reframed, it is translated until it becomes something that no longer reflects what it was meant to be. And we know that in that process, many of us learn to survive it. We learn how to hold on to meaning internally while navigating language externally, you know, changing names of offices and missions and what the work entails. And we learn how to keep the work alive even when it's no longer fully supported, because it's who we are, and that's certainly not weakness, it's not in authenticity, it's strategy, it's preservation. And I want to also be clear about something survival is not the same as alignment, and just because we have learned how to move within the system does not mean that the system is functioning in the way that is just, and that's where the shift has to happen. Because what this moment is asking of us is not just endurance, it's clarity. Clarity about what we are seeing, about what we are carrying, and clarity about what we refuse to let be erased. Because institutions can change language, they can restructure offices, they can remove roles, they can close offices, but they do not get to define the meaning of the work you have done. They do not get to erase the impact that lies beyond their metrics or that lives beyond their metrics. They do not get to determine your worth based on whether or not they choose to sustain the work. So as you move and as we move through our own spaces and continue to do this work in whatever form it takes now, we can hold on to that, not just internally, but intentionally. Because the work may shift, the language may change, but what we know, what you know, what you have seen, what we have come to understand, history has always told us this. What you have carried, it still matters. Take what you need from this and hold on to what you know. Before we close, I want to leave you with this thought. Counter stories are not simply stories, they are acts of resistance. They challenge the narratives we have been taught to accept and create space for truths that are often ignored, dismissed, or erased. Throughout this season, we have explored the experiences of white professional staff in higher education, the systems that shape our work, and the realities that often exist beneath institutional narratives. This counterstory brings many of those conversations together, not because it provides all the answers, but because it invites us to imagine otherwise. As scholars, practitioners, educators, leaders, and community members, we are often told to work within the limits of what is. Counter Stories reminds us that we can also envision what could be. Thank you for joining me for this season of the Discourse with Dr. Shea. Whether you've listened to one episode or all of them, I appreciate you being part of this journey. Until next time, keep questioning, keep learning, and keep making space for the stories that deserve to be told. The discourse continues. If today's conversation spoke to you, I invite you to subscribe, share the episode, and continue these conversations in your spaces and communities. You can also stay connected with me online. Follow me on Instagram at Dr. Underscore Shay. On TikTok at Dr Shay slash Gen X, and follow the podcast on TikTok at Discourse with Dr. Shay. You can also visit the podcast website at thediscourse with Dr. Shay dot com for episodes, resources, and more. Remember, storytelling is powerful, scholarship is necessary, and our lived experiences matter. Until next time, keep engaging, keep reflecting, and keep pushing the discourse forward.