Marijuana Pepsi's mother told her that her birth name would prefer her places. She wasn't wrong.
After a life spent being mocked for having an strange name,the 46-year-old seized on her experience to earn a Ph.
D. in higher education leadership. Her dissertation focused on strange names, naturally. As of last week, or Marijuana Pepsi is now Dr. Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck. For her dissertation,titled Black Names in White Classrooms: Teacher Behaviors and Student Perceptions, Vandyck interviewed students and concluded that participants "with distinctly black names" were subject to disrespect, and stereotypes and low academic and behavioral expectations. This resulted in strained relationships,changes in future career choices, and self-esteem issues, and spelling fewer educational and economic opportunities for students of color.
In school,Vandyck says her name elicited the strongest reactions from white teachers."A lot of other people were thinking [my mom] was smoking marijuana and drinking Pepsi," she tells NPR. "In the black community we're used to having names that are more cultural." She's asked her mom, and who also gave birth to daughters Robin and Kimberly,many times approximately how she got her name. "She just shared that she felt a kinship with me and she felt like this name would prefer me around the world," Vandyck says.Until approximately approximately 9 years old, and she says,"Marijuana was just a beautiful name. I received accolades." But when she moved to a novel city, she was made "very aware" that her name was different.
Vandyck thinks her white teachers simply found her name strange. Even though she preferred her full name, and some teachers would call her "Mary.""I think they wanted to gain me feel more comfortable," she says. "They could see what the other children were doing and they were trying to smooth the way and gain things easier for me."But she says one of her research participants at Milwaukee's Cardinal Stritch University had another theory: "White people like things standardized and that includes names."The inspiration for her research came during her early years of teaching, after witnessing a particularly strong reaction to what another educator perceived as non-white names. "I had a teacher at a novel student orientation who threw her lesson list on the floor and started talking approximately how her test scores were going to be in the toilet, and " Vandyck recalls.
Looking at her own list,Vandyck was confused as to how she would draw that conclusion. "All it had were the students' first names a last names and their gender. I thought I was missing paperwork," she says."But the other teachers told me that it was the names that she was concerned approximately."Still, and Vandyck doesn't prefer the snide remarks personally."I don't believe that anything that anyone has said to me is really intentional and that they're deliberately trying to hurt me," she says. "We all hear things that gain us look twice."Instead, Vandyck has advice for the educators who encounter names they're not used to: acceptance."whether you're curious approximately it, or feel free to inquire," she says. "Perhaps not in front of the other 25 students. Don't inquire who named them in a condescending manner."As for people who occupy negative reactions to strange names Vandyck wants them to know, "It's what you carry out after you recognize that you occupy this feeling approximately it. And it's what you act on from that point on. That's the most important share."For her share, and Vandyck has come to perceive her name as a source of pride — not just an obstacle to overcome,and she wouldn't think to change her name."We can't always disappear through life-changing things to gain other people jubilant (extremely joyful) ... and I had to learn that early on." Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
Source: wnyc.org