High Price

body was tired. The long hours meant that I had little attention left for my classes and even less time to do homework. In my first semester, I barely managed to make Cs.
    Without being aware of it, I began to slip away from academia. My air force goal of becoming a counselor to uplift black youth started to seem like a foolish pipe dream. I was called into the financial aid office because I was required to maintain a 2.0 to keep the Pell Grant funding. My grades were so low that I was in danger of losing it.
    But during that same time, I also took a philosophy class with a young white professor named Don Habibi. It was his second semester teaching and he was the most intellectually curious person I’d ever met. It seemed like he knew something about everything—and yet he treated me like my perspective was unique and important as well. We connected. As a Jewish man who felt out of place in the South, he understood, I think, some of the alienation I felt, too.
    Later, when I moved into the building where he lived, we became even closer and he encouraged me to continue to take the academic opportunities that began to present themselves. He was single and admired my ability to meet women; I respected his intellectual achievements. I’d take him to black clubs and in return, he taught me many essential aspects of cultural capital associated with growing up in the white middle class. When I first took his class, though, it was still not completely clear that I’d be able to stay in school.
    Luckily, however, I had also found another mentor who refused to give up on me. Jim Braye was one of only three black men on campus who were in professional positions at the time. He did not teach, but rather worked in the administration as the director of career planning and placement. He was a retired army colonel with a rich, deep baritone voice that made him sound like Paul Robeson. My time in the air force had given me great respect for any black man who had moved up through the ranks in the military, particularly as early as he had, which was during the Korean War.
    A friend of mine who had also been in the military had introduced us. I followed up with Jim and he had actually helped me enroll at UNC-W in the first place. As had happened many times before in my young life, chance placed an opportunity in front of me. I saw it and grabbed on, as if it were a life preserver.
    Soon Jim began spending hours with me, teaching me new vocabulary and even how to pronounce words that I often stumbled on like apocalypse . He had a calendar with a “word of the day” to learn, and he’d drill me on them as the weeks went by. When he saw that my restaurant job was getting in the way of my education, he kept his eyes open for job openings in psychology for which he thought I’d be qualified. He had me do mock interviews in his office. He taught me about the hell that black men—even those with his accomplishments—catch in the white world.
    Often, however, he’d just let me hang out and soak up his wisdom. I wasn’t afraid to seem “dumb” or “uncool” in front of him because it was so clear that he knew much more than I did. Before long, he was like family. I could tell that he understood my struggles.
    Sometimes when he saw me coming he would take one look at me and say, “Time for a shot in the arm.” He could always tell when I needed a lift. Then he’d close the door to his office behind us and tell his secretary that we weren’t to be interrupted. I loved listening to him because he sounded so authoritative and was so wise. He wouldn’t let me get discouraged.
    Most of the other students I knew didn’t recognize what he had to offer because they hadn’t been in the military. But I could see that he’d learned how to survive in a biased world and I paid attention. I wanted what he had and wanted to know exactly how he’d gotten it. It was because of Jim that I finally quit the job at Melissa’s family restaurant and got an entry-level position that did not require a degree at a child psychiatric hospital, which had more student-friendly hours. And that was why, when I took that experimental psychology class with Rob Hakan in my last semester, I was ready to learn and be inspired.
    My best friend and classmate, Walt, was a brother with whom I used to listen to the latest Public Enemy LPs. We’d sit for hours critiquing every lyric and relating them to our current situation at UNC-White (the name that black