Being a student organizer for Black womxn means carrying the weight of institutional abandonment, and that has been my job since spring of 2019.

I co-founded AZIZA, an initiative under the Office of Spiritual Life and Intercultural Education that centers Black womxn at NYU Abu Dhabi. For the first two semesters of AZIZA’s life, my co-founder Waad Abrahim and I formalized the initiative, organized ten events and built a slew of Black womxn centered projects from the ground up.

We worked countless hours as a two-person team, hellbent on offering as many opportunities for Black womxn to convene as possible, still worrying that it was not enough. I wanted us to have weekly outlets and daily reminders. But I also needed to rest, and watch a movie on a Wednesday night.

Yet I powered through. Iteration after iteration of:

On top of the work piling on, I started to question my qualifications to co-run such an initiative. I am a cisgender African American and Afro-Latina woman, with a narrow, largely American-centric view of Black womxnhood that I am still defining and redefining.

”What qualifies me to make experiences for Black womxn from Fiji to Finland, and Kenya to Jamaica?” I thought to myself. Not much. As much as I wish I did, I do not have a degree in gender studies, Black studies or higher education studies to equip me to work at their intersection. But I have had to reconcile these concerns with the bitter truth that if we do not keep making space for Black womxn at NYUAD, no one will.

And so I ended up in this dance between struggle and passion. I loved it — I still do, but I cannot continue to ignore the fact that it borders on being exploitative. At what point do I accept that we cannot single-handedly fill the void our institution leaves? And more importantly, that even if we could, that it is not our job to?

A prerequisite of the Black student experience is the looming existential dread of institutional abandonment. It is knowing what you do not have, and knowing that when you get it, it is going away. Every time we get a taste of what it is like to have someone in our corner, a champion, it is fleeting. An appetizer. A reminder that it is short-lived, that the option is available: we just do not get to keep it.

Dr. Sean Harper — visited, captured our hearts, gone in a week.

Dr. Tanisha C. Ford — visited, captured our hearts, gone in an hour.

Tamu Al-Islam, director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — retired.

Dr. Abdulla Rothman — moved to another job (at least still in Abu Dhabi! Be grateful!)

Dr. Alta Mauro, director of SLICE and Assistant Dean of Students — moving to Harvard.

I was boarding a plane in January when Alta told me she was leaving NYUAD. I had a window seat, so I put my blanket over my face, leaned away from my neighbor and sobbed profusely, consumed by the feeling that my team and I were now in this fight alone.

Alta Mauro is the mitochondria of Black NYUAD. Had a breakup? Alta. Want your feelings validated after someone tugged on your braids in the dining hall? Alta. Want to organize an event? Alta. Scared to approach non-Black administration? Alta.

She fulfilled a lot of roles she did not have to, and her leaving has exposed something Black students have always known: there is a profound void around basic support. Alta cannot be our one-stop-shop for everything. We should not feel like the world is ending because one person is leaving our college. But we do. It is a shame for us — and it should be for the university — that Black students feel like we only have one person who meets the caliber of our needs, who has absolutely earned our trust. It has been hard on her, and it is hard on us too.

We seem to stay in this cycle of picking a Black woman who loves our community and exploiting her grace, talents and sleep-schedule to no end until she leaves, be it by graduating, moving or retiring. Now that Alta is leaving, we need to break this cycle — truly, it should have been broken yesterday. Hire more Altas. Hire many of them. A fleet of champions for Black students.

Black womxn seem to be born with a stock feature of being spiritually and emotionally attune to the world and one another. It is part of the reason why when we gather, phrases like “I feel this in my spirit”, “reading someone” and “this energy” float around the room. We share an electrifying sense of common understanding that heals — and this is why we defend our right to private space. AZIZA experiences are developed to maximize that spiritual and emotional tact innate to Black womxn. The aesthetic of the spaces we create, the depth of our activities, the therapeutic nature of our conversations, it all adds up.

I worry that in the process of transferring some of the weight of space-making for Black womxn from students to administration, there is the risk of experiences losing their charm. That they will have a plasticky, manufactured aura to them instead of an organic feel — like the difference between a pre-packaged tortilla and a freshly cooked one. We need Black womxn hired who are deeply in tune with the emotional and cultural production of Black womxn everywhere. A Black tastemaker in higher education.

Until our administration finds Black womxn who can dream the way we do — who can curate raw experiences that draw tears — I feel the burden to keep our programming and initiatives in our safe hands. This is a charge to the administration to both bring high caliber Black womxn to NYUAD and to let Black womxn students “read” them before joining our cause. I want to see us reach a point where Black female students can rest and trust that we are taken care of by this institution, but I will not rest peacefully knowing that administration would hire someone who cannot do it as well as we can.

I constantly remind myself and our team that even if we lose every other skill needed to run AZIZA, as long as we have a profound love for Black womxn, we will prevail. I feel secure in that. While I did not enroll in this university with a clause stating it would be my full-time job to make space for Black womxn, I feel spiritually guided toward this cause. But I cannot be the only one who loves us.

The idea of Black womxn not feeling my love bothers me because the alternative for us is abandonment. My fear of letting down the Black womxn at NYUAD keeps me awake at night — and in some ways keeps me disciplined about working.

But why do I hold this fear? Why do our faculty and administration not hold this fear? What lets them sleep peacefully at night while I do not?

The burden of making room for Black womxn on this campus cannot be absolutely ours to bear as students. I cannot continue to operate in this constant dance of a calling, pressure, burnout, and Olympic weight lifting of institutional responsibilities.

I challenge our administration to prove that their commitment to the Black student body does not end with the international outcry about Black Lives Matter; that our words and actions will not mean less than they do right now. I challenge the administration to invest in a fleet of trusted Black staff and faculty members who combat institutional abandonment with a radical focus on us. I challenge the administration and faculty to love Black womxn as boldly as I do.

We need you to pick up some of the load, because no amount of student organizing can ever bridge the gap you leave.