Noah Gross is a senior at Michigan majoring in Sociology with a concentration in Law, Justice, and Social Change, and minoring in Afroamerican and African Studies and Education for Empowerment. He hopes to take what he’s learned in his minor and meld it with his interest in the criminal justice field. 

Suparna Hande, DAAS Student Writer
What led you to choose a minor in DAAS? 

Noah Gross
I think that DAAS serves pretty vital humanizing and advocacy functions. I think that a bunch of my modern social sciences classes do a pretty good job highlighting how we consolidate white privilege, and also oppress non-white groups. They're two sides of the same coin—one can't exist without the other. If somebody has higher education resources, it means that somebody else has lower resources. However, I also think that this often and unintentionally paints the Black experience in this country as struggle-filled and passive, and can coerce well-intentioned students into deficit thinking models. I started to be disappointed by that narrative, and it didn't really live up to my everyday expectations. I think that DAAS courses and the DAAS minor do a phenomenal job of balancing the very real power dynamics of privilege and oppression, while at the same time, amplifying Black joy, resistance, power, and brilliance. And that sort of is what I was looking for and felt I wasn't really getting. That's why I chose DAAS. 

Suparna Hande
Did someone introduce you to the DAAS program? Or did you find it through your own research? 

Noah Gross
The first DAAS class I took was on Race and Basketball in America. It was a mini-course, and I took it purely because I've played basketball for a while and enjoyed it. That really set the precedent for how DAAS courses would be. Even in a class that seems like it would just be super fun, DAAS classes play very meaningful roles in ensuring that we see people as people and not the tools of oppression that they face. 

Suparna Hande
How does your DAAS minor tie back to your Sociology major and Education minor?  

Noah Gross
It's all pretty interconnected. DAAS does an awesome job of centering the people at the heart of social movements, and at the heart of social problems. Sociology is also a people-driven field, explaining how people’s circumstances can lead to a variety of outcomes. DAAS just adds that third nexus to advocacy, humanizing people by embracing their power, joy, and brilliance. Where other fields, I feel, do a great job in highlighting inequality, DAAS does a great job in highlighting inequality AND pushing us to think forward and more progressively. 

Suparna Hande
What's your favorite part of the DAAS minor? 

Noah Gross
I think it's just that joy and love and innovation is present in all forms. I think one good example to really show this is last semester, I learned about “Afrofuturism” which I never heard about before in any of my other classes. Afrofuturism combats deficit thinking and uses a new vision of science, fantasy, imagination and history to explain the African diaspora in a way that advances the interests of a thriving, Black, successful world. And theories like that, while they don't necessarily change the world, inspire us to view the world differently and be creative in our activism. The stories make us more hopeful and thoughtful, and ultimately make us better advocates, supporters, and amplifiers. So yeah, that's my favorite part; it is the creativity and the joy, and seeing how people can resist and be successful in the midst of oppression. 

Suparna Hande
Has DAAS impacted your future career plans? And if so, what are they? 

Noah Gross
I wish I could tell you directly what my future career plan is. I know that America is famous (or infamous) for the tools of oppression they used to target people of color. I'm also fairly certain that I want to work towards dismantling them and likely want to do that in the criminal justice field. Carceral spaces takes exorbitant measures to oppress and dehumanize people, starting with isolating them from their loved ones and categorizing them by one instance of harm. Black people are also the people who are most disproportionately impacted by the system. And I think, in spite of all of that oppression, carceral spaces like jails and prisons, are defined by the people in them. The people there are extremely powerful and persevere. They get degrees, they make art, they write poetry, they are parents, they form committees, they fight legal cases, they win sports competitions. And, I guess most importantly, they love themselves and each other in spite of the oppression they face. In my perspective, it's like seeing the world through the lens of both/and — in one carceral space, there can be massive oppression, and at the same time, massive resistance, massive people-centered movements, and joy and love.  

Suparna Hande
What's your experience been like within the DAAS community? 

Noah Gross
It's been pretty awesome. I tend to be one of the few white people in those spaces, and it's a shift— definitely a demographic shift — from the outside university, which I think is awesome. It inspires a place of knowledge-production that I just don't get walking around campus. My peers are all just so fantastic and excellent. All the students, in DAAS just are so wonderful and smart and creative. It's really unlike any other academic community I've been in at Michigan. 

Suparna Hande
Are there any DAAS courses or professors that have been your favorite? 

Noah Gross
I think the foundation courses, in general, do a perfect job of setting the tone for what DAAS is in the sense that they paint the social landscape as a place centered on Blackness in the Black experience, and do it in the form of music, art, and activism. One professor I had was Naomi André. She has since moved on. And her specialty was Black opera, which, I mean, I never once even thought about opera at all, nevertheless the connection Black opera could have towards social movements. And it's just that creative, imaginative thinking and field of study which is why I thoroughly enjoyed her class and why I thoroughly enjoyed all the DAAS classes. Suparna HandeIt sounds super diverse. Noah GrossYeah, I mean, it really is. It's what happens when you center academics around people. Issues of Black studies are intersected with gender, sexuality, culture, politics, food, belonging, a concept of freedom, and concepts of unfreedom. What happens in the newspaper is intimately related to race and racial relations. DAAS, more than any other field I've ever seen, centers academics around people. And that is so special and so underrepresented in the field of academia. 

Suparna Hande
Have you had to read books through your course that you particularly liked? 

Noah Gross
I'll go back to my first class, even before I was a minor, the basketball one. It's called Race and Basketball and I read this book called The Secret Game by Scott Ellsworth, who's actually the professor and a DAAS advisor too. But basically, it tells the story of a World War-era basketball game, between an all-white medical school team and an HBCU. It perfectly articulates race relations in the south at that time and changing demographics, and also concerns itself with connection through sport, basketball in particular, and how the court can foster a sense of camaraderie that transcends all other power dynamics. And again, it's humanizing people and centering a field of study, and even a history, on the people who forge it. 

Suparna Hande
What’s the coolest thing you’ve learned as a DAAS student? 

Noah Gross
My favorite thing has definitely been the idea of Afrofuturism. I see it again and again. And I think all activism work requires us to be creative, think outside the box and use our imagination. In one of my other classes, we also really, really honed in on the idea of race as an ideology and something that only exists because we constantly create it and re-verify it within social life. As the social terrain changes, we recreate ideas of race. Again, that's just an idea —a theory— which I don't really care too much about. I care about appliance, and how we can use it. And what that ideology or theory means is that we have all the power as activists, and as people, and as students, to readjust the social terrain to make a difference.  

Suparna Hande
Do you have any advice for prospective students that you'd like to share? 

Noah Gross
I'd say just come into it with an open mind. Like I said, I never thought I'd be learning about Black opera, or understanding the differences between Black feminism and white feminism, or even thinking about how Hip-Hop could rise from the Black Power movement and serve as an important tool of resistance. I think by entering into the field of Black studies or DAAS, especially because it is so intimately focused on peoplehood, you have to have an open mind, because if you're closed to the direction it takes you, you'll be closed to the field. 

Suparna Hande
Do you have any final things that you'd like to add? 

Noah Gross
If you're looking for a space to be open-minded and creative and take that next step in activism, it starts with learning about people and centering history on people. DAAS classes are humanizing, empowering, joy-filled, and innovative, and I imagine that any person who enters these spaces will feel that creativity and passion.