Meet Your MIT Neighbor: Lana Scott

Meet Lana Scott, Assistant Media Development Director/Media Services Manager at MIT Open Learning. She was the inaugural staff speaker at this year's MLK Jr. Celebration.

Role at MIT: Assistant media development director and media services manager in MIT Open Learning. "My job entails managing a team and working with faculty to create media content for their online courses."
Hometown: Chattanooga, TN
Years at MIT: 8
Favorite team or athlete: Roger Federer
Coolest person you’ve ever met: Will Smith
Favorite subject in school: English Literature
Secret superpower: "I’m the queen of movie trivia."
Favorite thing about MIT: My MITx team colleagues: "They’re family and we always have each other’s backs. Shoutout to Harry Bechkes and Allen Yannone. We’re the 3 musketeers right now!"

Lana's address at the 47th Annual MIT Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Watch the full video from this event here.

"Good morning. I’m Lana Scott, Assistant Media Development Director & Manager of Media Services for Open Learning. Thank you to the MLK celebration planning committee for choosing me as your first MIT staff speaker. I was truly surprised and am deeply honored to be here.

But, when I was told that the theme is our joy, our liberation, I didn’t know if I could speak to it. I’ve always been very cynical in my thinking. One of my favorite quotes is by H.L. Mencken: a cynic is a person who, when they smell flowers, looks around for a coffin. I always look for the coffin. I had to go look up the definition of joy: “A feeling of great pleasure and happiness.”

I kept thinking about it and then it occurred to me. This isn’t me. This isn’t how I think. This isn’t who I am. I can’t look pass the pain. I can’t rejoice in all that I have accomplished in spite of being a Black woman. When I think of feelings of Black joy and liberation, the only person that comes to my mind is my dad, Sam.

But to fully understand where his joy came from, you have to look at his life. Born in 1940 in an extremely racist and segregated Richmond, VA. He had nothing. His family used an outhouse as a bathroom. My father worked his way up and soon became a real estate appraiser. This would take him to Chattanooga, TN where he met mom and they would share 51 years together, 2 children, a grandson and countless dogs/cats.

My Dad is the kind of person who wore always had nicknames for people, including me. That’s how he remembered people. He’d always introduce me as his “second born, little girl. “Even as I became an adult, he’d never stopped grabbing my hand whenever we crossed a street. One of my dad’s favorite things to say was don’t let anyone take your joy away, but I did. I was the constantly made fun of obese, gap-toothed, pimple wearing black girl in mostly all white Catholic schools. I was stuck between 2 groups. I had white friends, didn’t connect with the Black students as much, so they called me names like “ugly Oreo.” My self-esteem was nothing, but not to my dad. “Lana Michelle, they’re jealous. They know you’re going somewhere, getting out of this city. You’re meant for better things. Don’t let them take that joy away from you.”

My parents knew from the beginning how to play the race game. Even before we were born, my parents named my brother and me, Michael and Lana, two names they knew if someone saw written down, you wouldn’t automatically assume they’re Black. They taught us what every Black kid should know: what to do when stopped by police, how to act in predominately white spaces, etc. When my father spoke about the racism he experienced, he was never angry. In fact, for every story, he would add but I did this anyway, and look at me now.

My father passed away last May at the age of 79. I wish he were alive to see the world today I could imagine him saying, “My second born, little girl, we’ve been through a lot, beaten, broken but we made it. It’s not over, racism will never be over, but look at what we did in spite of it. Look at Obama, a Black president. I grew up where there were segregated bathrooms, restaurants, churches, being spat on, called names. And for 8 years, a Black man was in charge of everything. A black woman is Vice-President. We go through pain, but we persevere. I know it’s hard to watch black people dying at the hands of police, to watch injustice, to see how differently you get treated than your white friends and colleagues. Don’t be quiet. Make some noise!) You have a voice! The trauma that lives inside of you will not define you. It will inspire you and you’ll start to see the joy. Resistance is to choose to enjoy every aspect of your life. Use it to rise.

I hear you, dad. As Maya Angelou said, I rise. Bringing the gifts my ancestors gave. I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

Dad, I know the next time I smell flowers, I’ll look up to heavens and see you watching over me with joy.

Thank you."