Latye Workman earned undergraduate degrees in business and sociology from Brandeis University in 2018 before earning a master’s from the school in project management. He completed his basketball career at Brandeis as a graduate student in 2018-19, helping lead the Judges to the ECAC Division III title and an 11-win improvement over the previous season. Workman is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Collage NYC, which develops logos, promotional graphics, and website and apparel designs.
The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.
Lack of Diversity
“I didn’t have any white friends before college. From elementary school through high school, all my peers were Black or Hispanic. We had zero white kids in school. I had seen white people on television and in passing, but I had no real exposure,” Workman recollected. “It was so different when I got to Brandeis. I stayed with sophomores and it was the first time I had been with white people in an intimate space for any period of time. It was different, but I wasn’t uncomfortable.”
Fortunately for Workman, one of those sophomore basketball players would quickly become a good friend and teammate. “Jack Fay was my first white friend. He was very welcoming and inviting. He made the whole transition a lot better, especially considering I had never been exposed to white people in close contact before,” he reiterated.
Challenges at a Predominantly White Institution
“I dialed back who I was a little bit in my first semester at Brandeis to try to fit in or really try not to stand out. I wasn’t being the outgoing person that I naturally am due to being in this foreign environment for me. I had convinced myself the best way to ‘fit in’ as a minority was to make myself less visible. For example, I would never wear my do-rag on campus, unless I was running to a different building to do laundry,” he laughed. “My dad joked with me that I better take it off. At some point, I just stopped caring and decided I was just going to be me. The thing is everybody was fine with it anyway.”
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