“When I walk in to teach black studies, some students aren’t sure I’m the professor,” he says. “I get it. It’s about expectations.” |
Born in Berkeley, California, to a white Jewish father with family in Elmont, Long Island, and a black Episcopalian mother with deep roots in Boston, where the family would settle when Zebulon was 3, Miletsky’s blended heritage and a pale complexion that sometimes gets him mistaken as white has informed each move of his life. That means personally — he’s now married (his wife, Karla, is Latina) with two young sons and lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn — and professionally. The ever-echoing theme: That dividing line between black and white…
…“When I walk in to teach black studies, some students aren’t sure I’m the professor,” he says. “I get it. It’s about expectations.”
Joe Dziemianowicz, “Stony Brook professor’s biracial heritage has lessons for life, classroom,” Newsday, February 26, 2020. https://www.newsday.com/long-island/stony-brook-professor-to-lead-black-history-month-panel-in-brentwood-1.41980672.
Tags: Joe Dziemianowicz, Newsday, Zebulon Miletsky, Zebulon V. Miletsky, Zebulon Vance Miletsky