The ugly duckling

Part Three

Leaving high school marked the beginning of adulthood, or so I thought. My first year of college was an interesting one, to say the least, and I couldn’t have been more socially unprepared. Having made a close friend group in high school, I was used to a particular type of person. Our shared slang, personalities, and experiences are what kept the bond close. I spent a long time trying to find the right friend group to hang out with. Did I want to spend two nights a week, every week being drunk trying to get into the same fraternity house that rejected me before because I didn’t arrive with enough girls, or did I want to play video games with friends and enjoy a somewhat comforting, shared solitude in the dormitory? I vacillated between the two and through a great struggle, ultimately found a way to balance them. During lunch, dinner and many other free times, I repeatedly found myself in the middle of choosing where I wanted to be. No one tells you this before you go, but college is segregated.

Now, I don’t mean segregated as in separate water fountains and bathrooms, but let’s just say the skin tones are pretty consistent at each table. This isn’t true for every single student, however, and I thank those groups that try to diversify themselves, but for the majority, all of the black kids sit together, and all of the white kids sit together. Sometimes I sat with the black kids because I felt more comfortable not sticking out like the black sheep in the herd, and sometimes I sat with the white kids because they lived in my dorm and I was always invited to eat with them. I had no problem going back and forth because I had something in common with each group, but I always felt somewhat insecure about the whole ordeal. Did I want to feel secluded or did I want to feel awkward? The choice was always a difficult one. (Before I continue and start to address the real issues, I want to clarify the fact that all of the friends I made are great people and through jumping from table to table, I had a great experience with all of them). Here is where it gets interesting.

1. I was having a late night dinner once with a group of friends. We sat at a large, circular table reminiscing about high school and things about ourselves from the past. A friend of mine was telling a story of the rambunctiousness that was he and his friends. Through some long explanation he explained to me that he and the rest of his friends, “the lax bros” used to fling rubberbands at the black kids during lunch. Yep…seriously. I looked at him with a deep confusion and asked why that was funny to them. His response was, “I don’t know. It was just funny.” I didn’t want to lecture him because we were the same age and coming off like a father is more than unappealing, and I didn’t want to yell because he was my friend. So, I sat there and shook my head saying, “wow, that’s messed up man,” with disappointment scribbled on my face.
2. Back in the dorms one Friday night, I was talking with a group of friends. I don’t quite remember the topic being discussed, but I was sharing my point of view about something when I was abruptly stopped. One of the girls in the room looked at me with amazement and said, “wow, you’re so articulate.” I responded with an confused “thanks” before being interrogated about things like the school I went to, if all of my friends were white, if the stereotype about black people and watermelon was true and whether or not I really had any black friends at all. I asked her angrily what she meant by that, but she responded with a confused innocence, as if each of the questions she asked me was of legitimate concern.
3. I found myself in the room of a friend of two friends. Again, I was the only black person in the room. The rap artist, Big Sean was playing in the background and the kid whose room we were in was singing the lyrics. Everything was okay until he came upon the lyrics “ my ni**a.” I looked sharply at the kid and said “yo, that’s not okay.” He looked back at me and said “what?” The look he gave me was not one of confusion and regret, but was more of annoyance and dismissal. My two friends I was with at the time looked at me awkwardly, and said nothing. To cut that tight string of awkwardness, I left the room. Later, one of my friends in the room approached me and defended the kid saying he was “crazy”, to which I responded with a look of disdain and disappointment.

For the remainder of my time, I felt uneasy about my stay at my school. Never in my life had I felt so dissapointed and ostracized. I didn’t have any friends with whom I could discuss these situations and I saw no way they would get better. I always wondered if anyone had been through the same thing, but I kept it to myself and trudged along. With that experience and a steadily accumulating conglomerate of other problems, leaving seemed like the best idea.