Member-only story
How to Start a Rebellion on Your Primarily White College Campus
Lessons learned from attending a Primarily White Institution
If you’d told seventeen-year-old me that I’d be crafting an article like this one month before graduating, I wouldn’t have believed you. That bright-eyed, bushy-tailed burgeoning student leader who eagerly looked for more and more opportunities to involve himself in campus life, joining everything from the Admission overnight hosts team to the mascot management program, never expected the amount of shit heading his way.
Repeatedly, I’ve made the mistake of putting blindingly bright hope and enthusiasm into my predominantly white institution.
As I count down the days to my commencement, I think back on all that I’ve seen and been put through, and I ask myself how I’ve ended up here — somehow filling the position of ‘marginalized student elder’ for tens of other queer, Black, brown, and/or neurodivergent nineteen-year-olds.
When I selected my Predominantly White Institution (PWI) because of the manageable financial aid package and because of how warm and fuzzy it seemed (compared to my ghoulish private Catholic high school), I wasn’t told what I was truly signing up for: four years of being gaslit, exploited, tokenized, silenced, under-resourced, and culturally…
