Even though I’ve spent a lifetime at the top of my grade school class, stuck with a reshuffling of the same 30 students for 13 years, there are doubts of my deserving. “How did you get in when Tony got waitlisted? He’s a 3 season athlete.” Popular Tony. Football and baseball and wrestling Tony. All american Tony. Tony doesn’t have my transcript. Tony doesn’t have my passion. Tony’s essay isn’t mine. Why do they pit student against student? Why do they say “black girl” was admitted, and never “smart girl”. But smart black girl I am. Inseparable. Anomalous. My admission is a validation of all the things I had done right. I announce my invitation to everyone at school and they cheer in approval, scowl in disbelief, or smirk as if I do not recognize the judgmental expressions on their faces. I imagine joining a community of like minded students, passionate about higher learning and excellence.
No one says it aloud. Affirmative action. Dirty meritless words. And yet this nation’s duty to uphold. To absolve the question, why is there no one else like me?
Orientation. I was made for this college life. It’s so big and clean and bright. And hot. The tiny dorm room single is a bit like a cell. Why is the A/C so severe? Cold white cinderblock walls surround a spartan metal framed twin. A simple empty desk and bureau. No time to waste in here. I want to meet, and play and explore. Outside I board a shuttle. A bus really. I’ve never ridden a bus before. I hope I remember where to get off. How will I find Q? I wish we still had pagers. There are so many people. Are they my family? How will I find them?
The weekend foreshadows things to come. Tiny pockets of displaced, isolated others find community with one another. For the first time in my life, these new brown faces signaled a sort of unspoken understanding. Falling into the stereotype -not all black people know each other- but here, we do.
The whisperers. The naysayers. The dirty meritless words. That energy comes with me to college. The school is so big, and so white, and it’s not one big happy university family. I was so stupid.
But the University changed my life. Instead of getting swallowed up in the bigness of it all or feeling so other in lectures the size of my graduating high school class, I roll around, bathed and basked in so much same. A dizzying walk through the fun house mirrors, subtle variations of my story in every brown faced coed I meet.
It’s getting on autumn, and the leaves are changing, and so am I.
The University had done an interesting job of matching most every black girl on my floor. . .in my first year dorm with a black roommate. The predominantly white university was not unlike the predominately white county, town, highschool, I had just left. And yet with the click of a keystroke the University had created a sort of segregated experience that spread exponentially with each new black association. It was part of what happened, but not all of it. I imagine my little bubble within the University bubble would have happened no matter what. Far from home, and far from familiar faces, I found myself gravitating toward the young men and women who looked like me. What began at orientation spilled over into University life. I was spellbound by the opportunity to be in the company of intelligent, driven, ambitious black people every day for 4 years. We shared the same struggles, and valued the same endeavors, be that maintaining an A average, or, in the case of my roommate and I, keeping up with Tyson Beckford, D’angelo, and the world premiere of Making the Video’s ‘The Thong Song.’ Or as my sister always described it, popularity in my circle amounted to being “The coolest of the nerds.” How can these people overlap with my identity on so many levels? Equal parts obsessed with the satisfaction of composing a killer 5 paragraph essay and recreating The Gap’s mellow yellow corduroy ad over and over again.
After 3 short months, I’m finding and embracing my identity as a black college student and for the first time, nothing back home feels as compelling and inspiring as my new friends at school.
Bilingual SuperNoVAs 