No one taught me how to participate in a sit-in. No one needed to. I sink onto the steps beside my peers, and I stare ahead. Perhaps as you walk by feel that we are judging you. As you walk by, your conversation simmers to silence. Some of you sigh, some of you walk as quickly as social conventions allow. Some of you feel attacked.
I realize, as I sit, that I am not here to judge you or to devalue your worth. I do not have that power, and nor should you.
No one taught me how to participate in a sit-in, but I somehow know that I am here simply to remind you. I do not look in your eyes because I know that I do not need to. My presence, the two steps I stretch across, are enough. I am not here to condemn you, I am here to remind you of the reality of many universities across the nation.
Some of you recognize me. It is one thing to know abstractly that students’ lives are being threatened, but it is another to proceed down a line of students whose lives could also one day be threatened. You do not know the young men and women who face these injustices, but you know me. Today, I represent them: the students of color at Mizzou, at Yale, at other universities without headlines but with a problem.
As time passes, I imagine for whom I sit here. She is probably much like me. She also sits in class and maybe she also tucks two bananas under her arm as she slips out of the dining hall. She isn’t completely like me though. My biggest problem in the morning is finding enough time to get my bagel, and she, well, I think she fears for her life in the morning. I wonder if she cries. My eyes begin to water.
I sit more and my legs begin to ache. I do not move, only slightly. I am as motionless as possible. Perhaps she feels as constricted, as without options as my legs do. I sit, and I try to imagine feeling this way my entire life, as if a sudden movement would be my undoing.
More time passes, and I feel tired. I try to equate it to the way a black student must feel when one day a student claims “slavery was so long ago” and the next day another student calls for their death. The two are incomparable. I will never understand the weariness that comes from fighting racism for generation after generation. I will stand in fifteen minutes, but I do not know when relief from the hatred so many black men and women face will come. I cannot fathom the fatigue, so I do not try. Instead, I pray for their freedom.
No one taught me how to participate in a sit-in. No one needed to. I believe that in being human you have the capability to sit in solidarity with students you have never met. No one taught me how to treat people different than me. No one needed to. I believe that in being human you have the capability to love not in spite of, but rather because of our differences. I do not think we are so different. I do not have to try hard to imagine the young black student who I represent as I sit on these steps.
In my 18 years of life, I have met many humans and I believe they are good.
No one taught me how to be compassionate to the world around me.
No one needed to.
Thank you to the Black Student Union, who planned this sit-in and the one that happened earlier this week. I wouldn’t be writing this article if it weren’t for the activism of so many wonderful young men and women on campus. Thank you for what you do, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of it. Thank you Kenyon College, especially the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, for fostering and encouraging an environment where our voices may be heard and protests such as these may be arranged. This article is just on the periphery of the action Kenyon students and faculty take in order to stand in solidarity with the students of color at Mizzou, Yale, and many other college campuses where they feel threatened or unwelcome.
Image Credit: Maymuna Abdi