(photo courtesy of La’Candis Brown)
It can be seen as tradition for students at Spelman College to study domestically or internationally at least once before they graduate. Spelmanites believe that leaving Spelman for a semester or summer allows them to obtain the ‘diversity’ that so many outsiders feel the institution lacks. For a lot of students, they love the opportunity, but for others re-submerging one’s self in traditional American education proves to be a trying task.
Last semester I completed a domestic exchange opportunity at American University in Washington, D.C. While the opportunity was educationally enriching, being in D.C. at the height of the most controversial presidential elections reminded me of the show A Different World’s theme song.
Here’s a chance to make it,
If we focus on our goals.
If you dish it we can take it,
Just remember you’ve been told
It’s a different world form where you come from.
Hello American University, goodbye Spelman College. For me, deciding to study domestically for the semester was not a bittersweet moment nor was I sad to leave my campus.
I needed a break from Spelman. I needed to leave the utopia of seemingly perfect black women and mold myself into my OWN perfect black woman. Spelman can be suffocating. If you do not enter knowing your purpose, having a goal list and surrounding yourself with future greats, it is easy to get lost. When you are lost, you star to question yourself.
Why am I here? I am not like these people, how will I fit in? Why is it so much easier for them when its near impossible for me?
Washington, D.C. is the mecca of opportunities. Whether you are black, white, yellow, purple and or orange there is someone somewhere in this city ready and willing to throw you in the game and give you a chance. Leaving Spelman for a place I could advance my career seemed like the best option.
American University was my step away from utopia and back to life, back to reality. It was my breath of fresh air. I was in a diverse area surrounded by people from various backgrounds. It was no longer about my shoes, hair or clothes and more about how articulate and professionally prepared I am. It was no longer about how many connections I had, but about how rooted the few relationships I have are.
Prior to coming to American I obviously knew the school had a racist past, but I was not prepared for what I would experience and watch unfold in those first six weeks. For a black southern girl who had become accustomed to living in black girl utopia, race driven micro aggression was like jumping into an ice bath in the middle of winter.
It was the official slap of reality, the manifestation of the voice in the back of your mind constantly telling you do not get comfortable, everything is not peaches and cream.
In week six of the semester we found out that during week two a freshman black girl was introduced to college with rotten banana’s thrown into her dorm room.
Now for the people reading who either do not know what rotten bananas mean when directed to black people or are oblivious to the connotation: Monkeys eat bananas and for years black people have been referred to as descending from and resembling monkeys.
Much like every double minority black woman, we are used to our presence unsettling the “majority.” We are all used to being the speck of color in professional settings, used to racial slurs, used to being the angry black woman when we become passionate in a debate and even constantly having to work three times harder than anyone else just to be seen. But we are human. Yes, we know that systematic racism exists but does that mean we have to be immune to it? No.
This incident took the Peter Pan out of me. Life in America is not sweet and has never been sweet. We cannot pretend that racism does not exist solely because a few white people were nice to us. I’m not saying black people should be guarded around white people or prejudge them all. Do not do that; white people are great. What I am saying is do not forget that everyone does not understand nor respect you and your culture.
Always remember, it’s a different world from where you come from.