Doodling in my notebook as I await the end of my 8:00 a.m. English class, I realize that suddenly all eyes are on me. I flip my eyes back to the book that we were reading and suddenly realize that the line that was just read must be the one that has the word “nigger” in it. Suddenly I am much more aware of the demographic of my class. I beamed my eyes all around to find any other visible “person of color” but was to no avail. Now this is awkward.
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Coming from a more diverse elementary, middle and high school, I would not have guessed that during my college years that I would go to a very large public university, but be the only person in some classes with “brown skin.” (And for the sake of this story, visibly brown skin makes a difference, regardless if there were other persons of color in the class.) Iowa State University, the college I attend, reported 30,034 students for undergrad in Fall of 2015. 802 of those students were black and only 12.74 percent made up the grand total of minority’s. By Spring 2016, the number for undergraduate students who were a minority was 12.7 percent, only 723 of those black.
Yes that means, currently, there are 87.3 percent of people at Iowa State University who are not the minority. I cannot say that those percentage are “White/Caucasian,” because Iowa State University does not release a report of those who classify as such, but regardless, I am a part of the minority.
I had eyes on me, waiting to hear me say something or do something. I didn’t know what they expected of me. Did they assume the “angry black women stereotype?” Did they want to speak for me? Fight for me? It was almost like a national geographic moment. Everything slows down and a person watches as a lion stalks their prey. Holding their breath, for fear of their own life just by watching.
To finish the story, I didn’t say anything. It was part of the text; the writer wanted it to be read that way. What else was I to say? It did not bother me.
In that moment, things went over well. But I’ve been in other classes where all eyes were on me and they expected me to enlighten them on something they felt that they could not speak about. Yes, I understand that “Black Lives Matter” is a big deal and even more so I understand that people thrive off of controversial conversations. But I did not want to feed into that. And I especially did not want people to think that just because I am black, I have the answer to “all things black.” It just doesn’t work that way, and hell, if it did, I would be rich right now.
It is hard being the token black and people trying to use you for change. But it can be harder looking in a lecture hall and realizing that you might actually be the only person in your class of 300, that is a “brown skin” black person. What I wish I could say to every person who turned to me and whispered “Can you please explain this, since you’re black?”, is to just do some research. I do answer some questions, those that come with good heart, but most of the time I’m a quick reference guide so they can feel that they are being politically correct. I know I am the minority, and yes, I have met some people who have never seen a black person before, but that doesn’t change that I’m a student. Just like the person sitting next to me in class, and I’m trying, just like everyone else, to succeed. So, if Harriet Tubman won an unofficial vote to be on the twenty dollar bill, I think it’s finally time to stop treating me, or anyone else, as just another token.
