man.
today was freaking beautiful.
sun was out, sky was blue, weather was warm.
needless to say, i didnt get any homework done, which is not a good thing considerin the 10-15 pager i got due friday that i havent started on.
i got up & went to class as usual this morning, came back to my room & sat around. one day each march, as a part of women's history month, ladies on campus volunteer to have a 6th grade girl shadow them for the day, just to expose them to college life. they also have little workshops & stuff. i suspect most of them were boring. candis volunteered to mentor a little girl, and she asked me if i wanted to, too, but i declined cause i had planned to write that paper today.
i ran into her and brandy, the young lady she had with her, as i was leaving my class this morning. she was precious. very, very personable. she looked everyone right in their faces as they were talking, whether she was a part of the conversation or not. i liked that about her. get em girl. don't avert ur eyes for nodamnbody. candis said they were gonna meet up w/ christina and hey buddy for the day and have lunch. i asked if i could join them, and brandy was like, 'yeah!' so i met them for lunch.
let me back up.
the girls that they bring to campus are 'inner city youth.' students from schools in the immediate area, which are largely black, so of course, most of the girls on campus today were black. there's a girl in the class i had today named lindsey. lindsey's white. half latina, but white. she had a little girl with her this morning. i felt so pressed to say something to her, if nuthin else cause for some reason i felt like i knew how she felt about bein in that room w/ that girl, however she was feelin. lindsey's not the most enlightened individual in the world. not a slobbering, mangy racist, but just ignorant to a lotta stuff.
lindsey and kiera (that was the little girl's name) also ate lunch with us.
we just sat around talking to the girls. all of them sounded like me, their accents, their slang, their cadences. i felt at home. but fucking lindsey. i was sitting at the opposite end of the table and wasnt really paying attn to her conversation w/ the girls, but here's what i did pick up:
1) knowing that the young ladies attend 'inner city schools,' she actually had the nerve to look these girls in the eye and ask them: 'so... are there a lot of drugs in your school?' i heard that and felt like yellin, bitch is it a lotta drugs in YO school?! i mean really, the stereotyper award of the day shld be shoved right up her ass. i stared at her for a good minute with my 'what the damn hell?' look hoping to catch her eye, but she was consumed in their answers. i was so intent in givin her the look of death and pestilence that i didn't think to listen to their answers. the last thing they need is some stuck up privileged ass 'educated' white girl lookin down on them & their environment. i puzzled for the next hour on how to confront her about it.
as we were leaving, though, i was walking with two of the girls. one of them put her hand on kiera's shoulder and looked at me. 'she doesn't like lindsey.'
ha! i dont like lindsey either sweetie, and we aint the only ones, trust.
'she asked that really dumb question,' she said, 'if there was drugs in our school or not.'
it did my heart so much good to know that they recognized that question as a dumb one. i can't recall how they answered her, but i put money on it that they put her in her place, whether she recognized it or not.
2) she kept referring to the middle school students as 'my/our/your girl(s)' 'who's girl is this? is she yours?' bitch, she has a name. she's not a fucking rental. she's a person and she dont belong to her nor u nor nobody but her mama til she's 18. shut the fuck up.
3) i didn't hear this part, but julena, who was sitting next to lindsey, told us after lindsey left the table that after the idiotic drug question, lindsey turned to her (julena) and said 'i hope my kids don't turn out thuggish.'
yo
if i wld have heard that shit i'da ripped her a new one, straight up. i plan on mentionin that to her if i see her in an appropriate setting. really . what the fuck.
this is my concern with this tradition. it's very well-intended, but i mean, bring a bunch of blk girls from the surrounding community on campus to follow around a bunch of rich, white, oblivious women and u run the very big risk of patronization. right now i put money on it that lindsey is on the phone tellin somebody about how 'ghetto *her* girl' was/is/will always be.
*sigh*
anyway
after lindsey left to do who knows what, she told us to meet her in haupt plaza so that she cld take kiera to her next workshop. we get out there after the gallery and she's not there. granted, we were a little late, but lindsey didn't stick around, so i walked her to where she was supposed to be. there was lindsey, sittin in the room without her partner lookin a ass. dumb ass broad.
after that i ran a few campus errands and then went to go sit on the sign. the infamous sign. i missed it so much, man.
it was just me sittin on it this time, tho.
it was sorta lonely.
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i sat and kept netta company today as she ate lunch. it was just she and i--everyone else had to go to the art gallery. not long after she got her food and sat down she said
'i think ima be like you my senior yr.'
i aint know what she meant by that. i thought she meant the senioritis thing, so i smiled. 'these white boys here, wooooooooo! they gon make me go crazy up in hurr.'
netta's from memphis. freshman. blk. thick TN accent & a country tone of speech. i love it. and she's got really expressive eyes, like whatever she's feelin, u know just by lookin. she usually laughs and jokes, but there was no mirth in them eyes as she was speakin today. i stopped smilin and listened to her tell me a story about her borrowing a CD from a friend of her's on campus, erin, a dude on the baseball team. it was his roommate dylan's cd, but eric let her take it anyway. netta goes back a day or so later to give it back. eric, dylan, and some other boys from the baseball team are in the room. netta respectfully hands dylan the cd and thanks him. dylan flips and starts screamin on her. BITCH, GIMMIE MY SHIT! and so forth. out of the blue. of course she speaks up to defend herself, but he just keeps on. she's in this room fulla white boys, alone. they all laffinin at the situation, laffin at her bein attacked and degraded for no reason at all. and her 'friend' eric is just sitting there, watching it happen.
she was so hurt, yall. i cld see it in them orbs she calls eyes.
i felt so bad. and other than marchin over there and screamin on dude myself, i dont know what cld be done about it.
we talked about how fucked up it all was for a good minute after that.
then she asked me
'u heard of blackplanet.com?'
dear lord.
i shook my head yeah and let memory flood my smile.
lord, have i been there before.
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yall had a good run.
but fuck yall for LOSING IN THE FIRST DAMN ROUND.
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it's funny how sometimes things seem to be destined to happen at the right time.
i sat on the sign tryna get my graduation speech written. it's not coming well at all. no one wants to hear my REAL story. well, the president and the deans and the board of trustees don't wanna hear my real story cause my real story consists of a million charges and accusations against this gotdamn school. if i write plainly what i want to say, they won't let me say it. but the thing is, i can't compromist my story just because i want the white folk to let me have a few minutes. fuck that. i decided i'd do waht i cld & if they dont want it, fine. it'll hafta be whatever.
leaving the sign, tho, i was completely ready to get up.
i get back to my room and there's a note on my dry erase board in red marker from ashley, the girl who lives at the opposite end of the hall:
Tracy,
Have you considered applying to be our student commencement speaker? I'm on the commitee that chooses and I know you're a good writer, so I thought you could write an awesome speech. If you want an application or more info, let me know! --Ashley wow.
i wasn't expecting her at all.
i walked down to her room to see her and she seemed really excited about me giving the speech. i was touched, man.
so im gonna try again.
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somethin else that happened right on time:
a few days ago, im desparing (again) over what to do with my life post graduation. this was sunday evening. i went to get some dinner and checked my mail on my way back to my room to find an envelope w/ my name and somebody's local return address, but no postage.
...odd.
i open it & it's a letter from the mother of one of the paper's editor. she basically commended me for my articles and urged me to keep writing, as a career.
ill write more on that later, and type the actual letter here for yall to read.
but it was some unexpected inspiration i surely didn't expect to come from a white woman i aint never met before.
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im goin home this weekend.
tiara's goin to stay with travis for the week (yes!!)
