Is it story time? I guess it is. So I went to grad school right from undergrad so I was one of the youngest folks in my program. One of a handful of black men also. Here’s a story of my first semester... https://twitter.com/dem8z/status/1265077573807210496

In one of my classes we read an essay called “Teaching The N Word” about a Black woman professor teaching at a very white college and her experience around the n word. In the story there’s a moment where a white guy says “we all just want to be the cool whites guy who can say...

... what’s up my nigga and get away with it.” So I’m standing outside class the day we’ve read this essay to discuss it. I’m with my friend who is one of few other black students and we’re like this discussion could be interesting... so this white guy in class approaches us...

Out of nowhere sort of looks down and chuckles and then says to me “I was about to say what’s up my nigga.” I am shocked because I’ve literally never spoken to this dude. It’s only a month into the school year and I just got here. So I don’t say anything and laugh a little

Uncomfortably and just leave and go to the bathroom. I stay in there for a few minutes waiting for class and deciding if I should smack the fire out ole boy. Afterwards I go into class and don’t talk to him (because he wasn’t a person I ever spoke to) and I just swallow it but...

I’m distracted as hell all class. Eventually after class I decided I have to say something to this guy so I ask my friend his name. It’s a common white guy so I look him up on the reading series poster since that has *small*photos. I think I find him so I look up his email and

I write this long ass email. The essay we read started with the Countee Cullen poem incident https://www.google.com/amp/s/genius.com/amp/Countee-cullen-incident-annotated. I start my email with the same poem and try to explain how he fucked to my whole learning experience that day and I did nothing to invite his foolishness. I send

the email and maybe a day later I get an apologetic response saying that the person I sent the email to was not in the class. I look back at the poster and realize I’ve sent this email to the wrong common name guy. So I’m a little embarrassed but it’s cool I apologize and find..

the right person. (This is how little I knew this guy. I couldn’t recognize him from another white guy in a series of photos.) So he sends a short omg so sorry message and basically cuts a wide ass berth around me the rest of the semester, which is fine. I let it go more or less

But randomly a year or more later my friend tells me that she’s heard about this story from one of this guy’s friends and apparently he was pretty scared of me after that and talked to our professor to ask that we not be put in the same workshop groups for class that semester...

The reason he gave for this avoidance was that he believed I was homophobic, which is wild because I didn’t even know he was gay. Lmaooooo...

But see this is the thing that white people stay doing. They cross boundaries with you and then try to smear your reputation to those in power to keep you in check. It’s obscene.

My story is a small example and luckily not life threatening but there are so many other examples with much deeper consequences.

I will say after that moment I made a concerted effort to build a social world outside of my graduate program because I felt burned/hurt and so I got a reputation for always being gone/aloof in the program...

So idk maybe I would’ve made more deep lifelong bonds if not for that moment or maybe not but I do know it was alienating as hell and I also know I’ve rarely shared space with white people where I didn’t have to consider their fears about me or other Black people as

The unwelcome third companion in the encounter. Alright story time over.

Wait one last thing. I was 22 at the time. This dude was somewhere around 40, which pisses me off whenever I think about it lol.

Last last note: I should’ve beat the fuck out of him on the spot, no questions or conversations. Maybe I would’ve gotten thrown out of Michigan or at least reprimanded which would’ve probably impacted my recommendations and thus my whole career trajectory. But I should’ve mushed

his goofy ass.

I’m still mad that one professor maybe thinks I’m homophobic. That’s some bullshit g.