Confessions of a Student

First of all, let me be frank. I was raised a rich little white girl. Okay, not exactly rich, but we certainly weren't lower class (and I use that term purely economically). I went to public schools in a nice-sized school district. You know, the kind of city that is neither one-horse-town, nor urban inner-city. I moved around as a kid, but I spent my entire high school at one school in the midwest. Yes, we had minorities in my school and in my classes, but there wasn't any major issue with discrimination. Nevertheless, none of my close friends were minorities. I had a nice, safe, group of euro-american (which I'm told is the new politically correct term) friends. In college, it was the same. I had a great support network - all euro-american girls. And here's where my confession comes in - subconsciously, a lot of that was my doing.

African Americans make me nervous.

They are flamboyant, extroverted and self-assured. If something's on their mind, they say it. There is an unspoken culture that reveals itself when African Americans come together, one that I have never seen the inside of. So, yes, it makes me nervous. That does not mean I look down on the culture or the race AT ALL. It means, rather, that I am nervous because I don't know how to act around them. And so I never feel like I can fit in with them. In the end, it simply is not the social web that I run with.

There. I confessed it; something I've never put into words before. What's my point? Well, fast forward to this year.

I'm in Houston. In south texas. But even so, at my job, there are very few African Americans at my job. Oh, we have minorities. Lots of asians of various nationalities, a guy with a beautiful irish accent and one girl who came (literally) straight from Russia. But very few African Americans. I can't even think of one that I work directly with. Odd, considering I'm in Houston, huh?

Then there's my school. Tiny Houston seminary. Imagine the culture shock when I walked into class on the first day and realized that I was one of 2 euro-americans in my first class - and there were 9 African Americans. It's not just the class, either. It's the student body. I walk down the hall and pass a group of 3 African Americans chatting in the hallway. I sit in the study and there are two African American girls studying with me. At first, I'll be honest. It was very unsettling. It still is. I feel like a fish out of water. There's an atmosphere that I'm not familiar with, in all of my years in the educational system. An openness. And as an insecure, uncertain, introverted young woman, it's not easy to grow accustomed to it.

Well, a semester has passed and I can't help but look back on my experiences. I walked into class yesterday and felt safe admitting that I was a little tired when someone asked me how I was doing. One woman, who I didn't know, insisted that I come out to the party that another class was throwing and there I saw a classmate from another class, who came up and gave me a hug, just to say high. And later, when several of us were talking, one classmate stopped to ask me if I was feeling okay, because I was being quiet. And yes, all of these are African Americans.

I don't know how else to explain it. I know that a large part of this welcomeness is the fact that this is a Christian university, where we are all studying to further pursue our journey of faith. We come together not just as classmates, but as Christians. But I also think that that bond of faith, when combined with the African American culture of extroversion (is that a word?), is part of what has made this semester so special to me.

I mean, come on. When a classmate that you don't know outside of class gives you a hug just because you ran into them in the hallway... that's not just a special sign that you are accepted. That's a big huge warm fuzzy is what it is. ;)