Upon Leaving this Place: Reflecting on the UNO Experience
Today is the first day I have worn my class ring. It is .5 ounces of stainless steel, an outer band that rotates around a slightly wider inner band. On the inside, "UNO Class of 2006" is engraved in a typestyle the manufacturer calls “Roman.” On the outside, "PERSEVERANCE." As you can probably imagine, I had to design this ring myself. I had looked through several catalogs, but nothing I saw adequately symbolized my experience here at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. All of the styles for women were delicate gold or polished silver with vibrant hued stones and crystals and silly cursive text. They didn't represent my experiences. I skipped the glittery stones because, in the words of Langston Hughes, “life here aint been no crystal stair.” I needed a ring that represented endurance, so it is only appropriate that I chose stainless steel, a metal that withstands a multitude of abrasions, but lasts just the same – and, I argue, only gets better with the wear and tear.
I have been mocked in the school newspaper, my culture made into an April fool’s joke. I have been pulled into back offices by student government and asked if I would mind relinquishing my salary – as the people who suggested such non-sense were still to be paid. I have endured the ironic invisibility of being the only brown face in my classrooms, sometimes having to refuse to speak for my entire race, and other times demanding to be seen as teachers made comments about how all of the students in the room look alike and have the same kind of hair. At which time I made a joke, because what else can one do, and said “excuse me, um, I disagree because I am obviously in this room too…” And to that, the professor laughed (as I was laughing) and said “well, but you know what I mean.” Sure I did. I watch the inflation of black enrollment rates and it seems as though the university has combined the domestic and international student enrollment rates to make the enrollment of black students appear to have risen, when, in fact, it has decreased. And I have struggled to physically bring myself to a campus where the graduation rate for white men is ten times that of black men, and the administration would rather argue over a point or two than to actually take action against this injustice. People have posted flyers all about the campus, some of which were supposed to represent people who look like me and the language we speak. And when I took the demeaning flyers to the administration, they told me that it was "a matter for the police" and that they had already contacted them. I went into that meeting where I presented one of the many flyers feeling, simply, sad about the campus climate, but I came out of that meeting knowing that I had to get the hell away from here. A campus where the administration is not willing to take action, serious action – not lip service, to offer an equal education and experience to each and every student enrolled is not a healthy, safe, or acceptable place for me to learn.
Was it all bad? Of course not. If I were to have placed a gem in my ring, it would have represented the Goodrich Scholarship Program. I am not going to spend a paragraph praising the program because I think the campus and community already know how extremely lucky they are to have this program. I am but one of the lucky few who has been allowed to see a different side of UNO because of the Goodrich Scholarship program. There were also certain individuals who provided me with a space on campus where I could vent and regroup, and a professor or two who elicited serious critical thinking and encouraged me to seek out another institution of higher learning if I thought I wasn’t getting what I needed here. That advice was well taken; I have applied and been accepted to **Ivy1, Ivy2, and Ivy3** for graduate school in the fall. Am I naive enough to think that I won’t face some of these same issues at *Ivy1*next school year? No. But what I do expect is the sensitivity to cultural and socioeconomic issues that might come a little easier in a less conservative environment, the possibility of working on old problems with new people, and the security of knowing that, if nothing else, at *Ivy1*I will get a name that opens doors for all my troubles and tuition dollars if everything else turns out to be the same.
To each and every other brown on this campus, know that you are not alone – even if it feels like it. There were days when I was completely paralyzed and could not remember why I was here or if the struggle of getting the degree was worth it. But if this article does nothing else, I want it to be my testimony to you that it was indeed worth the struggle! Speak to each other, there aren’t but so many of you, right? Be diligent enough to seek out the resources that do exist so that you don’t lose sight of the goal. And, lastly, if you can’t or don’t find what you need here, don’t be afraid to find it elsewhere.
Oh! And to my fellow Goodrich scholars, enjoy your Goodrich classes while they last, because the true diversity that exists in those courses is a rarity! Silly me, I expected to have as much fun in all my classes.
Persevere,
A Brown Student Upon Graduating from UNO
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