Whelp, it\u2019s official. My mission has finally begun, and I\u2019ve somehow managed to move myself across the country with my psyche still intact. It\u2019s been a week and a day since I\u2019ve moved in, and I must say. So. Much. Has. Happened\u2014so much that I\u2019m overwhelmed with the several possible routes this post could take. However, I think I\u2019ll start off simple, and just deal with something ever-associated with Iowa.<\/p>\n
White people.<\/p>\n
Rewind back to the days of my college application crucible, and I was busy considering places such as University of Texas at Austin or the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, but ever so quickly a sleeper arose\u2014the University of Iowa\u2014and after it quickly scaled the top of my list of priorities (practically stepping over all other college options and letting them fall to their deaths) I decided that Iowa City was most certainly the place for me\u2014or was it? At least that\u2019s the question that arose in my mind when I would tell people where I would be spending the next four (and then possibly two or three more) years of my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, there\u2019s a lot of corn in Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, I do know\u2014except over the course of my entire thirteen hour drive to and through Iowa to Iowa City, not once did I lay eyes on a single strand of apparently quite secretive corn. I was initially under the impression that all Iowans were corn-fed, thanks to the lovely southern-prejudices I was instilled with, but now that I\u2019m here I\u2019m questioning what it is they do eat if not corn.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, it gets really cold up there in Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, I do know. I just assumed that the closer to the North Pole I moved, the colder winter would be. I actually managed to escape the one hundred degree weather of the south, and I can most certainly attest to the fact that is indeed colder here. In fact, I don\u2019t feel my skin is in danger of becoming some shade of charcoal.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, there\u2019s a lot of white people in Iowa. How do you feel about that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well I\u2026 To be quite honest, I thought I knew how I felt about being a minority in a time when apparently minority is synonymous with inferiority, \u201cratchetness\u201d, whiner, and inadequacy, and I must say that for the longest time I dealt with it quite well. In all honesty, I\u2019ve never been a typical black boy. Scratch that, I\u2019ve never been the type of black boy they show on television since nothing is really typical\u2014only common. I\u2019m not in a gang nor have I ever shot a gun, and I am most certainly a proponent of good grammar, and with these things in mind, I\u2019ve never truly felt<\/em> my skin.<\/p>\n Even my high school, one of the biggest in the state of Texas (where everything’s bigger), was pretty diverse\u2014or at least I thought so. Maybe it\u2019s because intelligence knows no bounds and in all of my advanced placement classes there were a variety of people of all shades. Predominantly White Institution.<\/p>\n While my high school had its un<\/span>fair share of W.A.S.P.s (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestants) the University of Iowa seems to have had that entire population squared. Everywhere I go, I am a fly in milk. I have no real qualms with this fact (trust me this is not an attack on the white populace but statement of fact), but when you\u2019re the only person of color walking down a street (trust me I looked both ways) it\u2019s pretty hard not to notice.<\/p>\n The real discrepancy comes, however, when I interact with people that don\u2019t look like me\u2014specifically on the lighter side of the spectrum. A white girl can make a joke, and it gets a few giggles. But I simply add on to it, and I\u2019m all of a sudden on stage in a Neil Simon comedy with a full house of bleached hyenas. Now, I know what you\u2019re thinking. Maybe I\u2019m just really funny. Well, maybe I am, but it gets pretty old, even after a week, when all people do is laugh at something you said and not bother to ask you your name.<\/p>\n Before I continue however, this is not me complaining, whining, crying, protesting, criticizing, passing judgment, fault-finding, accusing, addressing a grievance, or anything of that nature. I love people, and the last time I checked that includes the white variety. In fact, the majority of my greatest mentors have been, in fact, Caucasian.<\/p>\n However, I have been told that some students on this campus have quite literally never seen a black person before. And that\u2019s okay\u2014especially with me.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve never seen a black person before? Okay, awesome, let me show you that (fun fact) we\u2019re not that different from you. I may not rap or run track or be here on an athletic scholarship or even like Tyler Perry films that much, but I still love Beyonc\u00e9 and Nicki Minaj and I\u2019ll still take a class to learn the Japanese language because that\u2019s just who I am, and contrary to (unfortunate) popular belief my skin is what <\/em>I am not who <\/em>I am.<\/p>\n *SIMULTANEOUS WORLD-WIDE GASPING*<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n So yes, there are a lot of white people up here, and how do I feel about it? I do not. There may be facts (i.e. I\u2019m black and they\u2019re white) but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s affecting my college experience in a negative way. There are plenty of flies floating around in this milk, believe me. However, if I had to select a single metaphor to sum up the racial dynamics at this school, I would simply say some of us are chocolate milk and some of us are white milk. But the last time I checked:<\/p>\n Chocolate milk may be a little different (sweet, too sweet, etcetera), but at the end of the day\u2014<\/p>\n It\u2019s still milk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whelp, it\u2019s official. My mission has finally begun, and I\u2019ve somehow managed to move myself across the country with my psyche still intact. It\u2019s been a week and a day since I\u2019ve moved in, and I must say. So. Much. Has. Happened\u2014so much that I\u2019m overwhelmed with the several possible routes this post could take. … Continue reading Chocolate Milk<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campuslife","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/austin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}(Go figure.)<\/del> But when I think about it, I was always one of two or maybe even (Lord be willing) three black people in an honors class. But even then, I never really and truly thought about it\u2026 until I came to a PWI.<\/p>\n
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