Here for It Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays - R. Eric Thomas Page 0,26

going to become Angela Davis in college? I was doubtful. I was not quite sure how to locate my blackness, but I knew that my blackness was definitely not whiteness.

I wanted to be part of the experiences of my people, but a lifetime of feeling slightly uncomfortable all the time suggested that this was not in the (race) cards. I began to realize that I’d built my conception of my racial identity on neutrality and that that didn’t jibe with the way the world was going to relate to me. That’s why I’d felt out of place in our all-black church, where the choir swayed in the rhythm and people caught the spirit and I quietly observed. And that’s why I’d felt ill-suited to lead the Black Awareness Club (but still ran for president of it because she loves a well-stacked résumé!). Who was I to tell anyone what blackness was? I didn’t know and I couldn’t figure out how to find out.

So, true to my nature as someone who literally cannot decide if he wants to be in or out (see also: closets, conference calls, the workforce, church choir, fashion), when it came to the colleges, I went to the all-students weekends at Brown and Princeton and the students-of-color weekends at Columbia and Cornell. At Cornell, my host—a student named Fredo—made me sleep under his bed and told me there was a race war on campus, so I shouldn’t talk to any white people. The marching band was really great, though, so all in all it was a fine experience. A little Malcolm X-y, a little Music Man-y. What more could you want?

I know you’d like more information on this race war situation. Honey, so would I! Fredo was a light-skinned dude with skinny braids lining his scalp. He had no posters on his walls and literally the only thing he said to me was, “I have no room in here. This is a single. You have to sleep under the bed. There’s a race war going on. Don’t talk to any white people.” So I didn’t! I mean, would you? People would be coming up to me, asking me where I was from, offering to tell me about their majors and the clubs they were in, and I’d just shake my head like “You ain’t bamboozling me, whitey.”

It was a really rich experience.

At Princeton, I learned you had to join a club in order to eat! Have you heard about this? Many people have tried to explain this to me over the years, but I refuse to retain anything more than this: In lieu of meal plans, they have eating clubs. They’re like fraternities. You join one and maybe live there and also eat all your meals there. “What if no one accepts you into their club?” I asked the tall, ruddy white tour guide on Princeton’s campus. He stared at me like I was speaking French and then mumbled an answer which I also refused to retain. I kept imagining myself wandering Princeton’s campus, emaciated and desperate because I had failed to find my people. I am not interested in joining anything ever anyway, and now I was going to have to die for it. This put Princeton in the maybe category.

At Columbia, where I would eventually enroll, they put a whole bunch of us in the Pan-African House, which was a two-floor dorm apartment. What I remember most vividly is sleeping on the floor of the common room while a bunch of black people watched a bootleg copy of The Matrix. On the Huxtable scale of blackness, the experience was a solid Denise.

The part of my brain that is constantly constructing and deconstructing a time machine wonders a lot about the choice I made. Ultimately, I think I was most beguiled by Columbia because of New York. I felt compelled by the city in a way I didn’t understand. Its limits and its definitions were attractive but ambiguous, and I was drawn, most of all, to the mystery. I didn’t have those words then, of course. All I knew was I had to leave my home and see Broadway shows and meet people who told witty stories about international travel and perhaps dye my hair or consider a piercing at once if not sooner. At this evening’s performance, the role of R. Eric Thomas will be played by Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird.

Having arrived on campus—in a full moving truck! God bless my long-suffering