I had always hated group sharing in school – always.  The other students were too dull, too immature, and just too slow, both literally and figuratively.  Being perceived as “really smart”, especially as a little black girl, from a working-class family, in a working-class city was both a blessing and a curse.  The was a fine line between “having good sense” and being too “book smart.”  The former was admired as being savvy and able to successfully navigate both black and white society as the world transitioned from the turbulent 1960s and 70s to the relative calm of the 1980s.  The latter was to be either laughed at for using “big words” or being thought “queer” – long before that became a term to describe sexual orientation – and simply meant that a person was fucking weird.

So, while group sharing was never my favorite, this activity took RM’s discomfort to a “whole ‘nother level.”  Honors 199, a course for the high GPA “pencil heads” who enjoyed perks like living in the clean and modern dorms in exchange for actually studying and keeping partying confined mostly to the weekends, was listed in the course catalog as an:  

An interdisciplinary exploration of one or more critical issues that confront the modern United States, such as race, poverty, education, or family. Open only to Honors College Students.” (Ball State University Course Catalog, 1981).

It was also taught by a professor, thought to be so lofty in comparison to the other mere mortals on the faculty that he was known as “Dr. Van der God.”  In his infinite wisdom, “Dr. Van de God” had apparently decided that there was not enough class participation in the large lecture sessions of the class, and so he instituted Friday morning small discussion groups in which the freshman honors college students were assigned to a “small group” with one of his many graduate assistants to discuss various topics.  This particular group was connected with the final project, which was to be either a family history or a biography of our most interesting family member.  For some reason, the GA thought it would be a good idea to have the group go around the table and state their family’s ethnic background. 

I was the only black student in the entire class and one of only a handful in the entire Honors College, so I already felt like a proverbial “fish out of water.”  As luck would have it, I was seated in the circle where I would have to give my response last (An accident?  Or by design to make the other in the group suffer the highest amount of humiliation?  One is always forced to wonder.) As I listened to my white classmates talk about having family members who came from England, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Russia with not even the reprieve of a single Asian or Latin American student in the mix, I began experiencing what I can only describe as a full-on panic attack.  With pounding heart and sweaty palms, I frantically searched my mind.  What on earth was I going to say?  I was transported back to elementary school, when I wondered to myself why everything and everyone in our history books seemed to be so white!  I recalled being enthralled by studies of the Ancient Egyptians, depicted as people with tan complexions somewhat similar to my own with an inexplicable feeling of solidarity and pride probably not commonly experienced by 10-year-olds. 

At any rate, I wasn’t yet secure enough to “school” my group on why it was impossible for me to know precisely where my family came from, since our heritage had been purposefully and systematically “erased” during slavery. Instead, when my turn finally came, I stammered, “I don’t really know what to say.  My father’s father died when he was very young, so he doesn’t really know his family history.  My mother was raised by her stepfather and never knew her biological paternal grandparents.  I suppose they must have come from Africa at some point, but I don’t really know.”

Even though this statement was extremely benign, compared to all of the things I could have said my groupmates, nevertheless, seemed to shift uncomfortably in their chairs.  The girl sitting next to me shook her head and made a “tsk, tsk” sound.  (What was that?  Revulsion?  Pity?)  The GA leading the group then asked me something about “The Great Migration” and whether my family had come North during that.  I replied that my parents had been born in Tennessee and Kentucky and were now living in Indiana, so I guess you could say that.  Thankfully, he decided to move on.

Even though I had that experience some forty years ago, I can still vividly remember the sense of shame that I felt.  Even in an academic environment, with other “really smart” students, a place where I should have felt, finally, as if I belonged, a simple exercise once again separated me as being different – the other.  It is, therefore, curious to me why white Americans constantly lament the fact that we should just “forget about race” and “just be Americans.”  I didn’t choose to make that situation about race; however, because of America’s history, especially with regard to people of African American descent, the question of race inevitably inserted itself and what was a simple, “no big deal” ice breaker activity for everyone else in the group, still haunts me today as a completely humiliating experience.

 Years later, I set up an account with Ancestry.com and set about researching my family tree.  Thanks also to the advent of DNA testing, I would now be able to answer that I have ancestors from Nigeria, Cameroon, and Mali as well as from England, Ireland, and Germany.  It is ironic then, that I wasn’t as much of an outsider as I thought.  It wasn’t actually blood lines that made me feel different, but rather the lack of knowledge about those blood lines.  As I read more and more about those who want to limit the topics deemed to be acceptable for students to study in their history classes, I can’t help but think about what a mistake that is.  In my view, the truth, no matter how ugly or uncomfortable, is always better than not knowing at all.

Works Cited

Ball State University Course Catalog. (1981). Muncie: Ball State University Press.