Far from finding my community at college, I found myself on an island. Alone.
Who am I? Who decides that? Where do I belong? Do I belong anywhere? Do I exist at all if no group of humans will claim me?
As I search for familiarity and try to make new friends, these questions are my constant companions. These days of searching become weeks; the weeks become months, and the months become years. I make friends mostly with white people and with the small number of Black kids who also live in my dorm, row on the crew team, participate in theater, do student government, or take the pre-law classes. I would go back to Ujamaa just once in my time at Stanford for a study session in someone’s dorm room. It was sophomore or junior year. Walking through the main hallway, I recognized a number of the brown faces and could smile and nod, but I didn’t know anyone’s name. And they did not know mine. I could not count them as friends. Although I now had more Black friends than in the aggregate years of my childhood—and other friends who were non-white—by staying away from Ujamaa I’d exiled myself from the heart of the Black community on campus.