Fourth Thursday

I got into a nice argument with a few of my students today. I asked them if it would be okay for them to be interviewed by a fellow student for a research project of theirs. What started a simple refusal immediately escalated into an interrogation of who I am as a person. I thought I'd address that here to bring myself some kind of peace of mind.

The question to me was : Am I a WashU nigga or a St. Louis nigga?

This is not an easy question to answer properly. Was I born and raised in St. Louis? Yes. Do I carry many qualities of the culture with me? Yes. Have I rejected certain aspects such as the accent? Yes. Do I attend WashU? Yes. Have I gone through the unique struggle that higher education brings? Yes. Have I rejected certain aspects of the WashU community? Yes

So the simple answer is "both," but it made me think.

One of my past students asked me about the St. Louis poem I wrote and performed at CUPSI. In it, there's the now-infamous "nigga" section. He asked how why there's such a fierce contrast between the celebration of St. Louis culture (both good and bad) and the indictment of the "other" that occurs in the second half. What I'm realizing is that is a direct reflection of many of the experiences that have at WashU where these two parts of myself are forced into direct conflict.

WashU fosters a fear of the St. Louis nigga. Its apparent in the safety precautions they feed to freshmen during orientation. It's evident in the e-mails they send about crime notices and the way that WUPD reacts towards the black population on campus. The only St. Louis nigga that most students HAVE to come in contact are the workers on campus. To add to that fostering of fear, WashU places limitations on how the workers can interact with students, even when they're off. For example, the open mics on campus are open to ANYONE who wants to spit, but we have been cited for allowing the workers to spit because "it creates an uncomfortable situation for students." Lord knows how uncomfortable it is to know that dude who gives you your food may have a shared interest.

I guess in a way to combat this as well as make themselves feel better, a lot of students reduce the St. Louis nigga to a charity case. This allows them to not seem like they're racist or classist while still exerting their dominance over the St. Louis nigga in a nicer way. (Even the wording we use to describe how we interact with the St. Louis community places us in a higher plane than the enigmatic St. Louis Nigga. More on that some other time.)

I've seen WashU as an institution do terrible things to my community. I've seen WashU students turn the St. Louis nigga into a joke, an animal, a lesser-being and justify it by using every Olin-library supported source they could find. I've seen people go into the neighborhoods of the people that disgust them and act like they have no right to call that place home.

I gained a loot of opportunities by coming to WashU. I met a lot of great people. I've had a lot of fun. I can't discount it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that there was a huge part of me that hates WashU, and hates that I can be called a WashU nigga at the same time as a St. Louis Nigga.

At the end of the day, I'm going to graduate from WashU. I'll die in St. Louis. That's the way it'll be. Although WashU has done incredible things for me, my city has still done more and I won't let that be lessened by a school.