This past week was our Spring Break, which I spent doing service in New Orleans, LA with Howard University's Alternative Spring Break program. It definitely was an experience worth its own book, and something I hope to write about soon. While in New Orleans, our group of 50 or so Howard University students stayed in St. Jude's Community Center, a facility that feeds and shelters the homeless in the city.

The first day we arrived, we were told we would be sharing the facility that week with students from Purdue University who were also there to do service in the city. This was an interesting prospect to us Howard Students, as Purdue is a predominantly white institution and we are a predominantly black one. I, however, was unfazed by the news, seeing as I have plenty of white friends and went to a very diverse high school (shoutout to Marian Catholic). As used to white peers as I thought I was, I was unprepared for the situation that occurred when the Purdue students arrived.

Upon entering the building and seeing a room full of black people, the Purdue students (consisting of almost all white boys and girls with about three or four ethnics in a group of 50) literally stopped in their tracks. The boys were told to go to their dorm room, which was located through a door in the commons room where we were all sitting. However, when they saw us, they actually stopped and turned around to ask their leader if they were sure this was where they were meant to be. The girls stood in the lobby and contemplated the dilemma of getting their luggage up three flights of stairs. The male leader of the group called the boys back to help, but I thought I would offer up some advice.

"If they're trying to get their luggage upstairs, there's an elevator right there behind you," I said loudly and politely to the leader. His eyes scanned the room and skipped right over me as he continued to call for his group members. I wondered if I had actually spoken out loud or not. I couldn't have if this white man had blatantly looked over me and ignored the help I had offered to him. I was completely taken back and immediately hostile. With that gesture, the man had identified the whole group and put them into a box that I was hesitant to put them in at first. I didn't want to believe these white people would be estranged and judgmental and prejudiced, but it looked to be the case.

I cannot explain how it made us feel throughout the week to be shied away from, avoided and looked up and down as if were dangerous and dirty. All 100 or so of the girls in the building, black and white, had to share the one bathroom. The ladies from Purdue looked down when we entered, refusing to make eye contact. They glanced at us out of the corners of their eyes when they thought we couldn't see. They flinched and hunched when we passed, uttering a string of high-pitched, scared apologies if we happened to bump shoulders as if we black women were perpetually angry and hostile and ready to lunge at their throats. Those of us polite enough to say "Good morning" to them were met with surprised glances and nothing more at first. The girls did not say excuse me. They walked right through us and squeezed between us saying nothing, as if we were simply expected to make way for them. As if their presence alone constituted some sort of deferential behavior. I can count on one hand the number of girls who spoke to us, who made an attempt at politeness and normality instead of staring and avoiding us like the plague.

I was baffled. I have friends who go to Purdue. Could those coming from southern and central Indiana really be so different from those coming out of the Chicagoland area? The answer is yes. To be treated like a predator for simply existing truly is a traumatic experience. I found myself in a dilemma. I wanted to combat their prejudiced ideals and assumptions about who we were. Without even trying, I began code switching. Around the girls, I used my white-people voice, tiptoed around and adopted a meek demeanor to prove that I wasn't angry or rude. I found myself speaking overly correct English to prove, "Hey! I'm black and I can speak just like you! I'm intelligent, too!" I realized I was apologizing for literally every move I made that could possibly make them uncomfortable. I even sometimes hummed along to the songs they played to let them know, "Hey! I'm black and I listen to things other than trap music! I'm not dangerous! I'm not ghetto!"

I also realized just how destructive this could be to ones psyche and how demeaning it felt to be pressured into being someone you're not for the sake of someone else. I was doing nothing but helping oppression along. I saw how my Howard peers were handling it and drew strength from their defiance. I could be unapologetically black, flaunting the cultural differences between us and playing our music and using our vernacular in a bold, in-your-face display of defiance. We are here, we are different and we refuse to conform to make you comfortable. At the end of the day, nothing we did was going to change the way we were seen by this group, whether we played into their stereotypical views or not. We owed them nothing and had to prove nothing. Our strength is in our knowledge of who we are and who we aren't, and we know exactly what we're capable of and how great we are as a people.

Unapologetically black: To be or not to be? For me, that is no longer the question.