The cafeteria table: Another little known tidbit about being a black student attending a predominantly white institution

 I had the honor and pleasure of attending the University of Tampa, a small private liberal arts university with about 1600 students, roughly 95% white students.  When I attended college, it was a fairly regular routine to see students of color sitting at their particular tables. You would see black students sitting here, Latino students in here, or a native American and Asian students sitting over there. This wasn’t really out of the norm. 

But during my time in college, at least once or even twice I would have a white student would approach me to ask me:

Why were students of color segregating themselves at the cafeteria table?

For students of color, especially black students, who are attending predominantly white institutions, I am pretty sure this is not an uncommon question.

So let me take the opportunity to address this, from my perspective.

First, we live in a society where majority rules. In other words regardless of where you are or what type of environment you’re in, it’s a fairly decent probability that the culture of the environment your hand is going to probably cater more towards the majority of the people who are there. This majority can be based on socioeconomic status, employment status, or race. So you can imagine if you have a school that has a student population that has the majority of a particular race, there is a pretty decent likelihood the culture of the school will probably lean towards the majority of that race.  As such, if you are a student of color attending a predominantly white institution, you know you must adapt and adjust to the culture of the majority.

Second, in order to adapt and adjust to the culture of the majority, students of color will also look for ways to expand their college experience to include their own culture as well as seek refuge in communities of similarly situated individuals.   For instance, I grew up in a black household. My cousins, aunts and uncles that I would spend holidays with or black. I went to an African Methodist Episcopal Zion church. In other words the places where I felt safe tended to be places were persons of color aggregated themselves and had shared similar experiences. So it should not be a surprise to see students of color seeking out other students who may have similarly situated shared experiences. So when you go to the cafeteria, as a person of color, you’re probably going to look for groups of students that look like you. I’m not saying this happens all the time, I’m just saying that if you walk into a cafeteria and the predominant student population is white it’s very easy to identify students of color if they are all aggregated together. But they’re doing so because they have shared experiences and this is an avenue that makes them feel safe.

Third, There is no way they can segregate themselves. If you look at definition of segregation in the dictionary, segregation is a state act of separating people. People who choose to collectively associate with others that look like them it’s not segregation. That’s an important distinction because there is this thought that the individuals who are sitting together are collectively saying to people who don’t look like them that you can’t sit with them.  

Finally, it’s tough being the ‘lone wolf’ so a pack makes you feel safe.  I often find it funny that when I was in school when I was in my classes, it was fairly common that I was the only one in there of color. Every now and then I might have a class with it maybe two of us maybe three and Best. But the vast majority of my classes I was probably the only person of color in the class. If you talk to many students of color, they are uniquely aware of how many people in the class look like them because invariably they are probably one of only a handful. If you are in the majority, having someone that looks like you immediately next to you is the norm. If you’re in the minority you become acutely aware of the fact that you are the ‘only one’.   So there comes a point in time where you enjoy the comfort of being around those persons who look like you and you are no longer the only one.

And as an aside, the conversations of minority students may be pretty different once you come together as a group. When you are a person of color, and you’re sitting around the majority of people who are not like you, you hear their conversations and they are speaking about things that relate directly to their world. However, those same people may not take it upon themselves to venture outside of that world to see what somebody else’s world is like because in their mind the world is the norm. Not trying to be funny, when I’m talking to my black friends, and I’m asking them if they are going to the delta party, They know I’m not talking about Delta Delta Delta, Delta Zeta, or Delta Gamma. They know I’m talking about Delta Sigma Theta because in my community that is an organization that we would know from our culture. 

I would also say the same about a table of people who are speaking their native language. I would not assume that they are segregating themselves because they are choosing to aggregate and speak solely in their language. If that’s the language they feel the most comfortable speaking in, why should I ask them to stop speaking it just because I don’t understand it.

College cafeterias are like islands of culture. And as opposed to saying to someone to get off of there island and come to yours because you feel uncomfortable, get out of your own way and go to their island.