During my freshman year in college, I met a white female student through mutual friends. She grew up in Rocky River, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Upon returning to school after Christmas break, I happened to walk past her dorm room. The door was open and she was sitting there with her parents. She yelled my name as I passed, so I stopped. She introduced me to her parents and I left. A few weeks later she and I were having a casual conversation and she told me something that shocked me. She said that her mother told her to stay away from me, because I was nothing but trouble. She then confessed that she initially feared me when we first met, because she had never met a black guy in person. She only knew about black people from what she heard from her parents, what she saw on TV shows and the evening news. Her attitude about black people changed once she got to know me and other black students, which helped her push back on her mother’s comments.
There was another moment during my freshman year in college that shocked me; one that I will never forget. Two really nice guys on the swim team lived two doors down the hall in my dormitory. They grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. One night we were talking in their room and I could tell that they were curious about me as a black person.