Aight, so once I make sure my brothers know they
aren’t alone, we keep it pushing to the dance floor.
Now, this is about the time when shit starts to get
weird (as if it wasn’t already).
So as we make our way to the party room, my friends
and I are accosted by three white males. They’re all
clearly sauced and one of them yells at eardrum
shattering levels, “BROOOOOO, YOU GUYS PENN
STATE FOOTBALL!?” Before I or anybody that I was
with could even open our mouths to reply, his other
friend responds to him by saying “DUDE. OF
COURSE THEY’RE PENN STATE FOOTBALL, DO
YOU F*CKING SEE THESE GUYS!?” He then turned
to me, grasped both of my shoulders just like a weirdo
and said almost in a whisper, “Bro…you’re Penn
State Football. You’re like family.” After they finished
profiling us, I looked at my bros and I’m 100% sure
that in that moment, we all made mental contact. I
later confirmed that the thought running through all of
our minds was "Man, F*CK these ignorant
muthaf*ckas”, but before any of us could vocalize this
anger, they began to treat us like kings. Apparently,
the guys who made the comments towards us owned
the house. They brought us an entire handle of Vlad,
a full orange juice container as a chaser, and they
even brought us their women as tribute (who ignored
us earlier before they thought we were athletes).
My entire attitude had changed towards those
ignorant kids that had disrespected us not too long
ago. For the rest of that night, they were my wealthy
white best friends and I planned on capitalizing on
every damn second that I spent with them. We all
took shots together until I forgot where I lived. It was
glorious! After that point, the rest of the night is a blur,
but I do remember recalling the words of
comedian Dave Chappelle, “Sometimes racism works
out in black people’s favor. It doesn’t happen often. It
happens rarely, but when it happens… IT IS F*CKING
SWEET.” Indeed it was sweet Dave, indeed it was. The
next morning though, I woke up conflicted as HELL
(also hungover as F*CK) and I felt like I needed to ask
myself some tough questions:
Would they have treated us like kings, if they didn’t
think I played football?
Why do white people embrace black men only when
they provide them with entertainment, but look right
through us any other time?
Did I help to encourage their ignorance by not
correcting their mistake? Did someone offer me coke
last night? Wtf These and more are all questions that I
am still struggling to discover the answers to…
Look, the bottom line is that the urban black male
experience at white parties may differ from person to
person, but from the information I've gathered
it generally seems to follow 2 fairly distinct patterns.
The first is that if you don’t know anyone there, white
people will look right through you and pretend you don’t
exist except for maybe a few really drunk people that
mustered up enough courage to approach you with
some borderline incomprehensible conversation (and if
you see them on campus, they won’t speak). The
second is that the drunk people there will make some
kind of racist assumption that you’re an athlete and
they will treat you similarly to how we were treated that
night. The first pattern sucks, if I’m being honest with
you. So if you choose to let them think you’re an
athlete, shit, I can’t even be mad at you fam.
Play on playa.
RISE | 19