Black Dot on a Large Canvas

Briana Chang

It’s normal for people to group themselves with others who look like them in the hopes that they will share other things in common.  Day one, Cambridge School: I spent my day with the students of color: sitting at the “black table” and congregated with them in the back seats of the auditorium.  I was encouraged to be with “my people” because I was attending a  predominantly white school for the first time in my life.  I had never felt like the minority so much, I felt like a small black dot on a large canvas I grouped with other small dots (students of color), to remind myself that I wasn’t the only one.  I wish someone told me that this was the wrong way to go.  Instead of immersing myself into the culture of the school by befriending different kinds of people I kept to one group.  I regret it now because the decision has made it even harder for me to branch out and learn about others.  Don’t make the same mistake.