So something happened at my place of study (who says that tho), and I just had to write about it. Last Friday night, the Black Student Union was having its annual sleepover and I attended it. There was food, music and games. It was actually fun. At about 10 pm when things where beginning to settle into a comfortable rhythm, I started gisting with people. We were having a good conversation about something that I cannot presently remember, when we heard a very loud bang on the glass door. We were in the InterCultural Center, which has glass doors and panels facing a quad area.

We hadn’t recovered from the first bang when another bang hit the door. The Africana in me hit. I ducked,and began looking for the closest exit way. In that one second, I had so many thoughts run through my mind. Ok, so i thought it was a gunshot, given the frequency of school shootings in the U.S., it is definitely possible. Also, this is a room filled with mostly black people. it wouldn’t be the first time that someone shot up a room filled with black people.(just saying) It is so funny how one of the thoughts that crossed my head was what will I tell my father that I was doing at a sleepover on a Friday night? He will now start asking me why I am not studying. Which kain wahala be dis?

So back to the story. One of our members then confirmed that the sounds were actually eggs being thrown at us. Like what? Who throws eggs at people in college? We tried to do some FBI stuff,and see if we could catch them, but they were long gone. We immediately called the campus police, and the case is currently being treated as a possible hate crime.

This incident really sheds light on the awful things that students of color face on a college campus. As someone who has always lived in Nigeria, racism has always been something that happened in the olden days,and presently in some parts of the world, but was never a reality that I had to face.So on top of trying to assimilate into the American culture, I have had to deal with micro-aggressions and flat out racism. It is difficult.

As someone who has been a victim of gun violence, even something as ‘insignificant’ as an egging can be very triggering, and it was. We can laugh it away, attribute it to silly college students being mischievous on a Friday night, but if that was a shooting, I don’t think it would be funny.

Matt 11:12-‘From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.’