I've read posts on here about this, and not to sound like a broken record or anything, but being a black girl at a PWI is the literal WORST

I'd like to preface this by saying I really love my school and the opportunities it has given me. In fact, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to attend it, but recently so much has gotten to me.

For some background, I'm a black girl living in a blue state, so a lot of this wasn't expected, but at the same time, not entirely surprising. I'm not dark-skinned, and my friends describe me as "brown-skinned" (whatever that means LOL, I've never been aware of those kinds of titles). I attended elementary and middle school in a predominantly Black area and had terrible experiences. I was constantly told I "acted like a White girl" or "had the shape of a White girl," which literally made no sense to me at the time. In high school, things changed a lot as I attended a school in a predominantly white area. I sat with white people during almost every year since I found myself into a lot of the things they were into.

I had a fairly decent experience attending this school, up until junior year (sort of). I sat with these white people from an even whiter area (since our school was composed of students from surrounding towns), and while they were nice, I constantly heard them say things that my current POC friends would consider to be fishy.

For instance, I was friends with this guy (I'll call him Trevor), and we were sort of like best friends. The issue was that Trevor was a bit iffy. He said a lot of crude things about women and black people, but would always say I was "one of the good ones" because of the way I spoke and "carried myself." He was really courteous and sweet to me before saying things like this which was why we were best friends, up until I realized he wasn't too fond of people from my background and viewed me as an "interesting exception." A lot of his other friends who were white stopped talking to him because of similar things too. These experiences def have shaped who I am rn even in college, which is why I think they're relevant to mention.

Fast forward to today, I'm now attending a PWI in my state. It's full of rich white kids who honestly don't bother me, but I constantly feel overshadowed. I'm in a lot of clubs that are predominantly white, and I always feel like I'm ignored even in settings where people aren't speaking loudly. I can remember joining this club related to my interests and speaking to one person in a huge group because they were all ignoring me. I can also remember being in a huge lecture hall and having people avoid my row, or having a few other black girls sit next to me. Mind you, I'm not intimidating at all. I'm really skinny and have a lot of hair, and typically have a pleasant expression on my face, and honestly consider myself to be the total opposite of scary.

Even when I'm in groups with people who are white and extremely sincere, I feel overshadowed. It's almost like I have "avoid me" on my forehead or something, because every time I text someone to meet up/have lunch, they're always "busy" or "tied up," yet I see them eating at these fancy restaurants with girls they literally just met a day ago. To make matters worse, I'm extremely quiet. I always get stared at by white guys when I'm walking or at events, and sometimes they'll say things like "Are you sure you're Black? You don't sound/look/act Black." And the annoying thing about this is that these are the same people who are protesting and saying they love us. It feels like such a nasty act.

And it's not a minority issue either to me, because I see Asian and Latina girls getting treated 10x better, even with the traditional POC label. It feels very anti-melanin (LOL if yk what I mean), because the darker you are, the worse you seem to be treated here.

It's honestly so sad that they think of us as deranged, weird, or just outright unable to gain knowledge. And I feel like even the biracial girls at my school face the same issue. It's usually easy for them to make friends and everything, but people tend to avoid them too, especially if they're on the darker side/have Black features. I wish I could change the world and make it actually accepting.