is it paranoia

it is the only tulane shirt i own. a gift from someone even before i enrolled in school…a gentle nudging in the public health direction. that’s neither here nor there…

the point is that i was wearing jeans and a tulane school of public health t-shirt. green. simple. unrelated to sports.

as i walked toward my gate to board the plane a man comes running up next to me to ask me what team i play for at tulane. taken aback from the unexpected mention of my school i tell him i don’t. then, absently, i ask him if he goes to tulane.

no. he’s a coach.

but in my head, as my mind clears i realize i’m disturbed by his question.

why would he assume it had to be sports? it wasn’t a jersey. i wasn’t wearing full warm ups or anything that resembles  a uniform. but still i got the question.

and my mind argues that because he is a coach he associates all tulane shirts with athletic shirts…but i don’t really buy it. it isn’t  a convincing argument. the truth is there aren’t a ton of black folks at tulane…and no matter what i try to convince myself, i believe that he assumed that i had to have gotten there from my physical ability.

even so – my mind comttited to that thought- i’m torn and tortured by the thought that maybe he read my shirt wrong…public health could have looked like…what could it have looked like?

when i was in high school i won a mcdonald’s black history makers of tomorrow scholarship. it was an essay contes. two of the other winners were guys at a neighboring school. when they went looking for suits for the banquet they were chatted up by one of the salepeople.

basic small talk.

she says, “what’s the occasion? ” they answer, “scholarship banquet.”

“really, what sport do you play?”