I had seen it with my own eyes, upperclassmen boys gawking at the fair skinned and thin freshman girls as they wandered through the campus, and snickering at those who didn’t quite fit the mold.
I started to feel as though I was not entitled to the same college experience, simply because of the way that I looked. Her abundance of friends, parties, and dates only aided in the worsening of my symptoms. It didn’t help that my suite-mate was a petite, blonde-haired and blue-eyed sorority girl. It was almost instantaneous. Practically everyone in Arizona knows that ASU was the place to be, known for large parties and an abundance of beautiful men and women. I started to feel myself walking through the buildings mentally apologizing to everyone who walked past me for my appearance. I’m sorry I’m not skinny, I’m so sorry that I don’t look like her, I’m sorry that I’m not as appealing as everyone else here. I felt like a stain on the reputation of beauty that had been drilled into my head as I prepared for college. Wherever that person was, I never found her. On a campus as large as mine, I thought I would be able to find solace in knowing that there had to be someone on campus who looked like me, a dark skinned black woman with large features and a size 18 on my best day. It was as if every time I turned around there was a fair skinned face with virtually no body fat percentage beaming as they bustled through the halls.
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That was, until I actually moved into the dorms on campus.Īs the movers hoisted my belongings into the giant portable boxes to take up to my room, I took the time to observe the demographic that I was now a part of. Damn, I thought to myself as I looked around at what felt like hundreds of excited campus freshman hustling to move lamps, televisions, furniture and other items into their rooms, I don’t look like them. I was an honors student at one of the largest public universities in the United States, Arizona State University, and I was ready for the adventures to come. Years of hard work studying, doing volunteer work, and saving had all culminated to this point. There was this overwhelming sense of guilt that washed over me as I walked through the campus for the first time. This feeling was unwelcome, after all, I had finally made it.