College

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I’m 28 years old. I haven’t been to college in nearly 8 years. After a few years of racking up huge student loan debts at John Brown University, I moved back to Tulsa and signed up for class at the Community College. I don’t remember the reasons, but I didn’t really go to class and therefore was awarded several failing grades. Later I resolved to make it work and enrolled again, only to fail to complete my courses. Please don’t get too hung up on the ignorant choices in my past. They are there and they don’t make sense. I can’t even begin to figure out why I lost my academic scholarship to JBU, made more bad grades, came home, and flunked Community College.

I am now banned from attending classes at Tulsa Community College. This is quite humbling as it is called Community College because anyone in the community can attend….anyone except me.

I’ve decided to go back to school. I own a pizza restaurant now and am set in my career and am even quite busy with my own business and a relatively new addition to our family, and yet I really want to finish college and hang copies of my degree all over the walls of every home and office that I enter. I called the community college to verify that I am still not allowed to attend. Yep. I have to go somewhere else and take nine hours and then reapply to TCC. I have to prove that I am in fact capable of completing a class.

My other options in Tulsa are slim as I clearly stand no chance of being admitted to the academically rigid University of Tulsa or even Oral Roberts University. OSU, however, has a branch in Tulsa and since OSU is full of rednecks and hillbillies from every little podunk nook and cranny in our fine state, I assume that perhaps their standards are slightly lower. Nope. I went down to their office last week and was told that I should visit Langston University’s Tulsa branch as they definitely have lower academic standards.

Langston is a primarily “black” school. I have no problem with black people or with the schools that they might happen to attend, but I didn’t expect to ever find myself in the admissions office of Langston University, begging to be admitted. My experience in the Langston admission office was classic.

I walked in to the office and immediately discovered that other than a mentally retarted boy who was being cared for by another lady in line before me, I was the only Caucasian. I enjoyed looking around and listening to the conversation of those before me as they attempted to select classes and make decisions for the coming academic year. More than that, I enjoyed that everyone in the room seemed to be looking at me wondering to themselves why the big white kid was standing in line behind them. I saw more than one raised eyebrow and head cocked to the side. “Which one of these was not like the other.” was ringing through my head as I smiled to myself and watched them back. The gentlemen directly in front of me looked like he stepped right out of a rap video. He had his hat on crooked, his shorts pulled down below the round part of his ass, his shoes were untied, he had some “bling” around his neck, and a large Carmello Anthony jersey hanging from his large shoulders. I immediately comforted myself by stating in my own mind that if this guy can go to college, so can I. I had to chuckle when he walked up to the counter and asked that his masters degree transcript be put in the same envelope as his undergrad transcript because the college to which he was applying didn’t need them to be seperated. Not only does he have a degree, he has his masters degree and is going to more college somewhere else. Stereotypes beware.

When it was my turn, I walked up to the very nice lady at the counter and explained to her my situation. After inspecting my unimpressive transcript, she immediately began talking to me as if I was stupid and deaf. “HONEY, LET ME HELP YOU.” “Here we go,” I thought. “I’m her new charity case.” “WE’S GONNA FIND YOU SOME COURSES THAT BE REAL EASY, OKAY?” “That sounds great, Ma’am.” “LET’S SEE, HERE’S ONE! THIS ONE IS SO EASY YOU’D ALMOST HAVE TO TRY NOT TO MAKE AN ‘A’.” “Great. Sign me up for that one.” “OH, HERE’S ANOTHER ONE: HISTORY OF THE AFRO-AMERICAN. HONEY, THERE AIN’T NUTHIN WRONG WITH SOME WHITE FOLK BE KNOWIN’ SOME BIZNESS BOUT SOME BLACK FOLK.” “So true,” I say. “Sign me up for that one too.” Later in our very slow and loud conversation, I revealed to her that I own my own business and that at one point I had an academic scholarship. I think I was hoping to dissuade her from more yelling and from treating me like I was an idiot. It did not. I just laughed on the inside. It wasn’t humbling as much as it was amusing. How do you get more humbling than being refused admission to the community college anyway? The good news is that I’m going back to college. I’ll be taking 12 hours at Langston University this fall on top of running Joe Momma’s. I’m reminded of the idea that it is really about the journey more than it’s about the destination. I fully intend to ace my courses, enjoy them thoroughly, and come out of my college experience a more mature and complete person. I’m mostly just looking forward to being the only white kid in the “History of the Afro-American,” cause there ain’t nuthin wrong with knowin’ some bizness ’bout some black folk.

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