Transfers

In my first two years teaching at Davidson, I got to know two students who eventually transferred out. Completely separately and unrelated to one another, each student told me that they gave others common excuses to transfer. But behind those closed doors both times in my office, they told me that, honestly, the weight of being a black student and a biracial (and ambiguous “exotic”) student respectively had just become too much. They were tired of people imposing identities on them and making snap attributions about their attitudes or actions based on racial (and sometimes sexual) stereotypes. It had become so much that they felt constantly defensive and angry. I affirmed their frustration, told them I, as a person of color, knew that feeling well, and I supported their decisions to leave.