I never thought of, nor came across the term, ìwhitenessî prior to this assignment, most likely due to my upbringing and education in areas where whiteness displayed a subtle existence.  I was born and raised in Milwaukee and lived in a neighborhood where a mixture of dark and light skinned families called their home.  I also attended a pre-dominantly black high school in the inner-city.  Therefore, although my skin is obviously white, I see a lack of whiteness in my life because blackness encircled my being from my early childhood and continues to do so to this day. I have always thanked God for that enriching chapter of my life; although the chapter has been closed, the book has not.

        The reason for my gratitude, in regard to these four short years in the journey of my identity, can be shown through examples of my many relationships made within this close-knit family.  As there are so many people with whom I connected, I chose to tell the story of only one of these personal links.  As that part of my life ended and I went to college, this individual is really the only relationship that has lasted in truth.  Maybe this is only because the two of us now go to the same college, but a handful of my other high school friends, even the ones I knew as a child, still live in and attend colleges within Milwaukee.  Yet, we have somehow failed to keep in contact with each other.  Needless to say, I find this disturbing and cause for alarm because I feel as if someone has pressed the pause button on my tape player of some very meaningful friendships, and I want to find a more consistent way to press the play button.  I realize that I can make some major changes in my life, which will help me to keep in touch with these people, with whom I was much closer with no more than a year ago.  I can only hope that the other side of our misconnections will redirect some focus in their lives and continue to acknowledge me as a true friend once again.

        I felt white for the first time when I came to Marquette University, not because there are so many white people, but because there are so few blacks.  As I look back on my first days at Marquette, the 20-minute drive to my dorm followed up to the overwhelming stress of the crowds during the check-in procedure and the uneven proportion of dark versus white.  I remember how the white students filled up the entire front lawn of McCormick Hall, while the minority, which included blacks, Asians, and a few Hispanics, only dotted the crowd.  My family helped me carry my luggage and college accessories upstairs to my new two-inch dorm room.  In the midst of leisurely unpacking, I peered out my new window and saw a microscopic sea of white with very little specks of color scattered in front of the building.  As I stated previously, I did not think about this at the time, but now it strikes me for two reasons.  First, I travel back to this day in my memory for pure reflection and personal re-evaluation of what was running through my mind as I peered out at the whiteness around me.  Secondly, I hope to reach a meaningful conclusion or at least come close to an observation that allows me to fathom the biased attitudes and issues wavering to either sides of the racial barriers in our society.

        According to a brochure that Marquette sends out to lure prospective students, the population is supposedly diverse.  On the contrary, this bold claim is false.  From the first day of Freshman Orientation, my eyes were searching for one individual of the minority, hoping to pick one out of the enormous clusters of the majority.  This extreme difference in the Marquette population has only now come to astonish me because a close friend of mine, also a Marquette student, informed me that in fact, the minority population had been made to seem bigger in printed and electronic forms of promotion, in pamphlets and on the Internet, than I witnessed with my own eyes once I arrived on campus.  For example, the Marquetteís admissions brochure claimed the university invites and accepts a wide variety of minorities.  Marquette students mostly come from out of state, especially Illinois and as a result, not many people of other ethnic backgrounds find their way here.  On the other hand, since Blacks largely populate our city, recruiters for Marquette University should attempt to find a way to enroll more of these qualified black students who will contribute their morals and values to add to that of the schoolís white students.  After all, doesnít God want all races and ethnicities to find common ground among their diverse beliefs, although they might conflict with one another?

        Now, as I venture back to the moving day in my mind, I can see why my sense of whiteness has only recently been revealed.  The reason for this can be found in a reflection of my four years at Messmer High School, a predominantly black, Catholic high school in the inner city.  I excelled in my education there, primarily due to the relationships and bonds that were established.  The warmth and care of my teachers, my closest friends, their parents and relatives and a select number of acquaintances at this school provided a backbone of comfort for my own personal achievements.  It allowed me to see that if people who have struggled with oppression in their background can find the way to a quality and well-known educational institution like Messmer, then I can surely succeed in any endeavor, as long as I approach it with passion and faith.  These rich and personal connections with the black community exposed my mind to a wide range of culture and diversity.

        Life goes on as I attempt to press along with it.  Frequently stumbling, as we all do, in the process of my journey, I have learned how to care for the well being of the minority, still keeping an open view of my own race and how the majority relates to the minority in this city.  Despite these pitfalls, I have realized that the experiences and lessons that I gained at Messmer High School will provide a general sense of acceptance and genuine love for all races and allow me to read an individualís heart, rather than his or her color of skin.