Why Are All the Black Kids Not Even Eating Lunch in the Cafeteria?

Some of you know the book
"Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?"
It's a good book.
I've started to read it, and it's true.
Allow me to tell a personal account if you will.

Here at Loyola,
we - blacks and other minorites - have a spot.
We all go to this spot to eat lunch or to just hang out between classes.
It's a place of hilarious jokes and free debates
without judgment from any outside sources.
It's a safe haven, if you will.
What happens there usually does stay there,
or at least between us.

However, as of late,
there have been classes held in our place of recreation.
Now, this is fine...
but our place is more of a lounge.
It's not really the place for a class.
The chairs are too comfy and the flat screen tv too inviting. Haha.
These classes are usually held during peak lunch time hours,
thus forcing the minorities to eat else where.

Today was the first time it affected me.
Eating down here in the cafeteria,
where I'm currently at,
is much different.
You don't have the freedom to just wild out and be you;
you feel constricted by your surroundings.
In our lounge, people will come in and out,
providing a wide array of characters.
Down here, you have to search.
Though the search is still easy.
We're all sitting together. Haha.
In fact, I don't see too many other minorities down here...
maybe two or three that usually don't come to the lounge anyway.
I also don't recongize any of the white kids down here,
and I know my fair amount of white kids. Haha.

But I think I see why there are classes in the lounge now.
I think this is a way to force us back into the cafe,
to have us not rely on the lounge as an escape.
We need to learn how to interact with everyone and not exclude ourselves.
Because when we exclude ourselves,
they - the whites - will exclude us themselves because they feel as if we want no part of them. Once we start eating in the cafe together,
maybe we'll start to invite whites..
and then maybe we'll branch off and eat with our new white friends,
while of course still reconnecting to have our occasional wild outs...
much needed ones, I assure you.
Because white kids just don't understand sometimes.

Word.