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Erica Royal

Professor Fielding

WRTC 103

Auto-ethnography Draft 2

January 27, 2017

Learning How to Fit In

The Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC) is a leadership conference that

high school age students attend. Students come from private independent schools all over

the country, and travel from places as far as Puerto Rico to participate. At this conference I have

made lifetime friendships and learned life lessons. Throughout my entire schooling I have

attended independent private schools where I was always a part of the minority students. As

a result of this I often felt ostracized and different. I would constantly change

my physical orientation and my social preferences to try and fit in to what I thought was the

norm. Joining the SDLC community served as a turning point in me becoming more comfortable

in myself as a black female in a predominately white school. The conference gave me the

strength and confidence to love myself when I entered a school and social environment

everyday that did not love me back.

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June 2010. In this Selfie I was still in elementary school and

was oblivious to my race. This picture depicts the carefree way
in which I made friends and lived life. Little did I know this
same little girl would have to go through middle school and 2
years of high school before she found this same carefree spirit
again.

My experience as a minority student at a predominately white institution was very

tumultuous. Attending a school where not a lot of people look like you was a scary experience.

This has been something I have dealt with since middle school. My eighth grade year marks a

profound memory of the first time that I recognized that I stood out. At my middle school,

Orchard House school, I was 1 of 8 black students; this very clear fact didnt occur to me until I

was in a diversity club meeting with my teacher and she asked in front of all of the students in

the meeting, You cant use hotel shampoo because of your hair texture right?, as miniscule as

this comment seemed it made me feel like an outcast. As a 13-year-old girl it never occurred to

me that I did not have the luxury of showing up to a hotel and using the provided hair products or
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using the hair products advertised in the commercials on television. This experience served as an

epiphany in my identity and represents the first time I felt different.

The same exclusive occurrences continued throughout high school, where I attended St.

Catherines School. Though St. Catherines reports having 18 percent racial diversity among

students (St. Catherines School), this number misguides. The 18 percent not only includes

African- Americans but it also includes anybody that identifies as other than white; therefore,

this number includes students of mixed race and international descent. This proves that the actual

number of black students is significantly lower than reported. Lori Friend, St. Catherines Class

of 2016 described her experiences as a student of color by saying, while I went to St.

Catherines for 13 years it wasnt an enjoyable experience as a student of color. Sometimes

things that were said or done that made me feel isolated and infuriated at the same time. it

taught me to never let others get me down and to speak out for myself and other people of color

in an environment that sometimes felt very volatile. Lori highlights the tyranny that private

school has on the experience of a student of color, just like Petra L. Doan discusses the tyranny

of gender in the life of a transgender (635). This statement of tyranny specifically relates to how

others that are not like you have the ability to judge and make you feel unwelcome or unsafe

therefore tainting your social experience.

By attending a private school my social life was compromised. In addition to being different

extrinsically I was also different intrinsically. No matter how well I performed on my academics

or how eloquently I spoke, my classmates and I never socially clicked. By choosing to attend a

private school my social experience was compromised for my academic opportunities. I often

had to sacrifice the social experience for the academic. The Student Diversity Leadership

conference nurtured this deficiency.

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SDLC is an experience that has shaped me for a lifetime. The National Association of

Independent schools describes the conference by stating, SDLC is a multiracial, multicultural

gathering of upper school student leaders (grades 912) from across the U.S. SDLC focuses on

self-reflecting, forming allies, and building community. In addition to large-group sessions,

SDLC "family groups" and "home groups" allow for small-group, often intense, dialogue and

sharing. (Glasgow). I first heard about this conference during morning announcements.

Initially, I thought very little of it, and I believed it would amount to any other diversity summit I

had previously attended. Surprisingly I was proved wrong.

When I arrived at the host hotel for registration, I met other participants who traveled

from all over the country to attend the conference. Once everyone settled in, the conference

began. Throughout the conference a plethora of topics and social justice issues were taught and

discussed. The pinnacle of the conference for me happened during the closing ceremony, which

had the most profound effect on me. I entered a room filled with roughly a thousand kids and

another thousand adults. After Rodney Glasgow, the founder of the conference, concluded his

speech, he asked the adults to leave. As soon as the adults left, he established the norms of the

room by saying, "In this house, we shall love. In this house, we shall seek justice. In this house,

who you are is okay with us, and who you will be is even better. In this house, you will find

comfort. In this house, you will find soul food. In this house, you are safe. Welcome home,

SDLC. Welcome home." This quote resonates with me to this day because it signifies the

moment where I felt a belonging and a comfort in who I am.

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August 2016. This picture depicts me in college after

my SDLC experience. In this picture I am
comfortable in who I am. Specifically this is the first
picture day that I ever felt comfortable enough to
wear my natural hair and not straighten it.

SDLC taught me how to love myself. Despite the hardships I faced when I returned to my

school from SDLC; I took away that I did not need to fit in to matter. In the words of Freida

Pinto we should look at ourselves every now and then and say, 'I'm proud of myself. I like the

way I'm made. (Pinto). Moving forward with this mindset enabled me to live much more

freely and be released from the tyranny that had reigned in my life for many years.
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Works Cited

Baldwin, Sue. "Community and Inclusion." Community and Inclusion. St. Catherines School,
Sept. 2016. Web. 22 Jan. 2017.

Doan, Petra L. "The tyranny of gendered spaces reflections from beyond the gender
dichotomy." Gender, Place & Culture 17.5 (2010): 635-54.
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2010.503121>.

"Freida Pinto Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2017.

Glasgow, Rodney. "The Student Diversity Leadership Conference." The Student Diversity
Leadership Conference. National Association of Independent School, n.d.