Husband | Dancer | Student
My Story:
When college acceptance letters were coming in my senior year of high school, many people were surprised that I got into the University of Washington. They would ask if it were to the Bothell campus when it was really to the main Seattle campus. They would then ask, “so what sport do you play?” There was an assumption that because I’m black I must’ve received some sort of sports scholarship or gotten in for being an athlete.
The reality is, I did well in school and got good grades (side note: I was 100% focused on dancing, not playing sports).
The fact that people would try to justify my acceptance based on something else shows that it was hard for them to believe that a black man was intelligent enough to get into a good school. This belief is reinforced by the inequality of educational systems and classism around America, so the issue runs deeper than plain ignorance.
-Mustafa Binns
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