“Dude, the key is you gotta balance right in the middle of the board to stay up,” one of them says. “No, dude, you push your weight toward the outside of the board for optimal balance.”

I feel invisible. I never get used to being erased, no matter how often it happens. White people always make you invisible when they don’t know how to handle the reality of your being, even when you are standing right there.

Just like at the Dartmouth Club of Cleveland a few months ago, before I get to campus, where I am only one of two Black people in a room full of white and Asian faces. The party is at a big fancy house in the suburbs of Cleveland. I wear a sleeveless black cocktail dress that my mother found at the Goodwill and slick my hair back even though I still don’t think it looks right, it never does. I stand outside the house for several moments, trying to work up the nerve to ring the doorbell. I slowly walk up the stairs, watching my Black toes protrude from the silver high-heeled sandals I’m wearing. Black shame at having Black feet with unpedicured toes, since I couldn’t afford it, bubbles to the surface. The shame mutes me again. I pause and decide to turn around and leave. Just as I am walking back down the stairs, the door swings open, and a nicely manicured, severe but warm white woman calls, “Where are you going? You’re part of the incoming class of 2006, right? I saw your picture in the email. Please come in!”

The woman relieves me. She is so friendly and welcoming, I regret almost leaving. She whisks me into the party and introduces me to several people. With her and her white flesh as my ally, they don’t make me invisible. They welcome me with open arms. I want her to stay with me the entire night, but eventually she is pulled away and I am released to the erasers again.

I circulate throughout the room. So many faces, white and Asian, don’t make eye contact. I’ve learned that not all minorities are playing on the same team and sometimes other people of color can be more racist than white people. I move between the groups trying to find another ally until I exhaust myself and leave. This is my introduction to Dartmouth. I should have known that it would be more of the same.