A Hope in the Unseen

by Ron Suskind

  Cedric has fashioned his own message: duck. He leaves Pelcovits’s office having charted a slightly less taxing path, one that will allow him a few extra moments to stop, breathe, and fill what he is increasingly certain are gaping holes in his preparation. Walking back toward the main campus, he feels compromised but relieved, and his mind finally turns to food.

  Cedric emerges from the stairwell swinging a Snapple Lemon Iced Tea bottle like a blackjack and sees a crowd gathering in the doorway of the second-floor lounge, just next to his room. It’s 7:30 on Friday night, and a seminal moment of Brown’s right-minded indoctrination is about to commence: the all-important diversity orientation session. Official title—“Community Values: Pluralism and Diversity.”

  The diversity workshop is actually the second such meeting of the day. Between 3:30 and 5 P.M., they all sat through “Community Values: Alcohol and Other Drugs, and Community Safety.” But that was more a reading of the rules, without too much student participation. Still to come on Sunday night, “Community Values: Sex without Consent—Implications for Brown Students.”

  Rabbi Alan Flam, a university chaplain, head of Hillel (the student Jewish organization), and, for fourteen years, a facilitator of unit diversity meetings, welcomes the group as they settle into the lounge.

  “To me, these meetings are one of the most exciting challenges of being here at Brown,” begins the rabbi, a husky man with a trim beard and a passing resemblance to the actor Richard Dreyfuss. “Tonight is the beginning of a conversation that I’m hopeful will continue for your four years, or five, or eight years at Brown—however many you might spend here—and for your life after college. We’ll have a conversation that goes to the core of what being a Brown student is about. So I welcome you.”

  With that portentous introduction, the students grow attentive as the rabbi and his student facilitator, Vida Garcia, a Hispanic third-year resident counselor from San Antonio, Texas, explain the first exercise: cultural pursuit.

  It’s a takeoff on the board game Trivial Pursuit. Students get a list of twenty culturally loaded questions (like “Knows what ‘Juneteenth’ is”; “Knows what an upside down pink triangle symbolizes”; “Knows the significance of Cinco de Mayo;” “Knows who Rosa Parks is”) that they are not allowed to answer themselves. Instead, they have to find a different classmate for each answer, a classmate whom they think will know the answer, and get him or her to respond. The desire to get everything right, deeply ingrained in these reflex achievers, should force them to rely on stereotypes about who will know what.

  And it works. Cedric walks up to a Latino-looking girl for the Cinco de Mayo response—gets it, checks a box on his page—and then is barraged. A steady stream of classmates approaches him, one after another, for the Rosa Parks response. Afterward, back on the couch, his head is spinning. He feels uncomfortable, manipulated, singled out solely because of his skin color. Sure, it’s happened my whole life, he thinks, but he hated it then as he hates it now.

  Students talk a while about their mixture of pride and resentment. Cedric, like everyone else, recognizes what just happened. The exercise forced students to act on prejudices—often drawn from obvious characteristics—that they’d rather not acknowledge having.

  After a short break, they move to the next step: kids are given a small slip of white paper and told to write one word that tells who they are. Pick an identity—just one.

  Cedric looks at the blank piece of paper in his hand and remembers the furious diatribes of Clarence Thomas. Everyone reduced to one-word definitions. So, he thinks, this must be how you end up so angry.

  After a moment, Vida—standing beside a huge pad that rests on an easel—asks for people to call out what they wrote.

  There are a few last stabs at resistance. A top-achieving Korean American girl from Massachusetts offers a flavorless “tennis player” as her identity. A girl from Singapore demurs, in halting English, that “I don’t feel very cultural identity.” Rabbi Flam tries to bring her around, probing, “Isn’t Singaporean a culture?”

  “Well, note really,” she says, racing through her limited English vocabulary. “Thing is … I’m just me!”—a comment that draws applause, albeit tentative.

  Kim Sherman, an earthy, artistic girl from Tennessee, searching for the common ground everyone enjoyed an hour ago at the dinner table, asks sheepishly, “What about ‘Brown student,’ isn’t that an identity? I mean, after all, we’ve been here almost three days.” There are chuckles, but not carrying the light-hearted “We are the world” esprit that defined the first few days.

  Cedric, like the rest of them, feels that spirit quickly dissipating. After Vida scribbles “Brown student” on the easel, she pauses and gazes with dissatisfaction at her short list. The idea is that students, if forced to choose only one word, will probably pick the most obvious identity, the one they may well have been tagged with in cultural pursuit. Ten years back, the easel would have been filled at this point with ethnic and racial designations, with everyone happy to offer their own hyphen. But tonight’s freshmen clearly have arrived knowing that the multiculturalist credo—embrace diversity so that every personal characteristic is cause for pride, not shame—has been criticized for institutionalizing divisiveness. They gag a bit as the medicine goes down, uncertain third-day freshmen not sure what to say or do and not wanting to commit. Vida sees the hesitation and is unfazed, like she expects it. She artfully changes course: “Well, what is interesting are the identities that didn’t show up.”

  People start looking up from their shoes, their faces registering relief. Rabbi Flam nudges them. “What about HIV positive?”

  “Absolutely,” Vida chirps. And up it goes.

  The kids pick up the cue. Through various meetings, they’ve already ingested the sexual codes. Almost in unison, they tick them off: gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning, transsexual, transgender.

  Rabbi Flam: “Don’t forget queer.”

  All go up on the easel, including “queer.” Rabbi Flam continues stoking the fire: “What about being a survivor of sexual abuse?” he asks cheerily. The list expands. The neophytes are in groupism freefall.

  Weight? one says. Oh yes, says Vida. Anorexia, another offers. You bet! Age? Sure, agism. Learning disabled. Vida’s scribbling madly. Handicapped. Yup.

  Ira Volker, a garrulous, politically ambitious Los Angeleno, tries to pull the brake cable: “I have a big problem with that. I think overcoming a handicap would define someone’s identity. But being handicapped or being learning disabled is not an identity, it’s how you deal with it, how you overcome it that would create the identity.”

  John Frank, son of a Manhattan psychoanalyst, parses that, saying that “Ira’s point might be partially true, but if I were deaf, then absolutely it would affect everything I’d ever done, it would be who I am.”

  “But, I mean,” Ira responds, in a final grope, “you couldn’t overcome some particular limitation if you’re sort of agreeing with it, sort of accepting it as who you are.”

  From a couch across the room, Cedric listens intently. That last thing about the danger of accepting limits strikes a nerve in him. He looks down, his mind racing. While his blackness is the identity carrying the highest voltage in this room, or almost any room in America, the sheet in his hand is still blank.

  “It’s not that complicated,” Cedric says suddenly, his voice high pitched with frustration. All eyes turn to him. “Your identity, I think, should be something that you are proud of. I wouldn’t be proud to say that I had only one leg and I could just barely walk, you know, on one leg. That may be true, but I wouldn’t let it define who I was.”

  Everyone begins talking at once.

  “Please be quiet!” Vida shouts. “One at a time.”

  She turns to Cedric, perplexed. “Say that again?”

  “Okay, ummm, I said I think your identity should come from something you take pride in. It shouldn’t be something that just sets you apart from other people, it should be
one of those things that, you know, people generally understand is a good thing, something we all share, rather than what separates us. I mean, the things that make up identity are deeper things than skin color or whatever. Things, I don’t know, like character or our faith or how we treat other people. And if we talked, instead, about that stuff, I’m sure we could agree on what was good or, at least, on the way we ought to be.”

  Vida and Rabbi Flam look at Cedric quizzically as the room grows quiet, the kids turning to their facilitators for guidance.

  After a moment, Vida attempts to wrestle Cedric’s point about shared values and common ground back to the preordained narrative. “What you said about pride really sparked something for me,” she finally says, “because I know people who are handicapped who are extremely proud and that’s who they are, or it might be something that is just a part of them, or, you know, the idea that an identity isn’t necessarily positive or negative. But I think it shows all the different ways we think about who we are … umm … and also about how the outside world imposes negative and positive elements on us.”

  Nods all around. Cedric’s brow furrows as he tries to understand what she just said, while his point disappears in the thicket. Everyone returns to the deepening groove of identity designation for another hour, with the discussion moving from whether it’s fitting to be “really proud of something you never had a hand in, just the way you were born” (that from the provocative Los Angeleno, Ira Volker) to why no one mentions Caucasian as an identity. “Because someone might think you’re racist—Caucasian is the oppressor group,” says Kim Sherman, quickly picking up the multicultural lexicon. “Instead, we stretch for something distinctive, you know, being a minority—in who you are or how you act—or being some sort of victim. That’s what gets you status.”

  Why would anyone want to embrace being a victim, Cedric wonders. Even though he’s probably the only true victim of circumstances in the room, being a victim is the last thing he’d want to celebrate. He looks down at the unmarked paper in his hand. One word? A thousand words wouldn’t do justice to who he is, he decides, and crumples the scrap into a tiny ball.

  Rob Burton opens the door, delighted to see that the room is empty. It’s Saturday, early afternoon, and he’s ready for a little down time. He played soccer for a while on the green near Andrews dorm in the late morning, and, with lunch now in his belly, he’s feeling whipped. It was a late night of partying last night—drinking beer mostly, cruising around the campus, and then talking until all hours on the third floor with some of these new guys.

  Flopping on his unmade bed, he remembers that one of them—a guy named Billy who got 5’s, highest you can get, on all of his achievement tests—said he went to a private Catholic school in Baltimore.

  Just like me, Rob thinks. Head propped on his pillow, he admires his corner lair. Got it just so. On the wall to his left are two glossy photos he tacked up yesterday. The nearest one is of him dancing, sweaty and close, with his girlfriend at his high school prom. He starred at the school, a private Catholic academy in Marblehead, his senior year—newspaper editor, varsity tennis and soccer player, second in the class. And a cute girlfriend, too. He broke it off with her this summer, and it’s just as well, he realizes now, that he doesn’t have an HTH (home town honey) like some of the guys. It would make things so complicated. He looks at the other photo, also a prom shot, of him and his best buddy in a drunken tuxedoed hug, and laughs. What a nut. Got to send him an e-mail later today, he thinks.

  His mind wanders back to beloved Marblehead, a sumptuous seaside exurb of Boston where he could drink a bit, do some experimenting with his girlfriend in the back seat of his car, and then set off on his path to college and beyond. Rob’s father is an obstetrician; his mother is a longtime emergency room doctor turned occupational physician. There was never any question about whether he would use his quick mind and good manners to excel. It was assumed in everything that cosseted him. His house is a stunning five-bedroom clapboard colonial, ten minutes from the blue Atlantic.

  He misses it, but not terribly. He feels a sense of closure about it all after another excellent summer running a skiff at the Marblehead Yacht Club, hanging with his buddies, and going on a few trips with the folks. Sure, there was a sense that an era of his life was coming to an end. But it was time, no doubt, to take the next step.

  He rolls onto his side, figuring he’ll catch some sleep, and looks just to the left of his pillow at his favorite recent Rolling Stone cover—neatly taped up—a shot of Sting, all blond ease, gazing off remotely and effortlessly, very cool.

  He lies there for a while, finds he doesn’t really feel like napping, and sits up. Resting gently on top of his canvas bookbag, which is teetering on the edge of his desk right near the bed, is a letter home he started writing two days ago.

  He snatches it, seeing if maybe he feels like finishing it.

  “Dear Mom and Dad,

  This is my first letter, one of many I can guarantee. It’s August 31st, Thursday. I’ve been here approximately 24 hours and I’m beginning to slowly realize I’m here. I’m slowly touching down to earth.

  All is going well. After saying good-bye to Mom, I returned to my room to find Cedric and his mom unpacking. We are getting along well, although our tastes in music couldn’t be more different ….”

  Cedric. He pushes a pile of his sweaty clothes from this morning’s soccer game away with his foot and puts the letter down on a cleared spot of floor. Well, college is supposed to be broadening, he muses, and there’s no doubt he’ll get broadened this year with a roommate like Cedric. But it’ll work out. Casual and nonconfrontational, upbeat and accommodating, Rob can get along with anyone—it’s a point of pride for him. If people are reasonable and open-minded, conflict always dissolves. Even if they just agree to disagree, at least they will have agreed on something. Not that he won’t be challenged when it comes to Cedric. He’s never really been close to a black guy, barely known any. The few encounters he’s had were characterized by caution, by him feeling like he was walking on eggshells, not wanting to offend, inadvertently, with an inappropriate tone or casual remark. Last night with the guys, when all the talk shifted to roommates, Rob said to everyone it was going fine. There’s a lot of interest in Cedric from the other kids, him being a black city kid and all. Everyone agreed that none of them had spent too much time with a person like that and, God knows, there aren’t all that many of them here at Brown.

  He looks across the room at the empty bed, at the hospital corners and fluffed pillows, everything in order, like a fortress. It seems like he and Cedric couldn’t be more different, he thinks, looking at his mess of socks and papers and empty juice bottles. Different, it seems, in every way.

  He grabs a pen, bent on finishing the letter. It’s dated two days ago, he should get it done.

  The door opens.

  “Hey, Rob.”

  “Oh, hi, Cedric,” Rob says, looking up from the notebook on his lap with the letter on top. “Where you been?”

  “Lunch.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Rob says, wondering if Cedric saw him there and thought that Rob might have snubbed him because they didn’t sit together. “I didn’t see you.”

  “Oh, no. I had to go to the corner and get a sandwich. I lost my temporary ID. I’m just living off this money my mom gave me. It’s baaaaaad. I can’t eat on my meal plan. It’s like I don’t exist.” Rob commiserates and says he’ll steal stuff for Cedric from the cafeteria if he wants.

  Cedric putters around for a bit, hopping over to his chair and looking at some scheduling forms on his desk, while Rob turns back to the letter, not making much headway.

  “Do you like mopping floors?” Cedric asks, after a bit.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Rob says mawkishly, thinking it’s some sort of joke.

  “I just want to take a mop to it once a week, just to keep this place clean,” Cedric says.

  “Sure, you can do that if you want,” Rob says,
not thinking until a moment later that Cedric might have been hoping for more participation.

  “You know, Rob, your feet smell bad.”

  “Oh come on, they do not.”

  “Do too! Man, walking around in your bare feet … that’s disgusting.”

  Rob, accustomed to cut grass, thick pile carpets, and clean beach sand, has no idea what he’s talking about. “Cedric, everyone walks barefoot.”

  “Maybe where you’re from,” Cedric says, raising his eyebrows. “Not where I’m from.”

  Cedric sits on his bed and turns on the TV, flipping the channels, looking for something to watch. Rob doesn’t watch much TV and told Cedric that the first day. Now, with the noise, he can’t seem to concentrate on the letter.

  Instead, he grabs a novel he’s been reading over the summer and flops on his bed, trying to ignore the blare. After a while, he drops the book and decides to see whom he can find to hang out with up on the third floor. He’ll let Cedric enjoy the company of his TV.

  “I’m outta here,” he says to no one in particular as the door slams. For the first time, he notices how nice his bare feet feel on the hallway carpet.

  Waking up just shy of noon on Labor Day, Cedric is gripped by hunger. Barbara’s cash gift ran out yesterday. It’s now a matter of survival; he needs food.

  A few minutes later, next up in line at the registrar’s office, Cedric gathers his strength for combat with the clerk on duty. He explains that he lost his temporary ID but understands that the permanent ones are ready. She tells him that to get the permanent ID (a student’s passport to everything from the library to the dining hall to the bookstore), he needs to hand in his temporary one.