After 8 A.M. class, sophomore year, spring semester, we all rushed the bathroom as we were ready to burst due to all of the coffee we had consumed to stay awake the whole time. I was the last one in, about to wash my hands when I heard light sobbing from the stall in the men’s room. I walked over calmly and stood outside the stall door in trying to assemble my words carefully.“You OK man?” I said haphazardly (and probably awkwardly). “I’m humiliated,” he responded in tears.“What’s up?” I asked.
He then began to tell me an entire story about his Asian identity as a student, about his family emigrating to the US three years ago and him going to college in town was such an honor for them as he was a First-Generation student. He went on to say how he had struggled with English but gotten all “A” letter grades in his courses thus far. Swelling with pride, he paused—and then the tears flowed again as he said,
“But today—I was humiliated”
I thought back to the professor in class—What could she have said to him to humiliate him?

Read Rev. Dr. Gerard Bolling article.