The Black experience is not monolithic. Because of that, some aspects of Black life are propagated while others are overshadowed. The Black college experience is no exception. For a litany of reasons (that run deeper than one movie review can attempt to explore), there is not very much room for Black folks to talk about their experiences at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). When the Black college experience is discussed or championed, it is mainly through the lens of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Spike Lee’s School Daze follows a group of Black young adults attending a fictionalized HBCU Mission College as tensions clash on campus. Freaknik, the infamous former annual Spring Break celebration, was created as a unifying place for Atlanta HBCU students to party down. The reality show College Hill ran on BET for six seasons across seven HBCU campuses, documenting the lives of eight students per season. But what about the lives of Black PWI students? How do they coexist or clash? Black Table gives us a glimpse.
This documentary looks back on Yale’s class of 1997, the largest class of Black students in the ‘90s. Throughout the film, we meet about a dozen Yale alumni as they reminisce on what led them to choose Yale for their higher learning, their experiences on campus, and how that time nurtured them into the adults they have grown into.
The circumstances of this class are unique to the time. The peak of affirmative action led to this talented group of young Black folks entering one of America’s prestigious universities. Black Table explores just how controversial affirmative action was. It was a useful (but not fully guaranteed) way to decrease discrimination that Blacks, minorities, and women faced in hiring and, by extension, higher education. For many, it was seen as a way to infiltrate systems that were off limits if you were not white; others thought it discriminated against whites. Either way, through serendipity, these students were brought together.
Within each university, there is a common area where students can unwind, grab food with friends, or take a quick nap before the next class. At Yale, in a spacious and gothic dining hall, an area where Black students commiserate was, as they dubbed, the “Black Table.” John Singleton’s Higher Learning touches on this phenomenon where students of a certain race would commingle; in his movie, it was called “The Black Hole.” In Black Table, this space is where students could be themselves. However, a significant aspect of the film is that it does not shy away from the not-so-friendly elements of the space. It was not entirely safe. It could be a place that was judgmental if you did not sit at the table and chose to eat with the white kids instead.
There is a complexity in being unified but still having differences. The Yale alumni we meet are different yet wise enough to cherish the commonality they share. After they graduate, we see the various ways they use their college experience to mature into strong men and women heading into their 50s. Black Table is a bookmark of possibility for future Black students, particularly when the future is uncertainly bleak. In June 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled that college admissions based on race were unconstitutional, effectively ending affirmative action enrollment on US college campuses. This documentary is for those young Black souls who will brave PWIs in the fall semesters to come and for those of us who survived and lived to tell the tale.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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