It’s a big week over at Howard University, what with homecoming festivities and all. There’s all kinds of stuff on tap: the Homecoming Fashion Show, the Homecoming YardFest, the Homecoming R&B Concert, the Homecoming Step Show, the Homecoming Kings and Queens Reception (IMPORTANT NOTE: Unlike its rival among historically black institutions, Hampton University in Virginia, which recently picked its first non-black Miss HU, Howard has an African-American queen, Kendall Isadore. Phew!).
But really, one need not attend any homecoming events at Howard to have a good time. There’s always the Booty Wall. Available year-round, if you don’t mind the cold.
A recent post on HU Reaction offers this rather insightful look at the wall and those who apparently frequent it:
This wall, located to the left side of the females-only dorm The Quad, is designed for underclassmen males and females to get better acquainted, so to speak. The Booty Wall epitomizes everything about the roles virgin males and unwilling females play in society. Ladies sit beside it as if they were in a gallery as males try their luck with cliché pickup lines and desperation tactics. The young male may wait patiently along this wall for days – weeks even to be accepted by one of the women who sit by it. It is a freshman’s dream to be invited inside the Quadrangle, however at best they will just be able to look inside the lobby as one of the girls go back to her room.
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As a friend of mine once said, “It’s a place for students (and old ass niggas in cars) to chill with the opposite sex despite the fact that they’re broke. There’s a lot of potential on that wall, you just got to pick the right one.”
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For the past few years there has been a dirty ice cream truck notorious for parking right outside by the booty wall. We haven’t bothered to look inside to see what the driver has to offer, BUT YOU KNOW IT’S NOT SELLING ICECREAM!
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Also the Campus Police have been keeping a careful eye on the booty wall recently, claiming that it is now “illegal,” to sit beside it. I guess Campus Police is good at cockblocking campus-wide traditions. I thought HU was all about keeping the legacy alive?
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Regardless, ALL HOWARD UNIVERSITY ALUMNI KNOW ABOUT THE BOOTY WALL! Ask your Uncle Tyrone the Q about it and he will tell you a story or two, followed by loud groans and pelvic thrusts. If an alum does not know about the Booty Wall, then you should ask for their diploma. Seriously.
My friend Tanika Davis, who used to be Tanika White when she graduated from Howard in 1995, is obviously not a real alum. “I lived in the Quad (the freshman girls’ dorm) and hung out on that wall from time to time,” she emailed me when I asked her about it. “But never did I call it the Booty Wall.”
She thought it was just a wall!
City Desk intends to follow up with campus police.
Ideas? Comments? I’m at eniedowski@washingtoncitypaper.com, and on Twitter.
Photo by Darrow Montgomery. For more Howard football pictures, click here.