I spent my undergraduate years at Ithaca College in central New York, a liberal arts school famous for its state-of-the-art music conservatory. I studied women and theatre and film there but became acquainted with a young classical composer — let's call him Lyle.

Lyle came from money. His mother had been an opera singer, and his father did something or another for some corporation or another. They rented him a fancy multi-level apartment, off-campus. It had wall-to-wall white carpet, a songwriting nook and a plush loft bed. Lyle lived alone, but wooed a lot of ladies in that coveted apartment. He tried to woo me, but what can I say?

I'm gay.

Still, we managed to be friends. Good friends, even. We sang jazz standards together, held spontaneous cart-wheel competitions on the Ithaca Commons and occasionally met for breakfast to have lengthy, animated conversations about liberal politics, Western Buddhism and high art. One morning, Lyle confided that he was nervous about an upcoming concert. As part of his midterm exams at the conservatory, he told me, he was called to conduct a 20-piece classical orchestra.

"I never really got the conductor thing," I confessed. "I mean, the musicians already have their sheet music. Why do they need some white dude in a black tuxedo wildly waving his arms at them when they're trying to perform?" It was an earnest question.

If Lyle had been wearing pearls, he would have clutched them. He was genuinely appalled. Down-right aghast. It was as if I had said I was pregnant with quintuplets or that I planned to vote Republican. His cheeks flushed bright red. "You're a theatre artist, you should know better," he yelled across the table. "Actors have scripts and memorize lines, but have you ever staged a play without a director?"

Lyle had a point. But damn. Did he have to raise his voice? Even if I had asked a stupid question, did I deserve to be publicly humiliated for my ignorance?

I grew up in the socioeconomically diverse ci.ty of Cambridge, Mass, home to the smart asses who go to Harvard and MIT. It was also an environment that encouraged me and my peers to ask "stupid questions."

Cambridge boasted just one public high school. Young people of color represented 60% of the student body. When you walked into our giant gymnasium, 70 flags of the countries of students' origins were flaunted overhead. My diverse group of friends included Joanne from the Dominican Republic, Malik from West Philly, Chara from Liberia, Semhar from Eritrea, Desiree from Trinidad, Mario from Greece, Chris from Cape Verde and Kubhear from Malaysia. Aminah was Indian, but adopted by white parents, and there were many other multiracial, hyphenated, new and complicated Americans.

I went to high school in the 1990s, when feminism moved into the binary-busting Third Wave, when queers became queer theorists and when MTV made an unprecedented effort to diversify its programming. Gone were the '80s when sexist rock-n-rollers dominated the small music video screen. And we weren't yet in the 2000s when corny boy bands and materialistic, misogynist mainstream hip hop dominate pop radio. My well-rounded group of friends knew the lyrics to Arrested Development's "Tennessee," Lisa Loeb's "Stay" and songs by Sinead O'Connor, Salt N Pepa, Fiona Apple, Kirk Franklin and, God help us, Snoop Dogg. We defied popular stereotypes: I knew white kids who could dance, black kids who loved mosh pits and Latinas who didn't speak Spanish. I was in an acting class with a governor's daughter. She lived in a mansion. I lived in the projects. But in our baggy jeans, baby doll dresses, construction boots and bright blazers, my "Cantabridgian" classmates felt as hip as we were.

We also asked each other a lot of basic — even base — questions:

"What the hell is Hanukkah?"
"Where in the world is Eritrea?"
"How do you say 'tap that ass' in Portuguese?"
"Do Greek people still wear togas?

We were young. We were hormonal. We were brazen. We were crude. We were the poster children for integration. For better or for worse, we were each other's cultural ambassadors. We understood that we would never learn anything if we never asked anything.

Not every question was easy on the ear. As a Haitian-American, I did not enjoy being asked if I came to the United States on a boat, for example. But, in the spirit of coexistence, I practiced patience when an otherwise intelligent friend inevitably displayed their ignorance. Usually, I indulged them by sincerely answering the disturbing question. Then I followed up with "I find your question offensive because..."

Oftentimes, a lively debate ensued. We either came to an agreement or agreed to disagree, then went back to talking about what crazy Jim Carrey did on In Living Color the night before.

I missed Cambridge when Lyle berated me for not knowing how important conductors were. I miss Cambridge a lot. Some of the wisest people I know are PEOPLE WHO KNOW THEY DON'T KNOW.