“I think my school is a little bit racist.”
The willowy 16-year-old girl sitting across the table from me paused as she described the diversity problem at her nationally recognized, specialized public high school in New York City.
“A lot of people throw around the N-word because there are no black people in our school. It’s such a small percentage,” she said, there’s no one to correct them.
My eyes widened in shock as I took her words in.
Like Sam, I’m an Asian American female who went to one of the best public high schools in America (mine was in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.). But unlike Sam, who spends her free time learning about social justice and activism through a local nonprofit, I graduated from my exalted public school in 2003 as a young adult completely ignorant of the realities of race and educational privilege in America.
By the time I was 17 years old, standardized tests had served me well, identifying me as a “gifted” student in elementary school, winning me a coveted spot at my high school, leading to a hefty scholarship in college. Who was I to question a system that rewarded me, telling me time and time again just how good, how superior I was?
(Note: With author Hannah Bae’s permission, we published above excerpts from her piece, which was originally published by the Asian American Writers Workshop. )
For more about Hannah Bae, check out her website here.