Stories Learned

TRINITY 

HEAD-ROYCE SCHOOL

10TH GRADE

1. How do you identify? Have you always felt comfortable in this identity? Interpret this question however you'd like, whether it be your gender, ethnicity or nationality.

I identify as a female, Christian, African girl. I haven’t always felt comfortable with my identity because Head-Royce and the Head-Royce culture can cause you to have doubts. It wasn’t until this year where I really began to thank God and glorify him that he showed me how loved, beautiful and perfect I am.

2. Talk about the environments and communities you've been a part of and the ways in which they've affected the formation of your identity. Tell your story!

Outside of HRS, I am usually surrounded by other Africans who understand my clashing cultural identity in America. However at HRS, I don’t have that and I have been forced to act “black” and only associate with black Americans even though I don’t feel that that is truly me. HRS, forces you to put on a mask whether that be positive or negative, mine being, the confident, sassy, funny black girl. Outside of HRS, I am usually pretty spiritual and reserved, however, HRS has caused by faith to be severely tested so much so that I do not feel comfortable sharing my beliefs with others at risk that they may “feel uncomfortable”.

3.Where do you feel most safe as a racial minority at Head-Royce?

I definitely feel safe in Ms. Rachel Nagler’s office (new Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Head-Royce). She makes everyone feel welcome, regardless of anything. She understands a lot of the pressures of going to a school like Head-Royce and is always there to just talk. I also feel welcome at our Black Student Union, because of the community that is formed there as well as the common thread we all share of being black at Head-Royce.

4. In what moments, if any, have you felt hyper-aware of your race in attending an independent school?

I think one moment I have felt hyper aware of my race is all this year. This year I have been bombarded with scenarios in which I was hit in the face, so to speak, with my blackness. Whether that be a boy behind me resolving that “whites are superi...” (he stops because I look at him). Or students calling me “sassy”. This word may seem innocent, but with the history of white people using black people solely for entertainment, the word “sassy” doesn’t seem so innocent anymore. Those were just to name a few examples.

5. Do you feel as though individuals of your race are properly represented at HRS. Whether this is through the literature that we read, members of our staff etc...

I do not think that black people are well represented at HRS at all. This year was the first we have had a black teacher in the upper school since when I was in middle school. This year, we have 2 new black teachers but 2 new teachers isn’t enough when you think about the number of white teachers there are; for white students to feel “comfortable”, when the whole world was engineered for white people to be comfortable. In regards to the literature, the one book (Beloved) in the curriculum I have read with a black main character has been with slaves. If you do not see the problem with that then there is no reason for me to keep going. In addition to her current status, she is very mentally unstable and the whole book goes on about the repercussions of her murdering her own infant child. So no, I do not feel as though black people are represented adequately or in a healthy way.

6. If you came back to visit HRS in 10 years, what would you have liked to see changed?

I want to see more black students, and a staff the matches the percentage distribution of those students. I also want to learn more about black people beyond slavery. Surely black people have more to offer (hint, hint: the President is black!).

7. Tell me about a time when you felt proud of your race!

I have learned that if I can’t love myself, how will then in turn love somebody else. I now always feel proud about my race. About how we have come and about where we are going. I think that one moment of pride was when President Barak Obama won the presidency for the second time in 2012 and I thought, WOW!, if he can be President, then there is nothing I cannot do. That all the haters and all the people that threatened to kill him, he just showed them! He made me proud that day to be black.