September 11, 2020

Anonymous

From Independent Studies to senior Peer Eds, Durham Academy prides itself on self-driven learning and peer-to-peer education. So it’s no surprise that when it comes to learning about structural injustice and race, it’s no different! 

But as a naïve sophomore, I was blind to this self-evident truth. While I’d begun to explore the construction of tragedies in ancient Greek literature, I remained oblivious to the construction of race in America. Why, my 15-year-old self wondered, might that be?

Then it hit me. Just like how some people do Independent Studies in Graph Theory and 9th Century Romanian Epic Poetry, Race in America must be too advanced of a topic for classroom discussion. I mean, sure, in English class we discussed classical philosophy without a sweat, but race… 

I shivered at the thought. If even Durham Academy students don’t learn about it, then understanding race must be a task harder than Jason getting the Golden Fleece! (It was Jason, right? I remember someone named Medea or something was there too?)

But DA students don’t shy away from challenges! No, we drink some blue Powerade and plunge forward! And so I began the Odyssey into learning about race, researching extensively (not for credit) and experiencing the topic’s scariness in real-life. Along the way, I’ve met several other DA students also on the Odyssey. Some, despite only being about my age, had been on their journeys for decades already. 

And this past year, we discovered something. Not the Golden Fleece – something less tangible, yet equally crucial: it seems like there’s a finite supply of Odysseys. 

See, this past year, while DA had a general MLK-inspired assembly, we did not recognize Black History Month. Not because we skipped over February, but because, as our school’s administration explained, DA’s Black students failed to organize anything.

Now, at first, I was unsure as to why Black students were expected to take the place of educators and administrators in promoting Black history and addressing anti-Blackness, or, more strangely, why the existence of Black History Month depended on Black students. Why couldn’t the school’s administration undertake an Odyssey themselves to organize an assembly? 

That’s when we realized: there must be a limit to the number of people who can learn about race. Think of it like a large loaf of bread – to start an Odyssey, the person needs to take a piece of that bread. But soon, there’s not enough bread for everyone, and some people can never undertake an Odyssey!

So this is where DA’s grassroots system of self-driven learning is at its weakest. If those of us with bread don’t remember to share a crumb or two with everyone else, then those without bread will forever remain in the dark. 

In other words, these BIPOC-centered assemblies have such precarious existences because DA’s non-BIPOC community is incapable of learning about race and racism on their own. 

They. Need. Us.

But we with the bread shirked our duty this year. Black History Month and countless other months went unrecognized. This year, no matter how difficult revisiting our first-hand experiences with race may be, we must set those personal qualms aside. 

Instead, we must find internal strength, submit requests for an assembly one year in advance, come up with interactive activities (with edible rewards, of course) so the audience will remember to stay awake, and, as British poet Rudyard Kipling famously put it, “take up the […] Burden!”