I do not want to write this. I want to attend school in a lively manner and receive my education. The reality concerning the situation on a ground level withholds me from doing so. With a heavy heart as the state of racial turmoil at East Chapel Hill High School becomes more jarring, I cannot continue in good conscience without paying my dues. To make things simple, East is segregated. However, the dissonance amongst the races, already known to the Black population, is nothing new. The divide and disregard between the races is not something one can easily let go unnoticed. More importantly, bearing the burden of a segregated state has become too much for all of us.
As Lorraine Hansberry put it, I am very worried about the state of the civilization. Each day I attend my Advanced Placement classes and alongside another Black student carry the weight of representing all Black people, ideologies, and conduct. My courses consist of four AP, and two honors classes. Two of my classes, including myself, have two Black students. My class period with the most amount of Black students has four. Let me make something clear: these are just three out of seven daily classes. In the other four, I am the only Black student. 48.3% of students at East are not White. Out of the entire student population, 48.6% are considered to be “gifted” students. These classes hold a capacity of over thirty, and in a school with such high achieving pupils; where do they place the rest of my peers, my friends?
One cannot seek comfort in the hope that East is not a reflection to the Town of Chapel Hill, as this would be a lie. The divide at East mirrors the disparity between the races outside of school. I reinforce this by having been the sole Black person in attendance to some senior class social gatherings. There is a weary truthfulness that my lighter complexion uncoincidentally plays a determining role in my presence. Although my anecdote is still within the East community, this issue is not circumstantial to only the school. Walk along Franklin Street, located on the university’s campus, and you will see the fractionalization by observing who walks along what side of the street. There have often been moments where I find myself crying out of rage, frustration, and pure exhaustion. The cause of my low morale is the knowing fact that I will have to constantly play this pioneering role again, and again, and again. And I am tired.
The solution to simply enroll more Black students into AP and Honors classes has nothing to do with the ability to achieve academically. Rather, it has everything to do with what you are asking of Black children to face. You are asking them to voluntarily enroll to be alienated, to sit and learn with peers who more often do not interact with Black people; and to give up a piece of themselves and their sanity to dis-conform to the precedent which has been set.
I’ll leave you with these two quotes from James Baldwin. “You cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you.” “In America, I was only free in battle, never free to rest, and he who finds no way to rest cannot long survive the battle.”
Rayna Blair is a senior at East and a guest contributor for the ECHO. Graphic by Caroline Chen/The ECHO.
