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About the graduating Stuy class.
I went to Stuy. When I was there, there were a lot of people making bad jokes about how "if anyone ever were to attack, we'd be in the middle of it" and how "if anybody attacked a school, it'd be us". Nobody ever believed it would happen, of course, but a lot of us said it anyway.
Stuy is "just north" of the WTC (one stop north, in fact), but... it's not the closest school. My mother worked a block and a half away from the WTC. Between her and the twin towers were a pair of linked schools. When 9/11 happened, those kids were all evacuated into Staten Island. Some of them saw things falling out of the windows, had stuff hit them.
And afterwards, there was article after article about Stuyvessant, but none about those high schools. They were displaced a lot longer than Stuy was, and, because they're linked schools, being displaced meant that they were each essentially without half of their staff and student body.
I loved Stuy. Even when it made me miserable, I loved that place, I loved the people. It was like home to me, but with more tests. And yet... I had teachers who, if we got an answer wrong in class, would say "What do you think this is, Brooklyn Tech?" (the third-ranked specialized high school at the time. Easier to get into than Stuy, but hardly an easy school). I had other teachers specifically chew us all out for insulting the students at BMCC next door. Many (not all, but many) of the kids there were from fairly well-off families. I had classmates say something about their house in the Hamptons, only to catch themselves and clarify "but not the good part of the Hamptons", which says a lot more about them than just the house part. I had otherwise intelligent classmates try to tell me that their families were almost struggling because only one parent worked - and that parent made over $125,000 a year! That's not rich, but it's far from struggling.
If they want to do an article about the class that entered high school in 2001, that's great. If they want to do an article about the students at schools near to the WTC, that's great. But it doesn't have to always be Stuy. Those kids are already in an environment that breeds a heady sense of privilege and entitlement. It doesn't help that they're always the school getting articles in the paper, or interviewed on NY1, or that the school newspaper has even been published by actual media. It's not fair to the kids at Stuy, and it's not fair to anybody else in the area, either.
( Read more... )
Edit: None of my commentary is in any way meant to imply that Stuy kids are horrible people or anything. In fact, most of the people there are far nicer than other people their age. Plus, it's a place where people make bad jokes about sinusoidal curves, and where it's okay to have a "Buffy Appreciation Society" (not to mention a Pinky and the Brain club), and where people play chess and/or Magic in the halls.
Edit again: I wonder that this article in no way deigned to mention that aside from the large Asian and Russian Jewish immigrant populations, Stuy has (or had, at least, and I doubt this has changed) a surprisingly large Muslim population. Not that large, but more than you'd expect from pure chance, I think. You'd think that might be important...
Edit the third: Coming as Monroe? Not bad. Of course, I remember when Jesus got stuck in the escalators. That was funny. (That was the same year somebody in my drafting class came in dressed up as "white trash" for Halloween.)
I went to Stuy. When I was there, there were a lot of people making bad jokes about how "if anyone ever were to attack, we'd be in the middle of it" and how "if anybody attacked a school, it'd be us". Nobody ever believed it would happen, of course, but a lot of us said it anyway.
Stuy is "just north" of the WTC (one stop north, in fact), but... it's not the closest school. My mother worked a block and a half away from the WTC. Between her and the twin towers were a pair of linked schools. When 9/11 happened, those kids were all evacuated into Staten Island. Some of them saw things falling out of the windows, had stuff hit them.
And afterwards, there was article after article about Stuyvessant, but none about those high schools. They were displaced a lot longer than Stuy was, and, because they're linked schools, being displaced meant that they were each essentially without half of their staff and student body.
I loved Stuy. Even when it made me miserable, I loved that place, I loved the people. It was like home to me, but with more tests. And yet... I had teachers who, if we got an answer wrong in class, would say "What do you think this is, Brooklyn Tech?" (the third-ranked specialized high school at the time. Easier to get into than Stuy, but hardly an easy school). I had other teachers specifically chew us all out for insulting the students at BMCC next door. Many (not all, but many) of the kids there were from fairly well-off families. I had classmates say something about their house in the Hamptons, only to catch themselves and clarify "but not the good part of the Hamptons", which says a lot more about them than just the house part. I had otherwise intelligent classmates try to tell me that their families were almost struggling because only one parent worked - and that parent made over $125,000 a year! That's not rich, but it's far from struggling.
If they want to do an article about the class that entered high school in 2001, that's great. If they want to do an article about the students at schools near to the WTC, that's great. But it doesn't have to always be Stuy. Those kids are already in an environment that breeds a heady sense of privilege and entitlement. It doesn't help that they're always the school getting articles in the paper, or interviewed on NY1, or that the school newspaper has even been published by actual media. It's not fair to the kids at Stuy, and it's not fair to anybody else in the area, either.
( Read more... )
Edit: None of my commentary is in any way meant to imply that Stuy kids are horrible people or anything. In fact, most of the people there are far nicer than other people their age. Plus, it's a place where people make bad jokes about sinusoidal curves, and where it's okay to have a "Buffy Appreciation Society" (not to mention a Pinky and the Brain club), and where people play chess and/or Magic in the halls.
Edit again: I wonder that this article in no way deigned to mention that aside from the large Asian and Russian Jewish immigrant populations, Stuy has (or had, at least, and I doubt this has changed) a surprisingly large Muslim population. Not that large, but more than you'd expect from pure chance, I think. You'd think that might be important...
Edit the third: Coming as Monroe? Not bad. Of course, I remember when Jesus got stuck in the escalators. That was funny. (That was the same year somebody in my drafting class came in dressed up as "white trash" for Halloween.)
