Ithaca High School Alums Reflect on Racial Tensions

“The racist tensions [at Ithaca High School] were always there, but people never brought it to the next level,” said Longze Yuan ’10, expressing one of many viewpoints held by Cornell students who are recent I.H.S. alumni about the recent racial allegations brewing in the school.

Some alumni expressed surprise at all the commotion being made. Chris Beyers ’10 said, “I find that a bit surprising. I’ve always felt safe in Ithaca.”

Taylor Quan ’10 said, “As far as I knew, racism wasn’t really prevalent.”

Although many of the alumni disagreed about the degree of tensions and whether the tensions were racially charged, most agreed that there were conflicts between various groups of students.

Some alumni said the occasional fights that broke out in the high school were due to what Staci Chen ’10 called “high school cliques that couldn’t get along.”

Jingwei Zhang ’10 agreed, saying, “It wasn’t racism; it was two groups who didn’t like each other.”

He added that while some black students “separated themselves” from the rest of the school, there were plenty of white students who did the same, and that overall “it is a pretty diverse school with all kinds of ethnicities.”

Other alumni said the conflicts were between the various social classes present in Ithaca. Kevin McNiff ’10 said, “I didn’t see any overt examples of racism. But the community is divided socio-economically.”

Julia Schneider ’08 described I.H.S. as consisting of three populations: the relatively wealthy children of Cornell professors who live in northern neighborhoods such as Cayuga Heights, black students who mainly live downtown and students from the surrounding rural towns near Ithaca such as Caroline.

Chen agreed, citing the fact that due to the various neighborhoods, “where people live dictates who they hang out with. It’s hard to say whether it was racism or socio-economic problems. Racism never seemed like a big issue.”

Yet Yuan noted that students occasionally “yelled racist comments in the hallways,” and some students were known to wear Confederate flags.

For the most part, racism was subtle according to Kobina Ansah ’08: “In my experience, students weren’t racially charged. But some judgments were passed.”

While Ansah says black students were placed in mostly low-level classes and “not encouraged to excel,” those who did were teased. Black students who were academically successful were called “Oreos” and referred to as “white-washed.”

McNiff acknowledged, “My Advanced Placement classes were predominantly composed of white students. It wasn’t really proportional [to the greater black student population].”

Additionally, black students were “patronized” by teachers who implied that it was okay for a black student in an AP class to receive a B because at least they were in the class, an attitude Ansah said would never have been conveyed to a white student.

Schneider said that she first began to realize the racial tensions when she began dating a fellow student who was black. She said that while racism is an issue, the fights mainly concern “about a dozen kids on either side” fighting off school grounds.

When she was a junior, however, fights erupted between blacks and whites that were so severe police were called to patrol campus for a few weeks. She said, “The administration didn’t do anything. They were paralyzed in ineptitude.”

“Ithaca is supposed to be open-minded,” Schneider continued. “People assume nothing is wrong, or deny that there is, on order to maintain the intellectual, peaceful view that people have of Ithaca.”

Schneider said that the recent allegations of racism have come about because “finally something had to happen. Things needed to explode, and now [the school district] is being forced to deal with it.”