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Challenging Nostalgia and Confronting Racism at Elite Schools
A student at a prestigious, New England boarding school reflects on his time there; the role nostalgia plays at elite, predominantly white schools; and the paths we can take to making our communities more inclusive and just.
“St. Paul’s School has a storied past. More importantly, it has an unwritten future ahead of us that we are now tasked to determine.”
Now in my third and final year at St. Paul’s School, I find myself in a constant oscillation between loving and resenting this place and its role in my life. This is my reflection:
Each and every one of us applied to and enrolled into this school for a reason. While we’re here, it is to take away an unparalleled education, interact with beautiful grounds, and meet people from various pockets of the world. Once we leave, it is to leave this place with an abundance of social and cultural capital that comes with an elite education like ours. In addition to the connections, the diploma, and the clout, we depart St. Paul’s School but take its cinematic nostalgia with us.
I have come to realize, however, that for marginalized people at schools like this, the holistic experience looks more like tipping scales. On one side, the “beauty,” the overwhelmingly positive takeaways that I just listed: Social and cultural capital, opportunities like no other, and preparation for what any college could possibly throw our way. On the other, the “pain,” is where there is room for greater variability. Perhaps the “pain” side of the scale is weighed down by homesickness or an inability to find one’s niche. Perhaps, and what I wish to focus on in my chapel talk today, that side of the scale is weighed down by constant microaggressions, discrimination, harassment, and a feeling of being “other.” The propensity for this side to prevail — weighed down by trauma — is much greater for marginalized students and faculty at this school.
