A Top Black Student Pens Essay on the Racism He Faces at Upper East Side High School

When you’re a gifted Black student, getting in is only the beginning

Rainier Harris is starting his senior year at NYC’s elite Regis High School — but Zoom classes and social distancing due to the Covid-19 pandemic won’t be the only issues he’ll be forced to navigate.

Harris penned a personal essay for the New York Times, in which he shared the kind of casual racism that is draining both him and the Upper East Side high school’s Black students.

“I am no stranger to racist behavior,” Harris writes. “In middle school, I was targeted with it, as well as enduring classmates casually using the N-word. Any hope that this would be avoided at Regis was quickly proved wrong. Within the first two weeks there, a photo of me was shared around school by a white classmate; the caption referred to me as a monkey.”

This Is the Casual Racism That I Face at My Elite High School