Ghost town
The vision of this place comes to me in flashes. I remember walking across the entrance of the building as the light rays gave me the only sense of warmth I’d get the entire day. In freshman year I’d pass by this spot on my way to gym. In Sophomore year it was on the way to Honors English. In Junior year I barely passed by this brief pocket of relief until I started taking the long way to Calculus. In my senior year I had a free period and that’s when I finally decided to take this time to sit on the benches next to these gorgeous, gigantic windows that lit up the building with glowing natural light. “Are you a freshman?” the security guard asked. To which I replied, “N-No. I’m a senior.” “Then you should know this spot is reserved for GUESTS only. Students are not allowed. Get lost.”
Staring at the bright green wall paper in the math classroom, I’d have to grip the cool steel leg of my desk to keep myself focused on the board in front of me. My tunnel vision focused on the way my teacher’s lips moved but her words were gibberish because I wasn’t actually hearing them. I’d blink out of my daze only to turn and look out the window but only being able to focus on the metal webbing that kept us trapped inside like prisoners. The world just went by like a movie on 2x speed but my brain was living a vibrant life of its own, focusing on the beauty of the future and the aspirations I had for the present.
The Big Brother administration at Bronx Science breathes down the necks’ of virtuoso students as they drain them of their light, brainwashing them into carbon copies of each other focused on only the numbers that supposedly define who they are. The building and environment built around contained toxicity in small enough doses we couldn’t comprehend what’s happened to us until it was too late. The grey walls and dim lights suffocated me but the faulty box structure also revealed enough small, brief zeniths of light from the outside that became the red pill I needed to swallow.
The light shone. And in it I saw the grey desk of my guidance counselor, who was the breath of fresh air I ran to whenever I choked, the striped sleeves of my Junior English teacher, who created a safe haven in her classroom and allowed the gift of individuality to reign free, the green optimism of my Design teacher who taught me it’s okay to be as ambitious as I am, that I am the creator of my fate. Bronx Science was my prison. But it gave me a degree of Stockholm syndrome with these broken pieces of beauty that came with it. Bronx HS of Science was the antagonist it needed to be so I could emerge as the hero of my own story.
My Siren Song
My mother is a native Mandarin speaker but is also fluent in English. She can read and understand English, but pronounces her words in a way that people like to refer to as “broken English.” From the moment she arrived in New York 30 years ago, people condescendingly spoke to her in a way that made her seem incapable, when that is probably the furthest you could get from the truth. When I was younger, I was one of those blind people. I began my life authentically Chinese, but growing up in the American education system instilled in me a different culture than what my mother was used to. For years I was under a misunderstanding that my mother couldn’t be there for me because she didn’t know what it was like. I unintentionally hurt her by making her feel like she wasn’t part of my American culture. Even now after I’ve realized my faults, I can see the damage it has done to her. After all the years of reprimanding, her own confidence has faltered. Now, whenever I go out with her, she is afraid to speak to other native English speakers in fear of them misunderstanding her. But I know her capability. I know that she understands every word, but she’s fearful of the judgement she’d receive if she were to mess up. Sometimes I believe she thinks it’s easier to play into the stereotype rather than face it. It breaks my heart. The moment I listened to the English alphabet and took on my American identity, I stopped hearing my Chinese roots. The abc’s were a siren song that pushed my Chinese culture into jagged rocks, and soon it’s untimely death. I dreaded being anything that wasn’t American, or participating in traditions that diverted me from my Caucasian, all-American friends in elementary school. At five years old, I could have never predicted the repercussions to come.
Square
When presented with a figure of four equal straight sides and four right angles in a white abyss, it seems to be just a square. When you tilt your head, it becomes a diamond. Then you walk to the edge of the diamond to see it extrudes far back: for miles, actually. So, you take several hundred steps back and lay on your side. The ground materializes under your feet and the wall underneath your side disappears. Gravity shifts your weight back to the bottom of your feet and you stare at the skyscraper, now right-side up. You hear screams on the other side of the structure and walk a short distance to see another human, staring at the same structure; terrified. What is that person seeing? In what direction did they tilt their head to that it displayed something so terrifying? You and that person clearly don't see the same thing. You look back at the structure. It's just a skyscraper, isn't it?
Now exit out of your abyss, back to reality. Look at what the person next to you is looking at. Are you seeing the same thing as them? Yes? Or do you just think you are? Our senses are subjective, and your reality is just a tangible manipulation of that white abyss. Society’s rules are just vague enough to consider some of your subjective senses as objective. Are you sure you exited out? Touch your phone screen and realize it's smooth. But what is the definition of ‘smooth’ to the person next to you? The two of you consider that phone screen similarly enough to recognize that it's smooth, but you cannot truly experience what that person is feeling. It could be completely different. If every decision you make is a resulted calculation of all of your previous experiences compiled together, then doesn't that explain the concept of ‘disagreement’? Every choice you make is the beginning of a disagreement, because the reasoning behind your choice will never be identical to another who makes a different choice: or even the same one. Next time, tilt your head.
"Equity"
A slide on the Powerpoint displays a well-known illustration by Angus Maguire of equality versus equity. It depicts three people of different heights trying to look over a fence. I've seen the graphic many times, yet only a couple of months ago did I recognize the true meaning of "equity". I imagine a track field as a basis for understanding the difference. The eight runners begin at different spots to make up for the way the track is shaped- that’s equity. Equality would be considered if the image of the entire track field was zoomed in to only display the starting positions. In that case, the runners starting at different positions seem "unequal" and to restore equality, you'd make sure everyone starts at the same place: because you cannot see the bigger picture and consider all of the components of the problem.
In a zoomed-in picture, the track seems to be straight. However, on a circular track, equality wouldn’t be the “fairest” option. If the track were indeed straight, equality would be the fairest option. The problem is harder to decipher when that track becomes a metaphor for life- because you don’t know what shape the track is. All too often, there are too many factors. But how can you balance one part of a problem without looking past other parts that might cause inequity somewhere else? There shouldn’t be a need for the runners to begin at different positions. Like most problems that exist, the issue with Angus Maguire’s illustration is that it’s too zoomed in, meaning it cannot show you all prefaces of the differences between equity and equality. After this epiphany, it’s easier to understand how to see the bigger picture in the situation I’m in.