Chapter 11: “You Sound Like a White Girl”: One Black Girl’s Experience in Accelerated Learner Spaces

Every morning before school, my grandmother prepared my breakfast and sent me directly to the bus stop on the street corner, with the rest of the kids from the neighboring housing projects. Once the bus arrived, I sat alone in the seat behind the bus driver. Upon exiting the school bus, the kids from my neighborhood and I were physically and metaphorically segregated from each other, as the remodeled International Baccalaureate (IB) wing was totally isolated from the rest of the buildings on campus; this meant that I did not see any Black students (other than my neighborhood friend, who was a Black male) again until the end of the day when it was time to get back on the bus to go home. On a typical school day, I ate lunch alone in the library, because I felt socially isolated and invisible among my peers. Despite the social, cultural, and racial isolation that I endured while being one of only two Black students in this space of academic privilege, I graduated with honors from my high school’s IB program in 2009.