Last Friday afternoon, some 350 black students, teachers, staff and administrators crowded into the Little Theater at Oak Park and River Forest High School for a candid conversation about being black – in life, in high school, in America, in Oak Park.
Nate Rouse, OPRF’s principal for the past six years and himself a black man, convened what he called a “racial affinity group” so that black students “could have a true and genuine conversation” about their “lived experiences” as young black people. Rouse, who acknowledged there has been both support and some criticism within the school for hosting a single-race event, said his plan is to convene other racial affinity groups – Latino, Asian, white – so that similarly straightforward discussions can take place. Over time, he said in an interview Tuesday, he hopes to host conversations about race and equity involving all interested students and staff.
But he comfortably made the case for starting this conversation with black students.
Rouse said that in the aftermath of the national debate over Ferguson and New York, he became aware of some black students at OPRF seeking a way to engage in the Black Lives Matter discussion. Rouse said he wanted “to get ahead of this. To find a way to talk about daily life at OPRFHS.”
He talked about times in his life when he has been able to talk about race in a group of black people. “When I have been able to have those conversations, I have found some comfort and I have felt some pain. It has strengthened me to get those stories told.”
In my view, this school was way slow in grasping the many dimensions of change that the arrival of substantial numbers of black students beginning in the 1970s inevitably brought. The arrogant message was that the new arrivals had to do all the adapting, that OPRF was pretty much the ideal. It is only in recent years that OPRF board members and administrators led the way by engaging in their “Courageous Conversations” series that required people to talk directly about the complexities of race in our society. Surely those efforts opened the door to the brave effort that Rouse led last Friday.
In assembling a panel of black students to speak during the first half of Friday’s special assembly, Rouse said he sought a true cross section of black students from those in AP classes – “We do have black students, not many, in honors.” – to students who are struggling to students who have transferred from other districts.
He said that beyond hearing stories about black students’ concerns at the school the assembly also “was an opportunity for people to be self-critical.” Questions were raised within the group about how many black students speak in the hallways, about the use of the N-word within the black student body. “What can we do differently,” was a question that Rouse said he heard posed.
The principal said he knew the assembly “would ruffle some feathers” and he said that in hindsight he had fallen short in some of the internal communication about the event. “That is on me,” he said.
The principal talked about two white female students “who were very frustrated” at being barred from the event and sought him out. “Their views on race are so advanced,” he said, obviously reflecting cross-racial friendships and positive conversations at home about race, that, he said, “they could lead a white affinity” discussion. So he asked them, “Please be respectful of (the need for) black affinity conversations.”
Said Rouse, “If we are the progressive school and progressive community that we want to be, then we wouldn’t have had the academic gap that we’ve had for 40 years.” Rouse talked about the upcoming plans for a documentary shot at the school and focused on the academic disparities between black and white students. If that documentary is made, said Rouse, “We are going to hear things we aren’t comfortable hearing. So we ought to start that conversation now.” Among the discomforting realities, he said, is “that effectively our cafeterias are segregated.”
Rouse said that as the school year continues he hopes to gather other groups of students by race, by preference (gays and transgender students) and to continue these open talks about their experiences at the high school.
“The worst thing that ever happened to me was to have other people tell me that my experience wasn’t real,” said Rouse. Now he is working to make sure that our students never have that happen to them.
