As a teenager growing up in East New York, Brooklyn, in the 1980s, I would wake up every school day and get on the subway. An hour later, I would get off in Manhattan in a very different New York City.
Back in my neighborhood, almost all the kids were Black or Latino. Stable housing wasn’t certain for many. Struggles at school were commonplace. The systems around us often seemed to view those struggles with indifference.
When I arrived at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, almost everything was different. Few of my classmates were Black or Latino. And not only were students expected to succeed, they were given the support to do so. I knew that these different New York Cities were unequal. The contrast made me angry. Those differences persist; in some ways, they are worse. And the anger remains.
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As a teenager growing up in East New York, Brooklyn, in the 1980s, I would wake up every school day and get on the subway. An hour later, I would get off in Manhattan in a very different New York City.
Back in my neighborhood, almost all the kids were [...]
