By Rainier Harris
Published Sept. 24, 2020Updated Sept. 25, 2020
Rainier Harris is a senior at Regis High School and a Queens native.
Starting senior year in the middle of a pandemic has brought on more challenges than ever: Navigating college applications and maintaining my G.P.A. while dealing with Zoom burnout and no physical connection to my friends.
I attend Regis, the academically rigorous Catholic high school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. To those who get in, it is tuition-free, and it is regularly recognized as one of the top high schools in the country.
So it is more than a little troubling that I know I will have to deal with casual racism at such an institution. Even as classes have started remotely, the racism that many Black students like me have experienced and continue to experience in school feels more emotionally draining than ever.
I felt immense pride entering Regis, but also great pressure. My older brother had been a stellar student there. He went to Yale University for political science, then immediately completed a simultaneous J.D./M.B.A. in three years at Yale Law and Yale School of Management.