Discussing Race in an Educational Setting

Josiah Quincy Upper School (JQUS) is a 6th-12th school in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. It is an IB (International Baccalaureate) school, not an AP (Advanced Placement) school. The classes there are pretty standard, but you have to take Spanish or Mandarin as a language class even though you might not have wanted to learn these specific languages. Before 2026 you also had to choose between art, music, chorus, or theater, so there’s not much branching out in terms of electives. There are some clubs, but not that many and most of our sports teams are combined with other schools. My school isn’t really that bad, it’s very typical, but there are bad teachers. They create an unsafe environment for all POC.

When I was in seventh grade, several students that were not Black would be disruptive and not really do their work, but the school didn’t really care and neither did some of the teachers. When anyone else who was Black did the same things as these students it would be reported. I felt a bit annoyed since it just seemed as if they could do no wrong in the school’s eyes. This is probably because of white supremacy culture, which treats the Asian demographic as all the same, and thinks of them as ‘better’ in school than other people. Really, we should be all working together, but white supremacy makes us feel separate.

Since I haven’t had any encounters like this, I mainly hear people in my grade talk about their issues with teachers when they are in the bathroom. My best friend is Blasian, and she was once going to the bathroom and saw that a teacher was looking at her weirdly, like they had never seen a person like her before. On this issue my friend stated, “[They] need to accept reality and the fact that there’s other skin colors besides [theirs]. Don’t try anything stupid with your own students. If you play with fire, you will get burned.” She said this because she is not the only mixed kid in our school, and they stick together. My friend also claims she has heard this teacher make “little comments about other races, which I will not make a comment about, but does affect how [their] students see [them].” 

My experience at my school is not new. My feeling of being undermined has happened to other people way before me. For centuries Black people have been beaten, blamed, enslaved, and overall just treated badly. Did you know that there have recently been incidents of Black people being lynched, but the police rule them as suicide or the incident never gets talked about? Probably not, because it’s not given enough attention.

On September 14-15, 2025, a Black college student, Dematravion “Trey” Reed, was found hanging from a tree after attending the school for just 30 days before then. Authorities tried saying that he hung himself outside in the open from the tree, but it was fairly obvious that he was lynched. According to Afro News, “ …university officials and the county coroner quickly stated there was no evidence of foul play… his death had been ruled as suicide. An autopsy later confirmed the decision.” 

Activists were able to disprove that it was a suicide. Trey was in an area with no cameras and he was surrounded by white people who stayed outside in the area all day, and there is the fact he was hanging by a belt that was bigger than himself. As mentioned in the Afro News, “... Trey was short and had a slight frame, and his roommate said he didn’t leave with a belt.” It makes me annoyed it was first ruled as suicide even though they saw his body and if they cared enough they would’ve seen the belt was too big to be something he would buy.

And then there is police brutality that is the most common. It affects people in so many ways, especially mentally. As said by the NAACP, “Police killings of unarmed Black Americans are responsible for more than 50 million additional days of poor mental health per year among Black Americans.” A victim’s family feels most the loss of their loved one(s).

A way that would be able to give justice for Reed and all the other victims of lynching or violence in general is by spreading their story more and locking away the people who killed them. I don’t exactly know how to fully stop this, but if you think you see something dangerous is happening then you can try to stop what is happening. Like yelling loudly, threatening that the police are coming, ect. JQUS doesn’t seem to really talk about things such as lynching, and I know that many students in the school do not know what lynching even is. It makes me mad. My school doesn’t seem to prioritize speaking about these problems. Although they did speak to us about ICE and make sure they won’t come to our school, they should be trying to also speak about other events happening that are making people of all kinds feel less safe. Even the Asian community doesn’t really have their problems talked about, like the restaurant chains coming to Chinatown, and Asian hate that happened because of COVID. Not talking about problems not only affects me and my community, but also others.