Will My Son Be the Only Black Jew in High School?

By Alina Adams for Raising Kvell

Every year, just like clockwork, The New York Times writes their annual article expressing shock that the most competitive public high schools in New York City are primarily Asian, with a much lower proportion of black and Hispanic students then there are in the overall system.

They charge that the test is racist and should not be used as the sole criteria determining admittance into a New York City Specialized High School. (I am not going to get into the politics of that charge, except to note that the argument to use other, less standardized factors such as letters of recommendation and extracurricular activities was initially introduced in America specifically to keep Jews out of elite universities, for fear that there would otherwise be too many of them.

In 2013, of the 963 students accepted to Stuyvesant, the high school that requires the highest score on the admissions exam, exactly nine of them are African-American. Had they counted my son, they would have at least made it into the double-digits. However, because my son is biracial and refuses to check only one box, the city of New York literally doesn’t count him at all in their overall racial statistics (“Isn’t it cool, Mommy?” he asked me. “I’m an un-person, just like in 1984!”)

I’m not going to talk about the politics of that, either.

What I am going to talk about is the implication of sending my son to a school where he will be one of only 10 black students (if not less; just because nine were accepted, doesn’t mean all nine will choose to go… conversely, there may be other biracial kids who also weren’t counted like him, but I doubt that will seriously alter the proportions), and quite possibly the only black/Jewish one.

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