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ROILED: Students of color at the elite Dyker Heights prep school blasted
its faculty for not immediately coming out stronger against the controversial
video and its creators. File photo by Paul Martinka
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BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
Administrators at an elite
Dyker Heights private school
must show public support for
its students of color and condemn
racism on campus, a
group of pupils demanded after
an explosive video surfaced
showing some of the academy’s
white students imitating monkeys
while in blackface.
Poly Prep Country Day
School staffers’ silence following
the video’s discovery is a
slap in the face to black students,
according to leaders of a
black-student group, who confronted
Poly Prep offi cials at a
Jan. 18 assembly.
“Left to experience our
peers’ continued disregard
of our humanity, students of
color question why our administration
fails to take a
clear stance against their behavior,”
seniors Jeovanna
deShong-Connor and Talisha
Ward said at the demonstration,
according to a report in
the school’s student newspaper,
the Polygon.
The upperclassmen made
their plea after Poly Prep offi
cials uncovered the allegedly
2-year-old video, which
was shared on a private website
for school students on Jan.
11 before the New York Daily
News published it in a Jan. 19
report . The footage shows two
white female students wearing
black paint or makeup on
their faces as they made apish
noises and gestures.
And school offi cials’ decision
not to immediately discipline
those involved — or call
the clip racist in an e-mail
sent to families following the
video’s discovery — made the
prestigious campus a hostile
environment for students of
color, especially black pupils,
according to deShong-Connor
and Ward.
“We feel unwelcome in a
space where we are supposed
to grow not only academically,
but emotionally and socially,”
the pair said in the Polygon report.
“We feel uncomfortable
in our own halls, in our own
classes, and on our own campus
with our so-called peers.”
The seniors demanded the
faculty implement required
civics and empathy courses
for students, hire more staff of
color, amend the school’s code
of conduct to address hateful
actions and speech, and send
a second e-mail that clearly
states the girls in the video
wore blackface, and outlines
how administrators would
prevent a similar incident
from occurring in the future.
deShong-Connor and Ward
also called for a public apology
from the students in the video
and the third girl who allegedly
fi lmed it.
And they implored the entire
school community to recognize
the incident as “the
most recent in a series of racist
and intolerable acts that
have alienated a large portion
of Poly’s community, rather
than as an isolated event,” according
to the Polygon report,
which said the seniors led a
student sit-in in the academy’s
halls, where they continued to
push for the changes following
the assembly.
Poly Prep headmaster
Audrius Barzdukas praised
deShong-Connor and Ward’s
show of leadership, and subsequently
organized an afterschool
discussion about the
video and its aftermath on
Jan. 23, the Polygon reported.
And the day after the assembly,
school offi cials called
the video “highly offensive”
and “an egregious violation
of our community values and
code of conduct” in a statement
posted to the Poly Prep
Facebook page .
The statement, however,
did not explicitly condemn the
video as racist, instead noting
that the school does not tolerate
racism or prejudice, and
that administrators encourage
the outraged students’
pursuit of social justice.
The missive also claimed
offi cials “took immediate action”
upon discovering the
video, but did not specify that
action, explaining staff does
not discuss disciplinary procedures
against individual
students in order to protect
their privacy.
deShong-Connor, Ward, and
school reps couldn’t be reached
for comment by press time.
‘We feel unwelcome’
Poly Prep School students of color accuse faculty of
failing them in wake of white pupils’ blackface video
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