My Experience Attending One of the Biggest and Baddest Schools in PG County (Back Home)

       A thick streak of purplish gold beat diagonally down on my forehead as I took the last large leap off a bulky yellow school bus into a sea of red shirts and brown faces.  It was August in Prince George’s County and my very first day of public school. 

  Amid daps, playful teenage chatter “what’s goods”and exhilirating reunions I took a two second pause to take in my new reality.  My cinematic moment was interupted by a familiar face in a blue dress.  It was my mom.

Just a few months prior, my family and I were bombarded with horror stories, about the local public schools.  I’ll never forget the widened pupils, gasps and glares of saddness that I got in return for telling people that I was going to a public high school, and not just any public high school, but Suitland High School, what many considered one of the biggest, baddest schools in PG County. 

After squeezing through the crowd and recognizing a few familiar faces from here and there, I stepped into not just a school, but an awakening experience that would change how I viewed the world forever, one of the DMV’s best kept secrets.

As I got acclimated into my new life, I developed a second pulse.  For the first time, I felt the true rythm of the DMV beating in my heart, and developed a fresh, new love for my community.  

It was like a veil was torn, a barrier was broken.  I was given access to another level of self-awareness that I never knew I was missing.  Going to a school that beared the name of the city I’m from, Suitland, located on the PG/DC line, exposed me to the people around me, the ones I saw everyday They were no longer strangers, but schoolmates.  The world became a lot smaller, and a lot more exciting.

I had experienced local culture in a way that I never had.  Dialect, motivation, belief systems, music, all of it, was right there, all in one.  I had a front row seat, and like always, I took it all in. 

I joined clubs which gave me a full experience, landed me in parades, groomed me into a leader and  allowed me to recycle my time right back into the community where I lived.  I was accepted into the rigorous IB Program which offered a college-level curricula with global insights.

As the years went by, I reflected on the words that people told me before I arrived, and they were nothing like what I had experienced.

People define “cultured” as those who have traveled the world and have no less than a six figure income, and yes, I guess you can say that’s true.  But as a result of this experience, I too consider myself cultured.  The DMV culture, which we should indeed acknowledge as a culture, is very strong, and greatly admired, if you haven’t noticed.

At Suitland High School, I was immersed into this culture and saw many shades of Black excellence from Gates-Milleniam scholars to Juilliard-admitted classical singers.

Obvious, like every institution there were imperfections, but the bringht light from the excellence outshined it all.  The force from the strong, unified Black culture at my more than 90% black school outweighed it. 

Ever since then, I’ve been left with the two contrasting elements inside of me, what I heard versus what I experienced.  As you just read, it didn’t quite match.  

Every so often, in one way or another, through words and actions, I hear that early narrative, from those who have not been able to experience what I experienced.  And then there’s the good memories, that make me smile, the ones I’ll never forget, the excellence that I still wear to this day.

Of course you know I had to take a side.  The side of what I saw, what I experienced.  The debate, still very much alive in me has spilled over into my choice of profession, mass communication, because this messages needs to be heard.  

During my undergraduate years at Towson University, it slowly worked its way into my conversations, creeped into my research papers, slid into my presentations and now here it is, again.

Today it remains my motivation as I pursue a graduate degree at Georgetown University with a community-centered end goal in mind.

It just won’t go away because this dystopian view of Black Culture, internally and externally still exists.  And I exist to change that.

This is Back Home, The Culture Series.