Here's Why A Racial Slur Is In The Princeton Yearbook

PRINCETON, NJ — After a year in which racial issues have forced their way to the forefront of news coming out of Princeton High School, the N-word now appears in the Princeton High School yearbook. A black student put it there.

That’s how Jamaica Ponder characterizes her collage in the high school yearbook. The activist didn’t intend for the word to appear in her picture. The word is visible in the background of the collage.

“Art is trouble, if you’re doing it right,” Ponder writes in her latest blog post. “And Ponder art has a tendency to incite and provoke; to make people think. Right now, it serves its purpose from all the way in my basement, from behind the heads of my scooter and balloon wielding friends, from the purposefully innocent and apolitical photo that is my senior collage. My father’s art served its purpose without me even noticing and that’s how I ended up in the principal’s office this morning when I should’ve been doing my math homework.”

The school didn't immediately have an official statement on the issue. However, during a community conversation on racism on Wednesday, Superintendent of Schools Stephen Cochrane said the district would hire more minority teachers and staff members in the wake of recent incidents of racism in the school district, according to the Princeton Packet. Ponder participated in that forum.

In her recent blog post, Ponder said she’s become desensitized to the word, and that she’s amused by its accidental inclusion in her collage. After all, the word is part of her everyday life.

“I think we like to pretend that these things aren’t relevant, that because no one’s seen anyone hanging from a tree for a few decades that it isn’t impactful of the lives black children lead today; that we’re too far removed,” she wrote. “Which is almost laughable; how can one remove something that’s intrinsic? How can we remove something our peers don’t understand but refuse to allow us to forget? There are no days when I’m not black anymore; there are no days when I forget what happened- what’s happening.”

Ponder has exposed a few incidents of racism involving Princeton High School students over the 14 months.

Last year, high school students competed in a game of “Jews vs. Nazis” beer pong that sparked national outrage.

In March, she tackled a Snapchat post in which a white student used a racial slur in reference to the black students she was with on a school bus.

Last month, she wrote about a black student who was blamed for giving a brownie laced with marijuana to another student.

“Why would u tell your mom I gave you pot brownies when I didn’t?” the unnamed student asks another in a text message posted by Ponder on her blog.

The student responded that someone told him to and that no one would ask any questions “Bc ur black.”

To read Ponder’s latest post in its entirety, visit multimagsite.com.

Patch file photo