Hi everyone! My name is Emersen Rabuse (she/her) and I just transferred into this course. I'm from Katonah, New York (a suburb of Westchester, but considerably more rural farm area than suburban, and on the cusp of being in a different county). I went to Somers High School, where I received an International Baccalaureate Diploma. Even though I'm from the suburbs, both sides of my family immigrated to Queens as Jewish refugees and Puerto Ricans searching for more opportunity during the WWII era.
I can't say I have a positive relationship with the suburbs I live in. We're upstate enough where we have a pretty blatant white supremacy and antisemitism problem, and there is a lack of diversity where I live. When I was in the IB, I wrote my extended essay on the segregation of the modern suburb, and I can definitely see how that still exists today. I have regular sightings of confederate flags, back the blue picket signs, Trump banners, swastikas intertwining with letters in our school textbooks, antisemitic vandalism, a 98% white school district, death threats against local BLM protesters, etc. Katonah calls itself a suburb, but given its lack of development (dirt roads mixed with pavement, lots of farms, shells of abandoned houses, no sidewalks, and no small businesses, especially since the pandemic hit), I would deem it to be more of a suburban-rural mix.
Given that I've already done so much research surrounding the cultivation and segregation of suburbs for the IB, I want to broaden my horizons and learn more about urban culture and society to further educate myself and figure out what I'd like to do to help create a more equal and tolerant America. Given where I received my high school education, I know that despite all that I have taught myself about inequality, I still have a lot to learn about racial/class/gender inequalities and what actions I could take to help make America a more progressive place in the future.
Looking forward to meeting you all!