The Prep School Negro: Reconciling Two Worlds

This post was written by DOC NYC blogger Dalila-Johari Paul

Director André Robert Lee spoke at the screening of his film at DOC NYC.

Before André Robert Lee screened his insightful film THE PREP SCHOOL NEGRO, he had one request for the audience: “As you watch the film ask where your heart and mind meet.” The film is an examination of a young black male’s dual reality of living in a low-income neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while attending a mostly white prep school. Yet THE PREP SCHOOL NEGRO carries a universal theme for anyone who has felt like the “other” or an outsider.

Lee set out to make a film about the experiences of black children in prep school, but in making the film something shifted–it became deeply personal. Almost twenty years after his graduation from the exclusive Germantown Friends School, he talked to current students at the school and found that the conflicting emotions of the black teens mirror what he felt in the 1980s. They are “guests in a strange house.” With the “golden ticket” of an elite education, the worlds of these children became wider and wider, but at what cost? In PREP SCHOOL NEGRO, Lee looks back at himself as a smiling and confident teen surrounded by plenty of friends. He’s often the only black kid in photos and reveals that no one knew that he often felt lonely and isolated.

Lee poignantly documents the two worlds that defined his childhood. Throughout THE PREP SCHOOL NEGRO, Lee is extremely candid about never quite fitting in with his family and in his neighborhood. Raised by his mother and older sister, Lee grew more distant from them while attending the school. But the disconnect began even before he received his full-scholarship to Germantown Friends. The film is multi-layered as Lee delves into the guilt he felt; a void that was filled after being accepted into an upper class white family; the healing that begins with a conversation with his estranged father and the realization that his mother always loved him; and the emotional reconnection with his older sister.

During the Q&A, after audience members thanked him for telling “their” story and others asked whether the film was more about class than race, Lee emphasized that he didn’t have all the answers. But discussing the dialogue we all have with ourselves and not being afraid to talk about race and class seem like steps in the right direction. THE PREP SCHOOL NEGRO screens again at DOC NYC on Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at the IFC Center.

Dalila-Johari Paul is a freelance writer and editor currently working with New York-based news website Women’s eNews.