Stories

Every Tuesday, 10 or so high school girls meet in a second-floor South Side apartment.

Most attend Corcoran High School and like to share the ups and downs of their week and talk about their budding love lives through an activity called “Happy, Crappy, Sappy.” At one recent gathering, they discussed the logistics of getting to prom and what they would like to wear. Some sat cross-legged like pre-K students on two black futons and others stretched across the hardwood floor, wrapped in blankets. Their giggles and chatter over a movie faded as they broke for a meal of a large chicken tender, seasoned fries paired with just the right amount of ketchup, and a tangelo, all served with a lemonade-flavored drink to wash everything down.

These gatherings include a Bible discussion and more fellowship, then a ride home in a van with the young woman who is opening up her home to host these early-week routines.

Dominique Corley, 23, who likes to go by the nickname “Domi,” is the demure hostess who — with swept bangs, black-rimmed glasses and thin frame — blends right in with the high school students who are part of the urban Young Life chapter that she has been leading since last fall.

Young Life, a national and international Christian-based ministry, focuses on adolescents through mentorship, group activities and Bible studies. There are nearly 20 Young Life chapters and clubs in and around Syracuse, according to the organization’s national website. However, most of them are in suburban areas such as Manlius and DeWitt, Corley says.

Corley received a distinct education on just how segregated Syracuse can be — and how isolating and defining it can be — while trying to diversify Young Life. She moved all over, an experience immediately underlining for a newcomer what is a given in Syracuse, the country’s ninth-most-segregated city. It’s a characteristic that is detailed in a CNY Fair Housing fall 2014 report that shows racial divisions can be defining, if not damning, in terms of educational and economic opportunities and outcomes.

Since moving to the city last May after graduating magna cum laude from Cornell University with degrees in sociology and linguistics, Corley has lived in five different places.

When she first arrived in Syracuse, she worked at Brady Faith Center, where she created a faith-based curriculum for 6- through 12-year-olds. Then Young Life offered the opportunity to grow a new chapter, though at just a poverty-level wage.

“I’ve learned about each side of the city,” Corley said in an interview this spring. “Like, South Side is black, West Side is more Hispanics, North Side is like refugee, East Side is more like wealthier. … It’s been helpful to learn about the city. I definitely got a snapshot of Syracuse by moving around so much.”

Dominique Corley listens in on clues given in a game of Taboo. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Disturbing notes in the conversation

Corley, a Michigan native, said talk about the racial divide in the city peppered disturbing conversations among the girls in her Bible study group in its nascent stages. She said the black girls in her group would make statements like, “We don’t like white people,” or “The only white people that we like are the ones that you introduce us to” — the fruits of tensions between the races at school, where the girls have told her the white students think they’re superior.

Corley traces Syracuse’s segregated status as the root of these disconcerting views that her girls have — not just about others, but also about themselves.

“Like black, they associate that with poor, and white, they associate that with wealthy,” she said. “And if you’re a black wealthy person, you’re not black, you’re white. I haven’t heard them say the opposite, but I’m guessing that if they had a poor white person, they would say, ‘You’re black.’ ”

Although these girls’ views may be rather insular, they are real to them and not without substantiation, particularly when it comes to school, which defines young lives.

Of the 48,852 black residents in Onondaga County, an overwhelming 84 percent of them live in areas of very low or low educational opportunity, the two lowest of five possible measures, most often in the city. Moreover, of the 18,879 Hispanic residents in Onondaga County, 59 percent of them live in similar areas. However, 55 percent of the county’s 466,179 white residents live in areas of high or very high educational opportunity, the highest of the five possible measures, most often in the suburbs.

One of the girls in Corley’s group, 17-year-old Corcoran junior Diamond West, has noticed how where you live affects experiences at school. The bubbly teenager — with a high ponytail and braces that shine as white as her teeth — smiles through a lot of the seeming disparity that she’s noticed all around her at school and in her life.

“I don’t want to say that most of the white people have more home-based things, but I mean, they kind of do. The white people in our school, too. They have better home bases than the usually regular black kid,” she said.

“Usually, the kids at Westhill, I want to say, have a mother and father at home and like a sister, or whatever the case may be. The kids at Corcoran usually come from one single parent and a whole bunch of brothers and sisters in one house.”

Indeed, of the 1,729 recorded households in the Westhill High School Census tract, only 175 are headed by single parents versus the 311 single-parent households among the 720 total in the Corcoran High School Census tract. Moreover, the minority population in the Census tract of Westhill is just 7 percent and has an average income of $60,563 while Corcoran’s minority population is 68 percent with an average income of $34,048, barely half of Westhill’s.

Yet, while Westhill and Corcoran high schools are just two miles apart, the data show that they may as well be in two very different worlds. Minorities made up only 8 percent of Westhill’s student population in the 2013-2014 academic year, according to the New York State Department of Education. It dwarfs Corcoran’s achievement by having a 92 percent graduation rate, compared to Corcoran’s 62 percent in the same year.

West lives in Valentine Gardens Apartments on the South Side with her aunt, uncle, two cousins and two sisters. Her parents passed away when she was a child. She’s counting down to her last year in her neighborhood and attending Corcoran. She’s banking on her education as her ticket out of seeing drug deals happen at school and near her home.

“The people there, like they fight all the time. They like are very loud and just obnoxious. They throw trash around the ground. It’s already dirty. So, why make it dirtier?” she said, truly puzzled, yet half-amused with a smile. “I’m like, ‘Oh, Jesus!’ That’s why I want to go to school, finish, get out of there (so) I don’t have to deal with that. I’ll live in the suburbs.”

West, an avid reader and fan of just-graduated Syracuse University basketball star Rakeem Christmas, wants to attend Herkimer College or Syracuse University so she can become a social worker. Although she wants to get out of Syracuse, she eventually would like to return and help mistreated children escape unsafe homes.

“I would like to help Syracuse out a lot after school,” she said.

Moving around town

Corley bounced around when she first moved to Syracuse last summer. It was a sometimes-unsettling and an immediate education.

Her first stop on the North Side was an apartment overrun by mice. “We had pulled out the oven, the little thing at the bottom, and it was just like mounds of feces.”

For the rest of last summer, she stayed with a friend involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in an East Side apartment. Next, she found herself in a house on Baldwin Avenue on the South Side with four guys for three months.

From there, she worked 12-hour shifts and lived at a local women’s shelter, also on the South Side. For three months, she was responsible for securing the property, making sure the rules were being followed and easing conflicts among the residents.

“I felt like I really saw what it was like to live where people always look down on you,” she says now.

“One thing was that we always got like expired food from Wegmans. That was our source of food. … (It) doesn’t help your self-esteem if everything you eat is expired,” she said, without her typical smile.

And there were bed bugs to deal with, too, before she eventually found her current place on Craigslist.

“It was hard to deal with,” she said. “I felt like I never got a break because I was living in like a crazy place.”

Corley now lives in a spacious three-bedroom apartment on the South Side. A new roommate has moved in, and she is expecting another one in July.

“This specific location is on the border of two communities,” she said.

Corley’s new Census tract indicates that she is in an area where 55 percent of adults over 25 years old have a college degree and where the average income is $62,077. Educational opportunity in her area is low, but the economic opportunity is high.

The juxtaposition might be as stark as her presence on the South Side.

A perplexing path

A Cornell graduate who has lived in a shelter and who currently lives in one of the least desirable parts of the city is quite odd, indeed.

Corley was not just a stellar student at Cornell who published research about how Ebonics (so-called “black English”) can lead to inequality in the justice system. She was also a record-making athlete. Corley is eighth all time in the women’s athletic pentathlon with 3,376 points in 2012.

Her younger sister and Michigan State University student, Chloe Corley, is aware of how confusing these contrasts can be to people.

“I think people are scared for her or don’t understand why she’s not going to get her doctorate or how she went to an Ivy League and then is now asking for money and lived at a homeless shelter at one point,” Chloe Corley said over the phone after taking a final exam.

“Dominique is capable of getting any job that she wanted, but that’s not what she’s called to do, and money is not Dominique’s main priority. I think justice is. I think showing love. I think helping people. I think advocating for those who can’t advocate for themselves. I think sharing the gospel. I think those come before money. So, I support what she’s doing.”

Corley did consider advancing her education before choosing her current path.

Before Brady Faith and Young Life entered the picture, Corley was an accepted student in the SU Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs’ graduate public administration program. Before confirming her spot, though, she reached out to both places in the community to ask if she could volunteer while she was in school. Because she received a “yes” from both places and later job offers, she said she decided not to go into the graduate program. She chose her role at Young Life over an offer made by Brady Faith Center.

Yet, her choice to be part of urban ministry isn’t as precipitous as it might seem. While in college, she participated in mission trips in Wilmington, Delaware, and Detroit. “My experiences with the people and the work that I was doing made me really like urban ministry and working in these kind of communities,” she said.

Corley and those who are helping her establish Young Life in the city have found that offering what suburban kids have been doing for years can be challenging. Corley’s chapter often relies on community members, whether it’s to offer vans to drive the students around or banana treats for Friday night coffee houses, with space offered by Bellevue Heights United Methodist Church on South Geddes Street.

Bradley Fleming, a Young Life committee member who assists Corley with anything she needs, said getting rides for the kids is one of the biggest challenges along with finding funding for a Young Life summer camp.

“A lot of times the parents in the suburbs don’t have any problems throwing down four or five hundred bucks to send their kid to camp. Whereas here, we’re asking for $150, and we’re applying for scholarships with the headquarters,” he said.

Dominique Corley Photo Gallery

Dominique Corley in front of one of her living room windows in her South Side apartment. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Sheniah McKenzie giving clues in a game of Taboo, and Dominique Corley is looking at the forbidden words. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Dominique Corley is demonstrating proper form for the high jump. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Dominique Corley listening in on clues given in a game of Taboo. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Dominique Corley is playing a game at the Friday night coffee house, held at Bellevue Heights United Methodist Church. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Dominique Corley is unofficially coaching two Corcoran High School track students. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Dominique Corley on the balcony of her South Side apartment. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Shawntaisha Crawford, left, shares a light moment with Aurora Pille, a mentee of Dominique Corley. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

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Called to urban ministry

Corley’s financial hardship is not unlike that of some of her students and their parents. The $1,160 take-home pay per month that she receives from Young Life places her just $105 above the New York state eligibility requirements to receive SNAP benefits. Yet, it is also not enough to cover her monthly bills, which total over $1,200.

“I felt bad that I wasn’t able to make it work with just the Young Life money because I thought I was like a crazy spender,” she said. “Most of my money is just for bills. I’m not just shopping or something.”

To add to her income, Corley has taken on a minimum-wage job at a daycare in East Syracuse. She’s up by 5 a.m. to drive the almost 20 miles for the 20-22 hours that she works each week. The extra money, after taxes, gives her a little over $100 per week.

Fleming respects Corley’s path.

“This is a girl who graduated from Cornell University. (She) could go and do whatever she wants, but she felt called to do urban ministry,” he said. “I think she’s walking the walk. I think she’s living it out. I think her faith is solid.”

Corley’s faith is solid in her work because she sees what she’s doing as a calling that aligns with her faith. She teaches tolerance to her Tuesday Bible study group, promoting inclusion. She offers cheers and high jump pointers on Corcoran’s track to her girls who are a part of the Corcoran track team. She finds a way to get more students involved.

“I just think about Jesus. … Like he said himself that ‘I came for the sick. I came to heal the sick and be among them.’

“I’m definitely not trying to compare myself to Jesus or being like I’m just here for the sick. Like, you guys are all sick. I’m here for you. I am one of those sick people, too. I just see people as human beings that all deserve dignity and I’m not better than anyone and nobody else is better than anyone else.

“I feel like I just really see people as people and know that everyone deserves basics.”

Aurora Pille is a mentee of Dominique Corley. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Sheniah McKenzie is a mentee of Dominique Corley. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

Through illness, ‘I felt like God was really there with me’

Dominique Corley missed all her finals during the first semester of her freshman year at Cornell. And she wasn’t recovering from the typical shenanigans of a new college student recovering from partying.

She was hospitalized with Crohn’s disease complications from one hospital stay and a Crohn’s-related surgery in another.

Crohn’s disease is an incurable illness in which inflammation in the bowels and digestive tract can cause stomach pain, fatigue and weight loss, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Dominique Corley, in front of one of her living room windows in her South Side apartment. | Lateshia Beachum, staff photo

These were all symptoms that Corley was feeling before she was finally diagnosed after two hospital visits.

Corley was sleepy and lethargic and constantly in pain.

Her stomach had always bothered her, but the discomfort she was experiencing as a college freshman worsened. The Cornell track star had difficulty lifting weights and getting through team runs, but she couldn’t figure out why.

“Physical activity and eating are the worst for it,” Corley said. “Basically, my intestines got ulcers and then the ulcers turned into fistulas (abnormal growths) and then the whole thing just blocked. The whole thing just closed up.”

Corley had an ileocecectomy to correct the problem.

“I basically had my terminal ileum removed and a foot of my small intestine. Then they reconnected my colon to the small intestine.”

The terminal ileum is at the end of the large intestine. It contains a muscle sphincter that moves semi-digested food into the stomach.

Corley had to sit out her entire freshman year because of Crohn’s. She spent her second semester rebuilding her athletic abilities and deepening her Christian faith.

“Through my illness, I felt like God was really there with me. It became like a relationship, not just like following rules,” she said.

That faith propelled Corley to make Cornell track history, where she is ranked eighth all-time in the women’s pentathlon.

Corley has continued her athletic prowess after college. She competed in a triathlon last fall where she finished with a respectable time of 1:32:20.37.

She has also managed symptoms of her illness through a high-protein, low-fiber diet.

“I feel like God helped me because from where I was to where I was able to get to was beyond me,” she said.