BLACK HISTORY MONTHPortraits: Victoria Plummer
By: Kristin Boyd
With a pudgy nose and peanut butter complexion, Victoria Plummer looked like a cuddly teddy bear as she positioned herself on the couch.
It was a slow Sunday night, and the 17-year-old was winding down after finishing her shift at Nine West in Palmer Square.
Bundled in pink sweats and a green hooded sweatshirt, she talked about her passion for tae kwon do, her fascination with Hollywood gossip, her iPod addiction, her favorite hip-hop artists, and her confusion over Britney Spears, whose partially shaven head filled a nearby computer screen.
"I don’t know what’s going on with her, but something is wrong," Victoria said, her sweet smile curling into her cheekbones.
But when the topic turned to education, Victoria’s tone grew serious. She sat up straight and let loose a firestorm of frustration.
"Who is going to be in charge when we grow up? Us. So if you’re fooling around or you don’t really care about school, what happens to us then?" she asked, sounding more like a seasoned college professor than a Princeton High School senior.
Victoria is a member of the Minority Achievement Network, a multicultural student group that seeks to continually improve the education offered throughout the Princeton Regional School District.
"The achievement gap here is ridiculously large for such a small town," she said. "It bothers me that there is this wide gap between those who want to succeed and those who don’t."
Group members, she said, engage in candid discussions and pinpoint the issues that can hinder learning, including race relations, skewed expectations, lack of minority teachers and the lure of easy-street money.
"We start talking about our experiences at Princeton High School and we share our stories and try to come up with ways to fix the problems," Victoria said. "We’re doing our small part."
Before the end of the school year, the group would like to establish a districtwide minority-mentoring program so students can form "a positive, not disruptive, camaraderie."
That camaraderie will breed support, encouragement and a will to do better, Victoria said, adding the group is now in talks with the school board to determine if the program is feasible.
"It’s sad because there are a lot of strong role models in Princeton. We have people like Cornel West and Eddie Glaude Jr., and one mile down the road, there are students not even thinking about it. They’re not thinking about their future," she said.
Skimping on education was not an option for Victoria, the youngest of three children. Her parents, Ron Plummer and Renee Plummer, who are divorced, have always pushed Victoria to take advantage of every learning opportunity.
"I didn’t think that it was stupid to be smart," she said. "I love to learn, and I work hard. I can’t be content with getting Ds."
Victoria said she’s intelligent, not naive. She sees the realities each school day the students who don’t have a stable home or supportive parents, the students who’ve been told they won’t amount to much so they don’t bother studying, the students who just take education for granted.
"If I had a different upbringing, if I wasn’t expected to do well, I’d probably be frustrated and want to give up, too. That’s sad," she said.
With graduation just months away, Victoria is waiting to hear from colleges. She hopes to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, though she also applied to Rutgers University, Boston University, Hampton University and the College of New Jersey.
As of now, she said, she plans to study education and public policy. She’d like to return to the area and work in the Princeton Regional School District.
"Education builds a framework for our community," she said. "If we don’t have that, what’s going to happen? I don’t want someone who doesn’t care about education to be the person influential in the society I’m living in."
Victoria isn’t always a such a spitfire, but her passion does spill over into other, more playful, areas.
She has won state and national tae kwon do competitions. She’s poised to earn her third-degree black belt this spring, and in her spare time, she teaches the martial art at the Princeton ATA Black Belt Academy.
A soprano in the high school chorus, Victoria is also a music fanatic. "Black Star," a 1998 album by Mos Def and Talib Kweli, is her favorite iPod pick.
"Omarion is my guilty pleasure," she said, laughing. "But for real, I’m waiting for the Whitney (Houston) comeback album. Oh, and I love New Edition now. I downloaded all of their songs."
In between high kicks and downloads, though, Victoria is determined to make a difference in Princeton education.
"It hasn’t happened yet, but I feel like it’s a work in progress," she said. "It’s so important to be a contributing member of society, whether you’re black, white, Latino, anything. It’s hard to do that if you don’t have a good education."

