Avi Cantor

Sanaa Scott-Wheeler

Staff Writer

In the weeks leading up to April 3rd,  a flyer appeared on social media platforms advertising that day  as “National Punish a Muslim Day.”

The flyer originated from the United Kingdom, and there were many acts of violence that occurred there. However, there was also great concern about attacks in the United States, especially due to Trump’s anti-Muslim policies., and

While no SLA students were attacked on this day, the event prompted reflection on the Muslim student body. “Punish A Muslim Day” is an extreme example of the microaggression and prejudice they deal with on a daily basis. Sophomore Naseem Hameid, who is American-born with family from Palestine, reported that ¨I thought national punish a Muslim day was stupid and when you think about it, it was disrespectful.”

¨People preach about respecting one another but at the same time will disrespect someone just like them¨.

Sophomore Koule Doucoure, who moved to Philadelphia from Niger in 2015, was also freaked out by the ¨event¨.

¨At first I was like, I´m not going to school. I told my cousin and she said ´you´re just going to give up your religion to something like this?´ When I came to school I was a little scared but I know the SLA community wouldn’t allow that to happen.¨

Most people find comfort in how diverse SLA is and that there is a little bit of everyone here so there are shared experiences.  One of the biggest fears on April 3rd was alienation. For years, Muslims in Philadelphia have tried to coexist with everyone else, to only receive backlash.

Sophomore Samera Baksh, who is Bengali-American, told the story of her family’s first experiences in the United States as an example.

¨When my mom came to America a month later it was 9/11 so she would come out of the house and people would yell ¨oh you f*cking terrorist¨ ¨you muslim¨ ¨go back to your country¨ my mom would try to act American so she wouldn’t wear cultural clothes or the hijab — my mom is light skinned so she could pass as American.¨

When Hameid was asked if he had ever been discriminated against because of his religion, his response was  ¨In middle school they would call me slurs like ´sand nigger´ ´bomber´ ´terrorist´¨.

Baksh has not been targeted in the same way, but still remains wary about what could happen. ¨I´ve never been scared here because I need to show people who I am, but I was scared for my mom wherever she goes,” Baksh said, “She takes my brother and I’m scared for them to hurt him too.¨

Freshman Ami Doumbia says ¨Usually most schools are afraid to talk about these types of things because they don´t wanna step on toes or because or because they don´t  know enough, but that’s not helping anybody I believe that if SLA opened itself up to these types of conversations, like we do with other subjects (such as sexuality, race etc.) we can thrive more than we already do.¨

Many students reported that they had never or rarely experienced microaggression in the SLA community, however by giving the Muslim community at SLA more positive recognition, we can set an example for other schools in the city while making our school a safer Haven.

 

Keith Hodge

Staff Writer

SLA teachers have come from all over the U.S to teach here, bringing unique accents and phrases along with them. Among these teachers are Math and Study Skills teacher Jonathan Estey and Physics teacher BJ Enzweiler who are from vastly different places with many different ways of speaking.

Estey who is from the east side of Providence, Rhode Island, has lived in three cities in Oregon including Portland, Hood River, and Eugene, before moving to Philadelphia four years ago.

He credited what he thought was an “east coast” accent to his college experience, first encountering his different way of speaking from his Sophomore geometry.

Estey said his Sophomores last year noticed the way he pronounced “NASA” and “Box”. Estey also explained that he became conscious of certain New England slang that he was saying that didn’t make sense to others. He occasionally uses words such as “wicked”, “bubbler” and “sub” that are staples of the Rhode Island dialect.

Despite realizing how often he uses unintelligible New England slang, he holds onto an appreciation for his hometown.

“Rhode Island has a very rich dialect that people don’t always appreciate it and I would like to see people recognize the linguistic uniqueness”.

Another teacher who comes from outside of the Tri-State Area is Physics teacher BJ Enzweiler. Enzweiler is from Bloomington, Illinois which is located in the central part of Illinois. He has also lived in Chicago, Illinois and then Central Texas, before moving to Philadelphia, where he’s lived for four years.

“I would say I definitely have a midwestern accent itself, I think in Illinois there is mostly just a normal midwestern accent for most people who live outside the Chicago area”. He also said people who live in Chicago or people who have family there, definitely have a Chicago accent and lastly the Chicago accent is also broken down with racial lines, Enzweiler explained.     

Enzweiler first realized how different he spoke from those on the east coast when he first moved to Philadelphia. “I would say “Spring Garden and Broad” or I’m at “Spruce and 15th” when in reality any Philadelphian is going to say “15th and Spruce” or “Broad and Spring Garden”.

Enzweiler also realized that he used the phrase “Y’all” a lot more than most Philadelphians.

“Being from the Midwest you use a lot of terms so I use “you all”, “guys”, I will also say “Y’all”, and “everyone” or “folks”, “I would say either Soda or Pop I think it’s more common if you were to ask me this when I was younger I would probably more or likely say pop than I do now,” Enzweiler said.,

Both these SLA teachers Mr. Estey and Mr. Enzweiler have brought their unique phrases to SLA but both agreed that the word “Jawn” is very confusing and took some time to figure out what it meant, also Mr. Estey likes the word “but I half to help students not use it academically”. Mr. Enzweiler likes it as well and calls it “a fun little quirk for the city”.

In conclusion, no matter if they say a word differently their accents are fun and are unique in their own way and they both still have a special appreciation for their hometowns even though their teaching in Philadelphia.

Sarah Berg

Staff Writer

Over the past two months, the story around Facebook’s data leak has grown and along with it has the response from the site’s users. Everyone has heard about the leak, but few people know what actually happened between the social media platform, its users, and Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica is a political data firm hired by Trump’s election campaign in 2016, and their access to data on millions of Facebook users likely played a large role in Trump’s win. In fact, CEO Alexander Nix has been quoted saying that the company’s “revolutionary approach to data-driven communication has played such an integral part” in the win.

The firm collects data on potential voters to learn how to better influence them with political ads. The data from Facebook was made up of basic information; people’s “friends”, “likes”, and their locations. So, how did Cambridge Analytica come into possession of this data?

Facebook didn’t just give it out to them, in fact, the story really begins in 2014. In that year, Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at Cambridge University, put out a personality survey that collected data on not only the respondents but their Facebook friends. There were 270,000 respondents to the survey, but Kogan was able to harvest information on over 87 million people.

This collection was allowed by Facebook because it was under the guise of “academic research.” Facebook often makes money from selling data to researchers, and this is legal and no breach as long as the purposes are academic. The real problem occurred when Dr. Kogan provided the data to Cambridge Analytica since the firm used the data for political reasons. Since the situation became public, Cambridge Analytica blames Kogan for violating Facebook’s rules and said they deleted the data, but copies are thought to still exist.

This series of events has gotten national attention, and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, testified before Congress for two days in April in order to answer questions about Facebook’s handling of data.

The hours were filled with awkward lines of questioning where Zuckerberg explained the basic workings of the platform to Congresspeople, which produced many memes focused on the topic. For example, Senator Orrin Hatch asked Zuckerberg how he sustains “a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” to which the CEO responded, “Senator, we run ads.” There were also images circulated of Zuckerberg sitting on a booster seat, mechanically drinking water, and smiling seemingly on command.

This huge reception was definitely a contributor to awareness of the circumstances. In fact, both of the Facebook users who I interviewed directly referenced Zuckerberg’s testimony when asked what they knew about the Cambridge Analytica situation as a whole.

Junior Lucien Hearn spoke of the questioning, saying that the Congresspeople “are old people who don’t understand the internet, so they’re asking really dumb questions,” but that at the same time, “that was useful for anyone who needs to fully understand the conversation.”

Junior Ameer Johnson admitted, “I have no idea what Zuckerberg did. I just know he did something, I don’t know if it was illegal…I’ve heard about him testifying in front of Congress and about people’s information getting sold. I didn’t know what the company’s name was, who sold [the information].”

Along with the questioning, further pushback came from the Federal Trade Commision, which claims that Facebook may have violated the terms of an agreement made with them in 2011. The subject of the agreement was the safety of user information, and if it is found that there were violations, Facebook may have to pay millions to the FTC. Additionally, an investigation into the scandal has been taken on by the attorney generals from New York and Massachusetts.

As for users’ responses to the incident, a study done by Techpinions of 1000 Facebook users found that 9% of respondents had deleted their Facebook accounts. However, this whole thing may not even need be of concern to Facebook. Although stocks dropped rapidly following the initial exposure of the data leak, the company has made a swift recovery, which was aided by Zuckerberg’s responses to Congress’s questions. According to Forbes, during the first day of questioning, Facebook’s stock closed up 4.5%.

Johnson, who uses Facebook for about an hour total each day, says that the leak will not really affect the way he uses the site because, “I don’t put a lot of personal stuff on my Facebook, I haven’t really updated my profile since like 2015 maybe. So even though I’ve used it like every day since 2015, I just don’t post pictures of me, I don’t post a lot of information, I don’t even know if I put where I live on there.”

He added that “I’ve seen people’s profiles that have a lot of personal information in them, and I just don’t do any of that. I just go in there and look at news, at pictures, and memes. That’s really all I use it for.”

Part of Facebook’s appeal to Johnson is its convenience.

“I don’t have to use my internet browser to go on Fox News or something to look at stuff,” he said. “It’s surprising that I didn’t really know about this because Facebook’s how I learn a lot about the world issues that are happening. That’s funny- it’s one of the only things I didn’t know about…it’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re not putting that on here.’”

Hearn uses Facebook several times a week to connect with friends. He, like Johnson, doesn’t post anything personal, and said that the occurrences have strangely lent to him using it more because he has “actually remembered that it exists.”

He commented that although it is not inherently bad for all types information to be available online, “People should be aware of the information that is out there because if it is used, they should be aware of the implications of that.”

Kai Bradley-Gutierrez de Teran

Staff Writer

On April 12th Wawa will celebrate 54 years of business with various discounts and specials, such as free coffee. For most high schoolers in Philadelphia Wawa has a special place in their hearts. Now, why is this?

Of 20 people I asked it seems that on average people go to Wawa once a week. When you multiply that by the population of solely Philadelphia Wawa’s success becomes understandable. If you don’t know much about Wawa and how big they are you may not understand the buzz and how they could end up having 750+ stores between New Jersey and Florida.

Sophomore Dalnick Matos said that “Wawa is an easy way to get food when you lead a life of rush and sports,” and he also said, “Wawa is a place where you can find anything and everything from a simple coffee to a hoagie, and their locations are all over the city.”

When one hears this it becomes understandable how Forbes Magazine reported that Wawa has brought in 9.1 billion dollars in revenue, making it the 34 largest American private company.  

Sophomore Horace Ryans Jr. said that one of the reasons that Wawa appeals to him compared to other convenience stores is because “It seems safer, cleaner, and just a better overall environment.”

The general idea that there seems to be of Wawa is that it is just that what Ryans said.

Wawa has such an impact that even Junior exchange student Javier Chueca-Bosch from Barcelona, Spain even has come to feel what so many people feel for Wawa. He said that it is “A place for youth to socialize, something that there isn’t much of.”

Wawa without a doubt has a large impact on those who live on the East Coast, which is seen through there statistics of selling more than 60 million made-to-order hoagies annually and 195 million cups of coffee.

This April 12th take advantage of their various promotions such as any classic hoagie of any size for $4.99. And it has been discovered that if you want to try a birthday cake smoothie or milkshake click on the small goose logo on the bottom left of the order screen.