Op/Ed

Caroline Pitone

Staff Writer

During election season, politics is the talk of the country, but even more so for this year’s election. The rivalry between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has been all over the media. The difference of opinions has split the country. The country went out and voted for who they believed could run our country for the next 4 years. Apparently that is Donald Trump. But does the majority of the country really want him as president?

I have a confession to make: I was not so into politics, I thought it was a tricky topic to talk about. I knew that [describe what you DID know about the election, but I was turned off by the whole thing because [describe what candidates did or said that worried you]. There has been bonds broken over this election. This topic of discussion has been eating people alive and has started social media riots.

Even though I wasn’t paying much attention during the election, I was still surprised when Trump won because… When the election results came out, I decided it would be worth talking to other people like me — who hadn’t taken the election that seriously prior to November 8th.

What did those people have to say?

So what conclusions did I come to after talking to students?

After talking with students, I saw how passionate some were and how uninvolved some were. With that being said, everyone has a different pace and different way of going about things.  

The way people sometimes go about things while trying to change someone’s opinion, if they are strong about it, is difficult. If you didn’t know already, people are very stubborn, and trying to demand a vote for Hillary or Trump from another being, is a hard task to conquer. Trying to inform people is a good step, and trying to get people more woke is an amazing step as well.

So why is it good to stay educated on the topic of politics?

Being a good citizen of the U.S. requires active participation when it comes to politics. The habit of constantly shutting out important topics of the nation has progressed over the years. I have gone through not knowing enough about what has been going on, and I have learned a lot from it. Being surrounded by so many people who are involved in the news have opened my eyes. I enjoy debating on politics, because it gives me a different point of view, it is exciting. Even though I will not have the option to vote until the next voting season, I will stay on top of what has been occurring in our political world, instead of hearing the opinions from others.

Tamir Harper

Staff Writer

Dear Donald J. Trump, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon & United States Senators,

It’s been less than a month since Donald J. Trump was elected as President of the United States of America, and he has already deemed public schools a failed system. He has not directly stated it but by nominating Betsy DeVos as the nation’s Secretary of Education it is shown. For those who don’t know, Nominee DeVos is a billionaire, philanthropist and “education” activist. DeVos is a pro school choice and voucher program.

What is pro school choice and the voucher program you are probably wondering. School choice allow families alternatives to publicly provided schools. The voucher program is pretty much scholarships for low income families to attend private schools. These don’t seem terrible right? But, they both take dramatic funding from public schools and encourages schools to be for profit which means they care about making money more than educating students.

Betsy DeVos was educated in a pristine private school and attended Calvin College. She is a mother of four very privileged and private school educated children.

Nominee DeVos has no experience leading nor working in the public school system which is important for our country’s Secretary of Education. The Secretary of Education is spokesperson of education for the President, adviser to the President for education policy, Title 1 funding head and the face of American education. As a public school student whose district relies on Title 1 funding, I deem Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos ill-equipped to serve in such a key position for our country.

My school is not like one that DeVos or her children ever attended. DeVos and her children attended private schools that do not rely on Title 1 funding. Title 1 primarily supports school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families. Not only does it help those families but it helps families that have migrated to the United States.

The City of Philadelphia residents with income below the poverty level in 2013 was above 30 percent; many more people are low income but are not deemed impoverished. Taking Title 1 funding affects over 30 percent of Philadelphia residents and half of the United States population. According to the 2010 census half of the population are at or below low-income levels.  This does not just affect Philadelphia students, it affects half of the families in this country.  Many families will be out of a free and public education which will damage the economy because we are producing less educated and college ready citizens. Our unemployment rate will rise and our spending on government assistance programs like welfare will increase. Cutting Title 1 funding has a larger effect than some realize.

Mr. Trump I am not sure if you fail to realize but our education system nor our economy can afford to fail like your businesses. There is no filing for Chapter 7!

United State Senators I urge you for the safety of our education system to vote NO for Donald J. Trump’s nominee, Betsy DeVos, for Secretary of Education. We need someone with experience, a heart and someone that has experienced to fix this system that continues to fail.

Sincerely,

Public School Student

Tamir D. Harper

Deja Harrison

Staff Writer

¨You’re pretty… for a dark-skinned girl.¨

Are dark skinned-women not beautiful?

¨Black girls are always so angry.¨

You would be too if you were objectified and called ugly your whole life.

¨I like your type of hair, I wish I had hair like yours.¨

My type of hair? What does that even mean.

¨Black girls are so ghetto and rude.¨

Where do people get these ideas from?

I am dark-skinned — the “worst type of black” girl. I wear name-brand sneakers, weave, tights, and fake nails. I do not speak in “proper tone” all the time because I do not feel the need to. In those 3 sentences most would think they have me all figured out because of the stereotypes associated with me. I always wondered where people got and came up with these ridiculous stereotypes.

I get stereotyped as the typical mean loud ghetto black girl all the time, but that’s just not who I am.

Here’s who I really am:

I am a goofy person — like serious goofy. I laugh at any and everything all the time. I remember talking to people who are even now my friends and them saying that when they first saw me they thought I was going to be such a bitch because of the way I look. As soon as someone talks to me I start smiling because I want people to know I’m friendly.  I am happy 90% of the time, and in that other 10% I’m most likely upset because I´m hungry. My facial expressions categorize me as a Squidward even though my personality is much more of a Spongebob. We get wrapped up so much in people’s appearances and rumors we hear that we lose focus on actually getting to know someone who could actually be an amazing person.

Most people don’t see any of that, though. They just see my dark skin.

As a young black woman in America, I feel like I have a natural target on my back. I´m supposed to speak and act a certain way because those are the things associated with my culture and gender. I feel like no matter what I do, I just can’t shake the thoughts of those who assume based on my ethnicity and gender that I am angry, loud, and have no future.

It is hard to find my place and my happiness in this world when there are so many people out there trying to deprive me of it. Why can’t I be happy?

Larissa Pahomov

Faculty Advisor

In my first year of teaching at SLA — which was my first year of teaching in my own classroom — a student asked me, “do you love us?”

The question gave me pause. This was a student in the crankiest class I taught that year (hello, Fire Stream, Class of 2010) and it seemed, for a moment, that the query might be a trick. But I still knew the answer in my heart.

“Yes, of course I love you.”

The student wasn’t buying it. “What? You lyin’. We really annoy you in our class.”

Zac Chase, who was listening in, came to the rescue here: “You mean you’ve never been driven crazy by somebody you love?”

It was only a couple of years in that I came to realize how truly rare this conversation was at the high school level. Love exists between young children and their parents, with teachers serving as proxy; as those children become adolescents, the definition of love shifts towards romance. Our popular portrayals of “I love you” further narrow our understanding of the experience — with our heads full of images of (straight, white) couples in joy or anguish, we lose contact with the universal experience that love can be.

And yet. I am lucky — beyond lucky — to work at SLA. What I have witnessed here has helped expand my understanding of what love is and how it can save us.

When a student carries a friend in a cast down the stairs during a fire drill, that’s love.

When an entire advisory turns out for the funeral of a parent, that’s love.

When a teacher takes a student into their own home so they will make it to graduation, that’s love.

And when we feel concern, fear, even terror about the changing political landscape, our love for each other is not just comfort or safety, but an act of resistance against the forces that would prefer to see us tear each other down in hate rather than lift each other up.

Late in the evening of election night — but long before the results were made official — a question formed in my head: What are we going to say to the kids tomorrow?

That question lead to a few lines of text, which then became a collective letter that SLA teachers composed between midnight and 7AM the next morning. We got to school early, wrote it out on poster paper, and made photocopies for every teacher to read out loud at the start of first period.

These actions saved me that day, and it brought strength to many teachers (perhaps even more than the students).

At the end of the next day, I had a chance to debrief a bit with my advisory. I had to tell them: It’s not every teaching staff that would start a letter with “to our school family” and sign off with “love.”

And yet, I’ve been hearing and seeing expressions of love more than ever since last week.  Not just in my building, or in my house, but all over this fine city.

There are some dark times ahead. But it is the dark moments that make love the most precious, the most essential. Let’s not lose that.