分类： 赛事资讯

U.S. Citizens Are Dying and We Can Save Them

I have a luxury that 27.3 million Americans don’t: health insurance. Without it, my family would be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt or I’d be dead.

In June of 2017 when my blood became dangerously acidic and my kidneys started to fail, I went to the ER. In June of 2017 when Alec Raeshawn Smith’s blood also became dangerously acidic, he died before anyone could save him. Alec didn’t have to die though; the insulin prescribed for his Type 1 diabetes could have saved him from the diabetic ketoacidosis that killed him. Alec, who had recently turned 26, could no longer afford his insulin because he was kicked off his mother’s health insurance plan. Unable to afford the $1,300 a month cost for his insulin, he turned to rationing the insulin and died within one month of becoming uninsured. In the weeks after both of our incidents with acidosis, I went back to hanging out with friends and enjoying my summer. Meanwhile, Alec’s family was left making funeral arrangements.

There is only one way to prevent innocent people like Alec from dying: adopt national health insurance. With a single payer-program where the government subsidizes the cost of treatment, any and all citizens would be able to receive and afford any medically necessary treatment. Many fear that this program would cost an exorbitant amount of money and it is true that U.S. citizens would have to pay more in taxes to support it. However, US families, would save more money because they are no longer paying as much for health care costs like co-pays, premiums and deductibles. According to some studies, Senator Bernie Sanders’s health care plan, which includes restrictions on drug markups, could save the U.S. government $2.1 trillion in the long run.

I have health insurance. Insurance that covers hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, but that coverage runs out in nine years. My life after 26 is uncertain. Will I have a job that provides health benefits or will I be left hoping I won’t get sick again? Health insurance can no longer be a political bargaining chip that gets thrown around as if people aren’t dying without it. To make nationalized health insurance a reality, people like you need to decide health care is no longer a partisan issue; it’s an American issue. If we adopt a nationalized health care system, I will no longer live in fear for the day I might not be okay; I’ll know my name will never be splashed across newspapers reminding politicians that they’ve killed one more citizen with their complacency.

Works Cited

Berchick, Edward. “Who Are the Uninsured?” The United States Census Bureau, 14 Sept. 2017.

Epstein, Randi Hutter, M.D., and Rachel Strodel. “Diabetes Patients at Risk From Rising Insulin Prices.” The New York Times, 22 June 2018.

Haavik, Emily. “Mother Calls for Lower Insulin Prices in Wake of Son’s Death.” 10NEWS, 13 May 2018.

Stanley, Tiffany. “Life, Death and Insulin.” The Washington Post Magazine, 7 Jan. 2019.

Stein, Jeff. “Does Bernie Sanders’s Health Plan Cost $33 Trillion — or Save $2 Trillion?” The Washington Post, 31 July 2018.

Lessons for 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates, From a Soon-to-be First-Time Voter

I am one of more than five million people too young to vote today, but who will be old enough in 2020. I am 16, I run a political blog with over 100,000 followers, and I am offering some free lessons to candidates on how they can earn our votes.

Given the slim margin in the 2016 election, our votes could make all the difference. So listen up.

While young people have diverse views, Democrats focus on issues that matter to many of us, like gun control and climate change, making them more attractive than the presumptive Republican nominee, President Trump. The challenge for Democratic candidates is to distinguish themselves to capture the youth vote.

So what actually matters to us? It’s simple, but elusive: authenticity.

When politicians force relatability, they seem fake. Prior to her bid, Elizabeth Warren Instagram livestreamed and began by announcing to the camera, “I’m gonna get me a beer,” and then thanked her husband for being there, in their own house, as if it hadn’t all been scripted. One Boston Herald analyst criticized the image of the “multi-million-dollar Cambridge law professor poppin’ a brewski.” It’s not credible that Warren opened Instagram and decided to livestream of her own volition.

In 2016, Secretary Clinton and Trump both tried to appeal to young people. Trump used Twitter, and his statements were so unfiltered that they could only have come from him. Clinton’s messaging, however, felt phony. In a particularly cringey video, Clinton said, “Pokemon Go to the polls,” referencing the tween-trending app of that summer, Pokemon Go. It was clear that she had been fed that line and it felt condescending, suggesting youth votes could be earned by name-dropping a game.

This isn’t to say candidates shouldn’t appeal to young people — they must, because our votes can’t be taken for granted. In 2016, 18-29 year olds had the lowest turnout of any age group. The key difference between our generation and our parents’ is that we belong to the “Bernie or Bust” generation. 2016 revealed that we won’t choose between “the lesser of two evils”; if no candidate inspires us, we will just stay home.

This is why politicians need to appeal seriously to youth voters. Take Sanders: he is nearly 80, yet he is incredibly popular among young people. Why? Not because of his Instagram skills, but because he’s perceived as genuine — his politics haven’t changed.

To the 2020 candidates: the key to earning our vote isn’t pandering to us. Rather, we want to see that you genuinely care about the issues that matter to us. If you do that, you won’t need to worry about spreading your message on Instagram. We’ll do it for you.

Works Cited

“Clinton Drops a Pokemon Go Reference at Rally.” YouTube, uploaded by CNN, 14 July 2016.

“Elizabeth Warren Drinking a Beer on Instagram Live Gets Mixed Reactions.” YouTube, uploaded by CBS News, 2 Jan. 2019.

Ember, Sydney. “Bernie Sanders Begins 2020 Race With Some Familiar Themes and a New One: Himself.” The New York Times, 2 March 2019.

Fellas, Nora (@nastyfeminism). Instagram.

Graham, Michael. “Elizabeth Warren Pours a Cold One — on Image of Authenticity.” Boston Herald, 4 Jan. 2019.

Khalid, Asma. “Millennials Now Rival Boomers As A Political Force, But Will They Actually Vote?” NPR, 16 May 2016.

Martin, Joyce A., Brady E. Hamilton, Paul D. Sutton, Stephanie J. Ventura, Fay Menacker, and Martha L. Munson. “Births: Final Data for 2002.” National Vital Statistics Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 Dec. 2003.

Breaking the Blue Wall of Silence: Changing the Social Narrative About Policing in America

As a child, I thought of police officers with veneration — if I saw a cop in the park, I felt safer. I told myself that when I got older, I would be wearing the badge too.

At 12 years old, I learned about police brutality. When I first saw the video of Eric Garner being thrown to the ground by police officers, I thought it was a movie. Despite knowing that the officers were at fault, I refused to change my internal rhetoric; I thought the media was only portraying the bad side of the people I saw as heroes.

Then on July 31, 2017, a police officer shot and killed my cousin, Isaiah Tucker, while he was driving. Isaiah wasn’t just my cousin. He was also a young, unarmed, African-American man. I no longer dreamt of becoming a police officer.

But the issue is much larger than what happened to Isaiah. As highlighted in The New York Times, the Center for Policing Equity found that African-Americans are 3.6 times more likely to experience force by police officers as compared to whites.

Despite this blatant disproportionality, there is still overwhelming ignorance about it. Just last August, a group of people marched in Philadelphia, countering Black Lives Matter protests with signs and chants of “Blue Lives Matter.” People are quick to challenge discussions of police violence with the idea that “not all cops are bad cops.”

But when we argue in defense of the morality of individual police officers, we are undermining a protest of the larger issue: the unjust system of policing in the United States.

When I met Wesley Lowery, a journalist from The Washington Post, he was adamant that the social narrative regarding police brutality in the United States needs to change. “Conversations about police reform and accountability are about systems and structures, not about individuals,” said Lowery.

It is not that some police officers aren’t doing admirable things in our communities, but revering police officers for not abusing their power is dangerous — it normalizes police violence and numbs society to these issues. The idea that “not all cops are bad cops” belittles attempts to uproot the system. When we go out of our way to controvert this fight, we are perpetuating the inherent problems with racialized policing.

So as you think about policing in America, think of Eric Garner. Think of Alton Sterling, my cousin Isaiah, and the families that were left behind.

We have a responsibility as citizens of this country to call out corruption in systems of power. Policing in America is rooted in racism, oppression and privilege — it’s time that we recognize that.

I learned to change my perspective. So can you.

Works Cited

Williams, Timothy. “Study Supports Suspicion That Police Are More Likely to Use Force on Blacks.” New York Times. 7th July, 2016.

Lowery, Wesley. (2018, August 2nd). Personal communication at Asian American Journalist Association’s JCAMP.

Shakespeare: Friend, Not Foe

Now is the winter of our discontent. Or so Gloucester had said during the opening of “Richard III.” But whereas Gloucester’s winter has been made into a “glorious summer,” this metaphorical winter of our discontent is far from over.

Why is it winter, then? Why, pray tell, am I in such discontent?

It is in more sorrow than in anger that I wear my heart upon my sleeve to say this. We, as a society, are treating the playwright who wrote these lines like the great villain of English literature — when he’s far from it. For goodness sake.

Irrefutably, it’s a rite of passage in high school, dissecting Shakespeare’s long-drawn-out Elizabethan verses. These works all seem Greek to you, don’t they? Why make sense of them on your own at all? And because of this, Shakespeare’s reputation, good riddance, has seen better days.

Brevity is the soul of wit, said Polonius in “Hamlet,” so I will make my voice concise. Have you even noticed eight Shakespearean phrases so far in this article already? That is how vital a presence he has even in contemporary English. When you "gossip,” wait with “bated breath,” feel “gloomy” or “bedazzled” or “dead as a doornail,” you’re revitalizing the Bard’s memory. You “have not slept one wink” last night? Neither did Pisanio from “Cymbeline.” Did you ever think Rose and Jack “star-crossed lovers”? So were Romeo and Juliet.

How can we defame a man who has changed the very face of language? How can we dismiss him as irrelevant, the original harnesser of the nuanced thing that is human emotion, just because we cannot understand him word-by-word?

It is time that we banish the notion of Shakespeare’s works being highly academic, exclusive-to-scholars “scripture.” Why? Because Shakespearean plays are built from emotion. Complaints on not being able to understand his words, in fact, trace all the way back to when his plays were first performed. So what if everyone cannot understand every word of Hamlet’s dense, long-winding soliloquies? This is Shakespeare’s very genius: to portray the raw anguish and internal strife of a young prince’s lonely, grief-stricken heart. You need only follow the emotion, and the plays are lush with it.

As you read, acknowledge also the timelessness of this work. Motifs of racism and privilege in “Othello” and “The Merchant of Venice.” Ambition and female agency in “Macbeth.” Jealousy and unrequited love in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Blackened vengeance in “Hamlet.” These are ideas that transcend time, the things you relate to without having to understand every word on the page.

Shed your presumptions. Open your mind. Only then, pick up a play, and you will find within it a dish fit for gods.

Works Cited

Anderson, Hephzibah. “Culture — How Shakespeare Influences the Way We Speak Now.” BBC News, BBC, 21 Oct. 2014.

Brown, Stephen. “Why Shakespeare? Because It’s 2016.” TedXStMaryCSSchool, 13 May 2016, Oshawa, 656 Taunton Road East.

Gaze, Christopher. “Shakespeare Is Everywhere.” TedXVancouver, 21 Mar. 2012, Vancouver.

Shapiro, James. “Shakespeare in Modern English?” The New York Times, 7 Oct. 2015.

Limiting Science Education: Limiting Ourselves

We’ve landed men on the moon, mapped out our genomes, and split atoms, but for the past 20 years, nobody knew why two grapes produced plasma in a microwave. Energy is conserved. Carbon’s atomic number is six. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell … Throughout my entire high school career, I’ve heard all of these facts presented to me, but never once have I felt as intrigued as I have from this bizarre phenomenon. Welcome to the world of high school science education.

Sadly, my experience mirrors that of others my age. In a New York Times article, when asked to name a change they would make to science classes, high school students across the nation replied, “I’d rather understand than just memorize formulas” and “I’d like more hands-on projects where I would learn something about what I’m doing instead of just memorizing things from a textbook.”

For certain, memorization has its uses; repetition can help students master fundamental skills and retain key pieces of information. “Students cannot apply what they understand,” William R. Klemm, a professor at Texas A&M University, notes, “if they don’t remember it.” But too often does repetition end up replacing more meaningful forms of learning. In science education especially, it ends up stifling curiosity and creativity, deterring people from science careers and opportunities.

The truth is that most students in today’s schools are rarely exposed to the limits of our knowledge. As a result, many are led to see science as a source of clear, well-defined answers, that every possible question has been solved. They see the rigorous process of inquiry, experimentation, and analysis as two-sentence lines in a textbook. Rote memorization discourages skepticism while encouraging blind, unquestioning acceptance of facts.

Yet these qualities are the opposite of what science embodies. Science is not complete, but ever-evolving. Science is not linear and static, but sporadic and dynamic. Most importantly, science is a process that embodies tackling uncertainty head-on, asking questions that push the boundaries of knowledge. Each answer is never final, but instead provokes new questions that demand new answers. If we never present these aspects of science, how can we excite our students and inspire curiosity? How can we expect innovation and discovery from our students if all we teach them is how to cram?

The solution? Schools must embrace and teach not only what is known, but what is unknown. The role of science teachers is not just to rattle off facts like a broken cassette player, but to challenge students to search beyond what is taught in class. If we continue to teach just memorization, we misrepresent science and ultimately fail to inspire the next generation of innovators.

Works Cited

Dreifus, Claudia. “Ideas for Improving Science Education.” The New York Times, 2 Sept. 2013.

Gorman, James. “When Plasma Becomes Another Fruit of the Vine.” The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2019.

Klemm, William. “What Good Is Learning If You Don’t Remember It?” Journal of Effective Teaching, 2007.

Not Enough Boxes
by Summer Abdelbarry, age 16

I speak Arabic, walk around with dark skin, coarse black hair, and embrace my Egyptian culture through and through, and yet somehow, every time I am required to specify my ethnicity on a standardized test or a census, I am forced to forget my roots and grudgingly check the box that says “white” because it seems like the only option I can chose when the alternatives include: Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, American-Indian, or Hispanic. It feels like I’m lying anytime I fill in that narrow little “white” box, not because I want to, but because these tests and censuses force me, a person of color, to be invisible and hide behind this little white box.

The census is an area where these “colored” boxes have presented the most serious issue. If the purpose of a population census is to gain the most accurate and specific insight into the demographics of a particular area, then wouldn’t limiting the options presented in a survey, forcing people to fit themselves into one of maybe six boxes, only leave room for inaccuracies?

For example, a town like Dearborn, Michigan is listed as being 90.5% white, however, nearly 40% of its population is comprised of Arab-Americans who immigrated from Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen. The national census has backed all of these Arab-Americans into a corner, not providing them with any accurate options to specify their ethnicity, forcing them to check off that “white” box when in reality they are people of color. They are continuously discriminated against with their convenience shops getting vandalized and “random” airport screenings. Our country does not treat them like they’re white, so why force them to check off that white box? At this point, where censuses have become so unsound and inaccurate, isn’t the entire “race/ethnicity census-taking” system essentially void? What is the point of spending millions of dollars of federal funds to conduct surveys and censuses which seem to be completely failing in their intended purposes to provide accurate information?

The Census Bureau has made attempts to “produce the highest quality statistics about our nation’s diverse population,” in entertaining initiatives such as the Arab American Institute’s to add different race and ethnicity specifications to the national census. However, these attempts have continuously failed, presumably because it would have significantly reduced the overinflated counts of “whites” in the census. The issue then is, if accuracy in race representation is essentially unimportant in these censuses, wouldn’t it make more sense to just count the bodies? If we continue to repress various races and ethnicities with these little boxes and refuse to add more, leaving the results incredibly inaccurate, is there even a point to having the boxes?

Sources

“Dearborn, Michigan Population 2019.” Dearborn, Michigan Population 2019 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs), 2019.

Arab American Institute Foundation. Washington, D.C., 2013.

Wagner, Alex. “The Americans Our Government Won’t Count.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Mar. 2018.

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Rape: The Only Crime Where Victims Have to Explain Themselves
by Corinne Ahearn, age 17

“It’s your choice if you want to press charges.” The officer’s eyes briefly met mine before he went back to shuffling papers. “But you won’t win.”

Instantly regretting getting the legal system involved, I knew the only thing that would come from this was my assaulter getting even more enraged.

The only way to describe the powerlessness I felt in that moment would be to compare it to the reason I was there in the first place.

The sad reality for most victims of sexual violence is that their voice may never be heard or believed.

“Rape is the only crime in which victims have to explain that they didn’t want to be victimized,” says Callie Rennison, a criminologist at the University of Colorado in Denver. As if survivors haven’t gone through enough, they also deal with skepticism, victim-blaming, and rape myths. These are not only harmful to victims, but they skew the opinions of the general public on what rape really is.

You would never see a victim of a stabbing explaining that they didn’t want to be stabbed. You would never see people claiming the victim lied about being stabbed for attention. Why isn’t this the case for rape victims?

Victims are blamed less by the general public when the perpetrator was violently motivated rather than when the perpetrator was sexually motivated. Numerous studies have shown that victims of acquaintance rape were blamed more than victims of stranger rapes. The truth is, over 80% of all rape victims know their rapist personally, and rape doesn’t have to be terrifyingly violent for it to still be rape. Just because a rape “could have been worse” doesn’t excuse the fact that it’s rape. Why do factors as small as these cause such a decrease in the validity of a survivor’s story?

Not only do rape victims go through the initial trauma of the assault, but over 80% of survivors suffer from chronic physical or psychological conditions, the most common being post-traumatic stress disorder.

Thirty-three percent of women who are raped report contemplating suicide. Thirteen percent of women who are raped attempt suicide. These facts alone should hold enough weight to show that change is needed when it comes to the treatment of rape victims.

Fewer than 20 percent of all rapes and sexual assaults actually get reported to the police, a clear effect of these stereotypes and preconceived notions.

The statistics on those who bravely choose to press charges are all telling.

Of the small percentage of reported rapes, only eight percent are taken to trial.

In other words, 98.4 percent of rapists will get off without even going to trial.

That means only 0.006 percent of rapists are incarcerated.

Shocking? It should be.

Sources:

Brody, Jane E. “The Twice-Victimized of Sexual Assault.” The New York Times. 12 Dec. 2011.

Villines, Zawn. “Overcoming the Stigma of Sexual Assault: Know the Facts.” Good Therapy, 26 June 2018.

Mitchell, Damon, et al. “Effects of Offender Motivation, Victim Gender, and Participant Gender on Perceptions of Rape Victims and Offenders.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2009.

“Fast Facts: Sexual Assault.” Bstigmafree.

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Paying to Stay: How an Outdated System Hurts New York State Prisoners
by Alexis Ahn, 17

Prisoners can earn as little as ten cents an hour, working eight hours a day and six days a week. But imagine $1 of that being taken away every week for “room and board” in prison. In New York State, a portion of a prisoner’s meager earnings, up to $1 per week, is allocated towards the cost of their own incarceration. Many argue the collection of incarceration fees helps to offset exorbitant incarceration budgets, but this practice is immoral and futile.

A violent prison environment separated from loved ones makes rehabilitation already difficult, but the incarceration fee is another demoralizing factor for working prisoners. 60 percent of inmates have financially dependent families, and according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 57 percent of New York State inmates lived below the poverty line before their incarceration. With negative social stigmas surrounding prisoners, they can expect to earn even less after their release. Reentry into civilian life would be easier if inmates left prison with all the wages they’ve earned. The money made in prison may not seem significant, but to inmates earning 10 cents an hour, every cent taken away cuts into the money available when they’re released. A major challenge released prisoners face is finding meaningful employment. Being in better financial standing can help inmates focus on getting a job, which will lower recidivism rates.

The collection of this fee is also a misguided attempt at decreasing incarceration costs. Eliminating the incarceration fee would negligibly increase the state costs of correction by 0.0008 percent. This is an estimation based upon the maximum annual amount collected by an incarceration fee of $1 per week from 50,000 convicted inmates, divided by the $3.2 billion the state anticipates in corrections expenditures in 2019. The most effective way to reduce the costs of incarceration is to reduce the number of people incarcerated. Eliminating the incarceration fee will encourage the rehabilitation of inmates, decreasing repeat offenders, and diminishing long-term costs for the state.

Incarceration fee policies are far worse in other states. Stated in a New York Times article, “Many Local Officials Now Make Inmates Pay Their Own Way,” other states’ policies not only charge for room and board, but also medical costs, toiletries, and other items. Inmates in Maycomb County, Michigan have property seized or are put back in jail if they can’t pay off their bills, which are often thousands of dollars. Eliminating incarceration fees must be the next national advancement in prison reform, but New York State’s situation is less severe, making it easier to implement this necessary change.

If New York State prides itself in being progressive, then how can we justify not doing everything we can to ensure that prisoners leave prison for good?

Sources

Butterfield, Fox. “Many Local Officials Now Make Inmates Pay Their Own Way.” The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2004.

Eisen, Lauren-Brooke. “Paying for Your Time: How Charging Inmates Fees Behind Bars May Violate the Excessive Fines Clause.” Brennan Center for Justice, 31 July 2014.

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Religion’s God Complex
by Julia Bennett

In a 2011 New York Times article, philosophy teacher Louise Antony takes a veritable leap of faith and subtly poses a bold inquiry: Can we be good without God?

To answer this question, we face a daunting task—we must define “good.” Harvard philosophy professor Ralph Barton Perry defines goodness as “generous, disinterested, self-consistent, devoted, principled action.” This abstract description is—unsurprisingly—in line with the moral tenets in many modern faiths. As it has been for centuries, the perceived connection of spirituality to morality forges a polarizing image for churches of today’s world.

But are theists truly more moral than the rest of society? Does the belief in God somehow set believers on a pedestal, towering over everyone else like Goliath? I am hesitant to confine all members of a group to such a rigid label as “good” or “evil” without quantification. Absolution from absolutes is necessary in this case.

The theory of moral absolutism states that some things (murder, slavery, child abuse) are undeniably wrong, regardless of circumstance. This theory of objective moral goodness runs parallel to the theist belief of a higher law, and if a person desires to have a relationship with God, they must adhere to his commandments and keep his law on Earth (Craig). Yet there are countless cases of those in the church committing acts that directly violate these moral laws. Take, for instance, the 2002 Boston Globe story about the cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The number of clergy accused has now grown to 271, and sixteen years after the story broke, the emotional toll on the victims continues to push them to go public with their stories (Rocheleau). Although the church is supposed to be morally superior, their dissimulation of decades of abuse paints a very different—and disturbing—picture.

Conversely, atheists cannot be labelled immoral by default. In fact, many atheists adhere to profound abstract principles, and can remain morally self-disciplined without belief in a holy law. Case in point—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, two of the richest men in the world, are atheists, and both have funded and launched charitable organizations that help millions of people worldwide (“World’s Largest”).

Therefore, arguing that goodness is unattainable without God is baseless; many atheists can be good people. Likewise, asserting that belief in God automatically makes one moral is fallacious, as theists have the same potential for moral corruption as everyone else. Why? We’re human. We are doomed to mistakes and sin, and while belief in higher law can curb dark impulses for some theists, the only way for us to accurately consider morality is to separate it from religion.

Otherwise, we risk creating false prophets from men.

Sources

Antony, Louise M. “Good Minus God.” The New York Times, 18 December 2011.

Craig, William Lane. “Can We Be Good Without God?” Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig.

Perry, Ralph Barton. “The Conception of Moral Goodness.” The Philosophical Review, vol. 16, no. 2, 1907, pp. 153. Duke University Press.

Rocheleau, Matt. “Database of Accused Clergy in Boston Archdiocese.” The Boston Globe, 6 November 2015.

“World’s Largest Philanthropists Atheists?” The Great Realization.

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The Integrity of Pineapple Pizza
by Sarah Celestin, 16

For many years those who enjoy pineapple on their pizza have faced ridicule. Many people strongly disagree with the combination pineapple and pizza, and it is understood that not all opinions are always completely agreed on, but the perspectives of pineapple pizza eaters have been disrespected for far too long. The outright disgust expressed by non-pineapple pizza eaters is a contradiction to some of of the world’s favorite foods. For centuries various fruits,such as mango and watermelon, have been topped with salt and chili mixes, but the reaction to the list of concoctions previously stated do not even begin to compare to the reactions to pineapple pizza. Salted caramel, kettle corn, chocolate covered pretzels, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches: these are all snacks that are widely loved, but carry the same flavor profiles as pineapple pizza. So why is pineapple pizza so hated?

Scientifically pineapple pizza stimulates two major areas of the tongue that are responsible for flavor — sweet and savory. Our bodies naturally crave sweetness because it signals calorie intake, and saltiness because sodium is necessary for certain everyday bodily functions. The flavors of pineapple and pizza work so well together because it tackles two instinctive cravings at once. Pineapple is also a great source of vitamin c and magnesium. Vitamin c is essential for the growth, development and the production of collagen, and magnesium helps with bone formation and calcium absorption. Pineapples create a new dynamic for boring everyday pizza by adding a tropical twist and increasing its nutritional value.

Pineapple pizza eaters are not looking for validation, they are just looking for respect. They refuse to be belittled for their choices any longer. The president of Iceland, Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson, once said that should he be able to pass laws, he would like to ban pineapple as a pizza topping. Is the choice of having pineapple on pizza that bad to the point where a president would make it illegal if he had the ability to? Remarks like this revile the choices of all pineapple eaters everywhere. Let’s ask ourselves, Is it fair to judge what a person decides to indulge? Is it fair to make a person feel bad because they enjoy something you may not? Put yourself in the position of a pineapple-pizza eater before you decide to make a face or a snarky remark about the harmless decision of enjoying a slice of pineapple pizza.

Sources

Behm, Mackenzie. “The Scientific Reason Why Pineapples Belong on Pizza.” Spoon University, 28 April 2017.

Pogrebin, Robin. “Pineapple Pizza Tests Limits of Presidential Power in Iceland.” The New York Times, 22 Feb. 2017.

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We are the Generation of Self-Deprecation
by Faith Christiansen, 17

We love self-deprecation.

After all, it is what fills the majority of our favorite jokes or humorous memes. We can’t help but double-tap the post that states, “They said I could be anything!...So I became a disappointment” or “Who needs April Fools when your whole life is a joke?” Self-deprecation is a major component of our conversations. Besides, would it sound right if I didn’t put myself down every available chance? It’s the “trendy” thing to be doing, as it fills every comedic sketch, video, and post on your feed. Social media pages are full of these constantly circulating messages that destroy self-image. One teen described his experience as such:“I come off as someone confident, but I suffer from such low self-esteem. Which defines my generation” (Levin). But, when did it become not only okay but expected for a class of teenagers to respond “same” when someone makes a suicide joke or says they are a failure? And where do we as a society draw the line? How are we supposed to differentiate between humor and someone’s call for help?

Self-deprecation has become this generation’s coping mechanism and is our new way of maintaining humility (Bellis). It’s as if we have to validate taking care of ourselves. No wonder our mental health is deteriorating before our very eyes. According to Time magazine, in a study, 91 percent of Gen Z adults feel symptoms of anxiety or depression, with 27 percent reporting their mental health as fair or poor (Ducharme). We make ourselves self-conscious when we don’t have to, shame ourselves for things that don’t matter and are overly critical in analyzing failures that could be simple mistakes. It is an epidemic, and we’re all happily taking a part in it. It is self-sabotage and allows us to wallow in our problems rather than try to find solutions.

We are not only in a committed relationship with our misery but are in love with it. Suffering makes us happy (Sol). Our misery stems from the lack of self-confidence and grows into a flourishing constant state of mind. Each petal thriving from self-fulfilling prophecies hope for sympathy, self-generated stress, overeating, undereating, and critical self-evaluations (Luna). In a society that thrives off of being different, so many use that self-created pain to define their difference and create their individuality.

So be different, but more healthily. Know and advertise that it is okay to love yourself. Use all of your quirks to define your success. Pay attention to how many times you put yourself down and stop doing it. Replace every negative thought with a complement and become an advocate for self-love and self-worth.

Sources

Dahl, Melissa. “The ‘Self-Esteem’ Movement Is Over. Here’s What’s Taking Its Place.” Fast Company, 14 June 2018.

Ducharme, Jamie. “More Than 90% of Generation Z Is Stressed Out.” Time, 30 Oct. 2018.

Greenberg, Emma. “Opinion: Our Generation Needs to Stop Self Deprecating Out of Validation.” The Eagle, 2 Nov. 2018.

Levin, Dan. “Generation Z: Who They Are, in Their Own Words.” The New York Times, 22 March 2019.

Luna, Aletheia. “17 Habits of the Self-Destructive Person.” LonerWolf, 9 March 2019.

Sol, Mateo. “Why Your Misery Makes You Happy.” LonerWolf, 8 March 2019.

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Life Sentences for Children Should Go Away...for Life
by Jessie Dietz, 17,

In 1993, Taurus Buchanan threw a single, deadly punch in a street fight among kids and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the time of his arrest, Taurus, a young African American boy living in Louisiana, was a loving son, a hard worker, and a loyal friend. But most importantly, he was just a kid.

So why should Taurus, who was still a child at the time of his arrest, be given a sentence reserved for serial killers, cold-blooded murderers, and violent gang members? The answer is he shouldn’t.

Life in prison for juveniles has been a phenomenon plaguing our nation for over 50 years. Even after the 2012 Supreme Court Case, Miller v. Alabama, which established that mandatory life sentences for children were unconstitutional, many children are still unjustly sentenced and forced to spend their formative years locked behind bars.

Currently, there are over 10,000 children incarcerated across America. Of those 10,000 children, 3,000 are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. But prisons are dangerous places for children. While in prison, children are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, are at an increased risk of suicide, and are exposed to violent and destructive behaviors.

A 2006 study, which tested juvenile offenders for the level of trauma they experienced while imprisoned, found that two-thirds of the incarcerated youths tested reported symptoms related to high aggression, depression, and anxiety. Even more shockingly, thirty percent reported a history of sexual or physical abuse, and eighty-four percent had tried marijuana at least once in their life.

So how can we solve this issue? The answer is placing a stronger emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punitive sentences for children. Research has shown that the human brain continues to develop through adolescence, with the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for critical thinking and decision making, not fully developing until the mid-20’s. This brain flexibility not only makes teenagers more susceptible to reckless behavior, but also makes them more amenable to rehabilitation than adults. In Missouri, one of the few states that places a strong emphasis on juvenile rehabilitation, only 8 percent of juvenile offenders who were rehabilitated were arrested again, representing its vast potential for success.

In almost every aspect of life, the U.S. acknowledges that children are unable to exercise the same kind of emotional and mental restraint as adults: they are unable to vote, serve on juries, or even drink. Regardless, when it comes to the criminal justice system, they are still subjected to the same repercussions as adults. We must continually challenge this egregious double standard, urging politicians to emphasize the importance of rehabilitation for juvenile offenders.

Sources

Armstrong, Ken, and Corey G. Johnson. “When He Was 16, This Man Threw One Punch—and Went to Jail for Life.” Mother Jones, 4 Jan. 2016.

Cose, Ellis. “Rehabilitation Beats Punishment for Juveniles.” Newsweek, 14 Jan. 2010.

Gottesman, David, and Susan Wile Schwarz. “Juvenile Justice in the U.S.” National Center for Children in Poverty, July 2011.

Muller, Robert T. “Rehabilitation Benefits Young Offenders.” Psychology Today, 17 Sept. 2015.

Robinson, Rashad. “No Child Deserves a Life Sentence. But Try Telling Prosecutors That.” The New York Times, 10 Aug. 2017.

Roll Call Staff. “Youth Offenders Deserve a Chance for Rehabilitation.” Roll Call, 11 Nov. 2009.

“United States: Thousands of Children Sentenced to Life without Parole.” Human Rights Watch, 11 Oct. 2005.

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Cynicism Sells: Why Negativity Is so Popular and Why You Should Care by Teaghan Duff, 16

Scroll down through the comments on any social media platform, and you’ll find scathing remarks. Meet up with a group of people and the conversation inevitably turns to something wrong with the activity, their work, or their day. Even the news focuses almost solely on the negative. We’ve become numb to just how obsessed our society has become with venting about, well, anything.

Why do we love pessimism? The answer actually comes from our ancient ancestors; according to psychologist Timothy Bono, Ph.D., “We inherited the genes that predispose us to give special attention to those negative aspects of our environments that could be harmful for us.” In other words, we are wired to fixate on the negative.

Historically, genes focused on negativity helped us survive. As Margaret Jaworski writes, “Dwelling on the ‘bad stuff’ is similar to the sensation of pain — it’s our bodies working to keep us safe.” Though this trait isn’t necessary today, it persists — as do negative thoughts. They linger longer than positive thoughts, a phenomenon known as the “negativity bias.”

So, why do we need to change our outlook on life? It turns out the positive thinking your local yoga teacher preaches can increase your lifespan and rewire your brain for the better. Though it sounds cliche, negativity can actually damage your health. According to Health, “A 2014 study... linked high levels of cynicism later in life… to a greater risk of dementia.” Furthermore, the synapses in your brain grow closer together as your brain processes a thought to allow the chemical signal to jump from one to another faster. The more often a thought is processed, the nearer those synapses grow. As Steven Parton puts it, “Your thoughts reshape your brain.”

There are several methods to break this habit. One is training your brain to be more positive; as positive thoughts become more common, those synapses grow closer together and make your brain more apt to optimism. Another comes from surrounding yourself with positive people. Our brains, instinctually empathetic, will fire synapses to mirror the emotions it sees around it. Again, the more often those synapses fire, the closer they draw, and the more instinctual that thought process becomes. Our neurons don’t provide us with a quick fix, but we still have the power to fight the addictive pull of negativity.

Our lives aren’t perfect, but the added negativity we project upon them is up to us to change. No matter how many times you’ve heard the overused adage “don’t worry, be happy,” taking that advice could truly help. The world would be a much better place if we spent less time degrading this cliché and more time living it. It’s time to evolve our brains.

Sources

Alderman, Lesley. “The Year of Conquering Negative Thinking.” The New York Times, 3 Jan. 2017.

Editorial Board. “Negativity Wins the Senate.” The New York Times, 5 Nov. 2014.

Hoffman, Andrew. “Can Negative Thinking Make You Sick?” Health, 30 Jan. 2017.

Jaworski, Margaret. “The Negativity Bias: Why the Bad Stuff Sticks.” Psycom, 8 June 2018.

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FAA Negligence Plus Corporate Greed Equals Avoidable Passenger Deaths
by Will Golder

When I first heard about the Ethiopian Airlines crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 and the panic it incited with the flying public, I dismissed it. I’m currently working toward my pilot’s license and have no fear of flying. I said to myself, “I’m sure it was just a fluke.” As the story of the crash developed, my opinion drastically changed.

The crash bears a striking resemblance to another crash of a 737 Max 8 Lion Air flight in October 2018. John Cassidy of The New Yorker reported that both planes experienced the nose dropping uncontrollably shortly after takeoff, due to a flaw in Boeing’s MCAS autopilot system, causing the computer to falsely think the plane was stalling. Only one of two angle-of-attack sensors needed to be tripped to induce the autopilot’s stall-recovery system. A single false reading could drive the planes into the ground. I immediately thought “How did a mistake like this get through inspection?” The answer is a sad story of greed and neglect that cost hundreds of lives.

The FAA outsourced considerable elements of the inspection and certification process of the Max 8 to Boeing. That’s like a health inspector telling a restaurant to give themselves the sanitation rating they think they deserve. Boeing rushed through the inspection in order to compete with Airbus’s new A320 Neo. Had the FAA inspected the planes themselves, rather than allowing Boeing to rush the plane into production, the two crashes might not have happened.

The corporate greed goes even further. The New York Times reported that Boeing charges extra for two safety features, neither equipped on the downed planes, that could have prevented the crashes. An optional angle-of-attack indicator would tell the pilots what the sensors were seeing, and an optional disagree light would indicate when the two sensors are disagreeing with each other. Bjorn Leeham, an aviation analyst, told the New York Times “Boeing charges extra for them because they can. But they’re vital for safety.”

Boeing isn’t the only company that charges extra for safety features — it’s standard practice in the airline industry — but that doesn’t make it right. When the FAA lets plane manufacturers regulate themselves and make critical safety features “optional,” rather than standard, accidents are bound to happen, and the public is left to suffer the consequences. The FAA is grossly understaffed, lacking even a full-time agency head. It’s one of the many positions the president has failed to fill. The first step toward preventing crashes like this in the future is for the FAA’s vacant positions to be filled, and for the agency to fully take over the regulation and certification process of the planes used by 2.6 million Americans each day.

Sources

“Air Traffic By The Numbers.” Federal Aviation Administration website.

Cassidy, John. “How Did the F.A.A. Allow the Boeing 737 Max to Fly?” The New Yorker, 19 March 2019.

Tabuchi, Hiroko, and David Gelles. “Doomed Jets Lacked 2 Safety Features That Boeing Sold as Extras.” The New York Times, 21 March 2019.

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The Broken Catholic Church Needs Female Priests
by Noah Handfield, 17

Strong women raise strong children, but, according to the male leaders of the Catholic church, they are somehow incapable of raising strong Catholics. Small cracks in the impenetrable walls of the Catholic church seem to be growing, and there is only one way to mend them: the church must allow the ordination of female priests.

I live in a small town south of Boston, and the Catholic church has always been a present force in my community. Today, the Catholic Church is often seen as an archaic institution synonymous with child abuse. With all church leaders historically being men, over time a power structure that promotes inequality and abuse has developed. Without the introduction of women into the priesthood, abuses will continue. Seventeen years ago, a scandal with unprecedented impact shocked not only the city of Boston but people across the globe. In 2002, The Boston Globe, specifically its “Spotlight” team, conducted an in-depth investigation which revealed the systematic child sex abuse in the Boston Area. Church attendance steeply declined as did trust in community parishes and beloved priests.

In Massachusetts, people say “I have not lost my faith in God, but I have lost my faith in the church.” Today, there is a population of religious people who will not support a supposedly sacred institution that is so broken and so wrongful. Catholics and non-Catholics alike ask: What can be done to end clerical abuse and restore sanctity to the holy Catholic Church? The answer: allow women to become priests. Not only are women capable of guiding people out of the darkness with maternal light, but their introduction into a role historically led by men will break a patriarchal structure and change a distorted male mindset.

If women can become presidential party nominees, if they can run Fortune 500 companies, if they can teach astrophysics, then they must be able to become priests. In Catholic communities across the nation a new voice, a woman’s voice, would attract Catholics who have turned away. A woman’s voice always manages to “restore order to chaos,” and inspire hope in those who have none. Male leaders, when given complete power in the church begin to have a heightened sense of self. Priests often believe they can do no wrong; this is dangerous.

The’introduction of women into a leadership role forever held by men would, of course, be radical, but considering the current state of the Catholic church, there is a demand for radical change. A female and male perspective must stimulate religious conversation. The church's messages of love, suffering, and charity will be more relevant and profound for all.

Sources

Globe Spotlight Team. “Church allowed abuse by priest for years.” The Boston Globe, 6 Jan. 2002.

McDermott, Alice. “Why the Priesthood Needs Women.” The New York Times, 23 Feb. 2019.

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The Korean Dream Is A Korean Tragedy
by Jinha Kim, 15

November 16th, 2018. No planes are permitted to land in South Korea for an hour. It’s not a national crisis. It’s not a terrorist attack. It’s just an ordinary day in November except that sixty thousand Korean students take Korea’s college entrance exam, the College Scholastic Ability Test. Even the distant noise of a plane landing is an outrageous distraction: the CSAT is the decisive shot for students to achieve their “Korean dream.”

The CSAT is the Korean version of the SAT, a yearly exam spanning nine hours and eight subjects. This exam is the culmination of twelve years of study and will impact students’ lives for many more. The college a student attends “determines his future for the rest of his life,” says Kim Dong Chun, a sociologist at Sungkonghoe University. Lower-ranking colleges graduates have a harder time getting employed as “large conglomerates [tend] to hire people from a specific university” and entry “into a top university is still the key to economic success and social status in Korea.”

Given its importance in college admissions, the CSAT pressures students to the extreme. 53 percent of South Koreans students “who confessed to feeling suicidal in 2010 [have] identified inadequate academic performance as the main reason for such thoughts.” Jin-yeong, a CSAT retaker, exclaims “when I found out my score was less than what I needed, my heart broke. I felt like I wanted to melt into the ground and disappear.” Students like Jin-yeong undergo emotional breakdowns that severely lessen their self-confidence as they face the brutal future of not having a fighting chance at their chosen career.

As a student in Korea who studied in Canada, I am resolute that there is a better alternative education system. Although some assert that standardized tests are most efficient for college admissions, many countries have already moved away from the system. Canadian colleges do not put as much weight on provincial exams and focus more on extracurriculars and students’ school lives. Canada’s less competitive education system was why I found learning to be fun rather than stressful.

The “Korean Dream” has brainwashed students on what a successful life is: an excellent CSAT score and a prestigious college degree. Contrary to some beliefs that academic pressure is inevitable, students do not deserve this much pressure only to have twelve years of arduous studying judged, possibly poorly, by a single CSAT score. The CSAT – a hierarchical, life-changing test – should be replaced with a less heavily-weighted test, such as the SAT, in the admission process. Colleges should instead acknowledge the importance of extracurriculars such as club activities, and stop determining students solely by standardized scores. It is time that this Korean tragedy ends.

Sources

Choe, Sang-Hun. “In South Korea, Students Push Back.” The New York Times, 9 May 2005.

“College Entrance Exam.” Korea4expats website.

Koo, Se-woong. “An Assault Upon Our Children.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Aug. 2014

Sharif, Hossein. “Suneung: The Day Silence Falls Over South Korea.” BBC News, 26 Nov. 2018.

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Astroturfing: Political Injuries Caused by Fake Grass
by Emma Leek, 16

In August 2017, the Cook County government in Illinois started a public health campaign by taxing citizens on sugary beverages. Representing the disgruntled citizens of Cook County, the Can the Tax Coalition, made up of concerned voters, quickly stepped in. Even before the tax started, the group was producing political ads and gallantly speaking out against the tax. These go-getters were eventually successful and got the tax repealed within a few months, a perfect example of democracy and citizens directing change in their community.

Unless you notice the small “supported by the American Beverage Association” notice appearing in all of their advertisements and on their website (Can the Tax).

This phenomenon is known as “Astroturfing.” Astroturfing involves phony grassroots movements, hence the name that comes from an artificial grass brand, and can be anything from a populist-sounding group receiving funding from big businesses to bots and foreign hackers masquerading as concerned citizens.

Groups can claim that there is transparency and that “[o]rganizing isn’t cheating. Doing everything in your power to get your people to show up is basic politics” (Sager). However, when people base campaigns on deceptions, and get thousands on board with decisions that are far less popular than they seem, one has to question the ethics of allowing astroturfing groups to operate with as much leverage as they have.

Take Brexit, for example. What started out as European begrudgement and a referendum quickly led to a political, economic, and even humanitarian trainwreck. But, as the vote was a referendum, steadfast Brexit supporters stuck to their positions, claiming that the vote was final and representative of the will of the people. That seems plausible, until you learn that a team of Oxford researchers found evidence that “of the almost 314,000 accounts that tweeted about the vote, pro or con, in the week of June 5 to 12, 15 percent were heavily or entirely automated” (Dewey). According to the report, there were even fake Tinder accounts run by robots, which left an automatic Brexit-centered message whenever a person swiped right. (Challenging). Astroturfing to repeal a tax in one large U.S. county affects millions of people, whether or not they know it. Astroturfing to change the outcome of a decision like Brexit affects billions of people; it adversely affects every country with relations to Europe.

Astroturfing is deceptive and dangerous and calls into question the ethics of allowing groups to lie to people in plain sight. Moving forward in the digitized world, if we don’t call out Astroturf groups and set regulations on their transparency and output, we will allow them to continue stuffing our genuine votes into their faux ballot boxes.

Sources

Bradshaw, Samantha, and Philip N. Howard. “Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation.” Working Paper 2018.1. Oxford, UK.

“Can the Tax.” Can the Tax website.

Dewey, Caitlin. “How Online Bots Conned Brexit Voters.” The Washington Post, 27 June 2016.

Sager, Ryan. “Keep Off the Astroturf.” The New York Times, 19 Aug. 2009.

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From Kpop to Kondo: Why Mere “Inclusion” Isn’t Enough
by Nicole Li, 16,

“So, do your parents approve of you acting?”

You’ll likely find this question, or similarly-awkward variations, only in interviews with Asians in Hollywood. Recently, cries for increased Asian inclusion in pop culture seem to have been heard with the success of movies like “Crazy Rich Asians.” Yet, as one notices question after pointed question, one wonders if we have advanced as much as perceived.

A seemingly-innocuous, positively-received element of Asian culture can be found in Marie Kondo. The KonMari decluttering method emphasizes gratitude towards one’s possessions and keeping objects that “spark joy”. Ms. Kondo has enjoyed great acclaim, appearing on “Ellen" and “Jimmy Kimmel,” and scoring a Netflix special. However, closer examination reveals television appearances laden with offhand jokes about thanking your socks. Critics have called Kondo “a little doll” and her method “woo-woo nonsense.” These instances border on condescending, reducing Japanese culture to a gimmick.

Such slights are everywhere, from the obligatory “Which American artist do you wish to collaborate with?” asked of most Korean-pop groups, like they’re only worthwhile based on how they fit into the Western world, to surprised huffs heard when Constance Wu says she’s from Richmond. This phenomenon of unconsciously belittling and commodifying the unfamiliar is deep-rooted. But if we’re making progress, that’s all that matters, right? A New York Times article wonders whether “in a world where overt prejudice is seldom tolerated,” these concerns merely demonstrate “divisive hypersensitivity.”

However, lack of effort to understand minorities leads to devastating effects, apparent from extreme examples like blackface minstrel shows or emasculated, exotic roles historically relegated to Asians. They harm generations of people and how they’re perceived. Today, intentions are more benevolent — talk-show hosts aren’t genuinely trying to alienate guests. Unfortunately, no matter the intent, inclusion loses meaning if it exacerbates the Otherness of minorities. Paralegal Serena Rabie says “drawing attention to microaggressions” helps eliminate stereotypes.

These subtleties are dangerous because they’re found in the most liberal places, where diversity and inclusion are lauded. It’s easy to dismiss small injustices as paranoia or feel we’re doing enough. But it’s not enough to simply put Asians there. We have the responsibility to take them seriously, with an open mind, and to stop making jokes out of discomfort. Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, cites the importance of representations that are “authentic, fair, and have humanity”, where minorities aren’t “seen through white eyes.” They deserve to feel whole in their own right.

There’s no doubt that there’s much to celebrate for Asians everywhere. We just can’t fall into the trap of believing some diversity-box has been checked. We must remain vigilant in pursuit of a world where differences aren’t only present, but appreciated in their most authentic forms, not tailored towards Western-centric world views.

Sources

La Force, Thessaly. “Why Do Asian-Americans Remain Largely Unseen in Film and Television?” The New York Times, 6 Nov. 2018.

Mae, Clara. “The Racist Backlash Against Marie Kondo.” The Daily Beast, 8 Feb. 2019.

Vega, Tanzina. “Students See Many Slights as Racial ‘Microaggressions’.” The New York Times, 21 March 2014.

White, Abbey. “How Can TV and Movies Get Representation Right? We Asked 6 Hollywood Diversity Consultants.” Vox, 28 Aug. 2017.

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Self-Care Alone Will Not Fix the System
by Walter Li, 18

Mental health is entering the mainstream. The conversation has opened up as more high-profile individuals talk about their mental health struggles. As a mental health activist, I am thrilled at the momentum, yet I have reservations about the dominant focus of the conversation. Those reservations surfaced recently when I was posting a self-care tip about the value of journaling on the Instagram of my school’s mental health club. Something felt off; telling people to journal felt like putting a band-aid on a broken arm.

Like my post, mainstream conversations oversimplify mental health. Self-care (meditation, mindfulness, and other self-help methods) have dominated current narratives. Media profiles of athletes or celebrities accessing treatment miss a crucial fact: treatment is still too expensive and stigmatized for the vast majority. Self-care tips are not enough. It is time for mainstream conversations to address how the mental health treatment system is fundamentally broken. It is time we talk about how to fix the system to offer accessible, comprehensive care for everyone.

The default in society is to deal with your mental illness alone: according to Mental Health America, 56.4 percent of adults struggling with a mental illness never get help. Imagine if 56.4 percent of adults with a broken arm never saw a doctor. How did we get here? After psychiatric asylums were closed in the United States, the goal was to replace them with a more supportive alternative. That alternative never came to fruition, meaning a comprehensive mental health system was never put in place.

The debate over solutions has some consensus: according to The New York Times Editorial Board, no one “wants to return to the era of ‘insane asylums,’ . . . Nor does anyone disagree that the ‘system’ that replaced them is a colossal failure.” The core components of a working system include overall higher quality care with more treatment options and a greater bandwidth of medical programs including integrated and preventive care. This system must be paired with insurance parity and a culture that makes accessing care clear, affordable, and de-stigmatized for everyone. According to Mental Health America, this new system must “support individuals at all stages of their recovery.” Many people have promoted ideas for the exact details of this new system; however, these ideas cannot coalesce unless a discussion occurs in mainstream circles.

I do not write this editorial to say that self-care is less important. I write it to say that the status quo of the current mental health system must be challenged. This system is not working: it is too expensive, too inaccessible, and too stigmatized. We cannot go forward unless we carefully examine and alter mental health treatment. Now is the time to have that conversation.

Sources

The Editorial Board. “The Crazy Talk About Bringing Back Asylums.” The New York Times, 2 June 2018.

“Mental Health in America — Access to Care Data.” Mental Health America, 2019.

“Transforming the Mental Health System.” Mental Health America, 2019.

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Why I, a High School Football Player, Want to see See Tackle Football Taken Away by Keegan Lindell, 17

You feel a cool drop of sweat slide down your spine, sparking chills throughout your body. Your eyes dart back and forth in hopes of spotting the kamikaze player coming in. Shoulder to shoulder, you are a shield for the returner; however, a man disguised as a bomb sails through a gap five yards away and strikes head first into the teammate next to you. With a loud disturbing crack, anger, hatred, fear, and desperation fill your body. Paler than an albino, he rises with a stumble and it’s apparent that fear has overtaken his eyes along with a look of confusion. Knowing he isn’t alright, you insist he gets off the field; nevertheless, he needs to prove his manhood and forces himself back into the huddle.

Sadly, this is the reality of tackle football.

Excitement, brotherhood, life lessons are all extraordinary things that the game brings to your life; however, it brings brain diseases, concussions, and lifelong ripple effects as well. With the knowledge that our brain doesn’t stop developing until our mid-twenties, the last thing you want to do is injure it. According to the Nida Blog Team article, teens and children are at a higher risk for concussions because the “brain’s nerve fibers can be torn apart more easily.” Why expose our nation’s future to potential brain damage?

Human anatomy is not built for football. Humans lack a “safety belt” for the brain and instead have protective fluid that can send the brain flying into your skull wall and severely bruise it. Meanwhile, a woodpecker that slams its beak into a tree can absorb the the force through its beak and a muscle that wraps around the brain so it can’t collide into the skull. Since humans lack this, we are prone to concussions. According to the New York Times, a former NFL player is “three to four times more likely” to develop “brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.” Instead of being oblivious to these problems, we should be concerned about the symptoms of football and take action.

At such a vital point in my developmental life. I am ripped apart between my love of the game and my growing realization that tackle football is not safe. As an avid football player since the fourth grade, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that if I have future sons, they will not play tackle football. We need to make the wiser choice and lead ourselves into a safer future by removing one of my greatest passions. It’s sad, but it is time for tackle football to go.

Sources

Gonchar, Michael. “If Football Is So Dangerous to Players, Should We Be Watching It?” The New York Times, 13 Sept. 2012.

The NIDA Blog Team. “Traumatic Brain Injury, Drug Addiction, and the Developing Teen Brain.” National Institute on Drug Abuse for Teens, 19 Mar. 2015.

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China: It’s Time to Meet Your Daughters
by Lila McNamee, 14

In 1979, China implemented a one-child policy to solve its overpopulation problem. This policy created a dilemma for families, particularly given the cultural preference for male children. It is estimated that the one-child policy prevented the births of 400 million children, and forced thousands more, primarily girls, to be abandoned. I am one of those 175,000 abandoned children who ended up in an orphanage, ultimately adopted to be raised in America.

In 2015, China relaxed its policy, allowing two children per family. This was not due to the realization by the central government that the policy was immoral, but rather because they needed to protect their future. The one-child policy had created a number of unforeseen problems for China. For example, the distinct preference for boys had led to gender imbalance, and by 2050, there will be a major labor shortage due to the aging population.

China has attempted to address these statistical problems, but it is time that the government concentrates on the effect this policy had on its people, and what they can do about it. It’s time they focus on the personal, not the political. The human rights of the parents and children were denied for over 35 years. Some people have said that I’m lucky to be in America and that I have a better life here, but is that really true? Yes, I go to an amazing school, have an incredible mother, and love living in Los Angeles. However, I don’t know my genetic makeup, the time I was born, and don’t get to know my biological family. The Chinese government took my identity from me. I have always just been Asian….dark straight hair, brown almond eyes, good at math. I have never experienced the “lunch-box moment,” and just recently learned what the “Asian squat” is (and I’m pretty sure I do it wrong). Although I take Mandarin and feel connected to Chinese culture, I wish I knew more about me. What is my family medical history? Do I have siblings? Who do I look like?

The Chinese government took these things from me and 175,000 others. It’s time they try to make amends. I don’t want a generic letter saying, “We’re sorry.” I want a letter with my genetic information. The government could set up a program where families could submit their DNA, the approximate birth date of their child, and their province/district, giving Chinese adoptees a real chance to find the parents that were forced to give them away. I dream of meeting my biological family, and I think the Chinese government owes me the opportunity to make that happen.

Sources

Clarke, Aileen. “See How the One-Child Policy Changed China.” National Geographic, 13 Nov. 2015.

Clemetson, Lynette. “Adopted in China, Seeking Identity in America.” The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2006.

Lee, Jenni Fang. “A Letter of Frustration and Gratitude on the End of China’s One-Child Policy.” Huffington Post, 30 Oct. 2015.

“Somewhere Between.” Directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton. Long Shot Factory and Ladylike Films, 2011.

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Why Mainstreaming CBD In Consumer Products Is Detrimental To Our Society
by Emily Milgrim, 15

One recent morning, my aunt’s family went to a local bakery. Her toddler-aged daughters love seltzer, and a pink pastel can, labeled “Recess,” on display caught their eyes. My aunt thought they were adorable —what could be wrong with a pastel can with a playful name? She was about to pour the seltzer into her girls’ sippy cups when she noticed the fine print. The innocent-looking, beverage contained 10 milligrams of CBD. It’s preposterous that there is no requirement to include a warning, and that the store is not required, at a minimum, to alert the purchaser of the ingredient. Many CBD products have no age restrictions. Because my aunt was educated on the subject, she saved her children from potential harm. However, many uneducated consumers are unaware they are consuming cannabinoids, or their potential effects.

So, what’s the big deal with CBD? Why is it being marketed in everyday items?

CBD, also known as Cannabidiol, is highly commercialized as an additive in simple pleasures from ice cream to dog treats. CBD is a chemical compound found in the Cannabis plant that does not cause the ‘stoned’ effect that is associated with its sister compound, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This makes hemp-derived CBD currently legal in all 50 states. It is marketed to cure pains and anxiety, and is being experimented with medically. CBD may also have adverse effects such as anxiety, diarrhea, dizziness, and vomiting, just to name a few.

Many consumers believe that the benefits of CBD outweigh the possible side effects. However, this is not the case. Exposing an unneeded, drug-like substance to audiences who don’t medically require it opens gates to experimentation with its sister, THC. Having Cannabidiol marketed towards younger crowds, including items that attract very young children, such as desserts or soda, kickstarts this exposure to our society prematurely. Joe Camel cannot sell cigarettes anymore, so why is a pink soda can named “Recess” with CBD allowed?

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, in 2017, nearly 70 percent of all CBD products sold online were incorrectly labeled, and in some cases may have included other compounds such as THC. Moreover, the adverse effects of CBD are being studied in pregnant and nursing mothers, including developmental defects and the increased permeability of the placental barrier. Luckily, my aunt, a nursing mother, noticed this ingredient before consumption.

With these potential ramifications, should CBD be marketed towards shoppers in a non-medical environment? Absolutely not. All items containing CBD should require 21-plus identification when purchased, and warning labels should be mandated to alert consumers of possible effects. We must push for stricter legislation to regulate the non-medical marketing of CBD.

Sources

“America’s CBD Boom: Brazen Claims, Fake Products, Regulatory Scrutiny.” The Business of Fashion, 17 Feb. 2019.

Chaker, Anne Marie. “Cannabis Comes to Your Coffee and Candy — but Is it Legal?” The Wall Street Journal, 12 Sept. 2018.

Williams, Alex. “Why Is CBD Everywhere?” The New York Times, 27 Oct. 2018.

Wong, Cathy. “CBD Oil: Benefits, Uses, Side Effects and Safety.” Verywell Health, 6 Mar. 2019.

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I’m Not Surprised at the College Admissions Scandal, and You Shouldn’t Be Either by Maria Olifer, 18

The lunchroom was louder than usual as seniors read the news on their phones. Twenty-five million dollars? Perfect scores fabricated by an agency? Photoshopped athletes? No wonder I couldn’t get in!

The college admissions scandal erupted on March 12, 2019, as United States federal prosecutors brought to light a conspiracy to influence student admissions into prominent U.S. universities. Wealthy families would pay the Key Worldwide Foundation or The Edge College & Career Network—foundations led by William Rick Singer—which would then use this money to bribe test proctors to take standardized tests for the students; coaches at Ivy League institutions to assure the admissions officers that said student is a world-class tennis player despite the fact that they have never picked up a racket; or any number of other avenues to acceptance that could be paved with the power of the American dollar.

The frightening reality isn’t that students are being admitted based on their parents’ wealth; it’s that the general populace is shocked by this.

This year, I applied to 11 universities. Each university had an application fee averaging $80. I had to pay to take the ACT ($62 per attempt, 2 attempts) and the Advanced Placement (AP) exam ($94 per exam, 13 exams); for each prep book that I used to study; and then again to send these scores to colleges. This means that I spent about $2,500 on applications alone, and while my family could pay, the cost was noticeable.

However, not everyone is as lucky. To be a competitive candidate for top schools, students are expected to not only maintain good grades and have good test scores, but to have multiple leadership opportunities, play sports, and partake in internships in their spare time. If your weekend job is integral to your family paying rent on time, these résumé fillers become difficult to achieve.

The college admissions scandal should not serve as another reason to detest the ultra-wealthy, but rather as a platform for education reform. Going to college in America requires approximately 53 percent of parents’ salary in the face of a constant rise in tuition and stagnant wages; whereas in Europe, high taxes — anywhere from 37 to 56 percent income tax, paid over the course of a lifetime — result in the opportunity for “free” college for a majority of those who seek it. The reality is that college will never be completely free, but there need to be more plans in place to decrease the cost. While the Federal Pell Grant only covers tuition, applying it to encompass a wider socio-economic bracket would be less contentious than raising taxes on the public and would result in more instantaneous impact. It would be a start.

Sources

Brinded, Lianna. “10 of the Most Expensive Countries for a University Education.” Independent, 28 Dec. 2015.

Harris, Adam. “The College-Affordability Crisis Is Uniting the 2020 Democratic Candidates.” The Atlantic, 26 Feb. 2019.

Jackson, Abby. “‘Free’ College in Europe Isn’t Really Free.” Business Insider, 25 Jun. 2015.

Levitz, Jennifer, and Melissa Korn. “Two Parents in College-Admissions Scheme Indicted on New Charge.” The Wall Street Journal, 26 Mar. 2019.

Lombardo, Clare. “How Admissions Really Work: If the College Admissions Scandal Shocked You, Read This.” NPR, 23 Mar. 2019.

Taylor, Kate. “12 People, Including 6 Coaches, Plead Not Guilty in College Admissions Scandal.” The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2019.

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That’s Not My Problem: The Bystander Effect in Today’s Society
by Cassidy Remboski, 17

On a frigid night in the midst of Michigan’s polar vortex, I found myself stranded in a grocery store parking lot with an unchangeable flat tire. I was clearly in need of assistance; I was crying and my coat and face were riddled with dried blood splotches from a cut on my finger. Despite this, I was met only with sideways glances from over thirty individuals who likely assumed that someone else was going to help me.

We’ve all been in a situation where we feel compelled to help someone, but something is holding us back. This is called the bystander effect, a phenomenon when we push the responsibility of helping someone onto those around us. A study conducted by John Darley and Bibb Latane in 1968 revealed that while 85 percent of people would respond to someone in need, that number dropped dramatically to 31 percent when they thought four or more people around them also saw the individual (Darley). And in my case, that number dropped to zero.

In short, the more people who are present, the less likely we are to help.

So why is it that we neglect those in need because of others being around? Are we afraid of judgements? If this were true wouldn’t others view us more positively for doing a good deed in the public eye? Are we simply conforming to the inaction of others (Cherry)? If so, why are we trusting their judgements over our own?

Long-term data collected by the General Social Survey dating back to 1972 has revealed that Americans trust each other far less than in the past 40 years; making them evermore hesitant to help even their fellow citizens when in distress (Ortiz-Ospina).

But that leaves those in honest need of aid stranded.

Maybe in that grocery store I didn’t clearly vocalize for help, but maybe I was in a place where I couldn’t ask due to emotional or physical limitation either.

When we judge books by their covers we neglect the facts behind someone’s situation.

As Joe Nocera wrote in his editorial “It’s Hard to Be a Hero” after analyzing the bystander effect, “We don’t really know how we’d act until the moment is upon us. Sadly, science says we’re more likely to do nothing than respond...” (Nocera).

This statement holds true in today’s society, but maybe it’s time to break this cycle of pushing responsibility on others and take it upon ourselves. So next time you see someone in need of assistance, instead of assuming they can handle it or someone else will help, assume that nobody is going to help but you—and maybe in the future when you need help someone will do the same.

Sources

Cherry, Kendra. “Understanding the Bystander Effect.” Verywell Mind, 27 Dec. 2018.

Darley, John M., and Bibb Latane. “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 8, no. 4, 1968, pp. 378–379.

Nocera, Joe. “It’s Hard to Be a Hero.” The New York Times, 7 Dec. 2012.

Ortiz-Ospina, Esteban, and Max Roser. “Trust.” Our World in Data, 22 July 2016.

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Drop Everything And Yoga
by Rose Sanders, 17

Imagine this: In a dimly lit room, twenty people are staggered evenly, their phones and daily worries stowed away in cubbies just out of their reach. The gentle cadence of their breathing bathes the space in a soft but constant energy as they flow through different postures. In these forty-five minutes of movement, body, mind, and spirit are reconnected, and any semblance of stress gradually washes away.

What am I describing? Public schools of the future. While it is increasingly popular for offices to offer yoga breaks, we have yet to incorporate yoga into the tense environment of a public school. This introduction could be vital in relieving adolescent stress, as the National Survey of Children’s Health discovered that there was a twenty percent increase in diagnoses of anxiety between 2007 and 2012 in six- to seventeen-year-olds.

There is a certifiable link between teenage anxiety and poor performance in school, as adolescents are forced to balance their home lives, academic success, recreational activities, and navigate social media. A recent study found “a statistically significant association” between anxiety and substandard grades. This pressure only intensifies as students get older and enter the teenage years.

Adolescents spend the majority of their day learning academic subjects to prepare them for their futures, so what better place to teach them to regulate anxiety than with a practice that has the power to change lives?

But why yoga? Yoga leaves the body with more than just a good workout. One study discovered that yoga allowed participants to “focus their mental resources, process information quickly [and] accurately, and also learn, hold, and update pieces of information” better than aerobic exercises. Yoga practitioners also have larger superior parietal cortexes, which are brain areas that increase the ability to focus, as well as enlarged hippocampuses, key brain regions that regulate stress.

Three students at Briarcliff High School reaped these benefits after a parent at the school hired a yoga teacher to “create an opportunity for kids to learn how stress affects our health and emotions and find a way to release tension.” They reported that yoga helped them to prepare for classes by enabling them to concentrate, but also allowed them to relax after their fast-paced days.

With or without a hired instructor, yoga is accessible to everyone through the millions of free online videos that guide viewers in calming yoga sequences. If administrators blocked off a time period weekly to bring yoga into the classroom, they would be investing not only in the academic futures of their students, but giving them a long-term tool to manage their stress as well.

Sources

Castillo, Michelle. “Yoga May Improve Focus, Ability to Remember New Things.” CBS News, 10 June 2013.

Ellis, Fay. “Students Turn to Yoga to Cut Daily Stress.” The New York Times, 9 July 1995.

Mazzone, Luigi, Francesca Ducci, Maria Cristina Scoto, Eleonora Passaniti, Valentina Genitori D’Arrigo and Benedetto Vitiello. “The Role of Anxiety Symptoms in School Performance in a Community Sample of Children and Adolescents.” BMC Public Health, 5 Dec. 2007.

Nutt, Amy Ellis. “Why Kids and Teens May Face Far More Anxiety These Days.” The Washington Post, 10 May 2018.

Sutherland, Stephanie. “How Yoga Changes the Brain.” Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2014.

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How “It’s Okay to Be Gay” Has Become a Lie in the Trump Era
by Lane Schnell, 16

Straight people always seem to take delight in telling me, “It’s 2019, no one cares if you’re gay or trans!" As a lesbian, and a relatively socially-conscious one at that, I can confirm that this is a delusion of the highest order. Even if the individuals who claim this aren’t overtly homophobic or transphobic, there are groups within the population who most definitely are. Namely: the current administration, who make it borderline dangerous to be a queer American.

Now, Trump supporters will immediately point to people like Peter Boykin, who runs “Gays for Trump,” as evidence of mutual support between him and the LGBTQ community. However, this “evidence” is immediately counteracted by Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Setting aside its nonsensical nature, the ban is yet another declaration of who the government feels are true citizens. Trump and the GOP have decided that trans people are too much of a “liability” to die for their country, and they’re also trying to make it harder to even live in America and be LGBTQ.

A bill introduced to Congress on March 13, supposed to bring comprehensive anti-discrimination laws to the national level, will now likely fail, due to lack of Republican support. This mirrors the state-level situation, where only 20 states have specific legislation to prevent discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations/services. As Jodee Winterhoff of the Human Rights Campaign notes, “No one’s civil rights should be dependent on what ZIP code they live in.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly the circumstance that many LGBTQ people are in currently, or will be at some point in their future.

Even smaller departments of the federal government are shifting in favor of anti-gay/trans policy. The current head of the Civil Rights Office at the Department of Health and Human Services is Roger Severino, a former civil rights attorney and outspoken critic of same-sex marriage. He has decried the LGBTQ community (falsely) for being “an ideology that’s saying you can only go one way, against your biology,” and he concurs with Trump’s position on trans service members.

But perhaps the most dangerous and destructive policy that Severino has adopted aligns with his “conservative Christian” ideals: he believes that healthcare providers should be allowed to refuse care to gay or trans individuals if they have strong religious or moral objections to the patient’s “lifestyle.” This presents a special danger for the community, especially with violent hate crimes on the rise.

Queer people, therefore, are at a constant risk and disadvantage; the door of opportunity isn’t consistently open for us. We all must continue to challenge the people in power who label LGBTQ lives worth less, because of who we are.

Sources

The Associated Press. “Push for Broader LGBT Rights Slowed by Lack of GOP Support.” The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2019.

Green, Emma. “The Man Behind Trump’s Religious-Freedom Agenda for Health Care.” The Atlantic, 7 June 2017.

Pitofsky, Marina. “‘Epidemic of Violence’: 2018 Is Worst for Deadly Assaults Against Transgender Americans.” USA Today, 28 Sept. 2018.

“Roger Severino.” GLAAD, 2018.

“United States: State Laws Threaten LGBT Equality.” Human Rights Watch, 19 Feb. 2018.

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Can We Please Do Our Homework?
by Carolyn Strandberg, 16

As a high school student who struggles in math, I am so grateful that my math teacher has over 100 videos on his YouTube channel that give guidance to those that are mathematically challenged. The ironic part is that almost half of these educational videos are blocked by my school’s internet filter. Now, I am obviously no mathematically whiz (evident by the fact that I spend my free time viewing my math teacher’s YouTube channel), but surely there is nothing too scandalous about conic sections, complex dynamics, and correlation values.

The Children’s Internet Protection Act was created in order to “address concerns about children’s access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet.” While it is most definitely important to protect children from what they are seeing on the web, it is equally important that students are able to take full advantage of the extensive amounts of information that is available to them at their fingertips without being stopped by a robot policing their search topics.

Extensive filters deny students opportunities to research anything that entails even the slightest suggestive or inappropriate slant. Students’ learning opportunities are being hindered due to the fact that many face a technological roadblock when researching topics such as sexual abuse or breast cancer. Important topics such as these may be shied away from in school given the fact that students are not given the tools to learn more about them.

Similarly, filters that are basically telling students what they can and cannot look at are taking away students’ rights and abilities to choose what they view. In many cases, sources such as Wikipedia, Quora, and The Onion are blocked on school WiFi. A statement from the Association of School Librarians says, “Relying solely on filters does not teach young citizens how to be savvy searchers or how to evaluate the accuracy of information.” Kids need to learn critical thinking skills that will allow them not to fall victim to the growing usage of fake news we see today. Students need to learn how to use their own brain to decide what sources are reliable and which ones are purely created for satirical purposes.

If we are to replace the current filters that are hindering students from working as effectively as possible in school, what would we have to replace them? A solution could be to trust the students. A part of the educational system that many schools are failing to teach their students is discretion, self-accountability, and common sense. Decreasing the number of filters comes with an increase in responsibility of the students. Would this really be such a bad thing? Decreasing restrictive filters and increasing student responsibility sure sounds like a win-win to me.

Sources

“Children’s Internet Protection Act.” Federal Communications Commission, 12 Mar. 2019.

Gonchar, Michael. “Are the Web Filters at Your School Too Restrictive?” The New York Times, 27 Sept. 2016.

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Insulin: Our Lifeline, Not Our Luxury by Carly Teitelbaum, 15

It is not a privilege to survive.

Diabetics like myself struggle to stay alive, but fortunately, the chronic disease is not as fatal with the proper use of insulin. Yet, since the 20th century, insulin prices have risen drastically and continue to climb year after year.

A study at Yale University found that one in four diabetics ration their insulin due to the skyrocketing prices. 26-year-old Alec Raeshawn Smith was one of those unfortunate diabetics.

After being taken off his parents’ insurance plan, Alec’s insulin cost more than $1,000 a month, so he began rationing his medication; he was neither a candidate for Medicaid nor able to afford it without government assistance. But unfortunately for Alec, both time and insulin ran out.

Alec’s cause of death was diabetic ketoacidosis, meaning he died from an insulin deficiency that resulted directly from the high costs.

For all diabetics, the thought of not having enough insulin, like Alec, shakes us to our core. There are no generic versions of insulin available in the United States, and only three companies control 99 precent of the world’s insulin: Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk. The price for one to two weeks’ worth of Eli Lilly’s Humalog went from $21 in 1996 to $275 in 2017, a 1,309 percent increase in just 21 years. This is approximately $6,600 each year. Drug companies can upcharge for insulin since type 1 diabetics have no other choice; it’s either pay the price or die.

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of the death in the United States, and charging an absurd amount of money for insulin makes it a privilege for diabetics to survive. If life’s not a privilege for everybody else, why us?

One might suggest a form of insulin that is affordable and easily accessible: Walmart Insulin. Selling for $25 a vial at Walmart, this solution seems almost too good to be true.

That’s because it is.

Walmart Insulin is proven to do more harm than good, such as causing hospitalization due to complications from hyperglycemia.

Companies are finally starting to release cheaper versions of their insulin, and continuing in this direction is the only way to keep our diabetics safe and alive.

9.4 percent of Americans are diabetic, and that number is rapidly increasing. You might not know or love a diabetic yet, but if you do in the future, I hope you do not have to face this fight. We cannot just sit idly by while insulin continues to be exploited. We cannot just sit idly by while these drug companies take our money and our lives into their greedy hands. We must demand lower insulin prices.

Don’t make surviving a privilege. Make it our right.

Sources

Epstein, Randi Hutter, M.D., and Rachel Strodel. “Diabetes Patients at Risk From Rising Insulin Prices.” The New York Times, 22 June 2018.

Nichols, Nicki. “Why Walmart Insulins Aren’t the Answer to High Insulin Prices.” Insulin Nation, 16 Oct. 2016.

Stanley, Tiffany. “Life, Death and Insulin.” The Washington Post, 7 Jan. 2019.

“Type 1 Diabetes Statistics.” Beyond Type 1, 2018.

Weixel, Nathaniel. “Skyrocketing Insulin Prices Provoke New Outrage.” The Hill, vol. 25, no. 57, 21 June 2018, p. 14.

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Tiger Parenting: An Angel in Disguise
by Michelle Twan, 17

I used to not want to be Asian.

My non-Asian friends’ parents were affectionate and never threatened them because of a “B.” Mine were tiger parents, and I despised it. But when they transitioned to a more Western approach to parenting, I saw the effects and changed my mind.

My sister, who’s 11 years older, was raised heavily with tiger parenting, or the authoritarian approach – harsh punishments, little nurturing. Though brutal, it was understandable: my parents wanted their child to have a better life, and this was how they were raised themselves. My sister ended up successful — a Columbia dental school graduate — but she suffered from depression and anxiety because of the tremendous pressure placed on her.

I was also raised with tiger parenting, but my parents became less authoritarian after my sister got into dental school. I’m more emotionally stable than my oldest sister was at my age, but my grades and SAT score are significantly less impressive. Was it because of how I was raised? What would’ve happened if I hadn’t experienced any tiger parenting? Would I have been less motivated? Less worried about my future? If possible, maybe even less intelligent?

This leads me to ask: how should I, an Asian-American, raise my future children?

It’s a question that many American children of Asian immigrants ask. Some Asian-Americans are traumatized by tiger parenting, but it’s part of our tradition, our culture. A New York Times article reports that “we’re largely abandoning traditional Asian parenting styles in favor of a modern, Western approach focused on developing open and warm relationships with our children,” but is that actually good? I want my children to be raised with love, but also with a strict regime that emphasizes the importance of education — a cornerstone of tiger parenting. Tiger parenting leads to success. Asian-Americans attend prestigious universities in large numbers and make up “12 percent of the professional workforce while making up only 5.6 percent of the U.S. population,” my sister included. Tiger parents are intimidating, but effective.

That’s why I want to raise my children through tiger parenting — with enough love to minimize emotional scars but still ensure success: a mix of me and my sister. Other Asian-Americans should consider this, too; after all, with each successive generation, immigrant children do worse, and the absence of tiger parenting is partly to blame. I don’t want my parents’ sacrifices and hardships to be in vain because I didn’t raise successful, intelligent, “Asian” children, and I know the same goes for other Asian-Americans. We’re Americans, but we don’t need to abandon our traditional method of raising children. With tweaks, tiger parenting doesn’t have to be abhorred – it can be embraced and appreciated.

Sources

Gee, Buck, and Denise Peck. “Asian Americans Are the Least Likely Group in the U.S. to Be Promoted to Management.” Harvard Business Review, 31 May 2018.

Park, Ryan. “The Last of the Tiger Parents.” The New York Times, 22 June 2018.

Weissbourd, Richard. “Why Do Immigrant Children Struggle More Than Their Parents Did?” The New Republic, 25 Feb. 2002.

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Why We Should Teach The Truth About American History
by Patrick Wang , 16

The bell rings, and I barely make it into my AP U.S. History class. I look up at the board: “Today’s Topic: Slavery.” I do not think much about it because slavery has been a part of the Georgia curriculum since elementary school. What more could I possibly need to learn about? Yet, as I read through sickening excerpts of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and watch clips of “Twelve Years a Slave,” I can feel the horror building up inside me. I am confronted by my own ignorance, the cruel reality of history clashing with my own sugar- coated understanding. I realize that I have been fed a filtered version of history all my life. In the end, however, I am thankful for the opportunity to learn the truth in my AP U.S. history class, because for millions of other students, the truth is a privilege denied in the name of “patriotism.”

In 2015, College Board’s AP U.S. History course came under fire for “painting American history in too negative a light.” Conservative critics charged that the framework of the course was “biased and unpatriotic,” with GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson even calling the course “so anti-American that students who completed it would be ready to sign up for ISIS.” Many states such as Texas and Georgia even threatened to pull the course all together. Caving under pressure, the College Board changed the AP U.S. History framework to include a new emphasis on “American exceptionalism.”

This controversy brings to light the U.S.’s inability to own up to its past. Whether we like it or not, the U.S. is a country built upon not just democracy but exploitation and injustice. Events like the My Lai massacre and the slave trade are scary and real. We can not casually sweep the ugly pieces of history under the rug and hope that our rosy facade continues to fool the next generation into being “patriotic.” Patriotism is not the pride you feel when you believe that your country has done no wrong. Patriotism is the pride you feel when you know that your country is on the present journey to righting its past wrongs and preventing future wrongs. By indoctrinating students with the idea of “American exceptionalism” rather than teaching them the truth about American history, the only people we end up fooling are ourselves. As the Yale professor of American Studies Jon Butler puts it, “America emerged out of many contentious issues. If we understand those issues, [only then can we] figure out how to move forward in the present.” Thus, knowing the truth about American history should not be a privilege. It is a right.

Sources

Ganim, Sara. “Making History: Battles Brew over Alleged Bias in Advanced Placement Standards.” CNN, 24 Feb. 2015.

Quinlan, Casey. “College Board Caves to Conservative Pressure, Changes AP U.S. History Curriculum.” Think Progress, 30 July 2015.

Schlanger, Zoe. “Revised AP U.S. History Standards Will Emphasize American Exceptionalism.” Newsweek, 29 July 2015.

Simon, Cecilia Capuzzi. “Taking the Politics Out of American History (and Out of A.P.).” The New York Times, 8 Apr. 2016.

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A Student Program to Heal a Divided America
by Yu Qi Xin, 15

America’s soul is splitting in two, and it’s not hard to see why.

Part of the problem is messaging. Cable news caters content to divergent audiences. Social media bolsters the extremes: feeds are deep red or deep blue, and programmers in Menlo Park are compensated to keep those colors intoxicating. The other half of the problem is structural. A flight to Milwaukee or Boise can be pricier than one to Milan or Berlin. Soaring real estate prices in cities keep qualified talent from other regions away. Interstate migration, an indicator of labor market dynamism and cultural integration, is down. Americans simply don’t view the whole country as “their own.” The nation aches for efforts to bridge this chasm, to build a less fractured society for future generations.

Such an effort exists in Europe, in the form of the Erasmus Program. Erasmus is an EU-funded scholarship that funds university students to study or work abroad. An small-town kid from a farming family in Crete might be thrown into bustling city life in London. A native Parisian might explore the remnants of Roman civilization in Croatia. Erasmus participants overcome cultural challenges through classroom discussions, shared housing, and a decent amount of partying. Participants gain a home away from home and, according to exit interviews, leave feeling “more European.”

America is not a collection of nation states, but like Europe, we are a divided polity with a weakened ethos. An American Erasmus (we could call it “The Whitman Program,” or maybe something less literary) would give students the opportunity to live and learn in a region of the country they might not otherwise explore. A technical student from inner- city Camden might go live with a family in Huntsville to study space technology. An artistic student from South Carolina could spend a semester with a family in New York to study the Harlem Renaissance. Program directors could pair students according to their cultural and academic interests. The Department of Education could underwrite the program and award distinctions to successful participants. Properly implemented, the program would help youth from across the nation form long-lasting interregional connections. Participants would emerge with a more expansive view of the country and gain a sense of belonging transcending region and tribe.

Such a program should not model itself after Peace Corps or Teach For America. Students would not be deployed as “helpers” to targeted region “in need.” An American Erasmus would create a platform for friendship, unlikely connections, mutual understanding, and some awkward teenage moments. Our divided nation is at a dangerous juncture. More and more Americans are seeing fellow countrymen as “the enemy.” An American Erasmus could help a house divided transform into a house united.

Sources

Caputo-Pearl, Alex. “Teach for America Shows the Downside of Quick Fixes to Education.” The New York Times, 30 Aug. 2012.

“Erasmus Students Feel More European.” Youth Employment Decade, 15 May 2018.

Frey, William H. “U.S. Migration Still at Historically Low Levels, Census Shows.” Brookings, 20 Nov. 2017.

Keegan, Jon. “Blue Feed, Red Feed.” The Wall Street Journal, 18 May 2016.

Schuetze, Christopher F. “Erasmus Exchange Program Celebrates 25th Year.” The New York Times, 29 July 2012.

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Moving Forwards: Stopping Volunteer Tourism, by Jack Jian Kai Zhang, 16

No Good Samaritan would intentionally do harm to the 69 million refugees and 766 million individuals living in extreme poverty around the world. Unfortunately, this happens all too frequently. “Voluntourists” are volunteers — often from the West — who pay companies to arrange short-term charity work in poor countries, ostensibly to assist the less fortunate. I’ve seen plenty of my peers’ pictures on these trips. Voluntourists, my friends included, may have noble intentions with volunteering abroad, but they represent the commercial corruption of charity and inadvertently reinforce the imperial conceptions of foreign cultures that contributed to global wealth inequality in the first place. We, both as students and as global citizens, ought to avoid falling into the feel-good trap of direct foreign volunteering.

Firstly, voluntourism agencies divert money from those who need it most. Over two billion dollars are spent each year on agency-arranged voluntourism trips. This sum nearly quadruples the total U.S. economic assistance in 2017 to South Sudan, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — all countries with severe humanitarian crises. And yet, despite massive spending on voluntourism, proportionally little good comes of it: at one major voluntourism agency, less than a third of the money spent ultimately reaches communities in need. The rest disappears into administrative costs, advertising spending, and shareholders’ pockets. In terms of financial efficiency, voluntourism falls short.

Even if the financial frictions to foreign volunteering were justified, it remains far from clear that voluntourists are actually able to provide the assistance that they intend to give. For example, the introduction of short-term volunteers to orphaned children can easily cause serious developmental harm. The children, often looking for long-term emotional attachment, end up repeatedly losing their short-term volunteer friends. Indeed, while the United Nations Refugee Agency lists fundraising, planned gifts, and one-time donations under its “How to Help” page, directly volunteering in orphanages is notably absent.

Still, proponents of voluntourism argue that it is better than nothing: costly, yes, but nevertheless a form of much-needed assistance to the less fortunate. However, this defense highlights a less obvious, and arguably more fundamental, issue with voluntourism: its roots in a colonial psyche. The notion that untrained Westerners can meaningfully better foreign communities is both unrealistic and based on an unspoken Western myth of superiority. It is as if foreign cultures will be elevated by speaking Western languages, by conforming to Western culture, and with the direct assistance of amateur Western volunteers. Voluntourism paints a picture of inferiority and dependence for givers and receivers of voluntourism alike. Eliminating this form of international support, which reinforces imperialist visions of “saving” the Global South, will contribute to a future based on mutual respect and solidarity instead of pity and reliance.

Sources

Bearak, Max and Lazaro Gamio. “The U.S. Foreign Aid Budget, Visualized.” The Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2016.

Blackledge, Sam. “In Defence of ‘Voluntourists.’” The Guardian, 25 Feb. 2013.

Hartman, Eric, Cody Morris Paris, and Brandon Blache-Cohen. “Fair Trade Learning: Ethical Standards for Community-Engaged International Volunteer Tourism.” Tourism and Hospitality Research, vol. 14, no. 1-2, 10 June 2014, p. 108-116.

“How to Help.” USA for UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, 2018.

Howton, Elizabeth. “Nearly Half the World Lives on Less than $5.50 a Day.” The World Bank, 17 Oct. 2018.

“Refugee Facts.” USA for UNHCR: The UN Refugee Agency, 2018.

Rosenberg, Tina. “How to Really Help Children Abroad.” The New York Times, 23 Oct. 2018.

Wesby, Maya. “The Exploitative Selfishness of Volunteering Abroad.” Newsweek, 18 Aug. 2018.

“Where Does the Money Go?” Projects Abroad, 2014.

“Death Is Hard. Let’s Talk About It.”
By Frances Brogan, age 14, J.P. McCaskey High School, Lancaster, Penn.

“Passed away.” “Went to join his Creator.” “Lost his battle with cancer.” My friends and relatives used these phrases to describe my dad’s death two years ago. My grief made them uncomfortable. They resorted to euphemisms because they couldn’t even say the word “died.”

American culture is plagued by an inability to talk about our feelings, most painfully felt in an inability to talk about death. We’re so scared of feeling deeply that we do each other a disservice by failing to honor each other’s heartache.

This is partially due to our fear of our mortality, but it’s also due to our culture’s superficiality. We love small talk; we say “Hey, how are you?” to acquaintances and expect them to respond, “I’m fine.” We don’t stop and invite them to elaborate. We are frightened of connecting with others beyond the surface because that would require exposing our emotions and revealing that beneath our polished exteriors, we are vulnerable and broken and definitely not fine. In fact, almost 20 percent of the American adult population deals with an anxiety disorder, and the suicide rate rose 33 percent between 1999 and 2017. Yet even in the wake of this escalation, our culture continues to discourage emotional expression.

American superficiality also creates an inhuman idolization of productivity. We focus almost exclusively on working hard and getting ahead in life, yet devalue talking about our feelings, associating vulnerability with incompetence. We care most about success and wealth. In 2018, Americans rated money and their careers as higher priorities than friendship. Our materialism limits our capacity for emotional connection. This capitalist paradigm, where even our feelings are commodities, engenders a sense of obligation to help in concrete ways, but an aversion to the most profound kind of help: emotional support, something that can’t be bought or sold.

So we send bereaved families meals, flowers, and saccharine “sorry for your loss” cards. And we reduce our grief to the palatability of a post on social media, where 72 percent of Americans are active. We summarize a person’s existence in one cute picture and a generic caption, carefully curating the most appealing aspects of our lives instead of authentically addressing it all.

We’re living through a global pandemic. The climate crisis threatens to render Earth uninhabitable by 2050 unless we mitigate it in the next ten years. Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by death. I struggle with this every morning when I wake up and realize all over again that my dad is gone. But confronting our vulnerability now, in this pivotal yet terrifying historical moment, is the only way to transcend the barriers that divide us and carry our fundamentally human sorrow together.

Works Cited

“Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United States.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 12 June 2019.

Gander, Kashmira. “Americans Value Money More than Friendship, Survey Reveals.” Newsweek, 23 Nov. 2018.

Siegel, Lee. “Why Is America So Depressed?” The New York Times, 2 Jan. 2020.

Spratt, David, and Ian Dunlop. “Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach.” Breakthrough — National Centre for Climate Restoration Australia, May 2019.

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“You Can’t Be Free if You’re Dead: Why Freedom Isn’t Free”
By Xinni Chen, age 16, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Mass.

“This is a free country,” the anti-lockdown protester shouted. “Go to China if you want communism.”

I’m from China. Amid the pandemic, I would much rather be in a communist regime than in the “land of the free” because freedom isn’t absolute.

When I flew back to China from the United States, I was restrained to a small room away from my parents despite having tested negative for the virus. At 4 p.m. every day, I video call the neighborhood committee and take my temperature for them. The government tracks my movements through cellphone signals and bars people who have been to Wuhan or other countries in the last 14 days from entering public places. Though it might seem draconian, this method has been working. The World Health Organization declared that “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic.”

I gave up my freedom of movement in exchange for the well-being of my parents and the citizens of Shanghai. Your freedom to party on the beaches of Florida and your right to liberty infringes upon the right of others to live. When essential workers are forced to the front-lines of this brutal war, your freedom isn’t free anymore.

Freedom is worth protecting, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be abridged. As John Stuart Mills, the 19th-century philosopher, explains, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against their will, is to prevent harm to others.” It is legitimate for the government to prevent third-party harm. Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Your freedom to protest ends when Eric Feigl-Ding, a Harvard public health scientist, wrote on Twitter “2500 anti-lockdown rally in Olympia Washington. I predict a new epidemic surge … So increase in 2-4 weeks from now.”

When two million people agree that “government orders that interfere with our most basic liberties are CERTAIN to do more harm than good,” we have to re-examine our fundamental liberties. Most people agree that inalienable rights include “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” However, the right to life is a prerequisite for liberty and happiness. You lose the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness when you’re buried six feet underground. Furthermore, the economy may be important, but it can always rebound; human cadavers cannot be brought back to life.

Living in both the United States and China has taught me that freedom isn’t absolute. Isolating in Shanghai, I am not free. I’m bored, but alive and that’s all right with me.

Works Cited

Brito, Christopher. “Spring Breakers Say Coronavirus Pandemic Won’t Stop Them from Partying.” CBS News, 25 March 2020.

Gabbatt, Adam. “US Anti-Lockdown Rallies Could Cause Surge in Covid-19 Cases, Experts Warn.” The Guardian, 20 April 2020.

Gunia, Amy. “Would China’s Draconian Coronavirus Lockdown Work Anywhere Else?” Time, 13 March 2020.

Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty; Representative Government; The Subjection of Women. Oxford University Press, 1971.

Russonello, Giovanni. “What’s Driving the Right-Wing Protesters Fighting the Quarantine?” The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020.

Warzel, Charlie. “Protesting for the Freedom to Catch the Coronavirus.” The New York Times, 19 April 2020.

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“From Silence to ‘Stigma Free’: Why We Need to Talk About Suicide”
By Veronika Coyle, age 16, Northern Highlands Regional High School, Allendale, N.J.

After a suicide in my local district, the magnet school which I attended last year simply sent out a two-sentence mass email saying the guidance office was always open to make appointments. My district put up a few signs claiming to be “stigma-free” in what was received as more of an attempt to deflect blame than to comfort those grieving a loss. Watching a few videos of bad actors pretending to be suicidal does not cut it. We as students need a respectful and open proactive dialogue about suicide before this epidemic spreads any further.

Of course, schools have procedures in place to handle the aftermath of suicide. Most high schools have crisis teams in place and specific plans to ease students in the coping process, such as the Suicide Prevention Resource Center’s After Suicide: A Toolkit for Schools, but minimizing suicide contagion is not enough. Schools have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their students in general, which means minimizing all suicide risk proactively rather than responsively. According to The New York Times article “The Crisis in Youth Suicide,” suicide is the second leading cause of death among high-school age students, and youth suicide attempts have quadrupled over six years. With solely reactive procedures in place, this number will never see a decline.

Many teachers and administrators believe reaching out to students directly about suicide will somehow encourage suicidal thoughts. However, a 2014 study found that “talking about suicide may, in fact, reduce, rather than increase suicidal ideation, and may lead to improvements in mental health in treatment-seeking populations.” While it may appear a daunting task, there are many more effective ways to discuss suicide than the responses many of us may have seen in our schools. Clinical psychologist Thea Gallagher recommends creating small groups monitored by guidance counselors and faculty to encourage students to speak up.

Although many students may be hesitant to say anything at first, their behavior and comments may help faculty identify at-risk students, as well as create bonds between students and staff. As mandated reporters, teachers are key in helping prevent teenage suicide by enlisting mental health professionals and counselors to intervene if necessary.

Suicide cannot be a reactive topic of discussion; the goal is to prevent suicides in the first place, not just to minimize the damages. This is a sensitive topic for many, but it is a necessary subject of conversation. The tragedy of teenage suicide will persist at an alarming rate until changes are implemented. We are not a “stigma-free” community, and we deserve better than a mass email and some videos. We need this discussion now, not when the next teenager chooses to end their life.

Works Cited

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and Suicide Prevention Resource Center. “After a Suicide: A Toolkit for Schools.” Education Development Center and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2018.

Brody, Jane E. “The Crisis in Youth Suicide.” The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2019.

Dazzi, T, et al. “Does Asking about Suicide and Related Behaviours Induce Suicidal Ideation? What Is the Evidence?” Psychological Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2014.

Gallagher, Thea. “Talking About Suicide in Schools.” AFSP, 6 Dec. 2017.

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“Redefining a Life: Changing the Conversation About Gun Violence”
By Anna, age 17

In the second grade, I learned how to barricade my classroom’s door to stop a man with a gun. I would fold myself into the corner of my dark classroom and close my eyes until I heard, “code green” echo on the loudspeaker. The drill ended, and I was safe again.

But 26 miles south of my school, on the South Side of Chicago, that code green never comes. Safety isn’t the norm, violence is. Growing up in a “safe” suburb has taught me that privilege is grocery shopping, walking to school, or going to church without the threat of violence swallowing me whole. Privilege is turning fear off when a drill ends.

If my school got shot up, it would make national news. Millions of Americans would mourn my death, and call for stricter gun laws. Policy and Change, the people would demand. There would be outrage and tears.

But we’ve grown deaf to the cries of the black community. White fear overshadows black trauma, making violence in inner cities invisible. The New York Times reports that the same weekend the El Paso and Dayton shootings consumed America’s attention, “52 [were] wounded by gunfire throughout Chicago.” Violence is an aberration in white communities but the default in the black inner city.

Our fundamental understanding of gun violence is racist. Vox reports that mass shootings account for “fewer than 1 percent of homicide victims.” According to The Washington Post, while the death tolls rose in Chicago due to inaction and indifference, the Parkland shooting catalyzed a national walkout. How many black kids must die before we care enough to make a change?

White America has always found a way to explain away their apathy to black gun violence in race-neutral terms. Mass shootings are especially tragic, they argue, because there are so many lives taken at once. However, USA Today reports that 63 were shot on Chicago’s 4th of July Weekend. By this logic, these black inner-city deaths would have garnered more attention than Sandy Hook’s school shooting. Mass shootings are tragedies and should be treated as such. But when we cease to care when black lives are lost, we become complicit in that violence.

We manufacture colorblind justifications for why we don’t care about black lives, but it’s the color of the victim’s skin that drives our anger and agency about gun violence. We must open our ears to listen to the cries of the black community, our mouths to amplify their voices, and our hearts to empathize. It’s then that the “code green” will ring out again — but this time, for us all.

Works Cited

Bacon, John. “More than 100 Wounded, 14 Killed in Chicago over July 4th Weekend.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 5 July 2017.

Bosman, Julie. “Chicago Has Its Worst Weekend of Gun Violence in 2019 as 7 Are Killed.” The New York Times, 5 Aug. 2019.

Heim, Joe, and Marissa Lang. “Thousands of Students Walk out of School in Nationwide Gun Violence Protest.” The Washington Post, 31 March 2019.

Matthews, Dylan. “Mass Shootings Represent a Tiny Share of All Shooting Deaths.” Vox, 14 Nov. 2018.

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“Every Student Should Apply to Community College, and Yes, They Are Real Schools”
By Emma Kaminski, age 16, A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, West Palm Beach, Fla.

If I wanted to live in a low-rent studio apartment with mold in the ceiling and a broken air-conditioner, while working an office job I’m overqualified for, I would apply to Harvard or the University of Georgia. I don’t know about you, but when I envision my future I don’t want to picture myself duct taping the gaping holes student loans poke into my life, which is why I’m applying to my local community college, and encourage the rest of the country to as well.

Trust me, I know that community college is not the answer for every person in the world, but the option is one that should be considered by every student. An ingrained bias toward community colleges for higher education is evident throughout the country, a bias which negatively affects the economy and the futures of children.

Drip, another drop into the trillion dollar bucket of student loans owed by American graduates.

Drip, too many people are confusing affordable and available with less quality, and that confusion is hurting graduates in the long run.

Drip, young men and women who have worked hard for their education are forced to accept less-than jobs and wage to pay off their debt.

Gaining a two-year degree from community college makes for a more attainable transfer to a state school, which can further education in a field of interest. The inaccuracy of the general consensus is evident in a New York Times article that discusses new steps community colleges are making to diversify and enrich student life by expanding facilities and clubs, creating the perfect environment for students starting their higher education journey.

The truth of the matter: community colleges offer more opportunities to students and are more affordable than public or private higher education schools. Oversight of possibilities available decreases students’ likelihood to succeed before they’ve started, but the key to solving that issue is destigmatizing community colleges. Inform people and demystify what it means to attend a community college. Dr. Steve Robinson, president of Owens Community College, emphasizes students completing their degrees and successfully joining the work force instead of just enrolling in college.

According to Forbes, this change in thinking could lead to more graduates of four-year institutions because community college transfers are more likely to graduate with their degrees. I understand that, for some people, scholarships, other available resources or just circumstance makes public state colleges or private colleges more feasible, and maybe for some they’re even the best option. My point here is that the stigmatization of community college needs to end, and students should be made fully aware of all of their options without judgment. That kind of thinking tears holes into people’s futures.

Works Cited

Sánchez, Nancy Lee. “Erasing The Community College Stigma.” Forbes, 20 Aug. 2019.

Spencer, Kyle. “Middle-Class Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges.” The New York Times, 5 April 2018.

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“Freedom Isn’t Free: The Price to Preserve Democracy”
By Tara Kapoor, age 15, Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, Calif.

Six hundred thousand Wisconsinites, five polling stations. Do the math.

For as long as I can remember, I eagerly watched my parents connect arrows, mark their votes and mail off their ballots. It seems seamless, but in many states, only once you request a ballot by mail can the at-home voting process proceed.

Imagine thousands filing for mail-in ballots as health officials warned against in-person voting amid the intensifying Covid-19 pandemic. Overwhelmed infrastructure, unable to handle the surge in requests, failed to send voters their ballots and forced the choice between safety and civic duty. This was Wisconsin on April 7: an Election Day catastrophe.

Other recent examples show a contrasting approach, however. Take Alaska’s primary: the state mailed ballots to all eligible voters after canceling in-person voting. The outcome? A safe and successful election with almost twice the turnout of the 2016 primary. Additionally, existing implementations of vote-by-mail have consistently demonstrated benefits — states that mailed ballots to all voters showed over 15 percent greater turnout than those that didn’t in the 2018 election. And while some raise concerns for potential partisan advantage prompted by the elevated turnout, studies show mail-in ballots don’t favor either party. So, what now?

The remedy to prevent a voting-day debacle in November: administering universal vote-by-mail. This doesn’t just mean allowing voters to request mail-in ballots. Instead, it means mailing every eligible voter their ballot automatically and strengthening election infrastructure to collect and count each one. This is, indeed, a realistic goal — five states have successfully and repeatedly set an example with almost all ballots cast by mail for years. It’s high time we guaranteed the option for all Americans.

Not to be ignored is the $2 billion estimated price tag for facilitating vote-by-mail nationwide. But as The New York Times wrote, “it’s a drop in the $1-trillion-plus stimulus bucket … and it should be an essential part of any coronavirus response package.” Susceptibility of mail-in ballots to voter fraud has been cited, yet ballot-tampering instances are few and far between — barely a handful of cases surfaced from hundreds of millions of votes cast in 2016.

We, the people, are the central pillar of our democracy. With voters sheltered at home, a clear consequence looms barring adoption of universal mail-in voting: disenfranchisement. “A voter cannot deliver for postmarking a ballot she has not received,” articulated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissent regarding Wisconsin’s primary, and, “will be left quite literally without a vote.”

Of the people, by the people and for the people, our nation prides itself on free, fair elections. By automatically sending Americans their ballots, our democracy’s promise will endure.

Enabling universal vote-by-mail? A small price to form that more perfect union.

Works Cited

19A1016 Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee. 6 April 2020.

America Goes to the Polls 2018. Nonprofit Vote, 2018.

Linton, Caroline. “Alaska Democrats say they received almost double the ballots than in 2016 in vote-by-mail primary.” CBS News, 20 April 2020.

Norden, Lawrence, Elizabeth Howard, Gowri Ramachandran, Edgardo Cortés and Derek Tisler. “Estimated Costs of Covid-19 Election Resiliency Measures.” Brennan Center for Justice, 19 March 2020.

The Editorial Board. “The 2020 Election Won’t Look Like Any We’ve Seen Before.” The New York Times, 21 March 2020.

Thompson, Daniel M., Jennifer Wu, Jesse Yoder and Andrew B. Hall. “The Neutral Partisan Effects of Vote-by-Mail: Evidence from County-Level Roll-Outs.” Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 15 April 2020.

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“To Smash the Glass Ceiling, First End the Double Standard”
By Yui Kurosawa, age 16, and Carolyn Rong, age 15, Hong Kong International School, Hong Kong

Judges tell me I’m “too aggressive” after debates. Classmates say I’m “too bossy” during group projects. And I can’t help but notice that judges praise male debaters who practically yell their arguments for their powerful rhetoric. Male classmates assuming the role of project leader are seen as assertive and driven. Me? I’m just a bossy girl who needs to stay in her lane.

That’s why, when the losses of female politicians are consistently linked to being too “bossy” and “unlikable,” I question whether it’s an issue of problematic personality, or if gender inequality is at fault.

Some commentators argue that, with female suffrage celebrating its 100th anniversary and equal rights enshrined in law, gender inequality cannot be responsible for the severe female underrepresentation in government. However, this misses the point: men and women may be relatively equal on paper, but an implicit double standard for female politicians means this theoretical equality does not translate into reality.

As seen in a New York Times article, the treatment of female politicians in the 2016 presidential election and recent Democratic primaries highlighted society’s double standards. During debates, impassioned male politicians were praised for confident rhetoric. Women with more moderate oratory were bashed for being too brash for voters. This phenomenon is known as role congruity theory — where we hold female politicians to a double standard because, by pursuing leadership, they contradict traditional gender norms and seem unlikable. Confidence is “emphatic” in men but “shrill” in women.

Female politicians can’t escape this double standard. As a study by the Columbia Journalism Review found, female politicians with traditionally “feminine” traits, such as compassion, were seen as less competent than if they acted more “masculine.” As former Vermont governor Madeleine Kunin stated: “If you’re female and running for president, you better be perfect.” This Catch-22, where voters dislike assertive women but see milder counterparts as incapable, means female politicians struggle to appease voters.

The impact of this double standard stretches beyond the political arena. Think of it as “trickle-down prejudice” — seeing qualified women disparaged on a national level for their assertiveness only causes people, especially youth, to subconsciously adopt this mentality. That’s how prejudice in politics ends up in workplaces, classrooms, and everyday life. It’s imperative we end this double standard.

However, ending this harmful perception is challenging — unlike previous hurdles to gender equality, subconscious double standards can’t be banned or criminalized. For progress, every individual must acknowledge their subconscious biases and make a concerted effort to change their thinking. Only then can society truly smash this ceiling. So the next time you see a woman as bossy and unlikable, ask yourself: “Would a man be treated the same way?”

Works Cited

Astor, Maggie. “‘A Woman, Just Not That Woman’: How Sexism Plays Out on the Trail.” The New York Times, 11 Feb. 2019.

Garret, Rachel. “Subtle Sexism in Political Coverage Can Have a Real Impact on Candidates.” Columbia Journalism Review, 4 Sept. 2018.

Kunin, Madeleine M. “If You’re Female And Running For President, You Better Be Perfect.” HuffPost, 26 July 2017.

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“It’s Time to Take Responsibility: Addressing the Indigenous Health Crisis”
By Mira Mehta, age 16, Westfield High School, Westfield, N.J.

As the president moves to restrict travel and immigration as his latest response to the pandemic, it is hard not to see the irony in America’s story. When Europeans first came to the United States, they brought with them new diseases, which devastated the communities who already lived here.

Today, disease is once again taking a harder toll on Indigenous people. For example, despite making up only 11 percent of New Mexico’s population, they account for 37 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases.

A lack of infrastructure has made it particularly difficult to respond to the crisis. Many Indigenous people lack access to food, and have limited availability of running water, both of which prevent people from taking adequate precautions against the coronavirus. However, the biggest problems come from the inadequate health care provided to Indigenous people before the crisis hit.

Due to disproportionate poverty, generational trauma, and discrimination in the medical field, Indian Health Services finds that Indigenous people have a life expectancy that is 5.5 years shorter than all other races as the IHS has remained underfunded with care still often inaccessible.

To help remedy these problems, the government must take action, not just by providing emergency health services in the short-term, but through sweeping systemic change. The Native Health and Wellness Act of 2019 (HR 4534) would address some of the inadequacies of the current system by authorizing $56.7 million in annual grants to improve or establish health care programs in Indigenous communities.

This act is crucial because IHS reports 3.2 times more deaths from diabetes, 1.1 times more deaths from heart and respiratory conditions, and 6.6 times more deaths by alcohol among Indigenous communities. The effects of these disparities are particularly evident now, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that all of these conditions put people at risk for severe illness from the coronavirus. The bill would help provide more affordable care to both prevent and treat these diseases, allowing for a better response to future outbreaks.

American history is littered with broken promises, the denial of the right to self-determination and basic necessities, and brutality against Indigenous peoples. While it certainly does not make up for this, the proposed bill would help remedy these problems. In fact, the bill would also help Indigenous people invest in their own communities by giving $10 million in annual grants to support Indigenous people in the medical field.

For far too long, the United States has turned a blind eye to the systemic oppression faced by Indigenous communities. It is time to take responsibility and work to fix these injustices. The Native Health and Wellness Act of 2019 is the beginning of this process, and it is imperative that Congress pass it.

Works Cited

“Groups at Higher Risk for Severe Illness.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 April 2020.

Krishna, Priya. “Disparities.” Indian Health Service. October 2019.

Krishna, Priya. “How Native Americans are Fighting a Food Crisis.” The New York Times, 16 April 2020.

Romero, Simon. “Checkpoints, Curfews, Airlifts: Virus Rips Through Navajo Nation.” The New York Times, 20 April 2020.

Stafford, Kat, et al. “Racial Toll of Virus Grows Even Starker as More Data Emerges.” Associated Press, 18 April 2020.

United States, Congress, House. Native Health and Wellness Act of 2019. 116th Congress, House Bill 4534.

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“The Eagle of Freedom: Birdcage Edition”
By Nicholas Parker, age 17, Glens Falls High School, Glens Falls, N.Y.

From fringe Facebook groups inciting rebellion against their state’s quarantine precautions to our basic inability to stop touching our faces, Americans really hate to follow rules. If we, as a country, are going to survive the global pandemic of Covid-19, we’re going to have to suppress some of the national character traits that make us who we are.

The American personality is brash, bold, and in love with its privileges, liberties and freedoms. We formed our country through rebellion against an authoritarian regime. Our heroes recast paradigms and break rules. Our national character resists our attempt to cage our pursuit of happiness.

A Pew Research Center poll in mid-April found that 51 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners were worried the country would reopen too quickly for safety, while 48 percent feared it wouldn’t happen quickly enough. Even within a single political party, that’s a spread of opinion as diverse as the American psyche and just as conflicted.

As federal, state and local governments struggle to find a balance between their citizens’ safety and right to make their own decisions, demonstrators have gathered to campaign for the end of quarantine. What we need to do to survive is adhere to caution and common sense, which is hard to do when our national leadership recklessly panders to fringe groups for political gain. As protesters prepared to rally in states with Democratic governors, President Trump egged them on with tweets encouraging them to “LIBERATE.”

Protest signs included legends such as “Let my people go-lf” and “Social distancing = Communism.”

Even simple admonitions by health officials to stop touching one’s face provoke a complex compulsion to do that very thing. In the age of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s verboten to risk putting germs and viruses near one’s orifices, but we just can’t stop the feeling. If we can’t tame these urges will marketers be reduced to serving up public service announcements on the hazards of hairline handling? Will works of art featuring personal probing be prohibited like cigarette advertising? Will finger foods become forbidden fruit?

It is a dark, dystopian world where even for a short time citizens must cultivate their own coiffures, miss a massage and feed with family. It’s obvious this quarantine will have drastic consequences for the economy and the families that make up that economy. However, there will be catastrophic consequences if we can’t curb the part of our national identity that insists on getting what we want when we want it. We need to set aside our fears that this is the end of the world today and have enough common sense that it doesn’t become the end of the world tomorrow.

Work Cited

Casiano, Louis. “Republicans Bash Facebook for Stopping Promotion of Protests that Would Defy Social-Distancing Guidelines.” Fox News, 20 April 2020.

“Most Americans Say Trump Was Too Slow in Initial Response to Coronavirus Threat.” Pew Research Center, 16 April 2020.

Parker-Pope, Tara. “Stop Touching Your Face!” The New York Times, 2 March 2020.

Russonello, Giovanni. “What’s Driving the Right-Wing Protesters Fighting the Quarantine?” The New York Times, 17 April 2020.

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“Farewell, My Mary Sue”
By Yu Qi Xin, age 16, St. Paul’s School, Concord, N.H.

As a Chinese-Canadian teenager trapped indoors like the rest of the world, I’ve been on the hunt for relatable Chinese dramas to add to my English language-heavy TV queue. But each of the dramas I’ve watched has left me cold. Why?

I learned that the type of Chinese dramas I find particularly irksome are referred to in China as “Mali Su” dramas (a transliteration of the American genre term “Mary Sue,” which describes an unrealistically flawless female character). A typical Chinese Mali Su show features a clueless female protagonist who glides through life on luck and good looks. For instance, this year’s workplace drama “Perfect Partner” follows a hapless female CEO who, despite having a master’s degree in public relations, does not know how to write a media release, much less navigate a profit and loss statement. The drama glorifies the executive’s incompetence as beguiling, securing her the affections of the handsome male lead. Romantic! Try to imagine the coolheaded lawyer Alicia Florrick from “The Good Wife” tripping over herself to “charm” Will Gardner into helping her win cases.

It would be an unfair generalization to say that China is the only media market that portrays women as Mali Su-style ditzes. American TV is full of “brainless popular girls,” “naggy housewives” and other insulting archetypes. In Japanese and Korean dramas, beauty standards are strictly defined and surgically enforced. But the key difference is that these markets give viewers more options and offer a diversity of representations. English speakers wanting more nuance can turn to knowing shows like “Fleabag.” Korean media has produced “My ID is Gangnam Beauty,” a sharp satire of local beauty culture.

Beyond my personal frustration as a TV viewer, I worry that the ubiquity of Mali Sus has a broader social impact. People imitate TV, especially younger audiences. Young women may idealize the unhealthy relationships and harmful stereotypes portrayed in Mali Su dramas and act accordingly, while young men may view the dramas as justification for sexist behavior.

Luckily, some signs show that the Chinese audience is ready for a change. Mali Su dramas have consistently been panned by online reviewers. Sarcastic commenters on Douban, China’s IMDb equivalent, have mused that the actors must be “broke” to accept such horrid scripts. In contrast, the period drama “Story of Yanxi Palace,” which features an intelligent and scheming concubine, has reached a record-breaking 17 billion views. Chinese audiences clearly responded positively to this sophisticated and form-breaking depiction of women.

Having complex and real women in Chinese dramas is not just a feminist agenda item; it’s good business. It’s time for studios to act and scripts to change.

Works Cited

Farago, Jason. “Gentlewomen of the Forbidden City: The Power, the Intrigue, the Clothes.” The New York Times, 20 Sept. 2018.

Framke, Caroline. “Is Star Wars’ Rey a Mary Sue? And What Does That Mean, Anyway?” Vox, 28 Dec. 2015.

Screenshot of comment on Douban by Yu Qi Xin.

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“Why Aren’t We More Worried About Teacher Attrition in Public Schools?”
By Sarah Schecter, age 17, Oakland School for the Arts, Oakland, Calif.

“I love teaching and I love you, but I just can’t do this anymore” has become the official marker for summer at my California public charter school, Oakland School for the Arts. This is the premise of goodbye notes and speeches from teachers who leave at the end of each school year, or, often in the middle of it. This March, after my new English teacher, Mr. T, announced that he wouldn’t be returning for the rest of the year, I felt sadness, but I felt an even deeper twinge of déjà vu. Didn’t he just replace Mr. R, who said something similar? And wasn’t that the case with my last two English teachers, Ms. B and Mr. C? My thoughts quickly went toward how many teachers I’ve lost in high school.

I am a junior and eight out of 11, or about 66 percent, of the academic teachers I’ve had in high school have left. To paint a more striking picture, I can count the number of my teachers who have stayed at my school on one hand. To count my teachers of color who have stayed, I don’t even need a hand: just one finger. My amazing 10th grade English teacher Alan Chazaro wrote about this dearth, specifically on why men of color are leaving the classroom. He notes how an ABC News report found teaching to be the fourth most stressful job in the United States, but living and teaching in a city like Oakland means teachers must deal with a contemptuously low salary while dealing with one of the highest costs of living in the nation. As similarly highlighted by The New York Times back in 2001, low wages and poor working conditions are to blame for poor teacher retention. However, looking at the present, it is clear that we have crossed over from retention issues into attrition.

It’s not a mystery to me that teachers keep leaving. What is puzzling to me is why people aren’t more collectively concerned about this. After all, isn’t a student’s loss a society’s loss? As significant reform can be expected to emerge from a national and global crisis, we can expect huge changes coming in the United States. We cannot forget about our education system.

Besides the disruption and sadness of saying goodbye, what is lost feels less tangible: feeling known and secure, continuity in learning and school culture are all things that disappear along with teachers. School is a place for many students to imagine the world and their place in it. Teachers are our guides in a sense, and I, for one, feel lost without them.

Works Cited

Chazaro, Alan. “Why Men of Color Like Me Are Leaving the Classroom.” Medium, The Bold Italic, 29 Jan. 2020.

The New York Times. “A National Deficit, of Teachers.” The New York Times, 10 July 2001.

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“The Show Must Go On: Theater Needs to Survive This Pandemic”
By Clara Shapiro, age 16, Stuyvesant High School, New York, N.Y.

Just weeks before New York City went into lockdown, I went to see “Hamlet” at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. What I remember best were the deaths — Hamlet’s father is killed mid-nap, poison poured into one ear. Ophelia drowns when she falls from a willow tree that grows “aslant a brook.” The sententious Polonius is skewered through a curtain. The originality of these characters’ deaths lends originality to their lives. Nobody dies anonymously, or as a digit in a statistic.

In theater, nobody is a number. All last words are worth hearing. The dying are allowed a final twitch and soliloquy. At the theater’s core is the assumption that the stories of individual lives are worth an audience’s attention. Theater reaffirms the importance of every life. Ultimately, this is what prevents theater from being frivolous during and after a crisis — it makes every life (and every death) mean more.

As I write this, the worldwide Covid-19 death toll reached 164,936 (WorldOMeter). It feels like human lives have never been more numerical and anonymous. I find myself grieving the enormity of the number, not the individual lives that compose it, simply because I don’t know what to grieve. I don’t know what was unique about their lives because there’s nothing unique about their deaths.

As coronavirus erases the individuality of the dead, the living look for ways to make sense of loss: “The purpose of suffering may be mysterious, but the search for meaning is obligatory. There is a need for narrative, for integration, for some story about what the pain and anguish meant” (The New York Times). Some people searching for meaning find it in the theater — people congregate to process, heal and, eventually, to hope. Theaters are spiritual spaces. But right now, theater can be nobody’s top priority. Money needs to go to hospitals first, as well as the jobless who are struggling to find food and housing. Theater can wait. For now.

But with spring and summer seasons canceled, theaters, especially smaller ones, risk extinction. Even Congress’s stimulus package, though it lightens the burden, “falls well short of the $4 billion sought by advocacy groups” (The New York Times).

An end to theater wouldn’t just be the end of a form of entertainment. It would be an end to one of the ways people experience togetherness. People cram themselves into one space and sit together to watch one play together, to go on one journey together. It’s hard to find this sort of unity anywhere else.

So bookmark theaters for later. The show must go on.

Works Cited

“Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic.” WorldOMeter. 2020.

Douthat, Ross. “The Pandemic and the Will of God.” The New York Times, 11 April 2020.

Rutter, Samuel. “Where to Donate to Bolster a Quieted Arts Scene.” The New York Times, 3 April 2020.

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“It’s Time to Hold Ivies Accountable”
By Jiahn Son, age 17, Bergen Tech High School Teterboro, Teterboro, N.J.

Growing up in an upper middle-class town, and now, attending a well ranked, academically competitive high school, I’ve always known that Ivy League colleges are the schools to go to. They offer a world class education, unparalleled networking opportunities, brilliant peers and the chance to work alongside some of the most accredited professors in the nation. But amid the shining veneer of this picture, Ivies hide one major flaw: lack of socioeconomic diversity.

Associated with prestige and entry to the American elite, Ivy League schools are dominated by the children of the wealthy and powerful. A 2017 study by the Equality of Opportunity Project found that five colleges from the Ivy League (Dartmouth, Princeton, Brown, Yale and Penn) had more students from the top one percent than the bottom 60 percent.

Yet, for the majority of these students, an Ivy education is unnecessary. A 2018 study found that, overall, there is no correlation between the acceptance rate of a school and graduates’ long-term salaries. Other studies have proven that high achieving students who work hard and don’t attend selective schools achieve similar rates of success as those who do. So, if Ivies are really nothing more than a name and a brand, who even needs them?

It’s the students that Ivies have the least of who would benefit the most from attending an Ivy: students from the bottom quartile. For them, Ivies offer social mobility at a scale that allows them to vault up the ladder. People like Justice Sonia Sotomayor use Ivy educations to earn influential connections, gain societal clout and find a foothold in a world that would otherwise be closed off to them. Ivies invite an entrance to future opportunities that would most likely be inaccessible to a student attending a local community college. Low-income Ivy students get a seat at the table.

I’m not the biggest fan of Ivies, but I can’t deny that “Princeton ’24” in an Instagram bio never fails to impress me. They’re the colleges that everyone covets, at the forefront of every high achieving high school student’s mind. With the American public’s gaze fixated on them, they have a responsibility to set an example.

Ivies must take accountability and start working harder to admit more low-income students. With billions of dollars in endowment money, they can well afford to take on more students who can’t pay the full tuition ticket. Harvard’s tagline is that it selects the next generation of leaders. If that’s true, I don’t want to live in an America where every CEO and senator is a cookie-cutter copy of an upper-class kid who was a Harvard legacy. I want an America where our leaders reflect our people.

Works Cited

Aisch, Gregor, Larry Buchanan, Amanda Cox and Kevin Quealy. “Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours.” The New York Times, 18 Jan. 2017.

Easterbrook, Greg. “Who Needs Harvard?” Brookings, 1 Oct. 2014.

Thompson, Derek. “Does It Matter Where You Go to College?” The Atlantic, 11 Dec. 2018.

Tulshyan, Ruchika. “Why You Should Apply to Ivy League Colleges.” Forbes, 30 July 2014.

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“It’s OK Not to Come Out: Oftentimes Pride Is a Privilege”
By Sophia

Ever since I was young, I’ve known that I’m not allowed to be gay.

As a second generation Pakistani-American Muslim girl, I’m accustomed to many of my family’s rules: no bacon, no bikinis, no boyfriends and no being gay. Unfortunately, I’m a rebel. I secretly love bacon, own two bikinis, had a boyfriend for three years and consider myself queer. In a utopia, my culture would be completely accepting of homosexuality. However, I’m aware of how deeply I would upset my family by coming out, so I prioritize. I keep this aspect of my identity hidden, and I think that’s OK.

At home, I tiptoe around the idea of homosexuality and try to question without seeming overly interested, but it’s difficult always hearing that homosexuality is wrong “because it just is.” A gay, Muslim filmmaker, Parvez Sharma, accurately states that a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy exists “in the Muslim world” for members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community. I don’t blame my family for being closed to discussions because they’ve only ever known homosexuality as a deep-rooted cultural taboo.

I recognize that my ability to go through life simply camouflaging my queerness is a privilege. By concealing this part of me, I can explore my sexuality privately, while also maintaining a peaceful relationship with my family. However, I have to acknowledge the larger issue that lies in others’ inability to do the same thing.

I know that not being “allowed” doesn’t stop anyone from being gay and that sexuality isn’t a choice, but coming out is definitely a choice and should remain one. In a New York Times article, Andrew Solomon writes: “Pride is an internal and an external state … It comes with both privileges and obligations.” For marginalized groups like gay Muslims, having pride in personal identity isn’t always easy, especially when their culture tells them to be ashamed. Therefore, having pride publicly can be a privilege.

Some might consider me weak for not voicing my opinions within the Muslim community, but that’s not how I see it. I do argue with my family when I want to and I’m not scared to stand up to them, I just choose not to further strain a relationship that’s already made complicated by cultural differences. In other words, I pick my battles. There are many people in scarier situations than me who risk being physically abused or disowned for coming out, which is why we must let people come out on their own time and terms, if at all.

As the L.G.B.T.Q. movement continues and cultures move at different paces, I believe that everyone deserves a choice in how they share their sexuality. The goal is to stay happy, safe and unashamed.

Works Cited

Solomon, Andrew. “The First New York Pride March Was an Act of ‘Desperate Courage.” The New York Times, 27 June 2019.

Wright, Robin. “Love Jihad: Orlando and Gay Muslims.” The New Yorker, 16 June 2016.

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“China Must Protect Its Whistleblowers”
By Xiyue Tan, age 17, Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Penn.

The year 1972 was a landmark year for fighting corruption in the United States. Frank Serpico exposed the corruption emanating through the New York City Police Department and Deep Throat revealed Nixon’s nefarious tendencies. Their selfless efforts in laying bare the vested interests that govern institutions culminated in the Whistleblower Protection Act, a remarkable piece of legislation that protects those battling the powerful forces of their institutions. One cannot help but wonder if the coronavirus that is currently making global headlines would have spread as quickly if a similar mechanism was in place in China.

On Dec. 30, 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang, from Wuhan, detected SARS-like symptoms in several patients and reported it to his colleagues. However, instead of being applauded for highlighting this dangerous new virus, he was questioned by police and government officials, who claimed he was “spreading rumors” and “disturbing social order.” It does not matter that he has since been vindicated; the coronavirus has already spread far and wide. Dr. Li’s untimely death has since instigated a massive online debate on Chinese social media, where many believe that the virus could have been contained sooner if his warnings were heeded.

The Chinese central government is famously rigid regarding information control; its incessant 24/7 monitoring of social media, where it removes every post that contradicts the government’s ideology, is a contentious issue within the country. Chinese people are generally permissive of government monitoring, and accept limitations on freedom of speech, because we feel the trade-off for a safe, secure society is preferable. However, the drawbacks, as evidenced by the tragic case of Dr. Li, should provide an opportunity for reflection for the government. The current policy of silencing honest citizens, and downplaying events to curry favor with the upper echelons of government, are clearly insufficient for dealing with a dreadful epidemic such as the coronavirus.

A policy change is clearly needed. While expecting the Chinese government to expunge all limitations on freedom of speech is unrealistic, a happy medium can be struck as a safeguard against extraordinary threats to public health. One such solution could be to guarantee additional protections to those who work in sensitive areas. It should not be too hard for the government to identify similar processes to ensure this: the Whistleblower Protection Act is living, breathing proof that such mechanisms work, and work effectively.

The debate on freedom of speech is likely to rage on inside and outside of China. Whatever direction it takes, it is imperative that we enact a practical measure in the interim to mitigate the potential crises posed by events like the coronavirus. For it is necessary to grant people access to accurate, transparent information in order to keep them educated and alert, regardless of ideology.

Works Cited:

Elliott, Carl. “Why They Blow the Whistle.” The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2019.

Sieren, Frank. “Sieren’s China: Li Wenliang, a tragic hero.” Deutsche Welle, 13 Feb. 2020.

Zhao, Kiki. “The Coronavirus Story Is Too Big for China to Spin.” The New York Times, 14 Feb. 2020.

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“Drawing Circles Around Animals”
By Betty W.

In the 1980s the ethical concept of a moral circle was coined; those we consider worthy of moral consideration were deemed to be within this circle.

Nowadays activist circles are using this term, as animal rights movements make the case for granting rights to non-humans, predicating the case for moral consideration on sentience, or the ability to feel and have subjective experiences.

Early ideas about animal behavior were, in short, anti-animal. Most of these attitudes can be traced to the 17th century philosopher, René Descartes. He claimed that animals were merely machines made of flesh who, in the words of one of his followers, “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.”

Even arguments nowadays for the fundamental worth of animals, especially ones borne out of our modern “pet-obsessed” culture, are often anthropomorphic in nature, portraying animals as having humanlike qualities. Animals are like humans, the case goes, not the other way around.

Species differ, but we too often don’t consider the meaning we place on these differences. Almost all the traits of the human mind are found in some animals (mammals and birds, in particular): captive dolphins will spontaneously imitate what divers do in their tank; elephants have self-awareness, recognizing themselves in a mirror; chimpanzees can manipulate and deceive others. In the words of Dutch primatologist, Frans de Waal, “believing that only humans have minds is like believing that because only humans have human skeletons, only humans have skeletons.”

Our wild companions have complex inner lives. Emotions, for example, have physiological effects. When you “get emotional,” your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure increases, hormones such as oxytocin and dopamine are released — changes that are very much the same in humans and animals.

What’s more, animals, too, can control and express their emotions. Chimps hide when they’re embarrassed; they laugh; they get anxious. Animals without anatomical resemblance will exhibit emotions with different bodily reactions. Octopuses, for example, change color when they’re afraid.

Experiences such as the farewell between Dutch biologist Jan Van Hooff and the terminally ill chimpanzee, Mama, speak to moral crossover. When Mama recognized Dr. Van Hooff, she grinned, and seemingly joyful yelps could be heard. She gently stroked Dr. Van Hooff’s hair before pulling him in with one of her long arms.

Mama was happy, and their reunion proves that emotions aren’t a distinctly human trait. Animals have rich inner experiences. We value each other’s lives because we think of each other as moral equals. Animals might not be the same as us, but they experience their lives vividly. As such, they are worthy of moral consideration. They should be in the circle.

Works Cited

Berns, Gregory. “Dogs Are People, Too.” The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2013.

“Can We Know What Animals Are Thinking?” The Economist, 14 March 2017.

de Waal, F.B.M. Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves. W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.

Montgomery, Sy. “Frans de Waal Embraces Animal Emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’.” The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2019.

Safina, Carl. Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. Profile Books Ltd., 2020.

Samuel, Sigal. “Should Animals, Plants, and Robots Have the Same Rights as You?” Vox, 4 April 2019.

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中学

按作者姓氏的字母顺序排列。

我们的中学亚军之一M. Calcagno使用文章“在精益时代，学校挤出图书馆员”作为她文章的来源。。。。迈兰·坎农/《纽约时报》

“Bringing Ethics to Your Plate”
By Alexa Troob, age 13, Robert E. Bell Middle School, Chappaqua, N.Y.

Growing up in a family of meat-eaters, I always accepted the fact that animals were food. I was in denial of the inhumanity.

This year, I volunteered at the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, helping mistreated dogs. I would tear up seeing the desperate eyes of previously abandoned dogs while there were chickens being ground alive, suffocated in bags, gassed to death and then eaten by me. One day, I began to wonder what differentiated those chickens from my two labradoodles and the other dogs at the shelter. Whenever pet abuse is seen, instant outrage is unleashed. Meanwhile, farm animals are tortured and killed daily, and we do far from express outrage: we eat them.

The book, “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows,” discusses carnism, the belief system that allows people to eat certain animals over others. If you were told the grilled meat you were enjoying came from a golden retriever, you would be immediately disgusted. If you were told you were eating pork, you would continue to see your meal as delicious food rather than a dead pig. A New York Times editorial states that we need to disconnect from reality to eat meat. Trying to disregard the truth of eating an intelligent and aware animal so you can enjoy your meal is selfishness in its truest form. There is a reason you take your kids to pick apples, but not to a slaughterhouse.

Once I questioned eating animals, one thing that shocked me was the complexity of farm animals’ feelings. According to an article in One Green Planet, cows have an unbelievable memory and form strong friendships, pigs recognize themselves in mirrors and chickens are empathetic mothers. I had the opportunity to go on a safari where I witnessed a mother wildebeest mourning her newborn’s death. She stayed by the scraps of her baby for over 24 hours showing obvious distress. For those of you that have also observed an animal interacting with the world, there is no doubt they feel fear, joy, empathy and pain.

People claim eating meat is a health necessity. That couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, meat is a leading cause of heart disease, diabetes, strokes and cancer. A Huffington Post article claims that vegetarians live approximately eight years longer than average, similar to the gap between smokers and nonsmokers. We possess many alternatives to eating meat that will raise the average American life span, decrease the risk of numerous diseases and improve overall health.

We need to break our wall of numbness, accept the truth and make changes. If our world went meat free, our farm animal friends would be eternally grateful.

Works Cited

Freston, Kathy. “Why Do Vegetarians Live Longer?” HuffPost, 28 Oct. 2012.

Joy, Melanie. “Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows.” Conari Press, 2009.

Schott, Ben. “Carnism.” The New York Times, 11 Jan. 2010.

Vallery, Anna. “5 Farm Animals That Are Probably Smarter Than Your Dog.” One Green Planet, 2019.

“Switching Letters, Skipping Lines: Troubled and Dyslexic Minds”
By Hayden Miskinis, age 12, Epping Middle School, Epping, N.H.

I look down at my book. I slowly read the first line of jumpy letters that won’t stay still. It takes me a minute to find the next line, as my eyes jump around. This is a repeating process until I’m at the end of the page. This doesn’t just happen to me; it happens to 70-80 percent of dyslexic students in schools, and yet schools aren’t providing resources, teachers aren’t getting trained and people don’t even really understand dyslexia.

What is dyslexia? I didn’t know until 2015 when I was faced with the truth as to why I wasn’t progressing in school. I had been given interventions through a program called Title I which helps kids who don’t have access to books or reading in their homes, but it wasn’t working for me. I had plenty of books; I just couldn’t read them. What I needed were interventions that would work for me.

Many people think that dyslexia is just switching letters. In my case, and that of many other dyslexic people, switching letters is only a small part of the bigger issue. A recent study suggests that “The brains of dyslexics do form accurate neurological representations of language sounds” (Paul). This would explain why a dyslexic learner’s comprehension is so much higher than their reading ability. In other words, a dyslexic student could understand Harry Potter but not be able to read a simple word like “the.” In order for a dyslexic student to succeed, correct interventions should be applied early in school.

While it might be true that some schools acknowledge dyslexia, most schools don’t. In my case, it wasn’t until third grade that I started to get the right interventions. The delay made becoming a strong reader especially challenging. I don’t blame my teachers for this. Teachers don’t recognize dyslexia or use interventions because they aren’t prepared to. “One-on-one, individualized intervention is almost never an option in the public school system, but it is necessary for a dyslexic student” (Lunney). Students need to “attain functional reading and spelling as fast as possible. The longer that is delayed the farther behind they fall academically” (Lunney). I was fortunate that my school hired an Orton-Gillingham specialist who was trained in dyslexia. But, I’m one of the lucky ones. Most schools don’t have the funding to provide these necessary resources.

After years of intensive interventions including tutors and outside programs, I can finally pick up a book and read it like it’s nothing. This could be the future for many kids but not until teachers are trained properly and appropriate interventions are provided. In the meantime, we all need to remember, “Great minds don’t think alike.”

Works Cited

Emanuel, Gabrielle. “Dyslexia: The Learning Disability That Must Not Be Named.” NPR, 3 Dec. 2016.

Lunney, Marie. “Why Schools Don’t Do Dyslexia Intervention.” Lexercise, 25 Oct. 2016.

Paul, Annie. “Reading Experience May Change The Brains of Dyslexic Students.” The New York Times, 15 May 2014.

“Harnessing Boredom in the Age of Coronavirus”
By Elan Cohen, age 14, F.A. Day Middle School, Newton, Mass.

We all get bored frequently: waiting in line at Starbucks, riding the bus to school, sitting at home with nothing to do. It is inevitable, especially during this time of physical distancing, and it is not going away anytime soon. But if it happens so often, why do we tirelessly try to counteract it? Maybe, instead of avoiding the daydreaming and mind-wandering, we should be embracing it.

A study published in the journal “Science” showed what people would do when they were by themselves for six to 15 minutes and given two choices: do nothing or self-administer mild electric shocks. The findings were astonishing: two-thirds of the men and one-fourth of the women chose to shock themselves rather than be bored.

Do we crave external stimulation so intently that hurting ourselves is preferable to being alone with our own thoughts? Have we forgotten what it is like to be inside our own minds?

A few weeks into quarantine, I decided to take a walk around the woods near my house, with no destination or direction in mind. I saw a swan sitting on her nest, gently tending to some fragile twigs; an old beehive high up in a tree; another swan flying above the river like a bullet, wings just barely grazing the water; and a serene grove of trees on the waterfront with a circular stone path all around, the perfect spot for a picnic. I climbed up a tree and sat there for many minutes, simply observing the shimmering lake and the swaying trees. I never would have noticed these beautiful marvels of nature had it not been for my aimless wandering, and I never would have been able to appreciate my surroundings so fully had it not been for my mindful boredom. I learned that it is possible to be both bored and happy at the same time; the two emotions are not mutually exclusive.

Contrary to the media-manipulated messages we get from modern society, it is healthy to let our minds wander every once in a while. Our brains are host to vast stockpiles of deep thoughts, honest emotions, nostalgic memories and wildly creative ideas just waiting to be exploited. When we use boredom as a tool to tune in to our deepest internal selves, we unlock all those hidden elements, becoming more connected with ourselves and the world around us.

So next time you find yourself at home with nothing to do (which will happen a lot over the next couple months), remember that it is OK to be bored. Try being content with following the crazy stream of thoughts inside your own head because you never know what you might find.

Works Cited

Paul, Pamela. “Let Children Get Bored Again.” The New York Times, 2 Feb. 2019.

Razzetti, Gustavo. “Why Boredom Is So Powerful in Your Life.” Liberationist, Accessed 30 March 2020.

Webb, Jonathan. “Do people choose pain over boredom?” BBC News, 4 July 2014.

Wilson, Timothy D., et al. “Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind.” Science. 4 July 2014.