This Ain't It: A Publication by the 2019-20 Ci3 Youth Advisory Council

Table of Contents Letter from the Editor Tomi Dugbo Precious Omomofe Myleena Webb Jocelyn Becerra Azeez Adedeji Arielle Warner Abdul Adedeji

Inside Cover

About the Authors

Letter from the Editor August 2020

So much of 2020 has been about waiting. Waiting to see whether we’ve flattened the curve, waiting in line to go inside the grocery store, waiting for something to change.

Waiting is not passive. Waiting is an active choice to sit with uncertainty, not knowing when that uncertainty might end. Waiting is hard.

The Ci3 Youth Advisory Council has created this zine to tell the stories of their experiences over the past few months. They are done waiting for the world to change - they’re doing it themselves.

These are stories told by young people whose lives matter; stories that, if we listen carefully, can tell us something about what they need in order to thrive.

As we work toward health equity and justice, we must allow ourselves to be led by these stories.

I can’t wait to see the world they create.

Ailea Stites Ci3 Community Engagement Lead

Tomi’s Timeline: Realizations during the Pandemic BĬŸ˘æĬ˘žĬš˘ÿêêğ˘ °ĆÃŜ˘ĆÃŔ˘ŜĆê˘ ŋÃĦæêĥĉà˘šĦàĬŷêŎêæ˘ ÿĬŎ˘žĬš˘ÃßĬšŜ˘ĬšŎ˘ ŔĬàĉêŜž˘ÃĦæ˘ŷÃğšêŔʮ

A lot of people only care about themselves.

There's a lack of empathy and money trumps health and wellbeing.

žĬšˌŷê˘àĆÃĦĀêæ˘ ĬŷêŎ˘ŜĆê˘ŋÃŔŜ˘ ÿêŸ˘ĥĬĦŜĆŔʮ˘

At first I was very lazy, but I got tired of being lazy so I started being more productive.

°ĆĬ˘æĬ˘žĬš˘ĥĉŔŔ˘ ŜĆê˘ĥĬŔŜ˘ÃĦæ˘ŸĆžʮ

I miss my friends because they truly understand me and I like talking to people my age.

Tomi’s Timeline: Realizations during the Pandemic °ĆÃŜˌŔ˘ĬĦê˘ŜĆĉĦĀ˘žĬš˘ĥĉŔŔ˘ ŎĉĀĆŜ˘ĦĬŸʮ˘°Ćž˘æĬ˘žĬš˘ ĥĉŔŔ˘ĉŜʮ

Not wearing a mask because it's sometimes difficult to breathe and it can also get really hot.

°ĆÃŜ˘ÃŎê˘ŔĬĥê˘àĬĦŔŋĉŎÃàž˘ ŜĆêĬŎĉêŔ˘žĬšˌŷê˘ĆêÃŎæ˘ÃßĬšŜ˘ ŜĆĉŔ˘ŋÃĦæêĥĉàʮ

I heard that it's not real and the government is purposely making people sick which doesn't really make sense

Precious Hello, my name is Precious! I am from the graduating class of 2020 and I will be attending Pomona College. This year was not how I imagined my senior year to be but I tried to make the best of out a crazy situation. This is my quarantine story…. Enjoy!!

QUARA VIBZ How has the stay-at-home order affected your friendships?

It’s made me lose bonds in some friendships but also gained new ones or strengthened them Quarantine opened my eyes!!

ANTINE ZESS

How do you feel you’ve changed over the past few months?

I’ve become more independent and okay with being alone and doing me.

I have more time to focus on myself and really think about what/ who is important to me.

Precious What do you miss the mos ostt and why? ● ●

● ● ●

I miss playing sports I miss being around a team, having fun, and working to become better.

I miss the feeling of competing I miss the memories I was going to create and the senior night I miss the high school experiences

QUARA VIB

ANTINE BZESS

What’s one thing you miss right now? Why do you miss it?

I miss having the option of choosing whether I wanted to stay home or go out.

Now it’s having to stay home and/or limiting contact with others.

I miss being able to actually make plans of hanging out

Myleena

MYLEENA’S QUARA

A period of deep reflectio Upon finding out that we would not be returning to school for the remainder of the year, I made it a mission to take this period to rebrand myself and to indulge in hobbies I never had the time to before.

Knowing that I would be turning 18 soon I thought of everything I could do as far as body modifications. tattoos, piercings and hair dye were the only things on my mind for a while… ✓

Got a navel piercing!

ANTINE CHRONICLES

on and rebranding thyself.

What media has been helping you get through COVID-19 or pass time? ★ Attack on Titan ★ Conspiracy Theories ★ Criminal Psychology

W

People value self-gratification more than world health and also selectively trust government orders. For example I heard of a conspiracy that the mask rules were only made for social control and not to keep people safe from the virus.

i.e.: The same People protesting stay at home rules expected BLM protestors to Obey “Stay at home� rule

QUARANTINE MUSIC

People choose To obey government orders only when it Is beneficial to them.

★

Justice for George Floyd

★

Justice For Breonna Taylor

★

Justice for Toyin

Jocelyn Sports

My sports teams have enabled me to have connections with my friends and to talk to other people outside of school! I’m really going to miss my sport teams and playing with them.

Friend

During this quarantine i has been very hard to g in touch with friends, which is understandabl because we all go throu stuff personally.

I try to get in touch with my friends at least once a week to make sure they are doing okay, and I have also reconnected with some old friends.

Connections Connections are formed between a lot of subjects and things.

Nature

dships

it get

le ugh

Nature is everywhere around us, quarantine has given us the opportunity to look, listen. and admire it.

Jocelyn There has been a lot going on during quarantine and i stay up to date with what is happening through social media. I follow news accounts, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Tik Tok.

News/Politics I use my social media to share news with other people and my friends as well, to spread awareness on social issues and injustices! As well as what’s happening in general around the world

To pass time, I have been catching up on TV shows and watching new ones as well such as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

Media/Entertainment

Music

definitely got

me through this stressful time period.

Music is universal and it is used to make connections with other people or with ourselves.

We share music with one another, talk about our favorite artists, and listen to music during tough times.

Azeez

What is one thing you miss right now? participating in fun link ups and extracurricular activities with my friends like basketball, parties, and eating at McDonalds I lean towards introvert and ambivert sometimes but having to be forced in isolation from people sucks especially with Ci3

Corona

acation

How do you want to be remembered in life?

I want to be remembered as that one person who changed the world overall and who really participated and got engaged in a lot of social justice and political issues, and in terms of my career Role model and prime ďŹ gure to my peers to get innovative in quarantine and in general to impact the world Getting work done productively and creatively as possible with the least amount of distractions and developing gradual homemade and Nigerian cooking talents with my family

How has the stay-at-homeorder affected your friendships? lost the social, in-person interactions with my friends through extracurricular activities like basketball, which I crucially miss some bonds are unbreakable and stronger than others that’re hanging from a skinny wool thread off a needle. everyone doesn’t have a best interest in you during their free time due to people’s busy, concurring lives new friendships are at a standstill besides flourishing in the text messages and old friendships have rekindled to a certain extent since some of us are unable to meet in person. some parents are lenient for in person visits and beneficial conversation with a few of my friends inside/outside their houses, like drive-bys to catch up, and we practice social distancing friends are less touchy and playful but more careful about cleanliness, learning the factors needed to avoid contracting the virus and It’s lowkey funny since fist bumps and elbow shakes are how to greet now

Azeez

What has this experience taught you about this country? the country must take situations like this and plan out more serious safety precautions for any disease or virus regardless of how concentrated, controlled, or lethal it is government should take advantage of finding vaccines/cures just in case viruses/diseases spread before dooming the country/world of regulated life the news and media tends to shovel fear sometimes through their news reports, with overwhelming statistics of deaths and relevant or scary bad news in the world or the USA outlets don’t let it plunder underneath as its reports affect people in many ways preparations for disasters with some of us Americans were handled with social media for entertainment and coping while quarantining to ignite or spark some sort of fun out of the boredom many people find social media significant in connecting through funny videos, dancing trends from Tik Tok, or whatever else.

Arielle

v

#Whywefight Anyone can agree that social media has had its ups and downs during the quarantine. I feel that ever since this has started, social media platforms such as Twitter and Tiktok have expanded tremendously due to people being “bored in the house and in the house bored”.

Although this is a good thing for these platforms to have been expanded, what has also expanded along with it is blatant racism and chaos across all communities, but arguably I feel that “Black Twitter”, and certain Tiktok pages along with instagram pages have taken the hardest hits .

v

Very recently, the George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor situations have gone viral all over social media.

These were occurrences where people have used their privileges to get the best of innocent people. Social media has gone absolutely bonkers. Where before it was already toxic enough, but these situations have been made much worse. A vivid example of a platform that has been very active following these three events going viral is “Black Twitter �.

Black Twitter is a term used to describe a community in which many black people express their opinions on the popular social media platform called Twitter.

Recently with these events of police brutality, some filmed and others not, Black Twitter has spoken out about brutality and racism. It has caused many arguments between white people and people of color and even just between people of color. In my opinion, some ways are more effective than others.

Arielle

Arielle

#BlackOutDay

I personally believe that it’s not helpful to just say everything is going wrong, but rather to speak on it and find ways to spread awareness. One thing that did just that was Blackout day on Tiktok. In recent history, Blackout day was and is a day to acknowledge Police Brutality and spread awareness. Tiktok users are using it to speak out against unfair treatment of POC content.

The BLM hashtag had just recently been banned on Tiktok, so you can see where the outrage from black users everywhere is coming from.

I think that social media has been both enlightening and draining. Enlightening in the sense that everything you need to know about racial issues or whatever else is right there, but it’s draining because of the overwhelming amount of the abuse of power being spread in a time of global panic. Covid-19 isn’t even the biggest thing going on, the riots in Minnesota is all that’s being spoken about. Being stuck in the house has forced people to become more active socially and that has resulted in more issues being brought to the public’s attention. The stress of a global pandemic is sweeping the world and cops still have time to brutalize minorities. THAT is why people are rioting in the streets and THAT is why POC are outraged. .

Racism is a huge problem, but what racism shouldn’t be is an option.

The first thing people think of when they hear police shouldn’t be brutality, but it is. Lots of people choose to ignore it and hope that it magically goes away, but what the world is not is a genie. Racism is a very solvable problem, but until people acknowledge that it is just that then the world will stay just as it is.

●

●

● ● ● ●

Until people of all backgrounds acknowledge police brutality and privilege amongst different races, the conversation will not elevate above what it is now.

Until black and brown people feel comfortable walking in a hoodie or barbecuing in a park without having to worry about being discriminated against.

Until immigrants feel comfortable not speaking english in America.

Until black people stop getting followed in stores.

Until people stop blaming everything on everyone.

And until people like Sandra Bland or George Floyd feel as if they will only get a ticket when being pulled over by police, things will not change.

Until then.

Abdul How have you seen your peers or community depicted in the media during the pandemic?

Many events have occurred over this pandemic that have garnered media attention such as: people breaking quarantine, armed protests about wanting the quarantine to be lifted, and most recently, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others, and the uproar that ensued because of them which led to protests, riots, looting, arrests, and institutional changes. While there has been a somewhat positive change as a result of these movements, it has left the nation very divided and that can even be seen on my social media timelines and by the way the news portrays controversial topics.

How has the stay-at-home order affected your friendships?

It’s made all of them more distant for many different reasons. I've been trying to prioritize myself this whole quarantine because I have much more time to myself and to focus on bettering things in my personal life that matter to me. I also sometimes feel that at school I was often distracted by the pressure and urges to hang out with my friends and I became productive at school by staying after school and doing homework but there's basically nowhere on our campus that I could be without running into one of my friends or someone I know. I'm partially glad that I don't have to see my friends because I have more time to myself which wasn't always there when we were in school. Also we aren't going to school right now so usually I would see most of my friends in the hallway or in class but since there is no facilitator to make us have to see each other, we’ve communicated less. In recent events, a lot of people I know at my school have been exposed and re evaluated for racist and/or offensive comments because of the current situation. None of my own friendships have been affected by people getting exposed because I wasn't friends with the ones that did but I know people who have had to cut people off because they made statements they don't agree with.

Things would probably be worse if we were in school because people who made offensive comments on social media would have to deal with confrontation and probably end up getting in a fight with people who took offense to what they did or said.

Abdul Who’s the last person you remember hanging out with before the social isolation order was given?

I was playing basketball with my friends Ty, Momo, and Corey but then I had to leave so I left with my friend Narcisse and went to the Jewel Osco by our school after we played so I could wait to get picked up.

What’s one thing you miss right now? Why do you miss it?

I miss the ability to go out and do stuff freely mainly because most of my life revolved and still revolves around school and the thing I looked most forward to was seeing my friends and hanging out with them. Also, psychologically, just knowing that I have limitations irritates me even when doing things that aren't restricted by the quarantine.

Why did you pick a particular item/song/meme/etc to put in the project or to add to the playlist?

Memes in general have gotten me through this quarantine just by me being able to pass time by looking at them and they make me laugh sometimes so it's basically my main form of laughter. I chose the meme of the guy with the pot lid as a face mask because it took a real life circumstance of having to wear a mask nearly everywhere you go and made it comical by exaggerating but also still being very relatable at the same time.

Tomi, 16

Tomi is entering her junior year at Brooks High School.

Outside of school, Tomi likes to read, discover new shows to binge watch, and shop till she drops. Most importantly, Tomi loves hanging with her friends.

Arielle W., 15

I’m a soon to be sophomore at Lindblom Math and Science Academy. I play sports that some would consider bizarre, but my favorites have been badminton, ag football, and bowling. I love to analyze things, especially things that are relevant to issues present now.

Precious, 16

I am a graduating senior at Eric Solorio High school. I am a huge sports fanatic, I love playing sports especially team sports like volleyball, etc. I also love to read books and pretend as if I’m part of the story because it’s like living a different life in a way. I also like to shop online a lot, it’s really hard for me to hold back and not buy things that I see.

Abdul Adedeji, 15

I’m going to be a junior at Lane Tech High School in the fall. I’ve been keeping myself busy during quarantine by doing schoolwork, going on social media, taking walks around my neighborhood, and watching Youtube and Netflix. Even with all of these things to do, I still find myself very bored but it be like that.

Azeez Adedeji, 18

My name is Azeez Adedeji and I am a graduating senior from UIC College Prep. I am ATTENDING undecided between University of Dayton, Illinois State University, and Northern Illinois University. My senior year ended unexpectedly and expeditiously amidst the coronavirus.

However, with the time I have left before I go to college, I will reect and learn from all 4 years of high school.

Jocelyn Becerra, 18

I am a high school graduate from the class of 2020.

Many, including myself, consider me as a random and kind person. I always love helping others and bring a smile to their faces. A little more about me is that I love to play sports such as soccer, swimming, and outside of sports I love to run! I also enjoy reading books, writing poetry, speciďŹ cally free writing, and taking the train downtown. I am absolutely in love with the ocean and nature because it has a big connection with my life.

Myleena Webb, 18

My name is Myleena and I am a graduating senior from the class of 2020. I often ďŹ nd it impossible to describe myself with just a few words, but in essence, I consider myself a free spirited deep thinker who is passionate about art and social change. I love all things good for the soul and that contribute to personal well-being.

Ailea Stites Editor

Robin Cogdell Visual Designer

The authors would like to thank Kevin Fuller, Ireashia Bennett, Liz Futrell, Erin Garcia, Soo Young Lee, Ellen McCammon, Emily Moss, Valerie Reynolds, Anthony Rodriguez-Ortiz, and Christopher Saenz for their editorial and creative input, and for being a part of the Youth Council community.

Ci3 is a research center at the University of Chicago. Our work addresses the social and structural determinants of adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

At Ci3, we envision a world in which all youth emerge into adulthood with agency over their bodies and futures. Ci3 is committed to empowering young people, conducting innovative research, and uncovering opportunities for policy and systemic change.

The Ci3 Youth Advisory Council, comprised of young people ages 14-18 from across Chicago, meets regularly to advise, consult, and inform Ci3 research projects. The mission of the Youth Council is to ensure that Ci3’s research and interventions center the lived experiences of the populations we serve.

For more information visit ci3.uchicago.edu