DePaulia
The
Volume #105 | Issue #5 | Oct. 5, 2020 | depauliaonline.com
Blue Demons fight for Black lives By Lawrence Kreymer Sports Editor
See BLUE DEMONS, page 27
It sucks you have to connect with such really hard topics, but it’s made people realize that as student-athletes, we are more than athletes. We are humans first and you have to stand up for what you believe in.
Rutendo Chimbaru
DePaul track & field athlete
Column By Kierstin Cole Contributing Writer
“It is what it is.” Those five words, in context, constitute what is arguably one of the most disgusting, inhumane statements of the Trump presidency thus far. Over 150,000 people had died. It is what it is. I heard that statement only a few hours before my Covid-19 test came back positive. I wasn’t in Chicago; I was in a little town about an hour and a half west of the city with my family — right in the middle of the region that’s facing new mitigation measures right now. I watched every single member of my family test positive. I know what it means to go through that. In writing this, I want to make three
GOLUSZKA | THE DEPAULIA
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this was a true opportunity to use our platform for the better use of DePaul and the community outside of us,” Hastings said. “Being in athletics, we are not just about athletics, we are not just about academics, we are about being better as individuals and bettering ourselves in athletics, in school and beyond.” DePaul also has a representative in the Big East’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group, which aims to spread awareness about racism, social injustice and police brutality. Rutendo Chimbaru, another senior on DePaul’s track and field roster, is the Blue Demons’ representative and has been working with the conference all summer long. “I got the Big East position about a year ago, that’s when the Big East started the Diversity and Inclusion group,” Chimbaru said. “I’ve been working with them on
CIA A LI
This past summer saw America face two major challenges: the Covid-19 pandemic and the continuation of social injustice and police brutality. In May, a video emerged of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, pressing his knee into George Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes, eventually killing Floyd. Then, in August, another video emerged from Kenosha, Wisconsin. where a police officer shot eight bullets into Jacob Blake’s back. Both videos and the already built up frustration from many people regarding police brutality in America drove masses out into the streets to protest these instances of brutality. As the discussion regarding social injustice and police brutality got bigger, more and more athletes became a part of the dialogue — including student-athletes. DePaul’s student-athletes took this opportunity over the summer to express their voices and try to help with the ongoing issue of Black men and women being killed by the police. Margaret Hastings, a senior on DePaul’s track and field team, had the idea to start a fundraiser for
Black Lives Matter Chicago. In an effort to help the organization, Hastings wanted to raise money that could help them continue to protest issues like systemic racism and police brutality. “When all the events started taking place in early June, end of May, everyone was really affected by it and impacted, and I wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on my community,” Hastings said in an interview with The DePaulia. “DePaul is made up of such a diverse community and I never want anyone to feel that they are not supported and their voice is not heard. I came with the idea to start a T-shirt initiative to raise money for Black Lives Matter Chicago and to have a community still feel connected and supported.” Hastings said that she was able to raise over $330 dollars in two weeks, through entirely studentled fundraising. There was no specific monetary goal that she had in mind when starting the fundraiser — instead, Hastings wanted to bring the DePaul athletics community together to use their platform to help other people. “Up until in June I never really capitalized on, [the fact that] I’m a captain on the [track and field team] and I support athletics, but
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The pandemic is not over. I’m proof. things very clear. First, we did everything we were supposed to do. We wore masks, we socially distanced. When we got sick, we quarantined. We didn’t do anything that put us at higher risk to contract this virus. Second, this virus is not a binary thing. This isn’t a situation where you either have no symptoms or you die. There is so much gray area in between and that gray area carries risks of long-term symptoms, inflammation, and organ damage. Third, and most importantly for the people reading this, you can be young and healthy and get extremely ill. I am a healthy nineteen-year-old whose only chronic, relevant health condition is lactose intolerance. I spent two weeks in a fetal position at the height of it. I won’t list
off every symptom I experienced in order to preserve a shred of privacy on this matter and to protect my own dignity. I will not speak on my family’s experience, and I will not act like I speak for every single person who has had to go through this. I speak only for myself. It’s been almost nine weeks since I started having symptoms. I know that because this isn’t something that’s confined to a week or two weeks, this isn’t something where you’re sick and then you aren’t. The first three weeks were what I describe as the initial illness — it was the part where I couldn’t breathe, I had a fever, I couldn’t eat at all. The best way I could describe it is the worst flu imaginable, the worst case of strep throat imaginable, and
the worst stomach bug imaginable — all at the same time and all amplified by a hundred. Those first three weeks constitute the worst experience of my life so far. It was painful, terrifying, absolutely infuriating. Painful, because the symptoms are the worst thing I’ve experienced in my life. Terrifying, because when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t know how you’re going to get through it, how your loved ones are going to get through it. It is absolutely infuriating to watch people online, talking about how Covid-19 isn’t a big deal, saying that it’s overblown and we should all just get on with our lives. “I would only wish this on a denier, so maybe they would understand what this
See COVID, page 13