Lakota East Spark 2020-2021 Issue 1

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TABLE OF CONTENTS #194

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NEWS: After former East

FEATURE: Spark staffer

and West principals accepted new positions over the summer, Lakota welcomed Dr. Yejide Mack and Ben Brown to the high schools.

Mary Barone shares her experience of having COVID-19 and explores the stigma of testing positive in today’s society.

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25 PACKAGE: Spark takes a look at different aspects of the BLM movement and explores the racial inequality that exists in the modern world.

60

SPORTS: East’s abnormal football season ended following a 31-14 loss against rival West, in the second round of the OHSAA postseason.

CULTURE: Spark highlights Black Beauty and the importance of black hair in African American culture in part 1 of this beauty series.

69 OPINION: Package editor Mia Hilkowtiz shares her perspective on why minors should not be tried as adults in the U.S. criminal justice system.

East junior Natalie Dacey is one of the students who participated in the Black Lives Matter student photoshoot which was held by the staff in order to obtain photos for the Package. The other students who were involved in the photoshoot are the faces of the Package stories.

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 3

Spark 2020-2021 STAFF

Editors-in-Chief: Brayden Barger Abbie Westendorf Shiloh Wolfork Business Manager: Riley Higgins News Editors: Rachel Anderson Megan Miranda Feature Editors: Frankie Stull Marleigh Winterbottom Package Editors: Mia Hilkowitz Ava Huelskamp Culture Editors: Ianni Acapulco Natalie Mazey Sports Editor: Mason Wise Opinion Editor: Rehab Jarabah Photography Editors: Riley Higgins Cassandra Mueller Art Editor: Cassandra Mueller PR Director: Abbie Westendorf Webmaster: Shiloh Wolfork Broadcast Editor: Brayden Barger

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Every issue, the Spark staff covers an issue that impacts society and the local community. Following the incidents in the summer, and events before then, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained worldwide traction. For this reason, the staff has chosen to cover the Black Lives Matter movement. We thoroughly understand that this topic is extremely complex and that its coverage requires a specific amount of care and delicacy. We want to make it known that our only goal in covering this topic is to promote education in hopes of sparking awareness, promoting meaningful conversations, and encouraging understanding. None of our stories are written with the intention of presenting the movement as a political one. We are focusing on the existence of Black Lives Matter as a human rights organization.

In an effort to provide an understanding of the movement as a whole, the staff covered many different aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement, including racial inequalities facing African Americans within the judicial system, the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the black community, and the history of the movement.

The stories have also been covered in a couple of different ways, including personal narratives from some of our staffers and the traditional style of in-depth reporting. The stories gradually move from lighter to deeper shades in order to represent different skin tones. However, we recognize that there is a hole in our reporting of this package: the input of police officers.

A main goal of the Black Lives Matter movement is to advocate for justice for victims of racially-motivated police brutality. For this reason, we acknowledge the importance of including quotes and stories from police officers in our stories. We have recently gotten into contact with the West Chester Police Department, and we are in the process of interviewing officers in an effort to gain information about their perspectives.

Due to this recent development, in the interest of time, we are unable to include opinions and statements from our local police officers in this issue. Rather, we will be covering this aspect of the topic in a future issue, in a way that allows us to ensure that the coverage is complete and unrushed. The staff acknowledges the sensitivity of the package, and we want to guarantee that our coverage concerning this movement is done accurately and honestly. -Spark Editorial Board The Spark encourages letters to the editor. Letters can be sent to the publication at Sparkbusiness2021@gmail.com or delivered to room 118 at the Lakota East High School Main Campus. Letters must be signed, and the staff reserves the right to edit the letters for length, grammar, invasion of privacy, obscenity or potential libel. The opinion editor will contact writers for confirmation.

ON THE COVER

Copyeditors: Abbie Westendorf Shiloh Wolfork

photography riley higgins designed ianni acapulco

Advisor: Dean Hume

Spark Lakota East High School lakotaeastsparkonline.com November 2020 $5 Newstand

4 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

This issue, Spark is taking a look at different aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement. The staff is exploring the historical motivations of BLM and how its presence today addresses modern racial inequalities.

The names written in the background are the names of police brutality victims. East seniors John Lemma, Tiffany Nguyen, Darek Sanabria and East juniors Lucy Mullenix and Brenda Fofie are pictured on the cover.

chief column | opinion chief column | opinion

DON’T BE SILENT W

BY ABBIE WESTENDORF photography riley higgins

hen the Black Lives Matter movement ramped up again following the death of George Floyd, in July of 2020, I was in shock. How could 2020 get any worse? On top of the death of Kobe Bryant, wildfires in Australia, the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, a global pandemic, and now the recent events of police brutality that revealed the persistence of racism in America. It never crossed my mind how much racism still ran rampant in our society. When you don’t experience racism, injustice, and oppression on a daily basis it becomes invisible to you. You become blind with ignorance.

As a white person, I’ve had to learn that my life is so much different from the people of color (POCs) around me. They may have the same friends, the same name, the same style, the same aspirations, and so on, but they don’t have the same privileges that I do. I will never understand how it feels to be on the receiving end of racism or injustice. So I listen to those who do and I do my best to speak up for those who cannot. It is easy to feel comfortable in the privilege that ignorance provides, but I hope that this piece helps you shy away from that.

We all need to address our blind spots when it comes to racial issues. We need to take steps to recognize our implicit biases, which are our unconscious stereotypes and attitudes.

According to the article Talking to Children About Racial Bias from Healthy Children, implicit biases start forming around age two, and by 12, many of us are set in our belief systems and morals. However, we will never get anywhere as a society without addressing our ignorance and educating ourselves and others on issues that plague us.

Discomfort will be a normal feeling. You will question everything you’ve ever said to a POC. You will wonder if you’ve ever contributed to the hatred. Taking the time to reflect and address your past actions will be uncomfortable. However, it’s important to have those difficult experiences and use them as an opportunity to continue to educate yourself. Educate yourself on what privilege is, and make an effort to actively acknowledge any privileges that you may have. Evaluate how ignoring these privileges in the past may have shielded you from contributing to racial equity.

Be the person who starts the difficult conversations. Tell your friends and family members about what you’ve learned and what resources you’ve used to educate yourself. Watch documentaries, read articles from credible sources, make an effort to surround yourself with people of diverse backgrounds.

Most importantly, listen to the experiences of POC with open ears. Don’t try to interject.

When we ignore the stories of POC, it is easy for us to forget the injustices that communities outside of our own have endured. Our perception of race relations becomes skewed. In a study Pew did in 2016, when asked if the country needs to continue to work towards equality in America only 53% of whites said yes, in comparison to the 88% of African Americans who agreed with the statement.

I have never walked in the shoes of a POC. I have never walked into a store or restaurant wondering if I will be treated differently due to the color of my skin. Therefore, if a POC is discussing their own experiences or explaining why a certain action or event is racist, it is not my place to tell them otherwise. Being an ally in our current society means being open to change and staying as educated as possible. Especially now, there are so many ways to get involved and begin the journey of being a good ally. Whether you use social media to amplify the voices of POC’s or attend protests to raise awareness for the racial injustice facing them today, getting involved in any way is always better than staying silent. •

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news | online

NEVER MISS A STORY ONLINE photography brayden barger

photography used with permission

A DIVIDED DISTRICT

HOPE IN COMMUNITY

A senior parking spot painted as the “Thin Blue Line” flag was defaced at Lakota West, sparking a divide amongst members of the community. - brayden barger

Mason high school students organized a family friendly peaceful protest in the city of Mason, one which was attended by students from all over Butler County.

- ava huelskamp

photography mia hilkowitz

photography ava huelskamp

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

ROAD TO 1600

LEAF club, East’s environmentally centered after-school club, is making a difference in the East and local communities with weekly meetings and projects like tree planting. olivia rigney

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Four Lakota East seniors achieved the title of semifinalists for the national merit scholarship because of their high-ranking PSAT scores. - frankie stull

briefs | news

CLUBS IN A PANDEMIC

E

ast clubs allow students with similar interests to come together. There are over 40 different clubs at East, and many of them had to alter the way they run meetings due to the safety protocols that are in place because of COVID-19.

“I’m so glad [the students] still want to have the clubs because [they] are really meaningful, especially clubs like Gender-Sexuality Alliance (GSA) or the Muslim Student Association (MSA). It’s very personal for the students who are in it,” English teacher and advisor of four East clubs Kate Foldy said. “Students in our clubs are self sufficient. Usually all I have to do is provide my room and maybe my overhead and they’ll take care of the rest.”

East teachers are organizing and planning activities as the year progresses to avoid the spread of COVID-19. On average, the clubs this year started about a week later because they had to make sure that every activity was safe and followed school protocols. Teachers constantly met with East’s Athletic Director, Richard Bryant, to verify they were following all safety precautions.

“I [was] a part of the administrative team that helped with protocols,” Bryant said. “[The protocols] depend on the club. If we have a club that requires more contact, that’s when [I] would step in.”

During class, the students have to follow a number of safety protocols; they must wear masks at all times, stay socially distanced, and wash their hands. While in clubs, they must follow these protocols as well as any extra protocols the club may have, specifically those that use shared materials, such as C h e s s C l u b.

According to Chess Club Advisor and Calculus teacher Pat Kreider, Chess Club members must wear gloves while handling the equipment, and they are not allowed to play face-to-face.

“We have to wear masks in the building of course. In addition to that, they’re trying to stay socially distant while they play,” Kreider said. “I instructed them to play from a standing position. I give them the option to sit, make their move, hit the clock, and then stand up.”

Clubs such as Latin Club, incorporated

food into their meetings regularly before the shutdown in March. The food this year will be handled differently through precautions that will ensure the reduction of contact with consumables.

“In the past you might have ordered pizza and everybody just gets pizza from the box, but that’s not going to happen this year,” Latin teacher and Latin Club Advisor Sarah Elmore said. “We want to have things that are prepackaged and individually wrapped, and then the sponsors will have gloves and masks to pass that out.”

With the later start date, the uncertainty regarding what the activities would look like, and the safety protocols in place, Kreider noticed less underclassmen involvement in clubs this school year.

“Currently, we only have two new kids.

Normally we average about five new kids a year,” Kreider said. “So, hopefully as things kind of settle we’ll get more kids to come back out, but all my players from last year have returned. So that’s good news.”

The idea of making and distributing the ear savers to Lakota staff was initiated by the team’s mentor of 17 years, Jimmy Nichols. After seeing a student from the Loveland school district make ear savers and donate them to her school, Nichols suggested to do the same for Lakota. It was an act of thanks for allowing the robotics team to utilize their building (previously the Lakota Enrollment Center) as the club’s hub of operation.

“It’s a community based project where people can download [CAD] files and 3D print them at home or at work and start getting them out,” Nichols said.

Computer-aided design (CAD) files are digital files that house 3D and 2D designs as well as information regarding materials, processes, and other data. The files are imported into a software that converts them into proper format so it can be sent to a 3D printer.

Nichols reached out to Superintendent Matt Miller with the idea, asking how many staff members the district had. Miller told him 2000, and within a week, the robotics team had 2200 ear savers printed and ready to deliver.

East senior Aaron Ziegler, who is Lyden’s co-captain, was previously an integration team leader. His duties were similar to those he has

now, but had been more focused on facilitating inter-subteam communication to make sure that everyone was aware what other subteams were doing.

“A bunch of our kids have 3D printers at home,” said Ziegler. “We upload the files to the printer and say, print 10 of them, and do that as many times as we can.”

The Robotic Team then collected and rubber-banded the ear savers into groups of 20 or 30. They were then bagged before being put into a bigger box. The team brought them to Central Office, where Miller quarantined them for a few days before distributing them to different buildings for the teachers to have.

The club has also donated printed bands for face shields to frontline workers, and some of the Robotics Team students have even moved to printing stethoscope parts after the team was reached out to by an organization who donated some ear savers to help them reach their goal faster.

“Ear savers are already really big with medical fashion,” Ziegler said. “We wanted to do what we could to help schools and local communities make this new situation as comfortable as possible.”

-Vi Dao

ROBOTICS CLUB DONATES EAR SAVERS

I

n an effort to give back to the community, the Lakota FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team engineered and 3D printed 2,200 ear savers for Lakota’s teachers and staff.

“We saw a need in our community for something that would make everyone’s lives easier,” East senior Courtney Lyden said. “And as a robotics team, we have more access than most to things like 3D printers that allow us to uniquely fill that need.”

Ear savers are bands with hooks designed to prevent the discomfort and pain that can come from wearing masks for extended periods of time. Rather than the elastic of a face mask being hooked behind ears, they would be hooked into the ear saver.

Lyden was elected to be one of the team’s co-captains in May of 2020, but had previously held a position as a control subteam leader, working to manage the kids who worked on coding, wiring, and pneumatics. As a captain, her responsibilities include liaising with the mentors on the team to set up fundraising events, discussing plans for demonstration events or what competitions to attend, as well as to ensure that the different subteams are working together and communicating well during the season.

-Ianni Acapulco

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news | vlo

LOGGING INTO LEARNING In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lakota has implemented a new program known as the Virtual Learning Option to allow for the opportunity of both in-person and virtual learning. story and photography megan miranda | infographic shiloh wolfork

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n 2020 there are no longer just different types of student learners and multiple grade levels to group students by, there are now in-person students and virtual learning students. For states around the U.S., including Ohio, the decision regarding returning to schools had been carefully contemplated and differs from district to district.

After Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced guidelines allowing individual school districts to make their own decisions regarding this year, the pressure was on. When making this decision, districts considered their size, capabilities, and community input. Since the initial closing of schools in March of 2020, and the shutdown of all in-person schooling during the fourth quarter, the fate of the

upcoming year was a mystery. For Lakota, the seventh largest district in Ohio, the mystery was even more prominent.

As many factors were uncertain, including decisions from Dewine and local and state health and education departments, there was not an initial announcement of plans until Jun. 29.

Lakota’s main goal, emphasized throughout the district, is to personalize learning. The district is doing so by offering the Lakota community an opportunity to decide if it benefits a student or teacher, health or learning wise, to be in the building learning, and following health guidelines, or doing a virtual learning program. For Lakota, this is known as the Virtual Learning Option (VLO).

Keith Koehne, the district’s Director of Curriculum and Instruction, has worked with a team of people in Lakota to build t h e coursework

and

enrollment this year for the 4,000 enrolled VLO students. “[The program] is us being responsive to our family’s needs,” Koehne said. “[We’re] also trying to build something that is going to serve our kids and our teachers for a long time.”

This opportunity was also offered to teachers within the district. They had the choice to teach in person or to teach from home if they wanted to by choice or it was a necessity regarding health.

K

rista MacFarlane, a first-grade elementary school teacher at Liberty Early Childhood School, has been teaching in person for 17 years. However, following the pandemic, she made the switch to entirely VLO. “I made a late decision to switch to VLO when I learned that the number of families interested in the option was growing. There was a need for teachers and I felt like I could provide a positive experience to our Lakota families that were jumping into this new adventure,” MacFarlane

regulate

Lakota fifth grader Cooper Miranda does work on his Chromebook given by the Lakota dstrict during the 2018-2019 school year.

8 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

vlo | news said. “I am also pregnant and knew this position would limit mine and the baby’s exposure to COVID-19 and other germs.”

As the VLO program is centered around individual pace and learning and cannot replicate the in person experience at East, a day as a VLO learner can look very different for students.

“I think the pros are the flexibility piece, especially for students who might get through [content] quickly,” Koehne said. “[Also] for students who have a big obligation outside of school, whether they have to watch their siblings or they have a job, or some families [have] high-level gymnasts, swimmers, or tennis players, and that flexibility meets their needs.”

For Macfarlane, her day-to-day schedule follows the curriculum and an online plan she designs in advance for her young students. She facilitates language arts, math, social studies, and science at the first-grade level, along with being responsible for the specials, like art, gym, and music.

“Part of my day is online with students through Zoom. We engage in whole class sessions that primarily focus on building our culture, developing our social/emotional health, and building relationships,” Macfarlane said. “Another large part of my day is spent reviewing student work, providing feedback, and planning next steps for delivering a meaningful curriculum. I spend time with the parents, guardians, and tutors that help to facilitate the learning at home, and I prepare videos and load assignments daily to keep our students organized and ready for each day.”

Zoom has been a tool utilized by teachers at East since predominately the first quarantine in March of 2020. It is a video communication platform for groups of people to hold discussions, meetings, or for teachers specifically to teach classes.

schedule and personal traveling. In the first 5 weeks of school, he went to tournaments around the U.S. in Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Arizona, and Montana.

[When] I get to the airport I usually sleep on my first or second flight and then if I have a third flight, I’ll usually do homework while waiting,” Wilson said. “[Tournament days] are a lot more emotionally taxing because I have to wake up at six to go into the course, warmup and then play. [That night] I might want to do homework assignments, b u t I ’ l l r e a l l y j u s t t r y to relax and prepare for the rest of the events. So during the actual tournament time there isn’t a lot of work that I can get done.”

As Wilson’s personal travel season is coming to an end, his daily rou tine is becoming more consistent while still focusing on golf.

“I’ve got a pretty crazy schedule each day, I get up around 6:20 A.M. to workout and go to the local range to practice. I get home around 8:45 and do work till about 2:00,” Wilson said.

“I go to my high school practice, come home, eat dinner, and relax. Then around 8:00 I’ll work on some homework.”

For both students and teachers who are involved in VLO, a strongly missed aspect of the in-person experience is human interaction

and community building.

“I miss my friends. I miss hanging out with everybody, I miss Red-Life [East club led by Wilson] obviously we can’t do that right now in person,” Wilson said. “I’m an excitable guy, I love to hang out with people, chat, and just learn more about people, and I kind of miss that.”

Joe and his sister Bree Wilson started a Christian East club known as Red-Life at the start of his Freshman year, with weekly meetings on Mondays, including games, food, and a lesson.

However, the district is doing its best to incorporate VLO students into the community.

The Lakota district has allowed students in the virtual program to continue to attend clubs and be involved with after-school activities.

“We are still very much encouraging all of our students who might be learning outside of this building, to still be involved in some of those activities that allow them to have that same student interaction,” East Principal Yejide Mack said.

Virtual teachers can also miss the sociable aspect that was once more heavily incorporated into their days.

“I miss my colleagues. Part of loving your job is enjoying the people that surround you and the interactions you have that make up

High School Reopening Plans for 30 of the Largest Districts in the United States

F

or students at East, day-to-day schedules look a little bit different than that of a first grader’s however, they still vary from student to student.

Nisso Sasha, an East junior enrolled in the VLO program at East, decided it was the right decision to stay home because the program seemed more educationally appealing, and she wanted to ensure the safety of herself and her family.

“It gives me a lot of freedom. I can work on AP Economics and then I can go out for a run and come back and do English. I don’t have to do everything in one day,” Sasha said. “It isn’t necessarily easier [than in person], it is just paced differently and done on my own time.”

In contrast, East junior Joe Wilson, who is committed to play golf for Ohio State University, has a very different schedule. His work pace and schooling revolve around his golf career, involving the East varsity golf team’s

West

In-person

Midwest

Remote

Northeast

Hybrid

Northwest

Offers both in-person and remote learning

Southwest Southeast

source educationnext.org December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 9

news | vlo

“ It gives me a lot of freedom. I can work on AP Economics and then I can go out for a run and come back and do English. I don’t have to do everything in one day. It isn’t necessarily easier [than in person], it is just paced differently and done on my own time.”-East VLO junior Nisso Sasha your day,” Macfarlane said. “The four walls of my office can be very lonely at times. Luckily, I have Zoom calls to brighten my day!”

Other teachers have been given the responsibility of both in-person and VLO students for their taught courses. Dr. Trisha Grote at East Main, teaches both for her C.P. Government and Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics classes.

“There are more responsibilities dumped on me each week,” Grote said. “Students from East randomly appear in my course load, [and] got a whole set of West AP Government students added to my VLO Apex course.”

Grote experienced many challenges with balancing her courses in-person and online She has 61 in-person learners and 94 VLO learners, for a total of 155 students.

“I did not request to teach VLO classes. I believe [doing both] is physically and mentally going to take a toll on my health,” Grote said.

“Student participation is the most challenging

[with] 40% participation in Zooms, and [only] a few more participate in completing assignments.”

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ilson is one of Grote’s VLO government students.

“She has been great throughout this whole process. I’ve missed so much school, and she has been really cool about that.

I’ve really been pleased with her and how she’s handled things,” Wilson said.

For some students, a challenge VLO presented was limited class options. Some students had to drop classes if they were not offered virtually.

“I was on a path through Butler Tech.

Freshman and sophomore year I took social Biomedical Science and Human Body Systems courses,” Sasha said. “This year I was supposed to take Medical Interventions, but will not be able to.”

However, every new adjustment comes

with its challenges. In this case, for students and teachers, Koehne believes the program is improving through the constant feedback received by Lakota.

“The planning team behind the scenes meets on a weekly basis. We take the survey data that we get and we dissect all the comments that come in. We try to act on those as much as possible,” Koehne said. “We have teams that are working on action steps [for] each of the pieces of feedback we get from parents and surveys.”

These unprecedented times have led to anything but normalcy, but Lakota’s VLO poses one solution to the many unknown challenges presented by the pandemic.

“The most positive aspect of it all is just hearing from families where this meets their needs,” Koehne said. “[hearing families say] you’ve provided us a way to stay connected to school and to Lakota. That’s really gratifying.”•

friends . faith . food HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SUNDAYS / 5:30PM INSTAGRAM @LHCSTUMIN

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Liberty Heights Church 7904 Princeton Road

new principals | news

East Principal Dr. Yejide Mack talks to East juniors Mia Kamphuis (left) and Josie Mckain (right)

THE NEW PRINCIPALS

After former East and West principals accepted new positions over the summer, Lakota welcomed Yejide Mack and Ben Brown to the high schools in August. story rachel anderson | photography marleigh winterbottom and used with permission

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his 2020-2021 school year, 18 administrative changes were made in several different buildings across the district. Of those administrators, 16 switched jobs within the district, while the other two transferred from other districts. East and West high schools both greeted new principals to their building in August.

Former East principal Suzanna Davis left the district in June when she accepted a job as the Director of Programming for Grant Us Hope.

Grant Us Hope is the nonprofit organization that brought Hope Squad, a peer-to-peer suicide prevention group, to East, as well as nearly 160 schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. Davis oversees the educational aspects of Grant Us Hope as well as Hope Squad.

Davis saw the impact the program had on East, and the “amplification of student voice resonated deeply” with her. She believes that all students should be given a voice through empowerment, and when she was approached by representatives from Grant Us Hope offering her the position, she felt as if the job would give

her the opportunity to fulfill that calling in a new way.

“I have always believed everything in life happens for a reason, and after being Principal at East for the last eight years, I was beginning to think about what my next professional goal would be,” David said. “When I was approached about the position at Grant Us Hope, it spoke to my head and my heart. I am deeply passionate about the work surrounding mental health and suicide prevention.”

East principal Yejide Mack joined the district Aug. 1 when Davis left. Prior to working with students, Mack earned a master’s degree in environmental engineering. She decided to go back to school to get a master’s and a doctorate in education at the University of Cincinnati.

Since then, she has been a math teacher at Cincinnati Public Schools, an assistant principal at Mt. Healthy Junior/Senior School, and from 2014-2020, the assistant principal at Sycamore High School.. “[Leaving Sycamore] was a hard thing to do. Sycamore is a great school like Lakota East

is a great school,” Mack said. “[But I realized that] we have the opportunity to do some really big things because we have so many student leaders, so many student organizations, and so many students who just want to be involved.

So that made [my] decision a little bit easier.”

Mack heard about the open position in July through a friend who formerly worked at East.

According to Lakota Superintendent Matt Miller, Mack has been on the district’s radar for a long time, and she came highly recommended from some of his colleagues at Sycamore.

“When you have two really good principals at two of the best high schools in Ohio, there are people who are going to want to hire them out of Lakota or offer them other opportunities,” Miller said. “So we keep a shortlist of potential administrators all the time because we’re so big and we know Lakota has a good reputation.”

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here were 22 candidates who applied for the principal positions at East and West high schools, but according to Miller, Mack’s reputation and personality separated her

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 11

news | new principals

“My goals are to continue to help to build citizens who are strong, who are intelligent, who are kind, and who are empathetic. ” - East Principal Dr. Yejide Mack from the rest. The way she engaged with the executive team members set her apart from the others, and her interactions with students from East made the decision easier.

“We held a small group session with students, parents, and staff members, and the rapport that she built in a short amount of time with those that were in the room [made her stand out],” Miller told Spark.

As principal of East, Mack hopes to instill in students that they are not defined by their grades. She believes that students are more than the AP classes they take and the grades they receive, and that parents, teachers, and the community should focus on the student as a whole to help build compassionate citizens.

“My goals are to continue to help to build citizens who are strong, who are intelligent, who are kind, and who are empathetic,” Mack said. “My goal is to help all of us to understand that the academic piece is not what’s going to help us to be better people. [We need] to look at the entire student.”

East Associate Principal Nicole Isaacs, who also joined the East staff this August to lead the Freshman Campus, agrees that school should be more than just academics. Isaacs hopes that the students feel like a part of a family.

“Our goal is to continue that legacy of East pride and to make this experience the best possible for freshmen,” Isaacs said. “We want everyone to feel what a true Thunderhawk family feels like.”

B

efore coming to East, Isaacs served as the assistant principal at West High School, and before West, she was the principal of Lakota’s Career Readiness Academy.

Hoping to become a superintendent one day, Isaacs saw the opportunity as a promotion to help her on her “career pathway.”

Even though Isaacs worked at West, she also co-led several projects throughout the district, including #WEareDaring, which allowed her to build relationships with East teachers and administrators. Having those established connections made the transition across the district feel more manageable.

“I [had to remember that I am] no longer a Firebird, and [I had to] get rid of some red clothing,” Isaacs said. “But people are people and kids are kids no matter what side of town that you are on. Everybody has the same needs

to be seen, heard, and feel valued.”

Isaacs replaced Robert Burnside, who resigned to join New Richmond High School as the principal.

“Aside from missing the students and staff members whom I have been with for the past three years, we are off to a great start and things are wonderful for me at New Richmond,” Burnside told Spark. “Ironically, when I left Lakota East in 2006 to enter administration, it was to become the assistant principal at New Richmond High School, so I feel blessed to have an opportunity to lead a school that has a special place in my heart, just like Lakota East.”

West Principal Ben Brown became principal on Aug. 1 after being the principal of Ridge Junior School and a Lakota Administrator for 15 years.

Around the same time Davis accepted her position at Grant Us Hope, former West principal Elgin Card also accepted a new job. After being principal for six years, Card left West to become the Senior Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Lakota. “[Leaving West was] probably the hardest decision I’ve ever made in a lot of years, and to be honest, my initial thought was I’m not leaving my kids at West,” Card said. “But I talked to some trusted friends and my wife…

12 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

her words were ‘you’ve had an impact in that building. But now you can have an impact throughout the district.’ I’m starting to build relationships with kids, teachers, staff, and principals throughout the district so it’s really exciting.”

As Senior Director of the Lakota Outreach, Diversity, and Inclusion (LODI) department, Card hopes to hire a more diverse staff, bring people of different backgrounds together, and to “make sure our kids see themselves in some of our curriculum.”

“One of my goals is to bring people together to make everybody understand that regardless of who you are, what you look like, how you worship, who you love, or how much money you have, that we’re a team.” Card said.

Replacing Card as principal of the 2,691 student high school is Ben Brown, who has spent his past 15 years as a Lakota Administrator.

Brown has held principal positions at Adena, Independence, and Union Elementary schools, as well as serving as principal of Ridge Junior School for the last three years.

Miller said that from the start, Brown was a natural fit due to the relationships he already had with the students in the district. Brown was a close friend of Card’s, so he spent a lot of time at the high school watching sporting events and enjoying the arts.

“I have a strong belief in following your purpose and living a purpose driven life,” Brown said. “I really fell in love with the Lakota West school community, so when the opportunity came I felt like as a building administrator, [a high school principal] is the premier job in the district.”

Brown believes that he can “have the greatest impact in high school” because students in grades 10-12 are not only thinking about their high school experience but also about post-graduation. One of his biggest goals as principal of West is to prepare students for the future. He is looking at offering innovative learning opportunities while also meeting the social-emotional needs of the students.

His other goal as principal is to enhance the culture at West - to emphasize to staff and students that they are a team.

“We want to make sure that everybody feels a part of the school and that everybody has a support system,” Brown said. “[We want] to grow as a school community.” •

A NEW ERA T

he click of her heels through Main Street doesn’t fade into the usual medley of noises.

Her laugh is contagious, her colorful assortment of clothes are eye-catching, and her voice cuts through in a melodic way. Her bright individuality shines through the halls of East.

New East principal Yejide Mack has made a presence for herself at Main Campus in just over a month in her new position. After teaching at Cincinnati Public Schools and serving as an assistant principal at Sycamore High School, Mack is a new figure to the Lakota district that is determined to build strong relationships within the school.

The field of education has been no stranger to Mack. She grew up in an environment where it was prioritized. Both of her paternal grandparents and her maternal grandfather were educators and pushed her to do her best in school, which carried into her adulthood.

“I can’t say I didn’t like [being a hydrologist], it just was I was really isolated...but I’m very much a people person,” Mack says. “I talked with my grandfather [who] was so smart, I mean just one of the smartest people ever. He was very much that thinker that could do it

dr. mack | feature

New East principal Dr. Yejide Mack is excited to be welcomed into the East community and is eager to grow in the special environment that East provides. story wudie amsalu | photography cassandra mueller

believes that Mack’s open minded yet focused attitude has been encouraging for her.

“My biggest thing with [Dr. Mack] is that she’s always on point. She’s always bringing people back in like, ‘This is our purpose’,”Joseph says, “I want to do that and try to emulate it.”

East junior Lauren Bieri has been also working with Mack for Hawk Ambassadors, a student organization focused on giving back to the community. While planning the coat drive, Bieri was surprised to see Mack take time out of her own day to genuinely listen to their plans in the moment. “[I believe] She values the student voice more than anything and she is very admirable for that kind of respect, “ Bieri says.

H

ighlighting diversity is one of the emphasized plans Mack has for the East student body.

Mack is the first female black principal at East, serving as a face for students and families of color across the district. She hopes that seeing this will unite the school in their different experiences.

“My biggest thing with [Dr. Mack] is that she’s always on point. She’s always bringing people back in like, ‘This is our purpose.’ ”- Innovation Specialist Katie Joseph all in his mind, and he suggested that maybe I look into education.”

Though this is her first year at East, Mack understands the importance of what has come before her. Preserving years of tradition while still moving towards innovation is a balance she strives to achieve.

“I think Dr. Mack knows that she’s coming into a very strong community, and a very strong school. Right now, she’s in the process of becoming a part of it.” East assistant principal, Matt Mcfarlene says. “It’s hard with COVID because you limit the number of people and limit the number of interactions, but I think that she is trying to do her best to get out there and make as many connections as she can.”

For many, Mack is not only impacting the school but their own lives and identities.

Katie Joseph, East’s Innovation Specialist and co-advisor of the Hawk Time News Network,

“Not only will it help students of color, being able to see somebody who is walking in the shoes that they want, but it also helps those teachers and students and families who have never really interacted with an African American person before,” Mack says.

It’s rare to see Mack without a smile on her face at East. From light hearted banter with passerbys in the office to casually checking up on staff members in the halls, she values being able to hear everyone’s voice.

“Because you all see that we want the same thing for our community, we just have different perspectives on how it should look and how we get there. “ Mack says. “The beauty of being in this position, in this role, in any position as a leader is that you bring those different perspectives together and then you’re able to build that community that everyone has resolved with and everybody can be happy with.”•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 13

news | safety protocols

East government teacher Pete Maus cleans students’ desks in between classes.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

In-person learning during a pandemic has presented new challenges, but Lakota has worked to implement safety protocols that allow students to continue to learn in-person as long as possible. story natalie mazey | photography mary barone and riley higgins | infographic mary barone

W

alking into East, students and staff face a sea of masked-faces lining hallways, as hand sanitizer dispensers act as a constant reminder of the new reality that faces the world. Assigned seats spaced three feet apart in the cafeteria and arrows guiding directional flow in the hallways show that the 2020-2021 school year is far from normal. By choosing to allow students to take part in in-person learning, Lakota East has allowed students to have a glimpse of normalcy, adjusting procedures to include safety measures to protect students and staff from the COVID-19 in the process.

Across the Lakota district , students and staff are required to wear a face mask at all times throughout the school day. The exceptions to this rule are while eating lunch and during outdoor mask breaks when people are spaced six feet or more apart. In classrooms, desks are spaced three feet apart, and staff and students are encouraged to complete a daily health assessment checklist before coming to school.

In developing safety protocols, the Lakota Local School District worked closely alongside

the Butler County Health Department (BCHD) in order to develop safety procedures before the start of the school year. According to Lakota Manager of Health Services Lauren Brown, routine meetings, guidance for isolation, and rules for those who have been in close contact with a positive case have all been provided by the BCHD. Recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Ohio Department of Health, Butler County Health Department, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and more were all reviewed as different departments by Lakota. This included the collaboration of transportation, facilities and maintenance, communications, nursing, and Human Resources.

“We reviewed resources from other states and professional associations. After our own independent review, we collaborated on what works for our large district,” Brown said. “The hardest part was that guidance and science was being continually updated as new discoveries about COVID-19 were found. The safety protocols were truly a joint project.”

14 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

According to East principal Yejide Mack, East staff began to develop safety protocols in July, taking into account travel patterns, signage, and places people could congregate in order to prepare for the upcoming school year.

“There’s a possibility that we could have been shut down by now,” Mack said. “So trying to be proactive in our planning and trying to be proactive in communicating to [the students] as well, is a huge piece in any change. That includes the safety protocols.”

D

eveloping safety protocols required collaboration between districts and other schools alongside specialists in health.

“I feel with most things, you want to know the things that work and you want to know the things that don’t work,” Mack said.

“So [developing safety protocols] required constant communication from different districts, different principals, and different buildings to say, hey, what are you guys doing?

What are you going to put into play?”

Lakota was one of the first districts in the Butler County area to start in-person learning

safety protocols | news

East teachers utilize the designated buckets for cleaning towels after disinfecting students’ desks.

after months of completely remote learning in the spring. According to Mack, other districts were able to learn from Lakota as they entered a new kind of learning environment.

“Some of the districts that started after us were able to see some of the things that we did wrong, or things that didn’t work, and were able to incorporate those,” Mack said. “But I think districts around the city of Cincinnati have been very good about collaborating and working together, to figure out what’s good, what’s bad, what shouldn’t we do, and what should we do.”

As part of the daily health assessment which includes a checklist of symptoms, students and staff are supposed to take their temperature while still at home, rather than when they get to school. According to the CDC and other studies and surveillance data of the novel COVID-19, a high temperature is just one indicator that someone may have the virus.

People can be asymptomatic and still test positive, while others may experience other symptoms without a fever and test positive.

“It is estimated that a temperature screening would take about 30 seconds per student to retrieve the student’s name, take and record the temperature and proceed to the next student,” Brown said. “Think about a school of 1,000 students, at 30 seconds per student with possibly eight entrances. It would take us at least one hour to screen all students to enter the building. We felt it was best to ask parents to partner with us to monitor at home.”

Along with consuming instructional time, Brown said that it would only increase the inability for students to social distance if they had to wait in line for the screening. For students who ride the bus, they would already be interacting with others before reaching school where a temperature check could take place.

Lakota Chief Operations Officer Chris Passarge worked alongside Brown in developing

Social distancing markers are spread throughout the school to remind students to stay six feet apart.

the new safety protocols.

“We asked for students and parents to take on this responsibility to help ensure that once students got to school, we could get everyone in the buildings in a safe and efficient manner,” Passarge said.

A

ccording to Brown, despite having desks spaced three-feet apart, anyone within six feet of a person who tests positive for 15 minutes or longer has to quarantine.

Wearing face coverings greatly decreases the risk of transmission, and Brown says students and staff have been doing a good job with that.

“The gold standard for social distancing is six feet apart based on studies on how far respiratory droplets can travel. However, according to the head of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s, even three feet has been shown to have some effectiveness in stopping transmission of the virus,” Brown said. “We have space limitations within our buildings, many students who are in the classrooms and maintaining six feet would be impossible in a full, in-person learning environment.”

Alongside other safety procedures, East has implemented a block day schedule every day.

Students attend three bells a day, or four if they take a zero bell. Weeks that start with a 0,1,3,5 day are entitled “Hawk Weeks”, while weeks starting with a 0,2,4,6 day are known as “Thunder Weeks.” With this schedule change, every passing period was changed to five minutes, in contrast to the 2019-2020 schedule that contained 10-minute passing periods on block days.

East Athletic Director Richard Bryant aided in designing the safety protocols specific to East that emphasize a need for distancing and safety.

“The 10-minute passing period is five minutes of going to your locker, or maybe hitting the restroom and then five minutes of talking,” Bryant said. “What we can’t have is large groups congregating in the hallways

during passing periods.”

According to East teacher Lisa Landers, teachers were given gloves, disinfectant spray, and towels that are then deposited in buckets located in the hallways after being used to wipe down desks between class periods. For Landers, cleaning the desks in her classroom takes almost the entire five-minute passing period.

“The process for creating safety protocols was based on the guidance from local, state and federal health officials,” Passarge said.

“The district decided that the adults should oversee the cleaning process to ensure increased safety measures and correct application of the cleaning standards.”

According to East senior Kelly Ekberg, maintaining social distancing in the hallways is near impossible. Even just walking between classes is a challenge, as the entire building floods the halls at once.

“As far as masks go, I feel like people are doing a pretty good job for the most part,” Ekberg said. “People are not social distancing which is not really their fault, but that part is not happening. Going to the bathroom or lockers doesn’t allow for people to follow the suggested [safety] guidelines.”

Landers feels safe within her classroom, but she has seen an issue with students failing to social distance outside of the classroom, similar to what Ekberg has seen.

“I really haven’t had any issues with [masks], but I don’t think they’re social distancing,” Landers said. “I always tell them, get yourself away from people. But I feel like it’s just natural to want to gravitate towards people and talk.”

Bryant does not see as much of an issue within the walls of the school; rather, he’s concerned about what is happening outside of it.

“The mask-wearing, the hand sanitizing, the good hygiene, and the social distancing make it very difficult for there to be an issue here [in school],” Bryant said. “I think the bigger

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 15

news | safety protocols issue is kids congregating outside of school.

Attending parties, sleepovers, and those types of things can get the kids in trouble.”

D

espite that, Bryant thinks the safety measures have been effective thus far, as Lakota continues to have students learn inperson without a shutdown. However, the district has seen a rise in cases, with the Lakota COVID-19 Dashboard showing 4 students testing positive and 6 staff members testing positive for the week of Oct. 10-16.

“I think the students have been phenomenal [while in the building]. I think the teachers have been phenomenal. The fact that we’re entering into our fifth week of school, with very little interruption [is encouraging,” Bryant said.

“I see a lot of value in [students] being able to come to school every day and have some sense of normalcy.”

Ekberg appreciates being able to interact with friends and teachers while East is able to be in-person, but she does see issues within the safety protocols that need adjustments.

“I didn’t know what to expect going back to school, but getting to see friends makes it worth it,” Ekberg said. “I think that for the circumstances that we are under, [East is] doing the best that they can. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s about as efficient as it can be.”

Mack agrees with this sentiment. Allowing for in-person learning while in a pandemic brought up problems that would have been seen as absurd to someone in early 2020, but the collaboration between staff, students, parents, and officials has allowed in-person learning to last this long.

“We could be better. I definitely think there are going to have to be some reminders because we’re human, and we do get comfortable in our surroundings,” Mack said. “But I think right now students are effectively following [the safety protocols] because I don’t think that we would have been able to make it this far without them.”•

THE NEED TO CLEAN

A comparison of cleaning procedures between Lakota, Mason, and Kings high schools. • sidebar mary barone

T

he school year of 2020-2021 began like no other: amid a global pandemic. With only months to prepare for the oncoming fleet of students walking back into their doors, schools had to rush to find the most effective and efficient ways to keep their staff and students safe from the infamous coronavirus.

Three local school districts, Lakota, Mason, and Kings, are approaching the situation differently based on their individual class sizes and budgets. Mason and Kings’ cleaning procedures are a result of a collaboration with the Warren County Health Department while the Lakota district worked with the Butler County Health Department. Following their guidelines, school administrators put methods in place that heavily rely on the hard work of both teachers and their custodial staff. All three schools are practicing social distancing along with contact tracing and a strict mask-wearing policy. After class, their custodial staffs come in and thoroughly disinfect the buildings.

East Athletic Director Richard Bryant especially admires the extra work that teachers put in to keep their classrooms clean. “The simplest task is not simple any more,” Bryant said. “There is a significant increase in workload, stress, and anxiety. But I think most people in our building would do just about anything for our wonderful students to have the ability to come to school every day. And that’s why we do what we do.”

While the three districts share many of the same procedures, there are slight differences

Positive Cases and Quarantined Students per School

among them. Mason High School does not require teachers to use gloves while they are cleaning desks between classes while Lakota East provides reusable gardening-type gloves for their teachers. However, many teachers do not find these gloves effective and instead choose to go out and buy their own disposable cleaning gloves. Kings teachers are provided with gloves in their medical supplies kits but teachers do not clean desks between classes. Instead, once a month the district wipes desks down with a chemical called Penetrexx which, according to various sources, has the capability to disinfect a surface for anywhere from 30 to 90 days. The product is on the market ranging from $325 to $399 per 5 gallons.

“I think our building has done a wonderful job responding to this situation, Mason Vice Principal Brandon Rompies said. “Everyone recognizes the need right now so it makes it kind of easy to ask people to do things differently.”

Each of the schools also have different procedures surrounding passing periods. Both Mason and Lakota West give their students 10 minutes to get to their next class. These schedules make it easier on teachers by giving them more time to disinfect desks before their next round of students come in. Kings, which does not require teachers to clean between classes, allows their students five minutes to travel to get to their next destination but, unlike the other schools, they do not allow students to stop at their lockers. East also gives their students five minutes, anticipating that a shorter passing period will limit student interaction in the hallways. However, this rushed time frame makes it more difficult for teachers to sanitize desks.

Lakota East English and Speech teacher David Honhart has experienced firsthand what it’s like to scramble to sterilize desks between periods.

21.84% Quarantined

2.86% Quarantined

Mason

.42% Positive Cases

.15% Positive Cases

1.60% Positive Cases

Kings

10.44% Quarantined

Lakota East

5.29% Quarantined

.33% Positive Cases

Lakota West

source lakotaonline.com, masonohioschools.com, kingslocal.net 16 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

“It’s a challenge in terms of how do you get every desk clean, while still keeping students spaced,” said Honhart.

“I think everyone’s probably adapted in their own way and I think we all just kind of accept now, if I have to be a minute or two late to class because I need to run to the bathroom, so be it.” •

hawk time | news

Juniors (left to right) Sam Schaller, Essence Sinclair, and Parker Sczurek film announcements for the Hawk News Network broadcasted during Hawk Time.

ROAD TO THUNDERHAWK PRIDE

Among many other changes to the 2020-21 school year, Extra Help has been changed to Hawk Time, a time for students and staff to connect and build relationships. story and photography marleigh winterbottom

I

t is 9:40 a.m. as students roll into their designated classrooms for Hawk Time, a period where 20 to 30 kids from all different paths and backgrounds come together as one, building relationships and championing each other.

The 2020-2021 school year has brought upon many changes, one being the change from Extra Help (XH), a 50-minute study hall period that allowed students to ask their teachers for help, to Hawk Time. “[Extra Help] is not just about help. I think that was one of the negative perceptions that it had,” East Principal Yejide Mack told Spark.

“We wanted to change the perception of what it was because it’s not just about extra help.

It is about having the opportunity to create memories and build lasting relationships, while building that thunderhawk pride.”

Having a block schedule now allows for a Hawk Time period each day as opposed to twice a week. The 45-minute bell gives students time to catch up on school work, build relationships with their peers, and connect with their Hawk Time teachers.

“The thought behind the change was more to have time to build relationships with a certain group of students,” Mack said. “This is a non curricular time, where you can talk, you can build relationships, and you can do some of those things that are traditionally seen as more fun.”

Starting this year, Hawk Time classes will remain the same throughout students’ time at East. East Speech teacher David Honhart has a class of Juniors. He is glad that he will have the same students next year so that he can build better relationships with them.

“I don’t think you get to know people in Hawk time as well as you would in a class,” Honhart said. “But over time just having that same group that you know is going to be there on a daily basis or the next year I think is reassuring.”

According to Mack, relationships and bringing people together were at the core of this decision.

“Think about coming into a new program, you don’t know anybody.,” Mack said. “But the one person you will know is your Hawk Time teacher. You get to build really lasting relationships during that time and then you’ll find that you want to start helping each other and create memories that you don’t have to start over next year.”

Alongside classmates, students will remain with the same teacher each year, known as their “champion.” Hawk Time teachers were instructed to check up on their individual students and help them manage their grades and homework.

Honhart used email as a way to communicate with his students. He had them all email him an introduction to which he replied back to.

Later, he had them send another email to check up. After briefly meeting each student over email, Honhart met one-on-one with each student in the hallway to talk about their goals and aspirations. To follow up, they each had a shorter conference to look at grades and work strategies.

“Champion can mean a lot of different things,” Honhart said. “To me, it just means someone who knows you and is there for you and will advocate for you.”

East junior Sam Schaller’s Hawk Time teacher also met with students to talk about grades and school work.

“It definitely helps to know that someone’s looking to make sure that you have everything on track,” Schaller told Spark.

Another new addition to Hawk Time is Hawk News Network, a video recorded morning announcements hosted by East students.

“How great is it to see someone who is like you, giving you information that you want to hear?” Mack said.

Schaller films for the Hawk News Network every Monday at 7:30 a.m. Her friend, East junior Essence Sinclair was recommended by Mr. Vanderhouse to host. Sinclair was asked to pick friends to co host, so she is joined by Schaller and East junior Parker Sczurek.

“The thought there was, who are you most comfortable with? And who can have that little bit of banter to make it fun?” Mack said. “There would be nothing worse than having two people who are uncomfortable with each other going back and forth and it is not authentic.”

Hawk News Network hosts get the script put together by East Innovation Specialist Katherine Joseph with the daily news when they arrive to film, but they are allowed to make it their own. Schaller’s favorite part of hosting is having the freedom to bring Hawk News Network to life.

“I like that we can make it our own, and that we have a lot of freedom with it rather than just reading a script,” Schaller said.

East senior Sydney Swain likes Hawk News Network better than the previous announcements over the intercom. “[Hawk News Network] is more entertaining,” Swain said. “I like that it is student oriented and you get to interact with the student body.”

The switch from announcements over the intercom system to making studentinteractive videos was partially due to building a community in a world of isolation.

“Things look different this year; you have to walk in straight lines or you’re in a confined area,” Mack said. “We’re trying to have opportunities where you’re still enjoying yourself, but still learning.”

To incorporate more interactive activities, East community pride is celebrated every Friday during the Hawk News Network video when different East clubs and activity groups are challenged each week to lead the Fight Song.

“My goal for the end of this year is that we are all singing that song together on Fridays. Just having that pride in who we are as Lakota East is very important to me,” Mack said. “When we’re celebrating, when we’re doing good things, when we are recognizing and acknowledging each other, [we have] thunderhawk pride.”•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 17

Lakota’s consumable fee waiver will cover student supplies including books.

THE NEW WAIVE Lakota has waived all class fees for the 2020-2021 academic school year.

story and infographic mia hilkowitz | photography cassandra mueller

A

s part of their initiative to minimize financial impacts on families during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lakota has decided to waive all class and student fees throughout the district for the 2020-2021 academic school year. In past years, Lakota families have paid “consumable” class fees, or fees for supplies that students can keep during the school year like books and paper.

According to Lakota Treasurer Jenni Logan, these fees tend to vary between grade levels.

For the 2019-2020 school year, the average class fee for grades 9-12 was $85. Each year, Logan takes a list of fees to the Lakota Board of Education and proposes an annual financial plan. This year though, Logan will recommend to the Board that all consumable fees be waived.

“We don’t want to be tone deaf to our community. We want to be sensitive to what is going on around us,” Logan told Spark. “We are not through this pandemic. We still have some of our families struggling, and we feel like this is one way that we can step up and help.”

East English teacher Lisa Schmaltz said that Lakota staff were informed of this decision at a faculty meeting towards the end of the 20192020 academic year.

“I think that [the decision to waive fees] is a good idea for this upcoming year because of the economic impacts of COVID-19,” Schmaltz told Spark. “It was a good idea to relieve families of one level of financial burden.”

Schmaltz said that she had initial concerns

regarding her class resources, but is pleased that the district will still provide physical supplies for students.

“In retrospect, hearing ‘no fees’ raised the concern of how are we going to get students the materials they need to read,” Schmaltz said. “[Teachers] were given virtual resources, but I don’t think that it is a good idea for students to be reading full length works on a screen. I was glad that the district was able to provide those [physical] resources for students.”

Lakota has not released an official statement to the public regarding fees for the year. East junior Brenda Fofie discovered this change on her own when she went into Home Access Center (HAC) and noticed that she had no fees in her account, unlike the year before.

“My fees [last year] were over $100,” Fofie told Spark. “It takes a lot of stress off because now I don’t have to worry about where the money is coming from or how I’m going to have to pay for it. It’s better this year, and I hope they keep it up so I don’t have to pay for school fees ever again.”

Lakota community member Jennifer Uhl has three children within the district, in first, sixth and eighth grades. Uhl said that she has never minded paying fees in previous years, but believes the move will benefit many people in the community.

“I think [waiving fees] will have a positive impact because it’ll help those families who desperately need help right now and can’t

18 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

afford to pay for [class fees],” Uhl told Spark.

“I’m grateful that [my family] doesn’t have that issue right now, but I think it’s great that it is available for those who do have financial hardship.”

Uhl wants to know more about how Lakota will work to cover these costs.

“Where is the money coming from? Is it being pulled from other programs, or are we taking it away from other resources in the district,” Uhl said. “Or is it just something that the state is providing us as part of the pandemic relief?”

According to Logan, Lakota’s annual total budget is between 200 and 300 million dollars, with consumable fees collecting less than 600,000 dollars last year. Logan believes that the district will be able to effectively absorb these consumable fees into their other budget without issues.

“We are trying to reallocate some things to make room in our current budget,” Logan said. “We are looking at different areas where we can save [money]. It is not something that is giving me anxiety with our ov e r a l l b u d g e t a t a l l .”

East Principal Yejide Mack said that even with these changes, staff and students will continue to receive any resources and supplies they need for the upcoming school year.

“As educators, we are very resilient and flexible,” Mack told Spark. “If someone says that [they need something] we know that somebody will take care of that.”• Average Cost of Consumable Fees in Lakota 2019-2020

Early Childhood Schools (K-2)

$30 Elementary Schools (3-6)

$20 Junior High Schools (7-8)

$30 High Schools (9-12)

$85 source Lakota Local School District

michael pearl | news

A PEARL OF WISDOM Lakota Local School Board votes Michael Pearl in to fill the vacant position. • story riley higgins |

infographic mia hilkowitz | photography used with permission

C

ommunity member Michael Pearl was unanimously inducted into the five person Lakota Board of Education on Thursday, Sept. 21.

Pearl was selected out of a candidate pool of 50 applicants. Each applicant was required to submit a resume and go through a set of interviews conducted by the board. In addition to the four active members, Lakota Superintendent Matt Miller and Treasurer Jenni Logan were present during the interviews. The vote to determine the final candidate did not include Miller or Logan.

“We value [Miller and Logan’s] opinions,” Lakota Board President Brad Lovell told Spark. “They have a really good pulse on our community and it would almost be a disservice if we didn’t include their voices.”

The decision to hire a new board member followed the resignation of former Lakota School Board Member Todd Parnell. At the time of publication, Parnell had not responded about an interview.

The interview process began with the application, which was submitted by any interested community member over the age of 18 by Sept.10, three weeks after the resignation of Parnell was announced.

“People started calling me and encouraging me to [submit an application] so I made some calls and talked to some folks and decided that I would put my hat in the ring” Pearl told Spark.

“If I didn’t get it, it would be fine. But if I did get it, I would definitely commit to fulfilling [the position] for the rest of this year and then all of next year.”

Questions and criteria considered during the selection were determined by the Ohio

School Board Association’s Interview Guide.

Community input was taken in the form of a Thought Exchange survey that allowed community members to provide input on the qualities and characteristics they wanted to see in the new board member. Comments that received the highest rating appeared at the top of the page. Top themes from the Thought Exchange include separation of politics and education, diversity, and being a strong supporter of public education.

“It was very clear to me that our community needed to have a voice,” Lovell told Spark. ”We wanted to capture that diversity of thought.”

According to Lovell, although it was not the deciding factor, Pearl’s addition will bring the diversity to the board that the community desires.

“20% of our students in our district right now are students of color,” Lovell told Spark.“I think having somebody on the board that represents those students is extremely critical.”

On Sept. 13, after spending around 30 minutes interviewing each candidate, board members were asked to create a list of their top choices and compare. The names were then placed on a white board and narrowed down to 16 top candidates that were then brought back in for further interviewing.

“We wrote [our favorite]

attributes on the board,” Lovell told Spark. “We started to align our conversation around our thinking, and the board reached a consensus about some of the strong attributes we believe we needed on our board.”

The board agreed on Michael Pearl on Sept.

14 due to his “lived experience,” according to Lovell. It was Pearl’s strong connection to the community, experience with leading youth programs, and his ties to the Lakota district that led the board to choose Pearl to complete the term, which will end on Dec. 31, 2021. The vote was unanimous.

Miller agrees with Lovell that Pearl’s experience is important to the community.

“I am impressed with Mr. Pearl’s positive attitude and dedication to our families,” Miller said.

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n addition to being a member of the Lakota community for 12 years, Pearl has two children who have graduated from Lakota East. Pearl has experience as a Junior Varsity (JV), high school, and middle school basketball coach for Lakota since 2009. He serves on multiple boards, including the Boys and Girls Club which Lynda O’Connor, fellow board member, served on. He is the founder and pastor of New Day Baptist church located in Lincoln Heights.

Pearl told Spark that he is excited to serve t h e community and learn how to help the Lakota community quickly.

“I want to help Lakota be the best school district in the state of Ohio,” Pearl said. “Which means doing whatever I can on my part.” •

What factors does the community value in the Lakota Board of Education?

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Board Political Decisions

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Michael Pearl gets sworn into the Lakota Local School Board.

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 19

feature | personal narrative

SICK OF THE STIGMA

Spark staffer Mary Barone shares her experience with having COVID-19 and discusses the stigma surrounding the virus. story mary barone | infographic and art marleigh winterbottom

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t was the Fourth of July of 2020. The smell of hotdogs sizzling on a grill filled the air while the nearly setting sun sat right above the treeline. Fireworks were going off in the distance, their excited explosions colliding with the happy chatter of the neighbors next door. Yet there I was, observing this shouldbe momentous occasion from the confines of my own room. Door closed, lights dimmed, and the window cracked just enough to hear what was going on outside. Of course, I would have loved to join my family celebrating in the backyard. But I couldn’t, I had COVID-19.

Four days previously, on June 30th, I was sitting in a doctor’s office with a Q-Tip reaching halfway up my brain. I hadn’t yet stopped to consider that the test might actually come back

positive. After the longest 10 seconds of my life, the nurse finally removed the stick from my nose. Through teared-up eyes, I watched her seal the test in a tube and then into a bag.

Little did I know, that tiny Q-tip carried the virus that has killed 256,000 US Citizens and counting.

I spent the following days in anticipation, having no idea when I would receive the call or what my results would be. On the third day of being boarded up in my room, my mom knocked on the door. I had heard her downstairs talking to my doctor about the results, but I had yet to hear them. After 72 hours in suspense, the only thing separating me from the outcome of that test was two inches of a wooden door. Although I had spent the

20 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

majority of my time stressing and debating over what my results were, in that moment there was nothing I wanted less than to know my results. My mom opened the door, carrying a look of dismay on her face. My stomach dropped. I didn’t need to hear the words; the look on her face was more than enough for me to understand that I had tested positive. I had COVID. I sat there in shock. Did I really have COVID? No, the test must have been wrong.

With a 96% accuracy rate, I knew deep down that the test was correct; I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I was carrying the disease that shut the world down in a matter of months.

It took me a moment to realize the things rolling down my cheeks were tears. I stopped

personal narrative | feature and wondered why I was crying from receiving such news. I wouldn’t be crying if I found out I had the flu or mono. So what was it about this particular disease that caused me to feel so much guilt? I knew I had been careful and had taken every precaution before and after I was exposed to it. Yet, I couldn’t help but blame myself for obtaining the virus that has infected 351,000 Ohioans and counting. At the time, the biggest concern running through my mind was the horrible symptoms that were rumored to come along with the virus. What I was not prepared for was the isolation that followed me around the next 14 days.

I reached out to my friends that I came into contact with over the last few days to let them know I had just tested positive. Within a matter of hours, people that I never even heard of were snapchatting and dming me asking if it was true. Overnight, friends stopped texting me back and family members ceased to answer my calls. The people I thought I could rely on most had left me to fend for myself in one of my most trying times. Apparently, when you have COVID people prefer to ignore you until you no longer run the risk of infecting them through the phone. Even my siblings’ friends began to talk to them less and less, despite the fact that both had tested negative and hadn’t been staying in the same house as me since we found out I possibly had the virus.

Surprisingly, I was among the 1-17% of people that don’t get a fever from the virus.

Alongside my cold-like symptoms-including lack of taste and smell-came the stigmas that COVID carries. For hours on end, I sat in my room, feeling the guilt and shame of having COVID press in on me from all sides. I felt hopeless, like my friends were angry at me for obtaining a virus that I had no control over.

All of a sudden, the people in my life were turning against each other as well as turning against me.

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veryone was looking for someone else to blame for the fact that I had caught the virus. It may be easy to point fingers, but there is no single person to blame. Of course it would be easy to take out my frustration on the person who had spread it to me, but how was it their fault any more than mine?

Sure, they’re the one that spread it, but I was the one stupid enough to catch it. One thing I have learned from the multitude of therapy sessions that my mother has sent me to over the years, is that holding resentment in your heart ultimately hurts you the most.

I have to give the virus credit - it gave me a lot of time to think. I started to see my room differently after spending so much time in it.

Little things that I had never noticed before began to stand out to me. I began to appreciate the way the sun greeted me in the mornings

and the quiet lull that my vent made whenever my mom turned on the air conditioning.

Many nights within that two week period, I fell asleep listening to nothing but the monotone droning of the fan in the corner of my room and the faint chirping of crickets outside my window. Life in isolation was quiet and still, yet there was still beauty to be found within it.

By the end of my two week isolation period, I was excited for my life to return to normal.

Well, as normal as it could be in the midst of a global pandemic. Even though I had since tested negative for the virus, people were still treating me as if I were the disease. Of course, I couldn’t blame them. In an unprecedented situation like this where the narrative of the virus and the severity of its symptoms seemed to change daily, it makes sense why people would be hesitant to be around someone who had recently been infected with the virus.

However, their attitudes did not help the lurking feeling of isolation that was still holding me down.

At the time that I had the virus, there was nothing I wanted more than to be out of that situation. However, in hindsight, I’m grateful for the eye-opening experience it put me through. It definitely made me realize who my real friends are, and it taught me that after 336 consecutive hours sitting alone in your room, even school begins to sound appealing.•

active exposure and spread triggered 0-1 indicators increased exposure and spread triggered 2-3 indicators very high exposure and spread triggered 4-5 indicators severe exposure and spread triggered 6-7 indicators Butler County

The Seven Indicators

source wlwt last updated december 24, 2020

1. an average of 50 cases per 100,000 over 2 weeks 2. a sustained increase in new cases 3. over 50% of new cases derived from non-congregate settings 4. a sustained increase in ER visits with COVID-19 symptoms 5. a sustained increase in outpatient visits with COVID-19 symptoms 6. a sustained increase in new COVID-19 hospital admissions 7. an ICU occupancy over 80% for at least 3 of the past 7 days December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 21

than be a quiet figure that they didn’t really know. “[Before] I started this job, I was at Middletown City Schools. I worked in a very poverty stricken school and I learned very quickly that a lot of kids didn’t even have so much as a male role model or person in their life,” Crouch says. “Many were lacking a person that invested in them, cared about their day, and cared what was going on in their lives. So, after three or four days, a switch flipped and I decided that I’m going to do my best every morning to say good morning to as many people as I could and check in with as many kids as I could.”

East Head Custodian Josh Crouch and East juniors Leann Niederman and Madison Potts talk during lunch.

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A HEART OF GOLD

East’s head custodian Josh Crouch recounts his journey to East and how he has become the person that students love. story rehab jarabah | photography riley higgins

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osh Crouch walks into East, getting ready for his day as head custodian; spraying down handrails and cleaning everything in sight.

As students start filing in, his face lights up as he starts conversations with them. As students walk down the hall to their classes, Josh can be heard yelling down the hall that Nebraska will win the game against The Ohio State University.

A quick conversation with any of the students who attend East about the head custodian is all you need to do to know how loved and cherished he is in the building. It seems like the students know him more than they know the administration.

“I’m not even close to [Josh] and I know he’s amazing. He’s just friendly to everyone around him,” East junior Grace Holtimier says.

Although he’s only been at East for four years, he’s been around Cincinnati, starting his first custodial job in Middletown with his uncle over the summer during college. It didn’t take long for him to realize being a custodian was a good job for him, earning him a good salary to keep up with his family and kids.

When he first started in Middletown, he wasn’t the same person the students of East know now. Not until after the first few days did he realize that he would rather be a role model to the students who were attending his school

“I was blessed with a gift of people liking me. I make jokes and I make conversation.

But I’m always here if anybody needs to talk. I love to listen.”-Josh Crouch 22 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

s he continued in his job, he’s been met with his own challenges, especially during the pandemic. He’s expected to clean anything that students touched such as handrails, door handles, and even things as specific as the elevator button. However, he continues to be a trusted figure for his students.

“I was blessed with a gift of people liking me. I make jokes and I make conversation,” Crouch said. “But I’m always here if anybody needs to talk. I love to listen. I’d love to give my thoughts and opinions, so I’m always here.

I feel like people look at me as like the jokester and that might deter them away, but a lot of my joking is just to try to lighten the mood or help people get through the day.”

His wife of two years, Jessica Crouch can attest to his traits. Although they were different people when they met 10 years ago, Jessica says that Crouch has only grown since they’ve known each other.

“He’s an amazing person all around. And one thing I can say with certainty is that he loves big. He loves me and his children, but he also loves you guys [East students],” Jessica says. “He talks about you guys all the time, he worries about you guys, and he prays for you guys. He prioritizes the people he loves and that’s something I love about him.”

East students are lucky to have him, however, when he came to East, he had to give up his job in Middletown, leaving around 600 students.

“I don’t cry much. But that day, I could barely hold it together. I had 600 kids saying ‘please don’t leave, please don’t leave’,” Crouch says. “I had to explain to them that my kids deserve the best that I can give them, and [I knew] that I had a job [at East] where I could make more money and be in a safer district, which was in turn safer for my family. That’s kind of what solidified me coming out here.”

Take a walk around East. In a corner of the school somewhere, Josh is standing there ready for a day to brighten and a person he can make laugh. In every corner of the school, there are students who are walking with a smile on their face because of the janitor with the golden heart.•

forest feature | feature

PART 1: SAVANNAH East senior Savannah Forest talks about her experience participating in Lakota’s Virtual Learning Option and how she’s adapted to her new normal in Part 1 of a series of VLO features.

wants us to interact with the students and keep track of grades, but the learning part is up to the kids.”

According to Forest the flexibility of VLO is the biggest perk of the program.

“I don’t have to wake up at 6:30 a.m. like [in-person students] and I get to choose what classes I'm in the mood for,” Forest says.

LEARNS ONLINE

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story abbie westendorf | art evie colpi

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he wakes up at 8:30 a.m., makes herself some breakfast, and walks to her desk in her pajamas--ready to start her school day.

She opens her Chromebook and pulls up Apex, trying to decide what class to begin with.

She decides to start with English, which she works on for about an hour, then takes a break before moving on to Psychology.

This is the way every school day goes for East senior Savannah Forest. She is one of the 4,000 students who opted to take Lakota’s Virtual Learning Option (VLO) for the 202021 school year.

“My dad has a weakened immune system,” Forest says. “It wasn’t the ideal situation but we

had to take it and try to figure out how to make it work. We just couldn’t take that risk.”

According to Forrest, the transition to VLO was difficult. Her and other VLO students are almost completely on their own when it comes to their school work.

“You have to really push yourself,” Forest says. “It’s hard to figure out how much you have to do per day to stay on track.”

But, Forest has persevered. According to East English teacher Rich Schmaltz, a student who is prepared for college is one that will thrive in VLO. That’s exactly what Forest is.

“They’re mostly on their own,” Schmaltz says. “I’m the teacher on record, [the district]

lthough Forest enjoys being in control of her own schedule, a significant disappointment of VLO was that she was unable to take all of the classes she planned on taking during her senior year. Many of the courses are not offered through the VLO program. One of them being East’s BioMedical classes offered through Butler Tech.

“I’ve been in the BioMed program for three years now,” Forest says,”I planned on taking two of the classes this year, because [the medical field] is where I see myself in the future.”

She’s still able to participate in extracurriculars like East’s Student Government, which she is the president of. According to Student Government Advisor Nichole Bruce, the group has developed ways to cater to both in-person and VLO students.

“Savannah is a proactive leader and hasn’t missed a beat,” Bruce says. “She has an online check-in for attendance and the agenda is available both on paper and on a Google Doc so everyone has access.”

The group meets twice a month. According to Forest, during these meetings VLO students interact over Zoom as the in-person students meet in the class.

“Even though I’m at home, I am still a part of the club and I’m able to work alongside my peers on projects,” Forest says.

According to East in-person senior and Student Government vice president Ellie Ford, Forest being VLO doesn’t truly affect the club because of how cohesive and organized the duo and the organization is.

“Our communication is almost better despite her being at home,” Ford says. “We can get ahold of each other whenever and her being remote has given other VLO students the opportunity to participate as well.”

However, the VLO program doesn’t provide the same community as in-person school. Out of everything she’s experienced at East for the past three years, Forest says the thing she misses most is interacting with students and teachers.

“It’s so weird not seeing my friends, talking to teachers, and having the same learning experiences that I’ve had for all my life,” Forest says. “But, it’s been nice to experience something new.” •

"My dad has a weakened immune system. It wasn't the ideal situation, but we had to take it and try to figure out how to make it work. We just couldn't take that risk." -East senior, Savannah Forest

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 23

feature | florence feature

UNMASKING KINDNESS

Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, East senior Anna Florence started making cloth face masks and has been donating them to East teachers.

story and photography cassandra mueller | infographic rachel anderson

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ast senior Anna Florence sits in her room quietly sewing away. She selects a piece of fabric from the cubby in her desk and carefully cuts it into two 18’ by 9’ rectangles that will soon be transformed into a cloth face mask. She starts up her sewing machine, carefully sewing her newly cut piece of fabric.

She sews the pleats into the mask and attaches the ear straps which are made out of stretchy hair tie elastic.

A couple weeks later, teachers rush into the teacher mailroom at East, as they get ready to start their day. They bustle about and something new catches their eyes. The more curious ones venture over to see that on the table set aside for free items donated by other teachers, sits a pile of face masks.

The face masks range in color and pattern from black and white squiggles to plain grey.

Just below the pile is a sign indicating that these masks were donated to them by Florence; who started sewing when she was ten years old, prompting her to start making cloth face masks in late July of this year. “[Since] I know how to sew, it just seemed obvious for me to make face masks,” Florence

says.

When she first started making the face masks, Florence went online and searched up YouTube videos giving her step by step instructions on how to exactly sew each mask.

After this learning curve, she got to work and has made somewhere between 25 and 50 masks since she started. Beyond the teachers, Florence has made face masks for herself as well as donating some to her family including her mother, Amy Florence, who is an economics teacher at East. Amy appreciated the masks so much that she has helped in the donation process.

“I placed some in the [teacher] mailroom,” Amy says. “And gave some to specific teachers who asked about them.”

One was English Teacher Bobbi Hume, who after making a positive comment on one of the masks Amy was wearing, was given her own.

“I think it’s pretty,” Hume says. “But I also like [how] it’s one of the few I have that when I’m talking to my students, it doesn’t come down my nose. The way that she sewed it fits very well.”

The material that Florence uses is either

24 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

cotton fabric from a craft store or fabric from around her house.

“I also cut up some old clothes I wasn’t wearing anymore, just to upcycle,” Florence says. “So, [I don’t have] to spend as much money and it’s better for the environment.”

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s of now she doesn’t give the masks out to anyone besides the teachers and her family but that might change as she starts to stock up on her inventory.

“I was considering selling [the face masks] on [online shopping websites like] Etsy or maybe Depop,” Florence says. “I just haven’t taken the time to set up a whole shop on [the websites].”

But, for now she just appreciates the fact that masks are being enforced in the school and how, she has been given a way to give back to the teachers through this experience.

“I really love making the masks because I love to be able to help people,” Florence says. “[I love being able to] provide masks to them so they can feel safe and protect others when they’re out in public.”•

TAKING A STAND

umbrella | package

Spark Editor-in-Chief Shiloh Wolfork connects her own experiences to the importance of Black Lives Matter and discusses how the movement has increased awareness of racial inequalities. story and infographic shiloh wolfork | photography cassandra mueller

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t age 17, I finally got my driver’s license.

Although I was a year late, nothing could compare to the excitement I felt as I strutted out of the BMV. I was rewarded with a new sense of independence and maturity, and I was ready to take on anything that came my way. However, within the first week that I had my license, much of the initial giddiness faded away.

Movies, books, and talks with my parents suddenly began to chip away at my newfound freedom. They highlighted how dangerous and frightening it is to be a Black American behind the wheel. Something that should’ve been a long-awaited rite of passage quickly morphed into another way for society to remind me that I, as a black person, am not equal.

It’s heartbreaking to know that one day, most black children will sit down with their parents for The Talk. “When the officer approaches you, put your hands on the dash. Don’t make any sudden movements. When you reach for your ID, make it known to the officer. To them, being black is already a weapon so don’t try to hide anything,” says the parent. Gradually, anxiety replaces eagerness and light is clouded by hopelessness and despair. At first, the child won’t know it, but knowing this information could be the difference between life and death.

For East senior Bri Harris, The Talk came soon after taking her Temps test.

“They [my parents] told me to always comply and do everything the cop says no matter what,” Harris says. “They told me to always keep my hands visible so the cop doesn’t have any reason to act in a way.”

According to a 2020 Pew Research Center study, black adults are five times as likely as whites to claim that they’ve been unfairly stopped by the police on the basis of race or ethnicity. More specifically, 59% of black men say they’ve been unfairly stopped compared to 31% of black women.

According to Associate Professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University Tiyi M o r r i s

these discriminatory tendencies are the result of the systemic racism that has taken root in society. Systemic racism is a form of racism that is embedded as normal practice within a society or organization.

“Essentially everything in our society is structured to teach people to believe in white superiority and white normativity. It’s all around us, it’s like the air we breathe. It [racism] is taught from social media, the television shows that we watch, the magazines that we read, and the way that people occupy positions of power and authority in our society,” Morris told Spark. “All of this sends messages consciously and subconsciously that black people and other people of color are inferior and that whites are legitimate with regard to authority and knowledge.”

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s a child, even though my parents went out of their way to ensure that I had dolls and toys that looked like me, I remember searching the Walmart toy aisles for a doll with my tight curls and brown skin.

Among a sea of blond and blue, I craved representation on those shelves. Similarly, in the shows and movies that I watched, like the Disney movie The Cheetah Girls, almost every female African American character straightened her hair or had a relaxer. I yearned to see a black girl who wore her natural hair big and proud. I wished that seeing a main character who looked like me wasn’t a special occurrence.

According to Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a leading anti-hate organization, women and people of color

made up only 32.9% and 19.8% among film leads in 2019. According to National Public Radio (NPR), a 2016 study from University of Southern California (USC) that sought to reveal the lack of diversity in Hollywood, only 28.3% of characters with dialogue were from non-white racial groups.

Even more so than in the media, I desired racial representation in school. In my entire school career, I’ve only ever had one teacher who was a person of color and she was a music teacher. I’ve never had that representation or feeling of understanding in any of my history classes. I’ve never had a teacher who went out of their way to do Black History justice.

Having access to that representation matters. It is empowering.

According to a Center for American Progress study, teachers of color will typically have higher expectations of minority students, are more likely to provide students of color with culturally relevant teaching, develop meaningful relationships with students, and discuss and confront racism through their lessons.

According to UNCF (United Negro College Fund), an organization that strives to uplift under-represented students and aid in moving those students to and through college, in 2011-2012, only 10% of public school principals were black compared to 80% white. In relation, 82% of public school teachers were white, compared to 18% teachers of color.

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 25

package | umbrella

Modern Examples of Systemic Racism Systemic or institutional racism is a set of institutional, historical, cultural, and interpersonal practices within a society that actively put one social or ethnic group in a better position to succeed, while disadvantaging other groups of people through disparities that develop over time. The systemic racism that faces African Americans can be seen in many different modern and historical aspects of society.

WEALTH GAP:

REDLINING:

Of the same job and qualifications, how much a black man earns for every dollar a white man makes as of 2020 $1.00

$0.98

System that outlined areas with large black populations in red ink on maps to warn mortgage lenders. Meant to isolate black people in areas that suffered lower levels of investment than white neighborhoods; banned after the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and contributes to disparities in homeownership between black and white populations

HIRING PROCESS: 25% of black job candidates received callbacks when they used resumes with “whitened” names, while only 10% got callbacks when they applied with more “ethnic” sounding names

Best Desirable Falling Undesirable

source americanprogress.org, shrm.org According to the U.S. Department of Education 2016 Racial Diversity report, black teachers and other teachers of color are more likely to be employed at high-poverty elementary and secondary schools, and tend to have a lower retention rate than white teachers.

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henever topics of slavery or the Civil Rights Movement arose, I was met with pitying stares from my classmates and teachers. The Black History unit was always brief and rushed. Endless videos and pointless readings unapologetically replaced my heritage and glossed over my ancestors’ struggles.

Morris says that the curriculum needs to be adjusted when it comes to Black History, and as a teacher, she tries to contribute to the change as much as possible.

“Our entire curriculum in the American school system is one that focuses solely on the contributions of white people, but in doing so, undermines the value of the contributions of people of color,” Morris says. “I’m trying to give them [my students] a new narrative of this country [and to allow them to] more fully understand the ways that black people have built and contributed to the development of this country. A narrative needs to be taught where everybody’s contributions are valued.”

East senior Michelle Antiri says that her experiences concerning Black History might have been more positive if all cultures were taught more completely, and the education continued outside of the classroom.

“I think it would be really beneficial if Black History Month wasn’t the only time that

26 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

history classes focused on Black History,” Antiri says. “A lot of Black History has been erased from schools’ curriculum and it’s important not to just isolate Black History for a month and never address it again. That also goes for other areas of American history like AsianAmerican history and Indigenous People’s history. It’s great to have the national months to celebrate these diverse areas of history, but it’d be beneficial if it was consistently discussed within school.”

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ccording to Associate Psychology Professor at The Ohio State University and author of The Psychology of Racial Colorblindness, Phillip Mazzocco, introducing racially aware topics to young children could be beneficial in the fight against prejudice.

“There’s a lot of research in early childhood education that shows even at preschool age that

umbrella | package there are ways to introduce topics like diversity and inequality to children in ways that they will understand in order to build a base of healthy racial awareness,” Mazzocco told Spark. “Those topics can’t wait. It may seem as if racism is a big issue now because there’s more videos and social media but it’s always been an issue and each new generation needs to be made aware of this problem as early as possible so that they can start contributing to the solution in a positive way.”

Lately, I’ve noticed that the rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM) as a social media movement has made those around me more interested in improving their Black History education and learning about the experiences and conditions facing black people today. My friends and peers have made active efforts to reach out to me and ask questions about things they may not have considered important in the past.

The global reaction to the recent murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have moved people to actively try to understand things that they didn’t in the past.

According to Assistant Director at the Kent State University Women’s Center Alicia Robinson, the attention that BLM has gained as a social media movement has revealed some misconceptions surrounding the goals of the movement, encouraging people to educate themselves. According to Pew Research Center, about a third of Americans familiar with BLM said they didn’t understand the goals of the movement.

“A lot of people who don’t identify as black feel that by saying ‘black lives matter’ it’s saying that other lives don’t matter,” Robinson says. “It’s super disheartening because [saying] one group matters doesn’t

minimize any other group. [People also] think that because we say ‘black lives matter’, we’re saying police don’t matter. It’s sad because it’s not [a matter] of either/or, it’s [a matter] of both.”

According to a 2018 Pew Research study, about 14% of Americans have changed their mind about an issue because of something they saw on social media. About 23% of adult social media users in the U.S. say social media led them to change their views on a particular issue. When asked to elaborate on the specific issues, many mentioned BLM and police brutality.

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obinson says that modern access to social media has also helped to promote the goals of Black Lives Matter as a human rights organization that advocates for protest against events of police brutality and racial violence against black people.

“Without social media, it [Black Lives Matter] wouldn’t have gained the traction that it gained. The fact that [the murder of George Floyd] was videotaped [allowed it to] reach millions of people instantly,” Robinson told Spark. “Social media is the reason why police brutality is heightened and visible now. We can arrest cops and we can demand police reform because we can see it.”

For East senior Anne Matthew, social media has been a crucial factor in her awareness and support for BLM. “It is through social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram that I am made aware of things going on outside of my scope. Not everyone makes time to go read the news but everyone does make time for social media,” Matthew told Spark. “I would see links to petitions of cases that I had not heard

before, and I would post them on my social media platforms. My friends would sign the petitions and share them and it continues the cycle of bringing awareness to police brutality.”

However, Sweeney says that the recent positive relationship between BLM and social media is a result of COVID-19, and explains how this connection between the movement and social media is not completely beneficial.

“One of my biggest fears is that I think that the George Floyd incident in particular sparked such a huge national outcry because of COVID-19,” Sweeney says. “People were bored and had nothing else to do. People were paying attention to social media; they weren’t distracted. My fear is that people are going to get bored with [the movement] and move onto something else as soon as they get distracted.”

As someone who has spent years under the foot of racism and prejudice, I can only hope that people don’t simply get bored. I can only pray that the most recent instances of police brutality, and the numerous ones before them are enough to instill senses of urgency and empathy within the people of America. I’m no longer okay with patiently waiting for the day that the way that I’m treated is no longer dependent on the color of my skin.

I will no longer sit politely in the face of ignorant microaggressions and derogatory comments. I am desperate for change, desperate for a day when my skin color is not a threat. Time is of the essence. With each murder of an innocent black person, I feel my breath slipping away. And now, I can’t breathe.•

“Our entire curriculum in the American school system is one that focuses solely on the contributions of white people, but in doing so, undermines the value of the contributions of people of color,” -Tiyi Morris December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 27

package | classroom representation

STARTING IN THE CLASSROOM As racism continues to grow in our nation, the impact of the lack of representation of people of color in schools is becoming more powerful. story rehab jarabah | infographic shiloh wolfork | photography cassandra mueller

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t 12 years old, East junior Brenda Fofie moved across the country with her family from the Bronx, New York to Cincinnati, Ohio. Like any young child moving to a new home, Fofie was nervous to say the least.

She was scared to start middle school without her childhood friends, and uncertain about the upcoming school year. However, Fofie also had a more intense worry; she was one of less than 10 black students at her middle school.

“I remember being so uncomfortable.

Because I thought, ‘What am I supposed to do or say? ,’” Fofie told Spark. “I knew, everybody in that school was going to [think], ‘Oh, she’s black, she’s going to be ratchet and ghetto.’

And I was like, I can’t do it. I was put in this position where I can’t do anything. So I just had to sit there and take it as if it didn’t bother me.

And that was the first time I was like, ‘I hate it here.’”

According to Associate Professor of Psychology at University of Albany, Alex Pieterse, racial biases within the classroom are the first type of microaggression of racism

that students of color face in their lifetimes.

Students can start to feel uncomfortable in their classrooms and the places that they are “meant to feel the most safe” when teachers display actions that are harmful for students of color, whether it’s intentional or not.

According to a 2019 Princeton University report, data shows that compared to their white counterparts, students of color tend to be disciplined at higher rates. While white students made up only 4% of in school suspensions and 3.5 % of out of school suspensions, students of color accounted for 11% of in school suspensions and 13.5 percent of out of school suspensions.

“When we first tell teachers our findings, the most common reaction is ‘That’s surprising, in my classroom I treat everyone as equals,’” Pieterse told Spark. “But then we’ll pull out all the data and they see the disparity between how many students of color there are and how they tend to be disciplined at a higher rate than their white counterparts.”

One professional developmental organization,

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Innocent Classroom, is working to eliminate racial biases within the school setting. According to founder Alexs Pate, Innocent Classroom was created in 2010 to help train teachers in noticing subtle racism in the classroom and eliminating it as a whole.

“Innocent Classroom is and was always more than a project. It started out as an idea.

I had to help teachers become anti-racist and look for the good in their students,” Pate says.

“Children are innocent and good and when you believe in their good, [students] believe in their good.”

According to the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Center, an anti-racist activist is a person who is in the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.

Pieterse says that many forms of racial bias can come from within and outside of the classroom doors. Pieterse maintains that these experiences can be traumatic for children of

classroom representation | package color, who’s first response is usually one of fear, anxiety or depression.

“Depending on how threatened someone feels, that will [relate to] how severe the [necessary] trauma response is. And [what] we do know about children is that for them, healthy development needs to have a sense of secure attachment,” Pieterse says. “So they need to feel secure in their surroundings and they need to feel secure with the adults in their life. Childhood experiences of racism can really have quite an effect. It really impacts a feeling of security.”

According to University of Connecticut Psychology Professor Frederick Gibbons, although the most major effects of racism on minority children are fear, anxiety and depression, there are other feelings that tend to accompany those. There is the initial sadness which for some, turns into anger.

Gibbons finds that children in a racial minority group will seek others who’ve faced similar events after encountering racially charged incidents themselves. After seeking out others who have had similar experiences and talking about their trauma, that oftentimes anger becomes more prominent.

“Anger tends to be the long-term emotion people have as they grow older,” Gibbons told Spark. “It can also influence their behavior in a variety of ways. For example, engaging in delinquent behavior, especially after having a discriminatory experience like police brutality.”

The rate of black children ages 5–11 who died by suicide nearly doubled from 2007 to 2017, according to a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics report.

The study’s researchers believe that one of the factors linked to this increase in suicide rates include experiences of disproportionate exposure to violence, traumatic stress and aggressive school discipline. More research is needed to determine why suicide rates began trending upward for black children in 2007 and decreasing for white children. According to a 2019 report by the Congressional Black Caucus, mental health studies and interventions for black children are notoriously underfunded.

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ast senior, Darek Sanabria, says that he has encountered his own experiences with microaggressions in the classroom, such as feeling ostracized for being a person of color when his teacher and peers ignorance to his racial identity, and has worked to surround himself with people who have experienced similar incidents.

“I consider myself lucky because I’ve only had one racist experience. It was in fourth grade. I was presenting my heritage project as an Afro-Latino from Puerto Rico and then my peers and teacher started questioning my status and my immigration journey. It was a little funny because Puerto Rico is an American

Educational Black Lives Matter Documentaries/Films 1. 13th: Documentary; explores the history of racial inequality in the United States and specifically discusses the disproportionate amount of imprisoned African Americans 2. The Central Park Five: Documentary; case of five African American teenagers who spent 6-13 years in prison after being wrongfully accused of raping a white woman 3. I Am Not Your Negro: Documentary, explores racism through the eyes of Malcolm X, Martin DIRECTOR Luther King Jr, and Medgar Evers, based on the unfinished book of James Baldwin 4. Teach Us All: Documentary, focuses on the existence of modern day segregation in schools and educational inequality 5. Just Mercy: Movie, based on a true story, focuses on the injustice facing African Americans in the criminal justice system, a young Harvard graduate seeks to fight for the accused in Alabama source cbr.com and fair use

territory,” Sanabria says. “I never really face things like that anymore though because I just surround myself with people who make me feel good about myself.”

Sanabria says that he has encountered a different type of racism that is oftentimes overlooked, colorism.

Colorism is discrimination against individuals with darker skin tones, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group. Growing up, Sanabria was told that his hair was “not presentable” because it was curly rather than straight, due to his Afro-Latino heritage.

Colorism is seen throughout our current society in many communities, whether they are a minority group or not. It affects job opportunities according to the 2006 University of Georgia study, The Inclusion Solution, which showed that employers prefer light skinned black men to dark skinned men, regardless of their qualifications. The black and hispanic communities are prominent examples of colorism within their communities; they are taught the notion that the lighter your skin is, the better and more attractive you are.

“It’s hard growing up knowing that your natural features are seen as ‘ugly,’” Sanabria says.

“However, surrounding myself with people who make me confident has really helped.”

University of Georgia researcher Man-Kit Lei says that children start realizing forms of discrimination as young as six or seven.

“Although racism can be learned and used from observing it, [racism is] usually learned from a social environment. Racism and discrimination are products of society,” Lei told

Spark. “During the elementary years, children learn patterns of behavior from family, peers, and school.”

Pieterse says that students and teachers alike can work to become anti-racist activists by gaining better knowledge of racial intolerance and discrimination in our modern society.

“One of the really impactful mechanisms is the education courses,” Pieterse says. “Having people really understand how racism has operated historically [can help reveal] how it’s been developed and sustained in our society.”

Throughout the last few months, many people have adopted the anti-racist activist label to show their allyship with the the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

But Pieterse says to become anti-racist is hard work. People can be discouraged and lose hope easily after learning the reality. However he believes that there is beginning to be a generational shift in perspective towards racism that will impact racial prejudice within and outside the classroom.

“My youngest son is 11. He was born into a world where the person in power was Barack Obama - a black man in charge” Pieterse says.

“However, I’m from South Africa. I lived in times of apartheid, and it was normal for me to not be able to drink out of a certain water fountain. When I explained to [my son] what I went through, he was confused why it had happened to me. To me it was normal, to him he questioned it and fought against it. It was inconceivable to him. He gives me hope for the future; he gives me hope that this generation has the potential to change the world.”•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 29

package | history

OUTCRY FOR CHANGE Since its founding in 2013, the organization Black Lives Matter has gained recognition and support after the deaths of many Black American lives as a result of police brutality. story megan miranda | infographic cassandra mueller | photography ianni acapulco

HISTORICAL BLACK DEATHS source BBC News 30 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

Michael Brown August 9

Trayvon Martin February 26

2012

2013 Black Lives Matter Founded July 13

2014 Eric Garner July 17

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fter a trip to a nearby convenience store around 6:24 p.m. on a Floridian winter evening, Trayvon Martin walks to his father’s fiance’s rented estate in the Retreat at Twin Lakes development. In the next hour what could have been a casual evening for the 17 year-old boy was completely altered by the gun shots fired at his unarmed self. After the shots became fatal, what remained was the trace of teenage innocence left in his pocket, the Skittles he had bought just an hour prior.

Professionals believe that Martin’s killing on Feb. 26, 2012 sparked a movement for change. Protesters gathered in more than 100 US cities in response to Martin’s shooting death by George Zimmerman, the neighborhood civilian patrol who chased and shot the 17-year-old after suspecting him of robbery in the neighborhood.

The response to Martin’s killing launched the rallying-cry “Black Lives Matter.” Other phrases like “don’t shoot” and “I can’t breath” drew eyes in protests and posts regarding the killing of black men and women. Following Martin’s murder in 2013 three black women, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors founded the organization Black Lives Matter. Now as the organization continues in 2020, separately the Black Lives Matter (BLM) social movement is an activist movement that focuses on the specific ideals of black equality, independent of the organization.

For many, BLM represents a fight against racism in the United States and communities, but to many the idea of racism is assumed to be solved. A 2018 National Broadcasting Company (NBC) survey revealed that 30% of Americans say racism exists today but is not a major problem. However according to Associate Professor of African American and African studies at Ohio State University Tiyi Morris, underlying racism in the US still exists to minorities even if it isn’t as highlighted as it was in the past, and BLM acts as a trying solution. “[BLM] is an effort to disrupt racist structures in society, and is a movement that everyone can participate in,” Morris told Spark. “BLM is not an effort to undermine the fact that everybody’s humanity matters. BLM is a specific articulation against the reality that, with regard to policies and procedures, access to opportunities and resources, black lives don’t matter.”

The BLM expression has gained popularity in recent years through widespread social

Tamir Rice November 22

media use, hashtags, and protests around the world. Morris says that the Black Lives Matter organization is just one of many social justice groups calling for change across the country.

“Black Lives Matter is calling for abolition [of racism and racist structures] but there are individuals and organizations who have been advocating for abolition for years,” Morris says. “Organizations organize critical resistance and insight [and] they have for years but it was the catalyst of the pandemic, the back to back murders that were happening at this time that just gave visibility and a greater urgency for black equality.”

Chuck Mingo, pastor at Crossroads Oakley, located in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the leader of the Undivided movement. Founded

by Mingo in 2015 amidst the racial tension in the US, its goal is to unite Americans through a curriculum intended to push for racial solidarity and promote justice through building relationships. “[Crossroads] continues to want to invest in the work of racial healing and racial solidarity through things like Undivided,” Mingo says. “I’ve got a lot of encouragement.

I think about the bold leadership I see many of my friends taking to be present in uncomfortable places, and there is something rewarding about unity across differences.”

The program started as a 6-week plan with multiracial small groups held to discuss the many layers of racial reconcilliation, adressing in a racial sense ideas that previously were divisive, by first recognizing acts of discrimination and having open discussions with varying perspectives that relate in seeking empathy.

One aspect that Crossroads and other organizations like Black Lives Matter works to address is systematic racism. According to Professor of African American and African studies at University of Kentucky, Nikki Brown, systematic racism is the structures that have been placed by laws, methods, and policies and the ways personal behavior makes other groups subsidiary to others.

“For many groups who have experienced racism, it isn’t always about individual acts or individual thoughts, it’s about systems,” Brown told Spark “It’s about institutions that divide groups and say that this one is inferior to another group and that this one group may not have access to power in any way, shape, or form.”

Brown says that there are parallels between

Walter Scott April 4

Philando Castile July 6

2015

2016

systematic racism commonly remembered by the 1960s Civil Rights movement and the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. While there are no longer segregated bathrooms and water fountains, Brown says discrimination between racial groups are still prominent today. An example being wage gaps, which according to a report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics remain existent.

In 1979, black men earned about 80 percent of what white men earned, in 2016, it slipped to about 70 percent ($18 per hour vs. $25 per hour). Although wages for black males have increased, the gain still lagged significantly behind that of their white counterparts. The wage gap also widened for black women, though the disparities were smaller.

Mingo says that the main goal of movements like the BLM and Undivided is to eliminate systematic racism in modern society. “[The 2020 BLM movement] is the modern day version of [the fight against] the devaluing of black lives,” Mingo says. “BLM is calling and rallying people-in this case many young people-to a cause for equity and equality for black lives.”

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here are many community resources that give passionate Americans a way to easily get involved in the BLM movement. For young citizens and students likePhD candidate at Indiana University, Jelani Ince, the change orchestrated by BLM is only feasible by turning words to actions.

“Having hope is not enough because it relegates people to the role of the spectator, it makes you a passive recipient of something versus an active one,” Ince told Spark. “A part of it is educating yourself by reading, and many outlets have organized [ways] for folks who are interested in anti-racism [to get involved].”

Morris agrees that young people have an influence in the BLM movement and they have access to educational resources and ways to show support. She has been encouraged by the support of young people getting involved and actively fighting for racial justice.

“Seeing [young people get involved] is very inspiring and seeing the potential that [young people] have,” Morris says. “I simply love seeing the activists and the initiative that people are taking to think outside of the box and envision a new world.”

Mingo believes one reason young people

Breona Taylor March 13

2018 Stephon Clark March 18

2020 George Floyd December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 31 May 25

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“[The 2020 BLM movement] is the modern day version of [the fight against] the devaluing of black lives. BLM is calling and rallying people-in this case many young people-to a cause for equity and equality for black lives.” -Chuck Mingo have had increased involvement in this movement compared to those in the past is because of social media.

“There’s never been a tool like social media to galvanize people to a cause,” Mingo says.

“It was the reason [that] when Martin Luther King was leading the civil rights movement, [the people] would go from city to city to galvanize that support. Can you imagine what he could have done with a platform like social media?”

Recently Yubo, a social networking app intended for ages 13-25, polled 38,919 U.S. young adults (aged 13-25) and saw that 88% of those respondents believe that Black Americans are treated differently than others.Furthermore 73% said they are using Facebook owned social media platform, Instagram, to demonstrate their support towards Black American equality.

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irector of African American and African Diaspora Studies at American University Sybil Williams engages in her student’s discussions on BLM and listens to younger audiences ideas “I have students engaged with their local chapters of BLM and I am privileged to hear about all of their success, but I also offer honest criticism,” Williams told Spark.

Ince’s initial connection to the BLM movement came in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s death which pushed him to explore Black Lives Matter and its connection to him and his students.

“Similar to many other folks in the country, especially black folks, my initial sort of moment was in 2012 [when] Trayvon Martin was murdered back in the summer of my junior year of college,” Ince says. “I [began to] look inwards towards people who I trusted, especially my professors at the time who are passionate about things I was passionate about, and [then] a lot of the conversations are so localized, so obviously a lot of processing happens in community.”

Not only can people support movements through social media but information can spread quicker than ever. Videos, pictures, and dialogue are being recorded and used to help people recognize cases of injustices, specifically police brutality. This provides evidence that many people need to boost support in the BLM movement.

“Even after Trayvon Martin, even after the death of Tamir Rice, even after the death of Michael Brown, people didn’t take [racism] seriously,” Brown told Spark “It’s almost as if it

wasn’t until George Floyd was lynched in front of our eyes that people took it seriously.”

However Morris acknowledges that social media also has negative repercussions within social movements. She believes social media can oftentimes spread confusion and misinformation as different people understand different realities of the truth.

“One of the problems with social media is that it’s so easy to create biased news or simply false news,” Morris says. “If you have just a few sources controlling all of the media sources that exist then it’s very easy to make sure everyone gets the same story, and if people don’t know how to critique and analyze the media they are going to believe it.”

Williams finds that within the BLM movement there is a lot of momentum behind it but questions the desired outcome or feasible goals.

“In 2020 we are seeing large groups of BLM protesters act with clarity on expected outcomes on the movement, and I would like to see greater discussion on how to achieve their goals with a suggested timeline attached.”

Mingo also offers honest criticism of the Black Lives Matter organization. As many Americans struggle to differentiate between the movement and organization itself, Mingo says the organization’s foundations may go against personal beliefs and impact their view of the movement.

“Even though there are things about the organization that I don’t agree with [such as] stances that [Black Lives Matter] may take that disagree with my theological beliefs or other understandings that I have in Scripture and maybe even how I think this should be approached,” Mingo told Spark. “But I do want to recognize and honor the space that they’re occupying of being a frontline voice in a moment where someone does need to cry out injustice that is still visited upon far too many black or brown people in our country.”

In a June survey conducted by the Pew research center, the support towards the BLM movement has seemingly increased. The survey reported that 67% of all adults somewhat or strongly support Black Lives Matter which is about two thirds of Americans.

Despite receiving success and widespread support through social media, Black Lives Matter has also faced ridicule. Some of the backlash focuses on the political affiliations of the group, as they are left winged and two

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founders have noted affiliation with marxism, the theory of socialism and communism, and the founders intent to “transform America”.

In response Morris asks for skeptics to recognize the necessary change that will come from the movement.

“The movement is bigger than the founders, and that it is an old strategy used to undermine movements that have importance to history,” Morris says. “One of the ways that we attempt to discredit people is when we act as though people are static and their movements should be static, and they can’t be, because the movements that are going to be effective are going to evolve, respond to, and change with the changes that are happening in society.”

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ingo challenges the idea that if people are to be critical about the BLM movement then they should hold that same accountability to other aspects of their

life.

“A lot of people say they can’t support anything that BLM represents because of this one thing they disagree with but they don’t apply that same standard to other things they support, and other people they support, and that’s hypocrisy,” Mingo says. “All of us have to own and recognize that [BLM] is complex, these organizations are complex, and people are complex. Moving forward, the minorities in the US continue to face discrimination. So the question BLM faces is what’s next? Will justice be served, and what does that look like?”

The desirable outcome of the Black Lives Matter movement is to seek justice as a collective change. This change is deemed necessary by many professionals analyzing the movement in relation to our current society.

Ince wants to see visible change in America’s systems and structures but realizes that that will not be accomplished without putting in the work.

“In order for us to secure the future that we need, we need to fix in at a higher threshold, and get rid of these predatory practices,” Ince says. “It really is like Martin Luther King believes-it’s not a matter of capacities it’s always been a matter of will. Do we have a willingness to do the work necessary? [It’s] not a matter of resources [or] a matter of time,[or] a matter if people are available [or not]. Are you willing to listen to what so many people experience as an issue.”•

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KNOW BETTER, DO BETTER More than 1.6 million public school students in the state of Ohio are required to take 12 social studies courses during their academic careers, but many believe that Black History is overlooked in this education. story and infographic mia hilkowitz • photography cassandra mueller

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ast Junior Xaneia Williams is one of over 1.6 million K-12 public school students in the state of Ohio who began their social studies education at just five or six years old. Taking social studies classes in every grade level and recently completing United States (U.S.) History in sophomore year, Williams has experienced a form of education extensively detailed by the State of Ohio.

The Ohio Department of Education outlines the curriculum for every grade level in the “Ohio’s Learning Standards for Social Studies” handbook. But even with a thorough curriculum, Williams says that there is one important aspect of her history education that has been continuously overlooked and excessively simplified: Black History.

“When learning Black History, there’s not enough detail so it doesn’t really create a good image for you to see what was [actually] happening,” Williams told Spark. “Overtime, I feel like [teachers] just go over it so fast that you don’t really get an impact from it.”

Williams, who is biracial, remembers these brief encounters with Black History education with a frustrating feeling.

“I remember this mostly from middle school where you would talk about [Black History] and you get that sense of ‘Oh here comes this part of history that’s super sad,’” Williams says.

“People would look at you a different way if you are black.”

According to a 2015 study by the National Museum of African American History and Culture and Orberg Research reported that nationally only 8% of social studies class time is used to teach Black History.

Williams recalls that the Black History she has received left out how people felt and how African Americans were actually treated, which caused some students to form misconceptions

about slavery, the Civil War and segregation.

Williams attributes some of these misconceptions to a fear among students to ask questions about history in the classroom.

“There’s a tension where [students] want to ask questions but they can’t because they feel like they’re going to get a certain attitude from someone who may not agree with how a movement happened,” Williams says. “They want to dive deeper but they’re too afraid because they feel like they’ve gotten enough from history class in general.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported in 2017 that only 8% of high school seniors could identify slavery as the central cause of the Civil War. Of those seniors, 68% did not know that the 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery in the United States and only 22% could identify how the Constitution gave advantages to slaveholders.

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ssociate History Professor at the University of Cincinnati Holly McGee says that these same misconceptions of African American history tend to be carried into the college setting. McGee describes her experience teaching about the Progressive Era, a time period from 1890 to 1920 commonly remembered for its social activism and mending of issues caused by widespread industrialization. But for African Americans, the Progressive Era has been considered one of the lowest points in race relations in the U.S. It was notorious for racial segregation hate groups such as the “Ku Klux Klan”, and lynchings of African Americans.

“Every semester I have at least one student

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“Students would get angry with me [because they thought] that I was making [information] up and lying, only to find out later that this was just history that they had not been taught.”

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ccording to McGee this gap in knowledge leaves students “experiencing a reality that makes no sense and has no context.” She says that without learning an accurate history of race and discrimination in the United States, many people will not be able to fully understand modern day social movements, such as the Black Lives Matter Movement. McGee believes that this is one of many reasons there needs to be major changes to Black History education in schools.

“A state or institution will make a designation about what [they think is] important and what is not important, and what is often important [to them] is a false narrative,” McGee says. “Not only does the curriculum need to change, the way that the people who are teaching the curriculum needs to change as well.”

Currently, there are no federal mandates requiring Black History to be taught

in public schools.

LaGarret King, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of Missouri, researches how Black History is interpreted and taught in schools across the nation. LaGarret believes that African American history is taught in an over simplified manner.

“There is rarely any context for notions of Black History,” King told Spark. “Black history is only focused on in three aspects: slavery, the Civil War and the 1960s Civil Rights movement. There are large gaps in the ways we approach black history.”

LaGarret says that there is a mainstream “narrative” of U.S. history that is taught in social studies classes across the country, which can in turn have a significant impact on the way the Black History is interpreted.

“There is a certain story that the U.S. is trying to tell us,” LaGarret says. “That story is a progressive lens of [U.S history]. That we’ve had some problems but because we have the moral aptitude to fix those problems and we’ve always believed in the pursuit of

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happiness and liberty for all, that we solve these issues. If you [look at] it through a black historical lens you’ll see that these issues are rarely solved.”

LaGarret says that black history education is often taught with “historical uniformity.”

According to LaGarret, historical uniformity is the idea that “white and black people have had the same approaches throughout history.”

“People are correct when they say that Black History is American history, but that’s a fallacy in the way that we understand and approach Black History,” LaGarret says. “I like to tell people that what is historically important to white people is not always historically important to black people. We shouldn’t be simply progressing into historical uniformity.”

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aGarret believes that even though the official, state-mandated guidelines may exclude this aspect, the required curriculum should not stop students from receiving a better Black History education. He thinks that one way to achieve this is for teachers to shift their own mindsets towards Black History.

“We need to stop hiding behind the curriculum,” LaGarret says. “Teachers need to understand that they are not just teaching a curriculum. Social studies teaches us about who we are and about others. but we can’t understand half the population because [Black History] is ignored, silenced or excluded.”

East Social Studies teacher Samantha Miller has been teaching U.S. History for five years. Miller says that teaching Black History can be a sensitive and difficult topic to approach.

“There is a delicate nature that you have to teach Black History with,” Miller told Spark. “Coming from me as a white person and having classes that are generally ethnically mixed, don’t want to insult anyone or their families.”

Miller says that when students first come into her classes, they often lack knowledge of certain parts of Black history, specifically about the Reconstruction era, the turbulent time period after the Civil War as Southern states reintegrated back into the Union and determined the legal status of African Americans. Even though slavery had been officially abolished in the United States following the Civil War, African Americans faced widespread discrimination and violence from those who disagreed with abolition.

“It’s really hard [to teach U.S. history] because we are such a proud country,” Miller says. “I say it all the time in class and I’m sure kids get sick of it but I’ll

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“I hope that the [curriculum] will change. I hope that [officials] decide to add more about minorities in general and the way that minorities have been treated throughout history.” -East Social Studies Teacher Samantha Miller tell you I’m not going to sugarcoat things and I have to be real about it.”

Miller teaches these historical eras from many different perspectives so her students can have a more holistic view of a period.

“If you go to a history textbook, it’s [written] from that ‘winner’s’ perspective,” Miller says. “If I really want to know the truth about an event, I need at least three different people’s stories to figure out what actually happened.”

Miller shows these perspectives by having students read primary source documents and excerpts from black historical figures like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Miller searches for her own resources outside of the required curriculum to further expand on students’ knowledge of not only black history, but other minority histories as well.

“I hope that the [curriculum] will change,” Miller says. “I hope that [officials] decide to add more about minorities in general and the way that minorities have been treated throughout history.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center report, 58% of U.S. teachers find their textbooks “inadequate” and 40% believe their state offers insufficient support for teaching about slavery.

According to Lakota Outreach, Diversity and Inclusion Director Elgin Card, the district is working to add courses and resources to Lakota curriculum that addresses different cultural histories.

“It’s important to know all the great contributions that others have done, whether [they are] African American, Native American or [a part of ] different groups that we don’t get to learn about as much in school,” Card told Spark. “I want [students] to see people of color in a positive light in our curriculum.”

Lakota Director of Curriculum Keith Koehne says that the district has been working towards the goal.

“We’ve met a couple of times so far and continue to meet about [including more black history in the curriculum],” Koehne told Spark. “[Card] has plans for how to incorporate more courses and resources for the kids and their curriculum.”

Associate Professor of African American Studies at Ohio University Bayyinah Jeffries thinks that one way for teachers to encourage better Black History education is to take a Black History course themselves.

“No matter their field of study, I encourage

educators to take African American studies courses,” Jeffries says. “African American studies challenges one’s preconceived notions and attitudes and provides opportunities to learn about oneself in relation to other people.”

Jeffries believes providing students with a valuable black history education is vital for society.

“Broadening one’s education helps to bring out our best self. When someone witnesses an injustice, they may be inspired to act or work to abolish those injustices because of those educational experiences,” Jeffries says. “An education is supposed to prepare you to be a contributing member of society. Black History adds value to that mission.”

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or East junior Olivia Lockett, a better Black History education is both important and personal to her. Lockett, who is black, says that in her experience with social studies education, Black History has been ignored.

“If [a historical event] happens Black History wise we will talk about it for a day and then it’ll be completely out of the window,” Lockett

says. “We mainly talked about the Civil Rights movement. [The curriculum] doesn’t really go outside of that or teach about the [black] people during that time. We don’t learn about what’s happening in different places during the Civil Rights movement or what caused it.”

Lockett believes that her peers do not have an adequate understanding and knowledge of black history.

“My peers will get on their phones or talk to someone around them or do homework from other classes,” Lockett says. “Instead of actually listening and learning.”

Lockett believes that in order to make a real difference, teachers and students alike need to put more effort into learning about Black History.

“I am African American so I have to deal with this on a daily basis, while they only have to pay attention for 45 minutes” Lockett says.

“I think it’s very important for [Black History] to be taught and it really hits home for me because this is something I have to live through for the rest of my life. I can’t just put on face makeup and change it.” •

AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY Myth

Fact Slavery existed in every colony by the end of the 17th Century.

Black Americans had been organizing efforts against racial oppression since before the Civil War.

The Civil Rights movement began in 1955.

15-year-old student Claudette Calvin refused to move to the back of the bus, 9 months before Parks.

Interracial marriages have been legalized for many decades. sources: TIME and PBS December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 35

package | impact of covid-19

BENEATH THE SURFACE

In the midst of a pandemic, while the entire world is struggling, there is one demographic that seems to be struggling more than others: the Black community. story and graphic ava huelskamp | photography ianni acapulco

A

s Teresa Bradley was wheeled through the emergency room at her local hospital after contracting COVID-19, something was different about this hospital experience.

Aside from the squeak of New Balances on the tile and the heavy cleaning solution smell, Bradley noticed that like herself, most of the occupants of the COVID-19 ward were African American.

Bradley and her husband, both in their early 60s, made a trip to the hospital in their home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan after experiencing fevers and trouble breathing.

According to the New York Times, 63% of infections in Grand Rapids are within the Black and Latino community.

Many things about the novel disease, COVID-19, remain unknown. However there is one thing professionals have been able to agree upon: COVID-19 is disproportionately affecting people of color in a negative way significantly more than their white counterparts. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Black Americans are 2.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 compared to White Americans.

Associate Research Professor at Yale University Jorge Alfaro-Murillo accredits access to health insurance as a contributor to who gets hit hardest by the virus.

A l f a r o Murrillo says that about 7.5% of caucasian people are uninsured compared

to 11.5% of black people.

“This causes a problem because once you get the disease, if you don’t have insurance, you’re less likely to go to the doctor,” Alfaro-Murillo says. “[By the time] you go to the doctor, you’re probably very sick and those cases are more difficult to treat and are going to have worse outcomes.”

Professor of Medicine at Yale University Cary Gross has been tending to patients in the COVID-19 ward at New Haven Hospital, Connecticut for the past few months. Gross believes the healthcare system is stacked in favor of white people, causing disparities when it comes to health insurance.

“Our healthcare system is really built on a foundation of structural racism. In order to get access to healthcare, there are barriers such as health insurance,

36 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

or where you live,” Gross says. “Some communities have fewer doctors and [there is also] the risk of job exposure for essential workers.”

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a non-profit organization that focuses on reporting news about national health issues, 2.9% of white people between the ages of 1964 are uninsured, compared to 14% of black people between the ages of 19-64. Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Madison Tiffany Green has noticed that the lack of health insurance coverage in the black community directly correlated to the types of jobs they hold.

“Many of the jobs that are essential for [running] our economy-the jobs that will allow us to stay home-don’t have benefits like health insurance, and that means when you get sick you either go to work or you don’t get paid,” Green told Spark. “Because [essential workers often times] don’t have benefits like insurance, people who are in these essential jobs are still likely to go to work, even if they’re sick. They can’t stay home, and that’s a huge problem.”

T

he type of job a person holds during a pandemic directly affects your exposure and risk category. A person who holds an essential job like a grocery store worker, bus driver or taxi driver is at a much higher risk of contracting the disease than a person who can perform their job remotely.

According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 41.2% of all front line workers fall in the non-white category.

“We’ve really latched on to this term called essential workers, and those are the people that have to go to work when the rest of us stay at home. In fact, they’re the people that allow us to stay at home. They are the grocery store workers, the frontline workers in nursing,” Green says. “All of these occupations are disproportionately inhabited by people of color, and more specifically,

by Black Americans. What it means is that [people in] these occupations are more likely to be exposed because they can’t work at home.”

Green believes there is a domino effect when it comes to who is holding

impact of covid-19 | package essential jobs and the position these people are in to take care of themselves during the trying time of a pandemic.

“It’s harder for you to get tested if you don’t have a job with flexible hours and benefits,” Green told Spark. “What we know is that Black Americans in particular are less likely to have jobs with benefits like flexible hours, which is an important barrier to testing.”

Along with the issue of getting tested, Green believes there is a systemic issue in America concerning how black people are treated in medical situations. These situations keep them from trusting doctors. According to National Public Radio (NPR), ⅓ of Black Americans say they’ve personally faced discrimination at hospitals, and 22% say they’ve avoided seeking medical care for fear of being discriminated against.

“Black people tend to be mistreated in public healthcare settings. For example doctors are less likely to be able to correctly assess [a black patient’s] pain,” Green says. “We see all this evidence that doctors tend to treat black patients differently, and this historical and contemporary evidence means that there is a lack of trust [between black patients and doctors].”

The Washington Post says that in Puerto Rico, women were sterilized for the purpose of controlling the population. From the 1930s to the 1970s, ⅓ of Puerto Rican mothers of childbearing age were sterilized.

R

esearchers debate about the impact of pre-existing conditions on COVID-19 infection demographics.. While some scientists believe pre-existing conditions are a catalyst for infection in the black community, there are a good number that disagree.

Maryland School of Medicine Clinical Researcher Karen Kotloff told Spark that black people are more susceptible to severe diseases in general due to underlying conditions, but she has not yet done enough research about how those conditions contribute to COVID-19 infection rates. “[Black people] have an increased risk for more severe disease, and that may be due to the fact that there are disparities in the occurrence of underlying conditions like diabetes and heart disease, obesity and other factors that we don’t completely understand yet,” Kotloff says.

Gross opposes this claim, saying that the notion that COVID-19 cases are higher in black populations due to underlying genetic conditions “drives him nuts.”

“COVID-19 is a virus that doesn’t pay attention to the color of your skin,” Gross says. “[It is] highly unlikely that because someone’s skin is darker the virus is going to be more or less [present]. The reason why it drives me crazy is that it is an easy way out for society.”

The CDC has neither confirmed nor

denied that pre-existing conditions definitely contribute to severe infection, but the organization has ranked conditions in order of the most to least evidence of the contribution towards COVID-19 on their website.

Conditions at the top of the list include cancer, chronic kidney disease, and heart disease.

Green disagrees with this narrative, saying that the real issue lies within the United States class system.

“I’d like to dispel one of the reasons why people think that there are racial disparities, and that is the existence of pre-existing conditions. Things like asthma and being classified as obese are thought to be preexisting conditions that can make COVID-19 worse or lead to mortality,” Green told Spark.

“I would push back against that narrative because it’s an oversimplified one. A lot of the reason that we’re seeing racial disparities in COVID-19 is becau se of the w ay that our occupational systems and classes are organized in the US.”

G

reen goes beyond this to say that black people are also more likely to know someone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 or died from it. According to the Pew Research Center, 17% of Black Americans know someone who has been hospitalized or died from COVID-19 as opposed to 13% of white Americans.

“Not only do we have the overall mental health impacts of dealing with a pandemic, but Black Americans are more likely to know someone they’re close to who’s died from COVID-19,” Green says. “That’s going to have an enormous mental health impact above and

4

beyond what all of us are experiencing with this pandemic.”

Experts have developed several ideas of how systemic racism can be addressed, but it requires Americans to be proactive and take the first step.

Gross finds that the first step to end systemic racism might be simpler than expected. When he attended a panel about racial disparities in cancer treatment a few years ago, a senior doctor made a comment about what he would do to end systemic racism, and his answer was astonishing to Gross. “[The doctor said that] by the time kids get to the end of third grade, there are profound racial differences in reading level because black kids are more likely to be in schools with a higher student teacher ratio, and a lower amount of resources,” Gross says. “The problem is once you make it to third grade, you’re already starting to see the disparity, and that plays out to the rest of your education.”

Gross himself believes that a more widespread distribution of healthcare is something that should be in place already, but it can now be a goal to work towards. “[We need] to think of health as a natural human right, as something that’s interwoven into all types of policies.

In addition to health insurance, it also comes down to a multi-generational wealth gap in our country,” Gross told Spark. “Unfortunately, there is a strong correlation between wealth and health. A rich neighborhood has a life expectancy of 10-15 years longer than a poor neighborhood. It’s pretty striking.” •

LOCAL BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES

1 2 3

Barcode Glam Studio

4

Blush the Event Lounge

10002 Montgomery Rd, Suite #16, Cincinnati OH 45242

Black Career Women’s Network 114 Pike St, HQ - Cincinnati, Covington KY 41011

BlaCk Coffee Lounge 824 Elm Street, Cincinnati OH 45202

345 W. 4th Street, Cincinnati OH 45202

source The Voice of Black Cincinnati December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 37

package | black lgbtq+ community

A SPLIT IDENTITY

Black members of the LGBTQ+ community face additional discrimination within their own communities as a result of the intersectionality creates overlapping layers of discrimination. story marleigh winterbottom | photography cassandra muller

*Note: This story uses a false name to represent a student who wishes to remain anonymous.

B

rian “Egypt” Joseph Powers, a 43-year-old African-American transgender man adored wearing his signature “unicorn braids,” a mixture of pink, green, blue, and yellow braids. However, this particular day, he wore his hair in its natural state of brown curls.

With dreams of becoming a backup dancer and starting his own t-shirt company, Powers was a man of many aspirations.

He had put substance abuse and housing insecurity behind him and pursued a journey of sobriety for seven months, ready for a fresh start.

June 13th, 2020, Powers was found motionless on the sidewalk near downtown Akron, Ohio. Investigators determined that Powers had walked about 100-yards before collapsing outside of a church after a single bullet pierced both of his thighs causing his death.

Power’s family fears he may have been the victim of a hate crime due to his transgender identity.

Three and a half hours southwest of Akron and merely four days earlier, on June 9th, Riah Milton, a 25-year-old black transgender woman was killed in Liberty Township, 1.5 miles from Lakota East. That same day, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, a 27-year-old black transgender woman, was found dead in a river in Philadelphia.

As part of the black LGBTQ+ community, East junior Sarah* found the proximity of the death of Milton very upsetting, especially after seeing the media coverage.

“I’m in a group called Gay Staight Alliance (GSA) at East and the club President at the

time sent out a message saying what happened,” Sarah told Spark. “When the first articles came out, it made me upset because she didn’t deserve what happened to her. On top of that, the media was deadnaming her and using the wrong pronouns.”

Deadnaming is using the birth or other former name of a transgender or non-binary person without their consent.

East junior Natalie Dace, who is biracial, says she felt unsettled knowing there was an act of violence and discrimination so close to home.

“I think it’s scary because we read and see all these things on the news [but] it’s not normally around here, so when it is, it’s definitely scary,” Dace told Spark.

According to The Human Rights Campaign, an organization that strives to end discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community of the 25 known transgender people killed in America during 2019, 91% were black transgender women. However, experts say that there are many cases of African American transgender killings that remain unreported.

“Many more transgender women died, in my belief, than are recorded,” Chief Operating Officer (CEO) and President of The Center for Black Equity, a global organization dedicated to achieving equality and social justice for black LGBTQ+ communities, Earl D. Fowlkes Jr. told Spark. “If they’re not connected to their family or they have a very marginal relationship with associates, who’s going to report them missing? And who’s gonna follow through on them?”

Transgender individuals face high rates of

hate violence in their daily lives. The National Center for Transgender Equality states that over one in four transgender people have faced a bias-driven assault. Their research also shows that these rates are even higher for transgender women and transgender people of color.

A

2012 report from the Human Rights Campaign shows that black transgender people face severe rates of poverty with 34% living in extreme poverty, compared to the 9% of non-transgender black people. According to Fowlkes, while some transgender people experience discrimination in the form of violence, discrimination is also commonly found in the work place, often times causing struggles with unemployment and homelessness.

“You have a black transgender teenager who is 13 or 14 years old, whose family doesn’t understand her and throws her out of the house,” Fowlkes says. He notes that they are not finishing their education due to violence, discrimination, and bias in school causing them not to have a highschool diploma, a lack of job skills, and little to no clothes to fit society’s image of a woman. This then leads them to become homeless. “If you add those factors up, it doesn’t equal up to success in society; it equals up to poverty.”

At the beginning of July 2020, the

“As an activist while I have to fight racism in the broader community I really have to fight, homophobia, transphobia, and phobia in the community. And that’s a tough nut to crack.” -CEO and President of The Center for Black Equity Earl D. Fowlkes Jr. 38 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

black lgbtq+ community | package Trump Administration announced a plan to rollback the Obama era “Equal Access Rule” that had previously barred federally funded homeless shelters from discriminating against transgender people, in turn endangering the community of black and brown transgender woman who already face extraordinarily high rates of unemployment and homelessness.

President and CEO of “SELF” (Strengthening and Empowering Lives and Futures), the largest provider of emergency housing services in the city of Philadelphia, Micheal Hinson, believes that this roll back is unjustifiable.

“There’s no way to justify stopping anyone from receiving life saving services like housing or shelter or emergency housing,” Hinson told Spark. “There’s just no reason other than a political reason to activate your political base.”

While they continue to face discrimination from mainstream society, black LGBTQ+ individuals also face discrimination within their own communities.

According to a report provided by Stonewall and YouGov in Britain, 51% of all black, Asian, and minority ethnic LGBTQ+ people report experiencing discrimination or poor treatment within their local LGBTQ+ community due to their ethnicity. This number rises to 61% when focusing solely on black LGBTQ+ individuals, 3 in 5 people.

“Even though there have been strides made and a growing awareness of racism in the LGBTQ+ community, being queer and trans doesn’t exempt people from having racial bias and implicit bias,” Cincinnati Black Pride CoFounder and Teach for America’s Director of the LGBTQ+ Initiative Tim’m T. West told Spark.

I

n addition to racism in the LGBTQ+ community, many including Hinson have reported instances of homophobia in the black community. While working as an LGBTQ+ liaison to Philadelphia Mayor John Street, Hinson talked with a school district about recognizing “National Coming Out Day” in their calendar.

“I felt my life being threatened by [other] black leaders,” Hinson says. “My life was threatened in that public discourse, in that public meeting and as a public official, as a black man, and as a gay man, that was a very low point for me.”

With the Democratic Party receiving nearly 90% of the black vote for the past six decades, many conclude that the black community is predominantly liberal. However, according to the Pew Research Center, only 28% of black Democrats consider themselves liberal, while 70% identify as moderate or conservative.

Fowlkes credits some of this to many black individuals being grounded in

Cincinnati

Black Pride story marleigh winterbottom

T

he month of June marks an important period for the LGBTQ+ community as they gather to celebrate Pride Month nationwide. Founded in 2018 and gaining non-profit status in 2019, Cincinnati Black Pride offers resources and events for the LGBTQ+ community and allies to learn more and celebrate Pride Month every year.

Cincinnati Black Pride begins its events in the week before the Cincinnati Pride Parade, an annual LGBTQ+ celebration that dates back to 1973. The 2020 Black Pride events were held Jun. 25-28 virtually.

Cincinnati Black Pride aims to promote health, education and awareness, and social and cultural wellness of the black LGBTQ+ community of Greater Cincinnati.

Each year, Cincinnati Black Pride holds events each night leading up to the Cincinnati Pride Parade. One of the events in 2020 included the 3rd annual Black Alphabet Film Festival, whose name alludes to the acronym “LGBTQ+” and the inclusion of different gender and sexuality identities. The festival highlights films by or about black LGBTQ+ individuals. Although the film festival is focused on black pride, people of all sexuallities and backgrounds are welcome.

“We invite others to be a part of our experience and to learn,” Cincinnati Black Pride Co-Founder Tim’m T. West told Spark.

“That’s something I’m really proud of.”

Although the 2020 Census shows that Cincinnati’s population is 44.8% black, according to West, before Cincinnati Black Pride, there was no Black Pride organization in the Greater Cincinnati area. The only celebration was the Cincinnati Pride Parade, which celebrated LGBTQ+ pride, but West says that black community members were asked to “leave their race at the door.”

“Black Pride creates a space where people can be both [black and LGBTQ+],” West told Spark. “It’s not contradictory or in conflict, it’s a space where both identities can exist.” •

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 39

package | black lgbtq+ community church philosophy, often creating a discomfort surrounding the LGBTQ+ community.

“The fact of the matter is, as an activist while I have to fight racism in the broader community I really have to fight, homophobia, transphobia, and phobia in the black community,” Fowlkes says. “And that’s a tough nut to crack.”

Sarah, with her own family being involved in the church, agrees that the belief system plays a part in LGBTQ+ acceptance.

“I feel like with older generations, a lot of families being in the churches when they’re younger are preached on “don’t do this”, [being LGBTQ+] is considered a sin and it’s wrong,” Sarah says. “When in reality you might not feel like something’s wrong but if you’re brought up to think something’s wrong you’re gonna automatically feel like it’s wrong.”

around certain groups of people,” Fowlkes says.

“And it’s a lot of emotional and psychological pressure on many of us who are walking that tightrope because we receive distrust from both sides of the coin.”

While the black community is fighting for racial justice, Sarah finds that they continue to make hurtful comments to people in the LGBTQ+ community.

“It feels that like some black people, will [preach] racial justice, but then would be mean to LGBTQ+ people calling

F

owlkes believes that the constant battle from both sides of a black LGBTQ+ individual’s identity often leads to issues regarding mental health.

“We [black people] believe that we have to be a certain way

40 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

them names. But they don’t like it when they face discrimination against themselves, for their for their skin color,” Sarah says.

East sophomore Kiera Leonard, who identifies as Lesbian, feels that minorities need to make an effort to support eachother.

“All minorities really need to stand up for each other,” Leonard told Spark. “It’s hard to stand up, so we might as well just stand up for each other.”

Among black LGBTQ+ youth, a 2020 sample conducted by the Trevor Project shows that 66% of people aged 13 through 24 reported being in a depressed mood in the past 12 months, 35% reported seriously considering suicide in the past 12 months, and 19% reported a suicide attempt in the past year.

“When a black child comes out, not only do they not get support from their peers in their community, their parents are also coming out as well,” Fowlkes says. “We haven’t figured out a way of supporting black parents to the extent that they need to be supported, so that they can understand what the child is going through and be better parents, and be more supportive. That’s why these figures are so high because they’re not supported in the community, not supported in their church, not supported by their parents, and not supported by their relatives”.

A

2017 American Psychiatric Association (APA) report states that transgender individuals who identify as African American/black, Hispanic/ Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Multiracial/Mixed Race are at increased risk of suicide attempts than white transgender individuals.

West expresses having his own battles with mental health when he did not receive support from his father for being queer.

“I happen to have a dad who is a pastor who said lots of horrible homophobic things growing up, and I survived a suicide attempt as a high school student so it’s not uncommon to hear that,” West says. “I think those numbers will change when we have a society that’s a little more accepting.”

Within the previous 2020 sample collected by the Trevor Project, only half of the black LGBTQ+ youth who had seriously considered suicide recieved psychological or emotional counseling, compared to three out of five LGBTQ youth overall.

black lgbtq+ community | package Additionally, a 2017 report by APA shows that only 1 in 3 African Americans who need mental health care receives it.

The Center for Black Equity has recognized this issue and is working on identifying several virtual mental health service providers in Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Georgia, and Alabama. Their goal is to reach out to organizations and people in need of mental health services who don’t have the funds and provide them with three free therapy sessions.

“There are many black people who don’t have access to mental health services,” Fowlkes says. “Maybe that’s a band aid on a gaping wound but it’s a start for people getting used to and getting comfortable with mental health services, because it’s one of the major needs in communities of color of all sexualities.”

A

2017 GLSEN School Climate Survey showed there are beneficial effects from teaching a curriculum that represents the LGTBQ+ community in a positive light.

19.8% of LGBTQ+ students report being taught positive representations about LGBTQ+ people, history, or events in their schools and 18.4% reporting being taught negative content about LGBTQ topics.

“We want to talk about Ben Franklin, and we want to talk about MLK, and now we want to add John Lewis, who we should add to that education,” Hinson says. “But, when it comes to talking about Bayard Rustin, who was an important leader in the civil rights era, particularly for organizing the March on Washington, you hardly ever hear about that. You hear about MLK in the March on Washington, but you don’t hear about the person who actually organized it who was an openly gay black person.”

Hinson finds an open dialogue to be an important aspect inside and outside of the school system.

“The biggest challenge has always been just figuring out a way to get more voices in the conversation,” Hinson says. “Change isn’t made with the Micheal Hinson show. It happens because there are brave voices outside, who no matter what, are saying no to the system.”

Dace agrees, she would like more opportunities for open conversations with her peers.

“The only way that I think things are gonna get solved is if we talk about it and have conversations, even if you’re uncomfortable” Dace told Spark.

The most important thing Hinson wants to emphasize to black LGBTQ+ individuals struggling is that “you matter.”

“You matter, your voice matters, your place in the world matters,” Hinson says. “When our voices are in the room, it is felt. And when we are not there, that too is felt.”•

POLICE PERSPECTIVE graphic mia hilkowitz

92%

86%

source Pew Research Center

SPARK SPECIAL REPORT LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT 2020-2021 PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES WILL BE EXPLORED IN AN IN-DEPTH IN ISSUE 3 December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 41

package | judicial system

FIGHTING THE SYSTEM As the Black Lives Matter movement brings light to issues that have previously gone unnoticed, African Americans who have faced racial injustice within the criminal justice system rise to share their stories. story and graphic natalie mazey | photography ianni acapulco

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t 19, she was sentenced to 43 years to life for a crime she did not commit.

Tyra Patterson, an African American woman from Dayton, Ohio, did not plead guilty to the murder of 15-year-old Michelle Lai in 1994. Evidence was excluded from the trial that would have led to a different outcome, and Patterson was not allowed to testify on her own behalf.

Tyra was with her best friend that night, who happened to be white. Her best friend was never a suspect, and Patterson believes that the color of her skin played a role in that. “[My best friend] told the police that night, Tyra Patterson was with me the whole night. If she’s in trouble, how come I’m not,” Patterson told Spark . “Now she understands that it was her privilege.”

After being booked on a murder charge, Patterson spent 23 years in prison. On Christmas day of 2017, she was released, getting to spend the holiday with her family for the first time in two decades.

“It felt like somebody was taking your life from you while you were still breathing,” Patterson says. “When I was released, it was like I got all of that air back. It motivated me to fight.”

According to the Sentencing Project, a research center working to promote criminal justice reforms, Black Americans comprised 27% of all individuals arrested in the United States in 2016, equating to double their share of the total population.

“The punishment should affect everyone equally,” East American Law teacher and Junior State of America (JSA) Advisor Matt Newell says. “The law should be designed to affect everyone equally. When you create walls that create separate systems of justice, based on who you are, then, by nature those people are going to feel disenfranchised.”

Beginning in the early 1970s, the War on Drugs began to perpetuate the idea that mass incarceration equated to mass safety. According to Danielle McDonald, Professor of Criminal Justice at Northern Kentucky University, incarceration became the solution rather than rehabilitation.

“Jail and prison were for people who were violent, who we didn’t think should be in the

community because they were a danger to themselves or other people,” McDonald told Spark. “Low level offenders like drug offenders weren’t incarcerated [before the 1970s], but today we incarcerate everybody.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the federal prison population has increased by almost 790% since 1980. Ohio courts are overflowing, and prisons designed to house 38,000 people hold almost 51,000. The ACLU believes law enforcement’s combative focus on urban areas, lower income communities and communities of color contributes to the racial disparity still seen today.

“Broken windows policing is the idea that if you pay really close attention to the small things, you won’t have to worry about the big stuff,” Marais Jacon-Duffy, Communications Manager at the Ohio Justice and Policy Center (OPJC) says. “They would aggressively pursue crimes literally like broken windows, crimes of poverty and desperation, which creates generations of mistrust.”

M

cDonald says that policies like this allow for black communities to continue to be overpoliced. In the 80s, the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences left African Americans, who made up the majority of people arrested for crack cocaine offenses, facing longer sentences for comparable offenses.

“In the 80s, [the United States] put policies in place specifically for crack cocaine,” McDonald says. “For instance, the 100 to one ratio, which means that if you have 100 grams of powder cocaine you get the same sentence as one gram of crack cocaine.”

Policies like this directly targeted urban, lower income communities and communities of color because these areas tended to use the cheaper alternative to powder cocaine, crack cocaine. People believed that crack cocaine was more addictive and made people violent, further justifying these policies. According to McDonald, powder cocaine tended to be used by wealthier people, allowing them to use without the chance of arrest.

42 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

judicial system | package

“You don’t see payday loans or bail bonds in white communities. So you see a very clear extraction of resources and wealth from black communities with the criminal legal system.”-Melekte Melaku Although Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) in 2010, reducing the ratio for crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1, Melekte Melaku, organizing Strategist for the ACLU of Ohio, believes, that a ratio of 1:1 is the only fair ratio because they are essentially the same drug.

The cash bail system further plays a role in criminalizing poverty. The ACLU of Ohio, an affiliate of the national ACLU, works to preserve civil liberties through education, litigation, and lobbying. The current cash bail system allows for the wealthy to experience a different version of justice, and the ACLU of Ohio is advocating for that to change. If someone is able to pay the cash bail, they can legally walk free, while someone who cannot afford it stays behind bars, even though both people are legally innocent.

“It’s a very poor way to manage things like public safety risks and danger or threats to the community because somebody who pays, who could actually be a major threat to public safety, if they have the money, they can just get out,” Melaku told Spark. “This notion that it’s to safeguard our communities, which is oftentimes the resistance around bail reform, is false, misleading, and dehumanizing in so many ways.”

Two out of three people are held pretrial in Ohio jails, and the ACLU of Ohio wants legislation to pass that will cease Ohio’s dependence on cash bail.

According to Melaku, black and brown communities are over surveilled and targeted by the police, so they are more likely to be involved in an encounter with a police officer, which leads to arrest. When the bail gets assigned, black people get bail notes assigned to them 35% higher than the white counterparts.

The wealth disparities black Americans face further tie in to the inability to make the bail.

Black Americans are more likely to seek out a commercial bail bondsman, which acts as a “pay to play system.”

“You don’t see payday loans or bail bonds in white communities,” Melaku says. “So you see a very clear extraction of resources and wealth

from black communities with the criminal legal system.”

Other factors like poverty can intersect with race to bolster the ongoing racial disparity within the system, according to Christina Campbell, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati.

“It’s never just race. It’s race and family income, it’s race and school experiences, it’s race and lots of different things,” Campbell told Spark. “Because in black communities people who are at risk are exposed to a host of risk factors like school resources, family resources, and so on.”

C

ampbell referred to a case involving a 15 year old black high school student named Grace who was incarcerated during the pandemic as an example of this issue. Judge Mary Ellen Brennan ruled that Grace’s failure to complete her school work when her school

moved to remote learning was a violation of her probation, and she was incarcerated for almost 80 days before the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered her release. On August 11 she was returned home to her mother.

“I think a question the judge should have asked was, what were the barriers to completing homework? Were you motivated, did you need assistance, did you need a tutor, did you need wireless access? Were there other responsibilities within your family you had to take care of that interfere with your ability to complete them?”

Campbell says. “We need to think about being proactive and thinking about how to reduce barriers that get in the way for kids doing well.”

A 2019 study of police stops in Cincinnati conducted by the nonprofit newsroom Eye on Ohio, The Cincinnati Enquirer and researchers from Stanford University’s Big Local News program, confirmed that police stops are impacted by racial bias. Blacks were stopped at

Once stopped, percentage of arrests made by police in Cincinnati in 2019

1% 22%

White Black Others 76%

source Stanford University

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 43

a 30% higher rate than whites.

Blacks made up 52% of all vehicle and pedestrian stops between 2012 and 2017, despite being 43% of the city’s population. And once stopped, police in Cincinnati arrested more than three times the number of blacks pulled over as whites, 15,127 compared to 4,315. Blacks made up 76% of all arrests, compared to 22% for whites.

The Ohio Justice and Policy Center (OJPC) located in Cincinnati is a nonprofit, public-interest law firm, that is working to reduce this racial disparity seen in Ohio’s prisons.

According to OJPC’s mission statement, through legal services, education, and reform, the organization spreads a “fair, intelligent, redemptive criminal justice through Ohio.” Part of their comprehensive policy reform includes bail reform and reducing the impact of collateral consequences, the “second sentences” a person faces after their criminal sentence, including restrictions that impact employment.

“We’re missing out on workers that could fill a need for workers in hourly jobs and trades,” Marais Jacon-Duffy, Communications Manager at the OJPC told Spark. “We’re completely barring an entire group of people from aiding the economy essentially.”

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hile the OJPC supports bills in the Ohio Legislature to assuage the impact of collateral consequences, they also help clients see if expunging or sealing their record is an option, which would allow the client access to adequate housing, job opportunities, and more. “[Sealing or expunging records] is not a long term solution because something needs to systematically change, but it’s a good way to mitigate the harm of a record for a person in the short term so they can literally survive and make a living,” Jacon-Duffy says. “But we can find out what their options are for getting their records sealed. Not everyone’s eligible, but a lot more people are eligible than not.”

If sealing or expungement isn’t an option, the OJPC can also help people to obtain a Certification of Qualification for Employment (CQE), which can break down barriers to employment.

“A person with a criminal record would go to a judge and tell the judge what the issue is with their criminal record,” Jacon-Duffy says. “If they can get the judge to sign off, an employer will be able to hire them without the

44 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

possibility of being sued for negligent hiring.”

Jason Williams, Assistant Professor of Justice Studies at Montclair State University, says that there needs to be a “wholesale education process” within our society as a whole. With another facet of the criminal justice system, juries, people can come in with preconceived notions that are inherently anti-black or antiwhite that lead to the sentence. “[Prejudice in juries] is representative of already existing racial issues in our broader society,” Williams says. “It goes back to how we as a collective need to really sit down and have a conversation.”

According to Williams, rehabilitation and alternatives to incarceration could be better utilized to create a safer community and a fairer criminal justice system.

“Community based rehabilitation is the number one thing,” Williams says. “What it really is, is people coming together and basically making arguments for us diverting money from these traditional institutions, such as prisons, and giving to community based organizations, that have been proven to work.”

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he United States has the highest prison population in the world, approximately 2.02 million at end of 2016 according to the World Prison Brief; incarceration reform like what Williams suggests could bring those numbers down.

“Part of that reform would mean trusting people who’ve been through the process,” Williams says. “For instance, you do have a lot of organizations within the community that have come about from people who have been through the process, and now they’ve committed their life to helping other people who have been in that predicament.”

Patterson’s innocence didn’t protect her from a sentence. But the years she spent in prison did not go to waste. At the time that she entered the system, she was illiterate after dropping out of school at the age of 11. Using her artwork to pay for her schooling, she was able to work her way through years of school, and receive her GED, along with becoming a certified tutor, obtaining a steam engineer’s license, and completing over 200 educational programs.

Now, Patterson works as the Community Outreach Strategy Specialist at the OJPC where she advocates for the organization. Through outreach, she encourages kids to stay in school and stay away from drugs, and she wants to support those returning to the community after experiencing incarceration.

“I think it’s important that [those who have been impacted by incarceration] remain hopeful,” Patterson says. “Because it takes a team, it takes a village to fight this system that we’re in.”•

blm mural | package

EVERY LETTER TELLS A STORY

A team of artists and activists painted a Black Lives Matter mural outside of City Hall in downtown Cincinnati to call for police reform. story frankie stull | photography ianni acapulco art is a vehicle for their voices to be heard. Dozens of artists gathered in front of City Hall this summer to call for police reform and racial justice. One artist, 36-year-old Latausha Cox, who calls herself a quiet individual, finds her art to be therapeutic.

“When I was 12, my sister and I would go to the neighborhood pool and everybody would leave because we were black,” Cox says. “They would also yell racial slurs at us.”

Years later, Cox studied Illustration at Columbus College of Art & Design. “[By using art] I can demonstrate what is going on in my head,” Cox says. “It’s a little intimidating for me to be out protesting, but I can express my views through my art.”

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crowd of people bustle about downtown Cincinnati. Some are on their way to work, whereas others are stopping to stare at the spectacle below their polished shoes. The presentation that they continue to marvel at sparks mixed emotions throughout the street. While one man rolls his eyes at the sight and quickly passes by, the little girl behind him smiles, knowing that her life and rights as a human being are valued within her community. While the mural may be irrelevant to a considerable number of people in the Cincinnati area, its purpose will continue to make a big difference to the targeted audience in the long-run.

Though all of the various artists contributing to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) mural in downtown Cincinnati differ in career choices, family status and interests, there is one common theme among them all: art is each of their preferred form of expression. Using

or these artists, each letter in the large mural tells a story. Cox was assigned the “E” in “LIVES.” For her, the E represents education and the untold story of a child who does not have access to resources and community support, resulting in the child’s downfall. Every brushstroke and minor detail that Cox put into this project was done so with heart and with acute precision. This was not like any other piece of art she had done before. “Having equal education and funding for schools is extremely important in order for us to all have the same opportunities,” Cox says.

Cox is not the only qualified artist that assisted in creating the BLM street mural. In addition to Cox, there are 16 other African American project managers that organized the entire project. The mural, located on Plum Street in Downtown Cincinnati, was unveiled on Juneteenth, the annual celebration of the end of slavery. Each letter is loosely based on a poem written by mural project organizer Alandes Powell.

To form a team of black artists for the mural, Powell sent each project manager a group message via Facebook in early June.

The following day, a Zoom meeting was held in preparation for the work. Fifth Third Bank

employee Vinay Duncan was one of the many workers involved with this initiative.

“At first, I wasn’t going to accept [the offer] because I was so nervous,” Duncan says. “However, I knew this was a big opportunity and we only had two days [to plan and design], so I continued through the process.”

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uncan, who is a self-taught artist, painted the “V” in “Lives” on the mural. She says that she joined the project in order to spread awareness about racial injustices. Her painting was inspired by the story of Sandra Bland, a twenty-eight year old black woman who was pulled over by a Texas state trooper for a minor traffic violation. Bland recorded all altercations with the state trooper, who eventually pulled out a stun gun against Bland. She was then arrested and charged for assault of a police officer. Three days after arriving at jail Bland was found hanging in her cell. “[The story] made the hair on the back of my neck stand up because I was so angry,” Duncan says. “I’ve been in similar situations, and I know how she feels. In the [black] community, we have to deal with mental health issues including suicidal thoughts.”

On July 12th, weeks after it’s completion, the BLM mural was vandalised. According to the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD), surveillance video footage shows that the suspect damaged the mural around 2:20 a.m.

No further evidence has been found in regards to the identity of the vandalizer.

Adoria Maxberry, a 33 year old entrepreneur and artist that aided in the illustration of the “M” in “MATTERS,” did not feel defeated after surveying the aftermath of the vandalism.

Instead, she felt even more empowered than before.

“It was not negative. [The vandalism] just solidifies the fact that the mural does have a place here, and hopefully will one day not need to be stated,” Maxberry says. “People did not understand. Our art was an act of love to our city to express our concerns in a powerful way that was done so with care and kindness.”•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 45

BLACK BEAUTY

culture | black beauty

Four East students display different hairstyles and discuss the how their hairstyles reflect their culture. • photography ianni acapulco

Essence Sinclair

Amani Wamba

What does your hair mean to you?

“My hair means quite a lot to me because it’s a part of me that I invest money and time on. It’s a part of my identity and shapes who I am as a person.”

Have you ever struggled to love your hair because of Eurocentric standards?

“No, I’ve always been proud of my African roots and always been taught to embrace it.”

What are some stereotypes or myths of black hair that you’ve seen or heard that aren’t true?

“Some stereotypes that I’ve heard is that dreads are dirty which in fact isn’t true. People with dreads are actually the ones that take the most care of their hair and keep it clean the most. Another myth is that black hair is limited in hairstyles. Black hair has a variety of hairstyles, one of the most among the hair textures.”

What do you wish more people knew about when it came to black hair and black beauty?

“I wish people would know about how beautiful black hair could be. It could range from being soft in an Afro to being rough in dreads, soft and curly when wet to having volume while dry.”•

What does your hair mean to you?

“For me, my hair has become a way of expression and has grown to be a part of who I am.”

Have you ever struggled to love your hair because of Eurocentric standards?

“When I was younger, I did struggle to love my hair due to Eurocentric standards. I didn’t appreciate my natural hair and instead, I always wanted my hair straightened, which of course caused damage.

It wasn’t until I somewhat restarted my hair journey that I was able to really love my hair.”

What are some stereotypes or myths of black hair that you’ve seen or heard that aren’t true?

“A stereotype that I’ve heard about natural hair is that “black girls can’t grow their natural hair” or that their hair takes really long to grow and honestly, everyone’s hair grows at different rates. The fact that our hair is “natural” has nothing to do with how fast or slow it grows.”

What do you wish more people knew about when it came to black hair and black beauty?

“I wish more people knew that black hair and black beauty are deeply rooted in who we are as people and as a culture. For us, our natural hair isn’t just hair. It’s history and holds a great deal of identity.

Our hair is different and that doesn’t make it ‘ugly’ or ‘unprofessional’.”•

46 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

black beauty | culture

Wu die Amsalu

What does your hair mean to you?

“It’s a source of pride for me. Even when I struggle with other features of myself, I can look into the mirror and find confidence in my curls. It’s a reminder of my identity and adds to that ‘black girl magic’.”

Have you ever struggled to love your hair because of Eurocentric standards?

“It’s never been major, but yes I have been frustrated that my hair wasn’t more like my classmates before. Kids in elementary would often tell me my hair would look better straightened. I would wonder if maybe they were right. After the first time I got my hair straightened, most of this died down as I realized how much I hated it on me.”

What are some stereotypes or myths of black hair that you’ve seen or heard that aren’t true?

“People don’t really get the idea of wash days. We aren’t being lazy or unsanitary by only washing our hair once a week, we’re preserving it from getting dry. Also, black girls can have long hair without a weave. This may seem obvious, but you should see how shocked people got when I would say my hair was natural when I was little.”

What do you wish more people knew about when it came to black hair and black beauty?

“There is nothing inappropriate about natural hair. It seems black style and beauty is only “unprofessional” and “ratchet” when it’s on black people as non-black celebrities are called trendy and groundbreaking for wearing it. That double standard needs to be highlighted.”•

Shiloh Wolfork

What does your hair mean to you?

“I consider it to be a big part of my identity. It is an aspect of myself that sets me apart from others and gives me a unique sense of pride in my culture and history. Recognizing the significance of my hair in connection to my race has provided me with a sense of self-expression and confidence that I didn’t used to have.”

Have you ever struggled to love your hair because of Eurocentric standards?

“Yes, in elementary school and part of junior high, I would only wear my hair straightened. I refused to wear it in its natural state for fear of sticking out in the crowd. The consistent straightening made my hair brittle, unhealthy and severely heat-damaged. In media, the black actresses would always have straightened hair. The constant lack of representation surrounding natural black hair kept me from truly embracing myself.”

What are some stereotypes or myths of black hair that you’ve seen or heard that aren’t true?

“People assume that black hair is dirty because our hair doesn’t need to be washed as often. People also assume that black people can’t have certain types of hair, curl patterns, or hair lengths. If my hair is straightened one day and curly the next, it doesn’t always mean I was wearing a weave. I just washed my hair.”

What do you wish more people knew about when it came to black hair and black beauty?

“I wish that society would make more of an effort to emphasize that black hair is just as beautiful as any other race. If society worked harder to universally communicate the idea that all hair textures regardless of skin tone are beautiful, black people would truly feel confident embracing the crowns that make us magic.”•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 47

culture | thrifting

BUY LESS AND BUY BETTER As people have become more conscientious of their impact on the planet and the importance of environmental sustainability, many have turned to thrifting. story and inforgraphic natalie mazey | photography cassandra mueller

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or East sophomore Keira Leonard, sifting through racks of clothing in a second-hand shop can be a treasure hunt. In the search for the perfect pair of jeans, finding a t-shirt advertising a 5k from ten years ago is not a surprise. But thrifting is not just a fun way to shop; it’s a way to actively incorporate sustainability into everyday life.

An increasing rise in the popularity of thrifting impacts not only fashion but also the environment.

According to resale reports by Thredup, the world’s largest online consignment and thrift shop, from 2017-2019 millennial and Gen Z secondhand sales increased by 37% and 46% respectively. In Leonard’s personal experience, part of this increase stems from the trendiness surrounding shopping secondhand.

“When I first started, it was mostly just because it was a trend,” Leonard says. “But the more I’ve been thrifting, the more I’ve realized that there are so many more options, and it’s honestly just a lot better for the planet and for avoiding fast fashion.”

The fast fashion industry utilizes cheap materials and rapid production to quickly give the public access to trendy clothing. In doing so, the fashion industry contributes 10% of humanity’s carbon emissions. The equivalent of

one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

According to NARTS (The Association of Resale Professionals), who work to help resale store owners, managers, and future owners succeed, types of second-hand stores can be defined as follows: a resale shop buys their merchandise outright from individual owners, a not-for-profit shop raises money for their charitable causes, and a consignment shop pays merchandise owners a percentage when the items are sold.

There are more than 25,000 resale, consignment, and not-for-profit resale shops in the U.S., according to NARTS. Leonard typically shopped at Salvation Army before its closure, but now she tends to gravitate towards Goodwill. Between the U.S. and Canada, Goodwill, which is classified as a not-for-profit shop, has over 3,300 stores, including two within ten minutes from East, each filled with unique pieces that couldn’t be found on the racks of a store at the mall. “[Thrifting has] given me a lot more options than I would have at H&M, the mall, or something like that,” Leonard says. “There’s just more of a range of things, especially from a long time ago that people are just getting rid

East Hannah Moore looks looks throughthrough racks of racks clothingofatclothing Goodwill.at Eastsenior senior Hannah Moore

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of now, which makes it easier to discover weird things that you didn’t even think about.”

By choosing to shop second-hand instead of buying fast-fashion, clothing is kept from entering landfills, giving new life to old clothes.

According to Digital Media Manager at Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries Alisha Moore, Goodwill prides itself on preventing textiles and materials from ending up in landfills.

“Last year alone [Goodwill] prevented more than 15 million pounds from ending up in area landfills,” Moore says. “While a lot of traditional retailers are recently jumping on the sustainability bandwagon, Goodwill has founded its identity on protecting the earth, by buying forever fashion for the entire family.”

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oore says that thrifting allows for creativity that can’t be found when shopping at a typical retailer, while also allowing for the customer to revive a piece of clothing with their own flavor and style. Recycling and reusing comes hand in hand with thrifting, allowing for customers to “put a sustainable foot forward.”

“What I love about Goodwill, not only as

Goodwill.

thrifting | culture or they don’t disclose where it comes from, which can really confuse customers,” Rattazzi says. “I’m really against [dropshipping] both because it’s obviously illegal [on Depop] and because it really deceives customers who think they’re contributing to secondhand fashion and giving new lives to clothing when they’re actually not.”

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an employee but also a shopper, is the treasure hunt,” Moore says. “You can be a trendsetter and not just a trend follower, so that’s the beauty of Goodwill and thrifting. Be as stylish as your creativity and your intention. People come in and put together outfits, mix old with new. There are no boundaries.”

For sustainable fashion blogger Gaia Rattazzi, shopping second-hand helped her form her own style. Along with running an Instagram account called “ssustainably_” that boasts over 40K followers, Rattazzi is an ambassador for Remake Our World, a nonprofit advocating for a fairer fashion industry.

Through her social media platform, Rattazzi has helped open the eyes of thousands to the horrors of the fast fashion industry, encouraging people to thrift in the process.

“You will have a clearer idea of what you’re looking for when you go [to a thrift shop],” Rattazzi says. “You have to get more creative with the clothes because they might not be your size, they might have a little mark or a small stain. [Thrifting is] great because you will experiment with your style and you find new unique items.”

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ccording to Moore, as people spent months in their homes as schools and workplaces went remote due to the coronavirus, donations piled into Goodwill stores. The pandemic forced people to find ways to keep busy, leaving many people cleaning out garages and closets before making donations to places such as Goodwill.

“We’re all on this planet together, we

all benefit from efforts of preserving and appreciating the planet,” Moore says. “A lot of donations [came in], so [Goodwill is] able to give that back into the community. It’s just wonderful, in an atmosphere where it seems like things are so dark and grim, you do have those moments of hope.”

Along with shopping in-person at secondhand stores like Leonard tends to do, there has been a rise in popularity in online secondhand stores such as Depop. Resale apps like Depop, a fashion marketplace app, allow users to resell clothing and accessories. Leonard says some people exploit this option, reselling merchandise for much more than they originally cost. After buying merchandise at a thrift store for extremely cheap, some Depop sellers take to the app to make more money. By taking advantage of people’s desire to follow the trends, Depop sellers are able to get away with these overmarked prices.

“I definitely have also noticed that a lot of people like to thrift, and then they’ll resell it for more money which is just a terrible thing to do,” Leonard says. “I hate that that’s becoming a trendy thing now.”

According to Rattazzi, another problem with Depop is that sellers will dropship, which is when items are ordered from a foreign supplier and shipped directly to the buyer, meaning the Depop seller never actually sees the item. Because Depop is a second-hand platform, dropshipping is illegal, yet some continue to exploit this practice. “[Dropshipping sellers] are not transparent, they opt to market the item as being vintage

esell apps like Depop brings the secondhand shopping experience to the touch of a button on your phone, making it even more accessible for more people.

But this easy access can also create an easy way to continue the cycle of the fast fashion industry.

“A lot of people will just go to a fast fashion store or any store to buy an item and they’ll probably buy it and wear it once or twice and then they just put it on sale,” Rattazzi says. “It’s so easy to sell your things, which can actually encourage overconsumption, and that’s all to do with re-wearing. People don’t always like being seen in the same outfit especially on your Instagram feed.”

Through her colorful graphics lining her Instagram feed, Rattazzi has educated her followers on topics concerning sustainable fashion, including the harmful effects of dropshipping, the stigmas surrounding secondhand fashion, and the environmental impact of fast fashion.

“As I found out about the impacts of the fashion industry and how harmful fast fashion is to the environment and the people who make the clothes, I realized that not many people knew about it,” Rattazzi says. “That made me decide to educate others.”

It takes 700 gallons of water to produce one t-shirt, according to an environmental study done by Green Story Inc, a company that works with “80 brands in 15 countries to calculate and show their impact to millions of consumers worldwide.” Through buying a t-shirt second hand, rather than purchasing a new one from a fast-fashion brand, 700 gallons of water is being saved, and the t-shirt you end up finding could be one of a kind. “[Thrifting is] great for giving a new life to clothing and creating a more circular economy,” Rattazzi says. “The whole thing about sustainability is to buy less and buy better, using what you have and getting creative with it, and thrifting allows you to do just that.”•

“We’re all on this planet together, we all benefit from our entire efforts of preserving and also appreciating the planet.” - Alisha Moore, Digital Media Manager at Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 49

culture | cancel culture

CANCEL CULTURE As social media continues to consume every facet of life, experts discuss the influence of cancel culture. story olivia rigney | art cassandra mueller

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cancel culture | culture

“It’s in our human nature. But what we have to realize is that it is okay to have opinions and beliefs that differ from person to person.” - Jeannie Parker Beard, Professor of English and Rhetoric at The University of Tennessee

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veryone around you has two faces-the face that people in your everyday life know and see, and the face that is perceived by online acquaintances. While most people’s online face is only seen by friends and family, East senior Ansley Fine’s online face is seen by more than 275,000 people on a daily basis. After going viral on a few separate occasions, Fine’s online presence has grown as she accumulated a large following.

Fine, has over 275,000 followers on the app Tik Tok and has surpassed 6.4 million likes over her time on the app. Fine’s rise to popularity started after a video posted in July of 2019 gained over a million views. Shortly after, in December one of her videos got over 38 million views and sparked the take off of her account.

Fine frequently makes videos to publish on her account that often feature her friends and incorporate dancing, popular challenges, and trending songs.

“I’m definitely more aware of what I post and think about who will see it,” Fine says.

“There are some times that I’ve thought about posting something and held back because I don’t want to be canceled or for it to be seen as controversial or cause problems between me and someone else.”

Cancel culture has been seen for years, but the human reaction and instinct has been documented for much longer than online communication. Professor in English and Rhetoric at The University of Tennessee Jeannie Parker Beard, is an expert in communication.

Beard explains that this kind of behavior of “cancelling” has been documented all the way back to the Salem Witch trials, where innocent women and men would be accused of witchcraft and nothing they could say or do could change that.

Cancel culture is a new term that has developed over the years as it has gotten more popular in social media. Beard interprets cancel culture as publicly withdrawing support for companies and figures in the public eye after they have been cancelled.

“When someone who is prominent online is cancelled that creator can lose followers and support caused by anything that online viewers find upsetting,” Beard told Spark. “This could be a tweet that has resurfaced, rude or unkind

comments that have recently come to light, or anything as simple as sharing different opinions and beliefs that do not coexist with the norm we see online.” ` This atmosphere of online community is new to our world as social media becomes more of the standard of communication. However, just like in face to face conversation, people do not always get along and it is not always possible to reach agreement.

“It’s in our human nature,” Beard says. “But, what we have to realize is that it is okay to have opinions and beliefs that differ from person to person.”

According to Beard, when someone is cancelled, popular influencer or not, it can hurt them professionally and socially, cause relationship problems, mental health problems, and even lead to suicide. This can happen to anyone, and being attacked for sharing your beliefs online isn’t a part of the terms and services. A diversity of thought is what makes conversation interesting and cancelling everything you don’t agree with, is hurting that.

These effects of cancel culture can also have reactions that seemingly happen overnight. This has been seen this on multiple occasions, one day nothing out of the ordinary can be found online, and the next #YourFavoriteCelebrityIsOverParty is number one on trending.

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eard brings up the example of one unforgettable celebrity’s career that changed after just one night on Twitter. The American sitcom, Roseanne, on ABC, was canceled immediately following the racist tweet of star, Roseanne Barr. The show initially aired in Oct. of 1988 and broadcasted until May of 1997. The new episodes were not on the air until the revival season of the show in March of 2018. Two months after the release of the comeback of the show, Barr sent out a racist tweet comparing White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett, to an ape. The tweet was quickly deleted the next day.

After she later apologized saying, “I’m not racist, I never was and I never will be. One stupid joke in a lifetime of fighting for civil rights for all minorities, against networks,

studios, at the expense of my nervous system/ family/wealth will NEVER be taken from me.”

However it was too late and the network had already cancelled the show for good.

“One explosive tweet ended her [Roseanne Barr’s] career and one of the most popular shows on mainstream television at the time,” Beard told Spark. “Whether it was sincere or not is up for every person to debate because every situation is different and deserves a different conversation.”

According to Harvard University Professor in Comparative Politics Pippa Norris, closed minds play a key role in stifling this debate.

Norris, who has written a book on cultural backlash, explains how cancel culture has recently affected education and political science, “It is argued that it [cancel culture] has silenced conservative voices and diverse perspectives, limited academic freedom and strengthened conformism,” Norris says. “The cancelling strategy uses social media to shame individuals with the intention damaging reputations.”

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s attested by Beard, people are meant to disagree and this is how change takes place in our world. Our government would not function correctly without disagreement.

“You don’t have to agree with what everything someone believes, but there is a limit to what can be tolerated and what should stand alone as an opportunity to change your thinking and point of view,” Beard says. “Our candidates and our representation have different views to constantly adapt to our changing world. If this didn’t happen we wouldn’t be living in a democracy.”

The level of toleration is different for everyone, as each individual has different beliefs and opinions. Should no one watch the Roseanne show just because of a comment on Twitter? Or, should individuals not watch the show in true support of their beliefs and morals?

“What’s the point of conversation if we can’t have an equal opportunity to grow and change?

You’re entitled to your opinions and thoughts but it’s important to change your perspective to see the world around you,” Beard says.•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 51

FOLKLORE FERVOR

culture | folklore

Queen of versatility Taylor Swift releases her eighth studio album, Folklore.

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review megan miranda | infographic shiloh wolfork | art vi dao aylor Swift’s recent release of her eighth studio album on July 24th 2020 has been the only thing pulling me through this depressing year. In a tactic she has never used before, the surprise album was released less than 24 hours after it was announced.

This refuted any criticism of the album that usually is collected from singles, which she has experienced with previous albums, such as Reputation, her sixth studio album in 2017.

For other artists, the real struggle could be getting enough coverage from the press to draw attention to the work. Taylor Swift, however, said “yeah, I don’t need that”, and boy was she correct. On the day after she released the album all 16 records took the place of the top 16 songs on Spotify Top 50.

While facing criticism from fans as the folk like (hence the name) music differs from anything she has ever displayed on a record before, she has also received well deserved praise. Taylor releasing an album in a new genre is not an unfamiliar concept for those who have been following her successful music career since her debut country album in 2006. Since she released “Tim Mcgraw”, the epitome of a teen country ballad, she has strayed into country pop in earlier albums like Fearless and Speak Now,

to pop in 1989, Red, and Lover, to electro pop in Reputation and now seamlessly into folk. It could be a challenge to stick around and admire every album as music taste can be quite specific, but for her 127 million Instagram followers it’s not that hard to do.

Out of all other seven studio albums, the most relatable to folklore would be Red, her fourth consecutive album in 2012, a folk-pop rendition of freedom, heartbreak, and feeling 22. Arguably on that album her infamous song “All too Well” is nothing short of a masterpiece compacted in five minutes and 28 seconds. So in a plea to any Taylor Swift haters in the world, I encourage you to sit down and be hit by the built up bridge and overwhelming sensational feels of the song. If you love the song already, sit down, prepare yourself, and get hit by the same astonishing sensation provided by folklore.

In folklore, purposely stylized in lowercase, Taylor Swift sings lyrics effortlessly that tell stories, demonstrate dialogue, and create complex characters that transcend multiple songs. The feel of the album was one I was unfamiliar with but gladly adjusted to, making me want to cozy-up in a sweater in the midst of an Ohio July.

It can be nostalgic, providing a desire

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for childhood memories in “Cardigan”, or somehow make you feel for a cheating teenage boy in singing from the perspective of James, in her song “Betty”. Other songs allow for excruciating pain as she has the ability to make you feel a part of an “illicit affair” through her intoxicating yet longing phrases, so that it doesn’t even matter if you have never experienced anything close to that in your life.

She even writes a whole anecdotal story about “The Last Great American Dynasty.” As you are left wondering what her connection is to the people and the house on the beach (spoiler ahead). In the last minute of the song she tells you the house was bought by her. Who else can write an incredible piece of music on the history of a house in Rhode Island? She is the only other person to pull it off since Lin Manuel Miranda who wrote a whole musical based off of our racist founding fathers, calling it “Hamilton.”

By laying herself out through incredibly raw lyrics and phrases that make you catch your breath, Swift allows her listeners to cryscream and emote to the relatable content in every song. If you don’t like her voice or her as an artist in general, at least leave reading this review acknowledging that her English teacher has to be very proud.•

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1. First Million-Selling Album of 2020 2. Swift’s Seventh No.1 Album on Billboard 200 chart 3. Alternative/Indie 4. Officially Streamed 80.6 million times globally on Spotify within its opening 24 hours 5. 846,000 albums sold in the first week of its availability source billboard.com

SWEET SUCCESS

the donut dude | culture

In the midst of a pandemic, The Donut Dude opens with a marketed approach. story caitlin o’donnell | photography riley higgins

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ast senior Faithlynn Petitijean knows her donuts. When walking into the doors of The Donut Dude, she feels right at home as she appreciates how different and unique the store is compared to other shops.

“Anytime I enter The Donut Dude I always know I will be greeted by friendly faces and great service, and of course their wide selection of fun donuts,” Petitijean says.

The Donut Dude located on Cincinnati Dayton Rd. is a locally-owned donut shop that creates and sells various handmade, fresh,donuts every day. The shop’s founder, Glen Huey, created the idea because he wanted to learn the science behind donuts.

Before The Donut Dude, Huey owned a woodworking business that was starting to slow down. He decided there was no better time to start learning, so Huey got a job at one of his local donut shops, where he worked for six months, learning what goes into creating a donut shop. He then decided to use this knowledge to create business of his own.

“I came out of my [woodworking] shop in the afternoon and smelled donuts, and in front of me was a donut shop,” Huey says. “I’d always smelled those donuts and it was constantly on

my mind, I thought geez, you know, I’d like to learn how to make those donuts. That idea ultimately piqued my curiosity into the science behind donuts.”

Huey opened The Donut Dude on Mar. 20, 2020, just as the state of Ohio started shutting businesses down due to COVID-19. Huey says that talking to other business owners about how the virus affected their businesses changed his perspective because the pandemic had a more positive impact on The Donut Dude.

“With the small amounts of people coming in, I was able to see what types of donuts were selling and which donuts weren’t, and with this information, my staff and I were able to work out all of the kinks to provide the donuts that we thought the people would like,” Huey says.

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uey also expressed the overwhelming amount of community support that the shop has received. So much so that The Donut Dude was able to expand their display by 50% and were able to start doing their monthly Charity Donut. Huey picks a charity in and around our community and one day every month he sells a new donut and with the proceeds he gets he donates them to that

said charity.

“The Charity Donut brought in a lot of customers and we were able to raise $870 for the Animal Humane Society, with the money we received we gave 100% of the proceeds to the charity,” Huey said.

The Donut Dude was also able to provide jobs to people following the surge in unemployment due to the virus. East senior Gavin Mullen saw the “help wanted” sign after he had lost his previous job because of COVID-19 and has now been working there for five months.

“I’ve worked other jobs previous to COVID-19 and my bosses would laugh if I asked for a raise,” Mullins says. “The bosses here at The Donut Dude know the value of their employees and that is really hard to come by.”

As Huey’s business is growing and expanding, his goal is to eventually be able to expand his staff, open multiple shops, and hopefully, one day turn his business into a franchise.

“If you spend time actually learning the business and then opening, it’s a lot easier to succeed,” Huey says. “All of the pitfalls and trip outs are just distant memories in the end.”•

A Donut Dude employee bags a fritter for a customer.

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 53

culture | pic six

PIC SIX: CHICKEN TENDER EDITION reviews and photography ava huelskamp

Bruno’s Pizza

Guthrie’s Chicken

Putters Sports Grill

Price: $11.48 Address: 31 East High St., Oxford, OH, 45056

Price: $5.99 Address: 6775 Dixie Hwy. Suite E, Fairfield, OH 45014

Price: $9.75 Address: 6575 CincinnatiDayton Rd., Liberty Township, OH 45044

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on’t let the name fool you, the chicken tenders at Bruno’s rank about the same level as their pizza. I honestly would drive out to Oxford anytime I’m having a tender craving for this meal. You get so much food for what you pay: a basket of fries and six tenders.

SIX tenders. If you’re a student at Miami or are in Oxford often, mosey on down to High St. for this perfect little meal.

The breading on the tenders was a perfect mix of crispy and just soft enough, and the chicken on the inside was a really good texture.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is these babies are WORTH it. However, the fries are not my favorite. You do get quite a lot of them, but they are pretty soggy and flimsy and almost seem like they were overcooked or just frozen and reheated. I prefer fries at other places better, but I can deal with these for the quality of the actual chicken tenders that you get.

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nfortunately, this chicken tender spot was drive-thru only. Located off of Dixie Highway in Fairfield, nestled next to a Rapid Fired Pizza and a Starbucks, Gutherie’s offers some of the best chicken tenders I’ve ever tasted, and I’m very much a chicken tender connoisseur.

The menu offers a Snack, a Box, a Sandwich, a Bucket, or a Family Meal, in ascending order of how large the meal is. I got the Snack, which is three chicken tenders, fries, and one signature sauce. The tenders were a bit small and the breading was consistently pretty thin; I usually prefer more crunch on my tenders.

However the actual chicken was very tender and buttery, and I could tell it was fresh. As for the fries, they were very crunchy on the outside, but as soon as you take that first bite your teeth plunge through the soft potato on the inside.

54 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

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his is one of the only places I was able to actually go inside. With your order you get six skinny tenders and a hearty amount of saratoga chips. These tenders would probably come in third, behind Bruno’s Pizza and Guthrie’s. The crust was a decent consistency, a little thin for my liking but barely noticeable if you aren’t chicken tender obsessed.

The chicken was just the perfect texture, not too dry but not mushy either.

I probably would have preferred fries over saratoga chips-I ordered online and I wasn’t given the option to choose-but if you love saratoga chips you would have been a fan of this meal, as they were seasoned to perfection.

If you live in the Liberty Township area, this is a quick and easy spot for a decent order of chicken tenders.

pic six | culture

PIC SIX: CHICKEN TENDER EDITION Slim Chickens

Joella’s Hot Tender Chicken Towne

Price: $6.99 Address: 12110 Mason Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45249

Price: $8.50 Address: 5016 Deerfield Blvd., Mason, OH 45040

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took another spin through the drive-thru at this tender spot that opened its first location in Fayetteville, Arkansas 17 years prior. Since then, they’ve spread across the country and ended up with a location on Mason Road in the queen city of Cincinnati, Ohio. Not only does the restaurant offer chicken tenders, but they also boast a menu of wings, sandwiches, salads, house wraps, chicken & waffles, and hand spun milkshakes.

As for the meal, I ordered the Chick’s Meal which came with three tenders, fries, signature sauce and two triangular slices of Texas toast.

The tenders were a decent size and although I thought the chicken itself was pretty dry, I did appreciate the crunchy breading on the outside.

The fries were also seasoned to perfection. I would honestly go back just for the fries, but this place is a bit out of my way.

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Price: $6.79 Address: 700 Loveland Madeira Rd, Loveland, OH 45140

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he name of this restaurant makes me think of a quaint, family owned business, and it is in spirit. Joella’s fortunately had the option to dine in either inside or outside on their bulb-light strung patio. I chose to dine in and sit at a small table in the rustic restaurant decorated with metal chairs and a reclaimed wood wall.

I ordered a plate of the jumbo tenders, with a side of mac and cheese. I have to be completely honest-the mac and cheese was my favorite part. It was so creamy and seasoned, and was a testament to true southern mac and cheese. The tenders were about average. They had a very flavorful crust, but it was a bit too soggy rather than crunchy-crunchy being my preference. Despite this, the chicken itself was buttery and pulled apart nicely. This is also a further drive, residing in Deerfield, but I would revisit if I were ever in the area.

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ext up, Tender Towne! Honestly, the name of this place is what drew me to it in the first place. It just makes me happy.

Chicken tender meals ranged from two to five tenders with fries and Texas toast, a kids meal, and some interesting creations that I’ve never heard of before, like the Tender Dog and the Buffalo Tender Salad. I went with the smallest meal, the Quick Bite, which included two tenders, fries, and a signature sauce.

Sadly, I think I’m going to have to rank this last in the tender department. The chicken was pretty lukewarm, dry, and overcooked. I could tell it had been sitting there for a while and definitely wasn’t fresh.

As for the fries and texas toast, they were both relatively plain. This is a bit of a drive for me since it’s located in the Sweetheart town of Ohio-Loveland-and I don’t believe I would make the trip for these tenders again.

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 55

culture | uncensored society

MORE THAN WORDS

Constructing a safe space for people to come together, Uncensored Society builds a community founded on self-expression. story ianni acapulco photography fair use

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n Nov. of 2014, Amanda Stoddard and Drew Himes came together for a meeting that would last two hours in the Starbucks on Cincinnati Dayton Rd., putting boots to the ground on a notion that, before then, had just been an idea in Stoddard’s mind. Through the back and forth of laughter and creativity, the two former East students would bounce around logos, names, and even possible merch before the open mic night Uncensored Society would come into fruition. “[Uncensored Society] is a safe space where everybody can talk about anything,” Stoddard says. “Where there are really no kinds of limits on the type of person that you can be or the type of content you want to share.”

Though the two founders are sure to implement strict boundaries in regards to harmful or offensive actions, Stoddard and Himes try not to police behavior, working hard to create not only a venue for art and self

Founders and East alumni Amanda Stoddard and Drew Himes. expression, but a community.

“It’s more than just the music and poetry [that] people perform,” Stoddard says. “It’s a place where people tell their deepest secrets to their microphone in front of a group of people when they haven’t told anyone else; [secrets] that they haven’t told their parents or even their best friends. It’s a space where people can be exactly who they are or exactly who they want to be in that moment, if not themselves.”

East alumni Brandon Williams first attended the open mic night after accompanying a friend.

The lively atmosphere encouraged him to attend every session they held for the next two years and to share his own art with attendees many times over. For him, Uncensored Society was a way to help him ‘kill steam’ amongst high school’s ‘angsty’ aspects.

“Most of the time I would wait until the day of, or even while I was there to write my poem or whatever I was going to share,” Williams

Uncensored Society participants listen as readers share their stories.

56 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

says. “[But] it was always a very supportive atmosphere. Everyone would be excited that you were reading for that week.”

Consistently, Stoddard’s goal is to create a safe space where writers and performers alike can express themselves without feeling pressured or judged by those around them.

“Andrew [and I are] very transparent,” Stoddard says. “We’re weird and we’re goofy and we’re awkward. Sometimes, for joke’s sake, we probe at each other and make jokes, which I think harnesses an environment [that shows] it’s okay to have faults and it’s okay to show the cracks.”

Himes could not be reached for comment.

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toddard, who is now the Director of Communications at the Recovery Center of Hamilton County, says that when she and Himes were growing up in high school, it seemed the only thing for them to do was get involved in ‘risky behavior’. She wanted to curate an environment where people did not have to feel pressured to do those ‘toxic things’.

“We wanted a place where people--teens especially--could have a creative outlet; something else to do in West Chester that didn’t involve drinking or smoking or partying,” Stoddard says. “[We wanted] to provide a space where people can feel seen and heard not only with their work, but in their personality and who they are. A space where they can have a form of therapy, I guess, a form of coping that isn’t toxic.”

During events, Uncensored Society allows half of the session to be open mic, giving anyone who wants to share the opportunity to do so before ending the night with a “slam.”

But sometimes, they have a feature, where an artist will come and showcase several of their works.

uncensored society | culture

“Of course, they were wonderful and hilarious, supportive and warm and brilliant. I loved every second.”--Sarah Dennis, Lakota East Language Arts teacher East English teacher Sarah Dennis--who had Stoddard as a student in her creative writing class--took part in the latter during one of Uncensored Society’s events.

“It was terrifying,” Dennis says. “I was able to put myself out there a little bit more than I would in my classroom, and it was scary because here is the [teacher] who’s telling you what good writing looks like and then she’s going to read to you. Of course, they were wonderful and hilarious, supportive and warm and brilliant. I loved every second.”

Stoddard says that Dennis’s creative writing class played a crucial role in rekindling her love for poetry. She explains that it gave her a safe place where she felt that she had a voice that was being heard.

“With poetry, there’s that implication that you are sharing more than your writing,” Dennis says. “So being able to create a space in which kids can be authentically themselves and talk about the things that are important to them is one of my number one goals.”

Creating that sense of trust is an important part of Dennis’ classroom, and that emphasis on trust is a characteristic that Uncensored Society shares as well. It is one that Stoddard has seen create a positive impact for those who attend.

For many, Uncensored Society has allowed them an opportunity for growth and for change.

For Williams, attending the sessions helped him overcome stage fright and improve his public speaking.

“I think my favorite thing about what I’ve seen is the growth from people,” Stoddard says. “It’s really cool to see the different types of people that have come in and out of Uncensored [and to notice]the way that society changes. It’s really interesting to see that change being made in the youth and young adults.”

Jake Meyers would first go to an Uncensored Society event during his senior year in Oct. of 2017, initially drawn to the event by a friend. Meyers hadn’t read a piece during his first attendance, but he remembers that on the

stage, there had been a ‘virgin’.

Virgin is a term applied to new readers, who are often asked, according to Meyers, a bunch of “funny, weird questions to break the ice.”

“I was made more comfortable just by them asking that person some random questions,” Meyers says.

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he welcoming environment he found waiting for him convinced him to continue going ever since, making Uncensored Society the first place he had ever performed a song or read a poem. Eventually, Meyers would even ink a large “Uncensored Society” tattoo on his forearm, the size of its script amongst a feathered quill and splattered ink making it hard to miss.

“I thought it would be like a cute little wrist one, or something cute like that,” Stoddard says. “I did not ever, in my entire life, think it was going to be his entire forearm. I looked at it, and I just started balling my eyes out. This is something that Drew and I created. [It’s crazy] that it means so much to somebody that they’d get it tatted on their forearm. ” Events have had to be held virtually in the face of COVID-19 concerns, but Uncensored Society was normally held at Kidd Coffee in Mason. Stoddard hopes that in the future, they can own their own venue and expand into other cities, getting more people involved and bringing the organization to people who could really benefit from it.

“I’m blown away by what Amanda and Drew have created,” Dennis says. “It’s so needed: that space where you can be yourself, laugh at yourself, and celebrate other people’s work. You can grow and learn and feel included. That’s really, really gorgeous.”•

Sunshine and Your Eyes and Everything in between Sharing war stories of our broken homes, we watched as the sky turned gray.

Whenever it mimics the same, I always see your face.

The first time we met I was miles away in my head but you stopped me and led me back to myself.

The night hung heavy on our shoulders, we carry the weight of it all.

We showed each other kindness in the depths of our pain timing was never our thing.

We let the sky turn from gray to blue and let the sun kiss our skin, we almost let ourselves feel it but then we never did. the yellow behind the clouds reminds me of your eyes and I wonder if we could ever get it right.

The sky it sings for you and me It looks different from where we’re sitting we’re dodging drops of rain and dancing when the sun sets the black of the night sky our biggest competition we part ways when the light comes and never speak of it again.

I want so badly to love you in the way that you need, But I’ll just leave you be.

-Amanda Stoddard

Amanda Stoddard performs one of her pieces during an Uncensored Society session.

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 57

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joe wilson | sports says. “[He] works hard at it and is lucky to have a lot of national tournament experience.”

Even as a child, Wilson would document his goals and dreams. His parents, Joe Wilson the III and Angela Wilson have watched these goals become a reality for their son.

“Ohio State was always in the top 10 [of his dream schools],” Angela says. “ He continues to show incredible work ethic and a desire to achieve at the next level.”

The couple agrees that the best part of watching Wilson grow has been seeing him set goals and achieve them.

“His creativity on the golf course and the excitement of team events has made him a leader on and off the course,” Joe III says.

East junior Joe Wilson drives the ball down the fairway during the 2020 OHSAA State Golf Tournament.

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hat started out as a bond with his dad, turned into a lifestyle for Wilson. As a kid who grew up in Ohio, one of his family’s pastimes is watching The Ohio State football games.

“I committed to Ohio State because it’s always been a dream of mine to be a buckeye,” Wilson says, “When I was a kid, I would always find myself sucked into their football games and consumed by their scarlet and gray.”

The coach of the Ohio State University men’s golf team, Jay Moseley, took the position in 2015 and became the program’s 11th head coach.

“Coach Moseley is building an elite golf team that I believe will soon be a contender for major national titles. Not only is he building a team full of good talent, but of good men,” Wilson says. “I am friends with some of the players currently on the team and most of the [future] players, and I can’t wait to be a part of that amazing atmosphere.”•

THE JOE WILSON Lakota East student Joe Wilson committed to The Ohio State University to play golf for the Buckeyes.

JOE WILSON IV STATS

story evie colpi | photography fair use

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alking onto the green with the sun shining down and the familiar smell of starched polos and wet grass, he prepares for the hours ahead of him. The course is filled with the sound of the swinging of clubs, the cracking of the ball, and the humming of the golf carts.

In July, East junior, Joe Wilson IV committed to Ohio State University to pursue his golfing career, which has been a dream of his since he could walk.

“My dad gave me a little plastic club that I would carry with me at all times,” Wilson says. “[My] love of the game just continued into a passion.”

According to Wilson the mental side of the sport is often overlooked, but the game has made him the person he is today.

“I love how challenging the game is,” Wilson says. “You have to learn to keep your cool under

pressure and constantly think on your feet for different ways to approach a hole.”

If you ever need to find Wilson, chances are he is on the green. He practices several hours everyday to improve his skill whether it is before school in the dark alone, or after school during practice at East with his teammates.

“I am always trying to perfect this impossible game,” Joe says. “During school it’s harder to get out and practice but on a week day it’s usually two to four hours and during the summer it’s five to eight hours a day.”

Jeff Combs, the Boy’s Golf coach at East, has led the team to 10 Greater Miami Conference (GMC) titles in the past 14 years.This season the boys golf team scored a 310 and placed third in districts and are state bound. Wilson led Lakota East’s scores with a 75.

“Joe has an incredible passion for golf and loves everything about our great game,” Combs

Swing Speed: 116 mph Lowest Score: 64 (-8) State Finish: 5th (best finish in Lakota East history) 2019-2020 East Golf MVP Cincinnati Sports 2020 Golfer of the Year

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 59

sports | football

A SEASON LIKE NO OTHER East’s abnormal football season ended following a 31-14 loss against rival West, in the second round of the OHSAA playoffs. story and photography brayden barger • infographic evie colpi

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ast’s 2020 football season was like no other.

From a historic passing game to dealing with the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s season will go down as one of the most interesting seasons in East history.

Though East and district rival West did not compete during the regular season for the first time since the district split in 1997, they both advanced to the second round of the playoffs where they were set to match up. The two teams dodged each other during the season due to the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) shortening the season to six games per team. This game marked the first time in six years the two faced off in the postseason.

East seemed poised for an upset in the first quarter, keeping the Firebird’s offense in check and scoring a touchdown on special teams following a fumbled punt in West’s endzone.

However, those hopes waned as West went on to score 24 unanswered points. East mustered out one last passing touchdown late in the fourth quarter, but ultimately fell to West with a final score of 31-14.

The Firebirds out-rushed East by 200 yards, with West junior running back Cameron Goode having a season high of 141 yards on the ground, and sophomore quarterback Mitch Bolden adding 120 yards of his own. Overall East’s defense gave up 280 yards on the ground.

West head coach Tom Bolden credits West’s success on offense to their scheme and plethora of offensive weapons.

“It’s basically option football but with a

Junior quarterback TJ Kathman scrambles out of the pocket before connecting with his receiver for a touchdown in a 31-34 play-off loss to West. little twist to it,” Bolden says. “When your quarterback can run and throw the ball like that and you got those bruisers [in the backfield] and those big boys up front, we can do some special things.”

East head coach Rick Haynes notes missed opportunities on offense as a factor in the loss.

“We just can’t come down here and not come away with points,” Haynes says. “Twice we did that, and especially against a defense like [West’s], you can’t miss those opportunities and that’s what happened.”

East junior quarterback TJ Kathman, who finished the game with 170 yards in the air and 26 on the groun+d, was disappointed by the team’s performance.

“We obviously didn’t play our best game,” Kathman says. “We left a lot of points out on the field, but it is what it is.”

Despite the lackluster end to the season, Kathman’s seasonal numbers put him as one of the best passers in East history. This season he was ranked number two in the Greater Miami Conference (GMC) for passing yards, with 873 yards in just eight games. The achievement cements Kathman as the most prolific East passer since Nick Darland in 2005, who had 919 yards.

Haynes says Kathman’s dual threat ability and elusiveness in the pocket is what truly sets him apart from past East quarterbacks. “[Kathman’s] poise and his ability to make

60 lakotaeastsparkonline.com December 2020

and extend plays is what makes him different,” Haynes tells Spark. “When you can be two dimensional you put the defense more on edge, they have to be able to defend both the pass and the run.”

Following their game, East senior players and team captains met to discuss continuing the season, as the OHSAA is allowing teams to add games to make up for the shortened season.

The team voted 11-10 in favor of continuing, but due to the tight margin, East ultimately decided to call it quits on the 2020 season.

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ooking back, the first half of East’s season could have gone better. The Thunderhawks suffered three consecutive losses against Sycamore, Mason, and La Salle, with their first two games ending within one score margins.

On the other side of Lakota however, the Firebirds looked as dominant as ever. Former Colerain head coach Tom Bolden led West’s team to three straight wins, one of which being against Colerain, breaking the Cardinals’ 87 game win streak in the GMC. The Hawks turned it around in the second half of the season, defeating Princeton with a final score of 28-19. Princeton was previously undefeated. East went undefeated for the rest of the season, and got their revenge against Sycamore in the first round of the playoffs, ending their season with a final score of 28-10.

football | sports

“[The players] handled everything well. I would’ve told you in August that we would not play a single football game. So, to be able to play eight and win a playoff game I think is a pretty good season.” -East Athletic Director Richard Bryant West’s momentum did not stop, as they remained undefeated for the remainder of the season. Their success can be heavily attributed to their talented defense, as they only gave up 20 points through the entire season. Following a shut out win against Mason, the team officially claimed their first outright GMC title in school history. The Firebirds went on to also shut out West Clermont in their first postseason matchup.

West advanced to defeat Colerain for the second time this season in the regional semifinals, with a final score of 23-7. West moved on to face St. Xavier for their first regional championship since 2014, but fell 107, St. Xavier scoring a late passing touchdown in the final seconds of the game.

Arguably the most daunting obstacle that plagued the 2020 season was COVID-19. Over the summer, players and coaches questioned if a season would happen at all. So, players were told to train on their own, and to remain hopeful that they would be able to see the field this fall.

Those hopes paid off, as Ohio Governor Mike Dewine announced in August that all contact sports, including football, could proceed for the 2020 fall season with restrictions. These restrictions limited fan attendance and promoted usual COVID-19 protocols such as social distancing and facial coverings.

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long with Dewine’s restrictions, the OHSAA also implemented changes of their own. Not only did they shorten the regular season, but also all teams were allowed to enter the playoffs.

East Athletic Director Richard Bryant says that keeping players safe this season was the team’s number one priority.

“Setting up the scans everyday, making sure they have their thermometers, they have symptom checks, we’re tracking what [players are] going through everyday, making sure the locker room and the equipment is clean. [We have to] make sure that at school and at home they are doing everything to keep themselves

safe,” Bryant says. “It’s a completely different way of doing business and it’s the way we have to [function] until we get a vaccine and can keep the kids safe.”

Reflecting on the season and the obstacles that were brought on by COVID-19, Kathman believes the team did a good job of overcoming those obstacles and they have a sense of positivity to take with them into next year.

“I thought we did pretty good just sticking together. We didn’t know if we were going to play or not so it was weird all offseason,” Kathman says. “[But play wise] next year I know our team can be a lot better than what we ended up being this year.”

Looking back on the season, Bryant says being able to complete a full season is something to be grateful for. “[The players] handled everything well. I would’ve told you in August that we would not play a single football game,” Bryant says. “So, to be able to play eight and win a playoff game I think is a pretty good season.”•

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sports | marching band Aidan Garland says the Mason show has given the band something to work towards, which has kept morale high.

“I think everyone was disappointed by [the cancelled competitions]. But, I think the leadership team and the senior class have done a really great job of motivating the upcoming rookies,” Garland says. “With the Mason show, we [were] really excited about it and I think the morale is definitely boosted.”

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MARCHING FORWARD East marching band members perform at Mason’s Band Invitational.

Following the cancellation of the Bands of America regional competitions, the East marching band performed their final show of the season at the Mason Band Invitational. story and photography brayden barger

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pon entering East’s band room, the first thing most students notice are the instrument cabinets aligning the right side of the room. Not because of the cabinets themselves, but because of the dozens upon dozens of Bands of America (BOA) and Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) trophies and awards that sit atop them.

Every year the collection grows, as East is consistently one of the best bands in the state.

However this year, the collection will remain undisturbed.

During the summer, BOA, which organizes national high school marching band competitions, and OMEA, which organizes Ohio competitions, cancelled all events for the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Which left East with no competitions for the year and limited performances to only home football games.

East junior and color guard section leader Katie Beerman says the cancellations were a major obstacle to overcome, but the band has done a good job pushing forward. “[The cancellations] definitely let a lot of people down. We even lost [around 50] members this season,” Beerman says. “But overall a lot of people have stayed in the band and even though we can’t do the biggest performance of the season we still push through and do what we can.”

Despite the cancelled events, Mason High School decided to still hold their 18th annual

Mason Band Invitational on Oct. 10, which was made noncompetitive. Mason invited bands from around the area to participate in the performance showcase. According to the Mason Bands website, the mission of the event was to provide “an in person performance opportunity for surrounding band programs and their communities in the safest environment possible.”

Fifteen schools performed at the show in a block schedule format, once one band or group finished performing, the spectators would exit the stadium and the seating would be disinfected before the next group came in to watch the following band or group perform.

Small and medium sized bands performed in combined blocks, while larger bands like East had a block of their own.

The limit of spectators was set at 675 people per block, and tickets were pre-sale only. Along with that spectators were required to wear facial coverings and social distance throughout the entirety of the show.

East senior and low-reed section leader

ason Band Director Avious Jackson, who was a major organizer of the event, hopes that the event has a lasting impact on the students involved.

“I hope the students from all programs know that their work has not gone unnoticed.

I hope the seniors understand that the example and leadership they are providing this year will have vast positive effects in the coming years,” Jackson says. “This year was certainly strange for everyone, but the work of the student leaders, parents, directors, and anyone else involved will be remembered for years to come.”

East Assistant Marching Band Director Kevin Engel says the show is especially important to the younger band members, as without it they wouldn’t have the vital experience of performing their work.

“I’m happy that the kids have an opportunity to perform their show even if it’s only for their 600 audience members. We’ve sold out all of our allocated tickets so the stands will be as full as they can be,” Engel tells Spark. “I think that for the prosperity of the program, the rookies need something to hold on to and need to be able to experience that thrill of performance.”

At the event, East performed the show Plan C, which included 1812 Overture by composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa, among others.

Despite the hardships brought on by COVID-19, Garland says he is thankful to have the opportunity to perform, and the band has remained determined all along the way.

“I’m really thankful that we’ve gotten to perform. Between the leadership team and the band directors and the Upbeat Club we’ve kept this whole thing running as smoothly as possible,” Garland says. “Even with all of the kinks in the system it’s been a really great time and we’ve made the most out of it. I’m just thankful that we’ve kept going and haven’t given up on anything yet.” •

“I think everyone was disappointed by [the cancelled competitions]. But, I think the leadership team and the senior class have done a really great job of motivating the upcoming rookies. With the Mason show, we [were] really excited about it and I think the morale is definitely boosted.”-Aidan Garland, East senior

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cheer | sports

CHEERING TO AN EMPTY STADIUM COVID guidelines and safety protocols have changed Lakota East sideline cheerleading and the dynamic of Friday night football and basketball games. story and photography evie colpi

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igh school cheerleading has been an American tradition for over a century. There have been minor changes to the all-american pastime in the last hundred years, from the clothes to the skill level. However, the most recent and drastic changes in 2020 have been because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

East cheerleaders take to the sidelines every Friday night to lead the crowd in spirit raising chants and cheers.

“Cheerleaders are the connection between the students and the athletic team,” East cheer coach, Susanne Linder says. “As a squad, they promote school pride, positive energy and enthusiasm so the players feel supported and motivated before, during, and after the game.”

East football mom Melissa Stidham has a son on the varsity football team and attends every Friday night game.

“The cheerleaders add a positive energy to the games with their optimistic and rhythmic words and actions,” Stidham says. “Always smiling and encouraging the players and the fans, they add excitement to each game.”

This year is different from any previous year because of COVID-19 precautions. Masks, social distancing, and only a small amount of spectators makes leading the crowd with positivity more challenging than before.

“I have been cheering since first grade,” senior varsity cheerleader, Lindsay Patton says. “I love being with my friends while doing what I love.”

Being a cheerleader for over a decade has led Patton up to her senior year. The year that is supposed to be the biggest and best year for her and many other seniors approaching their last year of highschool. Patton, among the other hundreds of students who play one of the 29 sports East offers, anxiously awaited the news of this season leading up to the school year.

In the midst of a global pandemic, student-athletes like Patton look forward to their sport as a way to release stress and do what they love.

When the squad found out they were allowed to grab their masks and pompoms to help lead their football team to victory, they were overjoyed.

“Even with the COVID guidelines in place, I am just glad we get a season.” East junior and junior varsity cheerleader, Lauren Shulock says.

While cheering at games has been a different experience due to having only six games instead of the normal 10, every team getting a chance to play in the playoffs, and cheering to stands that have 15% capacity, the behind the scenes of the cheerleaders’ routines has changed as well.

“We are so happy that we can cheer this year, but safety is our first priority. We have modified practices by wearing masks, taking temperatures before every practice and game, and putting social

East junior Emily Whitworth cheers at the East vs. Oak Hills football game.

distancing measures in place,” Linder says.

Cheer practice begins with a temperature check where cheerleader’s temperature is recorded. Then the girls stretch six feet apart and with their masks on. Then proceed to practice their cheers and dances for the upcoming Friday night games while being socially distant.

“Even though this isn’t the senior year I’ve dreamed about, it has made me appreciate everything in my life,” Patton says.

“Nothing can take me away from cheering with my best friends.” •

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 63

sports | head to head

FOR SURE W

ith every analyst, news writer, and fan out there voicing their opinion on whether college athletes should play or not, it has become more clear that the only people that should be allowed to decide this are the athletes themselves. Big name stars such as Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields have both been very vocal about wanting to play this season. Both of these players, who are currently two of the front runners to win the Heisman trophy, could very easily forgo their final season of college football and enter the NFL Draft as projected top five picks. Instead, they, along with many others have worked tirelessly to make this season possible.

For those two players being in their third and most likely final season, it is of the utmost importance that they are able to get back on the field this year. This is the season in which they have great odds of winning the Heisman trophy and potentially matching up in the College Football Playoff.

When the Big Ten and Pacific-12 Conference (PAC-12) both postponed their fall sports until the spring, their players took to the streets and social media to hopefully change the minds of their conference commissioners.

Quarterback and Captain for Ohio State Justin Fields took it upon himself and started his own petition using #WeWantToPlay, which began trending all over

HEAD TO HEAD

Twitter with over 300,000 signatures. His main goal was to put pressure on Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren to consider reinstating the season, and ultimately keep Ohio State’s 2020 national title hopes alive.

Not only was he fighting for himself, but for his team and the entire Big Ten conference.

When talking about why it was important to him, he emphasized the importance of returning to play safely with regards to the ongoing pandemic.

“We want to play. We believe that safety protocols have been established and can be maintained to mitigate concerns of exposure to COVID-19”, Fields says. “We believe that we should have the right to make decisions about what is best for our health and our future.

Don’t let our hard work and sacrifice be in vain. #LetUsPlay!”

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longside Fields, parents of players from Ohio State, Wisconsin, Iowa, and other Big Ten schools have been protesting outside of the Big Ten Headquarters in Chicago. If the parents of these world class athletes want and will allow their children to continue to play the sport that they love, then no man or woman in power should have the right to tell them otherwise.

Even U.S. President Donald Trump was an advocate of letting the Big Ten play when he took his message to Twitter, sharing that he spoke with Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren about “immediately starting up Big Ten football.” With pressure from parents, players, coaches, school presidents, and

Should collegiate atheltes be allowed to play in the midst of a global pandemic? athletic directors, there should be no doubt as to whether the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) should allow college football to be played this fall. •

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head to head | sports

NO WAY B

efore COVID-19 struck the United States back in March, the college football landscape was a lot different. Every Saturday during fall, crowds of up to 110,000 people would gather inside stadiums to watch their favorite schools compete. Millions more across the country would also gather in living rooms and bars to watch the games unfold. It’s such a big tradition that many, like myself, took for granted.

Now as we sit here in Oct., college football is a whole new ballgame. In most states, fan capacity is extremely limited, and some conferences such as the Big Ten are even electing to play all conference games without fans in the stands.

This pandemic and all the ramifications of it are sparking a huge debate about whether or not it is safe enough for these college football players to play. Given that COVID-19 has killed nearly 200,000 U.S. citizens in the span of seven months, I think it is safe to say that the risk of playing during this pandemic is much greater than the reward.

It is true that medical professionals have recently developed daily rapid testing that allows results to be viewed within just 15 minutes. It is true that these players are in peak physical condition and will probably recover quickly without any complications if they were to contract the virus. But, the fact that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) still considers their athletes “amateurs” and “student-athletes” is a huge roadblock to be able to play football safely.

Since the NCAA does not pay their athletes,

can be no college football “bubble” this year puts the NCAA in an extremely difficult situation.

Even without use of the “bubble”, the NCAA is still legally responsible for the health and safety of their athletes, and to put them in harm’s way during a global pandemic is a very risky move. In the event that a player catches COVID-19 and experiences medical complications, the NCAA would have a huge lawsuit on their hands, and the world of college football as we know it would change forever as a result.

Back in June, Clemson, the best team in the nation according to the Associated Press (AP) Top 25 Poll, had 37 positive COVID-19 tests which makes up about 30.8% of the team.

This is a very concerning number, especially considering football is a contact sport and would make it very easy for players to contract the virus from each other.

Other schools such as Ohio State and North Carolina were forced to shut down their voluntary team workouts due to a rapid increase in positive tests back in July. It is naive to believe that the same thing won’t happen to other schools throughout this season, making postponements and cancellations of games much more likely.

If teams can’t even make it through the season without keeping their positive tests down, then why play in the first place? •

Spark staffers Nick Hetterich and Mason Wise debate whether or not college teams should be playing while COVID-19 continues to run rampant. columns nicky hetterich and mason wise | photography riley higgins they are not legally allowed to put their athletes in a so-called “bubble”, similar to what the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL) are doing.

This system, which involves isolating all players, coaches, and referees from the general public, has proven to be very effective, given that the NBA had zero positive COVID-19 tests within the “bubble” as of Aug. 19. The fact that there

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 65

opinion | column

Rehab’s name written in Arabic.

CALL ME BY MY NAME Spark Opinion editor Rehab Jarabah reflects on her experience with having a unique name. story rehab jarabah | art zane charif

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here it is again. Another picture quickly taken of the sign that seems to be everywhere; “Rehab Financial Aid Available.” Another person who used my name as comedy. It seems to always have been that way, starting all the way when I was born.

When my mom had her healthy baby girl on July 30, 2004, she was ecstatic. She had two daughters who were already her world. But when she was asked the name, she replied, “Rehab.”

This got a shocked look from the doctor, the nurses, and so many more people to come.

But my name didn’t come from just anywhere.

There was a long line of the strong, Palestinian women on my father’s side. Although I thought that neither my Arab culture nor my American culture was dominant, I was proved wrong.

I mean, how could my Arab culture not be more dominant when my name was in Arabic. And when I came to realize that my name was not like the kids around me, I started to despise it.

Again and again I’d ask my family of what my name meant, only to be met with the same response in Arabic with another word emphasized. My siblings each knew the meaning of their names, and I was upset that they could get a clear, English answer while my mom would

always respond in Arabic for mine. I wished for an “American name.” I despised my cultural name so badly, I wished I had been white. In a study done by Jack Daniel, a Communications Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, it was proven that children preferred white-names, no matter what race they were. They had already had the stereotypes drilled into their heads, they would much rather play with a Megan than a Tanisha. In fact, students would blame a misdoing on someone with a more cultural name like Jamal.

In my case, I would always dread the first day of school. We’d go through the attendance and when the teacher would look up with wide eyes and hesitate, I knew it was me. According to an Education Week survey, most teachers are middle-class, middle-aged white women. That along with the fact that cultural diversity classes are limited and overlooked, I knew I’d never find a teacher who could pronounce it. Before moving to Ohio, it wasn’t too terrible, but I knew it was going downhill as soon my eighth grade art teacher had called me Reba. I mean, I knew my name was difficult to pronounce, but that was an all-time low. I thought that it would only be him, but in my three years of living here, I have been called Reba countless times.

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Many people are whitening their names on resumes to ensure they at least have a chance at the job. Even with the same job applications, a white sounding name will be chosen 17% more than a cultural name, according to the 2016 study, Whitened Resumes: Race and SelfPresentation in the Labor Market. Even within cultural communities, companies are more likely to hire an Asian named Alex than they are if they’re named Xian, the 2016 Harvard study shows. Children grow up hating their names because of the stereotypes and internalized racism that is drilled into them. They grow up to tell people to call them a nickname that is whitened.

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owever, there is a way to fix it. If children were exposed to cultures different from theirs, it would benefit them and their peers. If someone had taught my peers that just because someone’s name is spelled the same way as a word with a negative connotation in English, it may mean something beautiful in Arabic, then maybe I wouldn’t have hated my name.

I took it upon myself to find out what my name means. It means gracious, spacious, generous -- something so beautiful that is encouraged in my religion, but because of my own ignorance and the comments made about my name by my peers, teachers, and substitutes, I learned to hate it. I wished for a name as simple as all the other girls around me. All it took was the information that I hadn’t known for so long to embrace my full culture. I am no longer ashamed when people try to make jokes about my name or when a substitute completely ruins my name. I now know that those who really care to understand will educate themselves on the cultures that are different from theirs. •

column | opinion

LIFE IS A GIFT WORTH GIVING MARLEIGH WINTERBOTTOM

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photography riley higgins | art shiloh wolfork

t is 6:25 p.m. on Monday, February 20, 2017, the day life as I knew it would turn upside down.

Ballet class started out like normal. My friends and I began to warm up at the barre in the back left corner of the dance studio.

As stretching started, I noticed slight pressure around my knees, but I pushed it away.

Class continued for 45 more minutes until we began to learn a new step across the floor, a brisé. One by one groups of two practiced across the floor. Once my turn arrived, I was eager and jumped with confidence; I felt so accomplished.

I brushed my left leg up into the air and met it with my right. I came down to land, but I felt as if my left leg had snapped in half.

I sat there holding my leg

in shock.

The class went silent.

This was only the beginning of my three-year journey with knee dislocation. After months of physical therapy, my left knee dislocated again that October 2017 and yet again the following November 2018.

After 3 dislocations, surgery was my only option. My doctor recommended medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction (MPFL).

The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) describes MPFL as “a surgery in which a new medial patellofemoral ligament is created to stabilize the knee and help protect the joint from additional damage.”

My surgeon suggested harvesting my hamstring to stabilize my knee cap, but after considering natural flexibility, it was determined that my hamstring would likely stretch and lose effectiveness.

Therefore, we had to explore a different route; we needed to use a cadaver hamstring.

January 29, 2019, I had my surgery and began my journey of healing. I was one of the lucky ones. Thousands of others are still awaiting their organ or tissue donation.

According to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), over 109,000 men, women, and children were on the national transplant waiting list as of September 2020.

Every nine minutes, another person is added.

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very day, 17 people die waiting.

Registering to be an organ donor means that you give permission for doctors to evaluate and possibly harvest organs and tissues from your body after you have been declared dead to then transplant to people in need. While 90% of adults in America support organ donation, the HRSA shows that as of September 2020, only 60% are registered.

Many are faced with fear. Myths suggest hospital staff will be less diligent, open casket funerals aren’t an option, or family will be charged.

Despite these beliefs, the American Transplant Foundation ensures that donation is free of charge, it is neither considered nor discussed until every effort has been made to save a patient’s life and ultimately failed, and there are no visible signs of organ and tissue donation to be concerned with.

As 16-year-olds across the country race to get their license, they are faced with a question, “Do you want to be an organ donor?”

“Yes” can save eight lives with vital organs.

“Yes” can help over 100 people through tissue donation.

“Yes” can change someone’s life forever.

One person’s decision to donate allowed me to continue my passion for dance. Another could save lives. •

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 67

opinion | column

THE ROAD TO CHANGE OLIVIA RIGNEY

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photography riley higgins | art shiloh wolfork

he protests surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement have impacted our world and society in more ways than one. These peaceful protests that have taken place around the world have made a huge impact in U.S. history as well as bringing people together to support this larger than life social issue.

Protests in America have been the loudest way to make the people’s voices heard for hundreds of years and start a conversation.

Without disrupting the “normalcy” of injustice, basic human rights would not be in our everyday lives. Women’s suffrage started with a riot, in March of 1913. Standing up for the right to vote after 60 years of injustice was only made possible after brave women realized the problem at hand and decided to do something about it.

These common elements of speaking out and standing up for what you believe in are seen throughout our history as a nation.

And that history

of change does not end with the Black Lives Matter movement.This issue is making a positive impact on our world, inspiring all involved to come together for the common goal of equality as well as unite our nation on one of the most important issues.

Although the Black Lives Matter social issue, institutional racism, and police brutality has been seen throughout society over the history of the United States, many BLM protests occurred over the wake of George Floyd, on May 25, 2020. There were more than 7,750 protests that took place in the United States alone from May 26, 2020, the day after the death of Floyd, and August 22, 2020, according to The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).

Worldwide, the ACLED recorded more than 10,600 protests within the same time frame. And over 10,100 of these protests, or 95%, have been peaceful protests. Protesters that advocate for this social movement against incidents of police brutality come together to march the streets and stand together in support of Floyd and other police brutality victims, like Breonna Taylor.

Breonna Taylor was sleeping in her own home in March, of this year. But Taylor’s life ended when she was shot and killed in Louisville when police officers entered her apartment.

Breonna Taylor was a 26 year old black woman who was shot by a member of the Louisville Metro Police Department. Officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove entered her Louisville apartment on Mar. 13 executing a search warrant.

Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth

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Walker, shot a warning shot at the police thinking they were intruders, which hit Mattingly in the leg, and in return, the officers fired 32 shots in total. Although Walker was not hurt, Taylor was hit by 6 bullets and died in her own hallway.

After the news broke out of Taylor’s death, later in August, Kentucky representative Attica Scott proposed a new law. This new law would “end no-knock warrants statewide, mandate drug and alcohol screenings for police after deadly incidents, and require body cameras to be worn and on while warrants are served.”

Breonna’s legacy will live on forever through this law which will continue to make a difference throughout the state.

This caused protests around the world to spread to make her name known. Hundreds of marches and protests took place around the country. Thousands of people are demanding change. This change happened but only six months later. In September of 2020, one of three officers responsible for Taylor’s death was indicted by the grand jury for the shooting but the indictment was not directly related to her death. According to the Louisville Courier Journal, the Jefferson County grand jury indicted Brett Hankison, one of the police officers responsible for Taylor’s death who was fired in June, on three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. Wanton endangerment is a felony charge and could carry up to five years in prison. This Kentucky law states that, “that person commits a crime when he or she wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or physical injury to another person” For months people all over the world stood together to say her name and bring justice by arresting the cops that killed Taylor. Although this might not have been the outcome protesters were hoping for, a new wave of national protests sparked a need to stand up for racial inequality once again!

Protests cause change. Change needs to happen for society to develop and grow, until equality is nothing less than our standard of living.•

A STOLEN YOUTH

column | opinion

MIA HILKOWITZ

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photography riley higgins | art shiloh wolfork

odney Hulin Jr. was 17 years old when he committed suicide in his Brazoria County Federeal Prision cell.

Two years before his death, Hulin was arrested for setting a dumpster on fire in Dallas, Texas. At only 16 years, a minor in his home state of Texas, Hulin was charged with a count of second-degree arson, his crime amounting to less than $500 dollars.

What sets Hulin apart: Hulin was charged and sentenced as an adult, rather than a minor.

Hulin was therefore sent to an adult, federal prison, rather than a juvenile detention center.

A mere three days after his transfer into Brazoria County Prison, Hulin was raped by another prisoner. The helpless teenager wrote tearful letters to his family back home, describing numerous physical and sexual assaults, as well as extortion.

Fearing for his life, Hulin pleaded to be moved out of the general population, but was returned to the same unit without any form of protection. After 75 days in prison, Rodney hung himself with a bed sheeting in his cell on January 26 1996.

Unfortunately, Hulin is just one of many children to suffer from incarceration into adult criminal court.

Currently, all 50 states have provisions that allow for minors to be prosecuted in criminal, rather than juvenile court. According to a 2018 Campaign for Youth report, close to 100,000 youth are prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system each year.

But not a single one of these 100,000 children, Hulin included, should be tried as an adult.

When charged as an adult, offenders are prosecuted in an adult criminal court. Stripped of protections from the juvenile court system, minors charged as adults will face more severe sentences, including even life sentences.

Juveniles as young as 13 have been held in adult federal prisons to face their crimes.

These minors are commonly unable to seal and expunge their records, barring them from rejoining society later in life.

The laws that allow for minors to transfer to adult criminal courts attacks the United States criminal justice system at its weakest point: the criminal justice system purposely works against rehabilitation.

According to the Emory Law Journal Study “Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Confining Juveniles with Adults,” juveniles in adult

prisons face a greater risk of violence including physical and sexual assaults, than those housed in youth facilities.

The abuse that Hulin and countless other children have experienced in the criminal system is undeniable. In 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law the Prision Rape Elimination Act. In many prisons to comply with this act, minors are kept in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that the combination of isolation and assault caused youth housed in adult jails to commit suicide at five times a higher rate than youth housed in juvenile detention facilities.

The laws that allow for children to be incarcerated as adults are also disproportionately used to convict youth of color. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention found that African American youth made up 52.5% of youth transferred to adult court by a juvenile court judge, the largest percent in over 30 years. The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice found that Latino youth were directly filed into adult courts at 3.3 times the rate of their white counterparts. Tribal youth were 1.84 times more likely than white youth to receive an adult prison sentence.

Allowing youth to be prosecuted as adults strengthens systematic racism within the criminal justice system.

According to a 2018 Pew Research Center report, African Americans and Hispanics make up 56% of the total U.S. prison population, but only comprise 28% of the total adult population.

Trapping children into adult criminal courts for crimes even as minor as alcohol possession and vandalism, makes it extremely difficult for youth to rehabilitate into society.

The Nation Task Force on Community Preventive Services found that youth prosecuted in the adult system are 34% more likely to recidivate and commit more violent offenses after their release. Despite these clear weaknesses, the number of youth in adult federal prisons

continues to increase every single year.

Rodney Hulin Jr. would have been 42 years old. Like so many others, his life was cut short by the criminal justice system’s failure to protect youth. Until major changes are made to laws that allow minors to be charged as adults and the facilities they are imprisoned in, not a single child should be charged as an adult.

Rodney Hulin Sr., the victim’s father, has been speaking out for justice within the juvenile and adult criminal justice system since his son’s death in 1996. As a mourning father and social justice activist, Hulin Sr. wrote to the public a moving perspective in “Beatings, Rape and Suicide at 17-The Experience of a Child in a Texas Prison.”

“Children who commit crimes need to be rehabilitated, and shown consideration and care,” Hulin wrote. “They do not deserve to be crucified for political gain. If there is any lesson to be learned by my son’s death, it is that children must not be locked up with adult criminals.”•

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 69

opinion | column

BUNDLE OF BLACK JOY WUDIE AMSALU

U

photography riley higgins | art shiloh wolfork

sually I avoid pulling out my phone when I’m in the presence of others, but the exception is morning drop offs to school.

Going through my Instagram stories while listening to the public hip-hop radio station has become a pseudo-ritual for me to keep up with the news.

That was the way I first saw the video of the Jacob Blakes shooting.

I tapped to the next story, and there was the post again. One of the stories I saw reposted the video directly so even if you clicked through, you still would have viewed some of it. Some people didn’t post the context along with it.

After a few more, I forced myself to put my phone down and turned up the old radio.

The first video taken of the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin has over 2 million views on the original Twitter post as of September 18th. However it has spread far beyond that, clips of it being aired on CNN and Fox News. Blakes survived the incident with the police officers, but it didn’t make watching it any less brutal.

It’s not that awareness of current social events is a negative thing. Now more than ever, people are pushing back against racism and trying to become informed allies for people of color. According to an August YouGov survey, 60% of Americans want systematic racism to be addressed directly in the 2020 presidential elections and view it as a prominent issue.

However, black people should not only be addressed when we are suffering or a point of contention. There is a line between raising awareness for a cause and disrespecting those involved in those situations. I can’t recall how many afternoons I would sit by the TV with my mom, watching the 5 pm news as they went in painful detail about another black man getting shot. The mortality of black people is shoved under our noses so often that it seems almost normal where it is anything but.

Because of this national desensitization to black pain, we forget the steps afterwards: Black healing. Black joy. Black celebration.

An USA Today survey in June of 2020 reported that only a little more than half of Americans

had heard of Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the last of the slaves being freed. A joyful event such as that should be widely broadcast and known.

Pages like the Black Joy Project are beginning to rewrite this narrative. Founded by Kleaver Cruz, the aim of the movement is to spread healing and liberation through simple blessings in the black community. Sometimes they’ll bring on content creators and advocates, while other posts are just people smiling. Either way, the purpose of brightening someone’s day is clear.

It’s only been a few months since I discovered the Black Joy Project Instagram page, but it’s changed my outlook on the definition of “activism”. Every crooked smile, every dance circle from late night parties, every silly fashion show my younger cousins put me through, they all seem a little different now.

It reminds me what I’m fighting

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for through all of this.

This summer has been a wake up call for countless Americans when it comes to racial relations. Recognizing that black people go through feelings outside of suffering is the next step for those who want to be allies. Someday, that careful balance between the recognition of black life and death can be found.•

shop dona ldjtr ump.com Masks are very good and very patriotic

They can’t make us wear masks! We have rights!

July 2020

MARY BARONE

EDITORIAL CARTOON: THE EXECUTIVE’S HYPOCRISY

ed cartoon | opinion

August 2020

EAST SPEAKS OUT

Have protests done more bad or good? interviews abby bahan | photography marleigh winterbottom

GOOD

I think they’ve made a really big change. The more peaceful, obviously, but the protests made a dent in the way things are and the way things are going right now.

Ezri Colpi, freshman

BAD

No, I think they’re doing more bad than good.

When it becomes violent or destructive in any way, it becomes a riot, and it puts people in danger.

Wyatt Childress, sophomore

GOOD

I think that more good has come from it because with the media attention about the protests, people became more knowledgeable about oppression in our society.

Cali Reynolds, junior

BAD

I’m in the middle, but if I had to choose a side, probably more bad because of the destruction. But, it is making a difference.

Sophia Smolyansky, senior

December 2020 lakotaeastsparkonline.com 71

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