February 2022 — Silver Chips Print

silverchips A public forum for student expression since 1937 Montgomery Blair High School

February 10, 2022

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SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

VOL. 85 NO. 3

Community responds to January incident

Violence at Magruder

By Ingrid Holmquist Staff Writer Around 12:50 p.m. on Jan. 21, a student was shot in the bathroom at Magruder High School. Shortly after, the school went into a lockdown that lasted until 5 p.m. The victim, a 15-year-old sophomore, was hospitalized and in critical condition after the incident. Montgomery County Chief of Police Marcus Jones reported that multiple students witnessed the shooting, but instead of calling 911 or alerting staff, they tweeted about it.

The witnesses then left the victim in the bathroom where they were found by security guards during a routine sweep of the building. Security then placed a call to 911, and the school went into a lockdown at 1:05 p.m. The first officer arrived on the scene at 1:12 p.m., approximately 19 minutes after the victim was found.

The alleged shooter is reported to have used a “ghost gun,” an untraceable firearm without a serial number that is typically assembled by the user. Prosecutors say the assailant purchased parts of

p.m. when most students were permitted to leave the building.

The Magruder community brought in a therapy dog to comfort students and made counselors available for support in the week following the shooting. MCPS also announced that it would conduct a comprehensive review of school safety. Possible changes could include the installation of metal detectors and a re-evaluation of MCPS’ relationship with School Resource Officers, previously removed from school buildings prior to this school year.

it online. After the shooting, the suspect disassembled the gun and entered a classroom with students in lockdown. The police found the suspect there almost two hours later. The weapon was found in the possession of the suspect, however, it had been dismantled into three parts and was non-operational at that time. Police arrested them without incident.

Throughout the lockdown, parents had been lining up in surrounding neighborhoods, trying to pick up their children. Dismissal was delayed, and it was around 5

Maryland has seen an increased proliferation of ghost guns in recent years. Just a day before the Magruder shooting, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh introduced new legislation that would ban the sale, transfer, and possession of ghost guns. The victim’s parents have expressed their support for the bill.

The 17-year-old suspect is currently being held in custody without bond. They have been charged as an adult with multiple counts, including attempted second-degree murder.

Antisemitic vandalism at Union Station At around 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 28, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day, Washington, D.C.’s Union Station was vandalized with more than 150 swastikas and several profane statements. The following day, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department arrested a suspect, who they believe also vandalized three other buildings in D.C. later on Jan. 28. The suspect was charged with Display of Certain Emblems and Defacing Private/ Public Property.

At Union Station, after the incident, the swastika symbols were initially taped over; however their general shape was still discernible.

Since then, a crew has been assembled to permanently remove the graffiti.

See B3 for a letter from the Silver Chips Editorial Board on the decision to publish this photo story.

Ve la pagina C4 para una carta del consejo editorial de Silver Chips sobre nuestra decisión para publicar este foto reportaje.

ARIELLE GRANSTON

Conflict continues in Ethiopia

Features

Blair’s accessibility - B2 How can universally improving access benefit all students, not just those with disabilities?

Astronaut profile - D6 Blair alum Chris Williams selected as 2021 NASA astronaut candidate.

Spring Silver’s music - E2 From Infoflow to concerts across the DMV: Blair graduate redefines music.

Culture

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see ETHIOPIA page D5

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Opinions

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change in leadership, held their regional council elections anyway, defying the prime minister. Both sides proceeded to designate the other as illegitimate and in violation of Ethiopia’s constitution.

Two months later, the TPLF attacked a government military base, prompting the prime minister to decree a military offensive and called a state of emergency for the area of Tigray. The government of Ethiopia has been engaged with TPLF fighters for over a year, and Abiy has called in troops from

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For Ethiopian Blair junior Ruth Betremariam, the ongoing conflict between the governments of Ethiopia and Tigray has had effects that hit close to home. “I used to have some [Tigrayan] friends, and then after this conflict started, we started arguing about a lot of politics and what was happening. It’s been dividing us,” she explains. As a secretary for Blair’s We The East Ethiopian-Eritrean Club, Betremariam observes the divisive effects of the conflict on

the Ethiopian and Eritrean dias- cades, with its stronghold in Tigray, poras, although, due to previous the mountainous northern region conflicts, much of the tension runs of the country. After the elecdeeper than the tion of current current conflict.

Prime Minister I used to have Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, some [Tigrayan] the TPLF party Africa’s oldest independent much of its friends, and then lost country, has a national power, federal system in after this conflict as Abiy creatwhich the affairs a new party started, we started ed of 11 regions are that the TPLF controlled by refused to join. arguing. their respective In Sept. 2020, Ruth Betremariam Abiy postponed ethnic groups.

The Tigray Peoall regional ple’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is a elections due to concerns about group that has dominated the rule the COVID-19 pandemic. The of Ethiopia for the past three de- TPLF, which was hoping for a

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By Eliana Finberg and Andre Parker Staff Writers

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A2 News Feb. 10, 2022 silverchips

A look at Maryland infrastructure

Montgomery Blair High School 51 University Boulevard East Silver Spring, MD 20901 (301) 649 - 2864 Winner of the 2015 National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker, the 2021 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Medal, and the 2021 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown

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COVID-19 pandemic. “The reality is people who are reliant on our buses have a household income that is less than half of the average household income in Montgomery County,” Council Vice President Evan Glass explained in an interview with Silver Chips.

With the goal of equity and

COURTESY OF SOFIA ROEHRIG

RideOn buses Over the course of the pandemic, ridership of public transportation across the U.S., including the local RideOn bus service, plummeted. In response to the drop in ridership, the Montgomery County Council waived RideOn fares and extended waived fares through July 2, 2022. This service aims to help lower-income individuals save money while they commute to

The reality is people who are reliant on our buses have a household income that is less than half of the average household income in Montgomery County.

work and conduct other essential activities.

For low-income groups—who often lack their own cars or funds for ride-share services—access to affordable and safe public transportation is essential for daily commuting. A 2021 equity study reviewed by the Montgomery County Council found that nearly half of all RideOn customers have a median household income of less than $30,000. The study reported that these individuals benefit from the free rides program, as it mitigates the financial burdens of transportation that were exacerbated by the

accessibility in mind, the Council strives to make Montgomery County’s public transportation system broadly accessible to riders across the county. “As we keep making a more fair community for everyone, we need to think differently. We need to meet people where they are and for so many people that’s meeting them at the bus stop,” Glass said.

Additionally, the Council strives to transition to an all-hybrid fleet.

“Last year, we broke ground on having new charging stations for our RideOn bus fleet,” Glass said.

“We not only reduce carbon emissions by taking cars off the road but reduce the carbon emissions of our buses themselves.”

ly reduce traffic and sustainably fund itself without the need for private partnership, in addition to the plan’s environmental effect.

The additional lanes, as found in a 2021 state study conducted by MDOT, are projected to harm local streams, forests, and parkland, as well as potentially require the demolition of 34 homes.

With the $135 million allocated by the Maryland Board of Public Works, Hogan plans to contract a private firm to oversee and construct the renovations. However, critics of this method prefer public funding, via tax revenue and the federal infrastructure bill, to avoid the long-term strings of a public-private partnership. “If the state were to [fund and construct] it, [they] wouldn’t have a profit motive in there... I believe that the state could probably do it cheaper and potentially with less outstanding debt,” Maryland State Delegate Jared Solomon said. Many believe that avoiding for-profit, private firms is in the best interest of taxpayers.

Governor Hogan claims that the project will come at “no net cost” to the state, however, tolls will be charged to commuters who choose to use the interstate. “Those [project] costs will be borne out over the lifetime of the project by toll revenue from users who choose to use the lanes,” Solomon said.

Bridges Within the same plan for the interstate expansions, Hogan also proposed rebuilding the 58-year-old American Legion Bridge over the Potomac River, a critical point for commuters between Maryland and

Northern Virginia. Renovation to this section of the Capital Beltway would be used by commuters who pass through this corridor daily.

I believe that the state could probably do it cheaper and potentially with less outstanding debt.

JARED SOLOMON

Initiatives and projects have been enacted throughout the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to improve public transportation, highways, and bridges.

EVAN GLASS

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Leila Faraday Marijke Friedman Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo LA ESQUINA LATINA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo MANAGING NEWS EDITORS Samantha Rodriguez Ashley Thommana MANAGING OPINIONS EDITORS Maia Egnal Sean Li MANAGING FEATURES EDITORS Annie Goldman Sofia Roehrig MANAGING CULTURE EDITORS Maybelle Patterson Jasper Swartz MANAGING SPORTS EDITOR Jon Eckert OMBUDSMAN Ashley Thommana DESIGN EDITORS Annie Goldman Sean Li Maybelle Patterson COLUMNISTS Jon Eckert Maybelle Patterson Jasper Swartz Cal Tobias ENGLISH STAFF WRITERS William Ashford Ava Bedaque Haley Carter John Ernst Eliana Finberg Annie Gao Ingrid Holmquist Elina Lee Christy Li Rosie Orzulak Andre Parker Ila Raso Lucía Santoro-Vélez Ella Schrebler Sophia Stein Milan Tenn Sedise Tiruneh Zachary Williamson LA ESQUINA LATINA WRITERS Kimberly Castro Estefany Benitez Gonzalez Adan Guzmán Díaz Yasmine Rivera Sofia Roehrig Ivania Valladores Kevin Vela EXECUTIVE BUSINESS DIRECTORS Marina Deane-Gonzalez Ryan Peralta Harris Maddie Whipple BUSINESS STAFF Sela Colavito Kevin Gehl Isabelle Mathiascheck Finnegan Oakes Caleb Plank MANAGING ART EDITORS Jay Chao Leela Mehta-Harwitz ARTISTS Abjini Chattopadhyay Yeison Cotom Eliza Cooke Mia Levings Katalina Li Sophia Li Alexander Liu Sonia Pivovarov Karis Tebo Lucia Wang MANAGING PHOTO EDITORS Arielle Granston Sarah Martin PHOTOGRAPHERS Fiona Bondarev Raffi Charkoudian-Rogers Jonathan Cumblidge Colin Lederer Henry Reichle Cal Tobias Maia Turpen MEDIA EDITOR Iris Montgomery PUZZLE EDITOR Alex Grosman COPY EDITORS Celeste Basken Kiah Beachler Jordan Chafe Sally Kaye Emannuel Kraft Roshan Nandkumar Hunter Payne Amelia Schuler Liam Volz Emma Weinstein LA ESQUINA LATINA ADVISOR Maria Eugenia Tanos ADVISORS Jeremy Stelzner Maria Eugenia Tanos Silver Chips is a public forum for student expression. Student editors make all content decisions. Unsigned editorials represent the views of the editorial board and are not necessarily those of the school or of all Silver Chips members. Signed letters to the editor are encouraged; submit them to silver.chips.print@gmail.com. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.

A 2013 study by the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis found that the American Legion Bridge currently discourages commuting between Maryland and Virginia because of high congestion and traffic volumes, specifically on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Renovation to this section of the Capital Beltway benefits commuters as this corridor connects four counties: Fairfax, Montgomery, Loudoun, and Fredrick. The foundation of the bridge requires renovations to secure its structure. Replacing the American Legion Bridge or extending express lanes throughout is only a partial solution to traffic, as it doesn’t resolve the large congestion issue of the highways and roads that feed into it.

Highways After several years of debate and analysis, Governor Larry Hogan is moving forward on his plan to expand the interstates 270 and 495 in order to alleviate rush-hour congestion. Since 2017, plans to add new High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and toll lanes are underway.

After the plan’s proposal, a report published by the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), suggested that the expansion of these interstates is counterintuitive as per the Induced Travel Demand (ITD) phenomenon—more lanes encourage more drivers and increase traffic and congestion, as they will ultimately pull more traffic to the roadway. Hogan and other developers claim that the increase in toll roads will incentivize drivers to use local roads over interstates. Opposition to this plan questions its ability to effective-

Up & Coming

February 14 Valentine’s Day February 21 President’s Day March 1 Mardi Gras March 11 Early Release March 17 St. Patrick’s Day March 24 Early Release

ALEXANDER LIU

Awards & Honors

John Dinkel and Awarded by Congressman Liset Ralda Raskin for BLISS Tutoring

Lana Anderson Donated 5,000 KN-95 Masks

Efe Eroz, Phillip Guo, Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholars and Dhruv Pai

Issa Samba, Ariana Villa, Outstanding PSAT or and Adalia Winters AP Performance

Feb. 10, 2022 News A3

silverchips INTERNATIONAL NEWS BRIEFS Compiled by Samantha Rodriguez News Editor

Russian troops assemble along Ukrainian border

Over the past few months, Russia deployed over 100,000 troops along the border between Russia and Ukraine. Prior to the recent increase in military presence, there were approximately 35,000 Russian troops stationed along the border.

The reallocation of troops is similar to the build-up before Russia’s 2014 invasion when they annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

The United States and other western countries believe this is an act of aggression and that Russia may try to annex eastern Ukraine where there is a sizable pro-Russia population. This would also cut Ukraine off from valuable ports.

Biden also accused Russia of planning to create a propaganda video faking an attack by Ukrainian forces. Russia denies any wrongdoing, repeatedly claiming that they do not intend to invade nor want war.

However, they are demanding that Ukraine never be allowed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and that NATO stops deploying weapons and forces in Eastern Europe near Russia.

In response to the increased troop presence, the United States is considering increasing sanctions against Russia. The United States military issued 8,500 personnel a ‘prepare to deploy’ order. Britain is also increasing sanctions and military force. They have said they will widen sanctions to any “companies involved in propping up the Russian state” and have ordered the deployment of military personnel across Europe. The Ukrainian government and civilians are preparing for war should Russian troops enter Ukraine.

Silencing athletes at the Olympics

Biden orchestrates ISIS raid

By Cal Tobias News Columnist In December 2021, Democrats in Maryland’s General Assembly passed a bill that determines the boundaries of Maryland’s eight congressional districts for the next ten years, as part of the redistricting process based on census results mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed the bill, calling the map “a mockery of our democracy” in his veto letter, but Democrats, who hold a supermajority in the state legislature, overrode the veto in the House of Delegates by a 96-41 vote and in the Senate 32-14.

Similar to Maryland’s previous congressional map, this map consists of seven districts that are safely in Democratic control and one district in Republican control. “[The maps are] basically

the same,” J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said in an interview with Silver Chips. “Going into this process, that’s basically what I expected.”

The 8th District, which contains the entirety of Blair’s attendance zone, largely retains its shape, while several other districts, including the 1st, 4th, and 5th, were altered to increase electoral advantages for Democrats.

Some districts, including the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, and 8th, will become less Democratic, but Democrats still outnumber Republicans by a considerable amount in these districts.

One district whose shape vastly changed is the 3rd, which previously stretched all across Maryland to include parts of Washington, D.C. suburbs, Annapolis, and Baltimore. It was called “the second-most gerry-

MCPS to supply menstrual products

By Eliana Finberg Staff Writer Per the Dec. 2 Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE) meeting, free menstrual products will start being added to the women’s bathrooms of all secondary schools in the county.

A pilot program began in January 2022 at Montgomery Village Middle School and White Oak Middle School. All 66 middle and high schools in Montgomery County will have menstrual products in at least two of their women’s bathrooms by Oct. 1, 2022.

The program is in compliance with Maryland Senate Bill 427 and Maryland House Bill 205, both of which passed on May 30, 2021. The statewide bills require menstrual dispensers and products to be installed in all women’s restrooms in secondary schools by Aug. 1, 2025. Public elementary schools also must have the menstrual hygiene product dispensers installed in at least one women’s restroom by Oct. 1, 2022.

While the BOE has yet to pick a supplier, the MCPS memorandum stated that the school system

It’s normalizing a conversation. It’s starting a conversation and making this not as much of a taboo issue.

HANA O’LOONEY

On Feb. 3, President Biden announced the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIS).

Conducted by the U.S. Special Operations forces, the raid resulted in the death of 13 people including six children and four women. They were able to evacuate 10 civilians including eight children. There were no reported U.S. casualties.

The raid started after midnight on Feb. 3 when about a dozen American commandos surrounded the house armed with helicopter gunships, armed Reaper drones, and attack jets. They gave multiple warnings and requested the house occupants surrender. In response, a suicide bomb was detonated, and heavy machine gun fire was exchanged.

In August 2019, Al-Qurayshi succeeded the former ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a similar raid. Little else is known of Al-Qurayshi. ISIS is a terrorist group started in 2004.

EBO

gan-aligned group whose goal is to promote maps passed by the Maryland Citizens’ Redistricting Commission, announced that they would attempt to overturn the maps in court. If the case goes to the state Supreme Court, it will be reviewed by Hogan-appointed judges.

Though many Republicans continue to blast the maps as partisan gerrymanders, some Marylanders, such as David Stein, a Blair math teacher who teaches a political statistics course that covers gerrymandering, sees this as a nationwide issue. “Unless we have a national law, which we can’t seem to be able to pass, then it’s kind of ridiculous to say, ‘this one Democratic state needs to be proportional when all these other Republican states are not proportional.’”

Indeed, many Republican-controlled states, such as North Carolina, have already drawn maps more gerrymandered than last decade’s. Democratic-controlled states, such as Illinois and Oregon, have recently approved maps that remove Republican-majority seats and add new Democratic ones.

Litigation over many maps, including Ohio and Alabama, has begun, and Maryland may be the next to join this battle, with Fair Maps already discussing lawsuits over the new districts.

In any case, the fight across the nation over redistricting is likely to be a major player in the fight for the U.S. Congress in 2022, and one major battle of that fight is happening right here in Maryland.

will provide 100 percent cotton products to align with sustainability goals and dispensers that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Many students believe that adding menstrual products to school bathrooms will improve menstrual equity. “It’s normalizing a conversation. It’s starting a conversation and making this not as much of a taboo issue,” Student Member of the Board (SMOB) Hana O’Looney said in an inter-

view with Silver Chips. “I think there’s a lot of value in that.”

O’Looney has advocated for menstrual products in bathrooms at both the local and state level.

“I wrote to different delegates. I lobbied. I showed up to different [Maryland] Senate and House committee meetings to talk about the importance of creating a statewide mandate for providing free menstrual products in schools,” she said.

Along the way, O’Looney heard many students’ struggles of menstruating while going to school. Some relied on school toilet paper in place of sanitary pads because they didn’t have access to proper products.

Access to menstrual products can be hard for many people, especially low income students. “Periods happen every single month, and you need to have [products] available especially because many people can’t afford them in the first place,” Blair senior Fiona Vicary said.

Vicary is the co-President of the Blair chapter of Girl Up, an international movement dedicated to supporting women and girls. This fall, the club raised $245 through several fundraisers, including selling CandyGrams, which were used to purchase and donate over 1,200 individual sani-

to vandalism, including writing on the dispensers. Vicary, however, thinks that vandalism isn’t a valid excuse for taking the products away. “If you’re going to take out dispensers with important products that people need, you’re not only taking away essential products, you’re also taking them away for an unimportant reason,” she said.

To make up for the lack of county-provided products, there are menstrual products in most bathrooms at Blair, provided by ELIANA FINBERG the local community and organized by Ms. Farzaneh Nabavian, Blair’s parent community coordinator.

“As president of Girl Up, ELIZA COOKE we’ve worked to put menstrual tary pads to Blair. products in the bathrooms,” While O’Looney advocated for Vicary said. “We saw the initiamenstrual products to be available tive done by a teacher and decided in all bathrooms for students of to fundraise ourselves, so now we all genders, the state bills only require products to be put in women’s restrooms. “That was someMe and all of my thing that I really had a hard time compromising on,” O’Looney friends have to take said. “I spent some time arguing our own pads and with different state senators and delegates about that issue.” tampons to school.

O’Looney believes that including menstrual products in all bathrooms would promote inclusivity in schools. “I really think have a bulk order [of pads] comit’s important to make all build- ing.” Pads are also available at the ings accessible for all students, nurse’s office for students who and [make] sure it’s a comfort- ask. able place for members of the LGFor middle schoolers and many BTQ+ community,” she said. “I’m other high schoolers, there are ofa big believer in the fact that not ten no products in the bathrooms, all menstruators are women, and meaning students have to bring not all women menstruate.”

Ivy Slocum, an eighth grader their own. “Me and all of my at Takoma Park Middle School, friends have to take our own pads also believes that all kids should and tampons to school,” Slocum have access to menstrual products said. “There aren’t any resources in schools, regardless of their for us.”

O’Looney thinks that there is gender. “I think it’s really important to put tampons and pads in still progress to be made and conboys’ bathrooms too, especially tinues to work towards comprefor people who are transitioning hensive access to menstrual prodor who have transitioned [gen- ucts for all. “At the state level, I’m ders],” she says. working with some organizations While products were previous- to… get an amendment on that ly available in MCPS bathrooms state bill to [provide products] years ago, they were removed due to… all bathrooms,” she said.

IVY SLOCUM

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games started Feb. 4 and run until Feb. 20. Chinese officials, human rights advocates, and the International Olympic Committee have advised athletes against speaking out or protesting. “Any [behavior] or speeches that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment,” Yang Shu, the deputy director of international relations for the Beijing organizing committee, said at a press conference on Jan. 18.

The statement comes amidst growing concerns over China’s alleged human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities alongside the arrests of numerous human rights activists, lawyers, and Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.

KA RIS T

mandered district in the country”

by The Washington Post.

While the 3rd District was previously a nationally known example of a non-compact district, it is now far more compact.

It still includes parts of its previous land, grabbing parts of Baltimore, Montgomery County, and Upper Maryland, but the district famously compared by former Montgomery County Councilmember Phil Andrews to “blood splatter at a crime scene” is no more.

The 1st District, which is currently represented by Republican Andy Harris, also experienced a significant change. This district was the sole Republican district in the state; the new district weakens the advantage Republican representatives have by reducing the Republican lean from 28 points to eight points. “The Democrats could potentially have a chance [to win] that… seat,” Coleman said.

Many Republican leaders and legislators, including Hogan, claim the map is gerrymandered.

The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a non-partisan gerrymandering watchdog, gave the new map an “F” grade for partisan fairness, with “A” being the best, and “F” being the worst. Their scoring takes into account the competitiveness and compactness of the districts. They assigned an alternative map proposed by a Hogan-backed group called Fair Maps Maryland, an “A.” This map would likely have resulted in two Republican seats and six Democratic ones.

Fair Maps Maryland, a Ho-

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A4 News Feb. 10, 2022

Omicron surge fuels MCPS community’s COVID-19 concerns

By Ava Bedaque and Annie Gao Staff Writers A recent surge in COVID-19 cases, brought on by the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant and exacerbated by increased socialization during the winter holidays, has caused some MCPS students, families, and educators to advocate for an alternative to in-person instruction.

According to Montgomery County data, seven-day case numbers in Montgomery County reached their highest point since December 2020 on Jan. 3, with a county-wide case rate of 2602.6 per 100,000 Montgomery County residents. As of Feb. 4, the county has a confirmed case rate of 220.52 per 100,000 people.

Montgomery County has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country, with 84.1 percent of people being fully vaccinated, as of Feb. 4. However, the Omicron variant, which according to the CDC now accounts for over 99 percent of COVID-19 cases in the Mid-Atlantic region, is partially vaccine-resistant. Although a third dose was found to significantly

factors such as high case rates, low student attendance, understaffing issues, and community feedback. They returned in person on Jan. 31 and Feb. 10, respectively.

Some community members have been critical of MCPS’ school-by-school approach to going online. “I feel like if there was more continuity coming down from MCPS to deal with all of the schools, we might be in a better situation,” MCPS parent Kate Stotish said.

Though many feel that county-wide management of COVID-19 safety and communication should be improved, many individual Montgomery County schools are handling the rise in cases in different ways.

Alexia Snyder, a teacher at Piney Branch Elementary School, described her administration’s efforts in spreading COVID-19 information to the school’s community. “My school partnered with our PTA and the NAACP, and we actually held a vaccine informational night the other evening in four languages, so that we could try and reach all of our population.”

Ann Hefflin, the principal of Glenal-

AVA BEDAQUE

COVID-19 AT BLAIR Data from the MCPS COVID-19 School Dashboard shows the spike in cases at school. increase immunity, as of Feb. 4, only 50.5 percent of people in the county are boosted.

In response to rising cases, MCPS initially announced on Dec. 21 that a five percent threshold would be used to determine which schools would temporarily transition to virtual learning. “If [five] percent or more of unrelated students/teachers/staff… test positive in a 14-day period, then DHHS and MCPS will work together to determine if the school should be closed for 14 days and students transition to virtual learning,” the announcement read.

The first 11 schools that passed this threshold shifted to virtual learning on Jan. 4 and returned to in-person learning on Jan. 18. Later, in a Jan. 7 email to families, Superintendent Dr. Monifa McKnight and Acting Chief Health Officer James Bridgers said that due to clarified guidance from the state, the county would now consider a switch to virtual learning on a school-by-school basis. MCPS also stopped updating the data showing the percentage of students and staff that tested positive at each school during a cumulative two week period after two days of doing so.

These decisions garnered a lot of criticism, with many parents, students, and educators disappointed in what they perceived as a lack of transparency and communication from the school district. “Within a two-week window, we’ve gotten so many directives. It’s just really hard to manage it,” Blair Principal Renay Johnson said in an interview with Silver Chips.

Johnson was not the only staff member concerned by the county’s actions. “[MCPS] didn’t understand what they were supposed to do. They tried to put something in place, then they rolled that back, but then they didn’t have anything to replace it,” Kathryn Medland, an English teacher at Takoma Park Middle School (TPMS), said.

Under the new guidance, 16 schools went virtual on Jan. 20, and four more joined them on Jan. 29. All closed due to

lan Elementary School, one of the schools which went virtual on Jan. 20 and returned on Jan. 31, believes her school had a successful transition. “We had begun getting ready for the possibility [of virtual learning] when we returned [in-person this] fall, because we’ve gotten used to the fact that we need to get prepared for uncertainty [and be] ready for anything,” Hefflin said. “I think [that the teachers’] preparation throughout the year and the skills that they built over the last two years made it a pretty smooth transition.”

Across the county, parents and students have complained about indoor lunches, infrequent testing, and a lack of high-quality masks, social distancing, and contact tracing.

Although MCPS said on Jan. 9 that they would be distributing KN95s to all students, child-sized masks were not always available for younger children, due to supply chain

issues. In their Jan. 27 message to families, MCPS said the smaller masks have started arriving at elementary schools and that “MCPS will continue to procure and distribute these masks for the remainder of the school year.”

Montgomery County Councilmember Tom Hucker hosted a virtual town hall on Jan. 9 about the state of the school system during Omicron, and MCPS soon followed suit with a virtual community conversation on Jan. 12. Although some attendees spoke against a switch to virtual teaching—citing concerns over childcare, learning loss, and mental health—the majority of people urged the BOE to close down school buildings or offer a virtual option.

In response, MCPS announced on Jan. 13 that they would allow students worried about contracting COVID-19 to stay home and participate in remote learning until Jan. 31.

Students’ absences during that period were excused and they had access to their schoolwork as well as instructional recordings, live virtual classes, or meetings with their teachers.

BOE member Lynne Harris explained the reasoning behind MCPS’ decision to offer a virtual option in an interview with Silver Chips. “Students are our number one priority and mitigating learning loss is a huge priority. [We] want students to take advantage of every opportunity to learn, wherever they’re at. We know that everybody has different levels of risk aversion and risk tolerance,” she said.

Some MCPS parents, like Kimberly Clarkson, believe the remote learning alternative helped ease COVID-19 safety concerns. “I’m really pleased that MCPS gave families the option to… make a request of your school to have your child stay home and follow along,” she said.

On Jan. 21, students at schools across the county walked out of class in protest of MCPS’ current COVID-19 policies. Blair senior Emma Sheppard, junior Moosay Hailewold, and sophomores Mars Moreno and Janet Argaez organized the walkout at Blair, which took place during sixth period and called for a temporary return to virtual learning, clearer communication from the BOE, and increased investment in teacher support.

Sheppard feels that MCPS should have taken more decisive action earlier in January. “[MCPS] had all of winter break to see that the spike was coming to our schools. People were already kind of falling out pre-winter break and getting sick,” she said. “They did what seems like nothing with all that time.”

Medland, the TPMS teacher, believes that declining case rates mean a return to virtual learning is no longer necessary. Still, she hopes that in the future, the county will set clearer measures on when to transition to remote learning. “We need to make sure that in-person is running as smoothly as possible, and if not, we have a plan in place.

You can’t just say, ‘we’re going to stay in person no matter what,’” she said. “That’s not a plan. That’s going to burn your teachers out.”

NEWS BRIEFS Compiled by Marijke Friedman and Elina Lee Editor-In-Chief & Staff Writer

McKnight named permanent MCPS superintendent

On Feb. 8, the MCPS Board of Education named interim superintendent Monifa McKnight the next permanent superintendent of MCPS. McKnight will be the first female superintendent and the second Black superintendent in MCPS history. In recent months, McKnight has drawn criticism for her handling of COVID-19 and what some feel has been a lack of transparency and communication in the wake of a rise in cases caused by the Omicron variant. However, all members of the BOE supported McKnight fulfilling the permanent position due to her knowledge and experience within MCPS.

Supreme Court Justice retiring

On Jan. 27, Justice Stephen Breyer announced his decision to retire from the Supreme Court after serving on it for 28 years. Breyer’s departure does not affect the Court’s 6-3 conservative majority, as he is a liberal leaning justice. Although President Biden has not yet selected a successor, he aims to do so by the end of February.

“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decision except one,” Biden said in his formal announcement. “That person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court.” Potential candidates for Breyer’s successor include U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs, and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger.

MCPS reevaluates snow days

Following MCPS’ Jan. 20 decision to close schools due to inclement weather despite the lack of snow, MCPS sent a survey to parents and guardians on Jan. 28 asking how they preferred to make up school cancellations. The survey provided a number of options, including turning snow days into virtual learning days, turning spring break into make-up days, adding make-up days at the end of the school year, and keeping the traditional snow day. The state of Maryland mandates a minimum of 180 school days, and MCPS had scheduled 182 days for this school year, so the five snow days that have occurred require three make-up days. After the survey closed, on Feb. 1, the BOE held a closed meeting that culminated in a 7-1 decision in favor of switching to virtual learning on inclement weather days decided on a case-by-case basis. Student Member of the Board Hana O’Looney opposed this decision and pushed for traditional snow days to be honored because of a lack of outreach to students about the survey.

Changes to the SAT

College Board announced on Jan. 25 that, starting 2023, the SAT tests will start to be digitalized. The original paper-and-pencil exam was released in 1926. The new test will be approximately two hours long, with only one question accompanying each shortened reading passage and calculators provided for all math sections. It will remain proctored in a designated testing center. College Board has made these changes to reduce possible academic dishonesty, minimize students affected by exam issues, save time distributing materials, reduce student stress, and return scores in a more timely manner. College Board will also provide a wider range of resources for students aside from typical fouryear college opportunities, including “local two-year college, workforce training programs, and career options.”

Blair student reports off-campus safety threat

ANNIE GAO

CASES SKYROCKET Montgomery County data from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University displays the surge of COVID-19 cases in January 2022.

On Feb. 2, while walking to meet a ride off-campus after school, a Blair student was approached by an adult male. The man repeatedly asked the student if she needed transportation, urging her to enter his vehicle.

The student rejected his offer. After meeting her ride, she and her parents notified the Montgomery County Police with a description of the man, his vehicle, and license plate number. Principal Renay Johnson sent an email to parents and guardians on Feb. 3 concerning the event and encouraged families to report any incidents regarding student safety to school security, administrators, or

silverchips

Feb. 10, 2022 Opinions B1

Should Montgomery Blair High School change its name?

He served as Postmaster General during the Lincoln administration and the attorney for Dred Scott, an enslaved man, in the landmark 1857 Supreme Court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, where he argued for Scott’s freedom on the basis that Scott had been taken to free territory by his owner.

Despite espousing anti-slavery politics, Montgomery Blair came from a well-known, slave-holding family. On the 1850 Missouri Slave Schedule, a census for enslaved people, Montgomery Blair was listed as owning

one enslaved male. In 1860, Montgomery Blair and his family lived in the household of his father, Francis Preston Blair. There, Montgomery Blair benefited from the enslavement of 15 to 20 men, women, and children recorded at the time for Francis P. Blair’s Silver Spring estate.

This clear contradiction between the Blairs’ public and private attitudes towards slavery exists because of the politically motivated incentive behind their actions. “[Montgomery Blair] and the other people in his family think that slavery is… a political problem… that is leading to sectional division … [and] is contributing to a group of leaders coming from the slave states that they are not necessarily in sympathy with. They don’t really talk about it as a moral issue the way that abolitionists do,” Michelle Krowl, a Civil War and Reconstruction specialist in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, said.

Blair’s role as Dred Scott’s attorney was also motivated by politics. “[Blair] potentially saw this more as a constitutional issue, that Dred Scott had been taken into free territory… [which] therefore makes him free,” Krowl explained. “So he wasn’t necessarily arguing it because he thought slavery was an immoral institution or he was trying to advance the civil rights of African Americans.”

Choosing to name the school after Montgomery Blair demonstrates the institution’s core values. “[When] we seem to arrive at decisions where we’re valuing in a disproportionate way one particular [gender, race,

School was christened in 1925, multiple community locations have been named after it, including the Blairs Shopping Center, the Blairs Apartments, and Blair Road.

The high school currently carries the name of Montgomery Blair, a Maryland lawyer who served as President Abraham Lincoln’s Postmaster General for most of the Civil War. Blair is celebrated for defending Dred Scott’s fight for freedom in the 1857 Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Sandford, during which he argued that since Scott had been taken into a “free” state where slavery was outlawed, he should no longer be enslaved.

Although these accomplishments define Montgomery Blair’s legacy, historical records show that Blair belonged to a slave-holding family. Recently, the Board of Education has decided to change the names of Blair High School and five other MCPS schools, because they are named after slave owners.

While the advocacy for renaming the high school is understandable, the reality is that the “Montgomery Blair” moniker is no longer associated with the antiquated legacy of a 19th century politician, but rather with the glittering academic achievements of students and alumni numbering in the tens of thousands. Within the broader community, the name has come to represent the modern melting-pot of cultures and identities in Silver Spring.

In the near century since 1925, the school has earned a national reputation for the strength of its academics, diversity of its student body, and forward-mindedness of its curricula that benefits students in their college search and beyond.

For college admissions officers across the country, applications from Blair carry a special reputation— one developed through the production of extremely culJAY CHAO AND MIA LEVINGS turally aware students who possess critical thinking skills, intellectuality, and curiosity from the wide number of clubs and programs offered, and a concrete sense of community.

Passing the BOE’s proposal would needlessly strip the school of its coveted reputation and force it to make a new name for itself from scratch. This hard-earned reputation utterly overshadows Montgomery Blair, the politician’s legacy in the community’s collective consciousness. Thus, the negative connotation regarding “Montgomery Blair” is largely unimportant to the student body, as the name has been almost completely reassociated with the school. When I posed the simple question, “Who is Montgomery Blair?” to over 50 students, the best answer I got was: “Wasn’t he a lawyer with Lincoln?”

Most, including Blair junior Brooklyn Prince, simply responded “No,” when asked if she thought the school should be renamed.

“If they change the name, I’m still going to call it Blair,” Prince explained. As such, renaming the school would be a presentational act, damaging Blair’s reputation and doing little to nothing systematically.

Montgomery Blair High School as one of six schools found to be named after slave owners, and the BOE is now considering a proposal that would require school names to be non-discriminatory and representative of the county’s diversity. Blair should not be named after a man whose actions and political beliefs conflict with the school’s core values of diversity and inclusion.

Montgomery Blair was a Maryland lawyer and politician, and one of the earliest supporters of the anti-slavery Republican Party.

YES

MAIA TURPEN

Renaming Blair is an opportunity to send a message of inclusivity and elevate the experiences of marginalized communities.

By Christy Li Staff Writer AN OPINION As calls for the United States to reckon with its racial history have increased in the past few years, efforts to rebrand buildings and monuments named after Confederates, slaveholders, and segregationists have gained traction. Now, we find this issue in our own backyard. A 2019 review commissioned by the MCPS Board of Education (BOE) listed

NO

MAIA TURPEN

Keeping the name would be a tribute to the hard work over 97 years of teachers and students.

By Rosie Orzulak Staff Writer AN OPINION When the Silver Spring community hears “Montgomery Blair,” their minds jump to the widely-respected high school on University Boulevard and the legacies of passionate students, top athletes and unique, opportunity-spurring programs established over 97 years of school history. Since Blair High

Instead of clinging to such a contentious figure and sowing an environment of exclusivity, MCPS should challenge an obsolete act of recognition and rename Montgomery Blair High School to lift up long overlooked individuals and communities.

or ethnicity], that sends a message of exclusivity,” Rahman Culver, Blair’s Diversity and Inclusion Instructional Coordinator, said.

Parting with the Montgomery Blair moniker should not be an occasion of loss, but rather an opportunity to spotlight the history and accomplishments of marginalized communities.

Culver believes that John Diggs-Dorsey and Sidney Randolph, two 19th century victims of lynching in Montgomery County, deserve such recognition. “A lot of folks feel like [they] could be worthy of elevation in this way, to help us send a message that we value everyone who’s in our community,” Culver said.

Montgomery Blair and his family were slaveholders who seemingly expressed no moral quandaries with the institution of human bondage. Instead of clinging to such a contentious figure and sowing an environment of exclusivity, MCPS should challenge an obsolete act of recognition and rename Montgomery Blair High School to lift up long overlooked individuals and communities.

Indeed, simply removing the name of a school is a shallow attempt to combat the symptoms of racism instead of the root cause within the community. As Valley Stream, New York student Eva Martinez commented on a 2021 New York Times article about renaming schools, “It is the social justice equivalent of putting vanity plates on an old and rusted car.“ In addition to slighting the school’s reputation, rebranding the school would incur a significant financial cost. Although no cost calculations have been made for Blair specifically, smaller schools like Virginia’s Justice High School—once named after Confederate General J.E.B Stuart—have been renamed at an estimated cost of $750,000. Rebranding Blair would mean reprinting all signage, replacing merchandise, ordering new sports and band uniforms, and more. This would be an unfathomable amount of money pointlessly being put towards presentational change, as opposed to actual systematic change.

Keeping the school’s name would uphold over 97 years of tireless effort by students, teachers, and alumni to associate Blair’s name with a profoundly good reputation that reflects our diverse community.

voicebox All photos by Maia Turpen

“Keeping the name … I don’t think it would be an accurate representation of the world we live in.”

“We can do other things to show how we feel about the name than changing the whole school.”

“We’re 25% Black, so how are we going to have a slaveholder’s name as the symbol of our school?”

“[Montgomery Blair’s] political view is more important... though he did own slaves, there was nothing he could change.”

BEATRIZ DA SILVA sophomore

PAULINE DIABLO junior

NAHOM TSEGAYE junior

KELLY FOUNDOUX senior

silverchips

B2 Opinions Feb. 10, 2022

Setting a new standard Blair must do more to support students with disabilities

By Ingrid Holmquist Staff Writer AN OPINION

I’ve had a fairly good experience with getting accommodations… [but] at other schools, it would be a battle to get an accommodation granted.

HANAN MILES

The world has an idea of what bodies should or should not be able to do. When a person’s capabilities fall outside of these rigid definitions, they are forced to change themselves in order to adapt to society. But what if society adapted to them instead?

In high school, having a disability is not easy, as most school facilities are not designed with disabled bodies in mind. At Blair, for instance, the three floors and long distances between classrooms can be strenuous for students with disabilities. In order to remove barriers like these, the concept of disability must be perceived differently. That means looking at it not as a personal impairment, but as a flaw of inaccessible locations and activities.

Hanan Miles is a freshman at Blair who has achondroplasia, meaning she is shorter than average. Due to her shorter legs and chronic pain, Miles is unable to walk for extended periods of time with ease, which her class schedule requires her to do daily.

“I think the size of Blair is an issue. I feel like there should be a way for classes to be closer together for people who can’t walk long distances,” she said. In an effort to assuage this burden, Miles asked for an accommodation that would put her in classes with shorter distances between each other. Her request was denied due to logistical concerns, but she was ultimately given extra time to get to her next class.

Because of challenges like these in public schools, some students with disabilities prefer schools and curriculums that are designed with

their disabilities in mind. Blair sophomore Savannah Brown attended a school for the deaf until ninth grade, where they felt fully accommodated and accepted.

“Growing up in a deaf school meant full access. I loved being able to talk to everyone with ease,” they

wrote in an email to Silver Chips.

However, their specialized school couldn’t provide the quality of education they wanted. “As I became older, I grew more agitated because I felt the content was too easy and there weren’t many opportunities

JONATHAN CUMBLIDGE

HANAN MILES The Blair freshman has had challenges receving accmodations in the past.

available,” they explained.

For Brown, attending Blair means going to school in a far less disability-friendly environment.

While they now have options to take more advanced classes, Brown finds that they are often excluded from extracurricular activities. “Extracurriculars are an issue [because] they don’t always have an interpreter available, so I don’t get the same opportunities as my peers do,” they wrote. Brown’s experience illustrates how disabled students often have to make a difficult choice between academic opportunities and accessibility.

If students with disabilities want accommodations, they must submit a request, which can be an exhausting process. Miles acknowledges that while the process for receiving necessary resources from Blair isn’t ideal, it has usually been fairly simple. However, she remembers times at her previous schools in which receiving an accommodation she needed was an unnecessary hassle. “I’ve had a fairly good experience with getting accommodations… [but] at other schools, it would be a battle to get an accommodation granted,” she recalled.

When having conversations about making schools more inclusive for people with disabilities, it is essential to remove expectations surrounding how bodies are supposed to function. Those ideas fuel the notion that having a disability is “abnormal” when it is actually exclusionary infrastructure and a lack of available resources that limit what people with disabilities can do. Changing a disabled body is nearly impossible, but redesigning infrastructure isn’t so hard. Not to mention that nobody should ever have to alter their body to fit into society. Arryana Falker, a disabled writer and advocate, explains it best

SAVANNAH BROWN The sophmore transferred to Blair for more educational opporunities. in her 2019 article for Healthline.

“The real world—ableist, exclusionary, constructed to put physical abilities first—is the ultimate burden on our disabled bodies. And that’s exactly why it needs to change.”

When students with disabilities need elevator access, extra time to get to class, closed captions, and other resources, they have to ask for them. But what if those options were commonplace? The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an educational framework that addresses just that.

The UDL states that accommodations can be beneficial to all people by supporting learning differences. “[It is] the idea that you can build a ramp for a building that would help somebody in a wheelchair. But it also helps somebody [with] a stroller or [who] sprained their ankle,” Susan Russell, supervisor of MCPS’ Deaf and Hard of Hearing and Visual Impairment Services said. “It has a bigger application than just this one.”

An example of a resource that can be applied to the UDL is

closed captions. They serve deaf students, but they can also help English learners and all students when there is too much background noise to hear something. Another common accommodation is additional time on exams. A UDL approach might also include untimed tests, which support students with learning disabilities and also reduce anxiety and cognitive overload for everyone. Resources like these can be helpful for all students, and there is no need to single them out as an ability issue. “Accessibility is so important [not only] for students with disabilities, but for all students,” Russell explained.

Schools must stop expecting disabled people to sacrifice their comfort to receive the education and experience that everyone else gets.

Every student should have the right to participate freely in all aspects of education. In MCPS, not all extra resources need to be accommodations requiring special requests. It is possible to make Blair a place where every student, regardless of ability, can learn with ease.

Let’s help self-help

By Zach Williamson Staff Writer AN OPINION “Who doesn’t want to try and strive to be a better person? I think everyone wants to improve,” Blair junior and president of the meditation club Theo Topolewski said. When looking to better themselves, many turn to self-help books, but how effective is this genre?

Self-help books are a great first step toward improvement, but we should use them in conjunction with support from the people around us to further our progress. We often over prioritize the individualism of self-help when

If you need a more complete transformation in your life, you need to involve the people around you and get support from them.

THEO TOPOLEWSKI

we could see far greater personal growth by getting assistance from others.

Over the course of the past decade, the self-help genre has seen a rapid increase in sales. According to Marketdata, the industry sold

and audiobooks alone in 2016, and data from the NPD Group show that book sales increased by an average of 11 percent annually from 2013 to 2019. Sales have only continued to rise during the pandemic, a time when many have been self-reflecting more than usual.

The incredible diversity of advice the genre provides makes finding something personal easy for everyone. Those who struggle with organization may consult The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, while others looking for parenting advice might turn to Positive Discipline.

The accessibility of these resources is another factor behind their popularity. A self-help book can be checked out for free at a library, and the $20 someone might pay for a hardcover book is an appealing alternative to expensive therapists or life coaches.

However, self-help books are not nearly as effective as these trained professionals, who hold their clients accountable and monitor their progress over time. Clients are much more likely to apply advice when under the pressure and supervision of an expert.

In contrast, there is no outside accountability when reading a selfhelp book. The book does not scold you when left ignored on the shelf, nor does it reprimand you when its advice is left unused.

Worse still, the self-help genre heavily promotes complete independence, keeping readers away from the beneficial pressure they would otherwise face.

Additionally, self-help books

lack adaptability. Therapists and life coaches can modify their advice to suit each client, whereas books can only provide general claims that suit all readers. “What does

I think this notion that you can pull yourself up from the bootstraps and do everything yourself is not really the most true thing in the world.

THEO TOPOLEWSKI that book know? Does it know your life?” Topolewski questioned.

“A book can’t read emotions.”

Even self-help authors agree that approaches to improvement must be multifaceted and go beyond basic tips and tricks in order to achieve success. “Breaking deeply imbedded habitual tendencies such as procrastination, impatience, criticalness, or selfishness that violate basic principles of human effectiveness involves more than a little willpower and a few minor changes in our lives,” self-help author Stephen R. Covey wrote in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Selfhelp books are only a small step in the growth process, and should thus be viewed as a supplemental resource to proven avenues to self-betterment.

When it comes to these more reliable methods of improvement, interpersonal support is the key to achieving results. “If you need a more complete transformation in your life, you need to involve the people around you and get support from them,” Topolewski noted.

“I think this notion that you can pull yourself up from the bootstraps and do everything yourself is not really the most true thing in the world.”

For these various reasons—whether it be trained AO proCH JAY

fessionals or simply friends and family—interpersonal support is more effective than self-help books alone are. Our problems do not have to be solved by reading on the couch; we should instead make a greater effort to support each other and shed the individualism so often overvalued by self-help books.

silverchips

Feb. 10, 2022 Opinions B3

A letter from the Silver Chips Editorial Board From a photographer’s eye, Union Station is architecturally perfect. The vast domed ceilings create leading lines in conjunction with the intricate stonework of the famous columns. This awe-inspiring building tends to spark feelings of pride and familiarity when stepping off a homebound train. As the photo editor of Silver Chips, I’ve photographed everything from anti-mask protests to celebrations of President Biden’s inauguration.

But when I arrived to capture the vandalism of Union Station on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I had an emotional response far different from anything I’ve experienced prior.

Seeing the gateway to the nation’s capital covered in swastikas—symbols that represent the destruction of my community—was an experience I was not prepared for.

Growing up, I saw these symbols in our history textbooks, in “classic” movies like Schindler’s List and The Pianist, and in the news, both national and local, but to see them surrounding you on all sides juxtaposed against a line of flying American flags—it’s hard to express the feeling that overcame me.

This was not the 1940s. This was not a movie. This was my

world, our world, and it was so difficult to comprehend what I was seeing. I was not a stranger to this feeling, however. Jewish children grow up with family trees where entire limbs have been chopped off, not just from the Holocaust, but from pogroms and hate crimes as well.

As a news organization, we refuse to meet hatred and bigotry by shying away from it.

Growing up Jewish in America is armed security in your sanctuaries, classroom lessons filled with pictures of emaciated ancestors behind the barbed wires of Auschwitz, and consistent attacks from all sides of the contemporary political spectrum. Growing up Jewish in America, there are no trigger warnings.

There is a crushing weight associated with hate and fear. It’s a suffocating feeling when you suddenly realize that there are people out there who wish harm to you and everything you were raised to believe: It’s paralyzing.

Looking around at the defaced columns, questions began to form:

ARIELLE GRANSTON

COVERED UP A week after the original incident, the vandalism was completely covered up.

What kind of person would do this? Why would they do this?

What is their goal here? How do I respond to this?

While I would never wish that experience on anyone, the dire need for discussing the actual effects of anti-semitism suddenly seemed stronger. While the Silver Chips Editorial Board was reviewing the resulting pictures, it sparked one of the hardest questions a news organization could face: Does publishing this photograph align with our journalistic values and mission as a student paper?

Making the decision to dedicate front page real estate—a space reserved in Silver Chips for the most important events of the past six weeks—to a photograph that featured a known symbol of hate was challenging.

We discussed the value of printing this image among ourselves, as well as with the leaders of Blair’s Jewish Culture Club, local rabbis, and Blair’s Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, Rahman Culver. As a news organization, the purpose behind our conversations was to ascertain whether the potential harm of publishing a photo story that features a swastika outweighs our duty to report the news.

We debated and considered three options: Print a photograph of a fully uncovered swastika, print a photograph of the already covered vandalism, or not print a photo of the defacement at all.

We noticed that there was a common thread throughout our conversations—fear. We were going around in circles, paralyzed by our fear of this symbol, both of publishing it and of the effect it might have on those seeing it. The fear was driving our decision. It was then that we knew the photograph would have to be published in full.

The vandalism of Union Station is not the only time hate has reared its ugly head in our community recently. In late December, flyers were passed out in Silver Spring with pandemic conspiracy theories and a QR code linked to an antisemitic website that supported Holo-

caust denial and Adolf Hitler.

Even within MCPS schools, we have seen and experienced various antisemitic hate crimes. Most recently, on Feb. 3, MCPS schools received online threats from a former MCPS student that mentioned a school shooting intended for the following day.

ported in this same year. 1,930 of those were committed against Black Americans, making it the largest amount of incidents against a group.

We at Silver Chips firmly believe that hate crimes are acts of cowardice—a refusal to address what is ugly within oneself and a need to lash out and cause harm.

It should be noted that these threats contained language targeting Black students as well. We would be remiss to talk about hate crimes without addressing the hate crimes levied against the Black community, another group full of family trees with missing limbs due to hate and violence.

Despite the fact that diversity is one of the most celebrated features of our community, discrimination still occurs. While these incidents point to a rise in hate crimes in our region, they also point to a national rise in acts of hatred toward Black, Jewish, and queer communities, among others.

In 2019, there were 1,521 religious hate crimes reported to the FBI. Antisemitic crimes accounted for 62.66 percent of those, despite the Jewish population of the country making up under 2.5 percent of the total population. This was an 18 percent increase from the previous year.

3,963 incidents related to race, ethnicity, and ancestry were re-

The only way hate wins is when we respond with fear. As a news organization, we refuse to meet hatred and bigotry by shying away from it.

While we struggled with the decision to publish this photograph, we ultimately decided to embrace our discomfort. We hope you will take this first step with us as we work towards dismantling barriers and creating constructive dialogue.

To read this editorial in Spanish, see page C4.

To read this editorial in Amharic, scan the QR code below.

Defining newsworthiness

By Ashley Thommana Ombudsman/News Editor It is a haunting question that evades a definitive answer. Despite the fact that almost every journalist, reporter, newsroom, and media organization has grappled with the puzzling nature of this fundamental crux of journalism, there is no consensus when posed the question, “how should the media decide what is newsworthy?”

Just because it has yet to be answered definitively—and may never truly be answered—doesn’t mean the question does not merit thoughtful consideration. How news media chooses to approach the definition of newsworthy has far reaching implications, including changing the status quo knowledge community members have.

There have been many attempts to formalize a guide on what is considered newsworthy. Some points listed by published guides referenced by Purdue University include timeliness, relevance, and novelty.

And while these generalizations do provide a basic framework, they fail to answer a host of questions.

I’ve chosen a few questions that are valuable for any newspaper, including a school and community newspaper like Silver Chips, to attempt to answer. My hope in doing so is to clarify how we at Silver Chips make decisions on what to report and simultaneously encourage our readers to question the other news media they consume.

It is hard to argue with consid-

ering “relevance” as a core tenant of defining what is newsworthy.

Of course, news should be related to the community it is informing.

Canvassing, which consists of asking readers what they would like to see reported, is an important part of choosing stories in many newspapers, including Silver Chips.

When canvassing and identifying stories to write, it is essential to ensure that all community voices are accurately represented, otherwise important and valuable stories fall through the cracks. If done well, canvassing and outreach to the community allow writers to pursue sto-

ries that better reflect the concerns and experiences of the audience.

Yet, should all stories be dictated by what the audience wants to see?

Are there some topics such as international news that merit coverage even if a community doesn’t seem interested or directly impacted?

At Silver Chips, we attempt to localize news, tying the themes of stories to larger national and international trends, if applicable. We select international and national stories through our “News Briefs” and “International News Briefs” columns. In these, other guiding principles, such as timeliness, are

FIONA BONDAREV

used to identify stories that are important to share. Additionally, in certain stories, we seek to choose topics that highlight themes and trends that are of interest to our local community.

The question of relevance is not the only contentious point associated with newsworthiness. For instance, another interesting topic is news about important figures such as celebrities, politicians, experts, and more.

Per existing guides, people of prominence and elite status meet the requirements for a newsworthy article.

If not approached carefully, these articles can quickly devolve into examinations of the personal lives of public figures, especially when concerning celebrities. While readers may find such stories interesting, other more significant articles may go unreported and unpublished. News that focuses on insignificant details in the lives of celebrities in lieu of more important stories fails to uphold its duty: informing our citizens.

The line is fine, and not just with stories that focus on prominent figures. Another guiding principle of newsworthiness is conflict—meaning the article reports on an issue with multiple sides. This can result in news that is negative, polarizing, and sensationalized. Such stories are often consumed more by readers and audiences as they are written in a way to elicit interest.

We can only delve deeper: Is it reprehensible that some newspapers have to compromise their definition of news in order to sell and stay in business? How can the media avoid

To connect with Ashley, email her at scombud@ gmail.com

such situations and maintain their readership if their audience responds strongly to divisive stories?

News organizations must dedicate time and effort into attempting to answer these questions. Constant negative news leads to a perception that things may be much worse that they actually are.

As you read Silver Chips and consume other news media, I encourage you to question the stories written and topics covered. Is there more you want to know? Are the stories representative of your community? Do they accurately reflect the situation?

Hold us at Silver Chips and all other news organizations accountable. You can share your thoughts and opinions with us at Silver Chips by emailing me or filling out the form linked in the QR code below.

la

esquinalatina Representando la comunidad latinx desde el 2003

El 10 de febrero de 2022

Volumen 19 Número 3

Lenguas indigenas en Blair La herencia indigena se representa entre los estudiantes de Blair Por Estefany Benitez Escritora El 2019 fue declarado por las Naciones Unidas, como el Año Internacional de las Lenguas Indígenas, enviando un fuerte mensaje sobre la necesidad imperativa “para revertir la alarmante tendencia a la extinción de esos idiomas”, de acuerdo con un artículo publicado por la ONU el primero de febrero de 2019.

En Montgomery Blair se habla mucho de la diversidad étnica; sin embargo, existen otros aspectos que muchas veces son ignorados dentro de este tema–principalmente la diversa herencia indígena de los estudiantes latinxs.

“La conquista intentó borrar lo que somos para imponernos lo que no somos … nuestros comple- jos nacieron del silenciamiento y el aplastamiento de nuestras lenguas …

Después de 500 años de colonización, de masacres, de etnocidios, de genocidios constantes, seguimos en pie de lucha”, declaró el ex presidente de Bolivia ante la Asamblea de la ONU en 2019.

De la misma manera, esta realidad también se puede ver reflejada en Montgomery Blair. A pesar de la lucha histórica por borrar la existencia de las lenguas indígenas por todo el continente americano, muchos

estudiantes de Blair siguen manteniendo viva su herencia cultural y lingüística. Tal como explica Júlia García, una renombrada experta en lengua y cultura quechua, “es un fenómeno cultural fuerte, que no puedes quitarte de adentro lo que traes, lo que tus padres traen y que contigo se conecta cada día, es un puente cultural que te mantiene a tus raíces”.

De acuerdo con el Consejo Nacional Indígena sobre el Envejecimiento, o NICOA por sus siglas en inglés, “hay entre 370 y 500 millones de indígenas en el mundo, 5.000 culturas indígenas diferentes y 90 países con comunidades indígenas”. Por todas las Américas, aunque el español, inglés y francés son consideradas lenguas comunes, aún existen por lo menos 420 lenguas originarias de Latinoamérica.

La fuerza de estas lenguas es significante debido a que han sido pasadas de generación en generación por muchísimo tiempo.

Como García explica, “el hecho de estar hablando con otra persona conectada con tu lengua y tu cultura te hace sentir que no estás sola, que YEISON COTOM tienes la compañía de alguien que también tiene la cultura y la raíz … es como un puentecito cru-

zando la calle”.

García elabora que, “una persona sin historia es una persona vacía”. Las nuevas generaciones necesitan crear una conexión, no solo con la familia, sino también con sus antepasados y su cultura. Tal es el caso de Gabriel Ico, un estudiante del onceavo grado, quien habla q’eqchi, una lengua hablada en Guatemala, que explica que “tenía cinco años cuando…mi abuela que habla bien el dialecto, ahí es donde aprendí 50 por ciento [del q’eqchi]”.

Misael Chaves Lopez, un estudiante del onceavo grado, quien habla mam, una lengua que se habla en Guatemala y México, nos cuenta qué “porque mi mamá habla mam ; Yo vivía con mi mamá entonces aprendí mam”. Sin embargo, no siempre es así. En muchos casos, observa García, “los padres prefieren ellos olvidar de dónde vienen para que sus hijos no sufran lo que ellos han sufrido, entonces esta es la razón por la que los chicos no quieren hablar, porque los padres no quieren hablar”.

En Blair, se pueden crear más oportunidades para apreciar diferentes culturas y aprender sobre el legado cultural indígena en mayor detalle. María Fernanda Espinosa, expresidenta de la Asamblea General de la ONU, “abogó también por aprovechar las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación para promover las lenguas indígenas’’.

Esto, de acuerdo con Garcia, es esencial, ya que “[los maestros] no podemos cortar las raíces culturales de nuestros estudiantes y [debemos] darles extintivos para que ellos se exalten”.

De acuerdo a Jerson Vicente, un estudiante que habla mam,

dice que para él “es un privilegio hablar el idioma que crecí sabiendo hablarlo me hace feliz y conecta a la cultura y poder comunicarme con la gente.” García elabora que el “refuerzo cultural…me hace sentir feliz”.

No solo entre la familia puede entender más de estas culturas indígenas y ganar apreciación.

Existen museos como el National Museum of the American Indian National Mall localizado en la ciudad de Washington, donde los estudiantes y residentes del área pueden aprender sobre la historia de diferentes culturas indígenas, incluso las de Centroamérica.

Las raíces indígenas ya se han integrado al vocabulario cotidiano. Existen muchos ejemplos de palabras que provienen de lenguas indígenas en el español de Centroamérica.

Tomas Muriel, filólogo y profesor de español, explica en su artículo 23 palabras náhuatl en el español y su significado, que el aporte del náhuatl “ha sido muy importante y ha ayudado a enriquecer tanto el idioma español como lenguas de diferentes países”.

Para muchos hablantes de lenguas originarias en Blair, su herencia lingüística sigue siendo parte de su vida cotidiana. Así lo explica

Chaves Lopez, que dice “cuando estaba en Guatemala, todos ahi hablamos mam y cuando vine aquí [EE.UU] a veces me sale [mam]”.

Para Vicente, hablar mam lo hace sentir conectado con su cultura y con sus ancestros. Garcia elabora que “siempre he pensado que no importa donde has emigrado, no importa dónde has ido, eres como un árbol, como una planta, a quien tu puedes transplantar, llevar de un lugar a otro, pero la raíz es la misma, nunca pierdes tus raíces, solo te adaptas a vivir”.

Incendio en los apartamentos de Flower Branch Por Kevin Vela Escritor La mañana del sábado 8 de enero de 2022 ocurrió un incendio en los apartamentos Flower Branch de Silver Spring.

El incendio se inició alrededor de las cuatro de la mañana en la sala principal de un apartamento cuando un residente dejó una vela encendida durante la noche y se fue a dormir, pensando que se apagaría sola.

Un residente se levantó por el olor del humo y la alarma de incendios y cuando fue a investigar la sala principal ya estaba en llamas.

Entonces, decidió ir al balcón y saltar desde el segundo piso. Por suerte, ningún residente o bombero salió herido, pero el incendio dejó

acerca de 50 personas sin hogar, incluyendo a más de una docena de niños.

Las víctimas pasaron el resto de la noche dentro de la biblioteca Long Branch, que está situada justo al lado del edificio.

Asistieron hasta 85 bomberos del servicio de bomberos y rescate del condado de Montgomery.

Como consecuencia del incendio, 16 apartamentos fueron dañados.

Estos apartamentos probablemente no van a ser habitables por varios meses.

En el 2016 una explosión causada por un escape de gas provocó otro incendio en estos mismos apartamentos. En aquella ocasión, el incidente cobró la vida de siete personas, incluyendo a dos niños.

Aunque esto ocurrió hace menos

MAIA TURPEN

DEZPLAZAMIENTO DE RESIDENTES Este incidente causó que mas de 50 residentes queden sin hogar.

de cinco años, el daño por esta tragedia todavía está presente hoy en día.

Farzaneh Nabavian, quien es la coordinadora de la comunidad de padres y asiste a las familias de Montomgery Blair, la escuela media Takoma Park y la primaria Rolling Terrace, explica que “hubieron varios estudiantes afectados en nuestra área y nos dan una lista de las escuelas y estudiantes afectados; entonces les proveemos con las cosas que las familia necesitan. Trabajamos colectivamente, algunos miembros del personal donan tarjetas de regalo; yo después manejo y se las entrego a la familia”.

Otras organizaciones también están ayudando, como el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos (Health and Human Services en inglés) y la Cruz Roja, la cual, según Nabavian, es una de las organizaciones principales.

Adicionalmente, la Sociedad de Vivienda del condado de Montgomery está aceptando donaciones en su sitio web, y a partir del 12 de enero ya se han recaudado $83.000 en donativos. Estos fondos se usarán directamente para ayudar a las víctimas.

En estos momentos las familias están usando tarjetas de regalo para comprar necesidades básicas, tales como como gasolina, pañales u otras cosas urgentes. El restaurante El Golfo aceptó donaciones de tarjetas de regalo hasta el 9 de enero del 2022. La organización CASA se ha sumado a esta colecta y están decididos a ayudar a las familias a

MAIA TURPEN

APARTAMENTOS DE FLOWER BRANCH Incendio causó daño extensivo en los apartamentos. largo plazo.

Inicialmente, los residentes se estaban quedando en la biblioteca de Long Branch pero después fueron reubicados en hoteles. Por el momento las familias están bien, aunque todavía es una experiencia muy trágica por la que pasaron.

Nabavian nos cuenta que, “fueron puestos en un hotel de un cuarto con cuatro o incluso cincos personas, estarán ahí temporalmente. Yo estoy pendiente de las familias que fueron afectadas en Blair y las otras escuelas regularmente”.

El daño se estima en $375.000.

Los trabajadores de desastres de la Cruz Roja han estado aportando ayuda a los residentes, con comida y servicios de salud,medicamentos y ayuda de salud mental.

En una entrevista con WUSA, Pete Piringer, el portavoz oficial del Servicio de Bomberos y Rescate del condado de Montgomery, dijo que, “Muchas personas en varios pisos no pudieron salir porque el pasillo estaba bloqueado por el fuego y el humo, por lo que los bomberos sacaron a varias personas por el balcón”.

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el 10 de febrero de 2022 La Esquina Latina C2

Esfuerzos y avances en las clases de AP ery Blair High School.

Sin embargo, hay una gran falta de estudiantes latinx en las clases de AP, debido a múltiples factores. Rahman Culver, el coordinador de diversidad e inclusión de Blair, explicó que hay tres desafíos principales: aislamiento social, contenido académico, y conocimiento sobre los beneficios.

Además, un proceso que resulta intimidante es que se tiene que pagar para tomar un examen de AP. Sin embargo, ese problema se puede solucionar con pedir un perdón de las tarifas. Culver dice que “a veces, la tarifa es una barrera, pero mucha gente no sabe, puede obtener exenciones para esas tarifas”.

Una encuesta realizada del Distrito Escolar Unificado de San Di-

YASMINE RIVERA

PORCENTAJES DE ETNIA EN LAS CLASES Los números de estudiantes basado en etnia que toman clases de AP en Blair. dades valoran la participación en el curso en su proceso de admisión.

Estas clases se ofrecen en muchas secundarias de los Estados Unidos, incluyendo en Montgom-

ego del 2016 muestra que muchos estudiantes que están calificados para los cursos de nivel universitario no sabían mucho sobre ellos o tenían miedo de reprobar.

Por Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo Editora en Jefe

ticinco high schools, los estudiantes tienen la oportunidad de probar sus destrezas en el lenguaje que hablan sus padres, en el lenguaje nativo o de herencia. Y por ejemplo, solamente se les da a los estudiantes del 11 o del 12 la oportunidad de tomar un examen que se llama ALTA 4S. Y ellos al tomar ese examen en su lengua, si obtienen un puntaje de 6, obtienen el sello que se llama Maryland Seal of Biliteracy en su diploma. También obtienen una medalla que pueden llevar orgullosamente en el día de su graduación. Pero es un orgullo en sí, porque eso representa que soy una persona bilingüe y es un sello que básicamente no todos lo van a tener… Entonces no precisamente tienes que ser un nativo, no tiene que ser tu lengua materna. Si tú a través de los años has estudiado ese lenguaje y has llegado al nivel de AP y tomas el examen y lo pasas con cuatro o cinco, también obtendrás ese sello. Es un orgullo porque Blair está entre las tres escuelas que obtienen el mayor número de estudiantes que obtienen el Seal of biliteracy… Así que estamos orgullosos de ellos y es una colaboración de todos los maestros.

De acuerdo con El Fideicomiso de Educación, a escala nacional, el 21 por ciento de estudiantes latinx estaban inscritos en un curso de AP. El Fideicomiso de Educación también encontró que las escuelas, especialmente las escuelas con diversidad racial, niegan a los estudiantes afroamericanos y latinxs el acceso a los asientos que tienen.

Heather Reihman, directora de política P-12, dijo en una entrevista con El Fideicomiso de Educación, “los legisladores pueden mejorar las vidas de los estudiantes negros y latinos al implementar cambios significativos en las políticas. Los estudiantes en cursos avanzados han demostrado trabajar más duro y participar más en la escuela, lo que lleva a menos ausencias y suspensiones, así como a tasas de graduación más altas”.

Angela Martinez Gonzalez, una estudiante en el noveno grado dice que “para mí se siente como presión a mi porque como soy una de las pocas hispanas en clases avanzadas, necesito hacer un buen trabajo para no [sentirme] fuera de lugar. Entonces, es un poco difícil para mí”.

En los pasados cuatro años (desde 2017 a 2020) hubo un promedio de aproximadamente 135 estudiantes latinx inscritos en cursos de AP en Montgomery Blair por año.

Martínez Gonzalez comentó que en la clase de AP de Física 1 ella es la única estudiante latinx y que la falta de estudiantes latinx tomando clases avanzadas empieza desde la infancia: “El problema empieza desde la escuela primaria y las fallas de los padres que no ponen la energía en motivar a sus hijos”. La falta de motivación a veces causa que los

estudiantes no busquen un desafío y sigan tomando clases que a veces son demasiado fáciles.

Culver dice que, “si no tenemos tantos alumnos matriculados, entonces hay menos gente de la que habla, bueno, esta es mi experiencia, por eso funciona. Y es por eso que es una buena idea, y poder compartir eso, ya sabes, con familiares y miembros de la comunidad”.

Debido a que no hay tantos estudiantes latinxs en estas clases como les gustaría, la representación insuficiente también conduce a una falta general de conciencia dentro de las comunidades latinxs.

Una de las razones por las cuales algunos estudiantes no se animan a tomar clases avanzadas es por la cantidad y la dificultad de las tareas que van a recibir. Sin embargo, la experiencia demuestra que siendo organizados y aprovechando el tiempo en clase, se reduce significativamente la cantidad de tarea para casa. “Pienso que depende de cómo te organizas con tus tareas así tú sientes el peso del trabajo de las demás clases”, dice Estefany del Carmen Osaguerra Bonilla, una estudiante en el doceavo grado que toma la clase de AP Español lengua y cultura .

Culver también elaboró sobre el programa académico de minorías, o el Minority Scholars Program en inglés, y cómo podría ayudar a motivar y a crear conciencia en la comunidad latinx. “Este programa ayuda a los estudiantes a involucrar a sus compañeros para que se ayuden unos a otros, ya sea a través de la tutoría o de tener a alguien que pueda emparejarse con los estudiantes al principio de sus carreras en la escuela secundaria. Así, pueden

descubrir cómo se puede tener éxito en esta materia y lo están escuchando directamente de alguien

Para mí se siente como presión a mí porque como soy una de las pocas hispanas en clases avanzadas, necesito hacer un buen trabajo para no [sentirme] fuera de lugar. Entonces, es un poco difícil para mí.

ANGELA MARTINEZ GONZALEZ

Por Yasmine Rivera Escritora Las clases avanzadas, o AP por sus siglas en inglés, les permiten a los estudiantes tomar cursos desafiantes de nivel universitario mientras aún cuentan con el apoyo de sus profesores y compañeros de la escuela secundaria.

Los estudiantes adquieren confianza y desarrollan la gestión del tiempo y habilidades de estudio que son fundamentales para el éxito académico y profesional. Los cursos de AP son reconocidos como un nivel de logro académico por universidades de todo el mundo.

Casi todos dan crédito a los estudiantes que aprueban el examen de AP. Además de los resultados del examen, la mayoría de las universi-

de su edad que parece conocer la situación , lo que le da mayor credibilidad que venir de adultos constantemente”, comentó Culver.

Los cursos de AP son una gran oportunidad para sobresalir en sus estudios y construir su futuro. Culver destaca que “Sé que a veces, independientemente de la intención, algunos de nuestros jóvenes que creo que reciben un mensaje de los adultos, tal vez esto no sea para ustedes, tal vez no puedan manejarlo, tal vez esto está demasiado lejos de sus posibilidades, de tu alcance.

Y quiero decir que, para cualquier estudiante que quiera participar en estos cursos, si tienen el deseo, entonces hay adultos en este edificio, que trabajarán con ustedes y se involucrarán con ustedes”.

Brenda Barrera, entrevista con la directora del Departamento de lenguas extranjeras

Esta entrevista fue corregida para obtener claridad. ¿Podría explicar su rol en Montgomery Blair?

Si, yo soy la directora del Departamento de lenguas extranjeras en Blair y mi posición básicamente involucra apoyar a los maestros.

Básicamente diseminar información a un nivel departamental que recibimos de nuestros administradores y de nuestra directora, la

BRENDA BARRERA

Creo que el hablar otra lengua te abre las puertas, las ventanas, a mundos diferentes.

¿De qué programas en Blair está encargada?

Del Maryland Seal of Biliteracy, que está a nivel del condado. Es una iniciativa que comenzó hace más de cinco años. Básicamente en todas las escuelas secundarias de Montgomery County a los vein-

¿Por qué usted personalmente piensa que hablar otra lengua es tan importante?

Creo que el hablar otra lengua te abre las puertas, las ventanas, a mundos diferentes. Te ayuda a comprender a las personas y aunque no estés de acuerdo con lo que ellos opinan, te ayuda a mantener o construir un respeto por esas culturas. Creo que lo que nos hace únicos específicamente en Blair es esa diversidad cultural. Y la diversidad cultural y con ellos viene la diversidad lingüística que existe y nuestra lengua es cultura y aprendiendo sobre diferentes culturas nos ayuda a ser amigos… Entonces, para comunicarnos, para entendernos mejor, hay que no simplemente saber lo

¿Qué nuevas clases está ofreciendo el departamento de lenguaje el año que viene?

Solo va a ser la de periodismo en español. Es básicamente nuestra iniciativa más grande. Probablemente en el futuro, vamos a ver cómo esto funciona. Podríamos ofrecer una que ya sea no periodística, pero más televisión como info flow. Como tener una sección en info flow que sea en español. Sé que también hay iniciativas ya de ello, pero vamos a comenzar oficialmente con la de periodismo en español. ¿Por qué decidió ser maestra?

Siempre ha sido mi pasión. Yo fui una estudiante de ESOL. Yo vine cuando tenía 15 años, al noveno grado. Jamás, jamás me hubiera imaginado que algún día yo iba a ser la jefa del departamento de lenguas de una escuela de MCPS. Apenas ni sabía decir ‘Hi’ cuando vine. Pero me esforcé mucho y recuerdo que en mi último año, en mi grado 12, fui un student aid, una ayudante de un maestro. Y de una clase de ESOL. Y me encantó. Me

Como líder una de mis mayores responsabilidades es empoderar, no simplemente a los maestros, sino también a los estudiantes.

BRENDA BARRERA

Señora Johnson. Básicamente es apoyar también a los estudiantes, informarles sobre los cursos que ofrecemos de lenguas en Blair.

Blair afortunadamente es una de las escuelas que ofrece más lenguas en el condado. Tenemos español, español para hispanohablantes, tenemos japonés, árabe y francés y también ofrecemos lenguaje de señas americanas. Así que somos muy afortunados en ofrecer esa variedad de lenguas.

lingüístico, sino también aprender lo cultural de cada individuo. Su cultura y la base, la esencia de ese individuo es su cultura y su lenguaje.

encantó ayudar a otros estudiantes, compartir lo que sabía y proporcionar ayuda. Entonces sentí que esa

JONATHAN CUMBLIDGE

BRENDA BARRERA Directora del Departamento de lenguas extranjeras en Montgomery Blair era mi vocación. Y luego todo llevó están en una posición de liderazgo a en realidad seleccionar, ser mae- aquí en la escuela. Y creo que por stra. También recibí una beca para eso también mi responsabilidad esas personas que estaban interesa- es aún más grande. Siempre trato das en ser maestros. Entonces fue de hacer las cosas correctas. Tracomo que todo me fue guiando a to también de escuchar. Escuchar esta profesión que amo. para así poder ayudar… Creo que es bueno que nuestros estudiantes ¿Desde su posición de líder vean que tienen maestros que se como siente que ayuda a la co- ven como ellos en posiciones de munidad latinx en Blair? liderazgo. Para que vean que sí es posible… Yo vengo de una familia Como líder una de mis mayores re- en la cual todos fuimos estudiantes sponsabilidades es empoderar, no de ESOL y todos tenemos carresimplemente a los maestros, sino ras. Todos tenemos posiciones de también a los estudiantes… Creo liderazgo y quiero que se sientan que en realidad, como una líder orgullosos de mí y que vean en mí latina, quiero representar lo mejor que ellos pueden lograr lo que quiposible a mí, a mi herencia hispana. eran si solamente se lo proponen.

Soy una de las pocas hispanas que Ya me puse sentimental.

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C3 La Esquina Latina el 10 de febrero de 2022 NOTICIAS BREVES INTERNACIONALES Compilado por Yasmine Rivera Escritora

Independizarse, comprar un auto o ayudar a sus familias son algunas de las razones por las que los estudiantes buscan trabajos mientras estudian en Montgomery Blair, pese al estrés y cansancio que tener ambas responsabilidades puede ocasionar.

En los Estados Unidos es común que los estudiantes de secundaria tengan trabajos para ayudar a sus familias o pagar sus propios gastos.

En el año 2020, 1.336 mil-

Típicamente, los estudiantes que tienen trabajo tienen mejores calificaciones porque están enfocados y están aprendiendo a manejar su tiempo.

DONALD WHARTON

El pasado 15 de enero hubo un derrame de petróleo en la costa de Perú causado por la erupción del volcán Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai en Tonga.

La erupción causó que un barco de la compañía española Repsol derramara petróleo crudo mientras estaba descargando el crudo. El ministerio de Ambiente de Perú declaró al país en un estado de emergencia ambiental por 90 días. El derrame ha afectado aproximadamente unos 3 kilómetros cuadrados de playa y mar y de acuerdo con las autoridades ha dañado aproximadamente unos 18.000 kilómetros de zonas protegidas que contienen una variedad de fauna.

Repsol revisó el tamaño del derrame y estimó en más de 10,000 barriles de petróleo. Repsol ha tomado acción para ayudar a limpiar las áreas afectadas del derrame, aunque cuando sucedió el incidente no dio información exacta sobre el daño extensivo que había en realidad. Aproximadamente, unas 2,000 personas se encuentran limpiando el daño, equipos de biólogos y veterinarios. También han estado trabajando en la labor de rescate de la vida silvestre marítima y costera. La fauna que se rescató fue transportada a centros de rehabilitación donde los han estado bañando con jabón antigrasa, con el intento de extraer todo el petróleo de sus cuerpos. Este problema ha sido considerado el peor desastre ecológico en la historia reciente de Perú.

Por Ivania Valladares Escritora

lones de estudiantes en los Estados Unidos trabajaban a tiempo completo. Muchos de estos estudiantes cuentan con edades de entre 16 y 19 años.

Estudiantes en Blair balancean sus labores y la escuela

La cantidad de estudiantes con trabajo puede variar, dependiendo de la época del año. De acuerdo con investigaciones de Zippia, en el año 2020 se contó que hay un 27.5 por ciento de estudiantes trabajando durante los meses de escuela y en los meses de verano hay un 30.8 por ciento de estudiantes empleados.

En una entrevista con Noticiasrcn, Elmer Roldán, director en Los Ángeles de Communities in Schools, explica que ¨la mayoría de los estudiantes de secundaria que trabajan son chicos negros o hispanos”, quienes “han sido las [comunidades] más afectadas por el Covid, tanto en términos de contagios y muertes como de pérdida de puestos de trabajo”.

“Trabajo para tratar de independizarme”, dice Katiuska Castillo, una estudiante de doceavo grado que trabaja seis días a la semana, de dos a cinco horas cada día.

Los estudiantes que terminan la secundaria siguen trabajando o entran al ejército debido a que necesitan ayuda financiera para ayudar a sus familias. El Señor Donald Wharton, profesor de tecnología en Blair, está encargado de ayudar a los estudiantes en su proceso de conseguir trabajo. Además, les provee recursos, tales como buscar empleadores clasificados “les proveo acceso a empleadores calificados, cuando digo empleadores

calificados, empleadores que de seguro tiene licencia de negocio y que tengan una reputación de ser buenos hacia los empleados y buenos gerentes”, elabora Wharton.

Los estudiantes de doceavo grado son quienes más buscan ayuda para conseguir empleo, de acuerdo con Wharton. Él informa que la mayor cantidad de estudiantes que buscan de su ayuda para poder conseguir un trabajo son estudiantes del doceavo, seguidos por décimo, onceavo y finalmente estudiantes del noveno grado.

Trabajar también puede tener un impacto positivo en la vida escolar: “Típicamente, los estudiantes que tienen trabajo tienen mejores calificaciones porque están enfocados y están aprendiendo a manejar su tiempo”, explica Wharton sobre el desempeño académico de los estudiantes. Aunque reconoce que, para algunos estudiantes, estudiar y trabajar “puede ser demasiado”.

Sin embargo, para la mayoría de estos estudiantes, el factor de tener un trabajo e ir a la escuela al mismo tiempo puede ser agotador y estresante, lo cual les impide a muchos de ellos poder desarrollar un buen rendimiento académico.

Esto se debe, principalmente, a sus horarios de trabajo.

Ariel Godoy, es un estudiante de doceavo grado, quien trabaja cinco días a la semana por siete horas cada día y está ahorrando

para comprar un carro para su movilización a la escuela y hacia otros lugares. Él explica que “sí [me

Sí [me siento estresado] porque es mucho tiempo el que paso ocupado y casi no tengo tiempo para dormir.

ARIEL GODOY

Derrame de petróleo en Perú

Tareas y trabajos

siento estresado] porque es mucho tiempo el que paso ocupado y casi no tengo tiempo para dormir”.

Castillo, quien cree que su rendimiento académico mejoraría si no trabajara, reconoce que también se siente estresada tras tener que poder manejar su tiempo para poder realizar ambas actividades al mismo tiempo.

Wharton les recomienda y les ayuda a buscar trabajo en algo que les guste. Él se encarga de que los estudiantes llenen una serie de encuestas para averiguar sus intereses. De esa manera, puede garantizar que la experiencia laboral también les traiga beneficios para el futuro. Como explica Wharton, “y a medida que marca las casillas de esos programas de capacitación, tiene la oportunidad de avanzar.

Así es como funciona”.

Juegos Olímpicos de Invierno El 4 de febrero empezaron los Juegos Olímpicos de invierno del 2022 en Pekín, China. En estas Olimpiadas competirán 33 atletas que representan a países latinoamericanos. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, México y Perú mandaron atletas a esta competición. A pesar de que provienen de países con pocos deportes de invierno y tienen recursos limitados donde pueden entrenar, estos atletas esperan replicar el éxito que tuvieron los latinoamericanos, que rompieron barreras en los Juegos Olímpicos del verano pasado.

Uno de los contendientes es Donovan Carillo, un patinador artístico mexicano de 22 años de edad, que en su país entrenaba, principalmente, en centros comerciales. Carillo es el segundo patinador sobre hielo proveniente de México que llega al nivel olímpico, aparte de Ricardo Olavarrieta en 1992. Ecuador tiene a su primera atleta olímpica de invierno este año, la esquiadora de slalom Sarah Escobar. Otros atletas que van a competir son Laura Gomez, la patinadora de velocidad colombiana y la luger de argentina Veronica Ravenna.

También se destaca la participación de Dominique Ohaco, el esquiador de estilo libre chileno y Henrik von Appen, esquiador alpino chileno.

JAY CHAO AND LEELA MEHTA-HARWITZ

silverchips

el 10 de febrero de 2022 La Esquina Latina C4

Una carta del consejo editorial de Silver Chips

Desde el punto de vista de un fotógrafo, Union Station es arquitectónicamente perfecta. Los amplios techos abovedados crean líneas destacadas junto con el intrico trabajo en piedra de las famosas columnas. Este edificio impresionante tiende a despertar sentimientos de orgullo y comodidad al bajar de un tren llegando a casa.

Como editora de fotografía de Silver Chips, he fotografiado desde protestas contra el uso de mascarillas, hasta celebraciones de la inauguración del presidente Biden. Sin embargo, cuando llegué para capturar el vandalismo de Union Station en el Día Internacional de Conmemoración del Holocausto, tuve una respuesta emocional muy diferente a todo lo que había experimentado anteriormente.

Ver la entrada a la capital de esta nación cubierta con esvásticas–símbolos que representan la destrucción de mi comunidad–fue una experiencia para la que no estuve preparada.

Durante mi infancia he visto estos símbolos en los libros de texto de historia, películas “clásicas” como La lista de Schindler y El pianista, y en las noticias, tanto nacionales como locales, pero verlos rodeándote por todos lados yuxtapuestos contra una línea de banderas estadounidenses: es difícil expresar el sentimiento que me embargó.

Esto no era la década de 1940.

Esto no era una película. Este era mi mundo, nuestro mundo, y era muy difícil comprender lo que estaba viendo. Sin embargo, yo no estaba ajena a este sentimiento. Los niños judíos crecen con árboles familiares en los que se han cortado ramas enteras, no solo por el Holocausto, sino también por pogromos y crímenes de odio.

Crecer como judío en los Estados Unidos significa contar con la presen-

cia de seguridad armada defendiendo tus lugares sagrados, lecciones llenas de fotografías de ancestros demacrados detrás de los alambres de púas de Auschwitz y una negativa común a abordar el antisemitismo como algo más que una cosa del pasado. Al crecer como judío en los Estados Unidos, no hay advertencias previas.

Hay un peso aplastante asociado con el odio y el miedo. Es un sentimiento sofocante cuando de repente te das cuenta de que hay personas que desean hacerte daño a ti y a todo lo que te criaron para creer: es paralizante.

Al mirar a mi alrededor comencé a formular preguntas: ¿Qué tipo de persona haría esto? ¿Por qué harían esto? ¿Cuál es su meta aquí? ¿Cómo respondo a esto?

Aunque nunca le desearía esa experiencia a nadie, la imperiosa necesidad de discutir los efectos reales del antisemitismo de repente pareció más fuerte. Mientras el consejo editorial de Silver Chips revisaba las imágenes resultantes, surgió una de las preguntas más difíciles que una organización de noticias podría enfrentar: ¿Podría la publicación de esta foto alinearse con nuestros valores periodísticos y nuestra misión como periódico estudiantil?

Fue un desafío tomar la decisión de dedicar un espacio de la primera página, un espacio reservado en Silver Chips para los eventos más importantes de las últimas seis semanas, a una fotografía que presentaba un conocido símbolo de odio.

Discutimos el valor de imprimir esta imagen entre nosotros, con los líderes del Club de Cultura Judía de Blair, rabinos locales y el Coordinador de Diversidad e Inclusión de Blair, Rahman Culver. Como organización de noticias, el propósito detrás de

Herencia lingüística Por Ezequias Natanael Fuentes Meza Escritora UNA OPINIÓN En varios países latinoamericanos se hablan muchos lenguajes, que no incluye el español. Por ejemplo, en Guatemala, se hablan veintitrés diferentes lenguas indígenas.

He escuchado varios lenguajes, como el Mam, Quike y otros más. En los Estados Unidos he conocido amigos y vecinos que hablan estos idiomas.

En el caso mío, me siento feliz porque veo que todavía hay personas de mi misma región. Yo me siento orgulloso al hablarlo porque es mi primer lenguaje y además es el idioma de mis papás, con ese lenguaje crecí.

Hoy en día creo que estos idiomas no reciben su verdadero valor. Hay mucha gente que piensa que no vale la pena aprenderlos y ya no se lo enseñan a sus hijos.

De hecho, hay gente que discrimina a otras personas por hablar otro lenguaje y piensan que por hablar un lenguaje indígena es menos que ellos.

MA

IA T

UR

PE

N

Por Gabriel Ico Pacay Escritora UNA OPINIÓN Las lenguas indígenas de mi país, Guatemala, las conozco porque en las escuelas te cuentan la historia de los mayas y sobre sus los dialectos que hay en mi país.

Mi familia habla un idioma que se llama Qeq’chi pero unos cuantos hablan el español, como en mi familia yo, mi papá, y mamá, así como mis hermanas les hablan en español desde que nació, entonces en la escuela donde va le enseñan a escribir nuestro dialecto.

En las escuelas hay niños que no saben español entonces los profesores les enseñan a aprender hablar el español, así como en mi familia mi papá y mamá y mis hermanos. Cuando nací primero me enseñaron a hablar en español entonces, lo mismo hacen los maestros, ayudan a los que no saben Qeq’chi’. Algunos aprenden al mismo tiempo, y ahora mi familia habla los dos idiomas, lo que es el español y Qeq’chi. Mis papás se conocieron en la ciudad de Guatemala, entonces yo nací en la ciudad de Guatemala. o allí estudié dos años en la ciudad cuando era niño. Conforme pasó el tiempo mi papá empezó a venir a los Estados Unidos junto con mi mamá, estuvieron cuatro años en Texas. Yo me quedé con mi abuela a vivir con ella, me cuidaba, es ahí donde aprendí a hablar el dialecto.

Me sentí bien al principio cuando lo aprendí. Una vez entré a una escuela de agricultura, en esa escuela iban los que son de la ciudad. Como ellos no sabían que también era de ahí, no creían, porque hablaba como el 50% de ese idioma. Pero ya ha pasado el tiempo y me siento bien por aprender ese idioma.

nuestras conversaciones era determinar si el daño potencial de publicar un reportaje fotográfico que presenta una esvástica supera nuestro deber de informar las noticias.

Debatimos y consideramos tres opciones: imprimir una fotografía del vandalismo ya cubierto, imprimir una fotografía de una esvástica completamente descubierta o no imprimir ninguna foto de la desfiguración.

Nos dimos cuenta de que había un hilo conductor en todas nuestras conversaciones: el miedo. Estábamos dando vueltas en nuestro diálogo, paralizados por nuestro miedo a este símbolo, tanto de publicarlo como del efecto que pudiera tener en quienes lo vieran. El miedo estaba impulsando nuestra decisión. Sabíamos entonces que la fotografía tendría que ser publicada en su totalidad.

El vandalismo de Union Station no es la única vez que el odio ha levantado su fea cabeza en nuestra comunidad recientemente. A fines de diciembre, se distribuyeron volantes en Silver Spring con teorías de conspiración pandémica y un código QR vinculado a un sitio web antisemita que apoyaba la negación del Holocausto y Adolf Hitler.

Incluso dentro de las escuelas públicas del condado de Montgomery, o MCPS por sus siglas en inglés, hemos visto y experimentado varios crímenes de odio antisemitas. Más recientemente, el tres de febrero, MCPS fueron amenazadas por un ex alumno de MCPS que hizo amenazas en línea mencionando un tiroteo en la escuela previsto para el día siguiente.

No debemos olvidar que estas amenazas también contenían lenguaje dirigido a los estudiantes afro americanos. Sería negligente hablar de crímenes de odio sin abordar los crímenes de odio impuestos contra la

ARIELLE GRANSTON

Vandalismo en Union Station La estacion de tren fue la ubicacion de un crimen de odio contra la communidad judia comunidad afroamericana, otro grupo de odio contra los estadounidenses cuyos bosques de árboles familiares afroamericanos continúan siendo la están llenos de ramas cortadas por categoría individual más grande de inodio y violencia. cidentes, con una cifra de 1.930.

A pesar de que la diversidad es una Nosotros en Silver Chips creemos de las características más celebradas firmemente que los crímenes de odio de nuestra comunidad, la discrimina- son actos de cobardía: un rechazo cion aún ocurre. Mientras estos inci- a abordar lo que es horrendo dendentes apuntan a un aumento de los tro de uno mismo y la necesidad de crímenes de odio en nuestra región, arremeter y causar daño. La única también apuntan a un aumento nacio- forma en que el odio gana es cuando nal de los actos de odio hacia personas respondemos con miedo. Como orafro americanas, judías y comunidades ganización de noticias, nos negamos a queer, entre otras. enfrentar el odio y la intolerancia aleEn 2019, el FBI registró 1.521 de- jándonos de ellos. nuncias de crímenes de odio religioso.

Mientras luchábamos con esta deLos crímenes antisemitas represent- cisión de publicar la fotografía, ineviaban el 62,66 por ciento de ellos, a tablemente decidimos abrazar nuestra pesar de que la población judía del incomodidad. Esperamos que den país representa menos del 2,5 por este primer paso con nosotros mienciento de la población total. Esto sig- tras trabajamos para desmantelar las nificó un 18 por ciento de aumento barreras y crear un diálogo construccomparado al año pasado. tivo.

Se reportaron 3.963 incidentes relEncuentra LA TRADUCCIÓN en acionados con raza, etnia y ascendeningles en la pagina B3 cia en ese mismo año. Los crímenes

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Redefining A

RICO PICO

crowd of children watch as extravagantly dressed drag queen Citrine sings a remix of the popular song, “The Wheels on the Bus.” “The hips on the drag queen go shake, shake, shake,” she belts out on a Saturday morning. She trades her usual brunch performances and nightlife for an hour of reading books to children at Brookside Gardens, but she keeps her sequined outfits and sparkly makeup.

Drag, a vivacious performance style characterized by exaggerated clothing and explorations of gender presentation, is a staple in the entertainment scene of many major metropolitan areas. It has been a central element of adult nightlife for decades, with an R-rated presence in bars, clubs, and alcohol-infused brunches. “You can find a drag show every single day of the week,” Washington, D.C.-based drag queen Logan Stone says, donning her newest Lady Gaga-inspired outfit at a drag brunch at All Set Restaurant & Bar in Downtown Silver Spring.

Diverse gender expression Though cisgender, white, feminine performers tend to dominate the mainstream drag narrative, there are a slew of performers who express gender and explore presentation in radical ways within the art form.

Velvet E. Zing is transgender, and finds that drag has played a crucial role in the expression of her identity. “Being a drag queen and being trans are very heavily intertwined,” she explains. “I’m a trans man, but doing drag doesn’t take away from that at all. I want to show that I can be trans and I can be very feminine because it’s a way that I express myself.”

Many drag kings, performers who present in masculine drag, report being critically underrepresented within the drag community despite being an established niche. “You, by being a drag king, are by essence, an alternative performer,”

My deciding factor when I wanted to do drag was [that] I don’t feel represented, so I’m going to represent myself.

While the performance style is typically associated with mature audiences, it has been increasingly marketed toward new demographics—namely children. Citrine’s readings for children are a part of a national movement called Drag Queen Story Hour, with nearly 40 chapters in the U.S. Local queens like Citrine are expanding drag’s reach to children, teaching them about kindness and inclusion.

Albert Arévalo, the Volunteer & Community Engagement Coordinator for Brookside Gardens, describes some of the positive feedback from community members about drag story hours, a monthly staple in the lives of many local families. “Knowing that we could help reshape the narrative of acceptance in whatever kind of way, shape, or form in the gardens is wonderful,” he says.

Kids take the catwalk

The popularity of drag story hours is not the only form of exposure that youth have had to drag in recent years.

RuPaul’s Drag Race, a hit reality show that premiered in 2009, is often credited as the catalyst for drag’s presence in mainstream culture. The show chronicles a contest between drag queens from across the country as they compete in a series of challenges, including lip-sync battles and makeovers.

RuPaul’s Drag Race has inspired some young audience members to participate in the drag art form themselves. Velvet E. Zing, a 13-year-old drag queen and student at Takoma Park Middle School, began her drag journey by watching the famous series. “I was really into RuPaul’s Drag Race… so I just one day got the courage to do all this,” she says, gesturing to her Marilyn Monroe-inspired drag look.

Since first deciding to experiment with gender presentation through drag in February of 2021, Velvet E. Zing has developed and refined her drag persona. As a young drag performer, she feels that the popular notion of what a drag performer should look like doesn’t reflect the entire community. “When people think about drag, those who are not as educated might always assume it’s sexual in nature,” she explains. “It is so much more than that.”

Though she has not performed in front of an audience, Velvet E. Zing remarks that the drag art style has helped her connect more deeply with her identity and expression. While she has not yet found an established community of young drag performers, and still doesn’t see many other drag queens of her age, she is not discouraged in her expression. “I don’t know many other drag queens that are as young as I am, and it doesn’t really matter to me,” she says. “I just am a drag queen.”

DRAG IN ACTION Citrine and Molasses perform at All Set Restaurant & Bar in December 2021. drag king Patrick Star says.

Blaq Dinamyte, a Washington, D.C.-based drag king who is known for his impersonations of Prince and Lenny Kravitz, attributes this to the shock of seeing a feminine presentation from masculine people, as compared to masculine expression among feminine people, which can be more palatable and expected. “The idea of women dressing in men’s clothing, it’s not shocking anymore,” he says. “Nobody wants their men to be more feminine [and] weaker, so it’s more of a shock when men dress as women.”

Patrick Star says that because of the taboo and shock factor around feminine presentation in men, drag kings have a harder time amassing similar attention. “It makes you feel like you are devalued as a performer.”

Kings also encounter barriers in terms of visibility: Rico Pico, a nonbinary drag king, has personally experienced trouble with this. “There [are] not enough kings or [assigned female at birth] people out in the scene, highlighted as much as the drag queens are,” they explain. “My deciding factor when I wanted to do drag was [that] I don’t feel represented, so I’m going to represent myself.”

Even within the drag king and queen dichotomies, performers express gender and identity in diverse ways. “I present very masculinely, but I’m a non-binary person and I’m non-binary in my drag,” local drag king Molasses says.

As younger generations begin to interpret standards for gender presentation in amorphic and more fluid ways, drag artists continue to find unique ways to engage with gender on stage and with audiences. Seasoned drag performer Desiree Dik recognizes these shifts, saying that when they first

YOUTH IN DRAG 13-year-old Velvet E. Zing started doing drag in February 2021.

entered the industry and acceptance was not widespread, a lot of kings were underground. “In the beginning… we weren’t giving a lot of drag kings [the] spotlight,” they explain. “Now… a lot more people have different spaces to perform and actually be themselves.”

Looking back, strutting forward

Drag was born out of urban ballroom culture during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, when predominantly Black and Latinx members of the underground queer community began to organize cross-dressing performance competitions. Though these balls were safe places for LGBTQ+ people, they were widely thought of as immoral and were illegal until the 1920s. Queer people of color would often flock to these balls as a safe haven after being shunned by their families and society. Such balls became an escape from the homophobia and transphobia of the outside world.

Although many of the original cultural elements, like costumes and dances, are still commonplace, mainstream representations of drag often fail to depict the diversity that is fundamental to the art form. “Drag in the media is… a really tricky thing because most of the drag queens who are represented in the media are cis[gender], white, gay men,” Blair freshman and drag queen Jet Curran-Broda explains. “People forget that drag was originally started by Black people of color, queer people of color, and so much of the slang that drag queens use is actually AAVE [African American Vernacular English] and stems from Black culture,” they add.

Blaq Dinamyte observes that drag itself would not have existed without Black and brown people. “I think a lot of that history is being lost,” he explains.

The most popular consumption of drag happens through television reality shows, which many in the drag community believe fail to convey a holistic or accurate representation of the performance style. “You have this gigantic media force trying to sanitize what drag actually is,” Blaq Dinamyte says.

Rico Pico credits RuPaul’s Drag Race for bringing drag into mainstream media, but they are also skeptical of the way that it is depicted. “I am very much appreciative and I love [RuPaul’s] Drag Race. I love to see my community represented,” they say. “But it’s definitely a one-dimensional view of what drag is. Drag is an artistry. There are no rules.”

Blaq Dinamyte agrees, citing some of the dangers of this limited representation.

Feb. 10, 2022 Features D1/D2

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tertainment for their patrons to purchase more drinks and make the bar more money.” She recommends tipping performers like herself and buying the menu offerings at drag venues.

“Local drag is so important and so beautiful,” Logan Stone says. Greater attendance of local shows promotes the success of drag on a more personal scale.

Finding meaning in drag

In the four years that Venus Valhalla has been doing drag, she found her favorite part to be the connections she made with audience members in conversations after shows.

“Knowing everyone knows who I am and [that] I’m a safe space people can come to… is really the most important [thing] to me,” she says.

Along with audience participation and being able to impact people through performing, Logan Stone loves the relationships built with people who watch her. “I’ve had so many meaningful conversations at these shows, like people getting to explore themselves… and [getting] exposed to something new and something different,” she explains.

Drag helps Rico Pico make another important connection—one with themself. “It’s a way to express yourself and it unlocks a lot inside of you… because art is vulnerability,” they explain. “It gives you this fearlessness [and] you really express yourself in ways that words just can’t.”

Many drag artists express that drag allows them to express the parts of their personalities that they don’t always get to share with the world. Molasses presents themself with a western look, complete with cowboy hats and other country staples, even though it doesn’t reflect their life outside of drag.

“I like really Black, Southern, country influences in my look.

As an homage really, not so much as something I grew up in,” they explain.

“Every time something goes mainstream, it doesn’t represent the actual community,” he says. “[RuPaul’s] Drag Race makes a false representation of what it is to do drag… you’re seeing a very stylized, very polished version.”

Blaq Dinamyte explains the balance between honoring drag’s radical roots and entertaining mainstream audiences.

“It’s a constant battle between the image that society wants, and what drag actually is and where it came from, and how beneficial it was to the community when it started,” he says.

Spotlight on business

LOGAN STONE

I’ve had so many meaningful conversations at these shows, like people getting to explore themselves… and [getting] exposed to something new and something different.

“I can barely do jump splits in this room, let alone a studio apartment,” local drag queen Venus Valhalla says, gesturing to the vast space between tables at All Set Restaurant & Bar. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic left her trying to perform to the best of her ability on online shows through platforms like Zoom.

Drag is not only an imaginative performance style, it can also be a business venture for many participants. As performing drag is Venus Valhalla’s full time job, the limitations on in-person gatherings for the past two years have posed a significant challenge for her. Online shows have left her without the support of a business or in-person venue, and therefore without their financial support. “The problem is without a business backing, there’s no booking fee,” she explains. “If the audience is five people on the other side of the screen, you’re not making very much money.”

In large cities and drag hotspots like New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles, it is common for drag to be a full time job, often due to large venues catered towards tourists.

While there are celebrity drag stars, there is far less glamor and luxury for many local performers—drag is often just another gig. According to Venus Valhalla, a venue will usually give a group of performers a show budget, which is then split among them. The combination of a booking fee, which is a flat rate, and whatever tips are collected during their performances is what they go home with, whether as a full time job or a part time hobby.

Venus Valhalla emphasizes that going to local drag events is the best way to support the art and its performers. “As a job and as a career, the job of drag is to facilitate the sales of alcohol,” she says. “The bar is paying me to provide en-

Although the drag industry is making strides to diversify its appeal and audiences, there are certain groups for which it is still inaccessible. Velvet E. Zing, who is autistic, has found that her sensory challenges have led to difficulties watching and potentially participating in some drag shows. “It’s really important to work on creating more accessible drag spaces for disabled folks, which I don’t see very often,” she says.

Curran-Broda says that although those who explore expression through drag may be expected to perform in front of a live audience, there are a variety of ways to express their art. “While there is an expectation that you perform in drag, everyone has their own version of doing their performance, whether it be showing it off to their parents, doing a show for their dog, or just taking pictures that [they] can either post on social media or just show to [their] family and friends,” they explain.

Whatever the performance format, drag can inspire others, and as Velvet E. Zing explains, help people work up the courage to start performing themselves. She refers to the first drag show she ever attended as “the first little spark that started this drag craze of mine,” and thinks that an increase of available shows would open this “magical experience” to others.

Rico Pico notices a domino effect emerging as representation in drag expands to include more marginalized identities. “I know no matter what, at my show, there will always be a queer kid that sees me and sees themselves.

And that’s very important, because representation matters,” says Rico Pico.

They also offer advice for those interested in drag. “Take your time and do it coming from your heart,” Rico Pico urges. “Don’t do it for anyone else… do it for you, and your audience will love it.”

Molasses explains that there are many different forms by which people imbue their drag with meaning. “Drag doesn’t look like one thing. It doesn’t feel like any one thing,” they say.

Different in D.C. According to Molasses, Washington, D.C.’s individuality lends itself to a drag industry that reflects its creativity and flair. “There’s talent oozing out of the city—so much talent, so much diversity,” Rico Pico agrees. “You have your pageant girls, or like me, the alternative queens and kings. Everyone’s different in D.C.” The most common sentiment among artists: drag is expansive and means something different to everyone involved. There is not just one singular image of what drag is, as has been popularized by the media. The drag scene in the Washington, D.C. area confirms this, with its performers recognizing and celebrating the local industry’s great diversity. “Drag is for everybody,” Logan Stone says. “You can be a straight, cisgender, white male—you can do drag. You can be the total polar opposite of that—you can still do drag.

Drag is for everybody. It’s an art form. It’s an expression of yourself.”

Story by John Ernst, Annie Goldman, Sofia Roehrig, and Zachary Williamson Art by Karis Tebo Photos by Arielle Granston and courtesy of Sam Levy Design by Andre Parker and Sophia Stein

D3 Features Feb. 10, 2022

On mental health

By Ingrid Holmquist Staff Writer

silverpatrons silver patrons

Mr. Eric W. and Dr. Jamie S. Padmore

Platinum

Kate Stewart

Silver

Bronze

Por Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo y Sofia Roehrig Editora en Jefe y Escritora “Bastantes veces es la costumbre en los países de allá… ver a alguien con depresión es visto como algo diferente, algo raro”, explica Susan Molina, terapeuta para La Clínica del Pueblo, una organización sin fines de lucro basado en D.C. y Maryland, sobre el estigma de la salud mental que afecta a los latinxs.

Este estigma se refiere a la vacilación de personas que bregan con problemas de salud mental para acceder a recursos que se dedican a apoyarles. Molina cree que este estigma proviene de tradiciones culturales arraigadas en la comunidad latinx.

Andre Guadalupe, un estudiante del doceavo grado, está de acuerdo y añade que él mismo se ha sentido alienado en su experiencia con la salud mental. “Sí, yo creo que mucha gente se siente un poco incómoda o tienen miedo de que los vayan a tachar y hacer de locos o de que solo es algo que se te va pasar o de que eres adolescente o es algo normal. Pero a veces, hay veces no tiene que ser tratado como algo tan simple”.

Adicionalmente, las disparidades en el tratamiento de salud mental se puede atribuir a la falta de acceso a los recursos.

De acuerdo con la Alianza Nacional sobre Enfermedades Mentales, o NAMI por sus siglas en inglés, los latinxs son un grupo de alto riesgo para la depresión, la ansiedad, y el abuso de sustancias.

“Mayormente se ve lo que se llama el trauma, el trastorno de estrés postraumático, la depresión, la ansiedad, ajustándose a la cultura acá, la nueva vida, el sistema escolar especialmente”, dice Molina en respecto a las preocupaciones únicas de salud mental de la comunidad latinx.

Esos sentimientos, causados por la transición de vivir en un país nuevo son comunes.

Guadalupe elabora que el cambio de idioma y ambiente le afectó mucho: “Vine aquí y de la nada me convertí en una minoría y fue un experiencia un poco chocante para mí…

También, la barrera del lenguaje también me chocó bastante”.

Aunque hay altas tasas de problemas psiquiátricos en la comunidad latinx, son un grupo que crónicamente tiene deficiencia para acceder a servicios de salud mental.

NAMI halla que aproximadamente el 34 por ciento de los adultos latinxs con enfermedades mentales reciben tratamiento cada año, en comparación con el promedio estadounidense del 45 por ciento.

Acceder a cuidado mental es difícil para personas de todas las razas y etnias, sin embargo, los latinxs enfrentan barreras únicas—tales como diferencias de idioma y un promedio de cobertura de atención médica por debajo de la media. Hay una serie de obstáculos que los inmigrantes deben saltar para recibir cobertura de salud, y esta información a menudo es difícil de buscar, especialmente si no hablas inglés.

La Ley del Cuidado de Salud a Bajo Precio (o ACA por sus siglas en inglés) ha reducido las brechas raciales en el acceso a la atención médica, pero los latinos aún tienen casi tres veces más probabilidades de no tener seguro que los blancos no hispanos, de acuerdo con datos publicados por el Fondo de Mancomunidad.

La realidad es que para abordar las preocupaciones únicas de salud mental de la comunidad latinx, los servicios de salud mental deben usar tácticas de tratamiento únicas. La Asociación Americana de Psiquiatría publicó una lista, preparada por la doctora Lisa Fortuna M.D., de prácticas eficaces para apoyar a latinxs con problemas de salud mental. Esta lista menciona la importancia de la familia y conexiones personales en la cultura latina y cómo el contraste con la cultura individualista de los Estados Unidos causa problemas de salud mental.

Usar prácticas que son culturalmente sensibles es necesario para poder apoyar a los pacientes de forma efectiva. Molina explica que las técnicas usadas por su organización han cosechado altas tasas de eficacia con sus pacientes. “En nuestro refugio todos hablamos español, todos nosotros somos latinos.

Venimos de Centroamérica, así que ya tenemos ese entendimiento de qué significa ser en un lugar donde no conocemos a nadie, no conocemos el lenguaje”, dice ella.

Otros servicios, como terapeutas latinxs que específicamente y únicamente traten a pacientes latinxs o grupos que provean terapia a gratis para latinxs con trauma, han comenzado a repuntar como medios de apoyo para mejorar la brecha de recursos para latinxs con problemas de salud mental.

Estos terapeutas tienen que asegurarse que estén pendientes a la diversidad de la experiencia latinx. Tal como Deysi Vicente, una estudiante de décimo grado, elabora “que cada persona es diferente aunque solo está en una comunidad”.

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Diamond Gold

Contra el estigma

ANG LUCIA W

Student mental health became a notable topic throughout last year’s period of isolation, as many called attention to increases in anxiety and depression, especially among young people. With the return to in-person learning in MCPS, many hoped that these feelings would largely subside. However, since the start of this school year, staff, students, and parents have had to confront an upsetting reality: that isolation may have gone away, but student distress hasn’t.

Blair Security team leader Darryl Cooper acknowledged that while some students are adjusting well to in-person learning, others are struggling. “I do see a lot of kids that are more grateful that they’re back… but you do have some that it has had an adverse effect on,” he says.

MCPS director of psychological services Christina Conolly-Chester notes that the county has seen a rise in students making threats of violence this year. “Anecdotally, we are seeing increases in students who are making threats against others,” she reports.

Conolly-Chester attributes the majority of this to the struggles of readjusting to school after the COVID-19 lockdown. “The overall fear of going outside and catching a deadly disease, and then having to go back out and do things… has created a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety,” she says.

According to WTOP, within the first ten weeks of in-person learning, police reported 48 assaults in MCPS schools, a sharp jump from the 51 assaults reported throughout the entirety of the 2018-2019 school year, the last full in-person school year. Some of the most extreme events were the Nov. 9 stabbing in Blair’s parking lot and the Jan. 21 shooting of a student at Magruder.

Blair junior Anika Rai has observed an increase in aggression throughout the Blair hallways. Rai believes that the time students lost to isolation has left them with blank spots in their problem-solving skills. “I think we lost some core developmental years being in isolation… [and it had] a detrimental effect on emotional well-being,” she notes.

Rai empathizes with the peers she’s seen lash out, acknowledging that sometimes it feels like the easiest way to express feelings.

“Sometimes it’s easier for people to take it out [with violence],” she explains.

Junior Habib Camara also attributes much of the violence to isolation, though suggests that poor social skills are also simply a side effect of being a teenager. “We’re high school students. We’re already bad at communication,” he explains. “And now we’re even worse.”

To address the mental health concerns that might be contributing to school violence, MCPS counselors and psychologists are implementing solutions. Conolly-Chester shares that the county is planning to implement a new Social Emotional Learning

(SEL) curriculum to foster flexibility and resilience in students. While the full program is not yet available at Blair, Conolly-Chester explains that there are abbreviated versions in schools to aid in the readjustment period.

“We have other SEL lessons that are available… [through] advisory or community circles,” she says.

Rai believes that some of these initiatives can be unproductive and that Blair students might benefit from a different approach. “I know [MCPS has] presentations about mental health and they tried to do community circles, but I’m not sure if it works,” she explains.

Junior Ana Susskind agrees, pointing out that mental health education in schools is often surface-level and refuses to go beyond the basics. “They’re just mentioning it, but not actually going into detail about it,” they explain.

The Blair counseling department has some new initiatives planned to support students in more productive ways. Counselor Raolat Agbedina explains that the first semester back in person has primarily been used to identify areas of concern in students and that those findings will soon be used to develop additional resources. “The first semester was really an opportunity to collect as much data as possible to see where we need the most support,” she says. “Now we’re able to implement different programs to support students… outside of the individual work they do with their individual counselors.”

Some of these new programs include support groups for grief and depression that will be available for students who are struggling.

In addition, Blair has brought in therapists to be at school every day for students who need professional mental health care. Going forward, Agbedina is hopeful that this period of instability can contribute to long-lasting mental health resources.

“We’re hoping with the rollout of the different group sessions we’re going to do… that this could be something that is a normal part of Blair, not just because of what’s happening now.”

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Feb. 10, 2022 Features D4

Crime sparks concern

Montgomery County homicide rate at its highest since 1985

By Lucía Santoro-Vélez and Sophia Stein Staff Writers “I’ve been a resident of this county long enough to know that we’ve revitalized Silver Spring. We’re not going to lose Silver Spring to [crime],” State’s Attorney for Montgomery County John McCarthy said at an impromptu press conference following an 18year old’s bond hearing. Their charge, a fatal stabbing on the morning of Dec. 7, is one of many incidents included in the recent uptick in reported crime in Downtown Silver Spring, just minutes from Blair’s campus.

Among other incidents are a Jan. 17 armed robbery of a CVS on Georgia Avenue, a Jan. 18 shooting at the Travelodge hotel on 13th street, and a Jan. 19 carjacking at the Summit Hill Apartments.

Data presented on Dec. 6, 2021 at the Montgomery County Public Safety Committee’s Crime Briefing concluded that the county saw increases in violent crime—including homicide, aggravated assault, and carjacking—between the first three quarters of 2020 and the first three quarters of 2021.

According to Bethesda Beat, as of Dec. 31, 2021, there were 35 recorded homicides in the county throughout 2021, the highest annual rate since 1985.

All Set Restaurant and Bar managing partner Jennifer Meltzer wrote in an email to Silver Chips that the effects of heightened crime on the restaurant’s business have been challenging to measure. “It is hard to directly correlate the volume of business to the rise in crime because of the pandemic,” she writes.

Meltzer feels that the recent events in Silver Spring have been alarming nonetheless.

“I worry for our team and my business,” she writes. “Silver Spring has so much to offer, and it is a shame that on top of all the other difficulties we have faced over the past two years that violence and crime are now major areas of concern.”

Increases in crime have also raised controversy over how the county should best respond. McCarthy and Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich are among those who support a sustained police presence. Other groups advocate for defunding the police and reallocating funding towards other government agencies funded by Montgomery County, recommending that the funding go to social service workers and improving infrastructure.

Student activist and Watkins Mill senior Hasham Ali Khan believes that instead of an increased police presence, the county’s resources should improve community infrastructure and create safety nets for its citi-

This rise is unusual for Montgomery County, which typically experiences lower rates of crime in comparison to the national downward trending crime rates since the 1990s. According to a 2020 report on crime, Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Crime in U.S. Cities, homicide and aggravated assault rates increased similarly across the country, even as almost every other type of crime decreases. Most nonviolent crime has decreased in Montgomery County, with the exception of identity theft and auto theft, which increased in between the first three quarters of 2020 compared to that of 2021.

McCarthy stated in his press conference that drug distribution was also a significant trend over the summer and into the fall at Veterans Plaza, where many community members spend time ice skating and visiting the Silver Spring Farmers market throughout the year. Drug deals gone wrong, such as the case that led to the Dec. 7 stabbing, have escalated some illegal but initially nonviolent interactions into fatal ones.

Crime patterns have raised some concern from public officials, law enforcement personnel, business owners, and people who work and live downtown.

zens. Khan argues that creating aid programs such as soup kitchens and incentivizing green jobs—sustainable jobs that positively impact the economy and environment—will significantly reduce crime. Still, he feels that police can remain in a diminished form. “We can achieve our goals without increasing funding for the police. That being said, do I feel

like we need to abolish all the Montgomery County Police? Of course not,” Khan says.

However, Khan is adamant that police officers must be held responsible for their actions. “We cannot let them escape the rules and regulations that we would put on any other citizen,” he says. “We need them to do their job and to be held accountable when they don’t do it correctly.”

Amid polarizing conversations about the role of police, McCarthy has stressed that he believes it is crucial to maintain a strong police presence in Silver Spring during this time. “One suggestion [is that] we would reduce the presence of police by 50 percent in the central business district of Silver Spring,” he stated at the press conference. “That absolutely makes no sense in light of what we’re facing right now.”

Elrich agrees that a fortified police presence can curb crime. “Having police around deters street crime, and I think it certainly makes people think about what they’re going to do,” Elrich says in an interview with Silver Chips, citing results in Fairfax County. “[The county] had lower levels of petty crime because they had more and more of a presence on the street.”

Elrich also points out, however, that steps need to be taken to ensure that a higher rate of policing doesn’t prompt unnecessary conflicts, especially during a time with high levels of police mistrust. “I think it’s really important for us to focus on training officers… we need much better training [for] de-escalation,” he says.

Elrich adds that creating accountability is crucial to building trust within the local community. “What we need to do is to have high expectations for the police. Folks should be happy when they live up to our expectations, and they should expect consequences when they don’t,” he says.

LUCÍA SANTORO-VÉLEZ

VIOLENT CRIME INCREASE Data is courtesy of the Montgomery County Council Staff Report, and percent change compares the first three quarters of 2020 to those of 2021.

corrections December 2021 A1

The “Santa’s not coming to town” photo story should have been attributed to Arielle Granston.

A1

The “Change on the horizon” story was missing a jump to page D3.

A1

The photo for “Teacher burnout” should have been attributed to Colin Lederer.

B1

Ray Shen was referred to as Ray Cho in Voicebox.

C2

Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo was spelled Cecilia Clemens Vargo Lugo.

Other policing efforts by Montgomery County include a Crime Suppression Task Force created through a collaboration between the Montgomery County Police Department and McCarthy’s office. The Task Force is composed of prosecutors and police officers, and it focuses on Downtown Silver Spring.

According to Director of Public Affairs for the State’s Attorney Lauren DeMarco, the task force focuses on crimes such as robbery, armed robbery, burglary, distribution of drugs, and handgun charges. The State’s Attorney’s Office has devoted several prosecutors specifically to the Task Force to address cases that arise from arrests.

Having police around deters street crime... it certainly makes people think about what they’re going to do.

MARC ELRICH

HENRY REICHLE

POLICE PRESENCE A police car makes its way around Downtown Silver Spring.

LUCÍA SANTORO-VÉLEZ

NON-VIOLENT CRIME DROP Data is courtesy of the Montgomery County Council Staff Report, and percent change compares the first three quarters of 2020 to those of 2021.

So far, the Task Force has made some progress with identifying and addressing crime. “They are looking at more than 50 cases right now… [which are] either under investigation or with charges pending or filed,” DeMarco says.

McCarthy promises that efforts to make Silver Spring a safer area will continue.

“We’re going to do everything we can [including] working with the police [and] working with all the elected officials in Montgomery County to bring some sense to what’s going on down in Silver Spring,” he stated in the Dec. 9 press conference.

Among other recommendations, Elrich spoke about the importance of law enforcement maintaining a protective attitude rather than a combative one. “One big one is creating a culture of being a guardian rather than being a warrior. If you’re a warrior, you’re always in battle,” he says. “If you’re a guardian, you’re a protector of the people.”

McCarthy, Elrich, and other public officials have promised that efforts to restore safety in Silver Spring are ongoing. “We’re making some progress… but we have some work to do,” McCarthy said at the press conference.

Elrich voiced his concern for those affected by crime and expressed the County’s efforts to make improvements. “Knowing all that’s happening, we are doing everything we can to provide a presence and a tone that helps correct the situation that evolved in Downtown Silver Spring,” he said.

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D5 Features Feb. 10, 2022

Diaspora divided by fighting in Ethiopia

Eritrea, who gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

The conflict has continued to escalate, with many clashes between forces happening over the last year. There is no reliable specific death toll, but thousands of Ethopians have died, including many civilians. A report from the United Nations found that citizens have been subject to unlawful killings, torture, destruction of property, abductions, and rape.

Tigrayans in particular have faced discrimination and violence.

“Our neighbors [in Ethiopia] who are [Tigrayan] have been discriminated against, they’ve been beat-

en, and then killed,” Betremariam says.

Many of the country’s citizens are subsistence farmers, depending on their crops for their livelihood. The attacks have affected agriculture in Ethiopia, leaving many citizens struggling to support themselves and their families.

“Millions… need food assistance, because millions of farmers… lived in areas which were affected… There was a farming system but they couldn’t do it because there was an active conflict going on,” Tegbar Yigzaw Sendekie says.

Sendekie is the project director of USAID’s Jhpiego Ethiopia’s health workforce improvement program, which is based in the nation’s capital of

Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers have intentionally killed oxen and destroyed crops as a war tactic, making it difficult to harvest and save for next year. “Next farming season, even if they’re back on their farm, they don’t have the oxen they need to plow [and] they don’t have the seeds to plant. It starts to create this spiral,” Project Mercy CEO Bete Demeke says.

Project Mercy is an Ethiopian organization dedicated to reducing poverty in Ethiopia. According to data from Reuters, this damage to the agricultural system has left over 400,000 in famine in Tigray, and 1.8 million more on the brink of famine across Ethiopia, as of July 2021.

Tigray, as well as neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar, were occupied by TPLF forces in 2021, causing normal life to halt. Schools have been forced to suspend teaching and send students home, and hospitals have been shut down or destroyed. “In the past four or five months the war had a very devastating impact because the rebel groups had intentionally targeted health facilities,” Tegbar says. “More than 2,000 health facilities have been destroyed or looted.”

This damage to Ethiopia’s healthcare infrastructure means millions of people in the country now lack access to basic health services. “Equipment in hospitals, [was]…shot with guns or whatever they have, so it’s not that functional,” Demeke says. “When you think about the schools, and the hospitals, just to mention the two sectors, they have to be rebuilt again.”

ALEXANDER LIU

from ETHIOPIA page A1

The Silver Spring area is often referred to as “Little Ethiopia” with almost 13,000 Ethiopian residents—the largest Ethiopian community outside of Ethiopia.

“There’s always been a stigma between all of the tribes within Ethiopia,” Tigrayan Blair sophomore Melat Alemseged says. “I’ve always felt not welcome [in the community].”

Some Ethiopian students at Blair feel that the local East African community has fractured due to the conflict. “It has divided us into a lot of groups. Some people support the government, and some people don’t,” Betremariam says.

“It has caused a problem in our community.”

Alemseged also feels that the divide in the community has worsened. “I can’t wear anything representing Tigray, or I will be shunned,” she says.

The hostility is exacerbated by existing tensions along tribal, regional, and religious lines, which extend into Blair’s club. “It has to do with tribes,” Betremariam explains. “Some people are [Tigrinya], some people are Oromia, some people are Amhara, so we are kind of divided.”

The prime minister’s alliance with the Eritrean military has further complicated the effect on the community. Blair sophomore Sofia Woldeab, Eritrean co-secretary of Blair’s We the East club, believes that the history between the two nations makes the issue even more contentious. “The fact that Eritrea is involved has definitely caused more of a divide, especially because before I felt like being friends with Ethiopians wasn’t a big deal,” she says. “Now that it’s my government hurting them… it’s a little more strange.”

According to a joint investi-

gation by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the UN Human Rights Office, it is estimated that Ethiopia has almost two million displaced people and hundreds of thousands of casualties, many of them children. “I wish people knew how much the children were suffering,” Alemseged says. “They’re being raped, killed, they’re watching their parents die in front of them.”

This, along with the destruction of schools and hospitals, will take a toll on the country’s efforts to rebuild. “When you think about rebuilding this kind of a problem, you can almost think of it as starting all over again,” Demeke explains.

“You’re actually using valuable resources and money that you could have used to help expand the hospitals or the schools or improve farming. Instead, what you’re going to [have to] do is… use that same amount of money just to build back to where you were before the conflict started.”

The effort to rebuild Ethiopia’s healthcare system, education system, agricultural system, and infrastructure will require material and financial contributions as well, Tegbar explains. Ethiopian emigrants and others around the world have mobilized to provide aid during the crisis, and Tegbar urges those abroad to contribute time and resources so that Ethiopia can progress past the destruction. Americans can support organizations that are working on the ground, as well as donate to Ethiopian government programs specific to the rebuilding of the country. “I think it is a humane thing to do, to contribute financially in kind to help rebuild their livelihood, rebuild health facilities and ensure quality health care is available to all,” he says.

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Feb. 10, 2022 Features D6

Students and satellites

By Milan Tenn Staff Writer “It’s really cool that teenagers in high school have the drive to… get something into space,” Blair science teacher Arlynda Jorgensen says. “It takes a lot of years to get that going, but just the passion, the drive that they have, I think it is pretty amazing.”

Jorgensen is the sponsor of Blair3sat, a club of Blair students that has been working to develop a satellite since 2017.

Though Blair3sat has historically met in thee Rockville Public Library, they started to meet at Blair during the 2021-2022 school year.

Blair3sat’s goal is to develop a cubeshaped satellite, or a CubeSat, to take measurements in the atmosphere. “[A CubeSat] is like a Rubik’s Cube size satellite because technology shrunk down a lot,” Blair junior and Blair3sat member Vijay Shanmugam says. “You don’t need to launch school bus size satellites anymore to get a mission done.”

According to Blair3sat founder and Blair alumnus Ryan Tse, when radio waves are sent into space, they go through a part of the atmosphere called the ionosphere, where atoms with electric charges, called ions, influence them. “If you send certain radio waves into the ionosphere, like if you send it at a glance angle into space, weird things happen to radio waves,” Tse says. “In some cases, they get bent.

Other times, they get reflected by these ions.”

The way that ions influence radio waves can be predicted by using measurements of electron density, which is essentially the number of negatively charged particles in a certain amount of space. According to Blair senior and Blair3sat team lead An-

SOP H

IA LI

drew Healey, Blair3sat’s mission is to create a CubeSat that measures the ionosphere’s electron density.

“People measure the… ionosphere because it’s useful for radio transmissions and some understanding of the atmosphere, but their current measurement methods are limited,” Healey says.

As electron density is not consistent throughout the atmosphere, a satellite such as Blair3sat’s CubeSat that determines electron density in real time is needed to make accurate predictions. “If you give me the electron density of a

point in the ionosphere now, within 10 minutes, it’ll be a completely different value,” Shanmugam says.

“You need to have some amount of data about what the electron density is around there.”

Blair3sat’s CubeSat will have two instruments to measure electron density: an optical instrument and a radio frequency (RF) instrument. According to Healey, the RF instrument functions similarly to a radar. “We have a radar instrument, and we basically use radar concepts in a new way,” Healey says.

Blair3sat optical sub team leader and Blair senior Benjamin Cohen adds that the optical instrument will be able to analyze light as it orbits the planet. “The objective is to develop an instrument that can be run in low Earth orbit,” Cohen says. “Essentially, it takes in measurements from these photometric emissions from a variety of sources in the atmosphere, and kind of decompiles them and processes them.”

In order to build their satellite and accomplish their science missions, Blair3sat requires funding, which they obtain from various sources, including nonprofit organizations and grants. “We… do things like CubeSat Launch Initiative, which is like a competition, and [we] compete to win launch places on… rockets,” Healey says.

“We’ve also applied for individual companies, talking to different aerospace places, who give us mentors, parks, and funding.”

While Blair3sat has adequate funding to support the creation of

COURTESY OF BLAIR3SAT

CUBE IN THE SKY A 3D model of the satellite when deployed. their optical and RF instruments, they do not yet have the funding to build their satellite fully. “Right now we have… basically enough to pay for our science missions, but not for our CubeSat,” Healey says. “This is probably the biggest limiter on the… schedule of the launch.”

Currently, Blair3sat reports they are not spending large sums of money. Instead, according to Healey, they simply delegate small portions of money to whichever part of Blair3sat requires it.

“Most of our purchases right now are small enough that we can do them out of pocket or using small amounts of money,” Healey continues.

According to Blair3sat member Michael Ilie, persistence is also important for Blair3sat members, as the project requires more motivation than a project seen as likely to succeed. “You have to have a great deal of drive to want to be in this because it’s not a conventional club or the robotics team where you can join and results are almost expected or guaranteed,” Ilie says. “This is a real world problem.”

Though Blair3sat has

historically been a group primarily made up of magnet students, Blair3sat says that they welcome any prospective members who are willing to put in time and effort toward the club to join. “Even if you have questions, this isn’t a cutthroat group of kids,” Ilie says. “We’re very open to people who are willing to learn and willing to execute, but the key word there is willing.”

Ilie is not certain that Blair3sat will actually launch a CubeSat, as it is an enormous feat for high school students, but he believes that sufficient time and effort into the project will lead the club to success. “The odds are against us in that we’ll get this up [and] launch a CubeSat,” Ilie says.

“But with the right mind, and the right persevera n c e , we’ll get there.”

From Blair to blast off

By Christy Li Staff Writer “I’ve been interested in being an astronaut for basically as far back as I can remember. I don’t know where it started, but I have very distinct memories of being a tiny little kid, maybe a five-yearold, and drawing pictures of the Space Shuttle,” Chris Williams, Montgomery Blair High School class of 2001, reminisces.

Williams is one of ten astronaut candidates selected by NASA out of a pool of 12,000 applicants for the 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class to undergo the intensive astronaut training program. For Williams, this achievement represents not only the fulfillment of a childhood dream, but also the highlight of a research career which began at Blair.

“Blair was an incredibly important part of me getting to where I am in my career, not only as an astronaut, but also the things that I was doing before getting selected as an astronaut,” Williams explains.

“Growing up, I had always been really interested in math and science, but it wasn’t until I got to Blair that I’d really been able to fully explore the depths of

what’s possible.”

As a sophomore, after being encouraged to apply to the Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program conducted by the Department of Navy by his Earth Science teacher at Blair, Williams secured an internship at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory where he was tasked to study supernova SN1988Z. Williams credits this experience as his introduction to work inside a laboratory. “The biggest thing is that it made me realize that I could be a scientist, and science was a very viable career track for me,” he says.

While enrolled at Stanford University studying physics, Williams returned to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory each year to work as a summer intern throughout college.

After pursuing radio astronomy in graduate school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams decided it was time for a change of pace. Wanting to apply his physics knowledge to problems that were a bit more down-to-earth, Williams applied and was accepted to a Harvard Medical School postdoctoral medical physics program. At the time of his selection as an astronaut candidate, Williams was working with particle accelerators for cancer radiation therapy as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Through his work, Williams has come to appreciate aspects of both astronomy and

medical physics. “Astronomy is incredibly impactful, but just in a very different way, and in a way that’s a little bit more removed,” he explains. “I really enjoyed the fact that when I was working as a medical physicist, every single day you go to work, you’re working as a physicist, but you’re also making a very big and direct impact on somebody’s life.”

hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. After submitting his application back in March of 2020, Williams did not hear back from NASA until April of 2021 due to COVID-19-related delays with selection.

Out of thousands of applicants, Williams was one of 120 who were flown down to Houston, Texas for interviews.

“One of the things that was really awesome to see throughout the selection process is when you get to meet the other people that you’re interviewing with, and realize just how incredible everybody around you is… It sets off a little bit of that imposter syndrome that I know I certainly have, and I think a lot of us have,” Williams recalls.

After multiple rounds of medical and psychological testing and more interviews with NASA’s COURTESY OF CHRIS WILLIAMS astronaut selection board, Williams believes his varied Williams received the deciding call background in astrophysics and after dropping his daughter off at medical research, two areas that daycare one day. “I was just absoNASA values highly, helped set lutely stunned. It was one of those him apart during the astronaut se- moments where you’re left entirely lection process. He also credits his jaw dropping to the floor, speechexperiences working on both re- less, not really sure how to react,” search and clinical teams in prepar- Williams recalls. ing him for the collaborative nature For the next few years, the astroof work as an astronaut. naut candidates will train in five key The basic requirements to apply areas: space station systems, robotic to be an astronaut include a mas- arm operations, Russian language, ter’s degree in STEM fields and at spacewalking, and flight training.

Williams is over-the-moon about least two years of relevant professional experience or at least 1,000 each and every aspect of his future

with NASA. “I’m really excited,” Williams says. “The chance to fly in space is really special, and the chance to do that while also doing research and furthering our scientific knowledge is really compelling to me.”

Williams is eager and honored to play an integral part in humanity’s continued exploration of the cosmos. “It speaks to that sort of exploration spirit that I think humanity has. I think it’s something that’s there in all of us, this sort of desire to explore,” Williams explains.

For any budding scientists and astronauts at Blair, Williams offers a few words of advice. “Keep going and don’t sell yourself short…

Don’t let any feelings of imposter syndrome stop you from pursuing what you’re passionate about. Keep going and keep being passionate about STEM,” he encourages. “I think Blair is a pretty special place in terms of the resources and the people around you, or at least I felt that way when I was there. Really enjoy that and take advantage of that as much as you can, because it’s a really fantastic and special place to be.”

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E1 Culture Feb. 10, 2022

O JAY CHA

By Maybelle Patterson and Jasper Swartz Culture Editors According to James Simone, crystal expert and store manager of The Enchanted Fae metaphysical shop on University Boulevard, first time crystal users don’t always understand what they’re getting into.

Many customers come to her store seeking an amorphous green gemstone called moldavite, notorious for causing emotional turmoil.

“I had these girls come in and want to buy moldavite as their first crystal and I’m standing there [saying], ‘I’m not gonna sell it to you,” she says.

Simone explains that the sought-after stone amplifies emotions and can even lead to the user cutting ties with friends. “They don’t understand the power behind it,” she says.

Crystals’ powers, which have been used by some communities for centuries to promote healing, are said to originate from their unique molecular structure. “Crystals emit positive, uplifting, energizing, and calming vibrations that help you achieve a more peaceful mind and a revitalized physical state of being,” crystal shop owner Heather Askinosie told Oprah Daily.

Social media apps like TikTok have brought the crystal community increasing popularity over the past year. “Last year, to be exact, is when I was like, ‘What’s going on? [Why is everyone] coming in looking for moldavite? Why is everyone looking for carnelian?”

Simone says.

Since 2010, Simone has been using crystals to connect with both herself and the world around her.

To her, managing her store, which is only a short walk from Blair, is about more than turning a profit

from colorful rocks. “I’m not just selling [crystals]. I use these,” she says. “I’m educating people on how to understand and how to be drawn to them.”

For her, crystals are powerful tools that can influence many different areas of life. “There are stones for prosperity… There are stones for protection,” she says.

“There are stones for love that… can help you even promote and project more love.”

She also uses crystals to express her identity as a genderfluid person by using sunstone to connect with her masculine side and moonstone for femininity. “[Crystals are] anti-culture,” she explains. “[Queer people have] been shunned for years, and yet, this is a way for us to understand our power, understand who we are.”

Simone knows that crystal use can be intimidating, but she recommends following your intuition instead of the latest TikTok trends.

A great starter crystal is the user-friendly clear quartz. “It is the universal healer. It’s fabulous,” she says.

of peppering our resident crystal expert, Simone, with questions for nearly half an hour, I was nevertheless anxious that my slightest wrong move would render my carnelian’s motivational powers useless.

Simone warned me that any results would be subtle. Even so, I began journaling every day, eagerly hoping to find myself writing, “Wow! I feel so motivated and infused with energy!” Unfortunately, I had no such luck, and got used to logging, “Nothing today.” I tried not to be impatient, but with senioritis slowly settling in, you can’t blame me for hoping a magic crystal could help.

The first change I noticed was quite the opposite of motivation; I began to question my intent. Why did I want to be motivated so badly? Was I actually a slacker, or was I just living through a global pandemic? Was I just becoming a slave to capitalism? Is anything real?

Having overcome this minor existential crisis, I finally began to see shifts in my behavior. Every night when I start my homework, I write

Maybelle reviews the rocks When I decided to try out crystals to help with my motivation, I was skeptical that a little chunk of rust-colored carnelian would change my life forever. And to be honest, I don’t know if it has. Luckily, it still made for a rock ing time!

But before I could find myself, I had to get lost. As a newcomer to crystals, this task was intensely simple. Though I had the privilege

one day, I even had time afterward to bake a loaf of bread. But one change absolutely blew my mind.

Each morning, no less than eight alarms are necessary to get me out of the door, starting at 6 and continuing until I have to leave the house at 6:50. I often find myself waking up with scarcely five minutes to sprint out the door—breakfast uneaten, clothes mismatched, and backpack open. So when I checked the clock on the eighth day of my crystal journey, I was amazed to see that it was 6:30 and I was wide awake. I was even more shocked when I did it again the next day, and the next, and the next.

Of course, this isn’t definitive proof of the vast powers of crystals.

I could’ve had a particularly restful break or simply turned into a more spritely person overnight. To me, the power of crystals lies in the reflection that comes with them. I had to examine myself to attempt to find evidence of the carnelian’s power, and it was because of this introspection that I was able to make lifestyle changes that stuck. For me, the crys-

COLIN LEDERER

COLIN LEDERER

out a to-do list, usually consisting of five to ten tasks. If I’m lucky, I’ll finish two. But with the help of my carnelian, I started to notice myself finishing the list consistently;

tal was simply the instigator. But it didn’t hurt that it looked pretty too.

Rating: Best experience I’ve had with a rock in a while. Vibrations were 7/10.

silverchips

Feb. 10, 2022 Culture E2

Blair alum rocks the D.C. music scene

Silver

Spring

By Ingrid Holmquist Staff Writer

COURTESY OF SABRINA LI

claims the city as their hometown.

“Nobody [else is] owning up to it,” Nkanza explains. “I thought it’d be funny to just name myself after Silver Spring in that way, just to have somebody do that.”

Being surrounded by Silver Spring’s suburban atmosphere affects the music that Nkanza creates.

“Suburban life, and the way that looks, and the way that feels, can

affect the music; how it’s simultaneously tranquil, but also isolated,” they say.

Their first introduction to making music came at age four, when they started to play violin. Since then, music has never ceased to fascinate them. “Music’s always just been the number one thing for me,” Nkanza says. “I never lost a love for it.”

was shut down before they had even started playing.

Instead of giving up, Nkanza and the band found a new place to play. “Everybody walked across the street to the community space beneath this church,” Nkanza remembers. “There was the added suspension of, ‘Oh, God, we don’t even know if this is going to happen.’” The show ended with neon lights flashing over the crowded audience and a new milestone in Spring Silver’s career.

Music’s always just been the number one thing for me...

I never lost a love for it.

K NKANZA

2015 Blair alum and musician K Nkanza, who performs under the name Spring Silver, finds it tricky to pinpoint their exact style of music.

“It’s an amalgamation of all of the different music that I like, and then a bunch of extraneous factors that influence somebody’s sound that don’t have to do with music, like where you’re from, or your state of mind,” Nkanza explains in an interview with Silver Chips.

Nkanza’s sound is a cross between 90’s grunge and indie rock.

Their most recent single, Set up a Camera, features a thumping bass and steady drums complemented by strong vocals. Many of Nkanza’s songs draw inspiration from the shoegaze subgenre, a style of rock music that blurs the lines between vocals and instrumentals. The result is a striking and dynamic interpretation of genres, leaving no singular term for classification. It is simply impossible to assign a singular label to Spring Silver’s sound.

Their mother, Blair French teacher Ndona Hansen, is proud of her child’s musical abilities. “As a parent, you’re biased. But really, the lyrics are good,” she says. “And they’ve always been a really good guitar player.”

Nkanza stays true to their Silver Spring roots, even when it seems like they are the only one who

This aptitude was nurtured during their time at Blair, when Nkanza spearheaded a band named Aerial View. Their experience in the Blair music scene allowed Nkanza to explore the realities of creating music for the first time. “[Blair] was my first entrance [to] trying to seriously make music,” they say.

Aerial View was not only uplifted by InfoFlow, which highlighted student bands with on-air segments, but was pushed by the musical talent surrounding them. “A lot of the bands [had] kids who were cooler than I was,” Nkanza reminisces.

“That [was] a motivator for us… in our own minds, it would probably be us versus them, even though in reality it wasn’t really that deep.”

Music remained an integral part of Nkanza’s life throughout college, during which time they made the transition from making music with Aerial View to being a solo artist. Even after college graduation, they continue to keep in touch with former Blair musicians, even collaborating on projects with some of them.

Now, they play local shows throughout Washington, D.C. in small, semi-full venues to audiences of twenty-somethings who dance together as Nkanza plays on stage. The first time Hansen saw her child onstage, she saw none of the stage fright that had afflicted them in their youth. “[There was] no fear. Nothing. No, just comfortable,” she says.

One of Nkanza’s favorite memories is their spontaneous performance at a church across from American University, shortly after the release of their 2019 debut album, The Natural World. They and some backup musicians were set to play in a practice room the size of two bedrooms, but when too many American University students needed the room, the show

Unbeknownst to them at the time, Nkanza’s days of singing unmasked to a packed audience would soon be halted by COVID-19. They began to start accepting gigs based on the safety protocols at venues. “I ended up refusing to play shows [where] people couldn’t get vax-carded at, or [wouldn’t] wear masks,” they say.

Spring Silver’s upcoming album I Could Get Used to This will drop Mar. 4 on Bandcamp and Spotify.

If COVID-19 restrictions allow, Nkanza will then play a tour around Washington, D.C. clubs.

Find Spring Silver’s Bandcamp, Spotify, and videos of past performances by scanning the QR code below.

Bringing back the big screen

By Elina Lee and Sedise Tiruneh Staff Writers

RAFFI CHARKOUDIAN-ROGERS

PRIORITIZING PREVENTION Since September 2021, AFI has required all moviegoers to present proof of vaccination at admission.

a room with a bunch of strangers and breathing the same air,” Natalie Daly, another AFI employee, notes.

Even prior to the pandemic, theater audiences dwindled as people began turning to streaming movies at home. The popularity of day-and-date streaming, where new movies simultaneously premiere in theaters and digitally on services like HBO Max and Disney+, has eroded the already diminishing number of moviegoers. “We were showing Black Widow, but we got maybe 30 people a week coming to see [it]. It was dead because they were also streaming it,” Daly describes. “Who’s going to go out to see movies that you can see in your house [while] not [getting] a deadly disease?”

However, some find moviegoing offers a unique experience that home streaming cannot compare to. “[People] don’t want to just sit at home all the time,” Margot Gerber, Landmark Theatres’ vice president of marketing and publicity, says.

“The excitement of actually being around other people who love film as much as you do... hearing what other people laugh at or cry at, or just the event of being there and eating the popcorn... is kind of special.”

Landmark, which has 37 theaters sprinkled across the United States, including three close to Blair, has been facing setbacks in concessions sales with staffing shortages and supply chain issues.

“There’s a [supply] shortage, so sourcing butter and oils to pop our popcorn in [has] been a little bit of a challenge, too,” Gerber explains.

On the other hand, the locally based AFI in Downtown Silver Spring has not been struggling with a lack of team members nor food and beverage items. “We are doing really well with concessions,” Daly says.

RAFFI CHARKOUDIAN-ROGERS

An independent theater like the AFI may seem prone to fierce competition due to its immediate prox-

Just the event of being there and eating the popcorn... is kind of special.

MARGOT GERBER

Even as home streaming becomes more popular, many still hold a special place in their hearts for the magic of movie theaters.

“It’s the popcorn, and the fountain soda, and the comfortable chairs, and that’s just something different... because we’ve spent a lot of time at home lately,” Blair English teacher Leigh Tinsley says. “It’s exciting, it’s fun. The sound is amazing [and] it’s an immersive experience.”

However, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, ticket sales fell as many community members felt uncomfortable going to the movies. According to IMDbPro’s Box Office Mojo database, from 2019 to 2020, U.S. box office revenue plummeted by over 80 percent from 11.3 to 2.1 billion dollars grossed.

Although revenue began to recover in 2021, the domestic movie industry is still reeling from this slump. “The pandemic, more than anything, has affected ticket sales,” Justin Gross, a Blair alumnus who

works at the Silver Spring American Film Institute (AFI) movie theater, says. While the industry has responded to this deficit by raising entry fees, many still choose to attend. “I’ve noticed that the ticket prices can be high and people will still come,” Gross continues.

This is true for Blair senior Owen Kaiser, who views moviegoing as a largely social experience.

“I don’t really like the Spiderman movies that much, but... I was excited to hang out with all of my friends... If my friends weren’t going, I wouldn’t go,” he says.

Others are often dissuaded by high ticket prices, but still value the unique moviegoing experience.

“Movies are too expensive... but it’s a fun treat every once in a while,” Tinsley says. “I miss normal, nonCOVID times when we could go to the movie theater.”

In order to encourage patrons to return to the theater, the AFI has implemented a mask and vaccine mandate for all customers.

This helps ensure the safety of employees and audience members as the Omicron variant continues to strain communities. “Vaccinations [are] a plus for some people who are apprehensive about sitting in

imity to large chain theaters such as Regal Cinemas and AMC Theaters, but the AFI sets themselves apart with their niche and arthouse selection of films and events. Daly explains that although the AFI does not draw in as many teenagers as nearby cinemas do, they attract a committed, older demographic with artsy and less mainstream taste in films.

Daly, who began working at the theater in June of 2021, has watched familiar faces trickle back into cinemas with the protection of masks and vaccines. Due to the central role the AFI plays in the Silver Spring community, its customer base is filled with regulars.

“There are customers who come in and know the staff by name and know their stories,” Daly says.

Moviegoers at the AFI also connect through events like the annual African and Latin American film festivals that expose audiences to unfamiliar voices and storytelling.

“It really increases the likelihood that [viewers] are engaged with these new... and diverse perspectives,” Gross says. This cultural awareness the AFI brings to the community sets it apart from chain theaters and reduces competition for patrons between the AFI and these chains. “There’s very little overlap between the two... because they serve two different purposes,” Gross describes.

Many can agree that the pandemic has amplified the durability of the movie theater industry. “As a culture, we’ve been challenged.

To survive, you have to adapt,” Gerber notes. “It taught us greater adaptability because everything has changed.” Movie theaters have been around for over a century, surviving the introduction of cable television in the 1940s to VCR in the 1970s to DVD in the 1990s.

Now, they continue to draw audiences despite COVID-19 and the rise of home streaming. “[New technology has] created a competition factor for going out to see movies in the theater,” Gerber says.

“We’ve had those challenges and theaters have continued to prevail.”

silverchips

E3 Culture Feb. 10, 2022

Sankofa commemorates Black history

By Ila Raso Staff Writer

Archives Compiled by Annie Goldman In Silver Chips’ 84th year, we will continue the tradition of our predecessors by going through our archives and reprinting the best, most timely, and most local stories. Without further ado, some of our favorites.

History ignored Editorial Board February 12, 1981 Blair has the highest minority level, as well as the highest number of black students, in the county.

One would think that Black History Month would be a major event here. But, to the contrary, it is virtually ignored. Not only are white students not exposed to the contributions of black Americans, the majority of black students are unaware of their own history.

Worse yet, all students are exposed to a superficial view of the black experience in the mandatory American history course even though the problem of black-white relationships is one of America’s most complex social issues. Granted that the American history course has to cover a lot of ground, there should be enough time to learn about blacks and other minorities, especially if there is enough time to spend an average of two weeks studying the Watergate affair.

Furthermore, the black history that is taught is so selective that blacks often appear “Uncle Tom-ish.” Students learn about all the black people who tried to unite the races but do not learn enough about those blacks who believed in separatism.

Black history did not start with slavery nor did it end with Reconstruction. Nor did all great blacks evolve from the Civil War. Men like Charles Drew, who separated plasma from blood, and Daniel Williams, the first man to successfully perform heart surgery, are seldom mentioned. These blacks were not considered full-fledged

citizens. Thus, these men who made major contributions, not just to this country but to the world, are unknown to the majority of students who do have some idea of the contributions of Jonas Salk, Louis Pasteur, and Walter Reed.

Even if Black History Month were recognized, a month is not sufficient time to study the contributions that blacks and other minorities have made to this country. Black history is an essential part of American history. If the present American history course does not allow enough time to study black history, the course should be examined to see how this situation could be improved.

Hate crime rate increases: MC school vandalized in anti-semitic incident Shira Robinson February 14, 1990

Racism has once again hit home in Montgomery County. Police have charged three self-described “skinheads” with vandalizing the Boys’ School of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington in Kemp Mill.

This crime is one of the 195 hate acts of 1989 in Montgomery County, a figure that more than doubled the number of 1981 crimes.

In what police have called the most destructive vandalism in the county in recent memory, the 12 room, 85 student Yeshiva was ransacked on Dec. 27. Doors and cabinets were destroyed, windows were smashed, chemicals were splattered, bookshelves were broken, and litter was scattered all over the school. The vandals scrawled “Roman Catholics Rule” on several lockers and “Satan”

virtual performance, the cast was cut to roughly 40 people. Students head the production process, with Rivera directing songs and dance performances and senior Ingrid Ellis, Rivera’s student co-director, directing poetry and acting scenes. Rivera and Ellis work to create the production around the individual talents of each performer. “The big thing about Sankofa is that we tailor everything to the performer, so we listen to their audition, and based on their voice, we choose a song that we think would fit them best,” Rivera explains.

An integral aspect of Sankofa is that it is fueled by Black perform-

COURTESY OF SANKOFA

SANKOFA CROSSROADS EPISODE 5: FOR DISCO Blair students Hannah Germain (left) and Max Pauls (right) perform “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls. across a black board. They also tried to set a fire in the bathroom.

The number of acts of hate and violence in Montgomery County has risen significantly in the last nine years. Blacks and Jews rank the highest target groups with 66 and 45 incidents respectively. Harassment and vandalism accounted for over 90 percent of the crimes. There have already been six incidents in 1990.

In response to the incidents, the community and Montgomery County government have reached out to the victims with support.

Rabbi Zev Katz, Assistant Principal of the Yeshiva, called the community response “phenomenal.” Damage repair is estimated to be at least $30,000 and sources of donations have ranged from a $500 collection made by a group of students at Good Council [sic] High School to a check from an individual donor in Seattle, Washington.

The Yeshiva is also being helped by the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission, according to community relations specialist Elyse Rothschild. The commission offers grants to institutions hit by vandalism in order to make up the difference between the cost of the damage and the institution’s insurance coverage.

The vandalism of the Yeshiva was the latest in a series of hate incidents in the Kemp Mill Area near Silver Spring. Several racial attacks involving arson and burglary have occurred in the past year, and an Asian boy was almost killed when he was beaten by skinheads last fall in a Kemp Mill park.

In a community meeting last September, police assured 300 Kemp Mill residents that there is no organized hate crime in the area.

MCPS Human Relations’ Specialist Oscar Blakey concurs with this statement. He says that although Nazi skinhead groups are allegedly on the rise in Howard and Frederick County and they may spill into Montgomery County, there are no organized factions here now.

Nevertheless, Blakey is “quite upset” at the Yeshiva incident and will work to see “that it does not spread to the (other) schools (in the county).”

“The Human Relations Department was created 20 years ago

ers. “Sankofa is so important to the African-American community. I’m glad we are still able to present Sankofa this year,” Foundoux, who will be reciting poetry, says.

This year, the theme of Sankofa is intersectionality and crossroads.

The show highlights underreprestented groups within the Black community, such as Black feminists and the Black liberation movement, to show the diverse experiences that exist within the Black community.

Originally, the in-person show began in a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). The Sankofa team wanted to spotlight the culture of HBCUs and how they can represent the intersectionality of Black America. The second act was going to be set at a protest reviewing the history of Black feminism. The final act was set to showcase the idea of Black liberation.

Since the show was moved to a virtual setting, this plan has changed.

The setup of the virtual Sankofa will mirror that of the 2020 Voces Unidas, Blair’s virtual celebration of Latinx History Month, with a show produced every day of the month of February. Each episode will be three to five minutes long, with each highlighting different forms of student art including dancing, singing, and poetry. The first week of the episodes will focus on Black queer history, by highlighting transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson, the Stonewall riot, and songs by Black queer artists.

The second week of episodes

will dive into Black feminism, specifically within soul music, featuring artists ranging from Aretha Franklin to SZA. Students will show off their slam poetry skills on the third week, with a Valentine’s Day episode focusing on Black love and appreciation.

Finally, the fourth week will

solely for the purpose of giving a voice to the county’s minority population,” says Blakey. Now however, Blakey says that it “includes enough activities to make people aware of different cultural groups.”

The Department implements programs in the schools regularly and will also do so by specific request.

SAS day, or Sensitivity Awareness Symposium, is one county wide program held annually to teach and raise awareness of different cultural groups.

The schools are sometimes a target for those with racist attitudes. Statistics from the Montgomery County Human Relations Commission report 16 hate incidents through July in 1989 in the schools, which already surpasses the figures of 1987 and 1988.

Teachers returning from vacation on Jan. 2 found racial slurs sprayed on the windows of F-porch and on the walls of A-building at Blair. It was reported immediately to the support staff and cleaned up before most students saw it. There

is a policy that problems like this take priority over any other maintenance in the school.

Blair assistant principal Judy Docca meets with students in her office to prevent these misunderstandings and confrontations in or outside the school. With a 66% minority population, she knows that different cultural groups often have problems. “People that don’t know anything about other people make assumptions. Nonverbal communication amounts for 90% of how people communicate in this culture,” says Docca.

“Most kids know that they can yell and scream at each other here (in her office) instead of having a (physical) confrontation,” says Docca.

At Blair specifically, conflicts have arisen between different minority groups, but often because of misunderstandings. She says, “There is a color allegiance until they (students) know what’s going on.”

Whether you are part of the Black community or you relate to any sort of struggle that we mention in the production... we want everyone to have an opportunity to feel the energy that is Sankofa.

GEO RIVERA

The annual Sankofa showcase—a celebration of diasporic Black history, art, and culture—has spotlighted Blair’s talented performers for many years. This year’s show, which is virtual, takes place during the entire month of February, with one video posted to Blair Network Communications’ YouTube, Sankofa’s official Instagram (@sankofambhs), and the Blair website each day.

The digital Sankofa showcase will feature a variety of dance, poetry, music, and theater performed

by Blair students and alumni.

“Sankofa is important because it is a very tangible way to show our community, not only the students and staff, but our parents and our families, that we prioritize, elevate, and celebrate all of the different cultures that make up our community,” Blair Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator and Sankofa advisor Rahman Culver says.

Although they were hoping to perform in-person, the Sankofa team was already equipped with a backup virtual plan in case of any COVID-19 issues when they began planning in the beginning of the school year. In early December, MCPS regulations declared that all extracurriculars were to be stopped or conducted virtually. The cast lost rehearsal and overall preparation time, and they were unable

to make the in-person time frame they hoped for.

Culver explains that switching to virtual was a difficult choice. “As we looked through 2022, I think a lot of us were anticipating returning to the communal experience of having folks be able to gather together, so that’s what we were striving to do,” he says. “We arrived at a choice where it seemed like it made more sense to protect everyone’s health and safety to execute the show in a way that didn’t require folks to be exposed [to COVID-19].”

Although some students don’t find the virtual medium ideal, many find it preferable to abandoning the show altogether. “I was really looking forward to it being on stage, but I’m glad they still found a way to do it,” Blair senior and student performer Kelly Fondoux says.

Because Sankofa takes place during Black History Month, it offers a unique time and space to reflect on the experience of being Black in America for Blair community members. The experience allows for students to feel connected to and better understand the world around them. “Whether you are part of the Black community or you relate to any sort of struggle that we mention in the production… we want everyone to have an opportunity to feel the energy that is Sankofa,” student co-director Geo Rivera says.

The Sankofa team began with 80 original cast members for their in-person production, but once they were required to convert to a

look at HBCU culture, with performances and monologues from Blair alumni who attended HBCUs. Most episodes will still be performed on the Blair stage before being recorded. “We’re hoping that we can have… a few students still onstage, where we can still have some of the elements of a full production,” Culver says.

Hosting a virtual show ensures that the spirit of Sankofa remains part of the Blair community. “It is just a way to keep Sankofa alive,” Rivera says.

SENDING LOVE In 1981’s February issue of Silver Chips, Blazers wrote each other Valentine’s Day messages.

silverchips

Feb. 10, 2022 Culture E4

Chips Clips

LEELA MEHTA-HARWITZ

Blazer Bee

Sudoku

Cryptic Crossword

LUCIA WANG

​​Make as many words as you can with these seven letters while always using the center letter.

Letters can be used more than once and words must contain at least four letters.

A M

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N C

I SANTORO

LU C

L

R LEZ

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-VÉ

V

ÍA

A

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Blazer Bee

Sudoku

B Y

To see the answers to the Blazer Bee, Sudoku, and Cryptic Crossword, scan these QR codes.

COURTESY OF OPENSKY.CA

1

2

Cryptic Crossword

3 4

5

To learn what a cryptic crossword is and tips and tricks for solving them, scan this QR code.

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 13

14 ALEX GROSMAN

Across: 1 - Harm a mixed up blue rock about you and your koala 5 - Crazy 12th grade subway shakes 7 - Oratory on true crime investigations!

9 - Primary ty follower in large cat breed 11 - Confused sci fi writer - it’s in the brain 13 - Ordered online rebuttal card game 14 - Insane male goose erupts east Down: 1 - Recursive ordered team 2 - Sounds like mocking grass 3 - Goal without flaws has positive tone 4 - Small cat food with no end reversed makes buffoons 6 - Thin layer of beast left 8 - Contraction in merit scholar 10 - Poor angels have citrus 12 - Ever go off track?

F1 Sports Feb. 10, 2022

By Haley Carter and Annie Gao Staff Writers Bowling, a classic staple of American culture, has a long history in Montgomery County. The sport is popular among all ages and is practiced both recreationally and competitively. Amid recent unforeseen circumstances, several bowling alleys in the area are fighting to stay afloat in the sports and entertainment industry.

One such alley, White Oak Duckpin Lanes, shut down shortly after Labor Day weekend due to building maintenance complications. “We closed because we thought it was the right thing to do,” Stacy Sloan, wife of George Sloan, the owner of White Oak DuckPin Lanes, says when describing the flooding damage the local alley faced after Hurricane Ida. The alley closed to protect the safety of their patrons, but is struggling in a financial court battle with the building’s landlord and their insurance company. “They’re basically taking us to court to get rent payment, even though our lease states that if we are not allowed to be open, we do not have to pay rent,” Sloan says.

The location has been open since 1959 and a wide variety of bowlers in the community have enjoyed it over the years. “My family and I love [White Oak Duckpin Lanes]… I’ve got a teenager [and] a five year old, and everybody can play,” Montgomery County Council President Gabe Albornoz says.

silverchips

Bowlers on a roll

George Sloan has started a GoFundMe donation page where he explains the financial struggles the alley has faced with flood damage and the dispute with their landlord.

Set up in Sept. 2021, as of Feb. 8, the fundraiser has raised $19,893 of its $500,000 goal from 255 donors.

Several bowling alleys in Montgomery County provide arenas for bowling program practices and competitions, like Bowl America Gaithersburg, which is a venue for Special Olympics Montgomery County (SOMO).

Bowling is thought of as an accessible form of physical activity and thus has become a popular sport in the Special Olympics.

“We have athletes in wheelchairs who bowl. A lot of times they get paired up with another athlete, but they have ramps that they use… the volunteer puts the ball on the ramp for them and then they have to push it,” SOMO area director Shelly Bogasky describes.

SOMO hosts training and competitions for those ages eight and up with intellectual disabilities.

The program has 23 sports, including an annual competitive bowling season from September to December followed by a recreational season in the ABJINI CHATTOPADHYAY spring.

Bogasky explains that in addition to providing a means for physical exercise, the bowling program

is highly sociable for their 60-90 athletes, who have formed family-like friendships. “You’ve got four athletes in every lane. They’re very close together, some of them have been bowling together for 20 years,” Bogasky says.

SOMO is entirely volunteer-run, which creates challenges by limiting their ability to expand the program. Bogasky emphasizes the need for volunteers at regional and state competitions, as well as trained coaches and parents who can oversee practices. “​We need more volunteers to do some of the everyday work to free up time for the leadership to go out and help grow the program,” she explains.

While bowling programs are popular inhabitants of the alleys, the sport is lesser known among students in Montgomery County. “I don’t really see that many people at my school play that much,” Quince Orchard junior Kayla Basilio says.

Basilio loves how the relaxing nature of the sport allows for healthy competition with friends. “[Bowling] is a really fun bonding skill,” she says, “It’s satisfying but it’s also fun to be competitive with your friends.”

2021 Junior Gold Champion Brandon Bohn experiences similar bonds from the sport. “The friendships that I’ve made and the communications that I’ve had throughout my journey so far [are] irreplaceable,” Bohn explains.

In addition to providing a plentiful social atmosphere, the sport allows competitive athletes to expand their geographical reach.

Bohn has visited 44 states and several countries for national tournaments. “For three years, I’ve traveled over to Malaysia for their biggest junior tournament of the year,” he says. “[I love] traveling and the experiences that I’ve made traveling all around the world.”

COURTESY OF TRICIA HAN

SPECIAL OLYMPICS BOWLING Members of SOMO at the 2018 Special Olympics Regionals Bowling Competition.

Despite the pandemic, Bohn December. “Several guests and a still participates in and loves few of our employees [tested] posthe sport. “[The pandemic] just itive, so we just shut our doors [to] brought more joy to the lanes. My sanitize everything down,” Ali Farpassion and drive to be better than hat, the general manager of the ElI was yesterday has gone up a lot eanor’s Silver Spring location, says.

Farhat says that the company since COVID,” Bohn states.

Temporary closings for many has learned a lot since its opening alleys became a common occur- just weeks prior to the pandemic rence, as they did for The Elea- in 2020. He believes that adaptnor in Silver Spring, which offers ability and flexibility are key. “Just bowling along with a full bar and trying to be as adaptive as possible restaurant. Under county orders, is our greatest achievement. Life is the location closed twice earlier in going to throw so many obstacles at you no matter what line of work the pandemic.

Albornoz explains that the or restaurant or business you’re in.

Montgomery County Council has But just try to take it one step at a been making operational decisions time, look at the greater picture as over county mandates and business well as the day-to-day,” he reflects. shutdowns sitting as the Board of Health. “The virus has had many twists and turns from the very beginning… there’s no question that [it] has had an impact on our businesses,” he says.

The Eleanor recently closed its Scan the QR code above to donate to Silver Spring location for ten days due to a surge of Omicron cases in White Oak Duckpin Lanes.

Friends, fantasy, football

By John Ernst Staff Writer

I didn’t really watch football before I started playing fantasy football.

IAN ANDERSON

Ever since its invention in 1962 and growth in popularity online in the 1980s, fantasy football has become the game within the game, allowing fans of the National Football League (NFL) to be closer to the sport and league they love.

This hobby does more than bring people closer to the game; it brings people together. Fantasy raises the stakes with punishments and buyins while also making the game of football more interactive and engaging for fans.

While fantasy football has been around for decades, online apps and websites now provide user-friendly platforms that have attracted more people to play in recent years. “Websites like ESPN or Yahoo made the interface with your phone, so it makes it more accessible,” Blair biology teacher Charlie Demma says. Demma has been playing fantasy for nearly 20 years. “In the old days, you had to go to the newspaper and get your box score and [tally your points],” he explains. More and more fans are playing fantasy football, in part, because the NFL is growing immensely. According to ESPN, which hosts its own fantasy platform, online fantasy football now attracts over 40 million players around the world.

The basis of fantasy football revolves around real life athletes and their game performance. Before the season starts, fantasy football players draft actual NFL players from different teams to assemble their rosters. A team generally has

an offense of individual players with quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, kickers, and defenses.

Each week, fantasy players pick athletes at each position on their team who they feel will perform well that particular week, thus creating their lineup. Based on the performance of the NFL players, each one gets a score from their game which is applied to the team who drafted and played them in fantasy football. The better the player, the more points they get, making the

best players in the league more coveted in the preseason fantasy draft.

Fantasy leagues typically consist of 8-14 fans who each have their own fantasy team. For more invested players, there are also keeper and dynasty leagues, in which fans keep their athletes from year to year.

Leagues typically gather for events like the preseason draft, when fantasy players pick their teams for the year. “We all got dressed up in suits and went full [general manager] mode,” Blair senior Emmanuel Kraft says of his league’s draft.

Some members of the Blair community report that watching football brought them to fanta-

sy. For others, like Blair junior Ian Anderson, playing fantasy has brought them closer to football. “I didn’t really watch football before I started playing fantasy football,” he explains. “When I started playing, I really got into the game and my players.”

Nevertheless, fans of NFL teams sometimes face internal conflict when they play against fantasy teams that have players from their NFL team. “It was a really big issue, because my team, Kansas City, has really good fantasy players, and I played against them several weeks,” Blair junior Sam Worley explains.

“I couldn’t figure out if I wanted them to do well or my [fantasy] team to do well.”

The fine line between real life and fantasy has also impacted NFL players themselves. As fans take to social media to directly voice concerns with players on their team, which usually pertain to poor performance, some have been met with criticism from players stating they don’t care about fantasy football. Tennessee Titans wide receiver A.J. Brown retaliated at critical fans in his Instagram comments, stating he didn’t care about the fans’ fantasy teams and was only invested in winning real NFL games.

However, some players have reached out in a positive manner to the fantasy community, including Los Angeles Chargers running back Austin Ekeler who gave away jerseys to fans who drafted him in their leagues, and even appeared on fantasy football podcasts during the offseason.

Another factor behind the growth of fantasy football is the

rise of ‘punishments,’ which are reserved for the fantasy player who finishes last in their league.

Many have taken to the popular social media app TikTok to post these punishments, with some videos amassing up to 2.6 million views. Punishments are generally designed as a motivator for teams to try during the season, and also serve as a celebration of a friend’s demise.

While the name seems harsh, some of the punishments are more fun and lighthearted, like spending 24 hours in a Waffle House, or dancing for cars on busy roads.

Others shown on TikTok appear more cruel or dangerous. “I’ve seen people locked in dog crates and [who] had syrup poured on them,” Anderson says, noting that

this feels rather extreme.

Kraft has adopted the Waffle House punishment for his league.

“Each waffle they eat takes an hour off the time,” Kraft says. “We’re doing it the day before the Super Bowl so [we’ll] go from the punishment to watching the Super Bowl as a league.”

In addition to punishments serving as a bonding activity, fantasy football in general has brought groups together over a shared love of football. “Fantasy football is always a conversation [topic] with my friends,” Anderson says.

Demma thinks fantasy football has brought him closer to his students. “It got really popular with students… lots of kids are playing fantasy, so we have something to talk about,” he explains.

COURTESY OF EMMANUEL KRAFT

SUITING UP Kraft (left) gathers with his league for the draft.

silverchips

Feb. 10, 2022 Sports F2

Commanding change

By Sophia Stein Staff Writer After over a year of internal deliberation and decades of controversy surrounding its name, Washington D.C.’s football team announced its new moniker: The Washington Commanders.

For decades, Native American

groups have criticized the team’s previous name, which many believe to be derogatory and disrespectful.

More recently, heightened national awareness about racial injustice strengthened the push for a change.

After 87 years with its former name and a year and half temporarily named The Washington Football Team, Washington D.C.’s football

LEELA MEHTA-HARWITZ

franchise decided to rebrand due to pressure from major sponsors.

Team President Jason Wright, former Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams, and defensive tackle Jonathan Allen officially declared the start of a new chapter on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2022 during a ceremony at FedEx Field.

By Jon Eckert Sports Editor/Columnist

soapbox What are your thoughts on the new name for the Washington Football team?

All photos by Raffi Charkoudian-Rogers

“I get why they changed it [and] I think that it’s cool. I think it’s fitting and [that] it’ll grow on me.”

“They should’ve just stuck with the Red Wolves or The Washington Football Team.”

ZOË GONDI freshman

LOIC NEMLIN KOFFI sophomore

“The Washington Commanders is like a cheapshot off of all the [other team names]... it sounds kind of generic.”

“I don’t really like it. I feel like after all that time they spent, they could have come up with a better [name].”

“The Washington Commanders... just doesn’t sound right with Washington D.C. I would have rather just kept the [Washington Football Team].

ELEANOR MOOSE junior

ELIJAH GRADY senior

YUSUF NUR sophomore

Last week, recently fired head coach of the Miami Dolphins Brian Flores provided definitive proof of what was already known to be true: the NFL has a racial bias.

Flores’ class action lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in hiring practices provides concrete evidence to what has only been suspected before. NFL teams interview coaches of color without the intent of giving real consideration to hiring them.

Prior to his scheduled interview with the New York Giants in January of this year for their open head coaching position, Flores received a text from Patriots Head Coach, Bill Belichick, congratulating him on being awarded the position. Belichick, intending to congratulate Brian Daboll, former Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator, on winning the New York Giants head coaching job, mistakenly texted Flores.

After a short text exchange, a confused Flores asked Belichick if he texted the right person, since he had yet to even interview for the position. Belichick, realizing his mistake, apologized to Flores and wrote to him, “I think they are naming Daboll.” Days later, Daboll was officially named as the Giants new head coach, confirming that Flores’s interview was just for show.

Flores should not even be searching for a head coaching job right now. He should not have been fired in the first place after leading Miami to its first back to back winning seasons since 2003.

Flores achieved this in his first three years on the job, no less.

However, Flores was not let go because he was an incompetent coach. According to Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, Flores was fired because he was not “collaborative.” This swipe at Flores comes after he allegedly refused to break NFL tampering rules when Dolphins executives tried to set up an impromptu meetup with a high-profile quarterback on a yacht in the 2019 offseason.

Flores’s lawsuit alleges Dolphins owner Stephen Ross also attempted to bribe Flores to tank for a better draft position. Refusing to do so, Flores was deemed uncooperative for wanting the team to win games. What Ross means when he says he wants a collaborative coach is that he wants a puppet he can use to run the team to his exact specifications.

Pundits have gone back and forth on the hiring practices of the NFL and what issues there may be. Stephen A. Smith recently hit the nail on the head while discussing racial biases in coaching hires on his ESPN show “First Take,” saying, “When you’re Black, they’re looking for a reason not to hire you. Whereas with whites, they’re willing to embrace reasons to hire you.” This has been exemplified by the fact that Flores has not yet landed a head coaching position despite being the most qualified candidate for rebuilding a debilitated franchise.

He’s shown he can build a new team from the ground up and make them a winning team in just two years. What’s more impres-

sive about this is he had almost no weapons to do it with. His leading rusher in his first season was a slow 36-year-old Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Flores was given almost no weapons on either side of the ball (with the exception of wide receiver Jaylen Waddle and cornerback Xavien Howard) to rebuild the Dolphins and yet he persisted, pushing this team to an over .500 record in the past two years and winning 8 of the team’s last 9 games. It seems likely Flores would still be the head coach of the Dolphins if he were treated similarly to his white NFL counterparts.

Look at the expansive opportunities afforded to incompetent white coaches throughout the NFL, and compare that to the lack of opportunity given to Flores. Take former Bears coach Matt Nagy for example. In his four years in Chicago, he only had one year over .500 and yet was given four years there.

Or, take Jay Gruden who was given 5 years despite only having one winning season in Washington.

There are a plethora of examples of this phenomenon in the NFL, yet nothing seems to change with white coaches continuing to consistently be rewarded at the expense of deserving coaches of color.

Let’s also face the fact that

The league must commit to giving legitimate shots to minority coaches and executives if they want to live up to the empty statements they spew out about diversity for the sake of good press. the Rooney rule—a rule requiring teams to interview at least one minority candidate for open head coaching positions—has been largely ineffective in giving minority coaches more of a chance. Diverse interviews have clearly not led to diverse hires. Oftentimes, it seems that some of these interviews (like those of Flores’s and people that look like him) come without the intention of giving these minority candidates legitimate consideration. All the teams interviewing Flores appeared to do it for show, despite his array of qualifications.

The Giants already had their head coaching decision and John Elway showed up hungover to Flores’ interview with the Broncos. Where does the shamelessness of NFL executives end? These teams didn’t even seem to make an attempt at creating the facade of thoughtful consideration.

Black players make up a majority of the NFL and yet, after this season’s coaching firings, there was only one Black head coach in the league. This astonishingly low number is an embarrassment to a league that pretends to care about diverse hiring. The league must commit to giving legitimate shots to minority coaches and executives if they want to live up to the empty statements they spew out about diversity for the sake of good press.

silverchips

F3 Sports Feb. 10, 2022

Blazers making wagers

AO

H JAY C

The illegal web of sports gambling

By William Ashford and Jon Eckert Staff writer & Sports Editor/ Columnist

ZACH

adolescent bettors hooked.

For teens, becoming addicted to these high stakes bets is incredibly easy. “There is a stronger response in the adolescent brain to rewarding events,” Winters explains. Additionally, he describes that there is “an even greater burst of neurotransmitter dopamine in the developing brain.”

Blair senior Marcus describes the need to exponentially increase the risk of the bet to feel the high of winning. “The first time, you thought it was crazy, and you felt the adrenaline rush... if you do it 20 more times, you’re going to have to increase the stakes to feel that same pressure,” Marcus says.

Winters further explains that many gamblers raise the stakes of their bets to maintain the same level of dopamine response of their future wagers. “If somebody continues to bet at a high level that is getting him or her excited, to continue that excitement… they likely

It’s like a credit score: once the bookie trusts you, you can bet bigger numbers... I have $6,000 credit because my bookie trusts me.

are going to need to increase the size of their bets,” he says.

This dopamine rush of gambling may be what leads teens to wager thousands of dollars on sports.

Marcus’s alleged betting logs that start on Jan. 19, 2020 show that he has since gambled over $2,000 on nearly 200 bets in that time.

Zach says that when he started, he was “putting 10-20 bets in every day.” He believes he went overboard in the amount he gambled.

“In high school, especially towards the beginning of first getting on the book, I definitely think I had some

sort of gambling problem,” Zach explains.

Zach’s struggle with gambling may point to a larger issue of teen

If somebody continues to bet at a high level that is getting him or her excited to continue that excitement... they are likely going to need to increase the size of their bets.

KEN WINTERS

books are only accessible if bettors are given logins by the agents.

Once the connection to the book has been made, an agent will provide the bettor with a login to the bookie’s website.

At Blair, students who bet report that underground books have not been hard to come by. “Within Blair, at the time that I was there, there were probably four or five books running through the school,” Zach says.

Since bookies have no legal way of enforcing payment, they start by giving credit and placing limits on how much the bettor can gamble at one time. “When a bookie doesn’t know you, they set you off with a limit,” Blair senior Jeffrey explains.

“It’s like a credit score: once the bookie trusts you, you can bet bigger numbers… I have $6,000 credit because my bookie trusts me.”

The system of paying off illegal bets is based solely on trust, so collecting money can sometimes prove challenging for agents.

“Unlike FanDuel and DraftKings, where it’s directly connected to your bank account, [transactions] are all through Venmo, and [bookies] can’t force you to pay,” Zach says.

Zach recalls missing multiple hundred dollar bets in a week, but instead of paying his bookie back, he ran from him. “I decided I was going to ghost my bookie and just not pay him… I blocked him on Venmo, I blocked him on text, and everything.” If a bettor refuses to pay the bookie, the bookie may send threatening messages to their former client. Zach reports receiving one of these messages: “If you miss any further payments, let’s just say [redacted] is not a person that you want to meet. Have a good day and remember [redacted] is always watching,” the text read.

Zach says that in his situation, the threats never manifested into real consequences. “They’ll say that they have people coming to find you. Never in my experience has that actually been the case,” he explains.

The ability to place high stakes bets like Zach’s is what keeps many

JEFFREY

tively across all platforms.

The increased availability of sports betting platforms has created a new market for gambling, and this demand has extended to Where only first names appear, underrage high school stunames have been changed to protect dents. the identity of the sources.

Zach, a 2021 Blair graduate, alleges that the Blair marWith secret bookies, code ket for sports betting was extenwords, and individual bets in the sive during his time at the school. thousands, the rise of sports gam- “Probably around 50-60 kids at bling around the country has led least, just in my grade, [were bethigh school students, including ting].” some in Montgomery County, to Some Blair students turned chase the risky and addicting highs to betting to make watching unof illicit sports betting. derperforming D.C. sports teams In 1922, the Professional and more enjoyable. “I am a huge D.C. Amateur Gambling Sports Pro- sports fan, and most of the time the teams are not really good,” Josh, a Blair junior, says. “So, I thought if I put money on games, it would Probably around 50make [them] more interesting to watch.”

60 kids at least, just For others, the allure of profin my grade [were iting from sports betting is seductive. “Being somebody that has albetting]. ways been into sports, a lot of high school kids are very intrigued [by being] able to make money off of tection Act banned sports betting [their] predictions,” Zach points across 46 states. A 2018 Supreme out.

Dr. Ken Winters, a senior sciCourt decision made it possible for individual states to legalize it, entist at the Oregon Research Instiand since the ruling, Americans tute, explains that winning a bet crehave legally wagered $65 billion on ates chemical reactions in the brain that release endorphins. “The sports.

Maryland voters approved the various neurotransmitters that get legalization of sports betting for activated when a person engages in those 21 and over in 2020. The first all kinds of pleasurable activities, legal sports bet in Maryland was also get activated when gambling,” placed on Dec. 2020 by Governor Winters says. “That includes… the same chemical reaction… [as] when you’re taking psychoactive drugs.”

Throughout his caIf you miss any further reer, Winters has conducted extenpayments, let’s just say sive research specializing in the ef[redacted] is not a person fects of gambling that you want to meet. on the brain.

Have a good day and Since remember [redacted] is sports betting is illegal for always watching. people under 21 in Maryland, teen bettors typically rely on joining underground networks of bookies, agents, and websites. The Larry networks are built off Hogan. of individual “books” While that offer opportunities it is now to bet on a pletholegal in ra of sports.

Maryland, These gamblers books may only run on place bets at an online casinos as mobile pl at form sports betting apps generally built are years away from being rolled by copying code from other webout in the state. sites. “A bookie backs the whole Although technically illegal in operation with money, and they Maryland, apps and websites have will have a certain amount of agents made sports betting much more ac- who all have a list of clients,” Josh cessible to fans around the world, explains. and some Maryland residents use Additionally, these agents usuapps despite the law. The two most ally have personal connections to popular apps, DraftKings and Fan- the bettor. “People have reached Duel, have more than 8 million out to me and said ‘do you want to and 6 million downloads respec- join my book?’” Josh adds. These

gambling addiction. Jeffrey, for example, once bet a total of $5,855 dollars over a six day period. He explains the addiction risks associated with sports gambling. “Gambling addiction is real… people always think about quitting when they’re losing big but they hardly ever do,” he says. This process of gambling over and over again in an attempt to make profit is called chasing your losses.

Winters describes the process of falling into that trap, which high schoolers are especially vulnerable to. “For a gambler, there’s another nasty feature, and that’s chasing losses,” Winters says. “This would be the negative consequence of being in debt and then thinking, ‘Well, if I just keep on gambling a little bit more and even accelerate my behavior, I can get out of debt.’

That’s likely a devastating decision to make, because it rarely works, and it further spirals the person downward into their addictive behavior.”

Zach thinks that another reason sports betting is so addicting is because of how incredibly easy and accessible it is. “You could place a bet in legitimately 30 seconds,” he explains. “You could throw $100 out in half a second if you just type in the number.”