Volume 109, Issue 3

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper A&E

Features

Multilingual McAuliffe

Best Breakout Artists of 2018

Meet New AP of Foreign Language, Francesca McAuliffe, with Features writers Lai Wa Chu and Jane Zheng.

The Arts & Entertainment department shares seven new artists to listen to in 2018.

see page

Volume 109 No. 3

The Stuyvesant Robotics Team participated in the Hudson

Valley Rally Tournament. One of their robots, Wildcard, won first place and their other robot, Mildcard, came in third place.

Senior Milan Haiman and sophomore Ethan Joo participated in the Math Olympiad Summer Program at Carnegie Mellon University. Haiman is being con-

Olympics

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14

Team

and the Hungarian Math Olympics team as a result of his performance at the program.

Senior Stella Ng and biology teacher Dr. Meng-Ping Tu were invited by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation to attend the annual Lasker Awards ceremony on Friday, September 21.

teacher Ellen Schweitzer won the Sloan Teaching Champion Award for Excellence in Teaching Economics and will be recognized at the CEE’ Visionary Awards and at the 57th Annual Financial Literacy and Economic Education Conference.

Economics

stuyspec.com

Stuyvesant Receives Million Dollar Donation for New Robotics Lab

By Ruth Lee and Saad Ghaffouli The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association received a $1 million donation from alumni brothers Edwin Lin (’04) and Alfred Lin (’90) for a new robotics lab on the fourth floor. Construction is set to begin next April and finish over the summer in preparation for the new robotics season.

Robotics Coaches Joe Blay and James Lonardo, along with parents Ellen Hartman and Richard Leung, were crucial in organizing the logistics for the setup of the new lab. President of the Alumni Association Soo Kim, Executive Director Sarita Prakash, and Assistant Principal of Chemistry and Physics Scott Thomas also contributed to the progress of the lab over the summer.

The donation coincides with the start of the “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” (FIRST) robotics preseason and the reality of a hefty price tag. “FIRST Robotics Competition teams always have a lot of unavoidable expenses. One competition alone can cost over $5,000 with registration fees and transportation. We also have to pay for tools, machinery, and everything else we need to build a new robot each year,” sophomore and Robotics member Nicole Press said.

“This donation will help us with some of that so we can continue to build and develop our robots.”

The robotics team has been enjoying a number of recent successes, including a 17-0 win at the International Robotics Invitational over the summer in Qianjiang,

China. Despite the team’s victories, however, a number of robotics members have expressed concern over the team’s current resources.

“We have [...] 100 members, [...] and it gets really tight. People have to work in hallways; we have to go to other classrooms,” Blay said.

Not only will this donation open up a new lab for the team, but it will also provide newer technology for the robotics team, which will create a much safer environment for the students.

“We’re going to be able to fabricate parts a lot faster. [...] Because we were working with these old machines, it takes a while, and it’s also honestly just safer to have these new machines,” Blay said.

Members of the robotics team agreed that the new equipment will open many more opportunities for the robotics team. “The renovation will improve our workflow.

Many of the processes that we do now, such as milling, can be automated, allowing us to iterate more and improve faster. We hope that with a new space, we can help our members see their creations come to life,” junior and Vice President of the robotics team’s Engineering Department Eric Chen said.

Team members aided in the process of deciding what new equipment the team should purchase. “We’re talking to robotics members about what machines they might like to use. Some of the machines we’re looking at getting—one of them’s a CNC router [computer numerical control router; used to cut out templates onto a hard material] and another one’s a laser cutter [...]—are machines that members of the ro-

Beaux Watwood / The Spectator

sidered for a spot on the USA

Math

4

October 12, 2018

NEWSBEAT

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

At the Today Show With Stuyvesant Robotics: The Community Within the Competitions See Page 5 botics team specifically are very excited about getting to use. They even did some research to help me pick out the machines,” Blay said.

Blay hopes the donation will help expand the interest of robotics throughout Stuyvesant.

“Hopefully we get more classes in here, because my dream is that when we have more than just me as a robotics teacher, we [will] have more robotics teachers

[and] we [will] have more robotics classes so that any kid who wants to take robotics can,” Blay said.

The donation marks a new chapter for the robotics team, one where Blay can see his hopes for the robotics team start to play out. “Getting this funding to really make this an awesome place for all the students who are in here, it was [...] unbelievable,” he said.

Launch of Talos Creates Difficulties for the Stuyvesant Community

By Hayeon Ok, Annette Kim, and Misaal Tabassum

Last June, Stuyvesant launched a new student information center called Talos. A system designed to facilitate communication between students and parents within the Stuyvesant community, Talos allows students to view information such as their locker numbers and combinations, their schedules, and their pending textbook returns all on one interface. Students can also request classes for the upcoming semester and submit requests for online program changes. The latter proved to be critical as the 2018-2019 school year began.

Talos was created to “make school processes more efficient and [ensure] that students […] do what they want to do and administrators do what they want to do,” Rodda John (‘17), creator of Talos, said. “The idea is [to] let the students give the information to students. Let them make the change that they want to make.” Though the site initially facilitated online

Advanced Placement course selections, its role regulating program changes in general quickly grew.

Students were informed of the use of Talos for program changes just as the school year began. Soon after, students began making online program requests and receiving queue numbers for in-person schedule changes.

Talos attempted to make program changes as fair as possible by prioritizing students based on their program change number, rather than how fast they arrived at the site of program changes.

The system tried to be convenient for both faculty and students. The process of creating the site took “a lot of student input,” John said. “I get emails from faculty almost everyday.”

The site allowed students to view the number of available seats in the classes they desired to transfer into and enabled guidance counselors to approve online requests prior to in-person program changes. These implications were meant to decrease the number of students at in-person program

changes and help alleviate the pressure placed on the guidance counselors. “We were able to make three hundred more program changes in one day than we made over the entire period last year,” John said.

However, the integration of Talos at Stuyvesant caused many unforeseen setbacks. Some students vocalized their concerns and frustrations with the system.

“I used it for program changes during my junior year, and it really did not go well at all,” junior Alison Juray said. “I requested a program change and it was really slow [...] because a lot of people were on Talos [...] at that time.”

Additionally, many students who did not get their changes approved online had to go to inperson program changes during the first week of school in order to fix issues they had. They also faced issues with Talos, specifically with their assigned numbers for in-person program changes. Students noticed fluctuations in their numbers, as well as difficulty in obtaining them in the first place. “I requested three or four program changes, but

I couldn’t find my number,” Juray said. “By the time my friend asked me, ‘Hey, what number are you?’

I [was] five hundred-something.”

In-person program changes were congested with students who needed to resolve issues. “They were going through the one-hundreds when I got there,” Juray said.

As a result, many students left without even addressing their program changes. “I went home,” Juray said.

“It was a super stressful experience.”

Despite the issues faced by some students, others had more pleasant experiences. “I was planning on going, but my change got resolved before,” sophomore Anne Rhee said.

Sophomore Emily Chervinsky agreed. “My experience during program changes was very pleasant. It ran very smoothly.

It was not like last year when all the students were crowded into lines for each subject,” she said.

Assistant Principal of Pupil Personnel Services Casey Pedrick explained that the biggest issue during program changes was the amount of people connected to the Wifi server. “Floors one

through five were all on the same line. [...] The entire counselling suite, the program office, then in the cafeteria where we set up [...] were all pooled on the same line, plus all of you guys who were refreshing Talos all the time,” Pedrick said. “Volume and capacity on the server [were] probably our biggest issue[s].”

Guidance counselors also faced struggles with handling program changes in the best way possible.

“Other students were doing more complicated asks. So when you open up the file, it would literally be eight inches of text, of drop this, add this, drop this, add this. It wasn’t even as neat as I’m relaying it,” Pedrick said. “At the end, you could only say yes or no to that whole request.”

However, despite these issues, Pedrick is hopeful for the future use of Talos, especially because it is suited to the specific needs of Stuyvesant. “It’s very userfriendly and very intuitive,” she said. John also expressed his hope for the future of Talos. Though the system did have its setbacks, “It did work better, I think, than the previous system,” he said.

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The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

News

Abir Taheer / The Spectator

William Wang and Vishwaa Sofat: 2018-2019 Leaders of the Stuyvesant Student Union

By Nishmi Abeyweera, Maddy Andersen, Erin Lee, and George Shey Senior William Wang and junior Vishwaa Sofat assumed positions as Student Union (SU) President and Vice President, respectively, at the end of the 2017-2018 school year.

Wang and Sofat have both participated in student government since their freshman years. Wang was the Director of Clubs and Publications and went on to become the Deputy Chief of Staff his junior year before becoming the president of the SU. Sofat was a Clubs and Publications Auditor during his freshman year before he was elected as Freshman and later Sophomore Caucus President. Both participate in school activities outside of the Student Union. Wang was on the cheer and stunt teams while Sofat is on the lower secretariat of Model United Nations and captains the cricket team.

Sofat’s fulfillment from his term as president of both his Freshman and Sophomore Caucus motivated him to run as SU vice president. “I knew I wanted to be part of student government when I entered high school because I’d never really gotten the chance before, but I don’t think I ever knew that I would enjoy it so much, and it would really mean so much to me,” Sofat said. “That made me want to run for SU vice president and continue doing the work I’ve enjoyed to do and make sure the student body’s voice is heard.”

Though Sofat entered high school with the intention of becoming involved in student government, Wang’s involvement was unplanned. “I’ve been working on student government for a long time; however, I didn’t come to Stuyvesant with the plan of actually running for SU president three years down the line,” he said.

Wang and Sofat have a strong bond, and worked together on several projects prior to running for president and vice president. “I wanted a partner who would care about what the SU does, be dedicated to the SU, and actually help me pursue the things the SU should be doing,” Sofat said. “[Wang] embodied those values I believe in.”

Wang has an equally optimistic view of Sofat, citing his experience as a key decision in choosing him as a running mate. “[Sofat] was ambitious and had creative ideas that would truly change the school. He was behind some of the most proactive policy changes,” he said. “I felt like the best person to take on as my vice president would be someone who knows the ins and outs of the SU policy-wise.”

Junior Caucus President Eve Wening was Sofat’s vice president for his Freshman and Sophomore Caucus terms. After working alongside him for two years on gradewide policies and dances like the Semi-Formal, she knows that Sofat is truly invested in the SU. “He has a really unrelenting passion for this. He takes it really seriously, and he puts a lot of time into it,” she said.

The Wang-Sofat ticket was uncontested in the spring election, allowing the two to win by default.

“I’d like to think that we both did an amazing job and the SU was amazing, which was why no one decided to run against us,” Sofat said. “It could be because no one was interested or it could be because no one thought the SU was a commitment they

wanted because it is a lot of work.”

Sophomore Caucus President Katerina Corr sees this default win as an example of a major issue in student government elections. “It is absolutely unacceptable for SU to go uncontested, or any election for that matter to go uncontested,” Corr said. “The student government is meant to represent the students. If the students don’t even have the opportunity to vote for anybody, then we can’t pretend that those people actually represent the students.”

However, others believe that Wang and Sofat are the best people for the job, regardless of the election’s turnout. “William and Vishwaa have more experience in the SU than any other two people at Stuyvesant,” Wening said.

“They would’ve won—I can’t think of anyone who’s more qualified, well spoken, or would’ve done a better job.”

“This is the culmination of their works thus far at Stuy[vesant] and in the SU, and I think they’re two of the most dedicated people I know,” junior and SU Chief Auditing Officer Nina Jennings said. “No one else really has that connection to the student body and the administration and all these other organizations.”

The ticket’s accession broke the ‘dynasty’ that was in place for the past four years. “Ever since I was a freshman, the SU has been known to be extremely exclusive to people.

There is something called a dynasty, in which the president chooses a vice president, who then is the next president, who chooses another, and the cycle goes on and on,” Wang said.

Wang and Sofat believe that by winning the election, they have successfully ended the cycle. “I hope that this change in tradition is going to bring about new tickets to run against [Sofat] if he decides to run,” Wang said.

The two have been actively trying to make the SU more inclusive and objective, starting with the appointment of SU officials by conducting in-depth interviews with each candidate. “The way we started off the school year was with 11 or 12 hours of interviews,” Wang said.

Sofat agreed. “We have been criticized for nepotism and called out for bureaucracy, but this SU plans to do a lot of different things in diverse areas [...] so we need different people who can actively be involved in the process,” Sofat said. The Wang-Sofat administration received 317 applications for non-elected SU positions, compared to 172 the previous year.

However, the SU realizes it needs to strike a balance between quantity and quality within the organization. While the SU aims to be more inclusive, some believe that having too members may not be the ideal solution. “Everyone who has a position or is involved in the SU should be doing work, and I don’t feel like that’s the case currently,” Senior Caucus President Amit Narang said.

Wang and Sofat have also aimed to foster a better relationship between the SU and the caucuses. “They’re definitely trying to work a lot closer with caucuses this year, which is both good and bad, because on one hand, it’s good to have support, but [...] we’re working on figuring out a balance between helpful guidance and too much oversight,” Narang said.

Corr also commented on the dynamic between SU and caucus. “There is always a bit of a power struggle

between SU and caucus. I think that what they have done this year to eliminate that has been good,” she said.

At the first cabinet meeting, the SU enacted a new policy that increased caucus representation. “That was a great move because in the past, caucuses haven’t been heard as much as we may have wanted, and I think that creating that new distribution of the votes was a great way to even out the power between the two branches.”

Additionally, Wang and Sofat began working on new projects over the summer. They oversaw the establishment of StuyActivities, a website that assists students in creating, managing, and joining clubs. “When you’re a freshman, you don’t know if you want to become a part of a club, [or] what clubs are there, because there are so many clubs that have interest meetings, some you’ll miss in the advice group,” Sofat said. On the website, students are able to use various filters that cover commitment level and organization type to find a club that suits them.

Club leaders can also submit charters, reserve rooms, and communicate with members through the website.

StuyActivities provides an online chartering system, which allows students to manage the logistics of their clubs with more convenience.“They’re definitely doing a lot more integration with technology, which I think is really valuable, because a lot of our stuff tends to be really outdated,” Narang said.

In previous years, Clubs and Publications were managed with paper charters, which was an inefficient method of organization. “Charters will get lost, especially paper charters within the SU. Someone would have to fill it out, and it would take weeks,” Sofat said. “We do have problems, but I strongly believe we’re already a lot better than the previous charter system that existed.”

The SU is also developing a notification system to work alongside the website. “As soon as a meeting is booked, all the members get an email so that they know that there’s a meeting they should attend,” Sofat said. “It allows students to be on top of things and allows clubs to properly communicate with members. These are problems I’ve seen [in] the clubs I’ve been a part of.”

They are also introducing smaller initiatives like rentable umbrellas and affordable test prep books. “They are really thinking outside the box this year, and they are trying to think of every little thing that could possibly make student life better,” junior and SU Deputy Chief of Staff Lena Farley said. “I want to have little things like that so that people don’t think, ‘Oh, they don’t do anything,’ just because our big projects—we can’t really talk about them until we are pretty far along with them. It is small things like that so students will actually see the work we are doing.”

Wang and Sofat will continue to make changes to the way the SU is run as well as experiment with other initiatives for the rest of their term, including monthly newsletters and biweekly videos.

However, because students don’t always see the progress that the SU makes, Wang and Sofat face harsh criticism from students. “You are in the spotlight for all of these people, and if something very minor goes wrong, people will be very quick to blame you,” Corr said.

Wang and Sofat hope that members of the Stuyvesant will be more lenient and understanding of the struggles they face as leaders of the student body. “We aren’t perfect, we make mistakes, but any human will make mistakes,” Sofat said. “When you think about the SU or about what we do, remember we are human beings, we are students, but yes, do hold us accountable when we do something wrong. At the same time, support us so that we can support you.”

Ultimately, both Wang and Sofat find their work in student government incredibly rewarding. “Representing students is one of the greatest happinesses I’ve gotten from being the president of the SU—being able to talk to people, being able to help them [...] so that they can wake up in the morning and something about school is less terrifying or less daunting,” Wang said.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Saturday by one of the slimmest margins in Ameri-

can history, creating a solid conservative majority in the court. This comes after multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct, in addition to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier last week. Senators voted 50-48, almost entirely along party lines.

Hurricane Michael has intensified to a Category 4 storm, and is expected to make landfall in Florida Wednesday afternoon.

“This is the worst storm that the Florida Panhandle has seen in a century,” Gov. Rick Scott said at a news conference.

Sears Holding Corp. is preparing for a bankruptcy filing that could come as soon as this week. The company has almost $5.5 billion in debt, and chairman Edward Lampert is pushing for a broader restructuring of the company

U.S. Ambassador

to the

as well.

United Nations Nikki Haley

said she is resigning her post at the end of the year. The former Republican governor of South Carolina has been an advocate of many President Trump’s foreign policies on the world stage.

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The Spectator â—? October 12, 2018

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The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Features LGBTQ+ Struggles at Stuy

By ZOE OPPENHEIMER and YASMINE CHOKRANE According to the J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group’s survey of youths ages 13 to 20, also known as Generation Z (Gen Z), only 48 percent identified as heterosexual. The remaining 52 percent identified as LGBTQ+ or questioning. Though they may not all be LGBTQ+, this shows that there is less of an expectation of heterosexuality and a more accepting mindset in Gen Z. 56 percent of 12- to 20-year-olds said that they knew someone who used the gender pronouns “they/them,” or “ze.” Over a third of respondents strongly agreed that gender identity does not define a person, demonstrated in the 44 percent of respondents who said they always bought clothes designed for their own gender. This survey also showed that Gen Z strongly feels that public spaces should provide access to gender-neutral bathrooms, with 70 percent supporting the cause. In The Spectator’s senior survey of the class of 2019, almost 20 percent of students identified as something other than straight.

With so much of our generation identifying as LGBTQ+, it is important that our school is a safe and supportive place for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Fortunately, most of the LGBTQ+ students at Stuyvesant seem to agree that it is a rarity to see personal homophobic attacks against individual students. Sophomore Julian Cunningham, who identifies as bisexual and uses the pronouns “he/him,” said, “When I hear derogatory words, [such as] gay [being] used as an insult, I don’t necessarily feel threatened by them. It’s not them being super homophobic; I don’t think it’s them saying that if there were a gay person here, they would be blocked, banned, [or] not okay.”

Junior Eleanor Loprest, who identifies as asexual and uses the pronouns “they/them,” said, “I

By LAI WA CHU and JANE ZHENG

their support in a number of ways and can still improve. Garcia explained, “If you have friends who are LGBTQ+, you should be able to support them and try your best to be educated on the history, culture, and current events. You don’t have to show up at every protest, but just being aware of the causes is the best thing you can do.” To be a more supportive student body, it is important that allies are educated on the LGBTQ+ community, history, and the spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations.

There are more than a few students who manage to educate themselves, but allies come in tiers.

Vuksanaj stated, “There are the people who are passively fine with or supportive of the community but don’t really make an effort to learn about the community unless they know someone personally.

And then there are the allies who might come to a Spectrum meeting or really know about the community, and they know quite [a lot] about the entirety of the queer community and have often been able to help me in situations where I need to confront someone about misgendering me or something similar. There are the people who are allies in name, who don’t know much about us, and then there are the people I consider to be the strongest allies, who are really, really great.”

The teachers also make an effort to accomodate their students.

Loprest shared that while students try to memorize and use the correct pronouns, “teachers have been a little bit worse about it; some have just prefered to refer to me by my name or just kind of ignore the fact that I don’t use she/her,” they said.

Garcia added, “My teachers are pretty supportive. They’re willing to learn about your preferred name and pronouns, anything you need them to know about you.”

Though Loprest has faced some difficulties with their teachers, they have never been outrightly discriminated against. They described,

“I’ve gotten a slight amount of passive-aggression from certain teachers. I might mention my pronouns offhand, and the teacher would be like, “Okay,” like that disbelieving sort of “Mhm.” There are a few homophobic teachers at Stuy [who] I won’t name, but there are names to be named. A lot of the teachers basically don’t understand a lot about modern gender and sexuality. Some of them are pretty chill about it; some of them prefer not to bother trying to learn these things because they are confused and slightly afraid.”

Vuksanaj has come to a similar conclusion. She described, “With almost all of them, there’s difficulty with using the correct pronouns all of the time, but the majority of them recognize when they’ve made a mistake and will handle it in a good way, apologizing to me after class and rarely making the mistake a second time. There are certain teachers that are much much worse about it, either not understanding or being vaguely resentful about the fact that it’s something they have to accept.”

However, most students agree that teachers at Stuyvesant are pretty understanding and supportive of the LGBTQ+ students. Some teachers and counselors stand out.

For example, Garcia and Cunningham both mentioned Jessica Chock-Goldman and Joseph Feola as trusted adults they feel comfortable going to. All of the interviewees believed that there is someone at the school they can talk to about their gender and/or sexual orientation, and, if there were an incident of bullying or harassment that took place, they would feel safe confiding in.

A guarantee of safety and someone to confide in concerning these issues are two ways our school proves to be a generally accepting place, but there are other ways we can show our support for the LGBTQ+ community. Classes could make more of an effort to incorporate the LGBTQ+ community

in our curriculum. Garcia pointed out, “With languages such as Spanish, where everything is gendered and there are no neutral pronouns, you need to be informed.” And as Loprest suggested, a few electives devoted to LGBTQ+ literature and history would go a long way to educate both the LGBTQ+ community and its allies.

There’s definitely room for improvement, and we can start with including more gender-neutral bathrooms at Stuyvesant. The absence of these bathrooms forces people who don’t identify as cisgender into an uncomfortable position. Loprest, who does not feel comfortable in either the girls’ or boys’ bathroom, is forced to use either the bathrooms in the nurse’s office or the single gender-neutral bathroom on the fifth floor, which is “generally either populated by people having sex or a bunch of freshmen boys who cannot pee in a straight line,” they said. This also poses a problem with the changing rooms, creating even more congestion. Loprest said, “I would appreciate immensely a couple more gender-neutral bathrooms, especially if we can have a multistall one somewhere. There are a lot of bathrooms in this school. I don’t think it’ll be too complicated to just stick a sign that says ‘allgender.’”

Overall, Stuyvesant is a school that, while supportive and welcoming, has many opportunities to improve as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Garcia, president of Spectrum, stated, “We have a lot of problems left behind by the older generations, but we’re here, and as long we’re here, we’re going to do our best to fix it in all areas.” Cunningham, though he appreciates the community, acknowledged, “People are trying to make an effort, and I think it’s only going to go uphill from here.”

Multilingual McAuliffe

very energetic and loved her job,” McAuliffe explained. “So I started asking her some questions about her career path. She said it was very rewarding, and I was sold.”

Choosing to teach foreign language is what you would naturally expect from McAuliffe after hearing the way she expressed her love for foreign languages. She said with a soft smile, “I love hearing them. I love experiencing them. I love learning them. I love adding some nuances to my own arsenal.”

She finds learning new languages to be extremely rewarding, as they introduce her to worlds and cultures that she otherwise wouldn’t be able to connect to. Fluent in three languages, McAuliffe is able to help confused tourists on the streets of Manhattan. Moreover, when she was working as a salesperson at CVS as one of her first jobs, she was offered extra money because she could tend to Spanish speaking customers. When asked what superpower she would love to have, McAuliffe answered without hesitation, “To be able to speak every single language in the world fluently, because the entire world would be so accessible. You could call someone instantly, and there would be no language barrier.”

Prior to coming to Stuyvesant, McAuliffe spent 14 years teaching Spanish and Italian in New Dorp High School in Staten Island. She had been pursuing an assistant principal position for a few years, and when an opportunity to interview at Stuyvesant came, she eagerly took it. Now, she teaches two sec-

Tiffany Yu / The Spectator

The new school year welcomes not only a new class of freshmen into the doors of Stuyvesant High School, but also a wave of new faces in the faculty. Among them is the new Assistant Principal of the Language Department, Francesca McAuliffe.

When entering the AP Language Department aisle on the fifth floor, the familiar infrastructure and design awaits, but now, there is seemingly a gust of new energy. McAuliffe is sitting by her desk with a name plate gifted by her sister situated at the rim, smiling warmly at any welcoming guest. She greets you and eases any sort of pressure, except from speaking to such a well-spoken person. “I guess I’m a good listener,” she said. Any sort of initial tension would dissipate once knowing that she is listening intently.

As a first-generation American with both her parents born in Italy, McAuliffe grew up bilingual in English and Italian. She started learning Spanish in sixth grade and continued to study the language for her Bachelor’s degree.

“When I went to college, I was contemplating between studying Spanish or Italian,” McAuliffe said.

“They didn’t have Italian as a major, so I continued with Spanish.”

McAuliffe discovered her passion in teaching when she was just a high school student. She expressed that her teacher, Ms. Castro, was her inspiration. “[She] was

feel like the general population of Stuyvesant has a weird attitude toward LGBTQ+ people. There’s a combination of casual homophobia but tolerance toward actual LGBTQ+ people. There’s this constant presence of overhearing homophobic jokes just walking around the halls at Stuy.” However, this is only in certain communities, specifically those lacking in LGBTQ+ members and allies.

Overall, Cunningham believes that “Stuyvesant is one of the most accepting places one could possibly be,” he said.

Students at Stuyvesant are typically accepting of whatever a person identifies as. Junior Star Garcia, who uses the pronouns “he/him” and is questioning sexual orientation, said, “[Students] kinda just take it and don’t really ask questions.” Loprest, on the other hand, has a slightly different opinion.

While Loprest believes that “everyone is generally very open-minded about everyone else’s sexuality in addition to their own,” they said, Loprest also believes that there are exceptions to this generalization.

“It seems as though the entire student body [...] is not actually homophobic except for a select few, but I’ve definitely gotten homophobic jokes to my face,” they said.

Nevertheless, there are instances of outright homophobia/ transphobia. Junior Kiran Vuksanaj, who uses the “she/her/hers” pronouns and identifies as transgender recounts for us in an e-mail: “While it seems as though the majority of people at Stuy are supportive or at least tolerant of LGBTQ+ people, there is some part of the student body [that tends] to make homophobic remarks or throw around the f-slur, and they tend to be much louder than most. That, in combination with the fact that most people don’t make any effort to confront those people about their homophobia, makes it feel as though the community overall is much less accepting.”

As allies, students can show

tions of Spanish I and works as the assistant principal for the language department. When asked what her responsibilities as the assistant principal are, McAuliffe chuckled and admitted that she is still in process of learning, as she is new to the school. However, she concluded, “My role is to support educators and students who are learning world languages, make their experiences more fulfilling, and ensure that students are getting the highest quality education possible.”

As the new assistant principal of language, McAuliffe elaborated on her goals for the coming years.

She listed one of her goals as the incorporation of Boomalang, a program that allows students to have Skype-like conversations with native speakers. Though the program is currently only offered in Spanish and French, McAuliffe stated that she has worked with them at her prior school and is hoping to do the same here. Additionally, McAuliffe hopes to bring about a student exchange program, explaining her previous experience with exchange programs. “I did that at my previous school where there were students from the Netherlands who came and lived with [our students’

families] and attended classes with them, and our students went there during spring break,” she said. Optimistic for the following years, McAuliffe hopes to add such programs into the curriculum. One thing McAuliffe definitely wants to do “is to ask the students what they are looking for to push their language learning,” she said. With regards to language learning, according to McAuliffe, the best way to learn a new language is through immersion, the usage of authentic resources, and engaging trips. continued on page 5

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 5

Features At the Today Show With Stuyvesant Robotics: The Community Within the Competitions

By VERONIKA KOWALSKI and JENNIFER LIU Stuyvesant’s three Robotics teams—First Tech Challenge’s Stuy Fusion and Stuy Fission and First Robotics Challenge’s StuyPulse 694—assembled themselves at 6:00 a.m. on the podium at Rockefeller Plaza in the presence of over 100 audience members on Friday, September 21. They lugged their moving hunk of metal on the 2 train, withstood the prodding questions of strangers, and casually flaunted their Magnum Opus as the sun was beginning to rise.

After the Kickoff event early this month in which they found out about this year’s new challenge through a live stream, the Robotics teams are anticipating another year of hard work and connecting with the broader FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) community, which had organized their leagues and granted them the opportunity to appear on the Today Show. First Tech Challenge (FTC) team members Jonathan Lu, Aleksandra Koroza, and Lili Boenigk discuss the team’s experience on the show and during competitions.

PRE-SHOW INTERVIEW

POST-SHOW INTERVIEW How was your experience at the Today Show?

Koroza: Exciting but also tiring because we woke up at 4:00 a.m. to get there at 6:00 a.m..

Boenigk: It was also cool because

it wasn’t just our team. There were other NYC Robotics teams that we often see at competitions and events, but we got to network them in a new way. We had brought two robots, and we lent a team that didn’t have a functional robot our own.

Koroza: It ended up not working, but we still networked with them.

We got their contact information.

It’s cool to have this community. It’s all so surreal: you’re there at six in the morning, and there are anchors talking about the weather. Usually, you’d see this on TV, but here, you see it in person. They’d walk out, pointing at the audience. You could see them reviewing their notes before they went live with their glasses and Starbucks cups.

Where was it?

Boenigk: It was in an alleyway.

Koroza: It was just a feature. That’s all we were there for. We competed, we talked to teams, but you know how they do features on the Today Show?

Boenigk: So imagine, it’s between these two buildings, and it is dark in the morning. Over here is the game field where all the robots are demonstrating. On this side are all the Robotics Teams that are coming to watch, and here is kind of the more general audience. And here’s the game field. Every year, there’s like a sort of Robotics challenge and there are different games. This was last year’s game, and they set up a field.

A bunch of Robotics teams brought their robots to demo.

What was your greatest takeaway from the event?

Koroza: I like the feeling of community and of waking up in the morning. That was a really special day in my mind. We came to class late, and we hung out at Whole Foods. Taking the subway with the robot was my greatest takeaway.

Boenigk: We were sitting on a bench of the 2 train with the bot in the middle. It was rush hour, and people were trying to step around the robot.

People kept asking, “What does this piece do?”

What was the robot used for?

Boenigk: It was the robot we used last year. Every year, there’s a new challenge; you build a robot for that year’s theme. Going back to the biggest takeaway question, again, the sense of community, but also that the FIRST organization is the way we interact with other teams. It’s always a competition. It’s obviously competitive, so being there in a special environment early in the morning was very cool. So was networking.

Koroza: If we were to frame it in a concise way, it was collaborative rather than competitive.

Were you apprehensive?

Boenigk: A little bit, because these were last year’s robots.

Koroza: We had some technical issues.

Boenigk: You’re right; we had some last-minute fixing to do, but it worked out. It happens in every competition.

How do you normally react when you’re approached with last minute issues?

Boenigk: Duct tape. It’s always the hardware.

Koroza: I found that, as classic Stuy students, we work really well under pressure. At one competition, our phone wasn’t getting the right angle, so we taped it to the chassis of our bot at a certain angle that did work, even though we didn’t think of that at a normal meeting. It worked because of the positioning of the block.

Boenigk: One year, we needed wheel guards because pieces kept getting stuck under the robot and we couldn’t drive anymore, so we took pizza boxes and taped them to the robot to make the guards.

Koroza: We shouldn’t have to have last-minute innovations, but we do, that’s part of the excitement of the competition.

How many people were in the audience?

Boenigk: We were in between two buildings. We were situated in a narrow block of the road that was fenced off. The majority of us stood around the block. In the center of the block, they set out a green field where the news anchors stood. Of all five of the Robotics teams, I believe there were about 80 people, but audience members stopped off during different segments of the show.

Aleksandra: I would say there were 100 people total including all the workers manipulating the cameras, telling the anchors what to do, tinkering with the competition field, and making sure everything was set up.

How did they prep you to go on stage?

Boenigk: There was a hype guy. He came around, and we had to practice cheering about 10 times before we got it right. Jon and I had to say, “We’re Stuyvesant Robotics,” but we had to say it with the ultimate cheeriness.

What was the game?

Boenigk: You had to pick up these foam blocks and stack them. You could also get points by an autonomous mode dislodging a certain color ball based on your team color.

Finally, you could pick up little plas-

FTC team members Lili Boenigk (left) and Aleksandra Koroza (right).

Multilingual McAuliffe

continued from page 4

Moving forward to her newfound experiences at Stuyvesant, when asked about any of the expectations she had regarding this community, McAuliffe answered, “ I don’t really like to expect something before experiencing it,” but she acknowledged that she knew “the students were very hardworking and determined because of all the studying that [they] do to become a Stuy student,” she said.

Upon becoming a new member

of this family, McAuliffe praises us for being exactly how she expected us to be: diligent and hardworking.

About the high standards and expectations she encountered here, McAuliffe compared the environment at Stuyvesant to that of the school she taught at for 14 years.

At her old school, every homework assigned came back on time.

Respectively, McAuliffe thanked the Stuyvesant students for their dedication and passion. She was awed by the amount of APs a general Stuyvesant student took on.

She later commended the community for working so hard and

being able to take on such a task.

With the expectations, realities follow. Though not expecting the students and staff of Stuyvesant to have stellar amounts of sleep, one thing McAuliffe noticed was the norm here: the lack of sleep. When talking about the absence of sleep in our school, McAuliffe revealed that her experience as a personal trainer in the past allowed her to have a bigger insight as to how significant sleep is. “Without sleep, you can’t heal, you can’t digest food properly and you can’t be the best you if you don’t sleep.” However, even with the knowledge of all this,

tic figures and extend them three feet up above the game field. It was more of a scrimmage than a game.

How did you interact with the other teams present?

Boenigk: We got to interact with teams in a way that we don’t usually get to at competitions, because obviously, at competitions, everybody’s kind of driven, so it’s a very different vibe. Here, it was really nice that we could interact with teams in a way that was more informal, and with one team, the Young Women’s Leadership Academy in Astoria, given that their robot wasn’t working and that we actually had two robots, we lent them one. Hopefully, we’ll be able to work with them later in the season.

This show was about the Robot Revolution. Where is this revolution going to take us?

Koroza: The applications that were in the show included medical applications. There were applications in the battlefield. I don’t know if we’ll be seeing day-to-day activities increasing rapidly, but I do think that it’s going to happen eventually.

We’re already seeing vacuuming bots working if your house isn’t too cluttered. In general, though, I think time will bring a lot of applications that perhaps we don’t know about now. I know that robots help with engineering applications, which is another thing. Screening through many images. Being able to figure out if tumors are benign. There are robots employed to help the medical field.

Boenigk: I agree. I don’t think future Robotics will take the form depicted in the special. I think a big misconception is that advanced robots need to be humanoid. In fact, the opposite is true. The most advanced robots today work in factory assembly lines or in medical applications. We have seen the growth of AI in recent years. If a “robot revolution” happens, it will be very much tied up in where AI’s development takes us.

Beaux Watwood / The Spectator

How did you gain the opportunity to be on the Today Show?

Lu: We were invited to be featured in their program by the Regional Affiliate for FIRST Robotics, who manages all the Robotics activities in New York City. They first approached our mentors, Mr. Blay and Mr. Lonardo, and asked them if we would like to do a demonstration.

We [479] will be showing two of our robots from last year; 310 and 479 will be showing one each. There will also be two teams from Lower Manhattan and one from Queens.

What are the differences between the three teams, other than size?

Do you focus on making different things?

Koroza: When people join 694, they usually specialize in that one area unless they really don’t like it.

In all of the Robotics teams, there’s Software, there’s Engineering, and there’s Marketing. There’s also Scouting and Strategy, which is a bit like a subsection of Engineering. In FTC, though, it’s a little more fluid. In order to fully participate, you have to know how the engineering works.

You have to be a part of the design process to write effective programs.

You have to know how to contribute to Marketing to help with all the write-ups and Outreach events that we do. It’s really a bit of everything, as opposed to FRC, in which you specialize in one thing.

What about New York City Robotics? How often do you unite with other schools?

Koroza: Historically, we have been a bit disjointed. When you’re unable to share ideas among a large population, you’re sort of stuck in this little echo chamber. For example, if this mechanism doesn’t work, you go to your mentors. What if your mentors don’t know how it works? There’s a huge benefit to reaching out to

multiple teams. That’s why Kickoff was really beneficial. We were able to talk about different strategies and try to see if our thoughts were actually creative. People thought of a lot of interesting things. It’s beneficial to the creativity of the community as a whole.

What do you do the day of the competition?

Koroza: Hopefully by then, your robot is working, fully functional, and you just go to matches and you win, right? That’s the idea. You get a match list and you go to your matches. There are several matches.

The scoring is a point-based system.

Imagine putting a ball into a hoop.

That’s a certain amount of points.

Parking your robot is another certain amount of points. There’s an autonomous part of the competition where you get more points for being able to complete the task. You can’t defend aggressively. You’d get points off for that.

What have your most meaningful experiences been?

Koroza: Spending a lot of time with the other members; you grow really close to those people, having brought the robot over to your house trying to cram a few last-minute changes. Working on the robot during the competition is another experience in and of itself with the tension, the fact that you trust the other members to help you, and the fact that you rely on each other’s wisdom. I think that is the main thing that I’m taking away: the value of teamwork, the value of accepting everyone’s positions, and trying to take in everyone’s ideas and putting them into something that works.

It’s the hours you spend with these people, and you grow to like them.

The friendship is formed over those many hours through building and talking about what went wrong.

When you joined Robotics, what did you expect to get out of it?

Lu: I joined the Robotics Team as an Engineer. During freshman year, I came to learn Mechanical Engineering. During my sophomore and junior years, I started to do electronics with CAD, which is what I continue to do today. I also spend a lot of my free time organizing Outreach, mentoring FLL teams, and transforming my passion for Engineering into something that’s communicable to others. That’s how I got interested in Marketing.

Koroza: I joined as a sophomore. I had experience in choral singing and plays, and I thought I was going to stick to that. I thought I was going to be a theater kid, but then I got drawn into the community that Robotics is and the fact that you could come and learn something new every day. If you don’t, you have to reflect on what you did. Also, being able to use power tools is a really cool thing.

Those were the things that drew me in and kept me.

she joked that she, too, upon joining this community, has joined the ever growing no-sleep club.

Other than this piece of advice McAuliffe offers, she also hopes that Stuyvesant students engage in activities of interest, participate in extracurriculars, and just have some fun during their high school years. She recalled her past experiences, saying, “When I was in high school, those [were] the things that [made] long-lasting friends.” As a student, McAuliffe was not only trilingual, but also a varsity cross country runner, soccer athlete, and a part of a musical group that sang old Spanish

classics. Even now, she has a countless number of hobbies she enjoys in her free time: singing, rollerblading, kayaking, playing soccer, running, traveling with her husband, and cooking. The dedication in her work and hobbies is reflected as she says, “I like to give 100 percent to what I’m doing. I feel like if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”

Recognizing that our new language assistant principal is ambitious and well accommodated with a wide spectrum of skills and talents, we know that McAuliffe has a lot to offer, and we hope that Stuyvesant, too, can offer as much.

Page 6

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Editorials Staff Editorial

The Spectator

The Other Side of High School Admissions

Mayor Bill de Blasio has recently set forth two proposals to combat a lack of racial diversity in specialized high schools. The first would expand the Discovery Program, which allows low-income students scoring just below the cutoff to attend summer classes and gain admission to specialized high schools. 20 percent of available seats will theoretically be reserved for this purpose. The second is to replace the SHSAT with a program that would allot spots in specialized high schools to the top seven percent of students in each middle school based on class rank and state test scores. These proposals are intended to increase the percentage of black and latinx students to a projected 45 percent of each graduating class.

Both proposals would inevitably take seats away from Asian American students and students attending middle schools that have historically sent large numbers of students to specialized high schools, often called “feeder” middle schools.

The Editorial Board has interviewed and documented the opinions of current Stuyvesant students, alumni of the school, teachers, and parents to gain a sense of how students who currently benefit from the admissions system are responding to these proposed changes. The following is an excerpt of what we found. A more comprehensive collection of interviews will be published in The Spectator Magazine, set to be published in November 2018.

Scott Abramowitz

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

E DITOR S I N C HIEF

Jane Rhee* Beaux Watwood* N e ws

E d i t o rs

Nishmi Abeyweera George Shey Erin Lee** Maddy Andersen** F e at u r e s

E d i t o rs

Archi Das Amy Huang Amanda Peng Op i n i o ns

E d i t o rs

Artem Ilyanok Eliza Spinna*

Stuyvesant High School, senior Interviewed by Gabrielle Umanova

A rts & Ent e rta i nm e nt E d i t o rs

Thomas Chen** William Lohier* Emily Xu P h o t o graph y E d i t o rs

Ting Ting Chen Elena Sapelyuk* A rt

D i r e ct o rs

Klaire Geller Anika Hashem Darren Liang L ayo ut

Co py

E d i t o rs

Jeanette Cheung Michelle Lai* Jonela Malollari Tiffany Cao** Brian Zhang** B u s i n e ss

S p o rts

I remember a conversation in Mr. Sandler’s class last year about the three-fifths compromise, and people were justifying putting it into the Constitution because of the need to get all the states on board. And then Mr. Sandler asked us, “If there was an African American person in our class, would you be saying the same thing?” I think that hit a lot of people and it made sense, because our answers would be different, and people would consider it more and think about it from different perspectives. Diversity is definitely important to have, but getting rid of the test wouldn’t be the solution and wouldn’t be treating the heart of the problem.

E d i t o rs

Celina Liu Ariel Melendez Jeremy Rubin h u mo r

E d i t o rs

Kerwin Chen Gabrielle Umanova

345 Chambers Street New York, NY 10282 (212) 312-4800 ext. 2601 opinions@stuyspec.com

Stuyvesant High School, senior Interviewed by Emily Xu What was your family and elementary/middle school background like? Did your parents push you into going to a “feeder school” or send you to SHSAT prep?

I went to prep classes. My parents thought which high school you went to mattered, even though I very much regret [coming] to Stuy. I would have rather gone to my zone school and had a normal life as a teenager. I peaked in Mark Twain. I was the Vice President; I played the piano in front of the entire school and a famous movie director visiting the school. My principal even had a framed picture of us in her office, and she gave me an Outstanding Leadership Award. I feel like if I had gone to a high school like Goldstein, I could have continued on that path. But instead, I feel stuck at Stuy.

If you had gone to a school like Goldstein, the racial makeup of your high school would have been vastly different. Do you think that would have played any role in your satisfaction with the school and/or your high school experience?

Yes, I think I would be more satisfied. Goldstein has kids that represent a much wider array of thinking, in terms of career ambitions, hobbies, political views, and general outlooks on life, as opposed to the very linear and zombie-like ideology that I see in many kids at Stuy. At the same time, I don’t want to say that Stuyvesant is a complete mistake because it has exposed me to many opportunities that I never would have thought about. For example, I wrote my Common App essay about internships and programs that I discovered through Stuyvesant.

The Goldstein admissions process is quite different from that of Stuyvesant’s—it is solely based on middle school grades. You mentioned previously that Goldstein is able to attract a more diverse student body. Do you think that in order to combat a lack of diversity at Stuyvesant, there should be a more lenient admissions process?

No. I think the admissions process should be more rigorous in that there should be an interview portion. I don’t want zombie-like kids who are only booksmart and have no personality. Their grades are the only things they think about. They are not engaged in any way except academically. I have run into a bit of a paradox, but I don’t know how else to describe it. I think a combination of interviews and SHSAT scores should be necessary to get into Stuy because I don’t think all students at this school deserve the networking and character-building opportunities that are provided [for] them here.

M anag e rs

Stacey Xue We b

E d i t o rs

Darius Jankauskas Jason Lin Jerry Ye F ac u lt y

A d v i sEr

Kerry Garfinkel

* Managing Board ** Editors-in-Training Please address all letters to:

Frederic Minzberg

E d i t o rs

Dahae Choi Christina Tan Katie Wu

We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and length. © 2018 The Spectator All rights reserved by the creators. *Editor-in-Training

Paulina Klubok Stuyvesant High School, senior Interviewed by Gabrielle Umanova What was your middle school experience like, and how did you prepare for the test?

I attended a very selective middle school; it was called Mark Twain. I think I began preparing for the test in the middle of seventh grade, taking classes at a Russian prep school once a week.

Did you feel like your school was helpful in getting you ready for the the SHSAT? No. There were a few after-school classes, but even the ones I attended were not very useful in adequately preparing students.

We were already high-achieving students in a good school, so I think in another school where students are not as lucky and don’t have the home resources to prepare them, [they] might be at a real disadvantage for SHSAT prep.

What do you think about the proposed reform to replace the test with taking the top 7 percent of students from all NYC middle schools?

If that system had been implemented while I was in middle school, I wouldn’t be in Stuy. I think it puts a lot of pressure on younger kids and makes middle school unnecessarily competitive, which is already really hard without battling for your spot.

I also think that policy might distort the way that teachers grade and won’t hold students from a variety of different schools to the same standard.

Victor Greez Brooklyn Technical High School (‘78). Taught previously at The Bronx High School of Science. History teacher at Stuyvesant High School.

Interviewed by Jeremy Rubin Based on your experiences as a student at a specialized high school and as a teacher at Stuyvesant, do you believe the SHSAT is a fair indicator of students’ abilities?

Well, it’s as if you picked your college students just based on your SATs. I think it would be important to add your grade point average and your attendance and perhaps some other specialized tests, just in case you have more of a rubric. But there’s also a cost factor. I mean, you have 18,000 students. You’d love to interview some of them, you know you’d love for them to give you a writing sample, and you’d love for them to have a writing component to the test, but logistically, is that feasible? So I think under the circumstances, it’s pretty clear as to what’s going to be on those exams and what to do […] and I think that when you prep for it, you’re enriching your skills.

Do you believe there is a problem with diversity at Stuyvesant, and if you think so, how would you go about solving it?

There’s income diversity here. Close to 40 percent of students at this school qualify for free lunch, and when you look at this, when you look at Stuyvesant, I think that

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 7

Opinions The Other Side of High School Admissions RongJie Guo

Victor Greez (cont’d) it’s important to note that even though there is a diversity here, this is not Birch Waltham. This is not Horace Mann. This is not a white, elite school. These are kids whose parents work in laundromats and work as waiters and work as cab drivers.

I also think that it’s really important to note that kids, underrepresented minorities, are recruited by private schools and boarding schools and Catholic schools and are given scholarships and all sorts of opportunities. But the poor Bangladeshi kid and the poor Chinese kid are not given those opportunities because there are wealthy Asians. Those schools aren’t underrepresented, so this is a path; this other path is not open to them, and now, you go [try] to close this path, and I think that’s really closed-minded.

As a parent with a son who’s obviously going to go through this whole process, would you consider sending him to a specialized high school through the SHSAT? You have to be a certain type of kid to come to Stuyvesant. You have to be a kid who wants to travel. You have to be a kid who, in a sense, is ready for college because everyone is motivated. So [these kids are] not going to get pushed. They’re not going to get coddled, so, in some ways, at least from an education standpoint, it’s sort of an impersonal machine.

I think that the power of Stuyvesant is not necessarily in the academics and teaching. Because you have good and bad teachers at every school, the power of Stuyvesant is student autonomy.

It’s the students who self-run The Spectator and self-fund The Spectator. It’s the Stuyvesant Theater Community without any adults for funds [that] produces shows. It’s the robotics team [that] stays here until 8:00 p.m. and […] feed off each other.

That’s the beauty of it. And it’s that type of kid…If I felt he’d thrive in this environment, then yeah. We’ll see.

Mother of seventh grader at Christa McAuliffe Intermediate School 187 Interviewed by Brian Zhang What was the primary factor that urged you to push your children to attend one of these specialized high schools?

I want both of my children to attend specialized high schools because I want them to be better off financially. My generation had to work hard jobs in order to make money and support our families. I hope that a better education and a more competitive atmosphere will motivate my children to pursue better career choices in the future. We actually moved from Richmond, Virginia to New York City two summers ago just so that my son could have an opportunity to go to one of these schools.

What was your initial reaction to the mayor’s top 7 percent proposal?

I was, and still am, upset because this will reduce the number of students who attend specialized high schools in feeder schools, and my son is one of those students. This is a form of discrimination against the Asian American community because many Asian American children study extremely hard for the SHSAT, and with the mayor’s new proposal, these dedicated students will not be given the opportunity to further their studies. Many of my friends whose children are also in feeder schools are now worried because they realize that their children may rise above others in terms of academic performance in these competitive feeder schools…And for those children who undeservingly got accepted into these schools simply because they attended an easy, underperforming middle school, it will only be harder for them because the workload at many of these specialized high schools is huge…

This is not an issue about racial diversity. The moral of the story is: no pain, no gain. You work hard, you get in. You slack off, you get rejected, and you go somewhere else.

Do you believe that family background plays a role when it comes to student admission into one of these schools?

Yes and no. Yes because family motivation and knowledge of these schools are important to a student’s success. Many parents do not actually know of the SHSAT until the very last moment. Children are playful. Sometimes, it takes some pushing to get them to where they should be. And the answer to your question can be no also, because economics are not important. A large part of the Asian American community works for minimum wage, and many of us do not even speak English. Because we as parents know these struggles, we make sure to prepare our children from the very beginning. If you do not have the money to send your child to tutoring companies, you should buy cheaper workbooks for them. Both do the trick because they both involve doing more practice problems and becoming more familiar with the test questions…It’s really the amount of dedication and hard work that matters.

Tolstoy’s Historiography Deserves More Attention

By Jonathan Schneiderman

by decades of government and other (often government-assisted) propaganda, such as the 1966-7 film adaption, which was made with $50 million (in modern American dollars) of Soviet money.

However, he has not made much of a dent in historical interpretations of events beyond Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and even the historiography underlying his Napoleonic argument has been largely forgotten. History has evolved since the book was written, and though part of its evolution has been a shift away from emphasizing the importance of Great Men, Tolstoy’s spirit-based argument is not part of the common historical understanding. As someone who has always been invested in history classes and has made an active effort for some years to engage with history outside of class, Tolstoy’s arguments took me entirely by surprise; they were so alien that I didn’t even know how to begin to think about them.

Now, having been exposed to Tolstoy’s ideas, it has become impossible for me not to have a little Tolstoy voice in my head at all times. For instance, when we discussed the extent of Petrarch’s role in the Renaissance in history class, I could not help but think of a particularly memorable passage in the second epilogue of “War and Peace,” in which Tolstoy mocks the idea that historical movements have leaders: “‘The herd is going in this direction because the animal at the head of it is leading it, and the sum total of wills of all the rest of the animals is transferred to this ruler of the herd.’ So answers the first category of historians.”

That Tolstoy has so small a role in current historiographi-

cal thinking is ironic, given his status as a lodestone of Western thought. It’s also unfortunate― his critiques of mainstream history are serious arguments that, if true, have huge implications. If he’s right, then all of our thinking about history is wrong, and our analyses of historical events are largely pointless and created in vain. Analyzing historical events through the lens of economic causes or government decisions becomes pointless. Things happen, according to Tolstoyan historiography, because they had to happen, because the people of earth needed them to happen.

This not only undermines fundamental elements of the study of history as we know it, but it also undermines what is probably the most oft-cited justification for why it is worthwhile to study history: “Those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it.” If Tolstoy is right, we need to seriously examine why we study history (to be clear, fear of repetition is not the only justification for historical study, and a number of other justifications, including that it allows us to con-

nect with the greater human story, hold up under Tolstoy; reports of history’s death upon an embrace of Tolstoy would be greatly exaggerated). Maybe that’s why his historiography is so unrecognized; people never are.

Beyond that, not a lot of time is spent on historiography in general in classrooms, and that’s a shame. Historiography is to history as the scientific method is to science, but it often gets the short shrift, which only serves to reinforce the view that it’s a pointless subject unworthy of study among students who have not been predisposed to enjoying history. Tolstoy, with his radical difference from mainstream historical thinking, would serve as a good introduction to the subject and its breadth.

We pay a good deal of lip service to Tolstoy. We give him status as one of the great thinkers of the modern era in the same (extremely male) echelon as luminaries like Shakespeare, Locke, and Marx. It’s high time we give his ideas the same respect we give him and listen to them

Emma Park / The Spectator

Leo Tolstoy’s 1867 tome, “War and Peace,” in all of its 1300page glory, is one of the greatest books in the Western canon and the standard-bearer of Russian literature. But the philosophical meat of the book and the aspect of the book that pushes it beyond the ranks of other novels about European nobility and into the ranks of Homeric epic seem to have been forgotten by the European historical tradition. Its sharp and fierce criticism of contemporary historians has been left in the dust, and since 1867, the objects that Tolstoy criticizes have moved along, not unchanging, but unchanged by him.

Most narrative works follow plots throughout their entirety.

Depending on how experimental a work is, that plot can be nonlinear (“Beloved”), framed (“The Princess Bride”), minimalist (“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn”), unreliably narrated, or any number of other bizarre things. Not so with “War and Peace.” Large sections of the book are generic essay, straightforward discussions of historiography only loosely related to the plot. “War and Peace” is not a Socratic dialogue; the nonfiction, academic stretches in the book are not framed as the thoughts of one of the characters. The long sections of radical historiography are thrown into the latter half of the book without segue or explanation.

To say that Tolstoy challenges conventional historical narrative would be an understatement.

Tolstoy argues that all history happens because the spirit of the people demands that it do so. Applying his historiography to the Napoleonic Wars (the book’s sub-

ject), Tolstoy argues that Napoleon’s failure to invade Russia was not caused by a lack of planning for cold weather, hubris, or the good planning of Russian generals, but that the events of 1812 were caused by the movement of the Russian and French spirits.

Up until 1812, Tolstoy argues that the French Spirit was expansionist and wanted to move out over Europe. The broader European Spirit was submissive, so Napoleon succeeded. But Napoleon failed when he invaded Russia because the resilient, tough, redblooded Russian Spirit, which is as much the hero of the book as any Bolkonsky, Bezukhov, or Rostov, wouldn’t let him.

Napoleon’s failure was not, Tolstoy argues, the result of faulty military planning. In fact, Tolstoy goes so far as to argue that what happens on the battlefield is never a function of any sort of planning. Tolstoy argues, with some success, that the ever-changing, chaotic nature of battlefields is such that the outcomes of military skirmishes always stem from, essentially, how the soldiers involved were feeling rather than from the “genius” (a word which he rants about at some length) of their commanders.

There was clearly no particular relation between Napoleon’s orders and what happened, so what happened must have stemmed from something less corporeal and concrete―the spirits of the people involved.

Tolstoy’s argument has made it into mainstream thought surrounding the Napoleonic Wars, even if it’s far from dominant.

Particularly in Russia, the idea that the strength of the Russian soul was the source of Russia’s triumph over Napoleon has become very popular, helped along

Page 8

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Opinions

By Michael Dekhtyar The National Health Service (NHS) has been the pride and joy of Britain’s people and government for decades. Back in June, The Economist reported that 77 percent of British citizens support it in its present state. And a whopping 91 percent subscribe to the institution’s mission statement that high-quality healthcare should be “free at the point of delivery.”

As the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world, the NHS is celebrated as a triumph of governance, leadership, and innovation. So why does the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the regulatory agency that oversees its practices, say that it is straining at the seams?

The NHS was created in 1948 as a public institution meant to protect public health by combatting prevalent diseases like polio and tuberculosis. Over the years, the services it offers have grown wider and more varied. Any resident of England can now access necessary medical procedures at

Moving Down and Shaking Up

any public hospital in the country at little to no cost. These services range from regular checkups to emergency operations. Some are even offered to temporary visitors of the country without citizenship or membership within the system.

NHS’s popularity among the people it serves, therefore, comes as no surprise.

But under the shiny veneer of public enthusiasm and approval lies a deeply troubled system with an uncertain future. Last year, 2.5 million people spent over four hours in the emergency room, compared to 1.8 million in 2016.

Much of the rise in numbers can be attributed to a rapidly aging population: there are now one million more people over 65 in Britain than there were five years ago. The influx of elderly patients means that hospitals must dedicate more of their time to emergency treatment rather than longterm care.

Even with the dedication of nurses and doctors across the country, hospitals are getting bogged down by bureaucracy and inefficiency. Over 91 percent

of hospital beds were constantly occupied in 2017. David Behan, chief executive of the CQC, stated that the number of nurses in adult long-term care facilities is “insufficient” and that the NHS’s plight is “one of the greatest unresolved public policy issues of our time.”

The unforeseen consequences of the Brexit vote have not helped.

The Conservative government has proved time and again that the process of leaving the European Union will not be as simple as it was made it out to be, leading many to believe that the British economy will suffer without access to the continental market.

The speculative fears have led to an exacerbation of housing crises and decreased faith in the government, further weakening the basic foundations of the NHS. More funding is not the solution. To celebrate the institution’s 70th birthday in July 2018, the government gifted it $33 billion to help with rising costs; the money has had no visible effect. To ask more of the British taxpayer would only be a temporary fix. In-

stead, the government should aim to take into account income and personal situations when creating public policy. A step in the right direction would be to implement a program similar to the Australian government’s superannuation system of private pensioning.

The Australian government mandates that employers set aside 9.5 percent of workers’ wages to be applied to post-retirement pensions. Though costly for the employee, the end result is that retired Australians have access to a massive pot of $1.9 trillion, the biggest in the world. Such a system is conceivably workable for the British healthcare system and would serve as a positive replacement of the current general taxation scheme.

In addition, the most vulnerable customers of the NHS are the low-income and working class population, whom the government refers to popularly as “just about managing.” Such a wagebased healthcare system should be structured around people like them. Percentages of wages put into a public fund like Austra-

lia’s should be proportional to income. For example, someone earning $50,000 a year would have three to five percent of their income transferred to the fund, and someone earning $200,000 a year would be subject to a higher rate of around 10-15 percent.

Critics saying that this system would have the well-off paying for the medical expenses of everyone else would be twisting the situation. The money would go to a public fund of guaranteed value and certainty—any citizen would have access to it, rich or poor.

And considering the resounding success of the Australian scheme, a pension pot worth nearly $2 trillion, the funds would be more than enough to cover both emergency and long-term care for all British citizens.

Such a program would not be implemented without resistance.

The NHS remains extremely popular in its current form, and the notion of setting aside a portion of income for healthcare is foreign to many British citizens. But serious shaking up is needed to avoid a long-term move down.

How to Save the MTA

By Julian Giordano UWS, Uberpool

Legend:

New Dorp, Uberpool

UWS = West 96th St and Broadway Flushing = Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue Intersection

Flushing, Uberpool

Cost

Queens Councilman Rory Lancman (D-NY) filed a lawsuit against the NYPD and the Mayor’s office on September 19 for not making data on MTA fare evasion arrests and summons available to the public. A law passed in NYC’s 2017 Administrative Code demands that the NYPD release quarterly reports on these arrests with a breakdown of age, race, gender, and other descriptive categories.

Councilman Lancman is pressuring the NYPD to release these reports due to concern that there are a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic young men punished for fare evasion.

The NYPD has so far refused to release the reports out of concern for public security. They argue that data from stations that have heavy or soft police presences would be dangerous in the hands of criminals and terrorists. Nonetheless, the NYPD is working toward a compromise, and chances are that the data will soon be released.

Once the information is public, it is likely that Lancman and other Councilmembers will support a decrease or end to fare evasion policing. This is because it is likely that the NYPD data will corroborate state data from the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which shows apparent discrimination in fare evasion arrests, with 89.2 percent of arrests in the first four months of 2018 being of black and Latino citizens. And while the MTA will likely push back and complain that they lose millions of dollars a year from fare evasion (and that diminishing police presence will cause them to lose even more), it might actually be in their financial interests to deregulate fare evasion.

As it is, the MTA is severely underfunded. This is reflected in a broken public transit system with constant delays, high fares, and little room for change to meet the city’s rising population.

The MTA’s inefficiency has led to a two percent drop in subway ridership last year and a 4.5 percent drop in bus ridership. The increased usage of third-party transportation services (such as

Flatbush, Uberpool

Flatbush = Intersection of Ditmas and Flatbush Ave. New Dorp = New Dorp, Staten Island (Intersection of New Dorp Ln and Hylan Blvd)

UWS, Citibike

Flatbush, Subway/Bus

UWS, Subway/Bus

New Dorp, Subway/Bus Flatbush, Citibike

Flushing, Subway/Bus

Travel Time (In Minutes) to Stuyvesant

Uber, Lyft, and CitiBike) is almost certainly the cause of this ridership drop, and the city streets are becoming more and more congested. With everything that is going wrong for the MTA, it would be reasonable to think that they should hike fares, get more government and taxpayer funding, and impose other austere tactics so that they can renovate the system and get riders back.

But while these policies may sound good in theory, they will ultimately restrict the MTA in the future and leave it without ridership and unable to compete with independent transportation alternatives. Instead, the MTA should now be focusing on making fares more affordable, borrowing more money from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to fund the modernization of the subway, implementing congestion pricing (where cars must pay to drive in the most trafficked areas of the city), and lobbying the state and city government to collaborate in providing more funding. While taking out loans and cheapening fares will deepen the MTA’s current $35 billion deficit, it will benefit the MTA in the longterm by ensuring that subways and buses are the main source of transportation for New Yorkers in the future.

To begin with, the MTA’s fares have increased drastically from $1.50 to $3.00 per ride in

the last 15 years. This has created a crisis of affordability for lowincome New Yorkers and is part of what contributes to high levels of fare evasion. The average amount of money spent on subway and bus fares for those who commute to work within the city is around $1,500 each year, and yet almost 20 percent of the city’s population live under the poverty line, earning less than $25,000 yearly for a four-person household. The MTA needs to ensure fares are low enough to make public transit truly accessible to everyone; lowering fares by $0.25 or $0.50 can already make a large impact on people’s lives.

The Speaker of the City Council, Corey Johnson, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Fair Fares proposal, which would give discounted MetroCards to New Yorkers under the federal poverty line. This program would require $212 million each year; in its first year, it could save over 800,000 low-income residents up to $726 each. While Mayor Bill de Blasio originally pushed back on the plan, he recently decided to allocate $106 million of his $89 billion budget to implement Fair Fares, which is set to begin in January of 2019. This is a good first step, but the Fair Fares program will need full funding to make the MTA affordable enough for the 20 percent of the city that needs it the most.

Of course, it will take more than cheaper fares to get New

Yorkers to ride the subways and buses. Improving and updating the transit system will also be important. The new President of the New York City Transit Authority, Andy Byford, has proposed the Fast Forward program, which will modernize the MTA and eliminate the delays on subways and buses caused by an outdated system. In its first five years, the plan will renovate stations and signal systems (which tend to cause the most delays), make 50 new stations accessible, add 650 new subway cars and modify 1,200 more, add 2,800 buses, redesign the bus routes of all five boroughs, and create a new fare payment system. In another five years, the plan will add even more subway cars and buses and make all stations accessible.

Perhaps one of the best facets of the Fast Forward plan is that it is centered on transparency and rider feedback. The plan is supposed to take 10 years instead of the expected 40 years, but will cost up to $30 million, which is a large demand for the city and state to cover.

Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo are currently divided over where the money should come from, with de Blasio wanting it to be split equally between the city and the state and Cuomo advocating for the city to cover the entire cost. In the end, the solution should come down to more funding on behalf of the city and, more importantly, the implemen-

tation of congestion pricing. For the MTA to improve, it needs a large funding boost over a short period of time that will allow it to overhaul its system quickly while decreasing fare price. The slower the MTA makes renovations and changes to the system, the more their current $35 billion debt will increase (interest alone adds $2.2 billion each year). By speeding up the Fast Forward plan, the MTA will save more money in the long term.

In both the short and long term, congestion pricing will be able to raise more money for the MTA while fighting pollution and lessening traffic in the city. If it is appropriately implemented, it could also limit the spread of ride-hailing services like Uber that otherwise take away ridership from subways, buses, and taxis. These factors would all combine to ensure that the MTA gets more ridership and funding, at which point Cuomo may be convinced it is worth it to come to an MTA funding compromise with de Blasio.

Once the MTA renovates and updates the subway and bus system and cheapens the price of MetroCards, more New Yorkers will actively use public transit, and the MTA will be able to chip away at its debt and forge a new reputation as a modern, affordable, and reliable transit system that everyone in New York City can depend on.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 9

Opinions

By Jenny Huang “If I hit it one time, I’ma pipe her If I hit it two times then I like her If I [expletive] three times, I’ma wife her It ain’t safe for the black or the white girls It ain’t safe, it ain’t safe, it ain’t safe, it ain’t safe Tell your man pipe up, [expletive], pipe up Hunnit bands from the safe in your face, what’d you say?

Money dance turn this [expletive] into a nightclub” G-Eazy, “No Limit” (Remix)

These lyrics to G-Eazy’s “No Limit” Remix are accompanied in the video by rapper A$AP Rocky casually lying down on a mountain of dollar bills as G-Eazy takes us through a dark alley. The focus of the music video in the beginning shifts between A$AP Rocky throwing his bills and the alley until the camera zooms in on the females figures clothed in strips of thongs and bras. Their faces are hidden, but the rest of their bodies are displayed provocatively in front of the camera lens.

Already, in barely 30 seconds of the video, the video has established a crucial image: guys with money and swagger accompanied by half-naked women. It doesn’t matter that we can’t tell any of the girls apart from each other. What matters is that viewers understand the power and influence the male rappers in the music video hold.

They have the power, denoted by money; thus, they have all the girls. It is this very image that perpetuate the continuous and underlying issue in hip-hop culture: hypermasculinity.

Hip-hop originated in the late 1970s as a powerful platform for social and political statements.

Hip-hop culture is rooted in the oppression and injustice toward Black and Hispanic communities, and its music is a direct vocal expression of Black anger toward these injustices. Works such as “[Expletive] Tha Police” by N.W.A and “White Manz World”

by Tupac angrily confront police brutality toward African Americans and echo the injustices toward a black man in a world ruled by white men. Early hip-hop also consists of Gangsta Rap, where the aforementioned artists and other notable people like Ice-T use compelling rap lyrics to provide social commentary on the violence and crimes in their neighborhoods. However, this coherent culture has gone hand in hand with hypermasculinity and misogyny. Hypermasculinity denotes exaggerated masculinity through emphasizing physical strength, virility, and aggression.

But why is hypermasculinity so ingrained in hip-hop culture?

Moreover, how are race and class inextricably connected to hypermasculinity? Anti-violence activist Jackson Katz provides an answer to these questions in his books about race, class, and media on the construct of violent masculinity.

Katz suggests that machismo in the hip-hop industry is born out of a sense of helplessness against the violence in neglected neighborhoods of color. “If you’re a young man growing up in this culture and the culture is telling you that being a man means being powerful…but you don’t have a lot of real power, one thing that you do have access to is your body and your ability to present yourself physically as somebody who’s worthy of respect,” he wrote. The physical body, as stated by Katz, becomes a symbol of power that is directly accessible, as opposed to real unattainable power when one lives in a state of instability and violence. Therefore, hypermasculinity in hip-hop, a genre born out

An Examination of Modern Hip-hop

of struggle and response to oppression itself, is a shield against the violence and long history of oppression that still remain unresolved.

Male hip-hop artists conform to this exaggerated masculinity through rejecting vulnerability, exuding strength, and maintaining a macho appearance and a tough, harsh lifestyle. Misogyny stems from this culture as male artists continue to portray themselves as physically strong men who are entitled to women and to intercourse with them. As a result, women are degraded as nothing more than subjects of sexual intercourse.

Lyrics of modern hip-hop tracks often refer to women in casually derogatory terms, including references to their genitalia, while male power is signified by the reference to male genitals. Derogatory terms for women also become a way for males to debase other male characters and strip them of their manhood, as the female character becomes degraded in the process.

This is best demonstrated in YG’s track, “Handgun,” in which he advised, “All a man gots is his [expletive] and his word / So whatever that man says, he gots to do / And if that [expletive] is yours, protect it by all means.” YG references the male phallus as a

physical symbol of masculine power and implies that males are entitled to females (referenced by their genitalia) and are responsible for their well-being.

“Powerglide” by Rae Sremmurd similarly emphasizes male dominance through sex with females with lyrics such as “I’ma have that [expletive] on lock like Hulk Hogan (yeah).” Though both artists use females and sex as a way to assert male dominance, neither song demonstrates how females are being degraded in the process of humiliating males. But in “Rake It Up” by Yo Gotti, the word “bitch” is used for the purpose of humiliation. The lyrics state, “I know the bad bitches but know [expletive] who bitches too / They should bleed once a month ‘cause that’s what these bitches do.” In this example, the word “bitch” is used to imply that the male does not exhibit the characteristics of a man, be it physically or through character. Reference is made to menstruation in attempts of shaming the male for having female characteristics. Not only does this attempt at feminization intend to crush the masculinity, but it also effectively shames women by associating their femininity with the degradation of male character.

In hip-hop music videos and lyrics, females are often objectified as sex symbols. Female dancers featured are often scantily-dressed in “sexy” getups, showing little more than their buttocks and breasts in music videos. Lyrics of songs continue to objectify females as subjects of sex, basing a female’s value on the size of certain feminine body parts. In Kanye West and Lil Pump’s music video, collections of naked, dismembered female statues, were on display as Kanye and Lil Pump walk down through the narrow corridor.

In the lyrics of the music video, Kanye raps “I like my [expletive] sucked, I’ll buy you a sick truck / I’ll buy you some new [expletive],

I’ll buy you that nip tuck.” Kanye references intercourse and suggests that the act of intercourse can be bought with something of monetary value, and the female’s feelings regarding the intercourse does not need to be considered.

Female identity and character are taken out of the picture as their bodies are being taken apart and judged by their male counterpart.

These lyrics are outright derogative and damaging to the female body as it becomes apparent that female value is being based upon appearance above all else.

While females are overly sexualized in male artists’ hip-hop videos, female hip-hop artists also seem to conform to the sexualization of their own bodies through their music videos. However, female artists’ productions use sex to their advantage to level the power dynamics previously presented in hypermasculine hip-hop. Whereas females were presented to be subservient and inferior in male hiphop, female artists chose to present a more fierce, dominant image through sex. For instance, in Motorsport, featuring Cardi B, Cardi raps: “Ride the [expletive] like a BMX / No [expletive] wanna be my ex (no) / I love, when he go on tour / ’Cause he [expletive] more, when I see him less.” In this line,

Alyson Lin / The Spectator

Cardi chooses to present herself as more dominant in sex while sexualizing herself. Males are no longer entitled to have sex with their female counterparts; Cardi presents females with a choice and establishes herself as an equal, if not more dominant.

Female artists are entitled to take liberty in enjoying their sexuality in music productions, and they do, through sexualization.

Nevertheless, their choice of sexualization often presents a fantasy-like, unrealistic representation of the female body that adheres to the standards put forward by male hip-hop artists. This brings the audience to question why female artists feel the need to objectify themselves in that manner when they can enjoy their sexuality without conforming to male artists’ unrealistic standards. Perhaps the issue lies within hip-hop still being a largely male-dominated industry.

The lack of female artists means that female hip-hop artists must base their artistry upon the already existing standards in male hiphop. Therefore, the female artists may feel pressured to conform to the only representation of femininity they know and cannot fully enjoy their sexuality without the standards of male hip-hop.

Hypermasculinity also ostracizes communities that are perceived to clash with its stereotypical standards of maleness. Most notably, much of this culture condemns the LGBTQ+ community and continues to stigmatize homosexuality. Homophobic slurs are common in the vocabulary of hip-hop artists who regard homosexuality to be the polar opposite of what hip-hop is trying to embody. Derogatory terms are used as insults to emasculate individuals and are repeatedly employed in the lyrics of hip-hop artists’ music, including music from Eminem and Lil Wayne. Hip-hop artists

also like to include the term “no homo” in their raps to reject any homosexual undertone of the lyrics. Hip-hop culture’s disdain for homosexuality almost seemed comedic when popular rapper Wiz Khalifa commented that the act of eating a banana is “sus,” with sus being “commonly used to denote suspected homosexual tendencies,” because eating a banana could be mistaken as an innuendo for the act of providing oral sex (Urban Dictionary).

Despite the artists’ claims that they are not directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community, hip-hop listeners construe these lyrics as insults to both the community and to the person the slurs were directed to. Fans who do not identify as LGBTQ+ or LGBTQ+ allies recognize that the slurs are derogatory, but they also see the insults being applied in attempts of depriving other rappers of their masculinity. As a result, these nonLGBTQ+ hip-hop fans stigmatize homosexuality and ignore the diversity in the community because to them, the violent masculinity presented in the hip-hop is the norm. Homosexuality juxtaposes strength and power exhibited by masculinity; in the minds of these fans, it is impossible for a male to be strong and gay at

the same time. Thus, homosexuality cannot coexist with masculinity.

Hip-hop fans that are a part of the LGBTQ+ community or identify as allies tend to feel uncomfortable when they hear the slurs or homosexuality being referenced without context.

They regard the homophobic slurs as a double-edged sword, one that denounces homosexuality to emasculate other artists.

Ultimately, whether or not the artist intentionally targets the LGBTQ+ community doesn’t matter because the derogatory slurs used still stereotype homosexuality in the process of shaming other artists. This is highly problematic as the slurs and stereotypes against the LGBTQ+ community do not reflect the struggles the community has faced. As a supporter of the LGBTQ+ movement myself, it is definitely hard to come to terms with hip-hop whenever derogatory terms are used because the history of oppression and violence behind those words is ignored for the sake of feminizing and humiliating other artists.

Aside from its stigmatization of homosexuality and objectification of women, hip-hop’s often insensitive racial remarks in songs and cultural appropriation never cease to frustrate me as a listener who does enjoy hip-hop for the most part.

Huge hip-hop artists such as Nicki Minaj and the Migos tend to reduce Asian cultures to stereotypes in their music videos. In “Chun Li,” Nicki presents herself as a Chinese video game character, Chun Li, with chopsticks in her hair and a sexy, exotic take on traditional Chinese clothing.

In the music video for “Stir Fry”

by Migos, the rap is narrated with a kung fu backdrop in a modern Chinese restaurant setting. In both cases, the lyrics of the song have little to do with the content of the music video besides surface

references to an Asian character or cooking technique. The music videos do not focus on exploring and paying homage to Asian culture; instead, both videos reduce Asian cultures to mere stereotypes that strip away Asian values for exoticism.

Hip-hop songs also dig at common Asian stereotypes just for humor, ignoring the disparaging effects of those stereotypes on Asian Americans. Specifically, in Meek Mill’s rap “1Am,” Mill references the unique epicanthic eye folds of many eastern Asians: “Got her smokin’ on that cookie, now looky, she Chinese.” This line further stereotypes Asian Americans by drawing parallels between “Chinese eyes” and squinted, droopy eyes of people who are high. Having grown up among these stereotypes and been mocked over my East Asian ancestry, it is both infuriating and disparaging to see that such a mainstream culture continues to put forward a racist and highly stereotypical portrayal of East Asians.

Given that hip-hop culture is mainstream and highly influential, the toxic masculinity and insensitive, offhand racist remarks have more effect on the modern generation than intended. As hip-hop gains traction internationally, the fundamental purpose of hip-hop as a social platform is often ignored. Rather, cultural exchange in the music industry focuses on the hypermasculinity of hiphop and appropriates Blackness as the face of perceived masculinity. This is damaging to the Black identity and perpetuates further appropriation of African American culture. Homosexuality will continue to be stigmatized and females will continue to be objectified as international artists attempt to copy what they perceive to be hip-hop.

Combating hypermasculinity in hip-hop culture is easier said than done. Because hypermasculinity is a very physical defense from the ongoing oppression against African Americans and Hispanic communities, oppression is the root issue responsible for the existence of hypermasculinity in hip-hop. There is also a history of hypermasculinity in our culture. Boys have always been told that they must be tough in public and remove themselves from feelings like empathy, which are perceived to be a sign of vulnerability.

It’s important to continue fighting the oppression against Black and Hispanic minorities and reversing gender stereotypes to end hypermasculinity and homophobia in hip-hop culture.

It is also important to encourage gender diversity in hip-hop industry despite the self-objectification of female artists. The fact that females are able to work their way up to succeed in a maledominated industry is a living contradiction to hypermasculinity and misogyny. Having more females in the industry means that they are less bound by the problematic standards applied to women by male hip-hop artists. Females can construct their own confidence in their sexuality and portray a more realistic image of the female body without sexualization based on fantasy. And while cultural appropriation is certainly not only an issue present in hip-hop or the music industry in general, the need for cultural appropriation can be addressed if the significance of culture is emphasized in education and media. Most importantly, modern-day hip-hop must not forget the root of hiphop as a platform against oppression before reducing the genre to videos and lyrics of that sexualize females, fetishize culture, and conform to machismo.

Page 10

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Opinions

By Kaylee Yin Seven people were stabbed to death while 22 others required hospitalization at the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina on April 15, 2018. While these numbers are alarming, deeming this event the deadliest incidence of prison violence in 25 years, they could have been prevented.

In a news conference that took place the next day, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections Bryan Stirling attempted to justify the situation, mentioning that there was a clash between rival gangs over “territory, contraband, and cell phones.” Stirling continued, claiming that his main priority after the incident was to stop all illicit cell phone use across the state’s prisons.

Throughout the news conference, Stirling chose not to mention the fact that corrections officials had made the decision to place these rival gangs within the same dormitory and inflict increasingly punitive policies that raised tensions.

What’s worse is he refused to talk about how the riot took place in a span of over seven hours with no officers harmed because they were all unwilling to stop the fight. Instead, Stirling defended his agency’s actions, stating that the low morale and lack of workers in his agency and South Carolina prisons are positively correlated with their low salaries.

In response to how poorly the South Carolina Department of Corrections chose to react to the situation, a series of demonstrations took place on August 21. The protests lasted for nearly three weeks until September 9, the anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising of

An Unjust Justice System

1971, one of the most significant uprisings of the prisoners’ rights movement. Within this time, inmates across an alleged 17 states in the U.S. refused to work and eat in an attempt to raise attention about the poor treatment of the incarcerated, making the protest one of the most extensive of its kind in American history.

Prior to the onset of the protests, one of the organizations leading the demonstrations, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), created a set list of 10 demands to improve incarceration conditions. Among the 10 demands listed was one calling for higher wages for imprisoned workers as many today view the conditions within American correctional facilities as modern-day slavery. And with little to no pay and long hours of working grueling jobs, it is understandable why that is viewed that way.

With more than 2.2 million people imprisoned across federal, state, and local correctional facilities, the U.S. holds the record for the largest prison population across the world. Because of mass incarceration, which has resulted in a spike in costs for imprisonment, a toll is taken on inmates and their families.

An investigation done by the Prison Policy Initiative found that state and federally imprisoned workers earn an average of 86 cents per day—a seven cents decrease from 2001.

And in states like Alabama, Georgia, and Texas, incarcerated workers aren’t paid at all.

Though many believe that the 13th Amendment completely abolished slavery, an exclusion was written which explicitly mentioned that the amendment does not apply to

convicts. Therefore, it is completely legal for the incarcerated to receive involuntary servitude and to be punished if they resisted.

And while prisoners may be housed and provided with food and clothing, they continue to struggle to pay for other services such as phone calls, which cost 50 cents per minute in some institutions, and items like toothpaste. However, the real issue with their pay is what happens after they leave the facility. Many of these people are the primary breadwinners of their families, and because of the incredibly low and sometimes nonexistent pay, they are often left penniless and struggling to find employment when they leave prison.

According to USA Today, over 2000 prisoners have voluntarily chosen to fight off the raging wildfires in California. These inmates are willingly choosing to risk their lives, yet they are only paid an alarming wage of $1.00 per hour while the professional firefighters they are working alongside earn nearly $74,000 a year.

But even with the first-hand firefighting experience that these inmates have, they often cannot become firefighters even after being released from prison. The majority of California’s counties require firefighters to become licensed emergency medical technicians (EMTs), which is a qualification that can be denied to nearly anybody for merely having a past criminal record. Because of the rules of the state’s licensing boards, hundreds of occupations making up approximately one-fourth of California’s workforce can prohibit past inmates from obtaining a certain profession.

On top of this, laws that would defend workers outside of prison

do not always apply to those who are in prison. According to The Washington Post, if prisoners get injured or die while working, they do not get covered by workers’ compensation, and their chances of receiving compensation in court are extremely low.

In addition to a demand for higher pay and better safety, many of the strikers are fighting for more equal rights, and, in particular, the right to vote. Once convicted and sometimes even after serving their time, prisoners in every state except Maine and Vermont are prohibited from voting.

With the protest having come to an end only recently, it needs to come to our attention that these prisoners want rights that will recognize them as who they really are—humans. The first demand on the list created by the IWOC states that inmates want “improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.” With that being said, many of the requests by the organization come from the unequal treatment compared to that of the liberated.

Inmates are just as human as we are. They deserve to have the right to vote, proper workers’ compensation, reasonable pay for the work they do, and rehabilitation. And most definitely, they deserve to have better, more viable living conditions.

But just because they have offended, prisoners are often barred by law from receiving the same treatment as the liberated. Therefore, by renouncing various regulations that have been created to explicitly prohibit the incarcerated from having the same rights as we do, inmates will be more satisfied with the con-

ditions in which they have been put under.

For instance, lifting the Prison Litigation Reform Act would enable any grievances that prisoners have to be denied on fewer bases, thereby making it easier for prisoners to file lawsuits in federal court. And by rescinding the Truth in Sentencing Act and the Sentencing Reform Act, imprisoned people have a greater chance of getting rehabilitation and parole.

But in spite of the lagging justice reforms the incarcerated deserve, the prison strike has proven to be effective. A press release revealed that at least 20 prisons across the country were partaking in the strike on August 28, with prisoners from Burnside County Prison in Canada even striking in solidarity. Though the demonstration has undoubtedly received more attention than the 2016 U.S. prison strike, many of the events pertaining to the protest have still gone overlooked and unnoticed.

For the demands to be granted and for the desirable policies to be implemented, the first step toward change is to raise more awareness more about this strike and the purpose behind it. Krystal Rountree, the director of iamWE Prisoner Advocacy Network, stated that in order to truly make a difference toward achieving more rights for prisoners, “The long-term goal is really about bringing awareness to the issues.” And by spreading recognition of the issue across various platforms, the incarcerated will be another step closer toward reaching the reforms needed to better their time both in and after being released from prison.

An Unwelcome Addition to the Fashion Industry

By Elena Hlamenko

tirely. What makes today’s top models so successful is a holistic combination of their aesthetically pleasing faces and/or bodies in addition to a strategically designed persona. A model not only has to look physically appealing, but also must navigate her way through the competitive industry via certain unique traits: either her nationality, personality, or another in demand feature. Digital models lack such qualities, thus counting as one of the several hindering factors to their domination of the fashion industry. More so, much of the fashion industry is based upon human interaction, whether it happens between photographers and crews shooting campaigns with models or during high-end runway shows. One could easily argue that humans will always prefer working with fellow humans over intangible 3D images. With that being said, digital models still pose a significant threat to the success of the hundreds of thousands of jobs the fashion industry supports. While they may not eradicate all modeling jobs per say, digital models still have the potential to claim most of them.

As if digital models could not do any more damage, their influence on remaining human models could be terrifying. According to model advocacy group TheModelAlliance, 31.2 percent of fashion models struggle with eating disorders, with an estimated 85-90 percent of non-plus-sized models being underweight (underweight is defined by the World Health Organization as a BMI below 18.5; for instance, 5’11 model Sannie

Instagram @balmain

When luxury fashion brand Balmain dropped its Pre-Fall collection last month, clothing wasn’t the first thing to make headlines.

Featured in the company’s advertisements were three digitally designed models, making Balmain one of the first major brands to utilize such a medium. In the campaign were digital models Shudu, Margot, and Zhi, designed by French photographer CameronJames Wilson. Of the trio, South African model Shudu had been specially curated by Wilson since 2017, amassing over 100,000 followers on her various social media accounts.

Wilson described the rise of Shudu as a platform to bring diversity to the fashion industry and serve as a vessel to help developing enterprises. As for her usage in Balmain’s recent campaign, Balmain stated simply that “the new virtual troops reflect the same beautiful diverse mix, strong confidence, and eagerness to explore new worlds. Anyone and everyone is always welcome to join the Balmain Army.” But while Wilson and the Balmain team may see Shudu as a source of empowerment, her rise in popularity suggests the opposite.

According to TheFashionSpot, 30 percent of all models that walked in the 2018 New York Fashion Week shows were nonwhite. This statistic, compared to the meer 17 percent of models of color represented on the runway in Spring of 2015, shows a steady uptick in diversity. Although in-

fluenced by various social movements and public backlash, the rise in models of color is still a work in progress. Despite Shudu attempting to bring “awareness” to the lack of diversity in fashion, she may actually serve as an easy alternative for major brands; just about every superficial aspect on Shudu can be changed through the work of a handful of photoshop and 3D program specialists.

No human model could ever compete with that, making Shudu’s impact a complete backfire from her original intentions.

Introducing a cheaper and physically moldable model into the world of fashion could not only undo years worth of diversification, but also rob thousands of human models of their jobs.

Although a full rejection of physical models is unlikely, their digital counterparts could ultimately dominate the industry and leave an irreversible impact on the job market. In addition to models, photographers, makeup artists, and even crew extras will face the repercussions of fashion merging with technology. More so, a model whose appearance, age, body type, and facial features can be changed within hours sets an alarming example for the thousands of citizens, particularly women, who look up to fashion models for their body or facial features. As extreme as it may seem, the impact of an ability to drastically change a model’s complexion should not be underestimated.

Yet, it is important to consider that digital models will likely never replace human models en-

Pederson was a mere 100 pounds at the height of her career, with a BMI of 13.9). Despite the efforts of various social movements, such statistics could only get worse as human models feel the pressure to compete for jobs with their digital rivals.

While digital fashion models continue to rise, brands should be extremely hesitant to hire them and their creators. Not only do these seemingly innocent creations threaten to demolish thousands

of jobs, but they also counteract the hard work that has been done to diversify the fashion industry.

Fashion labels like Balmain are fortunate enough to have thousands of unique faces to choose from when curating a campaign and should rarely, if ever, choose pixels over humans. At the end of the day, the rise of technology is inevitable, but supporting rising human models is entirely in our control.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 11

Opinions

By Rohit Roy

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Learn the Game Before Enjoying the Fame

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Party’s wunderkind, embarked on her political journey by defeating Congressman Joe Crowley in the battle for New York’s 14th congressional district.

Her victory over one of the most prominent members of the House was astonishing and has made a lasting mark on American politics.

However, on her current trajectory, she is heading for political ruin. She needs a reality check to prevent herself from shattering her incredible opportunity at political stardom.

Cortez’s road to glory began with Crowley’s chutzpah. It was apparent that Crowley believed victory over Cortez was inevitable and didn’t take the competition seriously. His extreme carelessness was shown on multiple occasions, including when he was absent from the debate and relied too heavily on polling. According to his campaign’s polling, he had more than a 20-point advantage over Cortez. This proved to be the cause of his peripeteia, as his polls only accounted for regular primary voters, while Cortez’s strategy consisted of relentlessly communicating with everyone in the district, particularly those who didn’t vote.

Cortez deserves respect for her efforts. She worked incredibly hard to reach everyone in her district, including those who were not regular voters. She traveled door to door spreading a personalized message among voters, motivating them to vote for her. Doing all of this, and eventually winning at only 28 years old, is an incredible feat, and she should first and foremost be recognized for running an outstanding campaign.

But while it is refreshing to see a younger generation take an authoritative interest in politics, OcasioCortez’s recent interview with PBS Firing Line host Margaret Hoover, among other television appearances, has exhibited that she is a political novice and still has plenty to learn about politics. Her interview was going quite well until Hoover asked Cortez about international affairs and foreign policy. After hitting this speed bump, Ocasio-Cortez admitted, “I am not the expert on geopolitics on this issue […] I just look at things through a human rights lens and I may not use the right words […] Middle Eastern politics is not exactly at my kitchen table every night.”

Though it’s not ideal for a politician to admit the lack of knowledge of a subject on television, foreign affairs aren’t on Ocasio-Cortez’s resume. They also weren’t a major part of her campaign, so her lack of knowledge in the field was not a problem. In fact, admitting the lack of knowledge in a subject is the more professional thing to do, considering she could have also fabricated facts and lied her way out of a difficult situation. Her loyalties should lie with her district, so Cortez shouldn’t busy herself with an education of foreign policy. She should work hard in formulating plans for fulfilling her campaign promises and geting well educated in her branch of politics, which will enable her to do her job to the best of her ability.

Though international affairs weren’t her priority, unemployment and a federal job guarantee were high on Ocasio-Cortez’s agenda.

However, she again demonstrated her lack of knowledge and experience and showed that she was not ready for the fast-paced politics that

came with her job. In the same interview, she said, “Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family.” After this ludicrous statement, she proceeded to say, “Capitalism has not always existed in the United States, and it will not always exist. When this country started, we did not operate on a capitalist economy.” And despite making such tall claims, she even failed to define what a capitalist economy was. Considering Ocasio-Cortez is a candidate whose major policy proposals revolve around making important economic decisions, it is frightening to see she plans to alter the economy without even knowing how it runs and what the implications of her proposals will be.

Several fact-checking websites, particularly PolitiFact, analyzed her comments in this interview. Many of her statements have been false (rated “Pants on Fire!”). Her statements are a classic example of sweeping language—kryptonite for politicians—particularly used by those who are new to the scene.

Though she may know many people who work two jobs that warrant 60 hours a week, this definitely does not translate to the fact that “everyone has two jobs.” In fact, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the amount of people who work two jobs has deeply declined since the Great Recession. As of July 2018, only 4.7 percent of American workers have two jobs. That may be a handful of people, but is a far cry from “everyone.” Specifically, Ocasio-Cortez’s constituents earn an average of $54,373 a year and work an average of 45 hours per week.

Though these economic conditions may be more difficult to live off of, particularly in an expensive place like New York City, Ocasio-Cortez’s claims are erroneous.

Despite these overly glib statements she has made on national television, Ocasio-Cortez can still fix the damage she has inflicted upon herself. Considering her win in New York almost guarantees her a seat in Congress, she still has time to change. Instead of touring the country like a pop star, she should focus on how she could fulfill her constituents’ wishes. She needs to educate herself on political and socio-economic policies on the state and federal level, for she has repeatedly shown a lack of knowledge in these fields.

She must study and reexamine her plans and come up with proposals that are not just appealing and impossible to achieve.

She will serve both herself and her district well by doing so; after all, the residents of Queens and the Bronx are the ones who gave her the privilege of representing them in Congress. She needs to stop playing a public relations game and trying to become more famous and learn how to do her job and fulfill

her voters’ needs. If she educates herself and learns to do the job properly, the people will be satisfied.

The gains of her people should be her priority, not her personal agenda for achieving stardom.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been labeled the “Future of the Democratic Party” by many of her Democratic counterparts. This bold statement by contemporary progressives has invited a lot of attention, inadvertently causing her to face significant pressure to deliver on her campaign promises. However, with celebrity comes scrutiny, and she has repeatedly failed to address how her plans would be able to pan out in a practical manner. In particular, she has repeatedly dismissed the exorbitant costs that come with her proposals.

For example, when OcasioCortez appeared on CNN in early August, she was finally questioned about the upscale costs that would come with single-payer health care.

To this she replied, “In a Koch brothers-funded study—if any study’s going to try to be a little bit slanted, it would be one funded by the Koch brothers—it shows that Medicare for all is actually much cheaper than the current system that we pay right now.”

It comes as no surprise now that, once again, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said something completely untrue. Many Democrats have alluded to a finding in a study performed by those at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which is partly financed by the Koch Foundation. This note read that the universal Medicare plan forwarded by Bernie Sanders would lower the American spending on health care by $2 trillion within a span of nine years. However, what the Democrats fail to voice is that the reason the expenditures are lowered by so much is that 40 percent of payments accrued by health care providers would be cut. If health care providers lose their profits, restrictions on health care will become more rigid in order to avoid incurring a loss. People with more than two pre-existing conditions, which make up 90 percent of the American population above the age of 50, would have an extremely low

Sunjung Bok / The Spectator

chance of getting affordable health care. And like many of the progressives’ plans, Sanders’s plan is highly unrealistic, a fact which is corroborated by the study. In fact, his plan would see a sharp increase in government investment by $32.6 trillion over the same period of nine years.

Moreover, realistically accounting for the fact that providers will not allow such steep cuts in accrued revenue, the federal budget would amount to nearly $40 trillion. The point is, there is no way the plan would be “much cheaper” than the existing system, which is a whopping $10 trillion lower than the cost of her proposal.

A major part of Ocasio-Cortez’s progressive agenda is her ruthless advocacy against conservative immigration reforms and overly eager support for the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In an interview with the Intercepted Podcast, OcasioCortez was asked about her opinions on ICE. “ICE is the only criminal investigative agency, the only enforcement agency in the United States, that has a bed quota. So ICE is required to fill 34,000 beds with detainees every single night and that number has only been increasing since 2009,” she said.

According to many fact-checkers, including PolitiFact, what Ocasio-Cortez stated is popular rhetoric among Democrats but is nothing but an urban legend. What she may be referring to is a 2016 appropriations bill which reads, “ICE shall maintain a level of not less than 34,000 detention beds through September 30, 2016.” Though ICE needs to maintain 34,000 detention beds, the clause does not include the fact that ICE is required to fill them.

The objective of the language was to ensure that the funds behind ICE were not spent on anything else.

In light of Alexandria OcasioCortez’s heavy advocacy for a $15 minimum hourly wage and a federal jobs guarantee, she was bound to be asked about the economic aspects of her plan. Time and time again, she has failed to account for the monetary inadequacies that her plans entail, including when she was asked to explain her federal jobs guarantee plan on Pod Save America, an American progressive political podcast. In an interview on this network, she stated, “[National Democrats] were campaigning most when we had more of an American middle class. This upper middle class is probably more moderate, but that upper middle class does not exist anymore in America.”

This is yet another example of Ocasio-Cortez’s sweeping rhetoric.

In a desperate effort to strengthen the argument for the validity of her plans, she forwardly claimed that the “upper middle class does not exist anymore.”

However, data from the Urban Institute, an organization widely respected for its statistical accuracy, shows that the upper middle class has actually grown. Though the middle class as a whole has diminished in size, Urban Institute economist Stephen J. Rose recorded a substantial increase in the upper middle class: from 12.9 percent of the population to

an impressive 30.2 percent in 2017.

Furthermore, his analysis demonstrates an extensive shift in the median population of the economy, with a rising amount of income going strictly to the upper middle class and rich. This goes directly against her rhetoric; she argues that the upper middle class doesn’t exist, yet there are more people in the upper middle class now than there were in recorded history.

And when it comes to her plan of a federal jobs guarantee, the costs that come with it are so exorbitant that the odds of her proposal actually being implemented are next to impossible. Yet again, OcasioCortez has failed to account for the gargantuan cost of her proposal, which approaches $500 billion. The cost would skyrocket even higher after adding this to existing welfare policies. In addition, her plan entails a $15 hourly wage, along with benefits. Many jobs in the current economy, particularly in heavily populated areas, pay below $15 an hour.

Her plan, even if it was economically possible, would bring such an enormous imbalance to the market that it could cause another Great Depression. Any successful capitalistic economy, especially one like the United States, relies on the private sector for economic dominance.

An overwhelming 75 percent of all jobs, in fields from manufacturing to businesses, lie in the private sector. With a federal jobs guarantee, it once again raises a socialist flaw: the lack of incentive. The jobs guarantee would prevent people from working in the private sector, which would bring such an enormous imbalance to the market that it would not only cause a fiscal crisis but also result in a period of economic turmoil resembling that of the Great Depression. All of these problems lead to another important issue: jobs for all these people don’t actually exist. Improving the nation’s infrastructure sounds like a brilliant way to employ people, but it isn’t a “guarantee.” Only a small fraction of people could be useful in the various positions the government offers. This would cause a significant rise in the price of goods and a substantial amount of people to be unemployed, resulting in major economic problems and hyperinflation.

Though the taste of being treated like a global pop star is appetizing, it can be overwhelming and clearly isn’t what Alexandria OcasioCortez needs at the moment. Her outstanding win in New York is to be admired, but if she is truly dedicated to representing her hundreds of thousands of constituents, she really needs to take a step back.

Ocasio-Cortez needs to work for her district and her voters, not the entire country. The entire country didn’t vote for her. She needs to go back and reflect upon her plans and rectify them so that they are feasible and that they can be successful among her voters. She needs to be reminded that she was elected on her attractive Democratic Socialist agenda to tackle serious problems, and she needs to educate herself on how to approach and solve these problems.

Though Republicans will harshly criticize and deeply disagree with her rhetoric, our nation is at a critical point in its history, and all our representatives must be well prepared for the issues they must deal with.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could become the face of the “Future of the Democratic Party,” but she isn’t yet.

She needs to prove herself. That is a title that she needs to earn.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 12

Arts and Entertainment From Print to Picture

Stuyle Corner FALL FASHION

By Julia Panas

theater

By Grace Goldstein There’s a popular notion that “jukebox musicals” (musicals written only using existing music by a particular artist), lack the depth, complexity, and impact of the typical Broadway or offBroadway musical. The American Repertory Theater’s “Jagged Little Pill” at Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts destroys that assumption. The stage adaptation of Alanis Morissette’s iconic album of the same name keeps the raw, heartfelt tone of the original album while adding a deeper, political context that shows how timeless the songs really are.

The show incorporates 22 of Morissette’s songs, including all 12 of the tracks from the eponymous 1995 album. Most of Morissette’s rock ballads are reborn through Tom Kitt’s arrangements to make sense in the musical theater context. “Hand In My Pocket,” for example, becomes a queer love ballad for main characters Jo (Lauren Patten) and Frankie (Celia Gooding).

The production is remarkably engaging. The powerfully reimagined solos and duets ground the show, while the mostly serious script is scattered with sitcomlike humor to keep the show’s attitude hopeful and endearing.

Raihana Sultana / The Spectator

It’s that time of year again! The leaves are turning, the air is getting colder, exhausted teenagers are hitting the snooze button more times by the day, and Starbucks has put the pumpkin spice latte back on the menu—fall has come. Not only is this the season of perfect jacket weather, it’s also the highlight of the fashion world. The fall collection kickstarts the runway, and the trends of this critical time set the tone for the rest of the year. In other words, it’s more important than ever to open up to the fashion world.

Fall, more than any other season, is known for its signature warm shades and rich tones like caramel, burgundy, sienna, and plum. This year, another color has risen to the top of fashion’s hit list: green. Deep earthy shades like forest and army fit pretty easily into most wardrobes, as the gray tones work with almost anything. You can wear them with basic black and whites for a simple downto-earth feel—like a cropped white T-shirt, black shoes, and army pants.

For the pants, you can probably find them with a little bit of thrifting.

Animal print is making another one of its periodic comebacks.

However, this season, instead of iconic tiger stripes, snakeskin is the new coveted pattern. The natural beige, brown, and sometimes green tones offer a more modern classy alternative. This pattern is intricate yet pleasingly simple, while still maintaining that expensive feel— delicate, yet powerful. Its versatility allows you to wear this pattern only to the limit of your imagination—as a statement miniskirt, a long-sleeved layering top, a jacket to spice up a basic outfit, or even a pair of fabriccovered earrings. Its absolute universality explains why publications like Glamour and beaut.ie call it the new leopard.

Of course, it’s not fall if you’re

not layering. And there is no better way to do that than with a turtleneck.

It’s the perfect top to keep you warm as the days get chillier. A simple onecolor style is great for wearing under camis, slip dresses, or even regular T-shirts. Or wear it by itself with mom jeans and a leather belt for a more vintage feel. To give the classic shape a modern twist, you can also try a cropped or short-sleeved version. The possibilities with this trend are endless.

If you haven’t already, invest in a good pair of pants. They are an eternal closet essential—always classy, with the ability to be worn casually with a graphic T-shirt and sneakers, but can also be dressed up with a blouse and heels. For this time of year, consider straight leg trousers in one of this season’s colors or a simple and easy-to-pair pattern, like stripes or chevron. A trendier alternative is cargo pants, which work very well with a fitted top.

As we all know, the ’90s never really die. Every season, at least one of the decade’s iconic items makes its way into our wardrobes. Now, it’s influencing our accessories. It’s time to play with the dark side and get some gothic inspiration. This revival trend involves cross imagery in jewelry, like charms on hoops or large pendants on necklaces, as well as heavy silver jean chains. Chunky black boots and sneakers are also in style. Elevate any outfit with darker vibes to wear this trend—this can be as simple as black jeans and a white tank top, or a plain skater dress. Your outfit is your canvas, and your accessories are your palette.

Fall fashion is all about the colors and the layering. For more inspiration, all you need to do is look around you. All it takes is a walk down Fifth Avenue or a trip to Williamsburg to see it. So as the leaves change their colors, feel free to change up your style too. There’s no better time than now.

By Lucy Lu The highlight of my fourth grade experience was a class trip to watch “The Hunger Games” at the multiplex. I watched Katniss marvel at the wonders of the opulent Capitol, Haymitch drunkenly stumble about, and the tributes hunt each other down. I enjoyed the movie, but was disappointed that what I saw on the screen didn’t live up to my expectations. Though the filmmakers had stuck to the heart of Suzanne Collins’s novel, I was upset that the cinematic representations of Collins’s descriptions were nothing like what I had imagined. In a way, reading allows for the individual interpretation of a story, while film has already imagined everything for you.

On the other hand, some screen adaptations end up far from the book that they were based on.

Take Hulu’s interpretation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The first season of the show remains true to the novel, but the second season vastly differs. Not only is the fate of the main protagonist different, but numerous other characters go through events

that are not mentioned by Atwood.

As a result, the film series ends up with two (and counting!) seasons with a much longer plot line that only loosely resembles the original story. However, the minor discrepancies are accepted by most viewers. The lack of outrage from fans may be accredited to either the possibility that viewers did not read Atwood’s novel in the first place or to Hulu’s thoughtfully crafted transcript, complete with commentary and suggestions from Margaret Atwood herself. In this case, the series has set itself apart from its original source, making itself a distinct piece of thought-provoking art.

Similarly, “13 Reasons Why” started off its first season with close adherence to its print counterpart, differing in only the order of those named on the tapes. However, the second season introduces a lawsuit, the ghost of Hannah Baker, and even more viewpoints of the events that had previously occurred. Though it had the potential to extend the story that author Jay Asher conceived, the show’s half-heartedly written plot and less-than-stellar acting make

an extension of the story unnecessary. Asher was reportedly not involved in the production of the second season, primarily because he left the production board due to a sexual assault allegation. Personal matters aside, it almost feels like Netflix is cheapening the story that the author had intended to deliver.

Though adaptations may expound upon the value of a book, as with Atwood’s case, the prevailing trend seems to be more of what has happened to Asher.

Contrary to what the girl on the F train might tell her mother, print and digital media are two different mediums, and consequently, stories have to be adapted to each. Though I do not believe that changing the plot of stories automatically compromises the integrity of an author’s work, the alterations that filmmakers decide to make must be logical, and the content they deliver must be well executed. The popularity of film-adapted books means that there is inevitably more to come. Maybe by then we will have given up completely on consuming print media, or maybe “Did you read the book first?” will remain an essential question.

Activism, Teenage Rebellion, and Alt-Rock in “Jagged Little Pill”

Even the most likable characters have their dark moments, like college-obsessed soccer mom Mary Jane (Elizabeth Stanley) turning on the people close to her, Nick (Derek Klena) taking too long to stand up against an appalling crime committed by his best friend, or Frankie cheating on her girlfriend Jo. Still, it’s impossible not to become quickly and inescapably attached to the characters (with the exception of Brock Turner-type high school rapist, Andrew, played by Logan Hart).

What sets “Jagged Little Pill” apart is its political vision. The storyline paints a vivid image of a white, rich, suburban neighborhood, and all the ways in which universal issues of race, gender, sexuality, environmental politics, college pressure, teenage rebellion, and political activism manifest there. The story is ultimately centered around the events following the rape of Jo and Frankie’s best friend Bella (Kathryn Gallagher) by Frankie’s brother’s best friend Andrew. It’s chilling how familiar the story is: teenagers get drunk, a girl gets separated from her friends and passes out, and a rich, white, seemingly invincible boy rapes her.

When the deeply traumatized

victim speaks out, she’s dismissed as a liar and accused of being at fault for her own assault. Meanwhile, other members of the community deal with their own persona l lives.

Nick breaks under t h e pressure to achieve that his f a m ily puts

Katherine Lwin / The Spectator

on him. Frankie fights with her mother and works through the daily challenges of being a black, adopted girl in a rich, white school. Jo agonizes over their

mother’s refusal to accept their genderqueer identity. Mary Jane copes with a secret drug addiction that only grows as her marriage deteriorates. As these subplots grow and overlap, it becomes more and more vivid to the audience that everyone’s individual pressures are linked together.

Ultimately, everything comes down to Bella’s case and her recovery, forcing the entire cast to grapple with what it means to actually do what’s right and to be forgiven.

One of the show’s strengths is the nuanced dialogue. Lifelike instants—like a white girl at school putting her hands in Frankie’s hair without asking permission, or a doctor bluntly asking Mary Jane’s husband Steve (Sean Allan Krill) what he thinks an “addict” looks like, when he angrily says that his wife couldn’t possibly be one—ground the show in reality.

The album “Jagged Little Pill,” and Alanis Morissette herself, are, for many, defined by “You Oughta Know”: the outraged, passionate, universal breakup song. Unlike the rest of the show, this powerhouse solo piece (performed by Jo, with the ensemble as backup

towards the end), mimics a rock concert, from the lighting to the choreography, so that the audience briefly feels like they’re at one of Morissette’s shows in the ‘90s. It still fits in with the rest of the show, which is a far cry from Morissette’s actual life. The idea behind the song stays the same, too—a reclaiming of strength and dignity and a proclamation of existence and survival, belted at a recent ex suddenly in a new relationship. The song, and Patten’s performance of it, has become a selling point for the show, receiving a (well-deserved) standing ovation in every performance.

When I went to see “Jagged Little Pill” in Cambridge, I remember walking out feeling that I was in an entirely different environment from the one I’d walked into just hours earlier. An unspoken bond had formed through shared experience among the audience members. There was an electricity in the air, and a sense of hope and clarity. It’s not just the universal themes written into the script and expressed honestly and engagingly by the cast that made it happen. It was, at the heart of the show, Morrissette’s music that reached people. And for an album written by a teenager in the ‘90s, it’s looking pretty clear that those songs are more relevant necessary than ever.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 13

Arts and Entertainment Television

By Lea Shvarts We often perceive cartoons to be nothing more than collections of colorful characters and strings of jokes.

Yet it’s important to create well made and meaningful cartoons because they are often our first encounter with the media and come at a time when we are first learning about the world and ourselves. “Steven Universe,” created by Rebecca Sugar on Cartoon Network, strives to show kids that every one of them has self worth and is accepted.

Its message of love for everyone, love in its purest and most universal state, serves to create a powerful foundation for all kids. The show’s simple, clever, and wholesome approach to mature themes also speaks to both young kids and older viewers.

“Steven Universe” centers around a chubby eponymous boy who is half human and half Gem. The Gems are an alien race from Homeworld. Steven (Zach Callison) lives with three Gems, Pearl (Deedee Magno Hall), Garnet (Estelle) and Amethyst (Michaela Dietz), who together make up the Crystal Gems: a group sworn to protect the earth. It all sounds cheesy and childish, and it sure is for the majority the first season, as the gems teach Steven to use his powers while he runs around making plenty of puns and singing about food. But, especially in the beginning, through Steven the show exemplifies a naïve and idealistic view of the world that may not be reality, but can definitely remind viewers what to strive for in life.

The Crystal Gems’ background and interaction with humans exemplifies the show’s somewhat optimistic message. All gems are created to fit a specific role in Gem society and any deviation from that mold is punished. Any feelings are discouraged.

This creates the perfect setup for the Crystal Gems’ eventual confrontation with Earth, which represents the total opposite perspective. Originally a Gem colony to be destroyed for the purpose of resource collection, Earth is saved by the Crystal Gems.

To the Gems, Earth is their opportunity to break free of Homeworld’s

Television

By Jacqueline Thom The year is nearly over and it would be an understatement to say that we’ve had a good year in film and television. John Krasinski’s directorial debut, “The Quiet Place,” followed 2017’s “The Silent Child” in bringing attention to sign language, living with deafness, and the need for inclusivity for the handicapped onscreen. We’ve seen several films that finally provide a bigger platform for people of color, like “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” as well as TV shows like Hiro Murai’s “Atlanta” or the eight-part HBO series, “The Night Of,” starring Riz Ahmed. Other shows and movies like “The Expanse,” “Insecure,” and “Ocean’s 8” feature badass women and a level of diversity in casting that’s rarely been seen before.

While all eyes have been on big names in the industry, some forget the work of a show that was revolutionary in the late 1900s and still continues to cause waves now. Since 1969, “Sesame Street” has been educating children with a curriculum meant to reflect American culture and its audience’s viewing habits, while still providing small lessons in math, reading, and social skills.

What’s most important about the show is that each character in “Sesame Street” can be perceived to suffer from some form of mental illness. Kermit the Frog deals with trauma, while

“Steven Universe” and Rebecca Sugar’s Visionary Role in Animation rules, where they can explore who they are and want to be. It is a safe haven for outcasts. And it is a place where they can form relationships with humans and each other. Contact with humans, especially Steven, drives the Gems to develop compassion and love. Rose Quartz (Susan Egan), Steven’s mother, is particularly enthralled by living life’s capacity for change on earth. “But you, you’re supposed to change. You’re never the same even moment to moment. You’re allowed and expected to invent who you are.

What an incredible power—the ability to ‘grow up,’” she proclaims in the episode “Greg the Babysitter.”

Originally proposed to be inspired by Rebecca Sugar’s childhood and her relationship with her brother, “Steven Universe” is an exploration of the premise of growing up. Both Steven and the Crystal Gems develop as they learn the importance of love toward oneself and others from interactions with each other. This concentration on emotions, self-esteem, and relationships drives the stories much more than fights against “bad guys.”

The show, currently a couple episodes away from the end of its fifth season, continues to present countless scenarios for character growth and focuses on adult themes and messages that even older viewers can learn from. Such themes have included consent, rape, jealousy, honesty, PTSD, trust, toxic and abusive relationships, depression, and grief over the death of a loved one.

But for me—and for countless other fans—the most important theme the show has focused on has been self-love: to accept your faults and learn to work on them while still loving yourself. Sugar’s effort to spread this message doesn’t even end with the show. This year she teamed up with Dove to create several short videos that cover bullying and comparing looks through a special Self-Esteem Project.

To make the subject of relationships more understandable for a

young audience, Sugar came up with the concept of fusion: two or more gems can form together into a single gem that is a visual representation of their relationship, whether it be familial, platonic, or romantic. The stability of the fusion depends on the level of sync between the characters that form it. Thus viewers care about the way characters positively deal with their own and their relationship struggles because the formation of a likable fusion depends on this.

“Steven Universe” is also a triumph for queer visibility, and a showcase of the huge amount of effort Sugar has put into the show in the name of representation. Just this July 4, the show made animation history with the first homosexual marriage proposal ever depicted in a cartoon show. Though other cartoon shows have portrayed gay marriages, those characters were always side characters.

In “Steven Universe,” however, this romance is a key plot point, and the marriage is a culmination of the character development of the lovers that is closely tied to their development

the show, she described it as being about her childhood and her relationship with her brother, and a large part of those are childhood love.

One’s romantic feelings for others are a large part of growing up and shouldn’t be viewed as adult themes.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sugar has said, “We need to let children know that they belong in this world. You can’t wait to tell them that until after they grow up or the damage will be done. You have to tell them while they’re still children that they deserve love and that they deserve support and that people will be excited to hear their story.” Growing up not seeing anyone similar to her and then being told as an adult that she had to exclude a part of her own childhood allowed Sugar to realize how imperative it is to have representation early on. Having to deny or hide a part of themselves, kids will grow into adults that will have restraints to talk about their own stories.

The setbacks she had left a mental toll on her, due to how personal the matter is to her, and working on the show has allowed

Maryann Foley / The Spectator

as characters and the overall plot.

When Sugar initially proposed

Sugar to explore and express her own identity. She came out as bisexual in

2016 and as a nonbinary woman only a few months ago.

When Sugar initially suggested for the two female characters to be married in 2013 or 2014, gay marriage wasn’t legal in the US, and Sugar was clearly told that such content wouldn’t be considered G-rated. This pushed Sugar to continue to strive for fair representation. Sugar had many conversations with the network and received many notices of censorship in foreign countries. She admitted that around 2016, she told the producers, “If this is going to cost me my show that’s fine because this is a huge injustice and I need to be able to represent myself and my team through this show and anything less would be unfair to my audience.” Evidently they let her keep the show and, after many years, have finally allowed her to tell the story she initially envisioned.

Rebecca Sugar’s perseverance to showcase queer relationships makes her one of the greatest activists in animation in this decade. It’s evident in the respect that the creators of other shows such as “Adventure Time” and “Gravity Falls” have for her, as well as in the recent push for more representation in the industry. And the focus isn’t something that comes unnaturally to the show. It’s one part of the show’s whole message that everyone can and should be accepted—the message that gives viewers of any age the foundation to find peace with themselves and become positive members of society.

Bert & Ernie Are Just Roommates You Guys Miss Piggy’s constant need for attention points to narcissistic personality disorder. Count von Count’s need to count everything he sees could be a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder, and Big Bird’s inability to convince others that his friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus, exists, may mean that he is a schizophrenic, experiencing visual hallucinations.

Showing these types of characters is not only a wonderful way to increase exposure of disorders that are normally overlooked and to teach children about them, but it also battles stigmas that those suffering from mental illness are easily spotted and should be targeted as villains or monsters.

However, there has been recent controversy surrounding two of Sesame Street’s characters, Bert and Ernie. The dynamic duo has long been considered to be a gay couple. They’re a prime example of opposites attracting, with Bert’s grumpiness and need for order often clashing with Ernie’s tendency toward spontaneity, a relationship that gives off old gay couple vibes. Even the

New Yorker featured the two cuddling in front of a TV on the cover of its July 2013 issue in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling on two same-sex marriage cases.

The pair’s relationship status seemed legit, especially when early this September, the online magazine Queerty interviewed Mark

Alex Lin / The Spectator

Saltzman, the gay writer behind many of the characters that were introduced in the 1980s. When asked about how he came up with the concepts for Bert and Ernie, Saltzman told Queerty, “I

always felt that without a huge agenda, when I was writing Bert & Ernie, they were [gay]. I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them.” Having based the pair off of his own relationship with his late partner, Saltzman also noted, “I don’t think I’d know how else to write them, but as a loving couple.” Many fans took Saltzman’s language literally, with many taking to Twitter to celebrate what seemed to be an official confirmation of the two Muppets’ sexuality.

The Sesame Workshop quickly shut down the celebration, though, saying that Saltzman was misinterpreted and that Bert and Ernie “were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves.

Even though they […] possess many human traits and characteristics, they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.” Many fans were obviously not happy and called the lack of gay representation contradictory to Sesame Street’s vision of inclusion and acceptance.

It’s certainly true that what we currently see of the LGBTQ+ community on film and

television is not nearly enough.

Most films with any queer representation in them at all only have one character that isn’t cisgender. The shortage of such representation on the big screen is exactly the reason why people need to stop bashing the Sesame Workshop. The controversy over a pair of puppets is not just another inconsequential topic.

It brings to light a more urgent matter: showing as much support for the LGBTQ+ representation that exists in the media now, and pushing for even more of it. We should be showing our support for the movies and TV shows that DO actually have accurate LGBTQ+ characters instead of arguing over the ones that don’t show them.

We also shouldn’t forget that what “Sesame Street” is doing now is already incredibly groundbreaking and progressive. It teaches children basic life skills and important lessons like tolerance, dealing with mental illness, or just learning to ask for help. All three of the show’s human characters are played by non-white actors. And just last year, “Sesame Street” also introduced its first Muppet with autism, Julia. In a time when we are still dealing with issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, sexual harassment, and so many more terrible things, what “Sesame Street” is doing now is more than enough.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 14

Arts and Entertainment

Best Breakout Artists of 2018

By The Arts and Entertainment Department

Cuco

By Lucy Lu

If you prefer to spend your Saturday nights at home with Kali Uchis, Rex Orange County, Miguel, or Tyler, the

Miguel’s romantic Spanglish flair, and Tyler’s eccentric (yet somewhat alluring) aura.

Yet, his soothing, lullaby-like songs are distinctly his. Cuco, aka Omar Banos, was born to

Juice WRLD us average teens. In the midst of 2018’s ghastly deportation and detainment events, Cuco has used his voice to advocate for immigrant families.

Cuco’s songs generally start

“Y pasando tiempo juntos is the ultimate dream” —Cuco, “Drown”

Creator keeping you company, Cuco should probably find his way onto your playlist sometime soon. Cuco blends the best of Kali’s dreamy voice, Rex’s broken heart,

Mexican immigrant parents and led a life that is like akin to that of the current high school generation. Perhaps that is why he so popular: his music is just so relatable to

out instrumental as the main tune plays in the background, his voice joins in shortly afterward (usually in Spanglish), and a dreamy tune begins.

By Miranda Lepri

It’s kind of incredible how quickly Jarad Higgins, better known as Juice WRLD, has ex-

cited, from rock to rap, but it is usually considered under the umbrella of emo rap. He considers his music more relatable than most mainstream songs,

“I just want real love, guess it’s been a minute / Pissed off from the way that I don’t fit in” —Juice WRLD, “All Girls Are The Same”

ploded, with his single “Lucid Dreams” reaching No. 3 after it was officially picked up as a single and given a music video; his more recent “All Girls Are the Same” is in the Top 50. Juice WRLD started out on SoundCloud; his music is a testament to all of the influences he’s

priding himself on reaching regular people with common experiences rather than focusing on the opulent lifestyle rappers often describe. His music targets the lives people actually lead, not the lives they might want, which sets him apart as an artist to watch.

Hayley Kiyoko hit single “Curious” offering the listener a glimpse into the Californian artist’s own experiences in love. Alcroft had previously worked in the entertainment industry as a model and actress for various Nickelodeon and Disney

By Laura Ilioaei She just might exceed your “Expectations” with her debut album of the same name. An MTA VMA nominee for 2018’s “Best New Artist,” Hayley Kiyoko Alcroft is bringing fresh perspective into the pop world as a Eurasian lesbian icon. “Expectations” delves into themes of homosexuality, with songs like the album’s

2010 as a member of The Stunners, a girl group that quickly disbanded. From then on she was a solo artist, releasing EPs until she announced that 2018 would bring her first album. Our next expectation is that she’ll continue to make

King Princess

“Always there to brush your hair / Help you pick out what to wear / I just feel alone, feel alone” —Hayley Kiyoko, “Sleepover”

programs. She eventually dipped her toes into the music industry in

additions to her discography.

Joji

By Jevina Wong You might remember him as Filthy Frank or the Pink Guy, but Joji is his current moniker that will be his real gig in the music

reers, he’s now ventured into Joji’s sound, describing it to Billboard as “stuff that I want to hear.”

After dropping his debut EP “In Tongues” in 2017, tracks like “Will He” and “Window” set the tone

label’s 2018 summer album, “Head In The Clouds,” showcased his versatility through upbeat bangers like “Midsummer Madness” and “Peach Jam” with BlocBoy JB. After releasing his new song and mu-

“Will your shadow remember the swing of my hips? / Will your lover caress you the way that I did?”

—Joji, “Will He”

industry. Osaka-born, JapaneseAustralian producer, singer, and rapper George Miller has long established his Internet presence, boasting over 170 million views as the surreal comedy characters.

While having retired his YouTube personalities and their music ca-

for his signature melancholia. He blends soulful vocals with lo-fi beats, incorporating trap, R&B, electronic, and alternative. The 26year-old is currently signed with 88rising, an Asian record label, alongside talents like Keith Ape and Rich Brian. Joji’s work on the

sic video for “Slow Dancing in the Dark” this month, Joji announced his debut album “BALLADS 1.”

If the psychedelic pulse of the song and the ominous visuals of the video are any indication, his project is definitely worth looking forward to.

By Grace Goldstein Indie pop singer/songwriter Mikaela Straus, better known by her stage name King Princess, is the lesbian, native New York teen taking the pop music scene by storm.

Growing up in Williamsburg and spending most of her time in her sound engineer father’s studio Mission Sound, Straus met, learned from, and bonded with artists like Arctic Monkeys, Missy Elliot, and Sia. Now 19 years old, she lives in L.A. King Princess re-

cently released her debut EP, “Make My Bed,” featuring five heartfelt, lo-fi tracks, and plans on releasing her debut album soon. Beautifully artsy and unapologetically queer music videos accompany the songs on the EP. What makes her an artist to watch for is her experience as an NYC teenager (which really comes through in her song “Upper West Side”). King Princess is the sapphic heartthrob New York gays have been waiting for.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 15

Arts and Entertainment

Best Breakout Artists of 2018

By The Arts and Entertainment Department

Tierra Whack

Superorganism

By Jacqueline Thom

A true product of the Internet age, Superorganism came together two years after its future frontwoman, Orono Noguchi, bonded with members of London band, The Eversons, over a

shared interest in Internet memes. The Eversons’ members, Emily, Harry, Tucan, and Robert Strange, collaborated with Noguchi on what would be Superorganism’s first single, “Something For Your M.I.N.D.” After meeting musicians Ruby, B, and

Soul through music forums and mutual friends, Superorganism formed in 2017, releasing their self-titled debut album early in March 2018. The album’s heavily electronically-fused take on psychedelic pop will be hugely appealing to younger listeners with songs like “Everybody Wants to Be Famous.” The lyrics, “My face up in your face / My face on every screen” and “Everybody wants and nobody’s ashamed / Everybody wants you to know their name” point out the absurdity of the cultural urge to stand out amongst a sea of content. If the band’s songs aren’t wild enough, their music videos are usually prefaced with trigger warnings and filled with what can only be called a mix between home videos, bad Photoshop, and cheesy iMovie transitions, but somehow they work well with the head-nod inducing tone of Superorganism’s music.

By Emma Linderman Tierra Whack lives up to her name—in the best possible way.

The Pennsylvania rapper’s debut album “Whack World” consists of 15 songs, each exactly one minute in length, covering topics that range from police brutality to her own unique style. Whack also released an accompanying 15-minute music video that transitions through the entire setlist with equally stylized

yet unique scenes for each song.

Whack’s music gives off a bold first impression that, to the naked eye, is overwhelming. Yet what is admirable about the artist is that her seemingly foreign creations still manage to hold a straightforward message. Through bright colors, sometimes hard-to-understand verses, and jarring visuals, Whack is completely unafraid to speak her mind and present to her listeners an often harsh reality.

Get A Life: The Cultured Edition PLAY “Because I Could Not Stop: An Encounter with Emily Dickinson” @ The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center until 10/20 $39-$149

FILM SCREENING Chelsea Film Festival @ AMC Loews 34th Street 10/18 until 10/21 $13-$149

ART SHOW “African American Portraits: Photographs from the 1940s and 1950s” @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art until 11/6 FREE

ART SHOW “Voice of My City: Jerome Robbins and New York” @ New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center until 3/30/19 FREE

PERFORMANCE “Amateur Night at the Apollo” @ Apollo Theater until 11/21 $22-$34

ART SHOW “Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again” @ Whitney Museum of American Art until 3/31/19 FREE

BOOK RELEASE October 18 MOCATalks: Matthew Polly — “Bruce Lee: A Life” @ Museum of Chinese in America $10

FOOD FAIR Bronx Night Market @ Fordham Plaza, Bronx until 10/27

FESTIVAL The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze @ Van Cortlandt Manor, Croton-on-Hudson until 11/24 $16-$27

BOOK RELEASE October 15 “Strand Pres. Phoebe Robinson: Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay” @ Gramercy Theater $35

TV PREMIERE October 19 “Daredevil” Season 3 Release on Netflix

MUSEUM OPENING The Museum of Pizza @ The William Vale until 10/28 $35

MUSEUM EXHIBIT “Harry Potter: A History of Magic” @ New York Historical Society 10/5/18 until 1/27/19 $0-$21

FILM FESTIVAL October 16 Architecture & Design Film Festival @ Cinepolis Chelsea until 10/21 $12.50

FILM RELEASE October 19 “The Hate U Give”

TOUR The Ride @ 42nd St and 8th Ave until 10/30 $74

CONCERT October 17 David Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy @ Brookfield Place until 10/19 FREE

PARADE October 21 Marco Polo Street Festival @ 62 Mott Street FREE

Page 16

The Spectator â—? October 12, 2018

Art If Your Favorite Artist Were a Stuy Student

by THE ART DEPARTMENT

by Aries Ho

by Raihana Sultana

Bansky

by Katherine Kibatullin

Dali

Draw with jazzy

by Sunjung Bok

DA VINCI

by Katherine Lwin

BOB ROSS

by Vivian Lu

BERNINI ADVERTISEMENTS

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

ADVERTISEMENT

Page 17

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 18

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

Stuyvesant Replaces Talos with Even More Antiquated Technology After the dumpster fire that was program changes last September, Stuyvesant issued a statement last week declaring a complete overhaul of the current program system, including the replacement of the now-infamous Talos with something that they promised would be “faster, better, and less cooperative than ever.”

Realizing the mistake they made in using a $1.00 GoDaddy domain to host a schoolwide website, the Program Office staff members decided to remove all traces of Talos from their premises. They lit a bonfire into which they hurled all two of their working Windows ‘97 computers along with about three reams worth of last-minute AP requests that the counselors were too lazy to read.

Once they were finished, however, they were faced with a new question: now that technology was out of the question, what would be the next best way to crush students’ hopes

after keeping them in the dark for a week? While they contemplated the question, intern Jodda Ron found his answer in the nowsmoking pile of ash in the middle of the room.

The new program, dubbed “Hestia” by Ron, aims to bring a much more streamlined and simple experience to processing changes. “Instead of e-mailing a lengthy five-paragraph essay to your counselor citing your sexual attraction to your teacher as a reason to transfer out of five different classes, you can now simply signal to your

Sophia Zhao / The Spectator

By TONY MOH

counselor your preferred class schedule in Morse code and wait

only 10 minutes before being told your request is denied!”

Ron said.

When asked about how long-distance messages would work without computers, Ron responded, “Forget about using those clunky piles of trash—instead of relying on technology that became outdated 20 years ago, Hestia’s going to run on the world’s oldest

known

method of c o m munication: smoke signaling!”

“Forget the old days of having to camp in the fifth-floor hallway for six hours to move your lunch period one spot down,” Ron continued. “With Hestia, we’ll be notified of your request about two minutes after you send it, provided that you know how to start your own campfire from scratch and al-

ready mastered Morse coding.”

In preparation for the program, Stuyvesant plans to release a new set of “15Tech” classes to teach students the extremely niche survival skills needed to do program changes. Subjects will include AP Fire Starting (with a pre-requisite of <65 in both Health and CPR/First-Aid), Carrier Pigeon Training, Semaphore, and whatever other skills the school found in the official Scout’s Handbook. As with both 5- and 10Tech classes, students are required to take at least one 15Tech to receive a Stuyvesantendorsed diploma, provided that they didn’t sign up for annualized Intro to Camping freshman year.

When asked about what would happen if students wanted to transfer from their 15Techs, Ron responded with, “Wait a minute—oh, [expletive],” before promptly kicking the reporters out of the Program Office. He denied further comment.

Escalator Men to the Rescue

By JUSTIN LEE and CHRISABELLA JAVIER

are even considering the permanent implementation of this system in our school.”

Proponents of this system praise its consistency and ability to deliver. Junior Beracah Lam admitted, “The chairs are very comfortable, and the escalator men don’t break down nearly as much as the escalators did— physically, that is. Emotionally, they are always dying. That’s good enough for me.”

Students, as well as adults, are welcome to register for this volunteer opportunity, which begins September 29 in the Senior Atrium. The opportunity also comes with .01 percent extra credit in physical education.

“I realized the practicality of this opportunity immediately— walking up stairs with a student strapped to your back is an incredibly useful skill to learn and will make up for the 57 consecutive gym P.E. classes that I’ve cut,”

Katherine Lwin / The Spectator

With a record number of zero functional escalators, every stairway in Stuyvesant was filled to maximum capacity (even the Hudson stairwell, to the dismay of potheads and horny students everywhere). The dilemma was urgent: how would the school satisfy the students’ need for doing as little work as possible and account for their wildly inadequate physical condition?

The answer, put forth by a “collaboration” between the Student Union and Principal Eric Contreras, was to have a temporary replacement for the moreunusable-than-usual escalators: escalator men. The school hired 18 so-called “escalator men,” and every two of them are stationed at the top and bottom of the escalators. Each escalator man is equipped with a metal chair duct-

taped to his waist so that students can sit on the chair “comfortably” while the escalator man Narutoruns up and down the stairs. For the low price of $50 per ride, students will never have to walk again. And for an additional $10, the escalator men offer to whisper comforting words to boost students’ self-esteem and morale as they carry their passengers up the stairs. For an extra $15, they offer to even sing you an inspirational song like “All Star” by Smash Mouth. The funds would go toward changing the pool water from tears to Kool-Aid. “It is the (only) brilliant idea from the Student Union; nothing could be more appropriate or efficient compared to this system,” Principal Contreras proudly proclaimed. “Its speed is unprecedented, working at an astonishing rate of eight students per minute.

No longer will any student have an excuse to be late to class. We

senior Kerwin Chen said. “Plus, it really prepares you for the workforce, like when your boss will make you carry work and college debt on your back while

he does nothing except reap profits. I love it.”

Dead Art

by Alex Lin

Big Sibs post-Open House.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 19

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

A Rant From A Hudson Stairwell Spirit for the underclassmen to join their comrades in making great ascensions.

(Too bad these ascensions were only limited to staircases as opposed to fallen ambitions.)

The only good thing that came out of my great tragedy was that someone dropped her poppy seed bagel. Wheat dough cannot replace a sturdy wooden pipe, and poppy seeds are but a petty meager morsel of my vice, but the dead cannot choose.

Or can they? I’ve heard America’s gained more independence in regards to government and the press, and even as an apparition, I wouldn’t mind having my voice heard outside of a sewing circle. I spotted a weary senior who I also knew to be a student journalist trudging to the 10th floor.

It’s not easy spending your days of Purgatory in the Hudson Stairwell. On a typical day in the school year, you encounter at least a tenth of the student population popping, drinking, or smoking everything from matcha-infused Xanax to steaming cauldrons of pumpkinspiced coffee to caramel-flavored smoking devices and nearly everything else these post-millennials try to innovate. You’d think it’d make me fondly reflect on the days of merchant ships and opium, but those poppy seeds just had to lead to my downfall. My addiction was so terrible that I was blocked from both heaven and hell after my inevitable overdose. Can you imagine being rejected by Lucifer after he lampoons you on the stench of your corset being a force potent enough to obliterate his Underworld?

Oh, speaking of blocking… seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to barricade the escalators in this place? Initially, when that escalator incident happened, the Hudson stairway was rather empty. This place is usually forgettable unless you’re a couple lacking a love nest, someone down on his luck needing a place for their thoughts to echo and resonate around and within himself to fill a lonely insatiable void, or a tardy student desperately looking for a shortcut so that her transcript doesn’t start looking like a police report. I’ve heard the Humor Department crack more overused jokes about this place than I have seen students actually clambering up and down its steps.

Until now, that is. Seriously, I thought that there was an earthquake threatening to topple this building when I felt a tremor in the ground like I’d never felt before. But no, it was only that rare hoard of upperclassmen with common sense enough to dodge traffic in the main staircases by using the Hudson. Dread filled my stomach like despair replaces the hearts of students in this place. I had this awful premonition, and I didn’t know why. Not that I had to wonder for long! It only took a period

Wrestling is Not Gay

By ALWIN PENG A few days ago, the longtime coach of the wrestling team, Luther Wrestler-man, went off the rails when two lacrosse players started calling wrestling gay.

Coach Wrestler-man was found running through the halls of Stuyvesant, overturning benches and shouting, “WRESTLING IS NOT A GAY SPORT.” In order to get to the bottom of why the coach reacted so poorly, The Spectator decided to interview several wrestlers to get the inside scoop. Here are a few responses: Senior and co-captain Alwin Peng stated, “Honestly I can see where the lacrosse players are coming from. When I was a freshman, I remember seeing one of the captains pinning someone, and right after the ref called the pin, the captain jumped up, pointed to the other guy, and shouted, “HE GRABBED MY CROTCH.” The entire gym heard him and burst out laugh-

“Psst, Ilioaei!”

“Oh—!” She jolted in surprise, more so over the fact that someone actually pronounced her last name correctly as opposed to the fact that the dead was speaking to her. She glanced around, ensuring that no one would hear her speaking to thin air. “I guess if I can see you, I really must be dead inside. What can I do for you?”

“You’re a Spec journalist, aren’t you? Do a Feature on me.”

She winced. “I could write an article on you, but there’s NO guarantee that it’ll be a Feature.”

She put an emphasis on the NO, signifying that The Interview With The Ghost would never make it past the department editors.

“Fine. Make a joke out of it for all I care.”

Katherine Kibatullin / The Spectator

By LAURA ILIOAEI

ing. So it might seem gay to the uninitiated.”

Senior and co-captain Clarence Cheng said, “There’s really an unfair stigma toward wrestlers when it comes to that. I mean, I’m just talking to my friends, and out of nowhere, they imply that I might be interested in waxing someone else’s carrot just because I wrestle. Imagine coach having to deal with that his whole life.”

Junior captain George Bong stated, “Coach was always one of the calmest people I’ve ever met.

I don’t know why he would do something like that; I guess 50 years of getting called gay gets to you. I mean it’s a very serious problem that nobody addresses.

We have gay pride marches and all that, but what about a march for those straight guys who keep getting called gay? That’s oppression, too. It’s the number one cause of depression for men in America.”

The Kavanaugh Roundup

By OLIVER STEWART Brett Kavanaugh has been everywhere in American news recently. From his initial nomination

by Donald Trump to the recent allegations of sexual harassment, he’s been an ever-present face on TV, in newspapers, and online for weeks. Kavanaugh is currently facing a tight vote, partially because many senators are wary of voting against his confirmation, fearing that such a vote will make them look too strongly anti-rape. We at The Spectator have launched an investigation and are prepared to release a series of exclusive news stories about the nominee which have not yet been published in any other paper. I proudly present to you: The Kavanaugh Roundup.

Despite credible allegations of attempted rape brought against Kavanaugh, Republican senators leading his confirmation effort have been slow to react and have continued to carry on with his confirmation hearings and the process. In the latest series of subtly planned strategic moves to get the confirmation through, Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley and others on the committee have decided to wear orange soundcancelling headphones—often found on construction sites— while the accuser testifies, giving them probable deniability should the accusations be proven true after Kavanaugh is confirmed to the court. Grassley defended the decision, stating, “What did you ask?

Oh. I don’t know what all these liberal snowflakes are complaining about. Mostly because I can’t hear them with these industrial strength noise blockers on, but I also have no idea why anyone would have a problem with a rapist deciding America’s future for generations to come.”

Not only politicians have been vocal in their support for the judge. Many people close to Kavanaugh have come out in support of him and have announced publicly that he is Very Nice. This irrefutable testimony, based on the undebatable fact that nobody has ever acted differently around

different people, makes it difficult to argue with the objective facts that Mr. Kavanaugh is a Very Nice Man and Just Isn’t Like That.

Among the women close to him who have come out in support of him is Susan Simmons, who sat two seats away from him in Ms. Frances Barnshaw’s third grade arithmetic class. Simmons gave us an exclusive interview regarding Mr. Kavanaugh, in which she swore that nine-year-old Brett was a “true gentleman” who she had never seen do anything wrong.

“The way they’re trying to assassinate his character is outrageous,” she fumed. “He came to my house for a birthday party once, and he didn’t try to rape me! These accusations must be entirely false and should be rescinded immediately.”

In other related news, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is bringing a lawsuit against Kavanaugh’s accuser, college professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. In the lawsuit, Justice Thomas alleges that Dr. Ford’s claims against Kavanaugh “bring up repressed memories of a traumatic time in his life when he was faced with persecution and unfair public scrutiny,” and that the publication of sexual assault claims against a Supreme Court nominee brought up PTSD from the ordeal he faced when he was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill in 1991. He is seeking damages from Dr. Ford to the effect of $4.71 million. We reached out to the Justice for comment and in an interview given to The Spectator, he urged women to think before accusing men of sexual assault because “you really have no idea what you might be putting that poor man through.

The effect it can have on a person’s life and career is enormous, and these women callously accusing men of sexual assault should really be more considerate before voicing their accusations.”

That’s all for this week in The Kavanaugh Roundup. Check back next week for the latest stories and items about America’s favorite alleged sexual harasser.

You’re Not Indie, You’re Annoying

By ANGELIQUE CHARLES-DAVIS You didn’t pay full price for anything you’re wearing, and your outfit just asked me if I listened to Rex Orange County and then rolled its eyes when I said I didn’t or widened them in pure shock when I said I did.

If I held you at gunpoint, you would eventually admit that you don’t actually know what your Instagram captions mean and you never did; it’s just some words that sound weird together.

An artist is only good if no one’s heard of her, and she dress like no one’s heard of her. Once too many people realize the artist isn’t famous and start listening, the artist realizes she is and starts to put on nice clothes, and you suddenly lose interest. Artists aren’t fun if they can afford to eat off the McDonald’s menu.

You find it strange that some people enjoy music where the singer doesn’t sound like he’s

underwater and several miles from the microphone. At the last concert y o u

Anna Ast / The Spectator

went to at Elsewhere, the guy sang

to you from the bottom of this really, really deep hole, and it was the best experience of your life.

You’re the person who ignored my texts for three months when I was in crisis because “idk i just don’t like to be tied down to material objects.” You like it best when everything smells like 2003 because you love to pretend we haven’t progressed at all as a society. You talk about the ‘80s as if you were there and say stuff about how people nowadays are too addicted to Taylor Swift, forgetting that people then were too addicted to crack and institutionalized racism.

The movies you watch are also indie, just like the rest of your irritating little body.

You prefer to read your movies through subtitles, and you love small businesses so much that sometimes you make questionable choices, like that one time you decided to forgo soap.

But the truth is: You’re not indie, you’re annoying.

Page 20

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Sports Sports Editorial

Triple G vs. Canelo Alvarez II: The Counter-Puncher Strikes Back

By Sunan Tajwar

After being robbed of a career defining win almost a year ago, Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin (GGG) got another shot at Canelo Alvarez on September 15 at the T-Mobile Arena in the biggest middleweight bout in recent history. With the controversial decision judging the contest a draw in the last fight, boxing fans around the world were looking forward to having a definite winner, especially after their big Cinco De Mayo rematch was canceled when Alvarez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, which he blamed on Mexican beef. Most people would agree that Triple G won the last fight decisively, but questionable judging on behalf of Adelaide Byrd left the undefeated pound for pound great with a blemish on his record, one he wanted to erase with a definite victory over his new rival.

In the sport of boxing, one year is a very long time for an aging fighter. Triple G dominated

Alvarez for the majority of their first fight at the age of 35, but that one year difference was evident from the start bell. In the first fight, Golovkin looked like the boogeyman of the middleweight division, knocking anything with a pulse. He stalked Alvarez the entire fight, always maintained the pressure, and made Alvarez uncomfortable on the back foot.

But to Alvarez’s credit, he made adjustments in the second fight and took advantage of a now aging Golovkin. This time, it was the explosive Mexican counter-puncher (Alvarez) aggressively stalking the Kazakh knockout artist (Golovkin). Prior to this fight, GGG had never had to fight off the back foot. As a knockout artist, being forced into a defensive counter-punching position for the first time in his career, Golovkin looked uncomfortable, unconfident, and old for the first time in his career.

By stalking Triple G the entire fight, Alvarez was thus controlling the flow of the fight.

Even though Triple G wasn’t in his prime position, however, he was still consistently landing the jab and a few big shots. But in the eyes of the judges, Alvarez was controlling the tempo, forcing the action, and forcing Triple G to adapt to him, easily portraying himself as the more confident and in-control fighter. After the first fight, he understood that he couldn’t stand in a counterpunching stance and allow someone as dangerous as Triple G to pick his shots. Having made that massive change in mentality and some filthy body shots, Alvarez won the greater part of the first six rounds of the fight but was kept in check by Golovkin’s jab and quick combos.

Even though Alvarez seemed to be in control of the fight, as the old saying goes, “It only takes one shot.” In this case, it wasn’t a knockout for Triple G, but a few big shots that rocked Alvarez in the middle rounds that helped Golovkin regain some of his confidence. He began to stuff out some of Alvarez’s

forward pressure and countered it with some of his own. More importantly, just like Alvarez had played Golovkin’s game against him in the earlier rounds, Golovkin began counter-punching the best counter-puncher in boxing. In rounds eight through 11, Golovkin landed some big shots that had Alvarez shaking and leaning against the ropes.

They were shots that would have put any other fighter to sleep, but not the steel chinned Alvarez.

Alvarez weathered the storm, took the shots, and threw back some of his own in addition to working the body to steal a few of those late rounds from a dangerous looking Golovkin.

The last round was the climax of the entire fight that the year prior led up to for so long. The two fighters came out throwing haymakers, neither one looking to leave the fight in the hands of the judges. Every big shot Golovkin landed, Alvarez took on the chin and gave back one of his own. In the end, neither last effort was enough to knock

the other out. It was a shame this instant classic had to come to decision once again, but unlike when it went to decision last, neither fighter truly deserved to lose this fight. Ultimately, the judges submitted their scorecards, and Alvarez was announced the new middleweight champion by way of majority decision. Two judges scored it 115-113 in his favor while another judged it a 114114 draw.

In all honesty, Golovkin landed the bigger shots, landed the jab consistently, dealt more overall damage, and deserved to win the fight once again. But to his credit, Alvarez did what he had to do to get his hand raised in the eyes of the judges.

Alvarez controlled the narrative of the fight and looked like the more aggressive and dangerous fighter. Even when he took the big shots, he looked resilient while getting tagged by one the greatest knockout artists in history. Golovkin threw and landed more shots, but statistics don’t win fights.

Sports Editorial

By Oliver Ripps

when he needed surgery on a herniated disk in his neck. After his 2015 diagnosis, Wright barely saw the playing field. During the next two years, Wright slowly began playing in minor league games.

Even as Wright fought his way back to the big leagues, the Mets seemed hesitant to let him return for the final month of this 2018 season, seemingly citing the added cost of an extra player on the Mets’ payroll. However, in a move that pleasantly surprised even the most cynical fans, the Mets held a joint press conference with Wright on September 13, announcing that Wright would be activated for the Mets’ final home series and start on along with José Reyes on September 29. Tickets were sold out immediately, and resell prices for even the worst tickets in the stadium were well above $100.

As a final tribute, the Mets put together a video of David Wright’s most memorable moments. As I sat in the stands watching some of the major highlights of my childhood, I was hit with an overwhelming wave of nostalgia. Wright’s diving bare-hand catch in 2005 is one of my first memories that sparked my love for baseball. I remember spending hours studying and trying to imitate his batting stance in the hopes of becoming as good as him one day.

In 2015, when Wright in his first at-bat back from a severe injury crushed a home run, he inspired

Courtesy of www.nydailynews.

When David Wright was pulled out of the game on September 29, all 44,000 Mets fans in attendance gave him one final standing ovation. The Mets captain was full of emotion as he hugged each one of his teammates and members of the Mets training staff. Through his 15year career, he has become the franchise leader in almost every offensive stat and was a huge role model to countless young fans. And despite going hitless, his final game was the perfect ending to a long, rocky journey.

From the moment David was called up in 2004, he was an instant star. New York loved him.

And as his career wore on, he became the longest tenured Met and was a bright spot through the long, arduous rebuild, which involved many last place finishes.

Going into 2011, Wright seemed on pace to be a shoo-in for a first ballot Hall of Fame spot. But bright as his future seemed, that season was his last full injuryfree one.

Wright suffered several injuries. The final nail in the coffin came in 2015, when he was diagnosed with spinal stenosis.

He managed to return later that year and aid the Mets in their National League Championship Series run, but he was not the same. Wright came back and appeared fairly healthy to start the 2016 season but was forced out

A Tribute To David Wright

all of us with his resilience. Later that season, when Wright hit another home run in the World Series, he showed us how much he cared about New York and the fans. All of these moments, dedication, and patience over the last two years just to ultimately play one last game for the fans cemented his legacy as one of the Mets’ all time greats.

Though Wright only got two at-bats and one fielding oppor-

tunity in his final game, it’s hard to imagine any Mets fan who attended the game feeling ripped off. He finished his career with 1,777 hits, 946 runs scored, 970 runs batted in, and 541 extra base hits, all Mets franchise records. However, as great of a statistical player as Wright was, to myself and millions of other Mets fans, his impact is immeasurable. Wright was a hero on and off the field and the type of

person and player all Mets fans and players aspired to be.

“Thank you for allowing me to live out my dream each and every single night,” he said once in an emotional post-game speech.

As grateful as he feels towards New York Mets fans, he himself created a dream for countless young kids to one day become like him, and for that New York will always be indebted to David Wright.

Sports Editorial

By Lewis Woloch 8:19 Monday night: Opening week of the National Football League. I felt a rush of energy chorus through my body as I sped through the remainder of my math homework. The Jets open-

The Sam Darnold Problem

ing game against the Detroit Lions was that night, and I was pumped for what I hoped would be a winning season after two years of misery. I finished my homework and sprinted downstairs only to hear the pained yell of my brother and the thump of something being

thrown on the ground.

Sam Darnold, with all the anticipation he had created and the speculation on whether he was the right pick, had thrown an interception. And if that weren’t enough, it was his first play ever as a quarterback.

Darnold’s throw was picked off and returned for a touchdown.

I was in shock, and the thought process, one that usually starts in week five or six for me about Jets quarterbacks, had just begun: Can we trade him yet? How are we going to develop our run game? What

miracle do we have to pull off to make the playoffs? Fortunately, God was feeling bad for Jets fans, and the tides quickly turned.

Continued on page 21

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 21

Sports Sports Editorial

The Sam Darnold Problem

Continued from page 22 Rebounding beautifully, Darnold went on to throw two touchdowns, and the Jets, with some help from their defense, ran up the score and blew out the Lions, 48-17. We began to see some of what made Darnold so good in college: he ran well laterally, completed a bunch of startlingly accurate throws scrambling from the pocket, and didn’t falter under pressure from the Lions defensive line. I was confident that Darnold would be able to continue this success in their next game against the Browns, a team that had not won for their last 635 days.

I’m going to skip the boring recap of the Jets game against the Miami Dolphins and just cut to the chase. Darnold was bad—not terrible, but bad enough that I began to start asking those questions again.

And to make things even worse, his stats were actually above par for the

game.

He threw for 350 yards and even tossed a touchdown to running back Bilal Powell. But in crunch time, in the red zone, when the Jets needed a score, he threw a high wobbly pass into the end zone, and the rest was history. I’m pretty sure the whole block heard me after I watched the Dolphins defender snag one of the poorest passes I’ve ever seen a Jets quarterback make, and that’s saying a lot.

In the Jets’ next game against the Cleveland Browns, Darnold crossed paths with the first overall pick in the same 2018 draft, fellow rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield. The first half was pretty solid and Darnold didn’t really do anything wrong. The Jets ran it in for two touchdowns.

14-0. I spent halftime feeling rejuvenated, and since it was only a Thursday, I even cranked out some AP U.S. History homework to pass the time.

However, I came back downstairs late in the second half, and Baker

Mayfield was in for injured starter Tyrod Taylor, leading his team to two touchdowns and bringing them back in the game. And then it happened again. Carlos Hyde ran the ball in for a go-ahead touchdown, but there was still time left for the Jets. But Darnold threw another pick with a minute left. And then he threw another with 30 seconds left. And there went my hopes for the young quarterback and the Jets season. Mayfield instantly became a hero in Cleveland, while Darnold continued to struggle after his hot start in Week One. In Week Four, the Jets were destroyed by the Jacksonville Jaguars and dropped to 1-3.

Let’s look at two examples of players who didn’t start the first game of their very first season. Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Mitchell Trubisky of the Chicago Bears, the tenth and second overall picks of the 2017 draft, have a lot in a common. They both threw for six touchdowns, both of their

teams have winning records, and at this point in the season, I imagine their fans are pretty happy with their performances. Trubisky didn’t even start off the season that well, but his incredible offensive performance in Week Four (he threw five touchdowns in only the first half) proved his obvious talent. Mahomes sat out the whole season last year under Alex Smith, as opposed to Trubisky, who played the second half of the season. Mahomes is a perfect example of what nurturing and development can do to a young, skilled, but raw quarterback. I’ll drop a stat for you.

He has thrown more touchdowns this year than veteran quarterbacks Eli Manning and Joe Flacco. And he seems as cool and collected as you’ll ever see a quarterback of any age. Even Mayfield, who is one of the four rookie quarterbacks now starting, sat out the first two games of the season, and I think if the Browns hadn’t done this, they might have been on their 700,000,000th

day without a win by now.

I leave you with a thought. It is vital to nurture the growth and development of young quarterbacks, especially rookies, and I mean this with the utmost sincerity. Playing Darnold in the first game of the season, Though he performed well, was a poor decision. He was so skilled coming out of college, and still possesses that skill, but his performance for the rest of his career will be impacted by the Jets’ bad start and his struggles with controlling the offense and turning the ball over. Football at a professional level is so much tougher and faster than football at a collegiate one; every player, but especially quarterbacks, needs time to adjust.

I may not be an expert on the development of quarterbacks, but my opinion on young quarterbacks still stands. So if anyone from the Jets front office reads this, know that you probably should’ve given Josh McCown another year.

Boys’ Bowling

By Yukai Liu

Spartans Look to Repeat Undefeated Season

After going 12-0 last season, the Spartans, Stuyvesant’s boys’ varsity bowling team, were looking to to start off the season with a victory on September 27. In this season-opening match against Louis Brandeis High School at Astoria Bowl, the Spartans won the series, 2-1.

With four players participating in each game for each team, junior Samuel Fang and senior and captain Linpeng Chen led the Spartans with scores of 173 and 155, respectively, paving the way for a 571-539 win in Game A. Senior and captain Ansh Sharma led the

Spartans in Game B with a score of 93, followed by junior Erram Labib with a score of 90 to get the win in Game B 333-300. And while the Spartans lost Game C 341-330, the team had already clinched the best-of-three series victory, cruising to a first match victory.

The hopes of another perfect season, however, were dashed in their next match against Hunter College High School. The Spartans lost 2-1, only winning the last game out of three. In Game A, the Spartans narrowly lost 592-569, but in Game B, were beat by a wide margin 434-381. The two bright spots were Chen, who led all players in the match with a 171 in Game A,

Girls’ Soccer

Not the Start They Wanted: Mimbas Open with 0-2 Record

By Franklin Liou and Jooahn Sur On an abnormally humid September day, the Mimbas, Stuyvesant’s girls’ soccer team, lost their 2018 season opener against Bard High School Early College. The team fought hard in the intense heat but ultimately fell short, losing 3-2.

Bard’s stellar offense proved too much for the Mimbas to stop, having twice as many shots as Stuyvesant did. That the Mimbas only lost by one goal, however, is a testament to the team’s excellent goalkeeping.

Junior goalkeeper Emory Walsh saved 15 of Bard’s 18 shots, which translates to a 0.833 save percentage, a stat that any goalkeeper would be proud of. The team played an excellent second half and could have tied it up had senior and captain Allison Eng’s shot went in the net instead of hitting the crossbar. The strategy was very effective and the communication was strong all game, but the team simply could not break through in the waning minutes of the game.

In their next match, the Mimbas hoped to rebound from their disappointing loss against another tough opponent, Hunter High School. They entered this game without their starting goalie, Walsh, who was forced to watch from the

sidelines after a concussion against Bard ruled her out. However, the game did not go as planned, and they suffered a disappointing 5-1 defeat.

Despite the rough start, the Mimbas are still calm since a few players were late or missing from these two early games. “We hope next time we play them, we’ll be fully stacked and work together better,” said Eng, who seemed excited about the Mimbas’ prospects for the upcoming games.

Going forward, the Mimbas will have their best foot forward with the exception of junior Eve Wenning, who suffered a tragic season-ending injury prior to the first game. The team’s new depth, coming from the freshmen, should make replacing her easier, but she will be missed nonetheless. One large aspect of their game that the team must improve on is defense. “It won’t be an overnight process, though, and [it] will take a lot of work,” Eng said when asked about the team’s defense, which had allowed a whopping 30 shots combined in just the first two games of the season.

These first two losses should not bring the team’s morale down since they faced arguably the toughest competition they will face all year.

Their remaining schedule is much lighter, and the Mimbas expect to pick up a few wins in the upcoming weeks.

and Sharma, who scored 135 in Game A and 150 in Game C. This is a very different team from last season, with only three seniors compared to ten seniors the year before. Not only has the level of experience gone down, but the number of players on the roster has, too. Last year, there were 21 athletes compared to this year’s 11, putting a greater responsibility on each athlete. Chen, Fang, Labib, and Sharma are the only four players that are returning from last year.

Another development for the team was the departure of coach Di Wu from Stuyvesant. Wu was previously a guidance counselor

at Stuyvesant and fostered a great team bond and chemistry throughout his tenure as coach. In his place, the Spartans have welcomed a new coach, Mimi Divjak. With a new coach and new players, the Spartans will go through bumps along the road this season as they grow and learn together.

Though the Spartans ran away with the Manhattan I division last year, going 12-0 in the process, this year could prove different. New addition Hunter College High School is off to a 3-0 start and has proven to be a formidable opponent, defeating Stuyvesant already in the second match of the season.

When asked about what he

wants to accomplish this season, Chen said, “I would also like to challenge our team to play the best we can, and [I] hope that we can advance through more matches in the playoffs each and every year.

I would like to assist the coach and lead the team to a new zenith than that of previous year.” He remained unwaveringly confident despite the new conditions the team found itself in. “I am also trying to promote the growth of the team so that the legacy of being undefeated in the division goes on. I believe that we Spartans are invincible and will never fall apart if we remain united and determined,” he said.

Girls’ Volleyball

Girls’ Volleyball Reclaims Dominance

By Max Mah and Lumi Westerlund

After over a month of preparation, the Vixens, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity volleyball team played their first league game on Tuesday, September 25. They faced Seward Park High School, one of

move; people were falling everywhere,” Archer said. “We were kind of playing very tentatively and giving [the other team] free points.”

The Vixens persevered, however, capitalizing on the fact that Seward High School had evidently lost some vital players with last

are bullets; no one can defend against them, and it’s so much fun to see that,” Archer said.

The Vixens have historically struggled with distributing playing time between its members, an issue the team has been working to address recently. “I feel like I’m not one to talk because I got to

“I know our potential is so, so high this year; we can go so, so far. We just need to make sure we play clean, play smart, and overall execute well.”

—Ally Archer, senior and co-captain

their biggest rivals for the past few years and the only team they lost to in last year’s season. This year was different, however, as they left the match with smiles on their faces having won both sets, the first by a wide margin in a score of 25-6.

While the team’s second set win was slightly narrower, senior and co-captain Ally Archer attributed the narrow win to the humidity, which made the gym a terrible location for the match. “It felt like there was a line of water on the ground, and no one wanted to

year’s graduating class. “They didn’t have that many great players that were making it very difficult for us. I feel like this year is the year of people losing good seniors for volleyball,” Archer said, alluding to similar losses the Vixens faced with the 2018 graduation.

Having lost nearly their entire starting lineup, the Vixens are becoming closer, as players who were pushed to the bench in past years are now stepping up. “Alina Luckey, for example, never got to play much last year, and now she’s playing as a senior, and her serves

play as a freshman,” Archer said.

“But it has definitely been an issue because people on the bench have always felt a little excluded, so it’s wonderful to see them being able to step up.”

Going forward, the team is focusing on fundamental skills like serving and receiving to ensure that when it comes to the more complicated plays, the basics come easily. “I know our potential is so, so high this year; we can go so, so far. We just need to make sure we play clean, play smart, and overall execute well,” Archer said.

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The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Sports Girls’ Bowling

Girls’ Swimming

Penguins Look Dominant in Early Triumph

By Damian Wasilewicz and Kevin Chan

After an offseason filled with high expectations, the Penguins, Stuyvesant’s girls’ swimming team, didn’t disappoint at their first meet of the season. Coming into a shortened season, the Penguins have had less frequent but more grueling practices, leaving the team unsure of how they would fare in their first meet. Despite some concern over a slow start to the season, given the talent on their roster, they expected a strong performance nonetheless.

Launching any doubts into oblivion, the Penguins came out blazing from the start and never looked back. The Penguins took down opposing Fiorello H. Laguardia High School by a score of 58-41. They seemed to be in complete control of the meet throughout its entire duration, dominating nearly every single event.

Starting with the 200 yd. Medley Relay, the Penguins showed right away that they were a force to be reckoned with. They were able to capture both first and second place in this event. This proved to be a common occurrence throughout the meet, as the Penguins repeated this result in both the 200 yd. Freestyle and 200 yd.

Individual Medley. In fact, besides

the 50 yd. Freestyle, 500 yd. Freestyle, and diving, the Peglegs were able to win all their other events by taking first and second place.

Even in those events where they didn’t, the Penguins were able to take second and third place. Their victory never seemed in doubt after the first few events.

Senior co-captain Lauren Ng was certainly proud of the effort her team put forth in the meet against Laguardia. “I was surprised by how solid our times were, especially because we have had a shorter season so we’ve had harder practices. So it surprised me how [well] everyone was swimming in such a short amount of time,” Ng said. Ng was particularly impressed by the performances of junior Arielle Aney and freshman Mayumi Schaeperscheu in the 200 yd. freestyle. The two swimmers dominated their competition and won their event by nearly a full minute. When asked about how this first win would translate to the rest of the season, Ng said, “The meet showed that we are looking good and in shape and can only get better from here as long as we all work hard and stay dedicated.”

Maia Brydon, senior and co-captain, also appeared to be impressed by her team’s performance, particularly the newcomers’. “Our rookies/freshmen definitely stepped up and performed

well for their first meet,” Brydon said. Brydon expressed great confidence in the team. “I think the meet played out pretty much as I thought it would,” Brydon said.

Their coach, Silvana Choy, was also satisfied by the team’s performance, and named some individuals that stood out to her.

“Melbourne Tang dropped 21 seconds in the 500 free. Chrisabella Javier dropped five seconds in the 100 fly. Freshman Alina Dufenyuk swam beautifully in the 500 free with a time of 6:25.63.

Natasha Moeslinger (200IM) and Michelle Kwon (100FLY) both had strong swims in their events,” the coach said.

She is choosing to take the team’s recent successes, however, with a grain of salt. “I think that the Penguins got off to a strong start. We have sseven more dual meets to go. Two are against Bronx Science. They are a very strong team this year and will be very hard to beat,” Choy said.

What makes the Penguin’s victory even more impressive is how they stack up to last year’s team during the same time last year.

Compared to last year’s first win against Laguardia, the Penguin’s times have improved in nearly every event. Considering that last year’s team won the city championship, it’s clear that the Penguins don’t plan on slowing down any time soon.

Pinheads Cruise Through Season

By Eric Kim

Last year, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity bowling team, the Pinheads, placed first in their division after maintaining a perfect 12-0 regular season record. The team was able to progress to the third round of playoffs and is once again looking forward to generating last year’s impressive results.

This year, the team is cruising by on a steady 3-0 win streak and the confidence that their teamwork and team spirit are high. They are currently tied with Beacon High School at 1st place in their league.

Despite a rocky start, the Pinheads were able to clinch their third victory of the season against Louis Brandeis. “We were losing our B game at first. But we started to concentrate on each individual frame rather than the score and cheered ourselves on. In the end, we were able to come out with a 380-316 victory,” senior Tiffany Chen said. Upperclassmen have been dominating the games, with senior Florence Luo averaging 140.5 pins and senior and co-captain Sylvia Li averaging 119.0 pins per game. Juniors Stephanie Liu, Erica Ruan, and Umana Rahman also showed major improvements from their last few seasons.

Though the team lost five seniors from last year, they were able to find new talent to replace and rejuvenate the team. The new additions increased the team’s roster to 19 members—seven more than last season’s roster. Despite the fact that the majority of the team is new to the sport, Li is very optimistic about the new season. “All the new members are hardworking, attentive, and dedicated to improving,” Li said. She hopes that the returning members will serve as role models, motivating the new members.

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“The old members practiced on their own throughout the summer and are setting the standards high for the new members,” Li said. “I hope that our old members will continue to uplift the new members and become their mentors this season.”

The team’s coach, Manuel Simon, has a crucial role on the team. “Coach Simon comes to our practices every Sunday from 8 am to 1 pm to watch over us,” Li said.

“Our honorary mentor at Whitestone Lanes also helps each member with their technique and comes to our games to be our pillar of support and encouragement.”

There were also some changes to the league structure, where the Pinheads were moved from Manhattan II to Manhattan I. “The move from Manhattan II to Manhattan I will allow us to compete against some old rivals like the High School of Fashion Industries and Beacon High School,” Li said.

Though it hasn’t been too long since the new members joined, the Pinheads have already bonded together through daily practices over the summer and in the preseason. “The team is close-knit, and we cheer for one another from the sidelines every game and practice,” Li said. The Pinheads’ goal this season is not only to go undefeated, but also to create a more positive team environment. “We are hoping to continue being undefeated this season. However, the ultimate goal will always be to remain a supportive, spirited team despite any challenges we may face,” Li said. She believes that the bonds between the team members will help the Pinheads endure any hardships. With improved returning members and new members with plenty of room to grow, the Pinheads have a bright future for this season and seasons to come.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 23

Sports Sports Editorial

By Ahmed Hussein “Hip hip hooray!” Ssoccer fans everywhere cheered as the Champions League, the most competitive club tournament in Europe, made its return this September. The much anticipated competition boasts the best teams, players, and coaches in the world competing for the coveted Champions League trophy.

With 32 teams entered in the tournament, winning the competition is never easy. Divided into eight groups of four to begin, the top two in each group advance.

Every subsequent matchup fields two teams, with the winner advancing and the loser getting knocked out before the final two battle it out for the title. On top of those odds, this year’s groups are some of the toughest ever, with multiple “groups of death,” where most of the teams in the group have the ability to win the whole thing, making advancing from these groups extremely difficult. Here are my predictions for which 16 teams will advance from the group stage, in order of predicted placement.

Group A: Dortmund, Atlético Madrid, Monaco, Club Brugge At first sight, this group seems like a walk in the park for Atlético Madrid, as the team made some great signings over the summer, adding to an already strong squad. With the acquisitions of Rodri, Thomas Lemar, and Gelson Martins, Atlético Madrid provided cover for positions they struggled to fill last season. After a disappointing run in the Champions League last season, this was necessary.

Despite these signings, Atlético Madrid have not done enough to be able to compete in their domestic competitions and juggle the Champions League fixtures as well. I can see Bo-

The League of Champions Returns

russia Dortmund sneaking into that top spot with their youthful side outdoing Atlético’s stark defensive setup. With players like Christian Pulisic and Marco Reus, they have the creativity and pace to unlock any defense, seeing that they’ve acquired some strong players at the back and in midfield to sure up what was a shaky backline. I can see Dortmund returning to their glory days and challenging for top spot in this one.

Monaco are, sadly, going through another one of their rebuilding phases after selling most of the team that took them to the semifinals of the Champions League two years ago. Monaco lack the necessary talent to compete in this group. Club Brugge, too, were dealt a tough hand in this one and will likely struggle to keep up with the rest of the group.

Group B: Barcelona, Inter Milan, Tottenham, PSV Eindhoven Barcelona win this one, hands down. They added a mix of experience and young talented players to their squad this summer, making them an unscalable mountain for the other teams in this group. PSV Eindhoven have been dominant in the Netherlands but are not regularly challenged, lowering their odds at being a competitive team. That leaves Tottenham and Inter battling it out for second place. I have my money on Inter edging this, since they have more to prove after being absent from the Champions League for seven years. Their hunger for success will make the difference in this one.

Group C: Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), Napoli, Red Star Belgrade After losing the final of last year’s Champions League in dis-

appointing fashion, Liverpool made some key additions over the summer to avoid the the shortage of players they had due to injury last season. They signed Xherdan Shaqiri as cover for Mohamed Salah and added Fabinho and Naby Keita to the mix in midfield. They have been playing some great soccer this season, with a flawless start to the Premier league, and PSG are just not challenged consistently in Ligue 1 in France to compete with the juggernauts of Europe.

Napoli might have snuck into the top two if they had lost not key midfielder Jorginho, as well as manager Maurizio Sarri to Chelsea over the summer. Without those two, Napoli will struggle to adapt to a new manager and new players.

Group D: Porto, Schalke 04, Galatasaray, Lokomotiv Moscow Porto come into this one having beaten bitter rivals Benfica to the Portuguese League title last season. With the confidence from their win and their threat on set pieces, Porto should win this Group with Schalke hot on their heels. I can see Schalke just falling behind because of the changes to their squad over the summer. Galatasaray will not be pushed over either and could pull off an upset.

Group E: Ajax, Bayern, Benfica, AEK Athens Based on their previous performances, Bayern Munich should not even be in this competition. But they should be able to scrape past an even worse Benfica team, who had a horrid season last year. Ajax’s young, talented core, on the other hand, will carry them far in this competition.

Group F: Manchester City, Lyon, Hoffenheim, Shakhtar

Donetsk Manchester City dominated the Premier League last year, winning comfortably. Their quick passing and energetic attackers have translated into goals.

City manager Pep Guardiola has made the right changes to make City one of the best teams in the world, and his hard work is paying off. Lyon have an exciting core of talented and young French players and have what it takes to compete with the best. Hoffenheim, on the other hand, received the devastating news that their pragmatic, young manager Julian Nagelsmann will be stepping down at the end of this season. Having led Hoffenheim through a renaissance of sorts where they developed into a dangerous team on the counter attack, Nagelsmann will be missed. The disappointment is obvious in the lack of team spirit on the field and their unimpressive results thus far. While I do not believe they will finish last, they will not cause the top two in the group many problems.

Group G: Real Madrid, Roma, CSKA Moscow, Plzeň Real Madrid are looking to defend a title they have held for the last three years, a historic record. They have dominated the opposition for three years and will likely dominate this group.

Following the sale of Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus, many believe that Madrid will lack the firepower to push them through this year.

However, it’s worth pointing out that Madrid has been a much more cohesive team post-Ronaldo. The players seem to play with a weight off their shoulders, and the likes of Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema have the chance to show they can still provide enough offense after Ronaldo’s departure. While Ronaldo’s departure will be a drastic

change, it is better for Madrid.

Marco Asensio will be given a chance to play in Ronaldo’s position, and he has shown that he is talented enough to fill Ronaldo’s shoes. His flair and exquisite ball control make him capable of turning a game on its head, and he has a lot to prove to the fans. Roma made some interesting signings, replacing some aging players with players for the future. Though they failed to improve their squad and may be worse off than last season, I still see them topping CSKA and Plzeň to make it through.

Group H: Juventus, Manchester United, Valencia, Young Boys Juventus have high expectations after signing the Champions League’s all-time top scorer, Cristiano Ronaldo. With this added firepower, fans expect Juventus to win it all. Ronaldo is the cherry on top of a great Juventus team. Despite the additions, the club lost legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, who left for PSG after 17 years of service to the club. It was a sad day for Juventus fans because they lost a true icon, but he was replaced well. They should top this group, but only time will tell if Ronaldo will continue to break records in the Champions League. Manchester United, meanwhile, received a lot of attention over the summer due to the problems at the club involving manager José Mourinho, who was understandably unhappy with the lack of incoming players to the club.

Mourinho only added fuel to the fire when he publicly criticized his younger players, losing the respect of much of his team.

Reports of Paul Pogba attempting to force a move away from Manchester worried many fans but the Frenchman remains with the club. United will struggle this season, but how much they struggle is totally up to them.

Boys’ Soccer

By Elias Ferguson and Aki Yamaguchi The Peglegs faced their division rivals Martin Luther King Jr. High School (MLK), tied with them atop the division with a record of 1-0. Trying to claim sole possession of first place, the Peglegs were looking for a victory.

Alas, MLK eventually triumphed with a second-half goal to win the game 2-1.

But in their first game at Pier 40 in over a decade, the Peglegs deftly defeated Louis Brandeis 6-0 for their second win of the season.

The team played Brandeis again two days later, winning again with 5-0 this time. Their most recent game, against the Manhattan Center for Science and Math, was a comfortable 3-0 win. The Peglegs now sit in third in their division with a record of 4-3.

The Peglegs’ biggest rival this year is MLK. MLK’s soccer team has captured most of the sport’s championships for the past 20 years, dominating the boys’ A Division. However, the score gap every year has lessened, with last year’s losses being 4-0 and 5-0 and the previous year’s being two 7-0 losses.

Once again, the Peglegs narrowed the gap between the two teams. Senior Sean Takada gave

The Peglegs Fall in Valiant Effort

the Peglegs the lead in the first half, but MLK broke through just before halftime and brought it to 1-1 at the break. In the second half, MLK broke the deadlock with another goal and held on to grind out a 2-1 victory. MLK man-

make 10 saves. The Peglegs’ own goalkeeper, senior Feras Roumie, faced only three shots, saving all three.

This season has begun on an optimistic note with a one-score game against MLK. Last year, the

Peglegs will look to improve their stamina and positioning. However, the narrow loss might signal a change of fortune for the Peglegs, who are looking to end their postseason woes and break through to the second round.

“We’ve been more cohesive in the last three games. We went back to possessing the ball and short passes.”

—Vincent Miller, coach

aged 23 shots on goal against the Peglegs, but even more impressive was the Peglegs’ goalkeeper, junior Stefan Soroban, who kept all but two out of the net.

In the season-opening 6-0 win over Manhattan Center for Science and Math, Takada shined again, finding the net twice and assisting once. Juniors Jeremy Moller, Benjamin Avrahami, and Zameer Hoque and sophomore Amane Anderson each added a goal of their own. The Peglegs managed 19 shots on target, scoring six and forcing the opposing goalkeeper to

team went 8-2, with losses only conceded to MLK. With another match against the school looming on October 8, the Peglegs have time to regroup and strategize a win against MLK. A stingy defense which only allowed two goals thus far in the season will be a key for success.

“We were all playing our butts off, and the communication and focus [were] on point the entire game,” said senior and co-captain Jeffrey Shen, who believes the close game was a result of the team’s group effort. For future games, the

The Peglegs cruised past Brandeis, netting six goals. Senior and co-captain Kevin Mitchell impressed, as he scored twice and was also a mainstay in the defensive aspect of the game. He constantly fought to win the ball in key areas and managed to mediate the minor threat Brandeis posed to the Peglegs’ defense. Roumie was equal to all of the 10 shots he faced. Brandeis managed to force a couple of good saves out of Roumie, but he was able to keep them at bay.

The home win against Brandeis marked the beginning of a turn-

around, with the Peglegs winning their past three games. The Peglegs’ stubborn defense has been crucial in this recent run of good form, with only seven shots on goal making it through in the past two games. None of the seven went in, as goalkeepers Soroban and Roumie combined to preserve the clean sheet in both games.

In the consecutive game against Brandeis, five players each scored a goal: Takada, Mitchell, Moller, and juniors Thibaud Roy and Yunje Chung. Also impressive was junior Nathan Cooper-Cook, who added two assists from right-back.

Then in the game against Manhattan Center, freshmen Owen Yaggy and Moller and sophomore Elliot Bossi each netted once, resulting in a 3-0 win for the Peglegs.

Coach Miller owes the recent successes to the team’s changing playing style in recent games.

“We’ve been more cohesive in the last three games. We went back to possessing the ball and short passes,” he said. “[The team will focus] on winning [their] upcoming games and avenging the losses to Columbia and Irving,” Mitchell said after their wins against Brandeis. After claiming crucial wins, the Peglegs are in shape to fix their record and earn a high seed for playoffs.

The Spectator ● October 12, 2018

Page 24

The Spectator SpoRts Sports Editorial

Civil Rights Activist, NBA Hall of Fame Inductee, and Stuyvesant Alum

CALENDAR

october

16 tuesday

@ 4:30 p.m., Girls’ Swimming vs.

Dewitt Clinton HS @ Stuyvesant HS Pool

Courtesy of NBA.com

17

wednesday

By Kai Mandelbaum On September 7, for the first time in Stuyvesant High School history, a Stuyvesant alumnus, Charles Thomas Scott, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame of the National Basketball Association (NBA), in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Scott was born in 1948, grew up in a broken, impoverished household in Harlem and tested into Stuyvesant, where he attended from 1962-1963.

At this time, he was one of few African Americans attending Stuyvesant. He then transferred to North Carolina’s Laurinburg Institute, a famous preparatory school for African American students, where he graduated as the class valedictorian.

Following his high school career, Scott became the first African American to be offered an athletic scholarship to the University of North Carolina (UNC), a college in the Jim Crow South. Attending such a school was a controversial and dangerous matter in this time period. Despite this, he was eager to face the challenge. Later at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he reflected upon his decision, saying, “I am very proud to be standing up here, as a black man that took a path that wasn’t easy, but was the right path to take.”

Scott’s decision to remain in the South after completing high school at Laurinburg shaped a

number of experiences during his career there. He once was wrongfully detained by the police at gunpoint for allegedly harassing a white woman, an accusation that could mean death in the Jim Crow South. Though he was later cleared, he was profoundly shaken. “It was like culture shock,” Scott later said.

Another time, he was heckled during a game to the extent that his coach—fellow NBA Hall of Famer Dean Smith—uncharacteristically charged into the stands to confront the person.

However, from a basketball standpoint, his time at UNC was a success, leading the previously scandal-ridden and poorly performing Tar Heels to two final four NCAA tournament appearances. While he was enthusiastically embraced on the court in the UNC community, before long, he found life there quite lonely. There was simply no social scene for African Americans.

Racial prejudice was worse throughout the rest of the Jim Crow South. He was snubbed of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year as a Junior when he clearly deserved it, averaging 22.3 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 3.4 assists per game. Even worse, the next year, he was not even recognized on all of the ballots as one of the Top Five Players of the ACC, despite leading the ACC in scoring with 27.1 points per game. Of this, he said “That was about the only time in college that I felt things were done

in a prejudicial manner. And what concerned me more was how the media handled it. Nobody ever said anything about it, never challenged what took place. To me, that’s just another form of hypocrisy.”

Nonetheless, he dealt with all this with grace. In doing so, he earned the respect of many of his peers and administrative leaders at the university. When tensions rose between the administration and the Black Student Movement campus group, he was selected as a mediator in the conflict.

After finishing at UNC, Scott signed a contract with the Virginia Squires of the American Basketball Association (ABA) and continued excelling at the professional level. He won Rookie of the Year in the 1970-1971 season, averaging 27.1 points per game. Eventually, Scott made the shift to the NBA. Beginning his NBA career with the Phoenix Suns and then the Boston Celtics, he won an NBA championship with the Celtics in the ’75-’76 season.

While Scott is known for his athletics, he had a profound impact beyond sports throughout his life. This Stuyvesant student’s enshrinement into the NBA’s Hall of Fame provides an opportunity for all of us to reflect upon race relations and the role of athletics in our lives.

I wonder if Stuyvesant has already retired his uniform number. Have our gyms been named after anyone yet?

The following is a list of some of Charlie Scott’s most impressive basketball accomplishments: • He won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1968.

• He led the University of North Carolina to two NCAA “Final Four” appearances, reviving a formerly scandal-plagued team.

• He led the ACC in scoring with a 27.1 average of points per game • He was ABA rookie of the year from 1970-1971.

• With 157 ABA games-played, he has the ABA’s highest Career Scoring Average, with 31 points per game (unofficially).

• He owns the highest ABA Single-Season Scoring average with 34.6 points per game.

• He was voted into the “ABA All-Time Team.”

• He was selected to five All-Star Games (three NBA, two ABA).

• He won an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics in 1976.

• He owns a career average of 20.7 points per game over ten years, combined ABA and NBA. • YouTube reveals that he is a legend in the streetball community based on his play in the Holcombe Harlem Rucker League—widely considered to be the most prestigious public court in the country since the ’50s.

@ 5:00 p.m., Boys’ Badminton vs.

Brooklyn Technical HS @ Stuyvesant HS

16 tuesday

@ 4:30 p.m., Girls’ Volleyball vs. Seward Park Campus @ Stuyvesant HS

17

wednesday

18

Thursday

@ 4:00 p.m., Girls’ Soccer vs.

Institute for Collaborative Education @ Randall’s Island Field 70

20

@ 4:00 p.m., Boys’ Soccer vs. Washington Irving HS @ Randall’s Island Field 72

20 saturday

@ 10:00 a.m., Boys’ Cross Country @ Van Cortlandt Park

saturday

@ 10:00 a.m., Girls’ Cross Country @ Van Cortlandt Park

Wrapup Stuyvesant’s boys’ badminton team defeated Seward Park Campus, 5-0.

A 90-31 victory for Stuyvesant’s boys’ fencing team put them in a tie for first place in the Division II Manhattan/Queens with an unblemished 3-0 record.

The Birdies, the girls’ golf team, defeated Fort Hamilton 4-1 to continue their domination in the Brooklyn division. They are the only team with more than two wins, currently sitting at 6-0.

The girls’ tennis team, the Lady Lobsters, won a crucial game against Bronx High School of Science to draw even at second place in the A3 division.

Led by Anais Delfau’s eight aces, six service points, and three kills, the Vixens, the girls’ volleyball team, won 2-0 against Washington Irving High School, maintaining their 5-0 record.