School’s out, but Mack students still angry over Trayvon Martin

McClymonds students (left to right Jacob Miles, Lee Benson and Anthony Beron) take part in National Hoodie Day in support of Trayvon Martin.

by Anthony Beron

School’s out, but McClymonds students are closely following the Trayvon Martin trial, now in jury selection.

Several students, including juniors Jacob Miles and Lee Benson, took part in a National Hoodie Day, in support of the 17-year-old Florida high school who was murdered after buying Skittles and Arizona iced tea inside a gated complex in Sanford, Florida.

“I feel that what the man (George Zimmerman) did was out of pocket and the court should give him (Trayvon Martin) justice at least,” says Jacob Miles, a junior.

Zimmerman argued that he was in imminent danger of being attacked by Martin, who was at the time unarmed and pleading for his life, according to CNN.

“I’m angry.  After all, this is just another example of how Black and Latino youth are targeted because of their skin color,” said Rafael (who would not give his last name), a Hispanic male in his 20’s from East Oakland, who was the apparent organizer of the rally.  Rafael added, “We need a revolution!”

“I think George Zimmerman should serve a long sentence in jail, because he killed an innocent person.  It was racial profiling: he just killed Trayvon since he was an African-American male, wearing a hoodie, just walking around,” argued Kardel Howard, a sophomore.

Zimmerman claimed to have been attacked by Martin before shooting him, and later took photos of himself with a broken nose and several cuts and bruises.  The slug of the fatal round Zimmerman fired at Martin was lodged in the teen’s left chest before  paramedics arrived and attempted CPR on him.  Martin was later pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting.

Zimmerman’s defense team allegedly tried to form a jury with the least number of minorities as possible.  They denied the allegating: “Absolutely not, but if there isn’t a black juror, that doesn’t mean anything either. It just means that we chose the best people based on their answers to their questions,” according to the New York Daily News.

“I feel like it’s not fair to choose people that are not minorities who can’t relate as much to Martin,”  said Howard. “With more minority jurors, they can relate to racism and oppression better; it should be more balanced.”

From Stewie to Springer: Curse Words Pollute

by Sana Saeed

Little kids imitate. That’s just what they do, all day long. So when they hear curse words at an especially early age,  they repeat those words, to anyone, everywhere, all day long, ad nauseum.  Ask any parent. It’s embarrassing.

So why print curse words in our student blog macksmack, even if uttered by an outstanding athlete after a heated game? Why air them on network comedies (even out of the mouth of Stewie from Family Guy) ? Why stultify a nation?

Curse words represent the lowest level of intellect and the most limited vocabulary. Easy to use, shocking and emotional, they discourage children from developing a more extensive vocabulary with which they could communicate eloquently with other members of society.  Curse words make us all lazy.

Should we condone the use of curse words because we want to be progressive or liberal (and feel sorry for those who don’t use a thesaurus). I say NO.

Should we allow the use of curse words because we can only use 140 characters on Twitter and want to make a BOLD statement. I say USE CAPS INSTEAD.

The use of curse words is destroying our culture, limiting our horizons, reducing our grey matter. And I find it sad that the last protectors  happen to be government agencies like the Federal Communications Commission.

Television shows have been using the beep sound to block the cuss word out and block inappropriate images with a black line or by making them blurry.

Watch any episode of  Family Guy: as it comes on, the FCC makes it mandatory to place a message that says ” viewers’ discretion is advised.”

This allows mothers to scoop up their children before they end up learning curse words like “female of some carnivorous mammal” or “a lewd and immoral woman” (you know the word) and blurt them out to grandma on weekends.  That’s why we need media censors.

Without the FCC, programs like the “Jerry Springer”, which should be completely removed from public broadcasting, would give kids an early human anatomy lesson.

Even on the radio, many stations have to bleep lyrics to explicit songs.

It is completely inappropriate for us to be exposed to the foul language that seems to be taking over our lives — on the screen and airwaves, in our schools and gyms.

The use of curse words is the first sign of a drop in morals and ethics. If you can disrespect someone with words, you dehumanize that person.  So what stops you from shoving that person, robbing that person,  or shooting that person?

In and Out of Shadows: A Play About Undocumented Youth Hits Home

by Romanalyn Inocencio

Watching In and Out of Shadows at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco was like sitting in my living room listening to my Mom. The Filipina mother in the story threatened like my mother, giving you a choice of what household instrument you can get hit with.

It hit home because I’m Filipina and these life stories — focused on fears about the police, stress over grades and college — reflect the anxieties of my undocumented cousins and friends.

Some significant details are different of course. The stories of crossing the border into the United States from Mexico, when one kid had to be drugged because he could not learn his fake name,and another had to crawl through the sewers, are harrowing.

The musical builds on a familiar theme: college application.  In it, the undocumented teens are preparing their personal statements for an AB 540 conference at UC Berkeley (AB 540 allows DREAMers to attend California colleges at in-state rates).

 We meet Angel, who arrived in the US alone via a sewer when he was 13. And Juan who, as a determined six-year-old, had to be drugged with cough syrup during the crossing because he adamantly refused to take his cousin’s name as his own. We watch a newly urbanized “vato loco” (crazy dude in Spanish) teaching an undocumented Chinese friend how to speak street Spanish.

Running through the entire musical is the fear of deportation. Many families in the  play  have deceptive status – undocumented parents who lie to their children about their papers (often telling their children they have papers, when they don’t)  and who live in constant fear of separation.

Even under AB 540 or President Obama’s recent two-year deportation deferral program for certain undocumented youth, students who get to stay may suddenly be left alone with nobody to take care of them. The diverse group of young actors, many whom are directly affected by the issue, mix English, Spanish, Tagalog and other languages as they examine the unwieldy human effects of this messy political issue.

When Young Actors Tell Their Real Stories On Stage

 

photographs by Breannie Robinson

by  Breannie Robinson

“This is my real life,” said actress Deanne Palaganas, a 25-year-old who plays a Filipino mother who is arrested by police and jailed for not having her papers.

The actress talks about the prejudice she encounters, the judgments of people not accepting her because she has no papers even though she pays taxes.

Palaganas portrays an immigrant and single mother from the Phillipines in Gary Soto’s newest play, Living In and Out of Shadows, which played last month at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco.

To write his play, Soto read through the harrowing experiences of immigrant teenagers, gathered through interviews conducted by the Marsh Youth Theatre actors, living in Richmond and Pinole, and wove them together in an intricate compilation of stories and songs.

Palaganas herself was an undocumented teen, forced to live in secrecy even while attending college.

Like Palaganas, many of the actors were telling their own stories on stage. Others were portraying people they had interviewed.

The play refrains from stereotyping the immigrant look and experience.  Soto said his biggest fear was not including enough ethnicities, which is why he added a Chinese teen and added the stories of several of the Marsh Youth Theater’s undocumented actors from Canada, the Phillipines, and Mexico.

This is most noticeable when a young Chinese girl addresses the point, saying “they think only Mexicans and Latinos know the way [across the border] but we Chinese know the route, too. ” In the play, her Chinese family takes a plane ride to Peru, travels from Peru to Mexico and then crosses the Mexican-US border illegally.

Several of the interviews with Marsh Youth Theatre actors made it into the play, including a story from a young man who migrated to the U.S. illegally but told Soto,  “because I’m white, they don’t bother me.”  An Indonesian girl found it frustrating to have people refer to her as Chinese or Mexican.

Besides adding cultural diversity,  Soto made sure to include real details: for instance, a young boy had to re-cross the Mexican-American border through an underground sewer pipeline after he was caught by ICE the first time when trying to cross through the desert with his uncle.

Palaganas said her character reminded her much of her own mother, loud and passionate, outspoken and prone to alternating between rapid or soft Tagalog but never a mixture. “For many of us, this is our story,” she said.

“I’m allowed to stay here because Obama let me,” said Palaganas.”Not many Filipinos are open.  They train their kids to maintain their reputation, to say they have papers,” said Palaganas.

“To them [American-born] we are aliens,” said Palaganas.  She criticized the U.S. government for accepting taxes from undocumented immigrants, but refusing to acknowledge their contribution or pay any benefits. As for undocumented parents, “They tell us we have to act normal, act American,” said Palaganas, who was accepted to UC Irvine and San Francisco State but could not get a scholarship because she was undocumented.

“You just try to live your life normally and don’t tell nobody your status,” says Louel Senores, who plays Felix, the articulate, dancing, rapping Filipino high school student and activist in In and Out of Shadows.

Senores’ story is a bit different: he received his papers in 8th grade. He was able to attend UC Berkeley from which he graduated with a degree in engineering  For him, the challenge was professional: how to portray a jock when he was trained as a ballet dancer.

Although not in the script, he added his own line about being gay because he wanted to include LGBT in the production, as they are among undocumented youth.

“Filipinos from the islands are more conservative, they are not very open to homosexuality,” said Senores. 

After spending time with undocumented cast members, Senores feels fortunate. “I am an immigrant but I got my papers.  I didn’t think of it.  I didn’t realize they had it that hard.  That’s some f***ed up shit,” he added

“It was just a role but it makes you care,” said Senores. “As soon as you know someone who is going through that,  you care.”

Mack freshman launches her Twitter novel

With a blue-ink pen in her left hand, she glides it across the page leaving behind strange squiggles as her dozen metal bracelets scrape against the worn, wooden table.

The sound is amplified when students drift out of the room like a stream flowing downhill after the first rainstorm.  She is left alone.  Hunched over the desk, Janaya Andrews, 14, freshmen, composes the first 140 characters of her first twitter novel.

“I’m an observer.  Anything that pops into my head I’ll write a story about it,” says Andrews.

Andrews carries a black handbag on her right shoulder.  From there, she pulls out out an old purple composition notebook with pages hanging loose.  She opens it up to the next blank paper and begins to write.

“While I’m in my room listening to Escape The Faith, I’ll write about celebrities, but mix it with fiction.”

And so the twitter novel begins at McClymonds High School:

“As I walked into Mack, MC Hammer was demonstrating the Hammer Time but Destiny dragged me up the littered stairs, away from the joy & chaos”

DeSean Jackson talks about Crenshaw, bullies and achievement

by Pamela Tapia

Nobody knew the “back story”: how McClymonds “won” an assembly with DeSean Jackson, Cal’s beloved star, now 24 and a wide receiver with the Philadelphia Eagles.

It was tweeted and Facebooked, announced and whispered and then, he was there.

Wearing jeans, a light blue Superman T-shirt, earrings, and a beaded necklace, Jackson dominated the room.

“He the man” said Shaquille Jackson, a freshman at Mack (no relation to DeSean).

The football star spoke from the heart, talking about his tough childhood living in the Crenshaw area of Los Angeles. He mentioned the violence that he witnessed as a kid and remembered friends he lost to crime in that area. He also touched on the subject of poverty and making a promise to his family about “making it big.”

“My mother doesn’t work for anybody. She works for me now,” said Jackson.

Jackson turned to a more serious tone when he explained that bullying was one of the reasons why he got involved in football.

“Where the bullies at?” said Jackson, who is 5-foot-10.

Eddie Heard, standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and quarterback for the McClymonds football team, jokingly stood up as the crowd chanted his name.

“He’s the biggest bully here,” said Dalvin Guy, a sophomore.

Jackson snickered as Heard sat down. He regained the crowd’s attention by assuring the group that “bullying doesn’t pay the bills.”

Jackson explained the dangers of bullying and mentioned his meeting with a victim of bullying on the show “The View.” He described that the 13-year-old victim was bullied by a group of seven teenagers and one of the offenders filmed the entire assault.

Jackson introduced his brother Byron Jackson, former San Jose State University wide receiver, who spoke about achievements in both of their lives.

“Desire. Principle. Belief. Power. With these principles you can achieve what you want,” said Byron Jackson.

Byron Jackson then showed a film about DeSean Jackson’s football career. The film calmed down the excited students, and ended with an image of Jackson’s loss to the Green Bay Packers in the 2011 playoff game.

“Don’t let anybody tell you can’t do it,” said Jackson.

Risky Texting

Thumbs working overtime

by: B.Tindle

Teens, on average, send about 120 text message a day as well as spending three to four hours on social networking sites.

Recent studies have shown that teens are at risk when texting. I’m not talking about texting and driving. Teens are at risk of developing thoughts of suicide, eating disorders, becoming anti-school, and falling into drug abuse.

I don’t text, myself, but if I did own a phone I would definitely be texting Jesus until the sun sets.

Although, researchers say that texting itself is not the root cause of these teen issues, but it does create a pathway to the problems. Teens text about relationships and view media everyday. It’s not hard to believe that texting and social media can cause such problems.