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Unfortunately, the simple truth of mental illnesses is that they are much more prevalent than the majority chooses to admit or outright confront. An estimated 20% of teenagers in the United States suffer depression, one of the most common mental illnesses in the world, and illustrates the abundance of the many mental disorders and illnesses that plague the teenage population in America today.
One of the most frequent reactions individuals have when confronted with a mental health issue is to ignore it or to disregard it, claiming that it is not your responsibility or concern; however, this is something that simply encourages the negative ruminations in the minds of those who are affected by these illnesses. A common misconception, as well, is that a mental illness holds less significance than physical illnesses. In reality, mental illnesses can lead to self-harm, suicidal thoughts, or even suicidal actions. In a generation where a teenager may feel an immense amount of pressure to be portrayed as, to act, or to be a certain way, it gets extremely difficult to cope with those unrealistic expectations, because one cannot expect anything more than being their true selves. Mental illnesses, shortly, are deserving of social, medical, familial, and economic attention and assistance. The communal handling of mental illnesses, especially in the school environment are far too ill-skilled and inadequate to tend and assist with mental health issues in the youth. It is easy to feel misunderstood, to feel anxious or upset often, to get stuck into a tunnel of seemingly endless stress when you are a teenager. The only difference that society has not yet received is that a message needs to be sent to those who feel relations to those statements. That lacking message should be preaching that they're going to make it and be okay because high school does not determine their entire lives. There is so much more to a single fascinating human being surpassing their grades, extracurricular activities, or body type. A drastic translation must be enacted upon to actually improve all of these issues, in addition to many others pertaining to mental health. Everyone, whether they pertain to a mental health issue or not should educate themselves of how to act accordingly and considerately to others because we really don't know what's going on in the lives of each and every other human being. The overall moral is to be kind, to spread love, and to be equal with one another. Mental health issues deserve to be addressed on a large scale, globally for the sake of the safety and maintenance of well being of the precious human beings that make up this world. A message to those who don't believe these illnesses are real: Stop being ignorant, and take it seriously. -Aislyn Nihan VP of Campaigns and Events Co-VP of Journalism and Publication
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as ter·ror·ism ˈterəˌrizəm/ noun
Last night, a white man named Stephen Paddock opened fire on a concert near Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. As of 9:28 A.M. on Monday morning, over 515 people have been injured and more than 58 were killed. This is the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The state of Nevada defines terrorism as “any act that involves the use or attempted use of sabotage, coercion, or violence which is intended to ... cause great bodily harm or death to the general population.” That definition clearly applies to this extreme case of terrorism. Sheriff Joe Lombardo indicated that they are not treating this crime as a terrorist attack. We are constantly seeing clear cases of terrorism be treated as a simple crime of madness. How this attack is being dealt with reflects the killing in Charlottesville, when a alleged white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counter protesters, yet was never deemed a terrorist by the government. Our own president failed to recognize the Las Vegas attack as a terrorist attack, even though it embodied the exact definition of terrorism. The hundreds of shots that had rang out were heard around the world, causing pain, grief, and, most importantly, terror. We need to stop making a certain race or religion solely responsible for terrorism. The true definition is more important than one person's opinion about the color of skin. Modernized terrorism has stained the images of Muslims in the minds of Americans. Some people tend to label terrorism by looking at the color of skin rather than facts. As Americans, we need to fight these stereotypes and make everyone truly equal in the eyes of the government and the people around us if we are to accurately address these attacks and educate our generation. -Julia Barry Co-VP of Journalism and Publication  The Brown versus Board of Education case is one of the major milestones in the ending of racial segregation, often taught in history classes or discussed when talking about modern issues on race or transgender rights. In 1951, the NAACP asked certain African American families, such as Leola and Oliver Brown in Topeka, Kansas, to attempt to enroll their child into an exclusively white school. In the neighborhood that the Browns were living in, the African-American dominated school was an extremely far walk for Linda, in sometimes freezing weather, whereas the white school was a simple three blocks away. Now, when they initially went to the school, the Browns were rejected and the school put the blame on the district board, saying it was out of their hands and that there was nothing they could do.
So, the Browns decided to sue the school and, for the first time in history, they won the case and therefore the right to send Linda Brown, a black child, to a primarily white school. However, when reexamining this case, it is important to look at background of the Brown family. Leola Brown, the mother of Linda, had actually attended the black school in Topeka and stated in interviews that “the teachers were fantastic” and that the education was wonderful there. The main reason for the switch in schools was because Leola and Oliver believed they should have the right to send their children to whichever school they choose, especially if it is one that is more convenient to attend. When the decision to allow the Browns to send Linda to the white school was made, however, the court voiced it as if they were allowing her to go because she was disadvantaged. In the decision, the court stated that it was mentally handicapping to send kids to black schools, a very different reason than stated by Leola Brown for ending educational segregation. Although many in history might see this milestone in the civil rights movement as an advancement, African Americans were still the ones who suffered for this decision. Not long after more schools began to mix races, there was a mass firing of all black teachers across Southern states, such as Virginia and Kansas. As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his podcast Revisionist History, there should have been more teachers integrated into schools as well. As a child, having a teacher of your ethnicity does, in fact, matter. If a black child who is equally as gifted as a white child is paired up with a black teacher, they are found to be fifty percent more likely to be placed into a gifted program. However, this is not special treatment. It is simply because their abilities are more likely to go unrecognized by a white teacher. However, this isn’t to say that all white teachers are racist. It’s due to subconscious racism that has been prevalent since 1954, when this court decision was made, and it continues to happen today, leading to more disadvantages and obstacles that must be overcome by African American children. In my opinion, teacher unions and school boards must make more of a conscious decision to integrate black teachers into the educational system, elementary schools in particular, and start teaching school teachers that their biases may lead to the misidentification of gifted black children. The way that teachers impact students is important and somehow, even when segregation was ending, black educators were still the ones who sacrificed to stop racism and division, a fact that should be recognized more often. To learn more details on this issue, I highly recommend checking out Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Revisionist History. -Emma Sexton VP of Operations and Engagement Ever since I first came up with the idea for Heart2Art, I contemplated the reason for why we wanted to focus on impacting our generation. Why not adults? Why not all people?
Well, of course, we do wish to reach out to people of all ages and identities, but there is a real reason for why we decided to focus our project on our world's youth. Partially, it was because I am a part of this generation. I know what they prefer, what impacts them, and what they value. The other, and arguably the more significant, part of the reason for why we wanted to reach out to teens was because we wanted our generation to start stepping up and taking responsibility. Our world isn't going to change on its own, and our role in the advancement of society is more important then one may think. Our generation is struggling to find its voice. We call ourselves heroes for tweeting about a protest in Los Angeles, but we never see the need for us to get up and really do something worthwhile. Even furthering my point, barely any teens will even take the time to post something on social media about issues in our world, let alone using a tweet to bring attention to a protest. When did we stop having opinions? When did we stop standing up for them? If you have a platform, use it to make a statement. This brings me to a question I have been asking myself for some time now: What could our project do to inspire teens to make a change? We aren't making any changes because we don't have opinions, and we don't have opinions because we stopped caring, and this is because we aren't educated. So, this is where I came up with our new series, Taco Bout It! I wanted to create a platform for local teens to speak their mind and a place where teens can learn about current events, so this will be a series where they get to do just that. In each episode, our host, Karly Low, will have a different guest on and discuss everything that needs to be discussed (from politics to favorite TV shows). Wait! There's more! We didn't want to make a basic podcast-style series. Oh, no. What did we do to fix this? We added tacos. Along with discussing current events and societal issues, Karly will be introducing a new taco shop each episode. Plus, the host and guest will be eating tacos while they discuss Donald Trump's presidency, Europe's immigration crisis, and everything in between. At the end, we get a little food review. Needless to say, I'm excited for the series. This series will provide teenage insight into our world's pressing issues and also provide some cool food stuff. Coming soon. -Caitlyn Phu Two issues that will be further addressed in our upcoming month of September is cultural and racial tolerance. There are an abundance of untrue and offensive stereotypes present in our society that are abused and shared far too often.
I am a biracial girl, meaning that I identify two ethnicities. I am Filipino-Caucasian, and I felt a personal need to spread further awareness of such atrocious behavior. I would like to bring attention to the fact that an extreme amount of culturally or racially offensive phrases/names are thrown around too easily. These phrases and names need to be eliminated from everyday conversation and dialogue if we are to encourage a more inclusive and equal society. We need to understand that laughing at a racially or culturally offensive joke, or simply not speaking up about it, is only helping to encourage the normalcy and justification of these jokes. With no one to speak up against cultural slander, these examples of intolerance will continue on as common dialogue. It is vital for our community to also understand that the level of respect that someone is given should not be determined by whether or not they are of mixed race or someone who is not "black enough" or "white enough" or "brown enough", because the shade of someone's skin is not who they are as an individual. Regardless of skin color, people are people. The color of our skin and whether or not we follow a certain culture does not dignify that we are more or less of anything. If you have a certain ethnicity running through your blood, hold it with pride and do not allow false and intolerable comments define who you are. You are amazing and you are important to this country and to the world. Love yourself regardless of your culture, religion, ethnicity, or gender and embrace all parts of you. Fight forever against the hate, and fight with voices that will never be silenced. -Aislyn Nihan VP of Campaigns and Events Co-VP of Journalism and Publication |
