The Teen Reporter

Neighborhood: The Real You?

In Chicago, neighborhoods are a way to categorize a person. If you live in a bad neighborhood, you are automatically considered to be a bad person; if you live in a good neighborhood, you must be a  good person.

But here's one problem: I reside in Pilsen, and I’m not a bad person.

Most of the time when I’m asked where I live, people look at me astonished and are quick to hide their valuables. Not everyone that lives in a bad neighborhood is bad. A person's environment, especially a teen, shouldn’t be his or her nametag.

I live in Pilsen, and because I live here, I'm expected to be a dropout, a gang member, and a father at a young age. Ironically, I'm nothing close to being a stereotype: I'm on track to graduate and have no intentions to be a father or a gang member. I was mostly raised by my sister; she's the reason why I am the way I am. She taught me right from wrong. My friend, Terrance Rogers, was also categorized by where he lives - Austin. Some think that he's a violent individual that has no manners because he's tall and dark skinned. Yet, he is a very relaxed and amiable person. That's the way he was taught to behave by his mother. Because of her, Terrance has made many connections with many alumni from prestigious schools and very influential catalysts in his neighborhood. Both of us are different than the stereotype of where we come from because of who raised us.

As a person that has faced this prejudice, I have learned to talk about it. As you may have seen on TV, there’s a huge rise in violence at Uptown. Most of us don’t know why, but we haven’t lost hope for our neighborhood. Even though I don’t live there, I’m a student at Uplift Community High School and have a role to play in this neighborhood. In the social justice club at my school, we write letters, talk to officials and brainstorm ideas about how to make a difference in our school's neighborhood, Uptown. Our efforts are slow, but, eventually, they will make a difference.

Just like neighborhoods speak for those that reside there, schools have a similar impact on their students. If you think of Uplift, maybe your first thought will be a scary image of teens fighting and constant flashing of lights sirens. Again, just because the environment of an individual isn’t great doesn’t mean that the person will be evil too. Yes, there is handful of “bad” kids at Uplift. Ironically, most of the kids at Uplift are good kids during class; anything after might be a different story. It's not their environment that causes their actions. Usually, there’s some kind of peer pressure involved. You could say that if it wasn’t for teen drama and peer pressure, Uplift will be a great school,  but there's no such thing as a high school without peer pressure and drama.

                Did I make you think twice about judging a person by their environment? I hope so. Our world has a lot of problems - don't make it worse by judging people before you know them. Speak out, and take action in your neighborhood to change what you think could be better.

Protests are the new term papers!

    Students at local high schools are making some serious noise by studying a new subject: social justice. From civil disobedience to peaceful protests, students have been speaking out against unfairness and oppression in our society.  From racial discrimination to ageism, youth around the city of Chicago have begun to fight valiantly in their communities, against large corporations and even the government.

    My high school has made it its mission to teach students to challenge what their society presents to them. Uplift Community High School in Uptown has incorporated the idea of social justice in their daily school lessons. Uplift itself is a story of social justice. Before 2003, the only high school in the Uptown area was Senn High School. Three noble teachers wanted to change that, so that local kids and kids from other areas in Chicago would have a safer and better alternative. Thus, Uplift Community High School was born. 

    In the past few years, students have held protests on controversial subjects like Christopher Columbus Day and the proposed CPS budget cuts. Just last year, my class and I were assigned to take on the challenge of exposing one of the biggest corporations in the world. We informed our families, local community officials, and residents of Uptown about the unfair wages of employees at Wal-Mart. With the help from some help from our social science teachers, we developed a YouTube video telling shoppers to avoid Wal-Mart on their busiest day of the year: Black Friday.

 

    We knew that the idea of a simple YouTube video wouldn’t stop  the millions of Americans who shop at Wal-Mart on a daily basis; they just wanted to bring awareness to Wal-Mart’s injustice. Participating in this video project made me feel as if my voice is being heard. Many of the comments on the video were positive. They said encouraging things that made me feel that we have done right by bringing this injustice to the light. Amanda, one of the “stars” of the video, said, “I never would have thought about protesting my family’s favorite store… but it just made me so angry how Wal-Mart has been getting away with this. Enough is enough!”

    This year, Uplift teamed up with the community to form a peace march with CeaseFire, an organization that’s trying to put an end to violence. We marched all over the Uptown community to take a strong stance on the number of teen deaths in the year of 2011 alone. Many speakers and organizers repeated the line that still inspires students to this day: “A change is gonna’ come.” 

    Uplift is just one of many schools that are beginning to challenge what they see in their community. Schools such as Whitney Young, Little Village, and Michelle Clark are all in this idea of social justice. Some educators would call teaching social justice unethical, but a former teacher from Uplift, Mr. Haines, once said, “Don’t let the ignorance of other’s deter you from your goals. We have a messed up world to fix, and it starts here, today, right now!” Currently, Mr. Haines is in Ethiopia creating a children’s foster home to ensure the wellbeing of homeless children. He is a living representation of what it means to be socially just - to help out anyway we can. He has inspired me and my many other students to do what we can for others. Now there’s a subject in school that sends a powerful message - without needing a textbook!

High school burdens: dealing with the stress of getting into college

Even though I had been preparing for months, the day before taking the ACT, I was studying all night long. I was so worried about studying that I didn’t eat or make sure I had everything ready the next morning, which led to horrible day. Not resting enough made me sleepy. Not eating breakfast made me lose focus because I was focused on my hunger. I studied super hard before the ACT, thinking I was going to get a high score, yet everything I tried to learn didn’t help because I couldn’t remember anything. But preparing for standardized tests or applying to college doesn’t have to be that hard. Keep it simple, stupid, and you’ll be fine.

Before worrying about the test, don't forger to register for the ACT or SAT, which you can do online. Prepare yourself for testing by bringing with you supplies: pencils, a calculator, snacks and, most importantly, the admission ticket, which is easy to forget. My best friend, Terrance Rogers, and I  both forgot our admission ticket at home. We asked administrators if we could just use our smart phones, which had saved our admission tickets, and luckily, they were nice enough to let us use them. If you are not familiar with the testing place, don’t forget to research the location. I thought I was too smart that I would get there on time. Well, let’s just say luck wasn't on my side. You want to be as early as possible. Try to be in the front of the line, so you can test at a corner, the best seat in the world. Time will fly out of the window, so keep track of the clock. Hard questions can take away about five or so minutes. As soon as the break starts, you should try to relax and eat. Don’t try to remember what you did wrong; think of the test as a whole. Try to be as optimistic as possible. At the end of testing, you should congratulate yourself for taking a very annoying yet - some may say - useful test.

And what about your college applications? Most colleges require you to submit a personal statement. Think of an interesting experience to tell the admission office. The humble stories are the most compelling ones, but don’t make one up. Your personal statement helps the admissions office to get to know you in a way that statistics fail to do. Also, don’t forget to get someone to proofread your essay. You should have a great teacher that asks lots of questions about your writing, knows you well and has seen you overcome challenges. Your teacher will be your guide to success for this step. I didn't know this and went to any teacher – one who always has too much to do and always tells you your paper is “excellent.” There are times where she hands back papers without a single comment. II used that personal statement for a scholarship, and I was rejected from it. I don't know if it was the personal statement, but I didn't use any other type of writing.. Try to avoid this type of teacher when making a crucial essay. You really don’t want to have an “excellent” essay.

One of my friends did something really dumb: he failed to submit his application. Why? He thought it was supposed to be submitted at 11:59 p.m., and he thought he had missed the deadline. But it was supposed to be submitted at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. His recommender was angry when she heard that her efforts were used for no reason. Her reaction was a quick slap to the back of his head. I think he has learned his lesson.

All of these things can be an obstacle, but they’re easy to overcome. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just concentrate on the simple things you can do to get it right. Did I miss something that you went through? Leave a comment and share other ways to make getting into college less of a headache. Right now, I’m waiting to hear from two of my top choices, University of Illinois and Notre Dame. I am so excited to hear from them, but scared to hear that I was declined. Wish me luck!

The New Divide: Does technology further separate the haves from the have-nots?

    The year 2011 has been named the Age of Technology. Everything has advanced in the past few years; from entertainment to medicine, technology has had breakthroughs that put many at ease with what used to be very difficult.

However, with the ease that technology has renovated, separation of the Haves and Have Nots is beginning to become a danger. One of the most recent incidents is the case of 17 year-old Prince Watson of Chicago. Watson is charged with death of a 68 year-old woman, pushing her down the stairs after robbing a person of their iPhone on the CTA. ABC 7 news states that this isn’t the first time the 17 year old was charged for robbery; he has faced three similar charges for stealing an iPhone in the past.

    Outsiders to the city of Chicago may find this crime inexcusable. This young man has had more than his fair share in chances to better himself and quit these crimes. But I think  that he may not any other choice. Now, I would never say that thieves aren’t the bad guys or that stealing is a good thing. I’ve had one of my favorite electronic devices taken from me before, and I was truly unhappy!

But, I will say that people, especially people like Watson, are sometimes forced to do things against their will or do not know anything other than what they were born around.  If Watson, or one of the many other teens that rob for no good reason (like there’s ever a good reason to rob someone) has lived around those who steal and gamble to make money all their lives, then what is the hope for these teens? If they don’t have the resources that many others have, or even the home training to know the difference between right and wrong, what can we expect to happen? For teens like these, the jealousy and the belief that to get what you want, you have to take from another, can truly impact the actions urban kids make.

    The New age of technology brings about advances to make the lives of the fortunate Americans easier, while forming rage and vengeance in the hearts of the have-nots. Let’s get ready to Rumble!

Would you let your teen have a credit card?

Nearly one third of high school seniors say they have a credit card. Is this a path to financial literacy or destruction? The teens at Mercy Housing Wentworth's digital connectors program made this great video, showing the challenges of giving teens credit cards and outlining the consequences. Take a look:

 

Race: it's a joke!

  When we you think of Race, what are the first thoughts that come to your mind? Some might say a competition in which two or more persons compete to see who can reach a finish line first (like my friend Noe might jokingly say).

Others, about 97.9% of the human population might think of the separation of human skin tones or backgrounds into smaller categories to identify a large group. This separation of skin tones has caused many ignorant disasters and genocides throughout the years.

Race even affects the entertainment industry, something we see a lot today - even cartoons like Family Guy and the Cleveland show to Disney’s Phineas and Ferb.  This reporter believes that the media plays a major role on how negatively teens view each other and other cultures.

One of my favorite musicals of all time is called Avenue Q. The show is set in New York City about a guy named Princeton just finishing getting his degree, venturing out into the cruel and unforgiving world. He meets a group of very different people that live in a little community called Avenue Q. One of the major songs in the musical is called “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”. I’m telling you, this is arguably one of the funniest songs on a Broadway play ever, but it also got me to thinking. One of the lines of the song is “You should be much more careful when you're talking about the sensitive subject of race.”

Careful? Really? History has never had a thought about being sensitive or thoughtful for those who were kidnapped and chained against their will to be forced to work as slave;  not only Africans, but also ingenious people of the islands of the Caribbean. Once physical slavery was outlawed in 1865, mental slavery gave way to our current situation as of 2011: racist and prejudice thoughts that affect people of all ages.

Media shows us these prejudice thoughts through songs and cartoons. Think about it? Have you ever heard the stereotype that all Asian kids are super geniuses? What about that all black folks have chicken and Kool-Aid every night for dinner? Oh, and here’s my favorite one: All people that speak Spanish are automatically Mexican! Ha! These may seem like dumb stereotypes, but they affect how we view each other.

The more we can get to know and understand different cultures, the better our lives would truly be. Race doesn’t have to be a divider. It could be a connector - a way to embrace the fact that we all aren’t the same skin tone but we all have a story. Once we, as people, are able to listen to one another, the better this world could be. The world isn’t just viewed in black and white, right and wrong; it has areas of gray that can be used to understand others and make all our lives easier.

*United We Stand, but Divided We Fall.*

Love: Fantasy of The Heartbroken

“Love is like a rubber-band: we keep pulling; one person lets go; and the person that held on gets hurt.”

-Anonymous

Have you ever been heartbroken? Loved? I have. Lying is one of the most common ways to end up being heartbroken. I know this because I’ve lied before, and it resulted in a breakup. Not many people can admit they have lied, but they sure can tell you that someone is lying or that something is a lie. Those who don’t know what it feels to be loved or heartbroken are lucky. They are lucky because they don’t have to suffer from love.

Love is a mysterious thing that cannot be explained, and we adore it. This emotion is what makes us more than unique, but its counterpart, pain, is an inevitable result of mistreating it.Ironically, pain can also bring love. Sometimes people that have been hurt hurry to recovery, and like a fairy tale, they find their love and live happily ever after. That's an optimistic point of view, but in reality, heartbreak can't easily be healed. My best friend was a victim of a broken heart. He wrote this: “What was a heart, burned; what was love, gone; kindness is taking a serious weakness… guess it’s time for me to grow up.” I was astonished to hear such a thing coming out of him; I never thought he would care about such a thing as love.

I've concluded something about love: it’s a fantasy made by pain. Pain exists in every living thing, whether it walks, crawls, swims or flies. We use pain to understand what is going around us. Without pain, we would more or less be dead. Think about it. Pain helps us understand that something is too hot or too cold for us. We react to pain to prosper.

So why do we love love and hate pain? Like love, that's a mystery.

Photo credit: Roland Tanglao

Being a Teen Really Isn't That Easy

Adults like to remember their teen years as easy, fun and stress-free. But is that really true? Do most adults really remember what it's like to try to figure out school, home, work, friends and love for the first time? While it's easy for us grown-ups to idealize, the teens at Mercy Housing Lakefront have created this PSA about what teens really go through and what they need to get by.

 

The Sad Truth: Has dropping out REALLY become normal?

    As a child, I was continuously taught that material objects do not matter. That anyone can rob you of your luxuries at any given moment; that treasuring something that has no soul makes you as empty as your morals. But in that same breath, my  dad would always say that education is the one thing no one can take away from you. Knowledge and wisdom are things that should have more value than any other possession (other than family, of course).

    Lately, however, the morals that my dad impressed upon me aren’t as prevalent in today’s society. The Chicago Public School (CPS) system has been falling into a depressive downwards spiral. The CPS graduation rate is only 56%; this means that just slightly more than one out of every two CPS students will graduate for high school.

Facebook: The Stories of the Bullied

Technology has become our life. We can’t picture ourselves without it. Ironically, most of us don’t know what to do with it. Sure, we use it for contacting one another from afar, advertising our business, and other things made easier, but what are we really doing?

I will tell you what the majority of us - the kids - are doing. Facebook is the primary use of our time. Facebook, like other social networks, is a place where you can be open minded about yourself, but kids have brought havoc to Facebook. It is not like a war, but it is cyber-bullying, one of the most harmful obstacles our kids are facing nowadays.

One of the most practiced cyberbullying method is called a “burn page.” A “burn page” is a page where angry or bitter kids go, upload a picture, and post a caption about the person they hate or don’t like. Most captions are not pleasant to see. When it happened to me, I struggled to take down the offensive comment and felt helpless since Facebook was not taking care of it. I could link to one of these pages, but I won’t for the sake of those who are being targeted, like myself.

If interested in listening to some kid’s perspectives on cyber bullying, visit Netsmartz. The stories are acted scenarios of what could happen or what has happened to teens that have been cyberbullied. Netsmartz is an organization branch of The National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. You can check some written stories from young people who have dealt with cyberbullying at About.com's Family Computing site. This website contains both the problem and some solutions to the problem.In apost called “Never give up,” Sid talks about being constantly bullied by a gang for two years, but after finding the courage to talk to a parent, it ends.  Not only does this story provide a shocking point of view, it also gives Sid's advice: "Don't suffer in silence."

Cyberbullying is a hard thing to deal with, especially if you are constantly being targeted. Teens and kids that share their experience with the world are more than courageous; they are heroes. To those who are being targeted now, you are not alone. There are adults and peers that would gladly put a stop to cyberbullying. You can share your story. By sharing your story, you will be a click closer to stopping the growing phenomenon that has haunted many.

Photo credit: MoneyBlogNewz