The Little Hawk
feature 2
• 10 • 17
sold a look into Iowa’s Human Trafficking problem
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Faceless: fashion editorial
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a bitter pill to swallow
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teachers give love advice
PREVIEW
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faceless
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tapas for two
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By Danielle Tang
Clothing can express identity on its own. Danielle Tang explores bold prints and patterns in this fashion edit, inspired by Guiseppe Pepe.
By Madeline Deninger and Eden Knoop
Celebrate your Valentine’s Day with these Spanish-inspired, small but flavorful dishes.
sold
By Mina Takahashi
Mina Takahashi takes a look inside Iowa’s human trafficking industry.
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COVER PHOTO BY DANIELLE TANG
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A bitter pill to swallow
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the foundation of a beauty blogger
By Nova Meurice
America’s prescription drug abuse epidemic is sweeping the nation, and Iowa City is no exception.
By Bella Pittman
Since summer, Anna Lepcin ‘17 has adored makeup and its uses, in which she now incorporates in her beauty blog.
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teacher relationship advice
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the Resistance
By Nova Meurice and Sarah Smith
In preparation of Valentine’s Day, teachers answer anonymous student love questions.
By Madeline Deninger
Students Against Hate and Discrimination are leading the way to fight harassment by getting the school board, and their peers, involved.
february 10, 2017 3
H E A D L E S S FA S H I O N By Danielle Tang
4 Little Hawk Feature Magazine
February 10, 2017 5
tapas for two By Eden Knoop & Madeline Deninger
Apple and Manchego Tapas Ingredients: Ciabatta rolls, olive oil, garlic powder, apple, manchego cheese First, slice each roll of ciabatta into eight flat pieces to serve as the base for the appetizer. Drizzle each slice with olive oil and a sprinkle of garlic. Taking an apple, cut it into wedges roughly half a centimeter in width. Cut the manchego into small slices, and place each slice onto a piece of ciabatta
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along with an apple wedge. Pin the ingredients together using a toothpick, and repeat the process until there is no ciabatta left.
Tortilla Espanola Ingredients: Olive oil, 5 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced, 1 onion, diced, 7 eggs, kosher salt Heat enough oil to cover the potatoes in a deep pan. Once the oil is hot enough, add the potatoes and cook them for about 10 minutes
until they are soft. While they cook, add Âź cup olive oil to a separate pan and saute the onion until it becomes translucent, which should take 5-7 minutes. After the potatoes and onions are done, drain the oil into another container and place them together in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, beat the eggs, and season them with salt. Add the onions and the potatoes to the mixture. In a large pan, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and heat before adding the potato/onion mixture. Do not stir, but let cook until the bottom is golden brown.
celebrate your valentine’s day with these spanish-Inspired, small but flavorful dishes
After roughly 7-10 minutes, cover the pan with a large plate, and flip the tortilla on to the plate before sliding back into the pan to allow the other side to cook. After the other side becomes golden, which should take around 5 minutes, the tortilla is ready to serve.
potato croquettes Ingredients: 2 tablespoons milk, salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1/2 teaspoon chopped green onion, 2 egg yolks, beaten, 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 4 cups mashed potatoes,
1 beaten egg, dried bread crumbs, olive oil Mix the milk, salt, pepper, green onion, egg yolks, flour, and mashed potatoes together in a large bowl. Chill the mixture in the fridge until the mixture has solidified. Scoop it into balls using an ice cream scoop, dip in the beaten egg, and then roll in the bread crumbs. Fry the balls in shallow oil until brown on all sides. Exercise caution with the hot oil, and cook in batches of no more than 4 croquettes. Let the croquettes cool, and then they are ready to eat.
non-Alcoholic sangria Ingredients: Assorted fresh fruit, red grape juice, lime juice, apple juice, ¾ cup brown sugar Chop up fresh fruit of your choice and add to a large pitcher. For our recipe, we went with oranges, apples, bananas, and blueberries. Add a dash of lime juice. Fill a quarter of the pitcher with apple juice, and the rest of the way with grape juice. Add ¾ cup of brown sugar and stir. Once stirred , place the sangria in the fridge to chill until it is time to serve.
FEBRUARY 10, 2017
inside iowa’s human
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Sold trafficking industry By Mina Takahashi
t was only a month into school when Heather met her first college boyfriend. She had grown up in a small town in Iowa, raised by an upper middle class family. “I was head over heels in love, and he seemed to be showing interest too. Now, I never really dated in high school. I was a bigger girl and very self-conscious. I never thought I was pretty enough or skinny enough. A few chats with this guy and pretty soon we were inseparable. I lived on campus at the time, but I spent much of my time at his house. Things were great,” Heather said. In her free time, Heather would often to go the mall, spending excessive amounts of money. “Shopping was my therapy. I even dropped money on a last minute spring break trip with some girlfriends to Florida. When I returned from the trip, my boyfriend approached me about my money issue, and I really couldn’t disagree. I needed to get my spending under control,”Heather said. “At first it started out with him taking my debit card. No debit card, no shopping. I was cool with that because I knew I really did need to start saving money. Next it was controlling how much money I could have each week. Me being naive, I bought right into it. I needed a budget,” But the control for the money didn’t stop there. “Eventually I was lucky to get five dollars a week and most of the time I only got that because I returned pop cans. It got to the point I couldn’t even buy my own toiletries. He had to control the money,” Heather said. It wasn’t until a few months of dating for Heather to truly see that she was being taken advantage of. “I was his girl. When we would go to the house, I would see the other girls lying, waiting for their next customer or their next beating. All I knew was that at the end of my shift, I would get to go home. I would be able to attend my classes and work,” Heather said. According to Abolishing Injustice in the 21st Century, (A21) there are 27 million victims of human trafficking today. Once trafficked, the average lifespan of a victim is seven years, with only a 1-2% rescue rate. Even in Iowa, the National Human Trafficking hotline receives hundreds of calls each year. According to the A21 Organization, the average age of a human trafficking victim is 12 years old. Often, trafficking victims are students under 18 who are performing commercial sex acts, a minor with a noticeably older boyfriend, not free to come and go, someone who is homeless or has a history of running away, works excessively with unusually long hours and has unreasonable chores and duties, no healthcare, no money or identification, appears lost or confused and has high security measures at work or home. In addition, any
anyone who seems fearful, anxious, depressed or submissive and shows signs of physical or sexual abuse such as bruises, barcodes or name tattoos could possible be a victim of trafficking. Human trafficking victims often believe they are being comforted and given power and financial support, but many never see the money that was promised to them. A victim may see trafficking as an escape from an unhappy home life or their low self esteem. People who seem to have an unstable life are targeted most often, as their past abuse, neglect or exploitation can make them more susceptible to traffickers’ promises. Traffickers will target men, women, girls and boys, charging a global average of $90 per victim. According to the International Labour Organization, human trafficking is a $32 billion dollar industry. Even the 1-2% of victims who are rescued face many consequences. They may may suffer from social alienation, exclusion, anger, PTSD or Stockholm Syndrome. These effects are often caused by the manipulative methods of the traffickers; perpetrators will sometimes hold a victim captive, starve and abuse them, keep them in isolation and expose them to drugs and alcohol, making them feel guilt, rage, numbing and extreme stress. These symptoms will often make one crack under the pressure and fall into the mental state of “learned helplessness.” This is the goal of the trafficker, turning a human into a slave. Due to her overwhelming feelings of isolation and powerlessness, Heather struggled to escape trafficking. “These men and women have so much control over you that you fear for your life,” Heather said. In addition to the depression and anxiety that sticks with the vic-
tim, substance abuse and a weakened immune system may often occur as a result of human trafficking and an increased chance of developing STDs or HIV/AIDS. Children in particular are vulnerable to the consequences of human trafficking. Perpetrators often destroy the child’s physical and mental health, leading to daily severe trauma, causing them to become anti-social, aggressive, distrusting and can turn to self-harm and substance abuse. “I was forced to do things I can never undo; I have seen things that I will never un-see. I still have nightmares,” Heather said.
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eresa Davidson was inspired to join the fight against human trafficking after participating and leading many mission trips. One of her most memorable moments was while she was on a mission trip in the red light district of Pune, India. She had just walked into a brothel where a mother was prostituting herself, trying to convince her teenage daughter to join her in the business. Her daughter did not want to participate, but felt she had no choice. However, Teresa and the local missionary assured the young girl that she had hope, telling her she had other options. It wasn’t until a few nights later that the team saw a change. “We were at the missionary’s house one night when the teenage girl came there, wanting out. It was such a blessing to see this, as it is very rare,” Davidson said. “It is definitely a stand-out moment.” Davidson has been a missionary ever since her first short term trip in 1988. In 2013, she went on a life-changing trip to India. Her team ministered to everyone, ranging from women, men, and transgenders. They then went to Nepal and ministered in a restoration home in the capital city of Kath-
mandu. “I discovered the pure evil behind the heinous crime of human trafficking, and developed personal relationships with its victims. I will spend the rest of my life fighting this crime and advocating for those caught in its evil grip,” Davidson said. In August of 2016, Davidson founded an organization in Cedar Rapids called Chains Interrupted, a non-profit organization that fights against human trafficking in Iowa. Although this organization has just recently formed, Davidson and other team members have been fighting human trafficking for the last five years. Chains Interrupted has a Restoration House in Cedar Rapids for survivors of human trafficking. They also use a “Stop the Demand” program for men to educate and hold each other accountable for the demand of pornography and commercial sex. The organization also maintains a coalition that has over 73 community leaders, working together to form a response plan. “Human trafficking is in many small towns and communities. A lot of teenagers are groomed online. I meet teens every day who have met an older guy online and become his ‘girlfriend.’ They will do whatever the guy wants to keep him happy and keep the relationship going. At first, these traffickers don’t ask for much. But over time, they break down the good relationships in the girl’s life, and replace everyone with himself. Soon, the trafficker is the only one she feels she can trust. The only one who “gets her.” Over time, he is asking more and more of her. This is something I actually see all the time in kids in our local high schools,” Davidson said. Other organizations in Iowa also work with trafficking victims. Heather connected with Shannon Schott through the Freedom
House in Pella, Iowa. Schott works with Amber Lawrence in a Teens Against Human Trafficking program, a student-led organization that seeks to raise awareness about the issue of human trafficking in our schools and communities. This youth-led movement works to eliminate human trafficking in Iowa, empowering students to become lifelong ambassadors in this fight. This program was started by a high school student in Ankeny, Iowa, who learned about the issue and decided to do something about it. There are now about six to seven active teams and another handful that are just getting started. Students hope to start extracurricular teams in Iowa high schools to provide prevention education on identifying and connecting victims with appropriate local services. Schott is the Teens Against Human Trafficking representative for the Iowa City region, working to form teen prevention and awareness groups in local high schools, as students are the best advocates to raise awareness and teach other students how to identify signs human trafficking. Teens Against Human Trafficking provides schools and students with the training, tools, and information they need to lead prevention efforts within their communities. Teens Against Human Trafficking teams, or clubs, creatively brainstorm ways to raise awareness, help victims, and prevent human trafficking in their community. Besides learning about prevention and trafficking awareness, Teens Against Human Trafficking Clubs make t-shirts and bracelets, show community documentaries, reach out to high-risk youth and bring donations to shelters, write articles for local newspapers, make posters and participate in 5ks and
Only 1-2% of victims escape human trafficking
72 cases
of human trafficking were reported to the Iowa Human Trafficking hotLine in 2016 10 Little Hawk Feature Magazine
fundraisers. The clubs meet regularly, spending some time at the beginning learning about the issue. After that, students can choose if they wanted to focus on awareness in the school first or work on a larger community event. Outside of a school club, teenagers can donate to food pantries or the Salvation Army, join rescue and restoration units, mentor youth in shelters, and educate themselves and others how to recognize a victim. In addition, adults can become foster parents or adopt children. About 70% of victims were in the foster care system, and a third of all runaway teenagers are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. Other students raise awareness about human trafficking by participating in End It Day, which this year is on February 23rd. By simply drawing a red X on the back of their hand, they hope to spread awareness about human trafficking and the End It Movement’s fight for freedom. Also, the X can be shared on social media, using #EndItMovement. The red X has been shared over 500 million times. In addition to the X, the End It Movement also sells apparel with the X. The movement accepts donated websites for a day to promote their message “shine a light on slavery.” Students can also sign up to become a campus representative at their school to join the fight for freedom. Some Iowa students help anti-trafficking efforts by taking part in Dressember, an annual campaign that uses fashion to raise money for organizations that fight human trafficking, enabling anyone to become an anti-trafficking advocate. By wearing a dress or tie for every day in December, participants advocate for the dignity of all women, especially those who have been exploited. Elise Mance
is a community member who has been participating in Dressember for three years. “The first time I participated in Dressember, I really had no idea what I was doing. I set a goal of raising $1,000, not knowing if I would even make it half-way, but knowing I wanted to aim high. Each time someone donated, I was almost shocked. After I reached that first Dressember goal, I felt so empowered: empowered to help others and empowered to take risks without fearing failure,” Mance said. Mance also has a fundraising page, where all proceeds raised goes to the International Justice Mission and A21, two organizations that work globally to fight human trafficking, restore victims and prosecute offenders. “As I became aware of the issue of human trafficking, I knew it was something I cared deeply about. In my own personal experience, having a voice and being able to stand up for myself when I was the victim of abuse was very important. I decided to participate in Dressember because it gave me the opportunity to be a voice for other victims who had none. just couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What if that was me, what would I want someone to do?’ This is a small way for me to make a difference by being a voice and spreading the word about human trafficking,” Mance said. Both the International Justice Mission and A21 inspired Mance because of their hard work and dedication to prosecute offenders and aid victims. “I love hearing rescue stories from these two organizations. The work they are doing to educate, protect, rescue, and restore victims while prosecuting offenders gives me hope for the future. And I know that I, and everyone else who donates to Dressember, is a part of
Of those 72 cases,
that work,” Mance said. Mance’s goal this year has been to share the campaign with new people. Besides raising money, Mance strongly believes that education and awareness are equally as powerful. “If I talk to someone about Dressember, and they walk away being more concerned about human trafficking and more aware of the issue, to me that is just as important as if that person had donated,” Mance said. Although Dressember is only one month long, Mance continues working to fight human trafficking all year long. “When Dressember isn’t going on, I keep up with the ongoing work of the International Justice Mission and A21 through their social media accounts. I think it’s important to keep this issue in mind all year, not just once a year. I also think it’s important to share what’s happening so others can be aware. I especially want my donors to know that their money is going toward some really great things,” Mance said. Mance hopes that her efforts to spread the message that each person is equally valuable and important will help change people’s lives for the better. “The problem of human trafficking stems from a lack of value. People’s lives are devalued on the most basic level, and therefore it somehow becomes okay to sell them like property and use them as a means to an end. Each life is equally worthy of respect, dignity, and the right to freedom from exploitation. I can’t single-handedly end modern day slavery, but I can join a movement of other people all fighting for the same thing, and together, we can make a change.”
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victims were minors
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lthough Heather is not to the point in her journey to truly share the reality of sex trafficking, she would like to make clear that sex trafficking can happen to anyone. “I grew up in an upper middle class family. I was a popular kid who thought she had it all,” Heather said. “Don’t think that this can’t happen to you,” In addition, she emphasizes the importance of maintaining control over yourself and your possessions, especially if they are a significant other. If you do know someone in need of help, speak up. “I didn’t speak up, and I have to live with the consequences,” Heather said. Also, always keep an open line of connection with your friends and family. Check in with them daily. Finally, never meet up with a stranger alone. “Sex trafficking can be by anyone. I’ve encountered doctors, cops, lawyers and CEOs. These people are looking for escorts and the traffickers provide the meals. Big events especially draw a lot of traffickers into the area,” Heather said. While Heather’s trafficking experience was scarring, she has not let it define her. Instead, she uses her experience to educate and save others. “This is not even the beginning of my story,” Heather said. “I was still able to graduate with honors while I remained as property to a man. I am not sharing this for sympathy or attention. I am sharing this to save lives. No one deserves to be controlled, to be used and abused. I am sharing this because it can happen to you, and chances are someone you know is or will be part of a sex ring if we don’t speak up and speak out,” Heather said.
Need Help?
Have a Trafficking Tip?
call 1-888-373-7888
FEBRUARY 10, 2017 11
By Sofie Lie & Nova Meurice
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a bitter pill to swallow since 1999, prescription opioid sales have nearly quadrupled, as have opioid and prescription drug overdose deaths. Presription drug abuse, especially of opioids, is sweeping the nation, and iowa is no exception. 12 Little Hawk Feature Magazine
Imagine an opioid user. Do you have a clear picture in your head? Now meet Abe. Now, meet Abe*. He’s an honors student, and an athlete. He is white; his parents are affluent. Abe also regularly uses prescription drugs. For several years, he’s smoked marijuana routinely, but more recently, he was introduced to lean, a drink that mixes soda with prescription cough syrup that contains codeine or other opiates. From there, he also began to experiment with prescription opioids like oxycodone as well as prescribed stimulants like Xanax or Adderall. “I love [oxies],” Abe said. “It was probably a couple months ago that I first did it. I’m not going to lie: it doesn’t come around that often, but if I get my hands on it, I’ll definitely get it, because it’s like the lean. It’s just even better.” When it comes to using—especially for the first time—Abe is calculated: he makes sure that he has nothing going on later that day; he researches dosages beforehand; and he prefers to be in a controlled environment—with a few close friends or by himself, rather than at a party. “My main principle is that I get my stuff done during the day—I don’t need drugs for that at school—and then at the end of the day when I have free time, that’s when I like to do the other stuff, the oxy or whatever, if I have it,” Abe said. After all, he says, he doesn’t want his high school legacy to be that of what he calls a “druggie,” which he defines as someone who delves into a myriad of drugs, and who will stop at nothing to get them. Rather, he characterizes himself as unassuming, his drug use “a low-key thing,” and his tendencies controllable. “I’m not going to say that I’m probably slightly a druggie, if you use [my] definition,” Abe said.“But I really like to not think of myself as that, because I’m not an addict and shit. I have a good time, but I can still handle my shit. [I’m not] the type of druggie that will do anything for drugs. I’m able to control it, but I still do drugs.” While Abe enjoys using prescription opioids like oxycodone,
he is careful to avoid other stronger opiates such as heroin. With heroin, he fears, the threat of overdose and addiction looms greater. Indeed, heroin-related overdose deaths have tripled in the past decade, and heroin addiction has doubled, according to the CDC. “It’d be awesome [to do heroin]; it’s the best one… that’s what it’s all hyped up to be. It’s the top thing,” he said. “But I would never go down that route.” To avoid dependence, Abe tries to space out his usage. Sometimes his spacing is unavoidable as his access to prescription drugs is spotty; people who deal him marijuana often avoid prescription medications, he says. Instead, they usually come from friends with prescriptions or from a vast, tenuous network of people who know people with access to painkillers or anxiety medications. Abe feels that these connections are sometimes ethically dubious. Once, for instance, he got prescription opiates “through a friend, through another friend,” who he knew somewhat. That last friend, the source, had access to opiates because his mother was dying of cancer. “You get them from whoever you can get them from anyone. It could be the kid with ADHD, it could be somebody that knows somebody that has cancer and has these crazy painkillers or something,” he said. “But it’s kind of messed up in that way if you’re looking for them and getting them from those kind of people. It’s a shady thing.” Increasingly, Abe, at least demographically, is a typical opioid user. The stereotypical image of a young, black, inner-city dwelling male user, fueled by media portrayals and our collective imagination, is in fact, largely a relic of the 1960s. Indeed, according a 2014 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, in the 60s, 82.8 percent of opioid users were male, 60 percent were nonwhite, and their mean age was 16.5. In the past several decades, however, the demographics of opioid users
* Names of students have been changed
IT WAS A REALLY FALSE SENSE OF A FRIENDSHIP. “BASICALLY HE WOULD JUST COME INTO CLASS AND GIVE ME A BOTTLE OF PILLS AND SAY, ‘TAKE WHATEVER YOU WANT AND GIVE ME THE REST.’” GEORGE ‘20
have shifted to an older, whiter and more affluent audience. According to that same study, 90.3 percent of opioid users are white, men and women use at about equal rates, and their average age has increased to 22.9. Where opioid usage was once concentrated on the coasts, it has now spread to middle America. The spread, according to the CDC, has been correlated with an increase in prescriptions for painkillers. Between 1999 and 2014, the number of prescriptions written for oxycodone and hydrocodone, two types of opioid painkillers, have increased from 76 million to 207 million, making the United States one of the largest consumers of these painkillers in the world. Largely, like Abe, they don’t initiate opioid use through heroin; rather, the overwhelming majority get their drugs from friends or relatives for free or from their own prescription, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Abe is, however, somewhat atypical in his usage patterns; often, users start with prescription drugs, become addicted, and move on to heroin because it’s cheaper and gives a more powerful high. Both prescription painkillers and heroin, contrary to Abe’s belief, carry high risk of overdose and addiction. Especially if snorted or injected, both drugs can be very potent and put users at risk of contracting diseases such as Hepatitis C or HIV. With the increased prevalence of such drugs in the past few decades has come a rise in overdose deaths; between 2000 and last year, the number of opioid overdose deaths quadrupled. While Abe has never worried about overdosing, the possibility remains a reality for many prescription drug users. Meet George*. He, like Abe, is a thoughtful person, a good student, and a drug user, but from there, their stories diverge. George was introduced to prescription drugs his freshman year. He had a acquaintance who he characterized as “emotionally unstable” and unable to make friends. The way that he tried to connect with George was by supplying him
with prescription drugs like hydrocodone and oxycodone painkillers and Xanax, an anxiety medication. “It was a really false sense of a friendship,” George said. “Basically he would just come into class and give me a bottle of pills and say, ‘take whatever you want and give me the rest.’” George had started using drugs on a regular basis a few years prior. Mostly, he used marijuana and dabbled in psychedelics. When he was first introduced to prescription drugs, George was smoking every day, which worried his mom, who herself had struggled with drug ad diction in the past. His mom, concerned with his usage, started testing him for THC (a compound in marijuana). To avoid upsetting her, George started using prescription drugs on a daily basis instead. Unlike Abe, George was not calculated when he experimented with new prescription drugs. Instead, he would take them in random quantities and combinations. “I really had no idea what I was doing,” he said. “I would do this thing where I’d take one, wait ten minutes, but I thought that it had been thirty minutes, and I didn’t feel anything, so then I’d take another one, and then to make sure that the high was really good, I’d take another one, then another one. I would think that it wasn’t really working, but then it would just hit me all at once. When you did that many, it wasn’t a steady ascension, but it would just hit me.” From there, he said, he would often experience muscle spasms and his jaw would tense up. But the descent from the high was worse— as the drug wore off, George would find himself feeling uncomfortable and prickly. “I’d be sweating and irritable, so a pencil tapping would sound to me like a bomb going off,” he said. “Everything was amplified to the most negative degree, and everything just made me want to go off on anything or anybody.” A few times, George overdosed, which he defined as losing consciousness and control of his body. “Whenever I was on it, it was never scary to me,” he said. “There was always a short period of time before the overdose hit, it was the best feeling that I had ever felt.” For the most part, George didn’t worry about his drug use when he was on drugs, unless he was at
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“IT FELT LIKE [SISYPHUS] ANY TIME THAT I WAS USING DRUGS CONSISTENTLY, LIKE I’M JUST CONSTANTLY PUSHING THE BOULDER UP THE HILL, ONLY TO HAVE IT ROLL DOWN EACH TIME.” GEORGE ‘20
school, where he worried about getting found out or accidentally overdosing. One morning he was at school, but, realizing that he had used too much, decided that he had to leave. He left through the back door, but soon he found himself unable to walk, so he started to crawl in efforts to get out of sight of the school. He managed to crawl behind a temporary. When he woke up, it was dark outside. “I’m just so thankful that [I didn’t lose consciousness during the] winter, because I probably would have been seriously injured,” he said. “Even as it was, I was in pretty bad shape. I had to call one of my friends to pick me up because I couldn’t really walk.” Sometimes when he overdosed, George would go to the hospital; other times, his friends would pump his stomach. Soon, George got to the point where he was using so frequently that taking prescription drugs became a daily motion. “I was just doing it to sustain natural living,” I said. “I had such a high tolerance by then, that when I was on the drug, even if I didn’t feel the euphoric feelings, there was a baseline normality in it. Or I would try to get really high, and I’d go past the threshold, and it would just be a terrible time.” After several months of using prescription drugs daily, George started feeling some of the physical side-effects of his use. He was losing a lot of weight—the drugs he was taking made him lose his appetite—and he was tiring of how using made him feel. “Of course, if it’s prescribed, that’s fine, but if you’re taking way too much for your body to handle every day, it becomes too much,” he said. “I started having my muscles lock up, and I just felt like a hollow person—like I had no organs or bones. I was struggling to move and talk and think. Everything was just completely deteriorating. My mom would talk to me, and I’d just be in this haze, and it would be like I was in another world.” Beyond his physical health, George realized that his relationships had suffered during his period of heavy use. “I didn’t want a close relationship with anyone, didn’t care about it at all,” he said of his friendships. “My drugs were basically my intimate partner—a really unhealthy relationship. I neglected all of my
positive friendships, and I completely submerged myself in negative relationships.” After about a year, George stopped using prescription drugs. He says that he didn’t really feel the effects of withdrawal, he thinks because he continued to use marijuana and psychedelics regularly afterwards. A year later, he and his family decided that he should try treatment for his drug addiction. “I think that [my mom] thought that she could handle it, but eventually she just realized that she couldn’t do it, and that I had to go to treatment,” George said. “But that was way after my very heavy pill usage, so I really could have used treatment more when I was using more heavily, around ninth grade, but it just didn’t happen. My mom thought that it had to be just last resort, but eventually she realized that I had to go to treatment.” His treatment experience, however, didn’t prove to be particularly helpful. George found that the staff had little experience with addiction and that the other young people there were unengaged. “The only thing that [treatment] really did for me was that it gave me a controlled environment, so I was able to read, which really helped me. But as far as staff, treatment was not a good experience at all,” he said. But he conceded that treatment did provide him with some perspective. “Even now when I use drugs, I can see through my bullshit, where before when I used drugs, I created that bullshit, but I couldn’t see that it was actually false.” When he got back from treatment, George also realized how much his drug usage had colored his classmates’ perception of him. For instance, George’s English class was reading The Great Gatsby, and during one of the discussions, he made an insightful comment about the book. George looked around the room and saw that his classmates’ jaws had dropped. “Just by their surprise that I was saying those things, I realized that basically these years of high school were just jokes; no one took me seriously and everyone just thought that I was a stupid stoner,” George said. “People discredit everything you say, that’s probably the worst thing about my drug use, is that when people know, they don’t take anything that you say seriously.”
George still considers himself to be an addict—he goes back and forth between staying clean, and relapsing into using in marijuana and other drugs (though avoids prescription drugs now). He wants to get away from drugs permanently, but struggles with it immensely, as his roommate deals marijuana and he still finds himself craving them. “It felt like [Sisyphus] any time that I was using drugs consistently, like I’m just constantly pushing the boulder up the hill, only to have it roll down each time,” George said. “I know that there are people who struggle with [addiction] through their whole lives, but I just feel like one day… I’ll want to stop using, and then I’ll stop. Like I just feel like that’s going to happen, and it feels so real, but I know that that’s never going to happen if I’m still on the search to use drugs.” Although he no longer uses prescription drugs, George sometimes worries that he will return to using them. He’s getting his wisdom teeth removed soon, which means that he will likely be prescribed painkillers. “It makes me pretty nervous,” he said the painkillers. “I know that I’m going to ask my mom to keep them for me, but it’s kind of scary going back to that realm.” ccording to a 2014 CDC study, about 55 percent of people who had used opioids in the preceding year had gotten free prescription drugs from a friend or relative. Another senior, Dixie*, is one such drug distributor. Dixie was diagnosed withADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) in the third grade, and has been prescribed the stimulant vyvanse, a drug similar to adderall, since. Her diagnoses and subsequent prescription is not at all unusual: in fact, both the percent of diagnoses of ADHD and prevalence of ADHD medication has increased steadily in the past decade. Dixie had taken her prescription routinely up until her sophomore year, when she began to experience its adverse effects. “I had very positive experiences with [Vyvanse] in elementary school but as I got older it started numbing my personality a little. My friends at school would be like ‘are you sad?’,” she said. Vyvanse, while allowing Dixie to work diligently and retain focus,
A
also put her in what she describes as a “zombie-like” state, where she felt numb and not like herself. It was then, during her sophomore year, that she began taking Vyvanse with less routine. “I was never really consistent on taking my medication,” Dixie said. “So I would always have leftover, and I would just tell my mom like ‘I’m out [of medication], get more.’ And she never questioned it.” Upon partially stopping medication, Dixie’s grades dropped a bit (but not enough, she says, to justify taking it fully again, only to experience its numbing effects), and she was left with a hot commodity: a mostly untouched bottle of pills. Dixie’s close friends, who knew of her medication, began asking her for it. “They reached out to me. They were like ‘I know you’re taking this.’ It was almost a situation where I couldn’t say no, but I also wasn’t saying no—I could’ve. It just wasn’t a big deal to me,” she said. For a six month period at the end of her sophomore year and beginning of her junior year of high school, Dixie began dealing on a small-scale, only to close friends. However, she is hesitant to label her behavior as that of a drug dealer; rather, she describes it as more of a favor to her friends. “For me, a dealer deals to a ton of people, and you have to have prices for different things, and they do it for the money,” Dixie said. “I wasn’t doing it for the money; it wasn’t about that.” She would share her prescription either as reimbursement for previously shared marijuana or for the small price of five dollars per pill. She shared her prescription with four different people over the sixth month period (three that she knows of, and a one person deviation because “there’s probably someone else.”). Because her dealing was spurred from friendship, Dixie was careful in the amount she would give to each friend, and which friend she chose to give it to. “They asked me for it more frequently, but towards the end of it, I got sketched out and I was like, I don’t really feel like I want to do that anymore,” Dixie said. “I’m not like this, I’m not a dealer, these are just close friends that I gave to once in awhile.” Dixie’s sharing in itself often happened right outside her house. Her friends would come to pick
“[STIMULANTS] NEVER SHOULD BE A CRUTCH, AND I DON’T WANT TO BE THE PERSON THAT GAVE THEM THAT CRUTCH.” DIXIE ‘20
the prescription up, and she would walk past her family in the living room to the front door to deliver the pills. When her dad questioned her behavior, she scrambled with excuses, often saying that she needed fresh air. “I was always nervous, it was like always something bad that I was doing, but I was doing it anyway,” she said. Dixie also worried about the unfair advantage she was giving her friends, as their primary motive in using vyvanse was to take or study for college entrance exams, such as the ACT. “It kind of messes me up when people are taking it for the ACT,” Dixie said. “Because there are people who don’t have ADHD and are not taking the medication and there are people who are, so they are going to get better scores.” While vyvanse does not alter intelligence, it increases focus for users without ADHD. Dixie had reservations about facilitating her friends’ behaviors, she is inclined to think that they would’ve found an alternative, and perhaps less reliable, source for them. “I do think that [if I hadn’t dealt to them] they might have even found a more dangerous way [to access vyvanse],” Dixie said. Ultimately, Dixie stopped being prescribed vyvanse altogether, as she prefers how she feels when she doesn’t take medication, and she no longer deals to her close friends. Looking back, Dixie isn’t regretful of her dealing, but is concerned about the highly addictive nature of the drugs she shared; in fact, prescription stimulants have become the second most popular illicit drug, only second to marijuana. “[Stimulants] never should be a crutch, and I don’t want to be the person that gave them that crutch,” Dixie said.
A
fter working in Washington D.C. for several years, Sarah Ziegenhorn ‘07 returned to Iowa City for medical school in 2015. In D.C., she had been working at a think tank called the Institute of Medicine by day, and at night, she would volunteer for a non-profit harm reduction organization. According to the national Harm Reduction Coalition’s website, the goal of harm reduction is to “meet drug users where they’re at,” in order to address needs and safety of communities and individ-
February 10, 2017 15
uals. There isn’t, however, a universal formula for implementing harm reduction. HIPS, the organization that Ziegenhorn worked with focused specifically on helping those impacted by sexual exchange and/ or drug use. The program provided mobile outreach services for sex workers and drug users, which meant that they traveled around the city and provided materials for safe use and helped them treat wounds. The organization would also help connect people with social work, health care, and addiction treatment services if they wished. When Ziegenhorn returned to Iowa, she sought out a similar harm rereduction group because she enjoyed the community, both of fellow volunteers and of people that they helped. However, she discovered that there were no harm reduction groups working in Iowa at the time. Because of the dearth of organizations, Ziegenhorn thought that there might not be a large community of injecting drug users. Later, as she was doing research about women who used drugs during pregnancy, Ziegenhorn learned that that was not the case. “As I started learning more about substance abuse in Iowa, I realized that there actually was a lot going on but it’s kind of like a lot of social justice issues in Iowa—it’s not really communicated through the news, it’s not well talked about and it doesn’t draw as much attention as similar issues do on the coast,” she said. From there, Ziegenhorn and her classmate, Cameron Foreman ‘07, decided to host a conference for other medical students to educate them about harm reduction. “We decided to have this conference at our medical school about opioids in Iowa just to talk about the issue, just because it hadn’t gotten very much attention from the medical community other than people are talking about how to describe fewer pain medications and how to get fewer drug seekers in their clinics,” Ziegenhorn said. “A lot of the government response was coming from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Justice and Police, and their job is not to deal with public health, their job is to prosecute people. So we did this conference to educate medical students about
16 Little Hawk Feature Magazine
harm reduction and we did, and then we decided that we might as well just start to do harm reduction outreach here in Iowa.” The Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition became an official nonprofit in October 2016. Currently, they do outreach in Iowa City, providing kits for safer drug use and operating a hotline. For Ziegenhorn, harm reduction work is an equalizer—a way for her to talk to and learn from drug users without an imbalance of medical-student-community member power. “I like connecting with people, especially on a level where I’m not coming in as a professional provider in a white coat who has a ton of medical knowledge and power,” she said. “I like to be able to meet people where they are, as a person who lives in the same community as they do.” Beyond the work that her organization does, Ziegenhorn also hopes that more legislative efforts will be made to help current opioid users. One way of reducing deaths from overdose is through administration of naloxone, a drug that can counter opioids and temporarily prevent an overdose death in most cases. The Iowa Legislature has recently made it legal for pharmacies to provide naloxone to people without prescriptions, but Ziegenhorn thinks that access needs to be expanded further yet. First, she fears that users won’t know to go to pharmacies, and second, many pharmacies in Iowa still don’t carry the drug. When we reached out to Iowa City area pharmacies, this was largely the case. Of the four that we talked to, two pharmacies were looking into getting naloxone, but just one had it in stock. According to a 2015 study, nearly 83 percent of overdoses are reversed by other drug users, and of those reversals, 80 percent received the naloxone from a harm reduction organization. Given such statistics, Ziegenhorn hopes that the Iowa Legislature will expand access to and distribution of the overdose reversal drug. The Clinton foundation has also taken part in harm reduction efforts, offering naloxone for free for every high school in the United States to have on stock. The ICCSD, however, currently does
“WITH WHAT’S GOING ON WITH OPIOIDS, THERE’S A CAUSE, AND SOMEONE WHO DIRECTLY SPREAD IT, AND IT WAS DOCTORS FREELY GIVING OUT PAIN PILLS EVERYWHERE, JUST BECAUSE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES TOLD THEM TO.” SARAH ZIEGENHORN ‘07
not have naloxone on hand; City High School Nurse Jen BarbouRoske cites the fact that there is not always licensed registered nurse in the building at all times as the motive behind City High’s not carrying naloxone. Another aspect of Iowa law that Ziegenhorn takes issue with is the lack of a “good samaritan law,” that would protect drug users who call 911 in the event of an overdose. In Iowa, the law only protects people from prosecution if they attempt to reverse an overdose that goes wrong. Even in states with laws that protect people from getting charged for possession when they call emergency services in an overdose, Ziegenhorn says that law enforcement can find loopholes and charge them with disorderly conduct or disturbance of the peace. Ziegenhorn’s organization is also actively advocating for a law that would legalize needle exchange programs in Iowa. Under the new bill, which is due to be introduced in the 2017 spring legislative session, users would be allowed to carry needles if they were participating in needle exchange programs. With these new rules in place, Ziegenhorn plans to use her organization to bring better Hepatitis C and HIV prevention, as well as a sense of security to Iowa drug users. Currently, the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition provides kits with “cottons” and “cookers,” which allow people to inject drugs safely and sanitarily, but they still fear that carrying such materials could lead to prosecution. “People in the community don’t know what counts as paraphernalia and whether it will get them arrested or not,” she said. “People are especially worried that if they’re carrying around cottons and cookers and they’re stopped by the police that they’ll get arrested, which is not legal, but they are definitely fearful, and they have good reason to be.” Indeed, a 2016 ACLU report states that Iowa is the number two state for most racial and class bias in drug related arrests. Despite the consistent CDC national data suggesting that people use drugs at the same rate across all ages, income groups, levels of education and ethnicities, drug related arrests in Iowa are disproportionately people of color.
Ziegenhorn also sees room for improvement in addiction treatment services offered in Iowa. “I think that one issue is that people think that you have to not use drugs at all, to be healthy you have to have no drug use, but that doesn’t always work for everyone,” she said. “People just need support...To put that more simply, people that have a harm reduction support service that they engage in are more likely to stop using drugs and stay off of them long term.” Overall, however, Ziegenhorn has been impressed by the federal public health response to the national opioid abuse crisis. “A lot of people that i know that have been working in the harm reduction world since the 80 are really used to their work being seen as evil or enabling and really getting trashed a lot for what they’re doing, they’ve been, and I’ve also been, excited to see that the Obama administration has been really supportive ofof harm reduction work.” Nevertheless, she anticipates that much of the federal support for harm reduction organizations will diminish during the next presidential administration; much of their work hinges on a 2015 congressional overturn of a bill that banned federal funding of harm reduction work. Under the new administration, Ziegenhorn worries that the ban will be reinstated and that federal funding will disappear. “A lot of congressional people that represent states where there is a lot of drug use don’t love harm reduction,” she said. “But it works.” Despite robust federal efforts, Ziegenhorn has encountered significant barriers in breaking down people’s perceptions of addiction. “Locally, it seems like it takes a lot to get people to think about addiction as a disease, so there’s a lot of work in Iowa to be done around reconceptualizing drug use as a health issue, and not something that is thought of as evil or racially charged, or a criminal issue,” she said. Many advocates have pointed out similar disparities in public perceptions of drug users. In his 2015 Atlantic piece, Andrew Cohen contrasts the federal response to the current opioid epidemic to their response to the sudden rise of crack in the 1980s. With the crack
“I NEVER RULE OUT THE FACT THAT I COULD OVERDOSE. THAT’S ONE THING THAT DOESN’T NECESSARILY SCARE ME, BUT DEFINITELY IS A REMINDER, A VOICE IN MY HEAD, THAT AT LEAST IF I CAN’T STAY SOBER THAT I SHOULDN’T GET TO THAT POINT.” GEORGE ‘20
epidemic, he argues, because most of the affected parties were black, the government treated the issue as a crime, whereas today, when over 90 percent of opioid users are white, the issue is treated as a public health problem. Similarly, Ziegenhorn noted that despite many drugs’ similar chemical nature, drugs are often categorized by perceived danger, their level of danger often determined by racial perceptions. “Drug use can be a very classed and racialized thing,” Ziegenhorn said. “Often people separate the use of heroin and meth or crack into a category of scary, dangerous drugs, but treat the use of adderall or prescription opioids or weed or Molly or ecstasy as acceptable...or something you do to help study or have fun at a festival or relax. But there isn’t a true difference between these substances based on their inherent nature as psychoactive substances, we just assign different levels of social meaning to them.” The roots of what the CDC calls an “opioid overdose epidemic” is not entirely clear-cut. Besides, Ziegenhorn is hesitant to even use the term “epidemic” to describe it, as she says it alludes to a non-causal crisis, when in fact, there are some parties to be blamed—a possible culprit, the pharmaceutical industry. Physicians are often prone to asking their patients if they feel pain, and prescribing painkillers freely according to their answer. This is because, Ziegenhorn explains, pharmaceutical representatives play a large role in educating physicians regarding pain management. “With what’s going on with opioids, there’s a cause, and someone who directly spread it, and it was doctors freely giving out pain pills everywhere, just because pharmaceutical companies told them to,” Ziegenhorn said. In March of 2016, the CDC released a report aimed to combat this issue. The report outlined guidelines in prescribing strong painkillers, including when to initiate or continue opioid prescription, the suggested dosage for opioids, and the risks of consumption. While these guidelines alone will not fix the problem. Dixie plans to go to college next year, and while she sees a possi-
bility for starting vyvanse again, dealing isn’t something she’d want to do. “I could see myself going back it [for myself], but not being the drug dealer for it,” she said. “I mean, look at me. No one’s ever going to think of me as a drug dealer.” A small exception, though: Dixie says she’d consider dealing on a small scale in college, but only if she needed the money. Getting caught up in a larger, more complex drug trade, however, will never be her intention. After all, she says with a laugh, she is ‘not tough enough for that.’ Abe, too, plans to continue on his current path: he will go to college, and for now, at least, and will continue to use marijuana regularly, as well as prescription drugs, when he can get his hands on them, that is. But his tendencies will persist: he is cautious in trying out new drugs, tries to practice safe usage, and maintains transparent as to why he uses--that is, to get high (‘if you say [you’re doing it for another reason], you’re lying,” he says). George’s fate is less clear. In the coming year, after graduation, he hopes to travel, do art and make music. Beyond that, George doesn’t know exactly where he will go. George mentioned that movies about drug users usually end one of two ways: either the main character reaches a “peachy-keen” sobriety, or their descent into drugs takes a turn for the worse, and the movie drops off without resolution. While George hasn’t discounted either of those possibilities for his life, he feels like his path will likely be more nuanced. “I never rule out the fact that I could overdose. That’s one thing that doesn’t necessarily scare me, but definitely is a reminder, a voice in my head, that at least if I can’t stay sober that I shouldn’t get to that point, he said. “But I could also see my ending being actually peachy, it might be what happens, but often times, it’s just a little harder than that.” George also sees the possibility of stagnation, for, he says, “there is a certain level of it that goes with using, even if it is casual.” Like Sisyphus, he intends to keep pushing the boulder, yet unlike Sisyphus, it remains possible that George will summit the hill yet.
Need help? Reach the Iowa Harm reduction coalition at (319)214-0540 February 10, 2017 17
t h e o f
f o u n d a t i o n a
b e a u t y
b l o g g e r By Bella Pittman
Anna Lepcin ‘17 has always been an artist. “I started a blog as I have a very high interest in beauty and makeup,” Lepcin said. “I guess it’s my artistic view of it. I used to draw on paper before realizing that I can actually do it on my face. So when I look at makeup I see it as art - in which I see the different interpretations in ways to express your own style.” Before officially publishing her blog, Lepcin spent quite some time on organizing and making it user friendly to her friends and newcomers. “I started working on it a long time before I even introduced it to anybody, probably about a month. Coming up with different posts and trying to make it look user friendly. After having about four posts up, I shared it and it was really exciting,” she said. “It was then summer when I was really getting into makeup that I wanted to share things with people, so I figured to start a blog since I enjoy writing.” As a teen blogger, Lepcin manages her time between school, social life, and her blogging. Though her blog is still at a beginning stage, she works everyday to improve her it. “I try to give myself time to write at least an hour a day so that way I can keep coming up with more posts and make sure that I have things ready for when I want to post something. But I do quite a bit of research on my own before putting a blog post out there just to make sure that I am giving people
accurate information, so I usually try to get a post out a week,” she said. “It’s motivating to know that once I finish a blog post all of my friends and family tell me how helpful it was and that they enjoyed it and the good writing.” Although different makeup artists and bloggers have inspired Lepcin in their own ways, one that stands out the most is Huda Kattan, founder of Huda Beauty. Kattan is an entrepreneur and has the #1 blog in the Middle East while being in the top 20 best beauty blog worldwide. Lepcin finds Kattan inspiring through her ways of starting from the bottom and creating her own business. “She started out as a blogger and then became a businesswoman. She was able to create her own brand, and I thought that was really awesome since that’s something I’d love to be able to do in the future,” Lepcin said. “I’ve spent a lot of time watching her videos and reading her blogs.” In order to pursue her dream with makeup and blogging, Lepcin already has a set plan for her next few years to come. “I am taking a gap year next year so that I will be able to work full time at Sephora in the mall, in hopes that I also have more time to work on my blog,” she said. “I am still unsure but if after a year I decide that makeup is what I really want to do, then I’ll probably take another gap year and work some more until I am able to move to Spokane, Washington to go to their cosmetology school I want to go
to.”
Her times spent working during her gap year(s), Lepcin not only will be guiding herself through the blogging journey but will be learning different skills and ideas that may be beneficial for her future with makeup. “Sephora teaches and holds classes that the employees go through to teach them about certain products and new things such as new techniques that are happening. I have to be knowledgeable about certain products in case a customer comes in and has questions. So whenever new things come up Sephora will let us know what those things are and how to do different makeup styles,” Lepcin said. As a blogger Lepcin has set goals for herself and her blog. From networking to graduating cosmetology school to becoming professional, she ultimately wants to become more well known and help people be more confident when they wear makeup. “I want to work on networking more because right now I am most focused on Instagram since that’s just what I use most often, but I want to be more active with my Facebook and Twitter page. I’d love to interact more with other bloggers and do joint blogging, including a YouTube channel. I want to start this summer since it helps drive audience,” Lepcin said. “In a few years, I would love to get my cosmetology license to do freelancing on my own and be able to not start my own company with
makeup, but just individually have people come to me so I can do their makeup.” Although she faces difficulties with motivation and keeping up with the blog, Lepcin is able to find time to write and keep her readers reading to progress her blog. “It’s difficult to maintain the blog because sometimes I can get really busy or distracted with other things which holds me back from posting so then I get that sense of urgency which makes me lose even more motivation. So it can be difficult to keep up with it but the way I get around that is by writing ahead of time and taking an hour everyday to write so that way i don’t have to crunch down,” she said. Since starting beauty blogging, Lepcin has so far has had two offers from small companies to work with them, one being Hartley Watches. Currently her and Hartley Watches are meeting ends for her to review their product on her blog in return of some free watches. In reviewing products and gaining a growing audience, she enjoys helping teach not only her friends but her readers how makeup works and the different techniques to do it. “Giving other people tools that I feel like have benefited my life feels good,” Lepcin said. “I know that makeup has brought me great joy, and a lot of the posts that I include in my lifestyle section of my blog have helped me a lot in my life so I wanted to get the chance to share that with other people.”
t e a c h e r r e l a t i o n s h i p a dv i c e You asked. They answered. By Nova Meurice and Sarah Smith
20 Little Hawk Feature Magazine
watch full video : thelittlehawk.com/teacheradvice
My girlfriend does this thing where she
My parents hate my girlfriend. How can I keep
kisses other guys as a joke, but I’m start-
them happy while still staying in the
ing to think it’s not that funny. Is this a
relationship?
problem for us?
Brad Hartwig: It’s the height of cold and flu season. She might just want to wait until the end of March.
I’m a senior in high school, and I’ve never dated anyone. Is something wrong with me?
Steve Dodge: Maybe help them to get to know your girlfriend better. They possibly just don’t know her. Brad Hartwig: I don’t know if parental happiness is all that important.
My hands are constantly sweaty. My S.O. wants to hold hands, but I have no choice but to refuse because of their perpetually moist state. Should I put myself as a member of the clammy klan or
Michael Close: Absolutely not, good choice, wait till you’re in college to date. Steve Dodge: You’re probably better off. You’ll have a clean slate going to college. You’ll get to meet some new interesting people.
hide my secret forever?
Dan Peterson: You gotta own that stuff eventually. If they want to hold your hand after you’ve sweated upon them, they might be worth keeping
T H E R E S I S TA N C E By Madeline Deninger
S t u d e n t s A ga i n s t H a t e a n d D i s c r i m i n a t i o n a r e l e a d i n g t h e way t o f i g h t h a r a s s m e n t by g e t t i n g t h e s c h o o l b oa r d , a n d t h e i r p e e r s , i n v o lv e d . Post-election tensions have been palpable throughout the country, and Iowa City has been no exception. Such divisiveness put Iowa City West High into the national spotlight, with the school appearing on the cover of the New York Times and on ABC’s ‘The View’. City High has also felt the aftermath of the election. The Friday after Donald Trump was elected president saw students walk out of school to protest the outcome. For many students, the past months have been marked by a bit of an uncertainty. Students are asking, “What now?” Students Against Hate and Discrimination is a group of City and West High students that aims to address some of that uncertainty. The organization is seeking to promote diversity and acceptance in the district, and it’s looking to the school board for help in doing so. “After the election, at West for the most part, there was a sort of rise in that hateful rhetoric, which is what I’ve been calling it. There was even a little bit here at City,” Mariam Keita ‘20, who joined Students Against Hate and Discrimination after seeing a demonstration at West High on social media, said. In response to these anxieties, Superintendent Steve Murley issued a statement regarding the concerns many students expressed following Donald Trump’s election. “It must be understood that bullying and harassment of students or staff will not be tolerated, regardless of personal beliefs or political affiliations,” the statement read. Following demonstrations in December that the group was participating in, members marched to a city council meeting where school board members were also present. Keita was one of the students who spoke in front of the board. “I am here because it is time for a change. I am here because ever since I was a little girl people have looked at me funny in the hallways and whispered about me in the classroom. I am here because I have been called a terrorist and many other names, worse names, in an attempt to silence me,” Keita said, addressing city council. One of the biggest priorities for Students Against Hate and Discrimination was to present the
board with a list of eight demands, one of which was a reinforced bullying and harassment policy. This policy, the first of the demands to be implemented, clearly lays out the steps of how administration must deal with instances of discrimination in the school district. “When I was younger I had experiences where I had people comment things at me or say things to me that made me uncomfortable or put me on the spot for my religion or my race, and I just never told anyone about it because I didn’t want to be seen as a tattletale,” Keita said. “I just kind of let it go, and I think it’s really important that the school district shows a commitment to students who are going through that.” According to a post-election survey by the Human Rights Campaign of students ages 13 to 18, more than half of those surveyed felt nervous “most or all of the time.” 70 percent of them had witnessed harassment or bullying following the election. “The way I personally feel, there has been an increase in these acts of discrimination because of the election, and the campaigning really brought out a lot of hate that used to be more subdued,” Esti Brady ‘20 said. Following the city council meeting where Brady witnessed the Students Against Hate and Discrimination address, she decided to join the organization. According to Brady, the group has seen widespread support from the community for its efforts. “Most of the reactions I’ve seen from students, teachers, board members, are just sort of an overwhelming amount of support and definitely seeing how worthy the cause is and not just brushing it off as, ‘these don’t really matter. We’re not going to try and be behind you in these changes you’re trying to make,’” Brady said. “Everyone I’ve talked to thinks it’s really necessary and as soon as these demands we’ve presented to the school board can be met, the sooner the change we need to see will happen.” Another item on the list of demands was student discussion forum with school board members. A key issue brought up was the implementation of an ethnic studies class into the district’s curriculum.
“I AM HERE
BECAUSE IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE. I AM HERE BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN CALLED A TERRORIST AND MANY OTHER NAMES, WORSE NAMES, IN AN ATTEMPT TO SILENCE ME.”
MARIAM KEITA ‘20
“This will prepare us on how to function in society, how to connect with other people, how to live in a world outside of school. I feel like it’s incredibly important,” West High junior Luyan Hamad, who was featured on the cover of The Times, said during the discussion. It currently remains unclear when this class will be introduced or whether it will be an elective course or a requirement for graduation. Brady believes that such a class would help students to have a better understanding of those that may be different from themselves. “Students generally try to surround themselves with people who are like them,” she said. “Obviously there are exceptions, but the general norm is that you surround yourself and are friends with people of your own race or ethnicity.” Both Brady and Keita have had experience with social activism before joining Students Against Hate and Discrimination. As an eighth grader, Brady and two friends spoke in front of the school board about the concern they had regarding the treatment of African American students. Keita was recognized in December as one of the Press Citizen’s 11 to Watch in 2017 along side Hamad. “I’m pretty vocal on Instagram. I’ve been know to talk about LGBT issues. Whenever there’s a high profile incident of police brutality, I’ve been known to say something about it,” Keita said. “I’ve always felt a duty to just speak out when I see injustice.” Students Against Discrimination has seen change in the school district, six demands are still yet to be met, including the ethnic studies class, student-led diversity workshops, and mental health counselors in schools. “To say Iowa City is too progressive for these things to happen in our community allows those things to happen. We need to acknowledge that there are problems here that need to be faced and solved for,” Keita said. “I think that Students Against Hate and Discrimination is effectively acknowledging those problems and now we’re asking for the school board’s help in resolving them.”
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