VIEWS

“Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive .” - John F. Kennedy

ERIK GALICIA

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

By now you may have seen the viral photos of a crowded Georgia high school hallway taken Aug. 4, the first day of the fall semester.

A few students were seen wearing masks. The vast majority were not as they squeezed through the locker-lined walkway in the closest possible proximity to each other. There is absolutely no way they could have practiced any sort of COVID-19 safety in that environment.

Nine students and staff at North Paulding High School tested positive for the virus after just one week of face-to-face instruction.

How could anyone have expected a different outcome? We all want to return to our normal lives, but the idea of opening schools right now is simply mindless.

The ridiculousness is not unique to Georgia. California parents filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 29 in hopes of forcing the state to allow in-person instruction in K-12 schools.

NBC reported Jesse Petrilla, a plaintiff in the lawsuit with two

PHOTO COURTESY OF TWITTER

Dozens of maskless students are seen crowding a hallway Aug. 4 at North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia. The now viral photo was taken by a student and posted on social media. Nine students and staff tested positive for COVID-19 after just one week of class.

children, argues the negatives of closed schools outweigh the risk of COVID-19. The suit also cites CDC data that says children below the age of 17 are hospitalized for COVID-19 at a rate far lower than adults.

We are six months into a pandemic that has killed over 773,000 people worldwide. The over 21.8 million COVID-19 c a s e s i n t h e w o r l d h a v e established that this virus is highly contagious. Yet, people in America continue to cling to their stubbornness in the name of “freedom.”

It’s true. Not as many children die from COVID-19 as adults do. But it’s also true that children have died from the virus. Is there anything worse than children dying due to adult negligence?

Most children can easily grasp the concept of how a contagious virus spreads across vast distances. Here’s one way of putting it: Kids without personal protective equipment crowd a school during a deadly pandemic in a state that is rapidly nearing 300,000 confirmed cases of the virus. One kid infects another, which infects another and so on.

Tho s e k i d s g o h o m e , without showing symptoms, and infect the elderly, which constitute the largest percentage of COVID-19 deaths. Some of the asymptomatic infected eventually travel and party with complete disregard for reality. This is not rocket science. There is no academic, scientific, philosophical or political debate to be had at this point.

Even President Donald Trump, the father of scientific denial, recently began to make masked appearances on national television to admit the validity of the COVID-19 pandemic. What more will it take for the factually-deprived to realize that this pandemic is serious?

Granted, there are a number of valid frustrations over K-12 schools being closed this fall semester. But these frustrations do not amount to valid arguments for reopening schools. Parents across the world are struggling to find childcare while they are away on essential work. Many college students are parents themselves and are struggling to support their families.

Ti m e s a r e t o u g h f o r everyone. But the broken record continues.

As long as the asinine decisions continue, the financial struggles, frustrations and avoidable deaths will too.

JONATHAN RAMIREZ

STAFF REPORTER

President Donald Trump again resorted to xenophobia and reignited the familiar “birther” conspiracy against his political opponent Kamala Harris with no basis in reality. After Joe Biden chose Harris to be his running mate Aug. 11, I was mentally prepared to roll my eyes at the potential racist or sexist remarks coming from Trump, if any.

Not only was I half right, but he even went as far as to question her eligibility to serve as a president or vice president. He launched his ignorant attack on Aug. 14 when speaking to reporters.

The president made the claims about Harris based on a debunked and widely refuted op-ed in Newsweek written by John Eastman. Newsweek has since apologized for the article and claims full accountability with an added editor’s note now at the top of the piece. The article will remain online for the sake of transparency with the editor’s note attached.

When asked about the op-ed in a White House press briefing, Trump showed his cognitive dissonance by praising Eastman, asserting that the article was written by a “very qualified and very talented lawyer.”

Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California in 1964, years after her parents emigrated to the United States. Her father is Jamaican and her mother was Indian. Yes, she’s allowed to run for vice president.

We are in a bizarre reality when it is necessary to explain to the President of the United States the difference between naturalization and natural born citizens.

With so much knowledge at his disposal, it seems that the president still does not grasp the core concept of the 14th amendment and simply believes whatever headline he reads without really reading the contents.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” the 14th amendment states.

He continues to double down on the birther conspiracy in his hate fueled presidential campaign by calling Harris “Phony Kamala,” engaging his supporters with deception and falsehoods with ads and tweets using childish nicknames.

The president is resorting to the same old tactics he used against former president Barack Obama with baseless reasoning in order to get a rise out of his supporters, who will believe whatever he says regardless of the facts.