VOL . 2, NO. 6
F E B R U A RY 2 7, 2 0 2 3
THE YELL W PAGES BASIS Independent Fremont Journalism Club
TYRE NICHOLS By Thanisha Thambidurai
“You guys are really doing a lot right now. I’m just trying to go home.” Moments later: “I am on the ground!” On January 7, 2023, these words were spoken by Tyre Nichols, a Black man cruelly beaten by five Memphis police officers. Three days later, the 29-year-old passed away in the hospital from the fatal injuries he received from the officers, leaving behind his 4-year-old son. At around 8:30 P.M. in Memphis, Tennessee, Nichols was pulled over for suspected reckless driving. After he attempted to run from the officers who had stopped him, they pepper sprayed and tased him. While restrained, he was punched, kicked, and beaten with a baton for about three minutes. Nichols was then left on the side of the road, with no immediate medical attention provided by the officers. Only after he complained of “shortness of breath” was an ambulance summoned, and it arrived about twenty-three minutes later. At this point, he was taken to the hospital in critical condition — which Nichols’ attorney Benjamin Crump described as “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating” — where he succumbed to his injuries three days later. The five Black Memphis officers arrested for the case were Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, and Desmond Mills Jr.; all five were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and one count of official oppression. The five officers were released on bond. Furthermore, it was determined that the EMTs failed to properly treat Nichols due to the lengthy delay in Nichols receiving treatment. Two Memphis Fire Department employees were also relieved of their duties. According to their lawyers, Mills Jr. and Martin intend to plead not guilty, with Mar-
tin’s lawyer William Massey stating, “No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die.” Each officer’s bail has been set between $250,000 and $350,000. The following is the official statement released by Blake Ballin, Mills Jr.’s attorney, on Newstation: “Mr. Mills and I will review these videos together at the appropriate time. A thorough investigation of all available angles is needed before providing context or comment. My heart goes out to the Nichols family and the entire city of Memphis and we hope all will express themselves peacefully.” RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother, has spoken out, claiming that while the video is horrific, protestors should exercise restraint. She claimed that Nichols would not have supported violence because that’s “not what [he] stood for.” Additionally, Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, told the Associated Press that he hopes the officers are charged with first-degree murder, although he is aware there are other charges and says he’s “alright with it.” Tyre Nichols’ case draws uncanny similarities to Rodney King’s case in 1991. King was being chased by police cars for drunk driving, as his speed was ranging from 55 to 80 mph. After being pulled aside, King and the two other passengers in his car were brutally beaten. Similarly to Nichols, he was dragged to the side of the road to wait for emergency medical attention. Unlike Nichols, King survived the life-changing experience that sparked a wave of protests against police brutality. Nichols’ case garnered a large amount of media coverage and public attention, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Reverend Al Sharpton even attending his funeral on February 1, 2023. But beyond what actually happened, what does this truly mean for America? Has the country really changed that much? It doesn’t appear so as police brutality, especially targeted toward racial minorities, remains a pressing issue. Although Congress attempted to enact reforms such as the “George Floyd
HUMANS OF BASIS: INCLUSION AND EDUCATION By Esha B. , Ada C. , Shirley F. , Kevin W. , and Alan X. From the minute she walks onto campus, Ms. Parker radiates with positivity as she wheels her cart through the hallways, greeting students and fellow teachers. Ms. Parker puts intention into everything she does, whether it be parenting, teaching, or coaching a thrown together debate team. Being a hands-on parent and having a good relationship with her five-year-old son are of great value to Ms. Parker. “I put a lot of time and energy into how I parent and what I do with my son,” she explains. “I’ve watched a lot of parenting seminars and videos to help him be the best person he can be.” Beyond valuing her quality of parenting, Ms. Parker sees importance in self-expression, allowing her son to act independently and providing a safe space for him to talk about his feelings. “One of my big achievements is that he’s good at talking about his feelings,” she says. “I want him to be confident in who he is and have a high sense of self-worth.” Her own parental pressure initially pushed Ms. Parker towards being a doctor — her undergraduate major was in the biomedical field. However, this area of study wasn’t what she was truly passionate about, so after some exploring, she switched majors. “English Communications is the thing that I love to do. And the more that I was doing that, the more I realized how much I wanted to teach about this stuff. And I was dead set on being a teacher,” she explained. Ms. Parker vividly remembers her first day of teaching — the culmination of all her effort in undergraduate and graduate education. “ The first day that I was in the classroom, I hoped I would like it because I spent all this time doing it,” she explained. “ The moment that class ended, I cried because I realized this is exactly where I need to be. I know that. I know that I’m meant to be a teacher.” Despite BASIS students being predominantly surrounded by STEM, Ms. Parker wants stu-
dents to recognize the “stability, money, and happiness in humanities.” Furthermore, Ms. Parker believes that our community should be more flexible when it comes to choosing non-STEM occupations and view students as “holistic humans that are going through things and that need grace sometimes.” She wants students to understand that the content taught in school, such as “quotients or independent clauses aren’t the end all, be all of things,” and that their interests are worth pursuing. She has established clear goals for her classroom: learning about rhetorical situations, analyzing the complex works of renowned authors, but most importantly, emphasizing that grades do not define each student’s worth and that their peers are resources, not adversaries. She knows her students cannot focus in class or build a solid foundation for learning if they don’t see their own selfworth. Ms. Parker’s classroom serves as an environment for constructive learning. At the beginning of the school year, Ms. Parker focuses on developing a strong bond with her students to build trust and mutual respect. Because of these meaningful relationships, Ms. Parker is able to assign completion grades to difficult assignments. Despite having her teaching techniques questioned, she has never had any issues with students not putting in their best effort. Ms. Parker wants to create a space in which her students are growing, learning, and challenging themselves, even if it means failing. Ultimately, she hopes that her students will bring this mentality into their everyday lives. Ms. Parker also hopes to influence her students with the material she chooses to teach. Her rule is: “ We do not read dead white guys.” White male perspectives are saturated in most English classrooms, so Ms. Parker hopes to bring a new perspective to her pupils, who
Justice in Policing Act of 2020” in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, the bill ultimately failed in the Senate after months of bipartisan negotiations. Protests against officials abusing their power continue, but how
sure can we be sure of their effectiveness? Where is the proof that America is improving and becoming a safer, more egalitarian nation, and how many more lives must be lost before we get there?
are mostly students of color. Ms. Parker grew up in classrooms full of white male authors, and she intends to break that cycle by introducing students to books where they can identify with the characters. She hopes her students will find the value in diverse literature and seek to read more on their own. “I’m not even planting seeds yet. I’m just making sure the soil is fertile, and then hopefully the seeds will plant and they will go out and be more diverse and not think that Hemingway or Faulkner is the end all be all of literature.” Although she appreciates literature from a variety of literary movements, Ms. Parker particularly enjoys the uniqueness of postmodern literature. “It’s super weird,” she describes. One characteristic of postmodern literature that fascinates her is “temporal distortion,” a literary technique wherein the timeline of the story is nonlinear or “all over the place” as Ms. Parker explained. Many popular shows and books today utilize temporal distortion, such as Rick and Morty and Waiting for Godot. Narratives involving temporal distortion are hard to understand, but Ms. Parker enjoys the process of unraveling such timelines — “I like being very confused in the novel for a while and being like, I don’t understand and then later I’m like, oh, I understand. I love that.” One of Ms. Parker’s biggest inspirations is James Baldwin, a 20th-century gay Black academic. She enjoys both his nonfiction and fiction works. “He wrote beautiful, beautiful fiction, but a really incredible elevated nonfiction, too,” she explains. According to Ms. Parker, one of his most striking skills was his ability to “stay true to himself and unapologetically Black while still taking over academia.” Not only did he “play the game” of his peers in a time of extreme prejudice, but he also managed to break barriers “in an intelligent and academic way.” His story and message inspires Ms. Parker to “stay true to what she’s about” and “to go into the world unapologetically and confident in [her] intelligence.” His tenacious struggle to maintain his self-identity is an inspiring act for
everyone undergoing similar struggles today. Recently, Ms. Parker proposed the idea of AP African American studies to Ms. Davis. Ms. Parker is ecstatic that African American studies is now at the AP level, on par with AP Literature and AP Language and Composition. She finds hope in the education system starting to value African American studies. Ms. Parker has also provided insight on how the BASIS community can strive for further diversity among the student body. She stresses that there are “incredibly intelligent Black people out there that deserve to be in this space of rigor and that could handle it” — however, she fears the “loneliness of nobody sharing your culture” that Black students would feel if they were to join our school. Furthermore, she worries that Black students would have “to prove that they belong in this space” and that “the spotlight is going to be on them if they mess up once.” However, this isn’t to say that there’s no hope. Ms. Parker identifies some of our community’s first steps towards greater diversity: recognizing our own biases, not mistakenly becoming overly conscious of a person’s race, and learning to be more considerate and empathetic.