Volume 3 Issue 3

Volume 3, Issue 3 March 22, 2019

The

Lodge

The

ABOUT US

The Lodge is dedicated to serving as an authentic voice for the students of St. George’s Independent School.

We at the Lodge strive to be an open forum for student expression, to act in the best interests of the student body and to embody the principles of journalistic excellence. The Lodge is affiliated with the Tennessee High School Press Association and the National Scholatic Press Association. The Lodge is funded by advertisers, donors and St. George’s Independent School and is published once every eight weeks during the school year by schoolprinting.com. The Lodge prints and distributes 300 copies of each issue to 600 students and faculty on the St. George’s Collierville campus. Bylines indicate the primary writer(s) of each article, and additional contributors are indicated in the shirttail. The Lodge provides free advertising for student clubs, events and activities and paid advertisements for local businesses. The Lodge welcomes letters to the editor and article submissions. To submit a letter, article or request for advertising, email our staff at thelodge@sgis.org.

STAFF

Editors-in-Chief

Emma Bennett ’19, Evan Dorian ’19 Editors

Laura Beard ‘19, Snowden Farnsworth ‘20, Cary Robbins ‘20 Designers

Kaitlyn Bowman ‘19, Will Brown ‘19, Andrew McDowell ‘19 Illustrators

Crystal Baggett ‘19, Sierra Sellers ‘20 Reporters

Claire Rooney ‘19, Mimi Young ‘19, Spencer Cotham ‘20, Dean Campbell ‘21, Owen Hewitt ‘21, Callie Hollis ‘21, Jack Lange ‘21 Advisor

The

Dr. Margaret Robertson

Lodge

The Student Voice of St. Georges Independent School 18 8 0 Wo lf River Blvd. Collierville, T N. 3801 7 901 - 457- 2000

T

m fro ter

We all handle our problems in different ways. But some problems don’t show up on the outside. Like the blacklight photography that we have featured throughout this issue, we have sought to illuminate the unseen interior world of each individual.

Ed i t

Whether it’s a chemical imbalance that affects your brain or an autoimmune disease that tries to destroy your entire body, we at the Lodge understand that no one lives a perfect life, or anything close to it. What we want to bring you with this issue is stories to which you can relate. We want you to feel understood. We want to show you resources to help you address your problems.

ors

Let

the

his issue of the Lodge tells a story.

A story of what it’s like to be human beings in the 21st century.

And what it means to have our struggles, on the inside and outside alike. This half of the issue is dedicated to what it means to struggle on the inside.

The issue of mental health and problems we face on the inside is dear to us at the Lodge. All of our staffers know people who struggle with depression, anxiety or invisible illnesses. We’ve all come together for a common cause – to produce the best issue we can to tell our community about these issues, and to tell the stories of people who have lent their voices to our cause.

We hope you’ll join us on our journalistic journey. It’s a journey we take every time we put out an issue, but this one will have twists and turns we have yet to explore. We strive for the pursuit of truth, and we hope the truths we’ve published mean something to you.

and turns we have yet to explore. We strive for the pursuit of truth, and we hope the truths we’ve published mean something to you.

We hope you’ll join us on our journalistic journey. It’s a journey we take every time we put out an issue, but this one will have twists about these issues, and to tell the stories of people who have lent their voices to our cause. school’s minorities. We’ve all come together for a common cause – to produce the best issue we can to tell our community and editors struggle with depression or anxiety or invisible illnesses. We have staffers who represent some of the The issue of mental health and problems we face on the inside is dear to us at the Lodge. Many of our reporters address your problems. which you can relate. We want you to feel understood. We want to show you resources to help you a perfect life, or anything close to it. What we want to bring you with this issue is stories to that tries to destroy your entire body, we at the Lodge understand that not everyone lives Whether it’s a chemical imbalance that affects your brain or an autoimmune disease invisible symptoms can hold us back from feeling understood or accessible. nature of issues like depression, anxiety or even a physical illness with stuck wishing for help, wishing for someone to talk to, but the problems don’t show up on the outside. Sometimes we feel We all handle our problems in different ways. But some struggle on the inside. of the issue is dedicated to what it means to the inside and outside alike. This half it means to have our struggles, on in the 21st century. And what like to be human beings A story of what it’s tells a story. the Lodge issue of This

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Opinion While lacking a formal definition, dark humor is widely considered to be humor which pokes fun at serious topics like natural disasters, mental illness and recent or past tragedies. A recent rise of the use of this kind of comedy on the internet has sparked controversy regarding the use of sensitive topics as a comedic medium.

There’s a Time for Humor

By Jack Lange

D

ark humor revolves around a lemons to lemonade mentality.

Everyone has heard a joke regarding a sensitive topic – maybe it was about a natural disaster, mental illness or something else. These jokes can definitely be offensive to someone who relates to its subject matter, but with the right audience they can be playful and harmless.

But there are reasons people dislike this kind of humor. Some people are just offended by dark humor, and as some like to put it, “can’t take a joke.” But the research might explain why.

Based on a study published in the journal Cognitive Processing, enjoyment of dark humor is an indication of higher intelligence, better education and generally happier and less aggressive behavior.

Jokes can definitely miss their mark. To avoid this, timing and

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audience are key. Comedians make hundreds of tragedy jokes every year. These jokes can be perceived as funny because of the amount of time elapsed since the event. However, a survivor might find the joke disturbing.

So if a joke is made with respect to the proper factors, there is no harm in making the joke. If someone takes offense to a joke, so be it. They do not have to listen. The first amendment states that one can say whatever one wants, so all an offended person can do is feel bad about a joke someone made.

If something does not have the ability to change, should people be angry about jokes made toward it or embrace the comical potential surrounding the dark subject?

Disabled comedians make jokes regarding their disabilities constantly, so arguing that disabilities should have a moral force field of correctness is absolutely absurd. A paralyzed person should not spend

their life sulking in despair, but rather use self-deprecating humor, which has been linked to healthier mental conditions.

Do not take that as permission to single out someone; words do affect people and the last thing anybody wants to do is actually hurt someone. There are serious issues people have to deal with and suffer through every day.

Everyone afflicted has the ability to find fun in whatever problem they have.

However, outsiders to the issue may not understand certain aspects of the topic and make a distasteful joke about something serious. This is something that people should avoid. One should always think carefully before making a joke regarding something that would otherwise be offensive.

Maybe dark humor should be avoided, but something that makes most people on Earth laugh will not die easily, especially due to

free speech, which guarantees dark humor will always be legal in the United States of America. So, the worst that is going to happen is the shunning of dark humor, which is paradoxical considering that the “wrongness” of dark humor is why it is so funny.

Dark humor is not going to go anywhere anytime soon, so the only reason to continue to be scorned and offended by it is if someone is being singled out or if someone is just a downer who gets offended by everything and whose existence is devoted to the recognition that a joke is offensive.

News flash: that is the point Again, words evoke feelings.

Words definitely can hurt someone. This is why dark humor has faced scrutiny in the first place.

Singling out one person is almost never funny, and should always be avoided. However, dark humor is a fact of modern life and should be embraced rather than hated.

Opinion DISAGREE WITH ANYTHING YOU’VE READ IN OUR OPINION ARTICLES AND EDITORIALS? TELL US ABOUT IT! SPEAK YOUR MIND

BY COMMENTING ON THE STORIES PUBLISHED ON OUR WEBSITE, WWW.GRYPHONLODGE.COM.

There’s a Time for Help

By Spencer Cotham

S

ome people believe that “dark humor” is the way to bridge the gap between those who are suffering from mental illnesses and those who aren’t. This type of humor does not do anything to help the stigma of mental illness, and, if anything, it hurts the movement to destigmatize mental health issues by making mental health itself a joke. It belittles the people who suffer from mental health issues, and it puts a false idea in people’s heads regarding the true nature of mental illness.

Mental health is too important of an issue to consistently push it aside in the interest of making jokes. Building one’s sense of humor or personality around the idea of making dark commentary or jokes about others’ mental state crosses a line. While all dark humor is not wrong, creating a personality centered around dark humor is. To center one’s

personality around the misfortune of others is cruel and, frankly, just plain annoying. No one wants to be around a person who is constantly making offensive jokes and feeding on the shock they receive.

Humor should not be the foundation for a personality. It can be a facet, but it should not be the core.

Humor is a tricky subject to regulate because it is extremely subjective. Ultimately, it is about knowing one’s audience and limiting the extent to which a joke or comment belittles another person.

Making a joke about a car crash would not be funny to someone who has a personal experience with one. People who have lost loved ones in a car accident, survived one themselves or even simply witnessed one would likely be put off by a joke made in bad taste. However, it might be funny to other people who have never had experience with a car crash, because they do not have emotions

or bad memories associated with it. Humor is entirely subjective to the audience receiving it.

Dark humor is not universally wrong. It can be used to bond over a troubling issue or deepen a connection between two people who have suffered. But when a person’s entire sense of humor is based around making fun of mental illnesses, thriving on the shock factor of a dark joke, and making light of serious issues within marginalized communities, that person’s sense of humor devolves into a sense of cruelty. A personality based entirely around one source of humor is shallow and static, and static personalities are far less likely to be universally appreciated.

It is wrong to stigmatize other people’s problems. It is wrong to actively seek to diminish their happiness. It is wrong to be insensitive to the fears and insecurities from which entire communities

suffer. The way to avoid this is simple – don’t centralize your personality around one thing. A personality needs much more than just a sense of humor to actually be a personality. People with simplistic and cruel personalities do not positively contribute to anyone’s well-being – not even their own.

The argument that people who are offended by dark humor should “just get over it” does nothing to foster a productive discussion about the topic. Disregarding other viewpoints on an issue prevents growth and change, which is never a good thing. To completely ignore the voices of others, and to stay stagnant on your own beliefs, limits your potential as a person to change and to better yourself.

Opening a discussion about why a person uses dark humor, and why a person is uncomfortable with dark humor, can help a person become better.

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Dear Everyone, MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT A CHOICE

An open letter about mental health

“People think of mental health as a mindset, not a chemical imbalance. You cannot just flip a switch and change your entire demeanor.”

- Senior Danielle Chandler “It’s a biochemical thing that you have no control over.

Then I think understanding it as that, breaks that stigma a little bit because you can’t control it, like you can’t control it if you have bad acne. You can’t control it if you have webbed feet, it’s just this genetic thing that you’re born with.”

- Mr. Samuel Abrams, Upper School Science Teacher

“I understand that my life is pretty good and I should be happy with it, but I’m not entirely.

It’s not that I’m not happy with my life, it’s like there’s something inside me that like I can’t control that makes me feel bad.”

- Freshman Ellie Christie

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

“It becomes more of like a chess match between you and the creeping existential dread that you can’t control.”

- Mr. Abrams

“People who are mentally ill, who struggle daily to be the best them that they can be sometimes, they don’t always come in and they’re not always perky and happy and skipping around. Sometimes [getting] to your job is a real struggle. Sometimes being okay is a real struggle.” - Mrs. Leah Allison, Director of Library Services for Middle School and High School

“It’s just that I feel kind of empty sometimes or sad for no reason. It’s not good.” - Ellie Christie

“Through beginning to understand myself, I have found ways to keep my anxiety under control and keep myself motivated. This does not mean that all of my issues have disappeared.” - Danielle Chandler

IT’S NOT A MOOD

“It’s important for students and adults alike to understand that having a mental illness is not a character flaw any more than a cold would be an indication of a character flaw.”

- Mrs. Bran, Director of Upper School Counceling and Guidance

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“If someone has some sort of mental illness and they talk to you about it, don’t try and make it seem like less of a big deal.” - Ellie Christie

“There’s a difference between being nervous and having generalized anxiety.

There’s a difference between being sad and just having the world on your shoulders and having just this really difficult time, like being depressed. Those are just inherently different things” - Mr. Samuel Abrams

By Callie Hollis and Claire Rooney Illustrations by Crystal Baggett, Spencer Cotham, Snowden Farnsworth and Sierra Sellers Layout by Will Brown, Snowden Farnsworth and Owen Hewitt

LET’S TALK

“You never know what someone may be going through, and often these issues are something that people can hide.”

- Danielle Chandler

“That’s the really tough thing about medicating teens is that your brains are still growing and changing.”

- Mr. Abrams

IT TAKES MORE THAN TALKING

“Don’t be afraid to talk about it with someone. We are not as alone as we think we are. There are people in your life who will kind of cover you in an embrace and kind of help you through the rough times.

You just have to open yourself and take kind of a scary step off into that. It can be difficult. Especially since a lot of mental illnesses make us want to withdraw and kind of curl up. And that can be more frightening than actually reaching out. So reach out. There are people there, people who love you, and people who, again, will embrace you and help walk you through the path of this. You aren’t alone.”

- Mrs. Leah Allison

“If you are close with someone who does have a mental health issue, if you approach them respectfully they will likely be willing to talk about it.” - Danielle Chandler “There are people here who care for everybody. Even those who feel like they’re alone, there are people here who care about them and who will be there for them for whatever their need is. I know most of the high school students, but even the ones I don’t know, I care about them. I will do whatever I need to do to be there for them, and I think I can say that about all of our administrators and teachers and coaches.

And I just want students to know that.”

- Mrs. Bran “It’s hard because I think it requires a lot of empathy to get it.”

- Ellie Christie

“Don’t be so quick to judge. Everybody has a struggle. Don’t be so quick to throw someone under the bus...so before you think someone is being rude or mean or angry...maybe someone is having a bad day. It is not the end of the world to be diagnosed with some sort of mental health issue.”

- Mrs. Allison

If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression, reach out to one of the following: Elizabeth Bran, Upper School Director of Counseling and Guidance Phone: 901-457-2012 // Email: ebran@sgis.org Amy Michalak, Middle School Director of Counseling and Guidance Phone: 901-457-2129 // Email: amichalak@sgis.org National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 (https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/) or visit a local behavioral center.

Lakeside Behavioral Health System Phone: 901-377-4700

Silent STRUGGLE A look into the struggle of chronic illness

Illustration by Claire Rooney

By Snowden Farnsworth

O

ne morning in Aug. 2016 I woke up unable to move.

I was completely paralyzed. It almost didn’t surprise me. Over the past year, doctors had discussed diagnosing me with leukemia, lymphoma, neuroendocrine tumors, multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease and West Nile Virus, to name a few. At that point, I was almost numb.

I had been relatively healthy up until the beginning of eighth grade. I could count the doctors I had seen on one hand. I had no clue that I would see more than 40 doctors over the next three years.

All of a sudden I was sick, and no one knew why. Since then, I’ve gone from being ignorant to being painfully aware about illnesses, visible and invisible.

Most people aren’t especially educated when it comes to chronic illnesses. I wasn’t. But a study done by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Another study by the CDC in 2018 showed that at least six in 10 adults in America have at least one chronic illness.

Mrs. Emily Brown, the mother of two St. George’s students, knows all too well the toll chronic illness can take on everyday life.

She has been dealing with many complex, chronic diseases including dysautonomia and chronic

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epstein barr since 2006. For her, seemingly simple tasks require more energy than she has.

“As much as I know people hate going to the grocery store…I can’t go to the grocery,” Mrs. Brown said. “I have to order all of my groceries online. I can barely pick them up and put them in my car. What I would do to be able to walk through a store and pick something out. It’s just the little things. Things that are chores for other people are things that I would pay money to be able to do.”

It’s not only adults that deal with chronic illnesses. Stella Tiesman is a 13-year-old girl who has six chronic illnesses including dysautonomia, Ehlers Danlos syndrome and mast cell activation syndrome. She has to use mobility aids and a feeding tube. Because of this, she often is unable to complete physically demanding tasks.

If she overworks herself, she is left debilitated.

“I definitely get very tired, and my symptoms worsen,” Tiesman said. “Basically, I have to then take a huge nap and am in a lot of pain. I can often trigger some anaphylactic reaction because I just wanted to push myself and try to be more independent. I often have to use my wheelchair if I pushed myself too far. Then, it’s too tiring and too much to walk.”

Another study conducted by the CDC in 2012 revealed that 40

million Americans are limited in their usual activities due to one or more chronic health conditions.

By those numbers, it’s likely that we all know someone that deals with a chronic illness, but you may not know because many chronic illnesses and disabilities are invisible.

An invisible disability or illness is a condition that is not immediately apparent to someone looking from the outside. Some examples of invisible disabilities are chronic fatigue syndrome, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, lupus and migraines.

It’s difficult for people to understand chronic illnesses, especially since they aren’t visible.

“That’s one of the hardest things about being chronically ill when you can’t see it,” Mrs. Brown said.

“You don’t have a sign on your face that says ‘I’m super sick,’ so a lot of times you look fine.”

While there were times in my own struggle with chronic illness where my symptoms were obvious – it’s hard to ignore a wheelchair and a bald head – the majority of the time, my illness was, and is, invisible. There are ways in which it is almost easier to be visibly ill than it is to be invisibly ill because it’s much easier to sympathize with something when there is tangible evidence. It’s hard to understand what you can’t see, which leaves many people struggling in silence.

Mrs. Amy Colton, junior Allison Evans’ aunt, had her life turned upside down in 2004. She went from having a good life as a successful attorney to having to fight chronic Lyme disease.

Chronic Lyme disease brings an array of symptoms such as headache, fever, chronic pain and fatigue; U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored studies in 2006 that revealed that patient’s quality of life was equivalent to those with congestive heart failure.

“People like control and things to categorize neatly into boxes,” Mrs. Colton said. “Chronic illness is not something you can just put neatly in a box.”

Like many chronic diseases, symptoms of chronic Lyme disease, may come and go, often leaving loved ones at a loss for what to do.

“Even your own family can struggle with not understanding that; they want you to be able to go somewhere, do something, and sometimes you’re just not physically able,” Mrs. Colton said. “I think the erratic nature of it – the highs and lows, the being able to be there sometimes and sometimes not – is something that, because human beings like definition and control, they have a problem with it.”

For those with chronic illness, the diagnosis can feel like a life

sentence. And for those on the outside, it is hard to grasp the “chronic” in “chronic illness.”

While I was in the hospital, visibly ill, people would send me lots of “get well” cards. They’d have encouraging words or pictures of flowers or cute animals that would make me smile, but seeing the words “get well soon” was painful. I appreciated the sentiment and knew each card came from a place of love, but seeing those words in writing would just re-emphasize the chronic part of my diagnosis. I wasn’t going to get well soon. I wasn’t ever going to get well. My life was forever changed. Thankfully, I currently am able to treat many of the symptoms my chronic illnesses bring by getting IV infusions three times a week as well as other forms of treatment, but I am not able to be cured of these diseases.

There were outpourings of sympathy when I was first paralyzed, but as my illness receded into invisibility, people also started to back away. I don’t think it’s because they didn’t care, but

“Chronic illness does not define who I am.

It is something that I manage, but it is not me as a person.” because they didn’t know what to do. When you see someone in a wheelchair, you know you can help by clearing a path for them, but when you see someone who looks deceivingly healthy, it’s difficult to know how to respond.

The world doesn’t offer a lot of guidance on how to handle chronic, invisible illnesses.

“I think the biggest issue is that movies, books and TV will show that people will send you flowers and support you and come to see you and write to you and all of those things,” Mrs. Colton said.

“It’s in fact the opposite. Most people ignore you, don’t come to see you. It’s profoundly lonely and isolating. I think that’s an injustice that the entertainment industry does to people because it sets up that expectation of, ‘Someone’s going to care,’ and quite honestly if you have one or two friends or

even just one friend that sticks by you, you’re really lucky.”

Chronic illness does not only affect the physical body but also can take a toll emotionally. A study done by the NIH in 2018 revealed the negative impact that a patient’s chronic disease had on quality of their social life.

“I’ve had a lot of friends that have bailed,” Mrs. Brown said.

“At the time, it kind of felt that they didn’t believe me or they didn’t care, but I think it’s really just that in their minds they think that it’s all that we talk about. I think that they just didn’t understand and can’t understand that it is my life.”

Tiesman agreed that relationships can be a challenge when you suffer from a chronic illness.

“Definitely that a lot of people with chronic illness need support and for you to validate what they are feeling,” Tiesman said. “I feel like not a lot of people do that or you have a friend and someone gets a chronic illness and they basically up and abandon you. You just really need a lot of support or just for somebody to be there for you even if you don’t fully understand. Also, it is always okay to ask questions. It’s better to ask questions if you don’t understand than just assume things.”

Not only do friends not always understand, but doctors don’t always understand either.

“Because common things are common and uncommon things are uncommon [it takes longer to diagnose],” Dr. A. Earl Weeks, a medical oncologist and hematologist at West Cancer Center, said. “Usually it’s easy to find bad things. Subtle things don’t usually present with as many definable issues. You just don’t think about them as much.”

While invisible disabilities and illnesses are common, they are often underdiagnosed or take a long time to diagnose because they are hard to understand. According to a 2011 study published in BioMed Central Health Services Research, it takes an average of over two years to get a diagnosis for fibromyalgia, and it takes an average of five years to get a diagnosis for dysautonomia according to a 2013 study by Dysautonomia International.

“It’s definitely not easy because people don’t want to take you seri-

ously because you are so young,” Tiesman said. “It’s hard going to doctor’s offices and talking to a doctor who is of course much older than me, and trying to get him to understand how I feel. Because I am so young, they do want to relate a lot of my problems to me being a hormonal teenager and wanting to get attention.”

Mrs. Colton’s diagnosis of Lyme disease also took a long time to receive. Lyme disease takes particularly long to diagnose because tests are often inaccurate which leaves the patient with debilitating symptoms and no answers.

“I started to have all those debilitating symptoms of severe fatigue, pain, disorientation, memory loss, confusion, all of that,” Mrs. Colton said. “It took about a year for me to get diagnosed with Lyme Disease. I had to go to the Northeast because a lot of the doctors in the South dismissed my symptoms and made me feel like I was crazy or seeking attention or told me that there was no possible way that you could contract Lyme Disease in the South even though the Center for Disease Control had documented cases of it from Tennessee.”

Doctors can often misinterpret symptoms and have trouble diagnosing lesser known, complex illnesses.

Autoimmune diseases and hematologic disorders are particularly difficult for doctors to understand and diagnose because of lack of awareness.

“You don’t really hear much about it,” Dr. Weeks said. “It’s sort of one of these silent problems.

It’s not that nobody wants to talk about it, it’s that nobody knows to talk about it.”

Because it isn’t commonly talked about in society, people who have these illnesses and disabilities have created a supportive community for each other called the “spoonie community.” It was named for Christine Miserandino’s spoon theory in which people who have chronic illnesses have a certain amount of spoons per day that they are allotted to use. Simple tasks such as brushing your teeth and getting out of bed take spoons, and everything has to be budgeted with these “spoons.” Many

people with chronic illnesses have adopted this analogy, nearly as convoluted as the illness themselves, in order to explain what they go through.

“All of a sudden put a price on every single thing that you have to do,” Mrs. Brown explained. “From brushing your teeth to taking a bath to doing a load of dishes or making dinner for your family or buying groceries, when every single one of those things – like you just said ‘okay this is how much money you have to spend today’ and all of those things cost money, you can’t go over budget. Or say you can go over budget but that means you have less tomorrow.”

I met a number of people through this spoonie community including Tiesman. Managing all of her illnesses has left her unable to attend school, so she relies on the spoonie community in order to interact with people like her.

“It can definitely help when needing support and meeting people who understand what I’m going through because most people around me right now don’t. So it’s a great way to get support and make new friends.”

Tiesman doesn’t live a normal teenage life because she spends most of her life at doctor’s visits and trying to manage her symptoms. She may be seen as different because of this routine, but she still wants to be considered a normal teenager.

“Chronic illness does not define who I am,” Tiesman said. “It is something that I manage, but it is not me as a person.”

That’s maybe the the most important lesson I’ve learned through my journey. A person that has a chronic illness is just that: a human that happens to be sick.

Yes, the symptoms may take over your life, and at times it may seem like your illness is your identifier.

As someone from the outside, it’s easy to be overwhelmed when a loved one is dealing with chronic illness and then fall into the trap of letting them be defined by their illness.

As Mrs. Colton said, “Most people with chronic illness are incredibly tough and survivors. So if you see someone with a chronic illness, you should see them in terms of their strength and not in terms of weakness.”

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By Jack Lange

Mana gin g Middle School Welcome to Middle School!

For almost all of us, middle school was one of the first steps into the world of academic and social stress. This is completely normal, and you are far from alone.

Belongin g

Why it’s ha rd Middle s ch

A majority of kids in Ameri ca change middle sch ools going from elementary to make it sch ool. This switch in sch ools can and make harder for kids to feel comfortable much new friends. In middle sch ool, pretty that all of us find a friend group. It seems lly difSt. George’s helps ease this typica sy findin g ficult transition. “It was really ea homore my friends or people that I like,” sop nice to Michael Mari said. “Everyone was so ea ch other no matter the person.”

o most all kid ol is a stressful time for as, and ther l e is resear that up. An c h arti cle in t to ba ck he journal Adoles cen c o e says tha t in switch f Early Elementary in g from Sc students’ g h ool to Middle S ch o ol, most rades drop and motiva clines. Oth tion deer studies cred middle s ch o ol’s notori it adoles cen ce for ous unplea sin ce it is a santness, time with in creased stress and bullyin g, so cial anxie ty.

Illustrations by Sierra Sellers

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Fitting it all in

Middle school is an introduction to the lifestyle many students will have in high school, finding a balance between after-school activities and academics, while also tryin g to maintain a social life.

This balancing act can often be diffi cult. “I had trouble balancing school and sports because I did golf, and tournaments would last until nighttime, and we would do this twice a week and it was kind of hard to find time to study,” Mari said. Learning to control your academic life is essential to success in middle school, but don’t worry, your teachers and advisors can definitely help you. Everyone gets through middle school, and you will eventually graduate.

Fi gurin g it all out

fiff iculties, it can de di s it s ha ol ho sc uWhile middle any upper school st k as st Ju d. re ue nq self now nitely be co mfortable with my co e or m m I’ e lik el dent. “I fe an Darby Beal said. hm es fr ,” ol ho sc le rs than I was in midd a chers and adviso te ur yo , ts en ud st St. In addition to e way, too. “I think th g on al u yo lp he are there to a lot of gra ce and ve ha u yo re he w nna George’s is a pla ce at students are go th g in nd ta rs de un lin g there’s a lot of Dire ctor of Counse ol o ch S e dl id M ,” a mistake make mistakes said. “If you make k la ha ic M . rs M ce e best and Guidan mi ght be one of th at th , it m o fr n es ar le and you ar,”. Makin g mistak ye at th d ha u yo t in learning moments er you sh ould’ve pu th he w d an n, ar le oing, life is how people more so cially outg en be ve ha or rt more effo will go on.

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The Space In Between How do you navigate the distance between who you are and what you believe?

By Laura Beard Illustrations by Sierra Sellers

O

n Feb. 26, the United Methodist Church voted against a plan that would allow each church to decide on whether to host LGBTQ weddings and would relax restrictions on LGBTQ clergy. To many in the LGBTQ community, this felt like a step backwards.

The space between religious and sexual or gender identity has been notoriously difficult to navigate. People who belong to a sexual or gender minority can find their identity at odds with the values of the community they grew up in. In a Pew survey of LGBTQ Americans, one-third said that their religion and sexual orientation or gender identity were in conflict. Additionally, 29 percent have felt unwelcome in a place of worship.

Mr. Tyler Lefevor, an assistant professor and licensed psychologist in the Rhodes College psychology department, is conducting a similar study on Mormonism with collaborators in Utah.

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“Mormonism has problems similar to Southern Baptists or conservative spaces, people tend to either subscribe to lives of celibacy to fit with the religion, or maybe they’ll even marry someone of another sex even though they’re not attracted,” Mr. Lefevor said. “Or they’ll marry someone of the same sex. We’re interested in understanding how those different life choices relate to later life.”

So far, the study has surveyed thousands of people to gather data on the subject.

“What we find is that [for] people in general, being partnered is healthy. People want to be with somebody,” Mr. Lefevor said. “For most sexual and gender minorities, at least sexual and gender-minority Mormons, being partnered with someone of the same sex is the best outcome.”

Ironically, according to Mr. Lefevor, they found that those who identified as gay but ended up with a partner of the opposite sex were actually happier than those who identified as gay but were alone.

“You are beautiful and complete, and deserving of love, care and respect exactly as you are.”

“We interpreted this to mean there is a general positive effect of being with someone. It was better than being single and celibate, of committing yourself to a life of ‘I’m not going to date, I’m not going to have somebody,’” Mr. Lefevor said. “Our takeaway was that there are actually a wide variety of ways that people navigate life. There isn’t a correct path like we like to think there is.”

Mr. Lefevor’s research has made him recognize the importance of both sexual and religious identity. “[My research] has really made me appreciate the role of religious identity as a legitimate form of

identity and the same way that one doesn’t necessarily choose one’s identity,” Mr. Lefevor said. “It’s a way you are, and it can be such a strong dilemma if you feel forced to choose.”

Before Josh Allen ever decided to come out, he isolated himself in his parent’s lakehouse and, for seven days, he prayed, fasted, and sang hymns. Then he left, with a suitcase and the idea for a letter.

The letter took him eight weeks to write on his iPad, and he spent every free moment he had on it.

“My family is important to me,

and their views were important to me,” Allen said. “I spent just so much time editing and reviewing and trying to make sure my words were the best they could possibly be so that people knew that I did not take this lightly.”

Allen left his letter on the dresser of his room in his parent’s house and called his mother. He told her that he had written her something.

It had taken Allen until he was 20 years old to come out to his family.

“There was never a moment that I questioned that I was gay,” Allen said. “There was never a moment when I was like, ‘Oh, I like girls.’ I knew, from whenever I was capable of knowing, that I didn’t fit that category. But I was also told that it’s a choice.”

Prior to coming out, he had gone to his Southern Baptist church every Wednesday and Sunday, for every choir rehearsal and youth group meeting.

“The rhetoric [there] is very, very harsh, not necessarily stemming from scripture but just from the culture,” Allen said. “A lot of the people use very harsh words when then talk about how disgusting homosexuality is. Being taught that it was a choice all my life and that somebody chooses to go that way, nobody was born that way.

That was confusing.”

The effect of his upbringing came into conflict with his emerging sexual identity as Allen got closer and closer to college. Before he turned eighteen, he did not dare trying to come out for fear of being put into a conversion camp, and during that time he adopted a strict anti-LGBTQ stance.

“I fought very hard politically, religiously, socially – everything – against [LGBTQ issues] all the way into my first year of college until I was 19,” Allen said.

“Basically until I came out myself, I fought very hard against this, voted against it when I could. I wanted to believe it was a choice, that I was choosing to be straight and that I wasn’t choosing to be gay.”

The day Allen knew his parents would read the letter in which he came out, he went to the prayer room at his church for two hours.

Afterwards, his relationship with his family was strained.

Even now, Allen said he still

feels conscious of other people’s reactions to him being with another man.

“It immediately becomes a political statement and some form of protest by just holding your significant other’s hand,” Allen said. “People look, and you’re wondering who’s thinking [it’s wrong]. That’s something that’s on your mind.”

Allen’s experience, while unique to him, echoes that of others who struggle to navigate the space between their religious and sexual identities. In the course of Mr. Lefevor’s research, he sought an answer for why people within the LGBTQ community tend to display negative mental health outcomes.

According to a 2011 survey

The process of moving past that negative messaging, as both Mr. Lefevor and Allen found, is lengthy.

“Looking back on it, it’s very hard because I realize how much damage I probably did,” Josh Allen said. “And the damage, it’s done to me. It does take time.”

conducted by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, for LGBTQ youth who have grown up with a conservative religious background there is an increased risk of suicide or suicidal ideation.

“There’s a lot of subtle ways that sexual and gender minorities are discriminated and oppressed.

That’s hard, and it hurts when people internalize that negative messaging. And that kind of internalization and discrimination is what I believe is responsible for these negative mental health outcomes,” Mr. Lefevor said. “If people are telling you that you’re wrong and you’re messed up, you don’t even need to have them to keep telling you that for you to feel that way.”

Society of Friends and Calvary Episcopal Church are mentioned on the OUT Memphis spirituality page as places safe for LGBTQ individuals.

Located in downtown Memphis, the Church of the River is a Unitarian Universalist church has historically been broadly accepting of the LGBTQ community.

Rev. Sam Teitel, minister for the Church of the River, has been working towards a welcoming space for LGBTQ members of the clergy.

“For years, the church, I think, hasn’t always been as affirming as it now is. I would say as society has become more open-minded, the church has become more open-minded,” Rev. Teitel said.

The space in between religious and sexual or gender identity is hard to navigate, but not impossible. Many communities are welcoming of people who identify as LGBTQ. Within Memphis, the Church of the River, the First Congregational Church of Memphis, Temple Israel, The Memphis

“But for years and years and years, Church of the River has had LGBT members that were out, and we were glad to have. During the AIDS epidemic, we’d welcome people with AIDS into the congregation, which was a taboo thing.”

The Church of the River has been officially certified by the Unitarian Universalist Association as an LGBTQ Welcoming Congregation, which requires the attendance of a training program, workshops and specific steps taken by the church. Recently, as part of being a welcoming church, Rev. Teitel read the children’s book “I Am Jazz,” which focuses on the life a young transgender girl, during the church’s story-time.

“When people want to talk to me about it and they say ‘I don’t understand’ and I say ‘fine.’ You don’t have to understand something for it to be legitimate,” Rev. Teitel said. “I don’t understand when people speak French, but I believe that France is a real place.”

Unitarian Universalists welcome the LGBTQ community, but they are not the only ones. Since 1976 the Episcopal church has formally recognized the “full and equal claim” of LGBTQ people “as children of God” to “the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.”

To those who struggle today to reconconcile their identity with their faith, the words of Rev. Sam Teitel may bring some comfort.

“You are beautiful and complete and deserving of love, care and respect exactly as you are. Who you are is not wrong. Who you are is not bad. Who you are is who you are and who you are supposed to be. You deserve to be around people who don’t even just tolerate who you are, but affirm and celebrate and love you.”

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Acting & Activism

DEAR EVERYONE, CAN YOU HEAR US?

Dear Everyone

IN A TUMULTUOUS TIME, WHERE DO LGBTQ YOUTH FIND SHELTER?

Appropriation/Appreciation

HEAR FROM THE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF ABOUT THE ISSUE.

Letters from the Editors

Dark Humor

4

DARK HUMOR: TABOO OR A HEALTHY COPING MECHANISM?

WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE?

6

4

3

3

2

CAN YOU JUDGE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE?

WHY IS MIDDLE SCHOOL SO HARD?

Managing Middle School HOW HAS THE MOVEMENT TRANSFORMED SOCIETY?

The Space In Between

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6

#MeToo

10

Silent Struggle Colors You Can’t Ignore

WHY DON’T YOU SEE COLOR?

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SEXUALITY. SPIRITUALITY. DO YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE?

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#MeToo Is the movement that brought down some of the world’s most powerful men actually giving us the change we fought for?

By Emma Bennett Photography by Laura Beard

I

first became interested in the #MeToo movement walking to a football game last year with my friends and fellow seniors Hannah Grace Howell and Rachel Crane. What should have been a normal Friday night of a few friends going to a football game together quickly turned into something darker.

“I was walking with two of my friends,” Howell remembered.

“This car was driving down the road and stopped near the sidewalk where we were and rolled down the window, and then the guy got out and started approaching us.”

I remembered that the man from the car started following us, continuing to stalk us even after we began sprinting towards safety.

Even though this incident occurred over a year ago, all three of us vividly remembers how it made us feel.

“It was very terrifying,” Howell said, “and it might not have been anything, but still the fact that this guy was approaching us, in a way that triggered our gut feeling that something was wrong.”

This terrifying experience led me to start asking questions. Were my friends and I the only one to go through something like this?

Or had other people experienced this too?

Whenever I brought up what happened that night with my

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friends, girls immediately began recounting their own disturbing stories. For instance, alumna Faith Huff met a boy at vacation Bible camp several years ago and started dating him over a few weeks.

Then he sexually assaulted her.

“Technically I wasn’t even supposed to be dating this young, 15 year old me,” Huff said. “When he invited me over, I went over, and that’s when the incident took place, and afterwards, I felt awful, I felt dirty, I didn’t even feel like a person to be honest. I felt less than

downfall of 201 powerful men, such as Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey per The New York Times.

Though Milano had not originally realized that she had used the movement’s main motto, she later publicly recognized the movement’s founder Tarana Burke as the creator of the campaign.

According to the movement’s official website, eToo was initially founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke to provide resources for women of color from low-income

“I felt less than human for a really long time.” human for a really long time.”

It is stories like these that dominated casual conversation during the rise in popularity of the #MeToo movement. With 81 percent of women having experienced sexual harassment according to NPR, it’s understandable why the movement gained popularity so rapidly.

The movement’s popularity spiked after actress Alyssa Milano used the “metoo” hashtag to ask social media users to share their stories of harassment and assault.

According to USA Today, the hashtag has been used over 19 million times since Milano’s tweet. These tweets led to the

communities who survived sexual violence.

The #MeToo organization reflects the troubling fact that women of color experience rape, physcial violence and/or stalking at a higher rate than white women.

In addition to having a higher rate of sexual assault, women of color are less likely to report their assault. According to End Rape on Campus, at least 15 black women do not report their rape for every one Black woman who does.

Alumna Lauren Purdy’s belief that black women are often dismissed when they report sexual harassment explains why many

decide not to report it when it happens.

“I think for me specifically, not only me being a woman, but also me being an African American, that topics such as sexual harassment are often brushed off,” Purdy said. “I’m not saying that doesn’t apply to other women also, but I think especially for black women, they’re often ignored.”

Though the movement was originally founded to help low-income women of color, it has since evolved to include all survivors of sexual violence, regardless of class, race or sexual orientation.

The movement aims to support survivors of sexual harassment by providing resources, researching sexual violence and pushing for more protection for survivors in legislation. One of the ways to accomplish this is by encouraging the discussion of sexual violence in society. uff reflected on what it would have been like if the #MeToo movement had been as popular as it is now when she was going through the process of healing.

“That would have been honestly the best thing that could’ve happened,” Huff said, “but I’m just happy that it’s happening.”

At the time of her rape, Huff noticed the absence of discussion about similar situations to her own and was angered by it.

“No one was talking about it at

all,” Huff said. “The only time I heard it mentioned was in Meet in the Middle, but we didn’t even talk about it that long.”

Though the goal of the club was to provide a safe place for people to discuss their identity to foster an understanding and appreciation of human differences, Huff felt like something more needed to be done.

Deciding to take action, Huff decided to address the topic for her Senior Independent Study, or SIS. “My friend came to me and told me about a similar incident that happened to her, and it made me so furious and upset, and I couldn’t just keep letting that happen to other people,” Huff said.

“That’s why I decided to do my SIS on sex education and raising awareness against sexual harassment and assault.”

For her SIS, Huff spoke in school chapel to raise awareness.

Students had previously been less engaged in this discussion in school. There are, however, school policies in place.

The St. George’s Family andbook provides definitions

for sexual harassment and assault and clearly states that this kind of behavior is prohibited both on and off campus.

“Some people are uncomfortable with that, because they feel like what they do outside of school is not the school’s business,” Director of Counseling and Guidance Mrs. Bran said, “when ultimately our business is to look after all of

ty of students. However, there are no specific punishments outlined for when these instances occur.

“It depends definitely on the situation,” Mrs. Bran said. “It can involve a host of things.”

The school evaluates sexual harassment and assault on a caseby-case basis, due to the complexity of finding who’s at fault.

“With any situation, it’s really

“I think for me specifically, not only me being a woman, but also me being an African American, that topics such as sexual harrassment are often brushed off.” our students and make sure they can walk into any classroom with any fellow student and not worry.”

The handbook also outlines what it means to give consent as further measure to ensure the safe-

difficult if its a he said, she said situation, and that’s true not just of schools but of the laws in general,” Mrs Bran said. “We’ll try to hold people accountable for the piece that we know and that we

can stand on solid ground with.”

While the administration wishes they could handle every case perfectly, they recognize the difficulty of coming up with such a decision.

“It doesn’t always work out perfectly,” Mrs. Bran said. “It doesn’t always meet even our own preference for how it plays out. We work with what we are given and what we can possibly do to support a child and to hold someone accountable and to most importantly make sure it doesn’t repeat itself.”

For those considering speaking publicly about their assault, Huff had some advice.

“For people who want to come out and talk about it, it is your story, you decide when you get to talk about it,” Huff said. “You get to decide who hears it, and once you’re ready, it’s also up to you what the other person hears, whether you want to tell the full story, or just a small part of it.

Whatever you tell, you should be proud of yourself, because it’s hard to talk about it.

Huff shared advice for other survivors on how to get through it as well.

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“You’re not alone. You are still a valuable human being. However the incident occured, it was never your fault. It will never be your fault,” Huff said. “If you feel weak now, I promise you, you will not soon. This feeling that you have will not stay.

Victims of sexual assault and harassment, like Huff, feel increased support from the discussion spurred by the movement and hope it continues to encourage positive change.

“I hope it wasn’t a trend. I hope it wasn’t something that was taken lightly,” Huff said. “I hope that it progresses in the future, that it stays, it sticks.”

Though the movement has provided support to survivors and fostered a national discussion on sexual harassment and assault, it has made only surface-level change in legislation.

There was a slight uptick in laws passed by Congress and state legislators addressing topics related to the movement compared to last year, rising from 238 laws to 261. However, Congress did not pass a single law regarding sexual harassment in the workplace.

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Just two states, Vermont and Delaware, passed laws providing further protection for victims of sexual harassment.

It was not until December of 2018 that tax money could no longer be used by Congressmen to pay personal harassment settlements. Meaning, before the end of 2018, Congressmen who

overshadowed by the needs of white women. In the beginning of the Harvey Weinstein controversy, Rose McGowan, an actress who accused Weinstein of raping her, called for women to boycott Twitter using #WomenBoycottTwitter over inconsistent enforcement of policy that resulted in her account being suspended.

“You’re not alone. You are still a valuable human being...it will never be your fault.” were accused of sexual assault or harassment could use taxpayer money to pay off their settlements.

These new laws appear to be a start towards improved protection for victims, but the movement is not without controversy.

Within the feminist community, women of color see that there is a tendency for their needs to be

Digital media strategist April Reign created a second hashtag W CAffirmation in response to McGowan’s hashtag, saying that women of color are treated differently when reporting abuse on Twitter, such as Jemele Hill and Leslie Jones.

“With me being a woman of color…I have people close to me

that I know and have come out to me about it, even on social media, and they have been ridiculed for it and laughed at and not taken seriously,” Purdy said. “It makes you wonder, ‘Well, why is another girl, who is not a woman of color, why is she taken more seriously?’”

This inconsistency within survivor support is also seen in the case of black men. Actor Terry Crews addressed his hesitation to fight back against his assaulter in fear of being negatively labeled as a black man overly eager to fight.

“He knew that as a black man he would get penalized,” Purdy said. “He would be the one that would be seen as guilty.”

This lack of belief can make it harder for black men to report being sexually assaulted or harassed.

“This hyper-masculinity thing where men hate to admit they have been in vulnerable positions, or they hate to be vulnerable, that’s just a common thing [in the] black community,” Purdy said. “There’s just this idea that they have to be manly and strong at all times and never admit to what they suffer.”

In addition to fighting against

racial bias within the feminist movement, it has also met resistance from men who feel like their voices are being ignored. The pendulum has swung from the pattern of a man being believed without question to a woman being believed without question.

According to CNN, President Trump said that is was a scary time for young men in America in response to the claims of sexual assault against Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Though false accusations of sexual assault are rare (between 2 and 8 percent according to a 2010 study by the University of Massachusetts at Boston), the social norms that make it hard for male victims also can work against men who feel themselves to be wrongly accused.

Junior Aiden Curran, a leader of the MySpace Alliance club, which provides a safe-space for students to discuss under-addressed topics from marginalized groups, identified possible ways the movement could correct some of its issues.

Curran pointed to the recent case of Aziz Ansari as an important example of some of the problems that the #MeToo movement needs to address. Actor and comedian Aziz Ansari was accused of sexual coercion with a date, and this accusation caused significant

Photography by Laura Beard An issue that #MeToo has brought to light has been the often unseen ways women’s bodies are disrespected in their everyday life. Many women can relate to feeling an unwanted hand on their shoulder, their arm, the small of their back, and through the use of blacklight paint we aimed to illustrate this in the story.

damage to his reputation.

“I think clearly defining what sexual harassment and sexual assault are will help strengthen the movement, as allegations such as the ones made against Aziz Ansari were widely criticized because

while accusations should be taken seriously, people should be slow to arrive at a conclusion.

“It would also be beneficial for an investigation to be done before firing or socially ostracizing an individual based on an allegation,”

many believed it to be just a bad date,” Curran said. “By clearly differentiating what is acceptable and unacceptable, the MeToo movement will be less susceptible to criticism, as many use the allegations against Aziz Ansari to discredit victims.”

Curran went on to stress the importance of remembering that

Curran said. “By no means am I saying that we should recreate a culture which allows this to be as prevalent as it was; however, entire careers are being ruined based on one allegation. If someone was falsely accused, then they run the risk of ruining their career and social life as well.”

Supporters of the #MeToo

movement recognize that it has its flaws, but also know that it should not be dismissed because of them.

“The #MeToo movement means so much to me,” Huff said. “It shouldn’t be something that is ever looked over, and it shouldn’t be something that is underrated.”

While the movement has made strides in improving society’s discussion of sexual assault and harassment, in addition to providing resources for survivors, Purdy fears that it is impossible for these issues to ever truly end.

“It’s like an inevitable thing, which is sad,” Purdy said. “I know there’s not necessarily a way to end violence, harassment, those things, against women, but I think that it’s important for the movement to enforce its mission statement and hold true to it.”

So instead of looking for a definitive end to these problems, the most the movement can do is continue to support survivors and encourage a society where problems like this are a thing of the past.

“The most important aspect of this issue is to create a world where people do not have to worry about facing sexual assault or harassment,” Curran said. “At home, at work, or anywhere else.”

If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual harassment, reach out to one of the following: Elizabeth Bran, Upper School Director of Counseling and Guidance Phone: 901-457-2012 // Email: ebran@sgis.org Amy Michalak, Middle School Director of Counseling and Guidance Phone: 901-457-2129 // Email: amichalak@sgis.org National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline Phone: 1.800.656.HOPE (4673)

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“Now I realize everyone has their own uniqueness and differences. It doesn’t matter your race. I feel like I’m able to hang out with different people. It doesn’t matter if I’m black, white, or whatever.” - Sophomore Ummu “Everybody Bah; “I think of myself is asdifferent not less than, not superior, but equal to everybody else in this school, no matter andsay justorone action what people do to makethat me think otherwise.” - Junior Kennadee Carlton; “Everybody is different and st one action that one person ophmore is ope “Race one person takes doestakes oes not efine their c lt re as a holelpa aliquam shouldn’t not be adefine separating factor between you and someone else.

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Gentem eum hicieni faccum iliquas “I think of myself as not less than, not superior, but equal to everybody else in this school, no matter what “Because of all the hardships we endure molorit, seque niaero people say or do to make me think otherwise.” - Junior Kennadee Carlton; “Everybody pitibus as quatusis different and just like the racism and the discrimination we one action that one person takes oes not efine their c lt re as a elesHicLecesequi hole ophmore is ope “Race receive from other people for doing absolutely Dioand quesomeone mod ut volupta shouldn’t be a separating factor between you else. Race is important though because you can blabo. To optas nothing or doing things that we have every vendit expereperum Um get certain perspective from other people it’s not something to divide people.” - Senior Surabhi Singh “Now di alitassunt, cori right to do, it makes me view us as stronger.”

I realize everyone has their own uniqueness susciis and differences. porepud It doesn’t matter your race. I feel like I’m able to - Senior Kaitlyn Bowman hang out with different people. It doesn’t matter if I’m black, white, or whatever.” - Sophomore Ummu Bah; “I think of myself as not less than, not superior, but equal to everybody else in this school, no matter what people say or do to make me think otherwise.” - Junior Kennadee Carlton; “Everybody is different and just one action that one person takes oes not efine their c lt re as a hole ophmore is ope “Race shouldn’t be a separating factor between you and someone else. Race is important though because you can get certain perspective from other people it’s not something to divide people.” - Senior Surabhi Singh

Colors You Can’t Ignore U

Racism through the eyes of students

W

By Cary Robbins

“

hen I see racism in the news and stuff, I think ‘oh, that’s terrible. It’s happening to so many people,’” junior Kennadee Carlton said. “I never really think about how in a few years, this could happen to me.”

Carlton is not alone in worrying about racism. A study by NBC news found that 64 percent of Americans believe that racism is still a problem. And a survey by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that 92 percent of African Americans said that discrimination against black people still exists

today. acism cannot be defined without first defining race.

According to the entry on the sociology of racism in the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, race is “generally understood as a social category” in which groups are “distinguished by perceived common physical characteristics.”

The entry defines racism as “‘an ideology of racial domination’ in which the presumed biological or cultural superiority of one or more racial groups is used to justify or prescribe the inferior treatment or social position(s) of other racial groups.”

At different points in history in the United States, racism has been directed against African Ameri-

“Just because we’re more sheltered in a private school doesn’t make it invisible. It’s still there.” - Junior Jada Hines 6 The Lodge

cans, Asian Americans, European Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Jewish Americans, Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans and Native Americans.

African Americans in particular have been the targets of slavery, Jim Crow Laws and the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations.

While some of these experiences are in the past, African Americans still face racism today.

According to the NPR survey, 51 percent of all African Americans say that they have been called slurs because of their race, and 52 percent of all African Americans say they experience negative assumptions or offensive comments because of their race.

While some forms of racism are obvious, others are not as easily noticed. Sometimes subtle negative racial comments or assumptions are called microaggressions.

These are verbal or nonverbal acts that communicate a feeling of hostility towards another person based on the group to which they belong.

According to Simba Runyowa, writing in the Atlantic, microaggressions point out cultural dif-

ferences and make minorities feel different. Comparing members of a race to their stereotype or simply touching someone’s hair because it is different are examples of microaggressions.

Senior Asia Gibson reports that even while walking around New York City, a city known for its diverse population, people touched her hair and asked her if she was from Africa because of her darker skin tone.

“When I go out of town and I go up north in straight towns where it’s only white people, there’s blatant racism,” Gibson said. “Someone will ask me or they’ll want to touch my hair, or they’ll be like ‘are you from Africa?’ and I’m like ‘does it look like I’m from Africa? Are you kidding me?’”

Even schools can be the sites of microaggressions. Gibson pointed to occasions when other students use the “n-word,” either casually in conversation or while singing along to music.

“They can listen to whatever type of music they want to listen to, but they don’t have to say the “n” word,” Gibson said. “That’s

fffff

’m mu ter nd ace an ow to ah; hat ust ace an ow to ah; hat ust ace ou gh

one of the things that really gets me is when people in my class say the “n” word, and then they think it’s okay because they say ‘well, [names another black student] hangs around us.’ That doesn’t give you the right to say that because you don’t know the meaning behind the word.”

Like Gibson, other students of color recalled instances where a white person called them the “n” word.

“I just think that they need to be educated on the words that they say before they say them,” Gibson said, “and they don’t understand that.”

Microaggressions can pose a significant problem for schools, which may struggle to address them. If peers at school point out ways in which minorities are different, they often feel alienated and may feel less welcome in school. “[Racism is] a very real thing,” junior Jada Hines said. “Just because we’re more sheltered in a private school doesn’t make it invisible. It’s still there. It’s still going to be there for a long, long time. And it may affect some people more than others.”

When racial slurs or inappropriate jokes happen at St. George’s, Assistant Head for Educational Access Mr. Timothy Gibson (no relation to Asia Gibson) said the administration does its best to try to handle them even if the punishment is not always visible to other students. Mr. Gibson encourages students to seek out a trusted adult

if they see situations like these.

“The first step is making sure that people know, because sometimes [students] assume that adults know, and we don’t always know,” Mr. Gibson said. “Then we take it from there and follow up and make contact with all involved parties to see what is the appropriate next step.”

But sometimes, students don’t feel that the school does all it can to combat racism. Carlton said that she would like for the school to take a more proactive stance against racism.

“I would like to see this school really acknowledge that racism is still alive, and it’s something that we as a younger generation should be taught to deal with and be taught to share with other people because some people in this school experience racism when we leave these doors [that] others don’t,” Carlton said. “I think that this school can help people to give them confidence in speaking up about how not to be afraid to talk about racism and really educate them on what racism is and how deeply it affects people, even the little things.”

Little things like jokes or offhand comments can have unintended effects on the people who hear them.

Senior Abby Walker, who is one-quarter Chinese, said she doesn’t know why people feel the need to point out her race to her.

“When people say you look really Asian today, I’ll think like ‘Oh, I need to look more white or

something’, you know, or more American,” Walker said. “But, I mean, in the end I’m not going to change myself because people are saying this to me, I’m just going to…I don’t know. When I really think about it, looking Asian isn’t a bad thing. It shouldn’t be a bad thing. It’s who I am, so it’s disrespectful [to make comments about it].”

“You see any black person in a video or something, they’d be like ‘Oh, this reminds me of you’,” Carlton said. “We look nothing alike. We act nothing alike. We’re just both black, and that’s how I remind you of that person.”

But Carlton said she doesn’t let those comments bring her down.

“I think of myself as not less than, not superior, but equal to

“...racism is still alive, and it’s something that we as a younger generation should be taught to deal with and be taught to share with other people....”

- Junior Kennadee Carlton Sophomore Luis Lopez, who has Guatemalan heritage, said he has had similar experiences, especially when he is speaking Spanish with his family in public. He says sometimes he feels too “American” and too “Hispanic” depending on the people he is around.

“I felt like I had lost my sense of American-ness, like I wasn’t a true American because of how I looked,” Lopez said. “Even though I talked English, and that’s a big step, I wasn’t still the true American because I’m not a white person.”

Like Walker and Lopez, Carlton said she is sometimes the target of racial comments.

everybody else in this school, no matter what people say or do to make me think otherwise,” Carlton said. “It’s made me think that since you think I’m less than, I’m going to show you that I’m not because I’m going to show you that I don’t care what you think. That’s how I prove them wrong.”

Junior Malaisyah Vann said that racial comments make her more determined to just be herself.

“If me being me bothers you so much, then I obviously have something that you’re lacking,” Vann said. “I don’t know what it is, but it makes me feel like I’m gonna keep doing me and no matter what it is stay true to yourself.”

Photography by Laura Beard Models: Asia Gibson, Kennadee Carlton and Luis Lopez In the course of doing the photography for this story, we wanted to put faces to the people interviewed here. Beyond that, we wanted them to be able to describe their experience in a more visual way. Each word painted on their face is one that they chose, to describe how they felt in the past or feel now in response to their experiences of racism. We did this in an effort to shed light on issues normally unseen, both literally and metaphorically.

“I CHOSE [MY PHRASE] BECAUSE WITHIN TODAY’S SOCIETY, BEING AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN FEMALE MAKES ME QUESTION WHEN I WILL BE NEXT TO BE A VICTIM OF A HATEFUL CRIME.” - ASIA GIBSON

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“I CHOSE MY WORD BECAUSE SOCIETY OVERSEXUALIZES BLACK WOMEN AT A VERY YOUNG AGE, MORE THAN THEY DO ANY OTHER RACE.” - KENNADEE CARLTON Of course, it’s not just white people who can can express discrimination. Within communities of color, colorism, or prejudice based on the relative darkness of a person’s skin color, can also cause discomfort.

Sophomore Ummu Bah said that she experienced colorism at St. George’s when some students of color said that she was “too white” to hang with black people.

“One day here in 6th grade, I remember I sat down with a group of girls and they were all like, ‘Sorry Ummu, no offense, but you can’t sit here.’ and I was like, ‘Well, what’s wrong?’ and they were like, ‘You’re not black enough,’” Bah said. “That was a question that came up there, or there’s a word that they called me in 6th grade, like an Oreo [black on the outside but white on the inside]. It really rubbed me the wrong way…so I can’t sit with you because I’m not black enough or I talked white, which I don’t even think you can talk a specific way. I remember I came home to my mom, and asked her, ‘Is there something wrong? Is there anything that I can control? Is it bad that I talk this way? Am I supposed to be acting a specific way?’”

Classrooms can pose different challenges. In history classes, Af-

8 The Lodge

rican-American students particularly can feel that they are singled out when the topic of slavery comes up.

“I understand that we’re black, and we should be able to relate closer to this than our white counterparts, but I don’t feel like you should purposefully single us out because you aren’t doing that with a white kid,” senior Kaitlyn Bowman said. “If [we] want to talk about it, we should raise our hand like we do with any other subject. So don’t ask like if we can relate or if we have any to add or anything like that on a topic.

Don’t assume that I should answer because I am black.”

Asia Gibson agreed.

“It’s okay because we have to talk about it. In every history class we have to talk about slavery, which is understandable because you need to know that content, but if you’re the only black student in the class, the teachers always come to you and are like ‘is that right?’” Gibson said. “And it’s like, why do you have to single me out because I’m black, and you think I would know the experience, but I don’t know the experience my ancestors had.”

Dr. Marianne Leung, who teaches U.S. history and chairs the history department, knows that students aren’t always treated

equally in the classroom.

“Research shows that teachers do treat different ethnic groups different in the classroom,” Dr. Leung said. “There’s plenty of research to back that up that we have different expectations and so on, and we try very hard here to not. We are aware of it, and we have trained on it, and we are trying very hard to not do that, so if students understand that our intentions are 100 percent good, then give us some slack too because we’re trying.”

Dr. Leung said she does not feel like she singles any students out, but knows that students make perceive things differently.

“I know there are many times where students are assuming that I’m saying one thing when I’m not because that’s what they expect me to say because of their assumption of who I am, and I have probably done the same thing,” Dr. Leung said. “But that’s the nature of being in a community

where you have many differences.

You are going to have many misunderstandings, and the beauty of that is that you can actually learn from that.”

Ms. Indigo Bailey, who teaches African American history in the upper school, has experienced the same situations Gibson and Bowman explained. Ms. Bailey said because of her family’s background in the civil rights movement, during high school she would be asked to take her teachers on field trips to places like her family court house. They would ask her during class what she thought about subjects that involved her heritage.

“I guess it troubled me to have all that pressure, but now I take it as: it made me this right here,” Ms. Bailey said. “It makes you question something you shouldn’t have to question as a child when you get singled out, but kids should also feel empowered by their backgrounds and not feel troubled by the fact that people don’t know their experiences until they ask you. Sometimes it’s just a genuine curiosity, and we shouldn’t be offended by that. It shouldn’t be so taboo to ask people about their backgrounds or talk about their experiences.”

Ms. Bailey understands that sometimes talking about race or heritage during class could be hard because teachers may find themselves singling students out by accident. Her advice is to not use student experiences as examples during a history lesson.

“If I even talk about something that deep or that sensitive that could affect somebody’s heritage or how they’ve been raised, you don’t want to single them out as an example like a guinea pig,” Ms. Bailey said. “They’re not the expert because they’re just a student. You are the expert. They’re coming for learning from you, so you should never use them as an example unless they voluntarily give their experiences as an

“If me being me bothers you so much, then I obviously have something that you’re lacking.”

- Junior Malaisyah Vann

“I’m different, and I have all these things to share with everyone else, new perspectives, new experiences that I can share with my classmates.”

- Senior Surabhi Singh example.”

Acknowledging people’s different identities could help students feel more comfortable talking about their experiences. Mr. Will Bladt, Associate Head of School, emphasized the importance of talking about differences.

“An element of white culture is that people are taught in many cases to not talk about difference, to not talk about things like race, class. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard anyone say ‘I don’t see different races when I talk to people.

I’m colorblind.’ What that does is rob people, particularly people of color of an important part of their identity. People who have a different experience or come from a different background that aren’t able to be seen in that way,” Mr. Bladt said. “I think it’s good for people to have the opportunity to understand the full facet of what makes someone who they are.”

Expressing how people are different as well as similar can bring people closer together.

Senior Surabhi Singh said that religion classes, which taught about different beliefs around the world, helped her because people were able to understand her beliefs better.

Senior Surabhi Singh’s parents are from India, and she practices Hinduism. She explained how much of a personal journey it was to face different cultures at home and at school.

“It’s made me stronger because I’ve always been in situations where I’m a minority, so just being able to embrace who I am and what I believe in,” Singh said.

“That happened at a much earlier age for me because balancing the ideals at school with my Indian home presented some challenges and determining my identity.”

With classes such as religion, Singh feels like her classmates have been able to understand their

differences better after they have studied her culture.

“Sometimes there’s misunderstandings, because someone might not understand what I believe in and parts of my culture, but never anything malicious, just some things that people don’t know about me,” Singh said. “But classes like Mr. Slatery’s world religions class, and just world history in general, have helped with things like that.”

Singh now is comfortable with her different cultural beliefs because she can share them.

“In places where I know I’m different, it’s not like a ‘I’m different, and I feel bad’,” Singh said. “It’s ‘I’m different, and I have all these things to share with everyone else, new perspectives, new experiences that I can share with my classmates.’”

Carlton believes that being able to discuss cultural differences at school is the first step to taking control of the situation. She attended Meet in the Middle, a club that focuses on discussing people’s experiences and identities, last year, and found it to be beneficial.

“I got to talk to some people who I’ve never talked to, and we talked about different things,” Carlton said. “I feel like if that had happened earlier, I would have been able to make more friends back then, more close friends.”

Mr. Gibson wants students to know they can speak up, and that they truly belong. “[The goal at the founding of St. George’s] was to create a school environment that mirrors the world, so that means people from all walks of life coming together and learning in high school,” Mr. Gibson said.

“Because when you go to college, you will be surrounded by people who are from all different walks of life. And then when you enter the workforce, you will be surrounded

by people from all different walks of life, and you learn to live and work together. You learn to learn together, and that makes your education more vibrant when you have people who look at the same questions you’re looking at from a different perspective. It helps you form your own opinion.”

Students said they took strength in the resilience of their communities.

Racism and racist actions are constantly being reported on by news outlets. U.S. News reported just recently that white supremacist propaganda nearly tripled just last year. Despite these events, people of color continue to bring their communities together.

In 2017, the New York Times reported on two rallies in Washington: the March for Racial Justice and the March for Black Women. The mission statement for the March for Racial Justice was to “harness the national unrest and help focus it into a national mobilization.” Many other marches like

the Indigenous Peoples March in 2 1 at Washington also fight for racial equality.

Bowman is proud of her race because of how they continue to come together.

“Because of all the hardships we endure like the racism and the discrimination we receive from other people for doing absolutely nothing or doing things that we have every right to do, it makes me view us as stronger,” Bowman said. “Because we go through all of that, we are still able to hold our head up high and have a positive outlook on the entire situation.”

Vann said that she hopes all people will come together as a human race.

“We all have to survive on this earth at the end of the day so why not live together?” Vann said.

“Why not make it as peaceful as it can be and enjoy our time on this earth while we still have it?”

Snowden Farnsworth and Laura Beard contributed to the reporting of this story.

“[MY] WORD IS FREE BECAUSE I FEEL AS IF SHARING MY EXPERIENCE PUT MY FEELINGS OUT IN THE WORLD, WHERE THEY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.” - LUIS LOPEZ

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Acting

&Activism

Local theater group is working to build community for the queer youth Photo by Laura Beard

PARTICIPANTS IN THE MID-SOUTH PRIDE PARADE CELEBRATE ON BEALE STREET. THE HOUR-LONG EVENT IS PART OF ONE OF THE LARGEST PRIDE FESTS IN THE MID-SOUTH.

By Dean Campbell. Snowden Farnsworth and Owen Hewitt

“

W

hen I moved to Memphis and began working at Playhouse, I approached the Playhouse On the Square staff with the idea of adding a Queer Youth Theater to our education department, and everyone was on board!” Ms. Carley Crawford said. “Thus, Q&A was born.”

Ms. Crawford founded the group in 2105 with Ms. Claire Rutkauskas in 2015. Ms. Rutkauskas grew up in midtown Memphis as a part of the LGBTQ community.

For many LGBTQ youth, finding an accepting community and space is essential, but rather

Illustration by Sierra Sellers

4 The Lodge

than waiting on society to change, Q&A, a Memphis-based queer youth theater troupe, has created one for themselves. The troupe admits members from ages 14 to 21 and is sponsored by Playhouse On the Square, as well as the National Pride Youth Theater Alliance.

“It’s been great to watch [the members] growth and the fact that now they’re in college, they’re very active in their Gay-Straight Alliance clubs and their theater communities,” Ms. Rutkauskas said. “Theater helps confidence a lot, so there’s that aspect, and then, of course, they’re socializing with people their own age.”

One adolescent feeling the effects of the Q&A program right now is Lucy Nassif, a freshman at t. ary’s, who openly identifies as bisexual.

“I came out and then a few months later my mom mentioned something about Q&A.” Nassif said. “For me that was a big deal because I knew that she was okay with my bisexuality.”

Q&A not only serves as a safe haven but also a creative outlet.

Members create original plays each year based on their experiences as LGBTQ youth using writing workshops and improvisation sessions to create the scripts.

“The fact that this has a goal, an objective: the teamwork, and also how to talk to the not-queer community about queer issues and

to have patience for questions and things like that,” Ms. Rutkauskas said. “Those are some of the big growths that I’ve seen.”

This year, Q&A is touring, taking the four original scripts that they have written to churches, businesses and schools to perform. Afterward they hold a 20-30 minute talk with the audience to create an even better understanding of the issues plaguing the community today.

While the plays that Q&A produce are often politically charged, Ms. Rutkauskas says that the statements they make are carefully planned.

“Because we represent Playhouse on the Square, we have to be very particular in how we approach political topics,” Ms. utkauskas said. “We definitely aren’t afraid to talk about politics, but we just don’t want to send the wrong, volatile message. It does come out in our writing, but it comes out in a very thought-out, planned way.”

Ms. Rutkauskas thinks that creating something is a productive way to get across a message of tolerance, as well as inform the public about the struggles that many LGBTQ people face. The group is mindful in creating their scripts so as to not isolate their audience.

“As a teenager, a lot of times it’s very easy to feel misunder-

stood or alone, judged, and so when they’re writing their scripts, a lot of times there’s a lot of anger and being mad at people,” Ms. Rutkauskas said. “One of the things that I had to talk to them about is that, ‘I hear you and you’re completely valid, but if you go see a show and someone yelled at you about how awful and closed-minded you were, would you leave that show feeling any more open-minded?’”

This line of thinking is essential to the creation of a welcoming community within the program.

“Q&A provided a space where I could be myself,” Nassif said. “It really allowed me to see people from different parts of the city because our city is so segregated.”

Nassif said that the group has helped her become equipped to be an ally to others within the community, as well as how to communicate the community’s concerns to those outside of the community.

This level of aspiration for the state of our social climate as a nation is the product of an upbringing taking place in a massive time of change.

Every high school and middle school student today was born during the era of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which created an opportunity for homosexuality in the military, so long as it was disclosed. At the

time, ending the ban on homosexuality in the military was a major step forward for LGBTQ rights.

“We went from zero in 1969 to hundreds of pieces of legislation at the local, county and state levels that are really the changes are including the change in the military,” Ms. Tracy Baim said.

Ms. Baim is the founder of the Windy City Media Group, a Chicago-based LGBTQ media outlet founded in 1985. She has written three books about LGBTQ issues and has long been involved in activism.

The progress made in the field of equality for LGBTQ rights has been easily visible for Baim, along with the shifting priorities of the LGBTQ community over the years.

“In the 2000s, marriage was not the front line issue that the gay movement was pushing for,” Ms. Baim said. “But it made activists out of everyday people and put people on the cover of publications across the country in ways that didn’t happen in other parts of the movement.”

Ms. Baim has also seen the recent spike in activism and political involvement across the nations’

many demographics.

“The protests these days attract tens of thousands of people,” Ms. Baim said. “We are in a moment in time for activism, whether it’s March For Our Lives or the Women’s March, these are marches that have a size and magnitude that I’ve never seen in my lifetime.”

The effects of the recent surge in activism throughout the younger generations has made a real impact on the progress made in the rights of LGBTQ people on both a national and local scale.

“In 2012 to 2017 there was some really great growth,” Ms. Rutkauskas said. “Marriage was legalized, and so much of the terminology and the understanding around gender identity and things like that [were created].”

The environment that young people have grown up in is wildly different from the environment that many of the adult figures in the community lived in.

“I come from an artistic family in midtown Memphis,” Ms. Rutkauskas said. “I was always around very open and accepting people, so I consider myself lucky in that sense. Overall, I remember when Ellen De eneres’ first

TV show came out, that was right around the age that I started thinking about coming out, so to see that across the country people weren’t really accepting it was crazy. Even in my relationships, I’ve never been able to have PDA just because I always have it in the back of my head that someone’s going to judge me.”

Members of the LGBTQ community have had different experiences, depending upon the era in which they grew up.

“I came out before a lot of people in my grade came out, and even my personality was very masculine around time that I came out.” Nassif said. “People would ask me questions, ‘When I did come out?’ and asked me if I was bi-curious. I got questions like ‘How do I come out to my family?’ People ask me questions all the time. Honestly, it makes me feel good that I can help someone and understand their situation, but safety is most important. I always tell people that. But it feels nice to get to help people and show them it is okay to be you, and that even if people don’t accept it you can still be yourself.”

LGBTQ youth have been

shaped by recent events both negative and positive, such as the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 and the legalization of marriage in 2015.

Through the highs and the lows, the community has created space for themselves through programs like Q&A. “I do think that some of the youth are worried, but they also have so much fire behind them and passion behind them that it helps me,” Ms. Rutkauskas said. “It’s easy for me to feel really defeated, but being around them they are like, ‘No, we’re going to fight it.

We are going to make it right.’

It’s really exciting energy to be around.”

Nassif emphasized the empathic attitude of our current time.

“I know it seems like there’s a lot of bad stuff happening right now,” Nassif said. “Remember that in the end, we are the people who will grow. Remember that the younger generation is going to change the world, and remember that we have the power to make a difference.”

LUCY NASSIF (BOTTOM CENTER) AND OTHER MEMBERS OF Q&A POSE FOR A PHOTO AFTER PERFORMANCE.

THEY PERFORM SHOWS WITH PLAYHOUSE ON THE SQUARE. Photo by Austin DeVine

CORRECTIONS AND RETRACTIONS: The Lodge strives for accuracy in all articles. However, mistakes are sometimes made. When this happens, you will see corrections here.

Issue 2, page 10: We neglected to credit Laura Beard for the background photo.

Issue 2, page 20: We misspelled Hayley Lambert’s name. Apologies, Hayley.

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Appropriation p Where do we draw the line between cultural appropriation p and appreciation? r e c i a t i o n

By Mimi Young

I

f you scroll through 19-year-old Swedish model and social media influencer Emma Hallberg’s Instagram page, you will see pictures of her with plump lips, medium complexion, and curly hair, but in real life, she is a white woman with straight hair, thin lips, and a light complexion.This is the social media trend of blackfishing, and it is one of the many examples of cultural appropriation today.

Blackfishing is the trend of white Instagram influencers changing their features to look more like black women using makeup, cosmetic surgery, and clothing associated with black culture.

“I don’t think there’s a reason for people who want to change their skin tone, especially with makeup, because it just seems rude,” senior Alexis Turner who is black said. “If we look far enough in history, there are times where people have taken black paint and put it on their faces as a sign of hate and disrespect.”

Cultural appropriation is the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, and ideas of one people or society by members of another and usually more dominant people or society, and many people, like Turner, see it as a sign of disrespect.

Katy Perry was accused of the appropriation of Japanese culture when she dressed up as a Geisha during her performance at the 2013 American Music Awards.

Marc Jacobs’ SS17 fashion show was accused of cultural appropriation when white models wore dreadlocks, a hairstyle associated with black culture.

Some groups are more likely to encounter cultural appropriation

Illustration by Crystal Baggett

than others. These examples reflect the taking of elements from a minority culture by a person from the majority culture.

“Sometimes it’s based on where they are and how other people treated them throughout history,” senior Surabhi Singh, who is of Indian heritage, said. “If they were marginalized in the United States, they’re more likely to think that it is cultural appropriation when people try to suddenly embrace their culture.”

A group’s perspective about cultural appropriation can be affected by their cultural background and history. “ or me specifically, my biggest encounter with cultural appropriation is when people use the e ican fiesta hat and use it to hold salsa or guacamole dip,” sophomore Luis Lopez, who is of Guatemalan descent, said.

Some examples of cultural appropriation can be more controversial than others. This is especially true if it is clear that the person appropriating the culture deliberately knew that what they were doing would be offensive.

There has been a debate in recent years over whether wearing Halloween costumes of Native Americans is offensive. This debate has expanded to costumes of mentally ill patients, LGBTQ people, and historical figures from other cultures.

“I feel that if you’re young, like itty-bitty, it’s more accepted, Lopez said. “If you’re older and of the majority ethnicity, you have to be careful with how you portray it.

I think it’s okay as long as you’re not crossing lines and being disrespectful towards the community that you’re dressed up as.”

Native American mascots have

become a topic of controversy.

The Change the Mascot campaign is a grassroots movement whose goal is to educate the public about the harmful effects of the word “redskins” and to urge the National Football League’s (NFL) Washington Redskins to change their name. In 2016, they issued a statement to the press in response to the Washington Redskins playing on Thanksgiving.

“At the very time our society is increasingly consumed by racial division,” the campaign wrote. ”It is unfortunate that the NFL continues to be a leader in promoting this kind of blatant bigotry.”

Other sports teams are making changes to their Native American mascots in response to the backlash. In January 2018, Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians announced that their logo, Chief Wahoo, would be removed from players’ uniforms and caps.

“I think intent is really the thing that differentiates the two,” junior Aiden Curran, who is white, said.“I think if you are meaning to belittle another group of people, I think that’s cultural appropriation.

Whereas if you’re celebrating another culture, then that’s cultural appreciation.”

Cultural appreciation is also more common in today’s society with the proliferation of information that the internet has brought with it. However, one has to be careful to educate themselves and represent the culture they are portraying with respect.

“My general viewpoint on it is that if you want to wear henna, if you want to eat Indian food, please do,” Singh said. “I’ll teach you about my culture, but just don’t make generalizations about it.”

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T

m fro

the

his issue of the Lodge tells a story.

A story of what it’s like to be human beings in the 21st century.

And what it means to have our struggles, on the inside and outside alike. This half of the issue is dedicated to what it means to struggle on the outside.

ter

The issues you’ll read about in this half of the issue are more outwardly visible than those you’ll find in the other half. These stories focus on what goes on outside our minds, and how we conduct ourselves when standing up for those less fortunate or less privileged than ourselves.

ors

Let

Ed i t

Some of us are more vocal than others when it comes to tackling the problems we face in society. For some of us, it’s easy to voice our opinions about issues that matter to us. But for others, it’s not so easy to speak up, so we want this issue to illustrate the idea that anyone can have valid input on anything, anytime.

Whether it’s examining how LGBTQ people experience legal prejudice or how students of different races handle their transitions to middle and high school life, we’ve devoted this half of the issue to diving into important topics with important consequences for the real world. Beyond that, through the blacklight photography we have featured, we have sought to illuminate our relationship with the universe outside ourselves.

Real-world implications are ultimately what journalism is about. It’s about giving readers important information, whether presented through factual reporting, fact-based opinion pieces, feature stories or some other medium. The kind of work we do on the Lodge is modeled based on the idea that everyone – students, teachers, parents and everyone in between – deserves a student publication with real-world implications. That’s the most important part of this issue. and turns we have yet to explore. We strive for the pursuit of truth, and we hope the truths we’ve published mean something to you.

We hope you’ll join us on our journalistic journey. It’s a journey we take every time we put out an issue, but this one will have twists about these issues, and to tell the stories of people who have lent their voices to our cause. school’s minorities. We’ve all come together for a common cause – to produce the best issue we can to tell our community and editors struggle with depression or anxiety or invisible illnesses. We have staffers who represent some of the The issue of mental health and problems we face on the inside is dear to us at the Lodge. Many of our reporters address your problems. which you can relate. We want you to feel understood. We want to show you resources to help you a perfect life, or anything close to it. What we want to bring you with this issue is stories to that tries to destroy your entire body, we at the Lodge understand that not everyone lives Whether it’s a chemical imbalance that affects your brain or an autoimmune disease invisible symptoms can hold us back from feeling understood or accessible. nature of issues like depression, anxiety or even a physical illness with stuck wishing for help, wishing for someone to talk to, but the problems don’t show up on the outside. Sometimes we feel We all handle our problems in different ways. But some struggle on the inside. of the issue is dedicated to what it means to the inside and outside alike. This half it means to have our struggles, on in the 21st century. And what like to be human beings A story of what it’s tells a story. the Lodge issue of This

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Volume 3, Issue 3 March 22, 2019

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