The Evanstonian, March 22, 2019

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va nston i an

March 22, 2019

Evanston, IL.

Evanston Township High School

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ERA Senior Lance Jones calls a play at the State championship.

Photo by Lia Kelly

Vol. 102, Issue 6

Kits end heroic season in championship defeat

By Eli Cohen, Chris Werner Sports Captain, Sports Editor With under 20 seconds to go in the 4A State championship game down 12 points, coach Mike Ellis subbed Ryan Bost, Jaheim Holden and Lance Jones out of the contest.

With their exit went the most successful three years of basketball in recent ETHS history. “[Bost, Holden and Jones] have given so much to the culture and tone of our program, there’s nothing I can say to show them how thankful I am,” Ellis said, following the championship game on Saturday.

The three star guards, who had played together since third grade, filled vital roles for the Kits since their sophomore season when Evanston reached their first of three consecutive Super Sectional games, losing a tight game to eventual State champion Whitney Young.

Last season, with the departure of star se-

niors Nojel Eastern, Chris Hamil and Elyjah Williams, many in the Chicagoland area anticipated a rebuilding year for ETHS. However, with leadership from the junior backcourt trio, the Kits shattered expectations, reaching the same stage from the year before -- only this time getting over the hump with a dominant victory over Lake Zurich to reach Peoria for the first time in a decade.

“When Nojel, Elyjah and Chris left, we had big shoes to fill,” Holden said. “The fact that everyone overlooked us gave us motivation to do something that had never been done before.”

The team went 1-1 in their two games in Peoria and took home a third place title.

After the junior season success, finishing third sparked a theme of unfinished business for the trio’s final year. However, they still had their fair share of doubters.

[Continued on Page 20]

Students walk out to protest lack of climate change reform

By Sarah Frieman Executive Editor

Last Friday, ETHS students joined thousands of students across the globe in participation of a school walkout, marching from campus to Fountain Square, in protest of the lack of action taken to intervene the threat of climate change.

“People are starting to realize that in 11 years, climate change will be irreversible, and maybe the people in government who are generally older than ourselves, may not be affected by it, but we will,” senior Mollie Hartenstein, one of the organizers, said. “It’s an inescapable reality that this is going to happen in our lifetime.”

International inspiration for the walkout started when Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who is now up for a Nobel Peace Prize, staged a school strike fighting climate change in front of the Swedish Parliament last August.

This action prompted the #FridaysForFuture movement, which some students around the world have been participating in for the past couple of months.

“The fact that someone my age called on international students to do it definitely gave me new motivation,” Hartenstein said.

At ETHS, the walkout was organized primarily by Hartenstein, School Board Student Representative Phoebe Liccardo and senior Lilly Bond, who were helped by a number of students from the Student Union. Organizers led students out of the school over to Fountain Square for the rally, escorted by the Evanston Police Department and the school’s safety department.

Liccardo, sophomore Oliver Leopold, Green Team President Arielle Weiss and junior Henry Eberhart all spoke addressing

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topics such as the lack of action, the impact of avoiding livestock products, the Green New Deal and the racial and economic inequalities within climate change.

Organizers then prompted students to call local politicians and passed out sheets containing information on how to do so.

“I think that we accomplished the goal we were striving for; there were a lot of people there and when we were calling senators and representatives the hotlines were being flooded,” sophomore Olive Cantor said.

After the ETHS walkout, some students attended a similar event hosted by Northwestern University, ultimately leading to a march to NU’s administration.

Many students expressed motivation to create a change in their personal lives. In addition, this past Monday, the Green Team hosted a waste audit, where students measured how much waste is thrown into the recycling and how much recycling is thrown into the waste at ETHS. “It was really informative…

I’m already a vegetarian but I feel that I’ll try to eat less dairy…

I just wish more people would’ve came,” sophomore Sophia Osilaja said.

According to The Washington Post, the March 15 strike involved over 100 countries and over 1,600 separate events. Additionally, the Green New Deal, introduced Feb. 7 by Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markley, has also been gaining traction with over 100 co-sponsors expressing support both before and after the strike.

“Climate Change will substantially impact the way that we live,” Hartenstein said. “That future isn’t far away, so if you want to live a long happy life, you need to care about this now.”

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Photos by Lia Kelly, courtesy of Avery Kaplan

Clockwise from top: senior Phoebe Liccardo, Mollie Hartenstein and Claire Dornbierer attend the walkout.

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2 - news

Citizens to vote for D202 Board on April 2

Teterycz

Palmer

Rolewicz

Parsons

By Zachary Bahar Assistant News Editor

Photos courtesy of the candidates

Monique Parsons has been involved in the Evanston community her entire life. After graduating from ETHS, she received a Bachelors in Sociology at the University of Minnesota before returning to Evanston to raise her son.

“I came back to raise my son here because of the values instilled in me... I still believe in that collective power of Evanston, no matter how upset I may get,” Parsons said.

Parsons has served on the FAAM Executive Board, as President and CEO of McGaw YMCA and as the Vice President of the ETHS School Board. “[I] have invested myself into this community, worked in it, not just passed through it,” Parsons said. “I love this community, and I’m very driven in making decisions that are best for the students.”

One of the issues that Parsons is running on is the divide in opportunities between white students and students of color.

“We can put our minds together and start to see some movement... we need to collaborate to make sure that our efforts reach the outside,” Parsons said.

Parsons has also spoken out about the need for increased community involvement.

“We haven’t found the right way to make that opportunity open to some families, especially black and brown families... [we need to] not only be constantly looking outwards but also looking inwards,” Parsons said.

Parsons was endorsed by the Organization for Public Advocacy and Leadership (OPAL) and can be contacted at mparsons4202@ gmail.com.

Liz Rolewicz is running for her first term as a District 202 Board Member on the platform of improving the distribution of resources to all members of the community.

“ETHS serves a lot of our population very well. My concerns are who are we not serving… and I want to shine a spotlight on them,” Rolewicz said.

Rolewicz graduated from University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been involved in the community through District 65 PTA and Back on Their Feet, which specializes in peer-to-peer support for those in need.

“Working with [marginalized individuals] caused me to realize that I want to get closer to our schools... so that we can make sure that the high school is serving all students equally and fairly,” Rolewicz said.

Rolewicz is running in part because of the equity initiatives that have sprung up in the past couple of years.

“There has been a lot of momentum in the last couple years and we’re reaching a critical mass of community members who see the value in this work and are willing to push it forward,” Rolewics said. “We’re trailblazing a lot of these efforts.”

Rolewicz stated that her work hasn’t gotten to the root of the problems in Evanston.

“Instead of putting a bandage on the issues, I want to help solve them… this school can help people rise out of whatever issues their having,” Rolewicz said.

Rolewicz has been endorsed by OPAL. She can be contacted at rolewicz4ETHS@gmail. com.

Slaney Palmer has been a teacher for many years and hopes to bring that insight to the Evanston School Board. “[I teach] because I love young people and am interested in the future,” Palmer said.

“This is an opportunity to have an impact on my community. To serve my community.”

Palmer was born in Jamaica and received his Masters in Education from Loyola Chicago. He currently teaches history in Highland Park.

“I see the value in ETHS. I want to help with the integrity of the institution. I see ways to improve the lives of the students and their learning outcomes,” Palmer said.

Palmer has noticed the gap in literacy rates amongst minority students at ETHS and hopes to get these students to where they need to be.

“Literacy is everybody’s business. It is not a reading teachers problem... We all need to read to be successful,” Palmer said.

Palmer currently acts as a board member at OAR Educational and Mentoring Scholarships, which helps students navigate the university process. Palmer realized that through a position on the board, he could improve the student experience at ETHS with his firsthand understanding of education.

“My curiosity motivated me to want to run for the school board… I always seek to serve the community of which I am a part of,” Palmer said.

Palmer can be contacted at slaney4dist202@gmail.com.

Stephanie Teterycz hopes to fuse her interests in education and equity through a position on the School Board.

“I have been... looking at a number of issues in which we need an equity lens to be able to counteract disparages in opportunity,” Teterycz said. “My reasons for running are to help high school students get college and career ready and to do so through the lens of equity.”

Teterycz has taught at Northwestern and led initiatives in diversity and strategic planning. She received her Masters in Education from Northwestern.

“I feel very involved in [ETHS]. I’ve watched my daughter in various public school settings, and I bring that lens to the school board,” Teterycz said.

Teterycz is involved in Making Evanston Equitable Together which organized the distribution of Black Lives Matter signs across the city.

“My role would be to champion equity work and help the administration [do that work]. To bring together...all constituents of the high school and making equity a common holistic effort,” Teterycz said.

Teterycz also expressed the need to increase parent involvement on the board level, and plans to get more student feedback. “[Evanston has a] common commitment to making sure that important work is getting done and to keep pushing to figure out ways we can do that better,” Teterycz said.

Teterycz has been endorsed by OPAL and can be contacted at stephaniefor202@gmail. com.

Corey Winchester declared Golden Apple recipient

By Rachel Krumholz Executive Editor

Corey Winchester was surprised with the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Golden Apple Committee during second period last Monday. They announced the award with a visit from friends, reporters and a musical fanfare.

“I definitely was shocked and humbled,” Winchester said. “I knew that [Golden Apple] would be surprising teachers and as soon as I heard ‘Corey Winchester!’ I was like this is the visit.”

Winchester teaches Honors and AP US History and Sociology of Class, Gender and Race and facilitates independent study courses in Critical Leadership Development.

The Golden Apple is a statewide program that recognizes exceptional teachers and works to help students thrive in the classroom. According to their website, their mission is to “inspire, develop and support teacher and school leader excellence in Illinois, especially in schools-of-need.”

550 teachers were nominated. Once 32 finalists were selected, 10 teachers were eventually deemed recipients of the award.

“I am not surprised at all. From the moment the Golden Apple folks were here just

observing his class and getting a scope of what he was doing, I automatically knew [he would win],” senior Caelen Behm said. “He is revolutionizing the way students think and bringing a sense of community to the public school system.”

Winchester was observed by Golden Apple award committee members after he was declared one of the finalists. Senior Emma Barreto was one of several people they interviewed about Winchester when committee members came to ETHS. “It was really nice to be talking about him and to know it paid off; that they actually heard us and honored him for what he is,” Barreto said.

Golden Apple recipients become lifetime members of the Golden Apple Academy of Educators, receive $5,000 and a spring sabbatical at Northwestern University.

Recipients of Golden Apple Awards will be honored on May 18.

“It’s not [about] the paycheck. This isn’t a job for me,” Winchester said. “Of course there are moments when you are fatigued and tired, but really this is a way of life, and I am very privileged to have the opportunity to implement the things I think are important for us in a world filled with so much negativity and oppression.”

Photos by Rachel Krumholz

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Chicago Mayoral Election heads to a runoff

By Izzy Lobin and Mac Stone Staff Writer, News Editor

In a truly historic election for the City of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, after garnering 17 and 16 percent of votes respectively, will head to a runoff election on April 2.

The election’s importance stems from the fact that the new mayor will be an African-American woman, no matter who wins.

Neither Preckwinkle nor Lightfoot were projected to make it to runoff, with many experts expecting Bill Daley and Susanna Mendoza as the two winners.

“There was a pretty clear preference for candidates that looked like change,” longtime political consultant Pete Giangreco said.

Lightfoot ran on a message of change, using her career as a reformer both in the private sector and at the city level to promote the theme.

“Lightfoot seems to be a refreshing newcomer,” senior Mollie Hartenstein said.

“She’s got a lot of experience in the Chicago political scene without being directly elected.”

On a different note, Preckwinkle promoted herself as an established politician who would have the experience and relationships necessary to get things done.

“Preckwinkle is definitely the establishment candidate,” Hartenstein said. “She knows what she’s doing, but it’s bad because it means she carries with her the baggage of the Democratic Party in Cook County.”

Lightfoot’s campaign took a boost from the indictment of alderman Ed Burke, who

Preckwinkle (left) and Lightfoot (right). was caught up in an FBI investigation. The federal accusations of corruption led many to look towards candidates from outside the political machine.

“Lori showed up at the perfect moment,” Giangreco said. “If the FBI had sat on the case another six months, this election may

Photos courtesy of Nathan Mac and Daniel O’Neil, Creative Commons

have come out differently.”

A narrative of low turnout on election day ended up being false, with almost 80,000 more votes being cast than the 2015 election.

In the closing weeks, both candidates will need to hunker down on their positions and work the masses in an effort to get their mes-

New CTE Classes added for 2019/2020 school year

Students work on an engineering project.

By Brynn Aaronson, Sofia Williams Staff Writers Cybersecurity After 13 years of teaching at ETHS, Gary Haller finally added a class to his 2019-2020 school schedule that he has been interested in for years: Cybersecurity. “[Cybersecurity] is something that I’ve been looking at for a number of years, trying to find a good curriculum that we could use, but I really hadn’t found anything until the Project Lead The Way (PLTW) came up with a cybersecurity curriculum. I looked at it and it really had everything that I was looking for,” Haller said.

Haller teaches many classes at ETHS, including AP Computer Science Principles, Introduction to Programming, Game Design Programming and the Information Technology Internship class in the Chromezone.

“The thing about cybersecurity is that it’s an applied field of computer science. It brings together a lot of different pieces of computer science,” Haller said.

The year-long class teaches the ethics of cybersecurity, how to secure personal computers, networking and digital forensics.

“It’s done with a lot of hands on scenarios

Photo by Jonah Charlton

...and you have to apply the various tools and techniques that you’ve learned throughout the course,” Haller explained.

To be able to take this class, students need to have taken an AP Computer Science course, but students with outside experience (for example, setting up their own computer) can also receive special permission.

“I think the computer science classes here at ETHS are an underdiscovered resource, and I’m hoping more and more students will look at computer science as a potential career field or as a way of building skills to support whatever career they’re going in,” Haller said. “Being able to apply the tools of computer science will help students no matter what career they’re going into.”

Engineering Design and Development Along with seven other engineering classes offered at ETHS, Cindy Curtis has added Engineering Design and Development to the lineup.

“It’s a capstone course, offered for senior students who have at least taken one Project Lead The Way class in our engineering sequence,” Curtis said.

While Engineering Design and Development is set to become the eighth engineering course available for students, the class differs

from others by allowing students to actually be engineers in class. “[This class] allows the student to take a problem or an issue…and see that problem and solve it through a process of design. Kids will identify a problem, brainstorm solutions to the problem, develop some sort of solution that they’re going to try, prototype it, test it out, collect data, [and] evaluate it,” Curtis explained. “[They’ll] go back and make new renditions of it, if there was something in their data that didn’t come through, and then they will present their findings to a team of engineers [at the end of the year].”

With the responsibility of actually creating a product, there is a lot of work to be done.

“A big part of it will be research; they’ll have to research ‘are there any patents on the design? Are there any prior solutions? Has anybody ever come up with a process they maybe want to innovate or change?’” Curtis said. “So it allows students to really feel what it’s like to be put in a situation to solve a problem, and be empowered to actually solve it.”

Even if students don’t plan on becoming engineers, the class can still be valuable.

“You will need to solve problems whether you are an engineer, a lawyer, a computer scientist, a doctor,” Curtis said. “You need to be able to take a failed solution [and] overcome that, and be able to redesign, refine, in order to have a workable solution...You don’t have to want to be an engineer to be successful in this class.”

Note to readers: A white national extremist carried out anti-Muslim terrorist attacks on two mosques last Friday in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 people. The Evanstonian is currently developing an article in response to these attacks and related events.

Additional stories: Advanced Fashion is also a new CTE class for next year and will be featured in the next issue.

Additional briefs on Mock Trial and the IJAS Regional Science Fair can be found online at Evanstonian.net.

sage out.

Based off of her explosive win in the first round of the election, Lightfoot may carry the momentum through to the runoff. But Preckwinkle isn’t one to be passed, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to anybody to see another close set of numbers come April 2.

New team aims to shift community service culture

By Louise Bond Staff Writer The recently established team, currently being referred to as the Community Involvement Initiative Team, had its second meeting on March 7 to discuss how to best shift the culture around community service at ETHS to be more inclusive and accessible.

“Kids learn about community service and it’s often sort of about the hours about getting the credit, and so we want to kind of move away from that, make it more about the intrinsic value of being involved,” history teacher and team co-coordinator Andrew Ginsberg explained.

This committee is not only open to staff but students as well.

“I think it’s nice to have a space where it’s both teachers and students because you have multiple perspectives,” junior Ulo Freitas, who attended the second meeting, said.

Bringing these perspectives to the administration is one of the main goals of the team, especially because a disproportionately large amount of recorded service hours are from white females, according to team co-coordinator Mary Collins.

“There could be a couple things that could be happening,” Collins said. “We are not engaging males, especially males of color, at the same rate we are able to engage white females, or... we are not recognizing the contributions and involvement that males of color have in the community, and in the school because they’re not falling into the conventional categories of volunteering at a soup kitchen or at a non-profit.”

One idea to address this problem is to expand what is counted as community service at ETHS. As defined by the community service office, any unpaid volunteer work at a non-profit or public sector organization that is not “religious in nature or [promoting] a specific political party or candidate” can be counted as service.

“There’s also this concern that the phrase ‘community service’ is associated with judicial punishment,” Collins said.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

4 - opinion

opinion

Illustration by Leah Brieva

Critics of trigger warnings are missing the point

By Callie Grober Opinion Edtior “How the new political correctness is ruining education,” reads the cover of The Atlantic’s September 2015 issue, as a lighter sets the words aflame. It’s referring to the article “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, which makes the case against trigger warnings in the classroom.

The story, which drew a significantly wider audience to the trigger warning debate, was one of many decrying the safe space/ trigger warning movement as students who, in so many words, were weak or lazy or simply just didn’t want to be challenged. Haidt and Lukianoff depict university professors as victims of the oversensitive, irrational psyche of the modern-day college student, constantly fearing the “online mobs” students might stir up against them.

But, what Lukianoff, Haidt and many others are missing is that the trigger warning debate isn’t about laziness or political correctness at all. It’s about helping to remedy the growing mental health crisis in our schools, with one in five young people showing symptoms of a mental health disorder, according

to the CDC, and the continuing institutional disregard for that crisis by those in power.

Exacerbating this problem, Haidt, Lukianoff, and many other academics reinforce the already monstrous stigma around mental health by propagating ideas that belittle the young adults fighting for trigger warnings and safe spaces. Dismissing and invalidating the concerns of young people does not make educational institutions any more effective or help young people become adults and toughen up, as many claim. What it does do, however, is guarantee that a decades long silencing of those speaking out against corrupt educational institutions continues without resistance.

The history of trigger warnings contributes to how this stigma developed. The first uses of trigger warnings were primarily on feminist blogs and forums, warning readers about discussion of sexual harassment or assault. However, the idea of trigger warnings in education didn’t seem to reach mainstream audiences until about 2014, due to many universities taking stances on their place in the classroom. Oberlin, for example, endorsed trigger warnings in a 2014 resource guide on sexual assault, but quickly amended their stance following backlash from faculty and media. More and more universities and academics became involved in the discussion, each taking increasingly polarized stances.

Soon, the original intention, which mainly stemmed from avoiding triggering those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, was lost among shouts of “the embarrassing fragility on college campuses” from The Washington Post and “free speech trumps trigger warnings” from The Orion.

Some students and educators still fought for trigger warnings and tried to reiterate

their importance in regards to the safety of students. But, politicization had taken over the conversation, with headlines like “Trigger warning: Either you’re for free speech or you’re not” from The Boston Globe. “Political correctness” and “freedom of speech” became buzzwords, as voices trying to advocate for real mental health reform were forced to the background. This is not to say that people stopped fighting, or that there weren’t as many people for trigger warnings as there were against -- as it’s impossible to find exact numbers -- or even that first amendment and political correctness debates aren’t important topics to have dialogues about. But using trigger warnings to have those debates is extremely misguided. Discussions took on a life of their own and became guided by media and academics who seemed to have little to no regard for the actual mental health issues that started the conversation in the first place.

Ultimately, trigger warnings are necessary so that students feel safe at school. A stable classroom environment, among other things, is essential for learning to occur. There is nothing more important than students’ safety.

This does not mean that every single text we read or video we watch needs to be preceded by a trigger warning, just for topics that are commonly triggering of PTSD (for example: sexual assault, gun violence, domestic violence).

Of course, there is no way to provide trigger warnings for every single instance that a student might be triggered. However, it is the responsibility of educators to create a sense of comfortability in their classroom, and using warnings for common triggers is one important way to do this. This trigger warning does not necessarily mean that the student will never be expected to learn whatever the

teacher is teaching using the triggering material, but it gives students a heads up for what type of material will be presented to them so they can prepare emotionally and, if needed, use resources in school or otherwise.

If a student is triggered by material, teachers should work to educate that student on the concepts, without using that triggering material.

For example, in one of my classes this year, we watched 12 Years a Slave, which chronicled the life of a free man who was captured and forced into slavery in the south.

The movie included graphic scenes of violence, gore and sexual assault along with frequent use of racial slurs. This all could be very triggering for many students even with trigger warnings, but my teachers did not provide any. I couldn’t even focus on the movie because of these graphic scenes and felt extremely uncomfortable during most of the movie, but I also felt like I couldn’t step out of the room because my teachers didn’t offer that opportunity.

As a white person, I understood the necessity of me to stay engaged throughout the film; however, I felt too overwhelmed by some of the graphic scenes to the point that I wasn’t able to be fully present for the potential educational impact. Also, the film’s illustration of American racism and its relationship to violent language could have triggered students of color in ways that I wouldn’t have been triggered.

Senior Anna Termolen perceives that “there’s a big lack of trigger warnings at ETHS.”

Continued version of this story is available on Evanstonian.net

opinion - 5

Listening to the echo: the effects of hate algorithms

By Zachary Bahar Assisstant News Editor A story of lies.

It should come as no surprise to most of us that Evanston, a city which prides itself on diversity and equity, is far from that which it claims to be. A history of redlining and racism runs deep through the veins of our city, and despite the advances we have made in equity and acceptance, so few in Evanston truly know and interact with people of other races due to the difficulties in overcoming the segregation built into its roots.

While this pseudo-diversity has been extensively talked about in our community, there is another, and in my opinion, even worse claim that many Evanstonians will make. A claim which seems to have persisted, despite its obvious flaws. A claim that allows those who make it to feel better about themselves afterwards. This claim being that they have “seen all perspectives.”

The argument of seeing all perspectives, one that many liberals in our community have adopted, is that before forming a belief, all sides must be taken into account.

While granting people the ability to see multiple perspectives of the complicated world that surrounds us may seem good, the Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The good intentions of attempting to hear all sides so quickly fall apart when people are confronted with those who disagree with them on a fundamental level. Liberals in particular shut down the conversation and close

discussion between two humans. Rather than seeing people as people, they become viewed as the enemy.

This is what I have witnessed in Evanston, a community that prides itself on lies of diversity, both through race and beliefs.

Take for example the recent conversations surrounding a Covington High School student’s use of a MAGA hat while at an Indigenous rights march. I saw that people naturally assumed more about the incident and the context behind it because someone wore that hat, regardless of the facts that later surfaced.

These facts include the countless misunderstandings and assumptions made about that story, such as the presence of the Black Israelites and the libel that news organizations brought against the students.

Before I continue, it should be obvious that if you don’t feel safe communicating with someone, due to direct threats against you or your people, you shouldn’t. Your own safety always comes first. But in many situations, this is not the case, as many individuals will simply refuse to communicate with those of opposing political leanings, for no reason other than these differences in opinions. As long as you are not directly threatened, you must have these discussions. Only through having these discussions is it possible to heal the divisions that have plagued our nation in the past decade. The political divide is worsening; we must try to heal it to keep the violence that so often comes with extremism from growing.

I am not a conservative. I consider myself to be a left-leaning centrist, but in a community such as ours, these views have often been interpreted as being far more conservative than they are. Often it seems that anyone who leans slightly right will be viewed as a far right extremist or labeled racist. Despite the fact that assuming that anyone with conservative beliefs is no better than dehumanization, something that many feel is the greatest issue with liberals. These assumptions towards the right are in part based in the political history of Evanston.

Evanston is a community that has voted Democratic for the last 60 years and as such, has a homogenous composition of political beliefs, a topic addressed in both of the last mayoral elections and in a Huffington Post article from the same time. When this is the case, it makes complete sense that those who “threaten” the peace of that community would be viewed as the enemy, just as I have seen.

This leads to the polarization, isolation and hatred that conservative beliefs have received in our community.

Among the numerous examples of this that I have seen, some of the ones that have stood out the most are statements from my peers such as “How could you stand to be around someone like that?” “We need an extreme leftist to win the next election” and “I don’t know how you could work with those

Illlustration by Madison McGuire

people? They don’t view others as human!”

(Note the contradictions in that statement -dehumanizing those who are being called out for dehumanization.)

Perhaps one of the most obvious examples of this sentiment in our community comes from the very publication in which I now write. In the Dec. 21 issue of The Evanstonian, there was a piece entitled “Right-wing politics are an ideological threat to a functioning America.”

Continued version of this story is available on Evanstonian.net

Economically segregated communities are not diverse

By Na’jiah Osborne-Francellno Staff Writer Many individuals view Evanston as a diverse community. I am a Black female and I disagree with this notion entirely. I have lived in Evanston for 11 years, and I feel that Evanston is just becoming more and more segregated.

For a location to be considered a diverse community, everyone needs to feel comfortable with interacting freely. I myself have found it hard to interact with people outside of my race and social class. I can see why many people may feel as though Evanston is “diverse,” as you visually recognize different types of people from all different backgrounds such as race or religion.

However, it has become increasingly clear that this town has always been economically segregated. The question we need to be asking ourselves is, why do we allow our socioeconomic status to determine who we feel comfortable interacting with?

Senior Nayla Watkins Johnson, who identifies as a Black female, explains that “many of us are closed minded. We feel intimidated to interact with each other because of our differences. If you look at our student section, you barely see any Black students.”

ETHS has a lot of activities and clubs students can get involved in. However, how in-

clusive are these clubs? The student section, also known as “Blue Crew,” is not the only student-run activity where people see a lack of diversity.

The Evanstonian, an all student-run club, has been repeatedly called out for its lack of diversity. As a community, we need to focus on how to further promote these clubs outside of our typical every day “friend groups.”

It is important for students at ETHS to not only make new friends, but to include everyone. When we eliminate tension, discrmination and intimidation that any student may feel upon joining these clubs and groups, this blatant exclusion will no longer be abruptly recognized. The stigma surrounding being wealthy has completely affected how we treat

identifies as a white female, states that “Evanston is very separated. Even in school, everyone only hangs out with their race.”

I find it very odd how a community that is filled with so called “woke liberals,” don’t find it an issue that students are not socially integrated.

As a town, Evanston has failed to properly integrate minority families into affordable homes. Because of this, low-income families in Evanston will never be seen living in the same neighborhood as those who are wealthy.

Why do these families have to placed in a whole different part of Evanston? Isn’t the whole point of integration to bring people together? I live by the lake. I can definitely see the difference in neighborhoods because

As a town, Evanston has failed to properly integrate minority families into affordable homes. others and it has become a real problem.

While people’s racial and religious backgrounds are common causes of general intimidation, certain acts of exclusion can be recognized by something as simple as the clothes you wear. If you don’t have the “latest trending item,” you are automatically less than another person. You feel limited to conversations with those outside of your racial and social class groups. This creates exclusion in the community.

Believe it or not, your socioeconomic status plays a big part in how you interact with others. Many students may have prejudice when it comes to those they surround themselves with.

Sophomore student Sidney Himel, who

if you continue driving down my block, you will see a huge increase in mansions. I frequently ask myself, “Why didn’t we have the chance to live in those homes?”

Personally, I believe many minorities aren’t given the chance to move into these homes because these properties are generationally passed down and inherited by family members and the cycle continues. It is very rare to find minority families living in three story homes in Evanston, which is unfortunate.

Economic segregation will never change if we don’t accept that it is an issue.

In Evanston, if you are wealthy, you are privileged in many ways other than just housing. Many students who are considered upper class most likely have had several years of

extended education. These students end up being better candidates for AP or Honors classes here at ETHS. A divide is created amongst the community because not everyone is given the same chance at getting into these classes. While there are opportunities to earn honors credit, students still experience intimidation in these environments which makes it harder for minority students to want to take on that educational challenge.

It is hard to feel like the only minority in a classroom. I am in multiple honors classes and sometimes it is harder for me to speak up in these environments because of judgment.

As a community, we should be encouraging all students to challenge themselves and we need to develop a comforting learning environment in these advanced level classes.

This is important because underprivileged minority students are being subject to feeling less than when in diverse communities we should feel like equals. We should not be able to allow our socioeconomic status take ahold of who we interact with. We are all people of the same town. When it comes to the issues we have in this world, we all claim to be so aware. But why is it that we are so blind to the issues that we have in our own community? Everyone is so brainwashed to the point that they don’t even have their own opinions anymore. We have been trained to think alike on the same issues; we have been trained to act like “liberals of society,” when really it is all an act.

We need to stop worrying about the issues in the world and try to make a difference in the environment we live in. We need to do more reflecting, accepting and talking, and a lot less flaunting.

Continued version of this story is available on Evanstonian.net

6 - opinion

Teenagers, labor and unions: a call to action

By Joe Whitcomb Staff Writer According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, five million American teens between the ages of 16 and 19 are at work, toiling their hours away.

Some work to support their families, to gain financial independence or to finance an evermore expensive college education on their own terms. Our work is valuable. It is vital to both the interconnected society we live in and the lives we support.

And yet all of our earnings are on average lower than any other age group. Our hours clash with our study schedules and our athome responsibilities. And our bosses, often middle managers or small business owners, routinely engage in wage theft (by misappropriating tips or illegally shortening hours) and abuse. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that upwards of $60 billion per year is lost to wage theft, primarily in low wage jobs (which are often held by teenagers).

In short, our labor is exploited. Our time is wasted and our dignity is disrespected. Our age gives our employers a cover to commit abuse, and also makes traditional support resources unattainable.

How is a minor spending seven hours a day at school and still more hours at work supposed to find time to contact a lawyer, or report predatory practices? How are we even supposed to know how to?

Schools don’t offer classes that cover this kind of self advocacy. As a matter of fact, they compound the issue. “No-nonsense” teachers train us to take abuse from those in a position of authority. Arbitrary and complex grading systems tell us that rewards for our

time and labor are out of our control. Punitive discipline codes make us fear regulatory authorities.

All of these factors train teens to devalue our time and effort. We accept starvation wages of eight dollars an hour with little question. We brush off a discriminatory comment or a disparaging remark. We keep our heads down and remove ourselves from the conditions of our own experience.

And in return, we receive scraps. Our already low wages are riddled with surprise garnishments. We usually don’t receive benefits or raises or bonuses. Essentially, we are kept on the hook at great personal expense for inadequate compensation.

This must change by any means possible.

And we know how to change it.

For the first century after the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the vast majority of workers in this country toiled under similar conditions.

Those who weren’t actual slaves were paid scraps, routinely discriminated against, and had no political power.

So they fought. The American labor movement arose during the Gilded Age, with the explicit intention of breaking the owning classes political and economic hegemony. Powered by groups like the Industrial Workers of the World and the American Federation of Labor, workers went to war.

Their battles read like reports from a warfront. Eleven died in a battle with police in Chicago in 1886. Eighteen were killed in

Homestead, Pennsylvania in 1892 and thirty others in Pullman, outside of Chicago, two years later. Twenty people died when the notoriously anti-union Los Angeles Times was firebombed. One hundred forty six women succumbed to fire in New York after a fire started in their factory, in which an anti-union boss had chained the doors closed during work hours. Twenty one were gunned down by the National Guard in a Ludlow, Colorado family camp, during the Colorado Coal Wars that would claim up to 200. Ten died in a furious battle outside Matewan, West Virginia, followed by one hundred more after a heroic sheriff from Matewan was assassinated at the courthouse.

And for all this blood and death, the American labor- e r earned something. Child labor was outlawed. The minimum wage and overtime were established.

An eight hour workday was promoted.

Unions were legalized and protected, culminating in the Wagner Act, which allows collective bargaining, or employee input on the economic actions of companies.

The people had won.

With their victory, the country changed significantly. All of a sudden, the middle class and the suburbs appeared, powered by wealth gotten through unions.

And in the last fifty years, it’s all fallen apart.

Today, there are less peoIllustration by Ellie Lind ple unionized than there were

fifty years ago. Having lost the physical war, the moneyed class has engaged in a cultural campaign to crush sympathy for those who valued their labor. Bosses and owners have made unions look dangerous, while simultaneously passing laws that undermine unions’ effectiveness.

And still, people are struggling. Still, people are criminally underpaid and dangerously unprotected. Still, millions of Americans give their lives to a machine that cares not for them and their families, that exploits them and their time for capital.

The fight must begin again, with us.

Early unions failed in their vision. Their scope and their support was not grand enough. As such, the country has forgotten what it worked so hard to attain. We, the youth, must remind those of us who have forgotten. In the words of freedom fighter Huey Newton, “the revolution has always been in the hands of the young.”

Those of us who oppose exploitation, who oppose the theft of our hard work, must union- ize. In every job and in every manner, we MUST join together.

At the beach and at the pool, in restaurants, shops, and theaters, the youth must revolt.Get a complete schedule and bring your coworkers on board.

Demand control and oversight of hiring and firing decisions and of hours apportion-

ment.

Raise your pay to $15, $20, $30 per hour. Go on strike, with or without giving your employer notice.

If your boss hires replacements, form a picket line and prevent others from entering.

You are more valuable than even you know. Your life and your work is yours and yours alone. Seize it.

Or continue getting paid $8 an hour with your head down and your conscience repressed.

It’s your choice.

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Eva n s t o n i a n Executive Editors Jonah Charlton, Sarah Frieman, Rachel Krumholz News Editor Mac Stone Opinion Editor Callie Grober Feature Editor Trinity Collins In-Depth Editor Ben Baker-Katz Arts and Entertainment Editors Sofie Kennedy, Sophie Monzo

Sports Editor Chris Werner Photo and Arts Editor Lia Kelly Layout Editor Sophie Monzo Public Relations Editor Ella Kanter Asssistant Editors Zachary Bahar, Grayson Charlton, Mimi Herrick, Caroline Jacobs, Sophia Weglarz Adviser Patti Minegishi Delacruz

Writers, Artists, Photographers, Layout, Copy:

Brynn Aaronson, Izzy Basso, Peter Barbato, Michael Barthelemy, Sam Beebe, Everneesa Beech, Kayla Black, Nakaiya Bias, Louise Bond, Leah Brieva, Eli Cohen, Maddie Coyle, Lauren Dain, Eden Drypuch, David Dupuis, Gabi Dylis, Benji Fervoy, William Fogue-Wambo, Hailey Fine, Tyler Francis, Ellie Garry, Sophie Gomez, Sabine Gratch, Tamara Guy, Chloe Haack, Ava Hadley, Kaila Holland, Quinn Hughes, Zosia Johnson, Noah Kayaian, Sophie Lammers, Rowan Leonard, Sally Levine, Izzy Lobin, Rebecca Lustig, Ellie Lind, Cate Lynch, Eli Marshall, Aldric Martinez-Olson, Sophia McCandlish, Rose McCredden-Welch, Madison McGuire, Nora Miller, Patrick Moffitt, Cam Mulvihill, Zach Myers, Sari Oppenheimer, Sarah Parisien, Sam Pasek, Gabriel Peters, Noa Polish, Phoebe Porter, Alejandro Quiles, Maia Roothan, Natalie Schneider, Litzy Segura, Meena Sharma, Sadie Sims, Anna Skey, Olivia Stitely, Sydney Ter Molen, Saskia Teterycz, Sarika Waikar, Liana Wallace, Ellie Weiler, Jojo Wertheimer, Joe Whitcomb, Sofia Williams, Jasmine Wright, Sophie Yang

The Evanstonian is the official student newspaper of Evanston Township High School, 1600 Dodge Ave., Evanston IL, 60201, published as an open student forum. The opinion of columnists and opinion writers belong to the writer and are not representative of the staff. The Evanstonian welcomes feedback amd guest submissions from its readers delivered to the Evanstonian office or emailed to evanstonian@eths202.org. Full working editorial board policy is available on evanstonian.net.

opinion - 7

A lesson before falling The bookshelf tipped at your feet, but as the spine of Corduroy shattered to fragments, as the pages of Knuffle Bunny fell to shreds and as the wails of Goodnight Moon rotted to nothing, your teacher saw the desire for destruction gleaming in your glassy eyes, that were begging to spill onto your reddening cheeks.

She held your wrist tightly, dragging your body across the room, feet dancing along the carpet, arms flailing in the air, while you cried and clawed for any last clamor you could hold onto, even as you felt it melting away softly in your palms.

She may have seen that desire for destruction gleaming in your eyes, but if only she really saw you. If only she saw you beyond just another brown face that she was tasked with taming. If only she saw you beyond just another brown face doomed to be chewed up and swallowed by the system. If only she saw you beyond just another brown face that desired destruction.

Because your desire for destruction was a desire for direction, a reach, a hold, a pull onto anyone or anything who would stop you from falling through the cracks.

From as early as I can remember, I pranced along the cracks. Every time my black Mary Jane-clad feet landed on the ground, a rumble of destruction followed.

For two years, I wreaked havoc on my Lincoln Elementary School kindergarten and first grade classes, which, coupled with the fact that I was reading levels behind where I should have been, centered me as the object of teacher resentment early on.

And as the resentment grew, so did my desire for destruction, which ultimately fell to anger. An anger that surged from my mother being called “a monkey.” An anger that landed me in the principal’s office with a suspension.

As I felt my body slipping through the cracks, darkness suffocating me, I saw a hand—my mother’s hand. And once she finished lifting up my sinking body, she moved on to defending me, protecting me, washing away my principal’s words, which were painted with hues of scorn and enmity.

From then on, I no longer possessed the desire for destruction that once filled every fiber of my being. Where school was once a place of animosity, it then became a place of opportunity, all because I had that one hand of someone who cared about me to hold me before falling. But, what is to be said of those who are left to slip?

For many of my peers, the grip of the American public school system loosens, and they fall. They plummet. They sink. And the ones that sink, the brigade of the “bad kids,” slowly start to clad themselves in resentment of their teachers, their peers and their beloved education system that is supposed to protect them.

Below, in the breaches of society, lay the former “bad kids,” into the forgotten crannies, the nothingness of neglect, where the dust coats the walls, floors and corners. The smiles of the once-joyful fade into grey. The yearnings of the once-eager dis-

By Sophia Weglarz Assistant Opinion Editor

integrate into powder. The hope of the once-innocent fractures into cracks.

We let them fall through the cracks because, somehow, the cries of the “bad kids” don’t ring through the air quite like those of the “good kids,” and we do not only let them fall, but we also watch dully as they do, using their ear-splitting shrieks as a lullaby as we drift off into a bed of ignorance and negligence, repeating to ourselves quietly, “We’ve done all that we could to help them,” all so we can sleep through the night.

In truth, we’ve done nothing. Where we could have fostered growth, we , instead, fostered binaries, dehumanizing binaries between the “bad kids,” the inhabitants of the corner, the referral recipients, the eternally-abhorred and the “good kids,” the inhabitants of the front row, the compliment-clad, the eternally-adored.

Thus, a gap of resentment, one fueled primarily by the teacher’s affection and attention, persists, as the “good kids” are showered in accolades while the “bad kids” are left to be doted on upon with animosity and hatred.

From writing ‘I will not disobey.’ over a hundred time until your knuckles bleed to taring at the cracking paint until your eyes sting, this teacher-based resentment strives to achieve one purpose—to osctracize the “bad kids,” with nothing and no one to help them.

While the ostracization continues, the “bad kids” are alone with no one to reach out to with the sole choice of retaliation to hold onto, fueling that same desire for destruction that brought them there in the first place. Crying and clawing out in frustration from the resentment and ostracization, expecting for their teacher to hold them, help them, and tell them that it will all be okay, only to have that teacher loosen their grip from that outstretched black or brown hand, the cycle of destruction continues on.

As black and brown children fall through the cracks, the desire for destruction will dance along the glossiness of their eyes, twirling into their young minds fueled with hopelessness and loss of belonging, filling in tears of rage that drip down their face, onto their hand, their fist, their method of destruction, their method of crying out for help, their method of clawing for clamor. Clawing on, they go, scuffling for control, heart beating, gasping, sobbing, grasping, grasping for a hand that was never there to begin with.

Alas, there is a lesson before falling. Their teacher never loved them, their peers never loved them and their beloved American public school system never loved them. It resented them. It broke them. It let them fall.

Illustration by Nora Miller

La importancia de promover el español en ambientes escolásticos extracurriculares Por Mario Olvera, Tiernen Flannery, Litzy Segura, Gelsey Olvera Escritor Invitados, Escritores de apoyo Somos un grupo pequeño en ETHS (equipo de Debate en español) que prepara un debate sobre el tema de la estadidad puertorriqueña o sea: ¿Debe Puerto Rico integrarse como el 51 estado de los Estados Unidos de América?

Nosotros vamos a presentar el debate en abril en el Little Theater. Hay muchas opiniones sobre este tema de Puerto Rico y es importante informarse sobre los distintos puntos de vista. Pero a la vez de intentar informar a los estudiantes de ETHS sobre el tema específico, también queremos involucrar a más estudiantes Latinx en la actividad escolástica de Debate para promover la importancia del uso del español en los entornos académicos.

Queremos que más hispanohablantes se junten al equipo para que el equipo en español sea reconocido y valorado en ETHS. Nuestros objetivos a largo plazo es que se unan más escuelas para atender la diversidad de opiniones y promover esta actividad en español a nivel más extendido. Pensamos que es importante para nuestra Comunidad Latinx que más escuelas en Chicago se involucren en esta actividad.

Teniendo un equipo de debate en español será importante no sólo para que uno no se olvide el español pero también para que desarrollemos la habilidad de usarlo de forma académica y profesional y promover tal uso.

Viviendo en un país que en su mayoría hablan inglés, cada vez nosotros hablamos menos español y poco a poco se va a ir acabando el idioma entre nosotros en nuestra Comunidad Latinx.

El equipo no es sólo para los hispanohablantes, también animamos que vengan gente que toma la clase de español para desarrollar su español y promover el español.

El año pasado el equipo debatió su primera presentación en el Little Theater. Debatieron si se debe obligar a todos los maestros a aprender un nivel mínimo de español para poder relacionarse mejor con hispanohablantes de ETHS. Es importante que haya actividades extracurriculares escolásticas en español. Nos gustaría ver otras actividades escolásticas también valoradas como “Discurso (Speech)” en ETHS en español por las razones ya mencionadas.

Queremos que nuestro equipo se extienda en algo más allá de ETHS y que motive la formación de más equipos en otras escuelas.

Con este equipo, nuestro idioma puede establecerse en actividades prestigiosas escolásticas de ETHS. El equipo de debate no es simplemente otro club de ETHS sino representa un esfuerzo de promover y extender el uso del español a niveles académicos extracurriculares y así tener un impacto positivo para nuestra Comunidad Latina.

8 - feature Illustration by Nora Miller

Other Chicagoland Based, POC Owned Businesses This list does not encompass every business whose owner identifies at a person of color. However, these are several businesses in the area: Food: Hecky’s Barbeque Soulwich [Asian cuisine inspired sandwiches and salads] Claire’s Korner [Jamaican cuisine] Kuni’s Japanese Restaurant Yo Fresh [frozen yogurt] Soul Vegan [Vegetarian/vegan Southern & soul food] Tomate Fresh Kitchen [mexican dishes] Shopping: Classy Closet Consignment

Services: American Defensive Driving School Hip Circle Empowerment Center (dance and fitness offerings) Avenue Nail Salon Smitty’s Auto Repair

Online Shops

POC

Owned-Business

By Trinity Collins, Olivia Stitley Feature Editor, Staff Writer In 1934, when the National Housing Act -- also known as “redlining” -- was enacted, people of color living in the United States were prohibited from inhabiting many areas -- meaning communities of color had to create their own businesses to shop from, given the little access they had to the white businesses. These community members created their own products, shops and businesses and were able to thrive on the business of their fellow residents. Though segregation continued and continues to exist, once it was considered illegal to segregate businesses, gentrification influenced communities, allowing larger white businesses to be vacuums for the consumers’ money and success.

In rapper and activist Killer Mike’s TV series called “Trigger

Warning with Killer Mike,” he attempts to “live black” for three days in Georgia -- only using and buying black products, black owned and manufactured transportation, black grown and sold food. Unable to find a black owned facility in Athens, Georgia he was forced to sleep on a park bench. The only way he was able to keep his money in the black community for the night was to sleep outside.

According to Tracy Jan of The Washington Post, one in five black families have zero or negative net worth, which is twice the number of white families, and white families, on average, have 10 times the net worth of black families.

In her 2014 TEDx Talk, author Maggie Anderson reported that a dollar in the black community circulates for only six hours. However, the black community accounts for over a trillion dollars in buying power [closer to two trillion by 2020].

Stepping Out on Faith “Before my husband died, it was really a pipedream. He said to me before he died, ‘Vivian you gotta promise me that you’ll open up your shop. You’ll be good at it.’

He said, ‘you have to step out on faith sometimes cause people will come, and it will be a success,” Vivian Killeberew says.

Stepping Out on Faith Consignment Shop, located on Orrington Avenue in Downtown Evanston, offers second-hand items -- carrying both traditionally men and women clothing. Functioning as a consignment shop, Stepping Out on Faith resells their second-hand items on behalf of the previous owner.

“Thrifting is great cause you never know what you’re

gonna find. Everything is such a treasure,” Killeberw says. “It has a story, and it has a history.”

Vivian Killeberew, who identifies as a African-American woman, opened the store in 2009 following her late-husband’s death.

“I knew fashion. It was easier for me to do something that I love, something that’s a lot of fun. And, you know, you can make a living at the same time,” she says.

Additionally, Stepping Out on Faith partners with a few shelters helping women through “desperate situations,” along with providing clothes for women attending job interviews. “[I decided to partner] cause it’s important to give back,” Killeberew explains.

“Because everybody always needs help at some point, at some time in their lives.”

As a small business owner herself, Killeberew speaks to the communal aspects of a small business.

“Everything is based on small businesses. Before there were malls, and there were big department stores, there were your local store,” Killeberew explains. “You knew the people at your store. Whether you were able to pay for your groceries all at once or you had an ongoing deal with your butcher.”

Killeberew later went on to say, “I think with small business you get to know people.

It’s like a family. Just supporting each other and trying to help each other make it through.”

In addition to addressing the systemic issues, “any serious attempt to close the racial wealth gap and build Black American wealth must leverage the trillion dollars of buying power controlled by the Black American,” wrote Marc Morial, president and CEO, National Urban League in a review of the book “One Black Year.” We would pose that this extends beyond just the black and white binary to communities of color more broadly and the responsibility of ourselves (Collins and Stitley) as white consumers.

There are a wide variety of Chicagoland-based businesses owned by people of color that can be acknowledged and supported. The ones on this page are just some businesses, but there are many others in the community and across the country. When deciding where to go get dinner, or where to browse online, and you have the resources to do so, consider one of these businesses below [and those not listed].

There are a multitude of sites that offer POC-made products and services. Here are just a few that sell things from food, to birthday cards to handmade jewelry: EyesSeeMe.com: “to create programs that increase childhood literacy for under-served communities and to promote African American History and multicultural literature that will increase respect and tolerance for diverse cultures.”

WeBuyBlack: “More than a marketplace for black owned businesses, we’re a movement to see social and economical justice globally.”

A Crafty Arab: “I am a Libyan American who creates art to promote a positive image of Arab and Islamic culture.”

Native Works: “Honoring Native Tradition While Fostering a Healthier Native Future.”

Benue Co.: “We are committed to making you fall in love with your skin; are you? At Benue Co, we understand that just like people, skin is diverse.”

Cheekbone Beauty: “Cheekbone Beauty will be supporting First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada with 10 percent of profits from all purchases. “

Scissor’s Palace After years of experience in hair care, Ashorina and Ashor Younan choose to open their own business, Scissor’s Palace.

“We wanted to live the American dream of owning our own business,” Ashorina Younan, co-owner, says.

Ashorina Younan alongside Ashor Younan, both of whom identify as Assyrian-Americans, opened Scissor’s Palace in February of 2015. Located on Central Street, Scissor’s Palace is a hair salon and barber shop, servicing all genders.

“Our process of opening our own business is not anything new as we have opened a salon before; however, opening our business in Evanston has definitely been a blessing because we

love the location,” Ashorina explains. “On the first day we opened Scissor’s Palace, we offered free haircuts to everyone that walked in, except we didn’t have too many people come in because there was a snowstorm.”

Ashor has over 20 years of hair experience. He and the fellow stylists offer both cut and color services, along with waxes. Ashorina runs the social media platforms, including their Facebook where more information can be found.

Ashorina describes the atmosphere of the salon as welcoming and laidback.

She states, “our unique characteristic is we have is that we have a diverse customer base, I think it can be attributed to the atmosphere

because clients want to come in, get a service done and go on with their day,” Ashor and Ashorina participate in various community events from helping with St. Baldricks to being a sponsor of the previous Assyrian Food Festival. .

According to Ashorina, consumers should support locally owned business given the amount of effort and lack of security these businesses face.

“The diversity we bring shapes the community,” Ashorina elaborates. “We all want each other to succeed so even our shop neighbors are people we lend helping hands to and vice versa. We all want to support each other.”

feature

feature - 9

On the Intimacies of Failure

By Quinn Hughes Staff Writer

Content Warning: This article deeply discuss themes surrounding anti-Blackness within the United States. It also graphically describes the murder of Emmett Till. Reader discretion is advised. In the context of this article, I use the term “we” to describe those who come into contact with and live in a world defined by Blackness.

When we are asking ourselves to critically consider Blackness, we are asking ourselves to consider a series of failures that extend beyond what the grammar of the world gives us. The most pernicious failure is a grammatical one, felt most intimately by those who occupy and perform within Blackness. We see this failure when we are unable to articulate the ways in which Blackness is caught in a subjective limbo, fixed between the human subject and the object. We feel this failure when we are unable to explain to Black children the urgency at which they must understand how they must conduct themselves in front of the police and those with the power to erase their bodies. We can sense this failure when we notice discourse surrounding emancipation and the Civil Rights Movement, failure to encompass the larger truth that Blackness is still confined to the structural positioning of the slaves in the belly of a ship. There are other failures as well. Politics fail Blackness as it is after the political procedures of emancipation, the Civil Rights Movement, and the first Black president that we understand that the political does not offer us the tools to prevent, control or resist Black death(s). The world fails Blackness in an infinite and incalculable amount of ways: humanism fails Blackness, death fails Blackness, the state fails Blackness, chemistry fails Blackness, biology fails Blackness, math fails Blackness, Starbucks fails Blackness, time fails Blackness. I choose to begin with grammatical failure as it is through language and communication that we are able to articulate other forms of failure and how they manifest themselves.

In order to understand the failure of grammar, we must start first with the failure of death seeing as when we discuss Blackness, grammar and death are inextricable.

Blackness begins in the positioning of death in the western sense -- the slave unable to access the plane of being as the living. This death is seen when slave parents are unable to save their children from being sold or having physical violence done onto them. This is seen when a slave does not have the necessary autonomy to give or revoke consent regarding sexual acts. This death is seen when slaves are forbidden to sing, dance, play music, speak too loud, speak too soft, leave their plantation and a multitude of other freedoms that are associated with a “living” subjectivity. Because the Black subject is ontologically fixed to death, it then becomes clear that death will follow the Black subject even after their heart stops beating and their lungs fail to draw breath.

[Murillo 19].

This is reflected in the death(s) is seen in Emmett Till. We will never be able to truly calculate or under-

stand every instance of his death(s); we can only choose specific instances within it/them that show their repetition. Articulating how Black death(s) work is a particularly demanding task as it is impossible to fully comprehend the infinite number of times in which a Black subject has been murdered; however with the timeline I have created, I attempt to reflect on how one death can lead to another. I recognize that in doing so, I will inevitably call into being a performative contradiction; on the one hand, neither Black death(s) nor Black life can be reflected in a linear fashion as it is the process of Black deaths(s) that stand to defy time itself.

Emmett Till dies “first” when he is seen by the white woman who would be the end of his life.

He dies a second time when he is physically taken from his family’s home. We see this as an instance of death as it is here that we see how Black families are unable to physically protect their members.

This death shows that there is nothing that can be done to physically protect Black people from the violence of the world. He dies as his physical body is being destroyed.

He dies when his mother decides to have an open casket funeral and the world bears witness to his brutalized body. He dies again when his death is used as mass syndicated iconography to represent the American Civil Rights Movement. He dies when the white men who destroyed his physical body are aquitted of his murder and when they publicly admit to the murder years later. Emmett dies again when the white woman who accused him of whistling at her admitted that no such thing had happened. Emmett dies in 2009 when the white people who owned the historically Black graveyard in which he was buried in dug up and burned the graves, bodies and all, of hundreds of those in his cemetery. He died when his original casket was found rusting in a shed in the same cemetery. He died when, on July of 2018, the Justice Dept. reopened investigation into his murder. He died when the historical landmark that was put in place to mark the river in which he was found, was riddled with bullets 35 days after it was replaced, after it was shot another time. Emmett’s cousin, Ollie Gordon, described it best: “there is no rest for Emmett.”

Black people globally die each time Emmett dies, as it is known that his death(s) could have been and may be any one of us at any given moment. There is no reason why Emmett Till could not have been one of our grandparents, parents, us or our children. As a Black person, there is no way to guarantee that your body will not be erased at any given moment. When we describe the death(s) of Blackness, we are in some way describing this fact and the lived experiences that come as a result of it.

Understanding Black performance within the world must be understood in relationship to the ways in which the world fails Blackness.

If the world is made as a result of these failures, the performance of Blackness within the world will never be able to be conceptualized, let alone articulated by the world.

Under the gaze of the world, Black performance will always appear illogical because the rest of the

Photos courtesy of Aaron Carney Photos from Solange, Library of Congress

world will never be able to understand how, where and why the world fails Blackness.

The answer regarding the question “what to do in the face of failure” must be understood as one that will never appear as logical to whiteness. Thus, an embrace of the illogical must be the prerogative of any attempt to remedy said failures. This embrace is seen in the Afro-surreal tradition, blending the “past,” the “present” and the “future,” blurring the line between the ‘real’ and the ‘surreal.’ In the play The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe, viewers are forced to bear witness to the intimacies of failure and the manifestations of failures in relationship to the Black. We see these performed in the scene Soldier With a Secret in which a Black military soldier named Junie dies in an explosion. At first, he expects to go to heaven and be greeted with white clouds, Jesus and his Momma. Instead, Junie recognizes that he has become a type of poltergeist or ghost. Upon this recognition, he also is able to see the futures of those in his squad and he sees the death(s) that they live out once they return home. One is going to be killed by the police, another is going to abuse his wife. Instead of letting these men die the way in which they were destined to, Junie decides to kill them by taking a needle and filling their blood with oxygen.

This scene shows the performative

failure of death and its relationship to Blackness. First, Junie is unable to die physically as it is the ontological position of Blackness to be forced to defy and be defined in relationship to death(s). Second, it is the social deaths of those in his squad that are worse than their biological deaths. It is these series of grammatical and performative failures that are unable to be understood or conveyed by conventional theatrics. Instead, Wolfe employs the Afro-surrealist tradition as an embrace of these failures in order to reckon with the ways in which the lived death(s) of Blackness are met with the violence of the world.

Afro-surrealism is best understood as an embrace and exploration of the world, its failures and their relationships to Blackness.

This embrace of failure is seen in every one of The Colored Museum’s 10 ‘exhibits,’ each focusing on a specific instance of Blackness and performativity. Afro-surrealism in Wolfe’s interpretation represents more than what can be shown and perceived through just theatrics, similarly to how Afro-surreal music is able to convey more than what can be shown through just music. It is the process of running to failure, running the end of the world, that we embrace the surreal.

This embrace of the surreal performativity is seen more subtly in the discography of Solange Knowls.

Solange explores musical boundaries by playing with the foundational sounds of hip-hop, R&B, soule, and jazz; however, and perhaps in a less direct manner, she explores the boundaries of linguistics in relationship to her positionality as a Black woman. This is seen numerous times in her 2016 studio album A Seat at the Table. The album is a melodic meditation on Blackness and femininity in contemporary America. This meditation is best seen in the album’s ninth song “Don’t Touch My Hair,” in which Solange performs a reclamation of not only her physical body but also the symbolic value her hair gives her. The song is her demand that one not perform captivity over her body and her symbolic value. This is a performance of Afro-surrealism as it performatively imagines a world in which a Black woman has the ability to reclaim the physical and the symbolic.

Once we understand these instances of performative imagination, we are able to better see and understand the ways in which the Afro-surreal bleeds into the everyday lives [and death(s)] of Black people in America. This performance is seen the Black Lives Matter movement when activists demand that the world reckon with its desire for the accumulation of Black death(s).

The statement “Black life matters” is in and of itself Afro-surreal as it is the performative imagination of a world in which Black people have the necessary subjectivity in which their demands to not be killed, will be tolerated by the world. This demand is a rejection of the failure of death and Blackness as it resists the worlds call for Black death(s). This is seen outside of the performative imagination as well, as seen in the Young Thug’s song ‘Digits.’ In the melodic, hypnotizing, hip-hop ballad, Thug asserts “you could lose your life but it’s ‘gon keep goin’/ why not risk life if it’s gon’ keep

going’/when you die somebody else is born.” This seemingly passive relationship to Blackness and death act as a refusal of the forced distinction between Black “life” and Black death(s).

I would like to return to my initial statement which is that when we consider Blackness, we are forced to consider failure. When considering this, Joy James and João Costa Vargas ask readers, “what happens when instead of becoming enraged and shocked every time a Black person is killed in the United States, we recognize Black death as a predictable and constitutive aspect of this democracy?” This question ought to be foundational Black critique in the 21st century.

We can understand that the world demands not only violence but the specific violences of anti-Blackness to sustain itself. Our answer is found in an understanding of this fact. John Gillespie argues, “how should we live in an undying age of anti-Blackness...once we have lost all hope in the prospect of Black lives ever being able to live...once anti-Blackness has sucked every bit of spirit we have dry, our only hope is to lose hope” [Gillespie 17].

“Our only hope is to lose all hope.”

This is the ultimate embrace of the Afro-surreal practice. The ‘hope’ of the world, the ‘hope’ of the political, the ‘hope’ of the biofuture, the ‘hope’ of the next generation are all hopes that are given to us by the white world and have been shown time and time again to fail Blackness. Thus, as the ultimate rejection of the world and the failures that it presents us with, is to lose faith and hope within the world. Thus, our only hope is to lose all hope. This is a performance Afro-surrealism as it is an embrace of the failures of the world. We must perform the nihilist sprint to the end of hope, the boundaries of the world. Afro-surrealism is the vehicle that gets us there. It is its embrace, expectancy, love of failure that can only function as a rejection of hope.

The performative Afro-surreal is found in the nooks and crannies of Black life. It is the intimacy of the space that Blackness occupies, the crevice between the living and the dead, the subject and the object, that the imagination of a new lived experience emerges. The preformative surreal is what lies between the “shrieks and cries” of the slave ship, what is heard and what is left unsaid, what is seen and what is known, what is touched and what is felt. It is in these moments of joy, love, sorrow, freedom, pain and expression, that lie cruxed in the few facts of Black life. First, there is nothing that can be done to cease the marching of time and the violence it does onto Blackness. Second, that there is no tangible action that can be taken within the world to prevent an instance and accumulation of Black death(s). Third, to exist between the living and the dead is to be all that can and all that will ever become of Blackness, and finally that the world can and only will ever fail Black people.

The Afro-surreal is not only the understanding of these facts, but is instead the fugitive flight to them.

It is the acceptance, embrace and loving of these facts in which we find the freedom of the surreal, the extra-real, the unsaid, the known and the felt.

10 - in-depth

Evanston vs

Different demographics breed different forms of activism ETHS English teacher Anita Bucio, who identifies as Indian American, graduated from New Trier High School in 1998 where she experienced racial prejudices. Bucio has not been back to New Trier since her graduation, even though she lives in a neighboring community.

“I think the difference between [New Trier] and [ETHS] is when you come from uber-wealth and privilege, which most of the students at New Trier do and many of the students at Evanston do, you live in a bubble where you have certain perceptions, beliefs and experiences that shape your reality, so you are unable to understand what it’s like to feel like your not welcome,” Bucio says. “And at Evanston, you see two worlds, you see a world that’s like the New Trier community, the upper, super-affluent side and you see the side that is not. I think that trickles into the school and I think people believe that since this is a diverse place, those problems aren’t there, but those problems still exist.”

When attending New Trier in the 1990s, Bucio encountered racism from her fellow students and teachers. She explains that there was a divide at the school.

“You saw it when you entered New Trier. You saw people of color sitting together and you saw the super athletic kids together, I mean it was really clique-ed up,” Bucio adds.“You could see students of color sticking together, and they would be together because they were all experiencing the same thing.”

Similar phenomena still occur in New Trier and ETHS today.

“Everyone stays with the people that they’re like,” New Trier student Sophia Kurzman, who identifies as white, says. “But everyone’s really accepting of other races.

Black people are rare, but they’re accepted and everyone treats them normally.”

New Trier Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Timothy Hayes further explains the racial dynamics of New Trier’s student body.

“When we talk about the impact of race on students of color at New Trier, we’re talking about a group of students who are experiencing going to a school in which they are very much the minority,” Hayes says. “There may be only several dozens of people in the school who share your racial identity. For students of color in our school, that experience can be very lonely.”

ETHS is statistically more diverse than New Trier, with 45.4 percent of white students compared to New Trier’s 82.5 percent. But numerous accounts of racial prejudice and self-imposed segregation reveal that Evanston’s greater diversity does not necessarily equate to a community free of racism.

“The student body is generally accepting of people’s different identities, however, there is miscommunication about ways to support other students and they identify without dominating over voice or space.” ETHS senior Erin Ikeuchi says. “We’re having a lot of conversations about it, especially at the race summits, ETHS addresses matters of equity in a variety of ways -- through summits for different affinity groups, education initiatives geared towards closing the achievement gap, all-school presentations like Calvin Terrell’s “Healing Historical Trauma” exhibit, and student-run equity-based clubs such as Students Organized Against Racism (SOAR). “[SOAR’s] mission is to create an anti-racist environment whether that be in the school, the community, and hopefully the world,” senior and Soar member, Nia Williams says.

New Trier also has groups and clubs centered around student identity, like the African American club and Black Student Union, which are meant to provide a safe space for African American/Black students. A student-run club similar to SOAR called Voices and Equity meets with staff members to discuss and address equity issues within the school and community. But historically, New Trier has struggled with talking about race, perhaps because of their racial demographics.

“85 percent of our student body is white, and speaking as a white person, the challenge with being white and having a conversation on race is that we’re taught as white people that we’re not supposed to talk about race, and that we don’t really have a race,” Hayes says.

“For the majority of our students, they may not have really ever engaged in a conversation about what it means to be white in America. So they can go for most of their education and not have that discussion.”

Hayes acknowledges that this is problematic and recounts an example of when the idea of talking about race brought up feelings of discomfort among New Trier parents.

In 2016, New Trier altered their school schedule for construction purposes, adding Martin Luther King day as a school day. The school board decided to have a Seminar Day on MLK day about Dr. King’s legacy and its impact on modern America. The following year in 2017, New Trier held another Seminar Day titled “Understanding Today’s Struggle for Racial Civil Rights”, which sparked controversy from a group of New Trier parents.

“There was a small group of parents who became concerned about the day, and began a petition

Photos courtesy of Evanston Township and New Trier High Schools

drive to petition the board to either change the day -- they wanted to add own speakers -- or they wanted the board to cancel the day,” Hayes says.

Hayes says that some parents felt as if the day was politically biased, and worried about what it would mean to talk about race, offering that the day was about “trying to make white kids feel guilty.”

Both ETHS and New Trier have also used protest as a means to counter issues, such as the issue of gun violence. Following the Parkland shooting, last February students from both schools participated in the National Walkout against gun violence.

New Trier student Alex Gjaja reports that the Walkout at New Trier led to larger conversations regarding the safety of the students, especially after construction work included an installment of new windows, causing some students to feel unsafe.

ETHS students approached the issue from a different lens. Rather than working with the administration to improve safety measures within the school, students poured their energy into protesting guns and gun violence itself. However, Williams felt as though the walkout was geared towards white victims of gun violence.

“I did not attend the walkout.

It felt to me that my black body was not going to be included in this struggle against gun violence,” Williams says. “I only say this because I had never seen ETHS students walkout when Black bodies have been killed every day and I found it extremely uncomfortable and upsetting that bodies only mattered when they did not look like me.”

Economic status is another aspect of students that both ETHS and New Trier struggle with discussing.

The average household income within New Trier District 203 is $262,814 while within Evanston Township High School District 202, the average household income is $115,582. Data from Illinois Report Card states that 38.4 percent of Evanston students are considered low-income and 3.7 percent of New Trier students are.

“It’s easy to forget when you live in this community that there are people with financial concerns,” Gjaja says.

Joshua Brown, an ETHS English teacher, went to New Trier in the 1990s. He discusses a time during his freshman year when his father lost his job.

“Several of my fellow students said something to the effect of ‘well, anybody who wants a job can get one, it’s just a matter of people being lazy or not’,” Brown says. “I think I didn’t share that my father was unemployed, but I always remember being embarrassed about that and feeling like there wasn’t really a place for that to be said.”

Although statistically, New Trier lacks racial and economic diversity, the school emphasizes and encourages diversity among political ideologies of students -moreso than ETHS, where the student population is overwhelmingly left-leaning.

“Sometimes at Evanston, I can find a middle ground with people, but I feel like there are some people where once I just say ‘yeah, I’d say I’m a conservative’, it just stops, the conversation ends, they walk their own way,” ETHS sophomore Chris Giella says, who identifies as conservative Republican.

Many clubs at ETHS encourage political activism from students.

But most of these clubs, including the official student government club, Student Union, encourage activism that reflects the typical values of the Democratic party.

ACT scores!

“I feel like a lot of things at ETHS are very left-leaning, so maybe [ETHS] getting more involved with some conservative things too could be a way to raise more awareness of other political opinions,” Giella says.

In contrast, New Trier has clubs for multiple political identities including the Trevian Republicans club and the Young Democrats club. Students are open about holding a wider range of political views -- whether attending meetings for their party’s clubs or dressing in attire representing their party.

“People wear MAGA hats and people wear Hillary shirts and it’s not something that’s hidden. It’s not something people will get upset about,” New Trier junior Stella Kustra says.

“Even if NT students might not be actively going to marches, or actively campaigning for candidates or doing some of that active social justice work, they are always willing to listen, which is something I appreciate,” Gjaja adds.

By Lauren Dain, Ella Kanter Staff Writer, PR Editor Contributor: Zosia Johnson

Daddy’s money!

in-depth Illustration by Leah Brieva

in-depth - 11

s. New Trier

Mutually negative perceptions fuel historic rivalry

It’s likely that on your way into Beardsley Gym or Lazier Field you’ll hear sentiments of “NTK” and “F-New Trier” chants. While some perceive this long-standing rivalry as mere fun, others criticize it for its intense and overblown nature.

In a survey of 304 ETHS students, 53 percent of students say their general perception of New Trier is negative, 40.1 percent say they’re neutral, and 6.9 percent say they have a positive perception.

“I think people are anti-New Trier because they see a school that’s less diverse than ours and so they want to hate on that,” ETHS junior Pancho Patino says.

According to the most recent Illinois Report Card, New Trier’s student body is 82.5 percent white with 3.7 percent low income students. Dissimilarly, Evanston’s student body is 45.4% white with 38.4% of students being from a low-income family.

Historically, both ETHS and New Trier students have utilized these differences to express superiority over each other.

“I think some people will have the idea, like me, that a lot of kids [at ETHS] aren’t that different [from New Trier students] but there are going to be a lot of people who sort of pick at the diverse aspects of Evanston,” New Trier senior Tim Olson says.

At one New Trier vs. ETHS basketball game last year, ETHS students chanted “Daddy’s money,” alluding to the wealth within New Trier families. New Trier students responded by chanting “ACT scores,” referencing their higher average test scores.

“We were calling them privileged and they were basically saying ‘yes we are,’ because having a

higher ACT score essentially equates with having more privilege,” ETHS senior Jake Blustein says.

As previously mentioned, the average household income within New Trier District 203 is significantly higher than that within District 202. In 2017, the average ACT score for ETHS students was 23.4, while the New Trier average was 27.8. In 2014, the Washington Post published a study showing how the SAT favors students from wealthy families, a phenomenon that also applies to other standardized tests, including the ACT. Given this data, the difference in test scores isn’t particularly surprising, rather another example of the achievement gap in education.

While these anti-New Trier sentiments are most evident at sporting events, they’re also prevalent throughout other aspects of ETHS culture.

“I don’t like New Trier, but I think people hate on New Trier kids too much and they have to actually get to know them,” ETHS junior Gordon Redfield-Gale says.

“I don’t think you can stereotype hundreds of people.”

In actuality, it’s thousands of people. New Trier’s 2017-2018 student body had 3,987 students. While New Trier isn’t as racially or socioeconomically diverse as ETHS, some argue that it’s unproductive to label all of New Trier as one.

“ETHS people think that all New Trier people are just bad, like racist; don’t like people of color and that’s not true,” ETHS junior Makayla Brown says.

These perceptions may be fueled by racist incidents at New Trier within recent years. Last year, New Trier experienced three incidents where racial slurs were written in

Racial and ethnic diversity at ETHS and New Trier

According to Illinois Report Card

bathrooms.

It should be noted that while these incidents occurred within New Trier, they don’t represent the opinions of all New Trier students.

ETHS has also seen hateful acts.

Last year, white ETHS students tried to remove a group composed primarily of students a color from the student section at a basketball game. “[The rivalry] should be stopped at the football and basketball games,” says ETHS freshman Ben Felix.

However, these incidents sometimes come from hate towards New Trier. In 2009, four ETHS students were charged with beating up a New Trier student after a game.

The Chicago Tribune reported on this incident stating that the student had a broken nose and had to go to the hospital.

“I think people believe that since this is a diverse place, those prob-

lems aren’t there, but those problems still exist,” Bucio says.

The superiority that some ETHS students feel over New Trier perhaps acts to protect them from addressing issues within their own community.

“I do think sometimes New Trier becomes a thing around here that can allow people, especially white people, to distance themselves from the phenomena of racism,” [Joshua] Brown says.

For [Makayla] Brown, one of those problems is the lack of diversity in high-level classes.

“In my general experience being a black person in high-level classes, although ETHS looks pretty diverse on the outside, on the inside it’s not necessarily as diverse,” she says.

Despite the intensity that many ETHS students approach this rivalry with, some ETHS and New Trier students alike agree that New Tri-

er prioritizes other school rivalries within sports.

“People on the sports teams kinda just think of it as just another school. We have other rivals that are more important to us, like Loyola,” Kurzman says.

Like ETHS students, some New Trier students utilize stereotypes, further perpetuating the rivalry.

“I’ve heard students make sarcastic remarks like, ‘it’s Evanston, it’s not safe over there.’ I don’t know if kids actually believe that but I’ve heard it in a sarcastic manner all the time,” Olson says.

These perceptions, on both sides, are narrow-minded, as they don’t take into consideration the large student populations of both schools.

By Caroline Jacobs, Sydney Ter Molen Assistant In-Depth Editor, Staff Writer

The utilization of different tracking methods

The mandatory, five-hour-long test in the early morning is a familiar narrative to most high schoolers.

Standardized testing has become ingrained in the public education system. Both New Trier and Evanston use tracking, but most ETHS students do not have to endure such an experience until their junior year.

For students at New Trier, however, they must complete a placement test in the fall of eighth grade.

“You take four tests: verbal reasoning, reading comprehension, math and quantitative reasoning,” explains New Trier freshman Julia Wineberg. “A few months later, in January or February, you get your results back and it recommends you for your levels.”

The possible levels are College Preparatory Level 2, Honors Level 3 and High Honors Level 4.

Once the placement test recommends you for a level, students’ parents are able to override that request and move the student either up or down to a level they deem fit.

As the academic year progresses, parents are given another opportunity to change their child’s level.

Throughout the year, teachers are also given the opportunity to recommend their students for a differ-

ent level.

“The advantage of [the level system] is that you can then be in a classroom with other students who share a similar level of skill on a particular topic so the course can move at a pace that is challenging to you but not overwhelming,” says Hayes. “The disadvantage of the level system is that as a student, it is easy to start to believe that the level system is about intelligence. So if you’re in the highest level then you’re smart, and if you’re in the lowest level then you’re not smart.”

Hayes says that while this is not how the system was created or intended to operate, they “struggle” to help students understand their level does not indicate their intelligence.

“Students who are in Level 2 start to feel like ‘well I’m not very smart because I’m in the 2 level course,’” says Hayes. “Then they graduate and they go to college and they’re way better prepared than most of their [college] classmates.”

Not too long ago, ETHS also tracked its students into freshman year classes. In 2010, ETHS detracked freshman English, history and biology courses. This choice was criticized by the Evanston

community and the media, including the Chicago Tribune.

However, a 2017 article written

by ETHS Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Peter Bavis claims that, to quote the piece directly, “it works!”

“Our first group of students to take Earned Honors English and History graduated in 2015. That group posted the highest average ACT score (23.9) in school history, took the most AP courses in school history, and earned the highest number of college-ready scores of 3 or more on AP exams,” Bavis writes in the article.

One thing is for sure: both schools put immense emphasis on going to college.

“I definitely think that ETHS pushes a slight agenda to try to get their graduates to go to college,” ETHS senior Quinn Sieja says.

“They do offer a lot of support for those who want to seek a different path, but many of the meetings we have focus on college plans. The other options, trade school, gap years or going straight into the workforce always seem like a secondary option.”

Kurzman says that New Trier also centers “everything” around

college. “[College] is the whole point of going to high school,” she says.

Kurzman explains that at the beginning of her freshman year, New Trier handed out packets suggesting that if students wanted to attend an Ivy League school, then they should follow a certain track.

Whereas students who planned on attending a state school were instructed to follow a different track.

Every year, 98 percent of New Trier’s graduating class enrolls in college and 95 percent enroll in four-year programs. Meanwhile, at Evanston, 77 percent of the 2017 graduating class attended college and 61 percent enrolled in a fouryear program.

However, such statistics are not entirely indicative of the quality of academics or the intensity in which the schools promote college; rather it is a matter of wealth and opportunity as well.

Both New Trier and Evanston send almost the same number of students to top tier colleges and universities. According to Niche’s 2019 Best Colleges in America, the 10 best schools in the country are MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsyl-

vania, Columbia, Duke, Brown and California Institute of Technology.

New Trier sent 15 students from their 2018 graduating class to those school and ETHS sent 14 students.

In fact, the biggest, and really the only sizable difference in the two schools’ college attendance is in regards to Oakton Community College. New Trier sent three students there last year, while Evanston sent 45.

“Often, you’ll hear the names of different community colleges thrown around like as a joke,” New Trier senior Alex Gjaja says. “It’s tough [to hear] because there are New Trier students who end up going to these community colleges.”

Some ETHS students report hearing stigmatizing sentiments regarding community college as well.

“Everything is kind of centered around going to a good college,” ETHS freshman Moksha Paudel says of ETHS. “When most people hear community college, they don’t think that it’s a very high education.”

By Ben Baker-Katz In-Depth Editor Contributor: Mira Littman

12 - feature

The Rise of Social Media Activism

By Noah Kayaian Staff Writer

If you find yourself scrolling through Twitter and you see your local 80-year-old representative tweeting about gun control laws, don’t be alarmed, they’re just doing their best to fit in with the shifting times.

Since 2016, I’ve seen a gradual rise in political activism on social media. The presidential election outcome fueled people to stand up for what they believed was right; many people took to the streets

and to the polls, or even started to prepare for the elections that were occurring two years later. However, there were still some people who were able to utilize another effective method: media activism.

Ever since the 2016 presidential election, I’ve seen my Twitter and Instagram feeds flooded with posts about saving the environment and encouraging people to vote.

“People were able to live with their privilege and now they want to prove they’re right. People now pay more attention to what they are reading which is really helpful,”

sophomore Alice Gottesman states.

According to a Pew Research Center study from 2018, approximately 35 percent of all social media users have made a post about a political topic that may concern them.

“I’m not trying to convince anyone that they’re wrong or I’m right.

The more people are exposed to [it] the more they feel invested in it,” Gottesman says.

Social media also provides people with the ability to connect with other people who share similar beliefs and experiences as them. In

July 15 - 31, 2019

EXPLORE YOUR PASSIONS. EARN COLLEGE CREDIT. Political Science • Bio-Physics Studio Art • Environmental Studies

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December of 2017, the #MeToo movement entered popular culture despite being started in the early 2000’s by Tarana Burke. In addition, this formation of communities helped spark the #BlackLivesMatter movement early on.

According to NPR, in the first three years since its creation in 2013, there were over 40 million posts using the Black Lives Matter hashtag. This tag, accompanied by many others calling for an end to racially-driven police murders, were influential in triggering the rise of social media activism.

“People turn to social media because that is where they have a following you can add links for people to look into and feel more connected on a topic,” Gottesman adds.

Which brings up an additional point. As students, many of us don’t have an extremely large audience, but we constantly see people using whatever platform they do have to help elaborate upon a topic.

“Somebody who lives in a small town in Wyoming or Kentucky, if they have a decent sized following, they can get their point across and get ‘trending,’” senior Brea Matthews states.

The walkout last Friday [March 15] was largely publicized through social media platforms locally, nationally and internationally. Many politicians have been taking to Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. Donald Trump is infamous for his Twitter addiction; however, many other politicians are doing some of the same things as President Trump, just not as often and as acerbic as Trump.

Social media also allows for politicians to connect with their supporters. New York representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez famously went on Instagram Live in November and made mac-and-cheese while answering questions her fans asked her.

“Because [Ocasio-Cortez] is of a younger generation and can appeal to people and reference pop culture effectively and clapback people can

feel like relate to her,” Matthews adds.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is in charge of his own social media, and uses the Facebook Live feature to help his campaign for Texas senator in 2018.

During the Illinois gubernatorial election, Gov. JB Pritzker spent nearly $150 million dollars according to the Chicago Tribune -- $30 million of which were spent on online ads. Probably explains why before the election every Youtube video had a ten second ad for him on it.

However, all this usage of social media does have its downsides.

According to a survey conducted

by Axios in 2018, 72 percent of all Americans believe that news sources “report news they know to be fake, false, or misleading.” In 2018, 31 percent of Americans said they experienced fake news once a week span, according to Statista. Platforms such as Facebook are trying to stop the spread of fake news.

According to Facebook’s statement on their plan for stopping fake news, they plan to “fight the spread of false news in three key areas: disrupting economic incentives because most false news is financially motivated; building new products to curb the spread of false news; and helping people make more informed decisions when they encounter false news.” Facebook is where most fake news is spread.

The average age of Facebook users in the US are 40.5, according to the Houston Chronicle. Older generations, such as Gen X and the Baby Boomers are more susceptible to spreading fake news, according to The Washington Post.

That 80-year-old senator tweeting about gun control laws is doing what the younger generation has been influencing him to do, fit in and adapt, because in 2019, one of the most effective ways of broadcasting yourself is through social media.

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14 - a&e

arts & entertainment

Artist S potlight Teacher Edition Petra Maton

By Madison McGuire Staff Writer Petra Maton, an ETHS art teacher of 13 years, takes her passion for art far beyond the classroom. Maton is not only a ceramics, AP 3D, sculpture 2, animation and cartooning teacher, but she works outside of school to refine and explore her personal love of art.

“As far as my own work goes, I have two loves, one is ceramics. Another thing I really love is ink drawing, probably from teaching cartooning for so many years,” Maton says.

The graphic design program at The Art Institute of Chicago is what originally drew Maton to the Chicagoland area. In her time at the Art Institute, she enrolled in a ceramics class her junior year to explore other areas of art, and in doing so, stumbled upon her passion.

After graduating from The Art Institute of Chicago in 2000, Maton became a gymnastics coach, largely because finding work with art was challenging at the time. Coaching sparked a new calling within her -- teaching.

“I ended up being a gymnastics coach because of the economy at the time. But I thought ‘wow, I really love coaching. I’ve never thought of being a teacher. I’d like to do this for art not gymnastics,’” Maton says.

After getting her teaching certificate at North Park University, Maton became a teacher at ETHS. Throughout her time teaching, she has pursued art in her free time at home. From her self-made studio in her garage, Maton works primarily with ceramics and ink drawings. She creates art for her own enjoyment and has had some work displayed in shows such as the ‘Land of Lincoln’ shows and some smaller art shows and sales in private homes. Maton donates most of her work to charities such as Empty Bowl which is held at ETHS every December.

“Outside of teaching quite honestly mostly I make for myself. Anything you have to do makes it less enjoyable,” Maton explains.

Working at ETHS has also helped Maton channel her creativity and passion for art. By teaching more than 100 kids per day, she can embrace their unique artistic visions and let them inspire her work as well.

“I wanted to do something new every day, and art and teaching had that in common. It’s always something new,” Maton says.

Some of Petra Maton’s work can be found on her Instagram, @petroidz.

Daria McMeans

By Nora Miller Entertainment Columnist A brief conversation with the interdisciplinary art teacher, Daria McMeans, can entice one to create art that expresses personal style. Currently, McMeans teaches Drawing 1 and 2, along with AP Art History, and notes that she is able to reflect on experiences as an exhibited artist while teaching.

“When I’m thinking about projects for the class, I try and bring in aspects of the student’s personal experience, because that’s really what art making is about,” McMeans says. “‘How do we create meaning with objects?’ was a project I was developing. I was trying to think how I can show the students the process of thinking through this idea, and that was actually the source of coming up with the idea of the wedding project I did.”

McMeans’ acrylic on canvas wedding gown series is one of a number of examples where she has intersected her teaching, personal emotions and memories with a broader, societal outlook on her subject.

“I think [her work] has always been sort of based on autobiography, from thinking about body and history to things about gender and

self-worth,” McMeans explains.

McMeans has earned her bachelors at Pepperdine University, has been a resident at Skidmore College and received her masters from the University of Pennsylvania. With all of her experience, McMeans still describes her work as ever-changing because of her admiration for experiment when it comes to visually transferring her recent life experiences.

“I started to change from the painting to mixed media/installation. I think that permeates the confluence of different parts of yourself and what that looks like visually,” McMeans says.

After collaborating with renowned contemporary artist, teacher and curator Michelle Grabner, McMeans began to experiment with the media she uses in her work, and the intention behind the pieces.

“The rest of my artistic career has been trying to define how memory works. How do we see what are we looking for and what do we see when we’re looking? What lenses affect how we see the world?” McMeans says.

McMeans’ works can be found on her website, dariamcmeans.com.

Amy Moore

By Madison McGuire, Nora Miller Staff Writer, Entertainment Columnist Photography and video teacher Amy Moore uses her multifaceted artistic journey to eloquently teach students how to incorporate a variety of media into their work.

Unbeknownst to a number of Amy Moore’s photo and video students, Moore originally found her place in the art world through architecture, ceramics, painting, pottery, and sculpture.

“My first degree was at Tulane University and I went for architecture. I took classes my senior year in the Newcomb pottery program at Tulane. I loved it so much that I went to New York, where I’m from, to take classes at NYU for a while, and then decided to get another degree which brought me to Chicago at the Art Institute,” Moore explains.

Moore has always been interested in teaching, and her passion for connection with other artists seemed to draw a clear path to becoming an educator.

“One of the primary reasons why I got into teaching was because I did a lot of studio art, and that’s a very solitary thing. I’m a super social person, so I like that part of teaching: social interaction,” Moore says.

Even though cultivating the next generation of artists can be time consuming, Moore explains how inspiring students feeds into her imagination. Currently, Moore is teaching four classes, so she does not have a lot of time to create her own art, but she does explain that teaching requires creative lesson planning and innovative thinking “I wish I had more time to do art. In a perfect world I would teach every other year, and make art every other year,” Moore explains.

“I have three artist residencies for the summer, one at U of I and two at MIAD, where you get to go for a week or two to work on your own art.”

Moore still creates pottery and ceramics works, occasionally selling her pieces. In the past, Moore had a studio at Lillstreet Gallery in Chicago, selling her work full time. She hopes to move back into creating her own art because her time has freed up since her children have grown.

“I’ve been really successful selling my work, it’s just a matter of time with teaching high school because it takes up your whole week,” Moore says.

Moore wants to start creating work again and has some ideas for future projects. She hopes to work more with animation and GIFs. Moore wants to use those forms of art on political and mythological projects moving forward.

Jasmin Hislop Marla

By Sophie Gomez Staff Writer

Jasmin Hislop, a coordinator in the South Technology Center, also happens to be a talented artist. Recently, Hislop displayed her art at the Evanston Public Library and is planning a future exhibit in April.

Her story begins back in Trinidad and Tobago where she was born and raised. For Hislop, she was born to do art.

“I can’t tell you when [art] began; it was just always there,” Hislop says.

Art is something that has always been in Hislop’s life. There was not a specific time that she started creating art. She says that culture is important in her day-to-day life.

She incorporates her culture within her art.

“You don’t know or understand your culture until you’re a part of it. So since I’m

here [the United States], my culture has become more visible to me. It’s become something that I interact with more, and I’m more conscious of it,” Hislop says.

Trinidad and Tobago is where Hislop learned a lot about art; she mostly used teak [type of fabric] for fabric work. Recently, most of her artwork has been semi-abstract/ abstract.

When she immigrated to the United States, she began to interact with technology. She incorporates both of her cultures into the art she displayed in her exhibition, A Nowherian Signature.

Her next showcase is April 21 at GibbsMorrison Cultural Center.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Elizabeth Brent

By Madison McGuire Staff Writer

Businesswoman, artist and teacher Elizabeth Brent chooses to continue her career in art through a self-run business and Etsy shop when she isn’t teaching special education and ceramics.

“A lot of [my] work is based on how I’m feeling in that moment and I just see where it goes. I always look at a reference image for commission work. It’s whatever people ask me to do,” Brent says.

Brent began selling artwork as a sophomore in college when she chose to test her skills in designing sorority and fraternity paddles. Her paddles, which once sold for around $20, now sell for roughly $80 a paddle. She also works on commission pieces, drawing specifically what clients request. Her work ranges from portraits to

murals in a variety of different mediums.

“I started to sell my paintings at Kmart in high school to my coworkers and bosses to make extra money,” Brent explains.

“In college, I started with the paddles and that was when I realized I could really try out. I also started doing hand-painted plaques and drawings. I opened an Etsy shop in 2013.”

Her Etsy shop led to a full-on business, named BrentArt LLC, featuring pieces from other members of her family, specifically her brother and father, Larry Brent Sr. and Larry Brent Jr. While Elizabeth Brent is the primary owner of BrentArt, the Brent family has participated in a number of art shows as a group.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Seibold

By Nora Miller Entertainment Columnist

Pottery work and mixed-media collage may be contrasting mediums, but ceramics teacher Marla Seibold explains that the polarity between the two makes her evermore passionate to create both.

“Ceramics is very straightforward. I get much more creative with the glazing and layering different glazes and trying different glazing techniques, but my painting and collage process is almost more like problem solving,” Seibold explains. “I’ll take some vintage papers, cut them up, lay them down and use that to help inform how I make the next mark and the next mark.”

The emphasis on movement, balance of color and shape are what Seibold aims to visualize when creating her own art pieces. Currently, Seibold is a collage artist, painter and ceramicist, but she notes that it has only been 10 years since she began painting and about five since she has started to experiment with collage. She began her career by teaching and producing pottery for a studio, eventually selling her own work around the Midwest and in various galleries.

“When I started teaching ceramics, I was doing it everyday, and would always have a holiday art sale which I have kept up with through my whole career,” Seibold explains.

After Seibold began teaching full time, she was able to reflect her artistic process to her students. Evanston has also given her the opportunity to bounce ideas off of ceramics teachers in the Midwest area.

“I am able to go to the ceramics conventions, and through that I am able to meet a lot of teachers and other professionals, and I am able to learn more and bring it to my students,” Seibold explains.

Seibold creates her art through an Evan ston based, semi-annual exhibit created

by Julie Cohen and Andy Good called the ARTRUCK. The exhibit showcases local artists. The works are hung in two UHaul trucks to be showcased.

a&e - 15

Embracing imagination: the correlation between the arts and stress relief

By Nora Miller Entertainment Columnist Exercise. Meditation. Yoga. These are the common mechanisms our wellness teachers give us sophomore year to handle stress.

Even though running a few miles throughout the week can be a fantastic way to relieve stress, I suggest you to take a closer glance at a glossed over form of stress relief: creating art.

Students at ETHS are not safe from highly pressurized environments where, according to American Psychological Association, 31 percent of teens in the country feel overwhelmed. To counter conclusions made by this study -- which explains that young adults are statistically in more stressful situations than adults -- I encourage you to challenge stress in the productive form of art making. Creative art forms have been proven to curtail the steady flow of strain that comes from homework, social media and looking towards post high school options, including creative writing, dancing, drawing, painting and singing to your routine.

Statistically, increasing the amount of art an individual creates can lower cortisol levels and is a calming outlet to release stress, according to a study conducted by Girija Kaimal, Kendra Ray and Juan Muniz, researchers for the Journal of the American Art Association. The study, funded by Drexel University, states that ethnicity, gender identity, prior knowledge, race or medium were not factors on whether or not stress levels decreased.

I understand that if you are unfamiliar with a form of art, it may seem daunting, but art does not have to be a talent or a hobby; it can simply be a way to get your mind off of a stressful situation. The Research Institute for Creative Arts Therapies (RIArT) at Alanus University for Arts released a study in February 2018 in which a focus group using drawing and clay as therapy had a success rate of 73 percent. In the same study, 80 percent of another group experienced a reduction in stress when using a musical instrument.

To name a few, visual artists such as Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh and Tracey Emin Louise Bourgeois have recounted in interviews and autobiographies that their art was not what they did for a living, but it was a form of therapy they used to express fears and worries.

Personally, I do not consider myself a dancer, but not being a world class ballerina does not discourage me from flailing around in my room to a song when I am stressed out about an upcoming physics test.

Creative stimulation can mitigate stress and reduce anxiety, especially at a time, at least in my life, when it feels like the weight of the world is resting on my shoulders. For me, creating a collage, sketching an apple and rapping along to a song while I study has helped me decrease the balloon of school and stress related thoughts growing in my brain. I urge you to shed the icy third quarter baggage this spring break and trust the scientific results that if you grab a pencil and a coloring book, sing in the shower or make up a fun dance routine, your stress through the rest of the year will decline. Having a creative outlet can induce happiness and will let you shine through strain.

16 - a&e

MUNCHIN’ with

By Michael Barthelemy Food Critic Man’s greatest invention: the burrito. A perfect blend of taste and mobility is what makes it so unique and so beloved. The issue that arises from the greatness of the burrito, though is the plethora of restaurants opening up, claiming to rule the industry. So naturally as a burrito lover, I felt a moral obligation to sift through the number of burritos in Evanston in order to truly find the best. For this competition though, I had to set some guidelines. First off, there’s no such thing as a “perfect” burrito. No perfect scores. Second, all burritos tested will be the vegetarian option. This study is not exclusive to the meat eaters. If a vegetarian burrito is good, odds are the meat option will be equally as good.

Finally, all my opinions are my own. If you don’t agree, that’s fine, just don’t feel offended if your favorite place doesn’t get as high of a score as you want.

Okay, enough talk. Let’s get to munchin’.

The Supreme Burrito #1 An Evanston staple. The Supreme Burrito #1, known by most simply as “Supreme”, came into this investigation with high expectations. After all, this is debatably the most popular burrito in Evanston, and certainly is for ETHS students.

The big question was: How does the vegetarian option, which substitutes meat for a mixture of guacamole and their classic beans and rice, hold up? Does it live up to the astronomical expectations that the carne asada or chicken tinga hold?

For the most part, the burrito was able to

M

hold its own. The array of flavors is something that works masterfully together, not to mention the differing flavors textures. The creaminess of the cheese and beans works in unison with the crunch of lettuce and tomato.

To tie it all together, there’s the sour cream, which adds a sharp flavor necessary to keeping the burrito moist.

The salsas provided are nothing to sleep on either. The red salsa is not something I am a fan of, as the smokiness and heat it provides can become overpowering. The salsa verde on the other hand is masterful. It’s able to combine a mixture of acidity and jalapeno flavor, all while having a subtle kick to it.

Despite these positives, this burrito is certainly not perfect. Many of the issues revolve around the distribution of flavors, as many times with both the cheese and guacamole, you end up getting a bite or two that is solely that flavor, which nobody wants.

On top of that, the guacamole appears to be only avocado, which I found odd, and the beans, while still a good alternative, felt bland and overpowering for the most part.

Score- 4/5

Tomate Fresh Kitchen This was the highest anticipated review for me. I have been to Tomate before and every time it has impressed me. Just like with every other place though, I had never had the vegetarian option, the black bean burrito, before, so there was that chance for disappointment.

Tomate entered this competition with the highest expectations, and they blew them out

ichael

of the water.

BE WARNED: Tomate is very small.

There is no seating inside, be ready to take it to go.

Unlike Supreme, there is no issue with a clumping of flavors. The dispersion of each ingredient is masterful, and you are able to taste every flavor in every bite. This burrito is not dry either, a major plus. A dry burrito is a terrible burrito, it’s as simple as that.

The black beans are seasoned perfectly, and rather than overload the burrito with beans to account for the loss of meat, Tomate keeps the bean flavor modest. This combined with the Mexican rice they use establishes a perfect base of flavor, opening it up to a variety of complementary flavors.

Tomate uses an array of spices in their burrito, and you can taste it. There is a subtle spice in every bite, and combined with the chopped onions, provides a nice boost in flavor.

The one major downfall I saw was the cheese. While some may love this, personally I’m not hugely into cheese being grilled.

For the most part the flavor worked, adding a hint of smokiness and cheese flavor, but as you get to the end of the burrito, the tortilla become lined with cheese, and got to be all you could taste. I’ve only seen the cheese in the black bean burrito, and it wasn’t the best surprise.

Overall, if you haven’t tried Tomate, get up right now and go. This place IS something to write home about; it’s that good.

Score: 4.6/5

Chipotle I wasn’t sure how to approach this one. I, just like millions of others, have had Chipotle a million times. There aren’t many surprises when you go to Chipotle. While it is one of the higher quality and better tasting fast food chains, it still is a chain.

The biggest fallback of Chipotle is definitely the fact that major ingredient clumping occurs. One bite you get a mouthful of guacamole, the next you get a bite of lettuce, hopefully not contaminated with E. Coli.

On top of that, Chipotle is one of the messiest burritos you’ll ever eat. This could just be simple poor burrito folding, but it seems to be because the burrito is beyond wet. Once you get to the final bites, it feels like you dipped the tortilla in the ETHS pool.

Despite these negatives, the flavor is there.

The corn salsa is simply sublime. It gives a necessary sweetness to the overall flavor and the chopped pepper adds a nice spice.

The rice and black beans are classic. They work so well together and are a Chipotle staple. These combined with the fajita vegetables are a dynamic duo.

The guacamole perfectly contrasts other flavors. It’s some of the best guacamole you can find from a chain, and maybe in general.

The creaminess and pure flavor of the guacamole works perfectly to bind together all the different flavors and textures. Overall, super solid, nothing insane.

Score: 3.8/5

Circus artists defy gravity

By Sofie Kennedy, Nora Miller Arts Editor, Entertainment Columnist

The cast of the tenth annual Actors Gymnasium winter show, All The Time In The World, exemplifies the graceful combination between theater and circus.

“All winter circus [shows] are sci-fi. It’s the creativity which I really like and how you can infer your own perspective on the story,” sophomore Grace Sherman explains.

It seems as though you are watching the run of the mill coming-of-age story. The first scene describes the backstory of a young girl, and her connection with her imaginary friend to cope with the fact that her parents are insanely busy, not paying her any attention.

Suddenly, as the family shares a meal, both parents step atop the table and begin a duo trapeze act. A scene like this one is why the Actors Gymnasium is so unique.

The cast is made up of 21 teens from the North Shore, 12 performers who are current ETHS students, along with four professionals that work at Actor’s Gym. Sylvia Hernandez-Distasi is the owner and director of Actors Gym, she and director Kerry Caitlin cast the teachers which are professional circus artists from Lookingglass Theatre and other theatres throughout Chicago. Together, the directors determine the storyline.

“This show was actually b a s e d off of one of the first show’s done at Actors Gym, performed 15 years ago. It was directed by the same director, Kerry Catlin,” senior Maddy Aaronson says. “This show has very similar concepts and circus acts to the original show, but it was modeled to the article

Bumping Into Mr. Ravioli by Adam Gopnik.”

The program started rehearsing in early January for their 22 total performances. The script for the show was completed by the first rehearsal, so the program worked on fitting the circus acts into the script. The adults worked on scenes while the Teen Ensamble worked on their acts which include counter weight rope, juggling, unicycling, sliding table and some acrobatic acts. Later into the process, the scenes and acts were put together.

All The Time In The World performs from Feb 16 to March 24 at the Noyes Cultural Center on Fridays at 7:30, Saturdays at 4:30 and 7:30 and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets can be bought at www.actorsgymnasium.org for $30. Use Promo code HIGHSCHOOL to get tickets $10 off.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Photo courtesy of Cole Simon

sports - 17

Diving inTO

sports SEASON

Senior Halley Seed shoots in a tournament last season.

Photo courtesy of Jimmy Heard

Boys water polo ready to dive back into season for the ages

By Michael Barthelemy,Will Wambo

Sports Captain, Staff Writer

After getting a taste of state competition last season, the ETHS boys water polo team has their sights set on winning it all, despite the loss of six seniors.

The Kits finished eighth in state last year, marking their best finish in 13 seasons. While this result was not what the team had anticipated, they do not view it as a Cinderella story.

State has become the expectation for this year and to use their momentum from last season to propel them to success.

“Goals are meant to be high,” head coach Kevin Auger said. “Certainly, our goals are to have a repeat performance of last year. We’ve got some big shoes to fill, but we have strong core guys too.”

Most notably, the team will n e e d to replace the l e a d e rship and skill from star defenders Jacob Finn-Samuels and Lucas Ve r rilli, who led t h e team’s stellar defense l a s t season. The Kits allowed just 121 goals throughout all of last season, allowing just over four goals a game. This was

enough to give the team the second ranked best defense of the eight teams at state in 2018.

Despite the loss of both Finn-Samuels and Verrilli, the Kits defense appears to be just as tough as last year, now led by senior goalie and captain Henry Goodman.

Chemistry does not appear to be a glaring issue either, even with the loss of senior leadership, as most players play polo in the offseason through the Evanston club team, East Side Water Polo.

“A lot of us play in the offseason [at East Side Water Polo], so we’ve already had a lot of throwing and conditioning with the younger players who will be integrated into the varsity lineup this year,” Goodman said.

The club plays a key role in the success of the ETHS team itself, as it is a perfect way to prepare players for the season.

“In the past, when we haven’t had a program that everyone played year-round, we’ve always hung around a .500 record and we haven’t really had much success,” Goodman continued. “But we’ve been able to really keep building off our success and continue to grow as a result of this program.”

In addition to their strong defensive presence, the team finds their speed to be another strength.

Senior Santi Ramos-Torrescano shoots on goal.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Photo courtesy of Patrick Hughes

By Michael Barthelemy

Sports Captain

The ETHS girls water polo team aims to use their unique speed and youth to their advantage as they head into their highly anticipated season.

This year’s team features two freshmen on the varsity level, a complete abnormality to a typically junior and senior dominated team. In head coach Andy Miner’s eight years of coaching the team, not once have two freshmen been able to crack the varsity level at the beginning of the season. Nevertheless, Hilda Arellano and Ava Santos-Volpe have both completed this feat, marking a new age for ETHS water polo.

“When you look at the really good teams, the teams that are perennially really good in the state, your Stevensons, your Fenwicks, your Naperville Centrals, those teams always seem to have freshmen and sophomores playing on their varsity team in significant numbers,” Miner said. “I think it’s a mark of an area, a community and a school that really puts an emphasis on water polo when you’re getting freshmen playing.”

With only 11 players currently on the varsity level, the team has surrounded itself solely with quality athletes who can make an immediate impact.

“If you made the varsity team, it wasn’t out of courtesy, you had to have to been playing and contributing,” Miner explained.

Despite the fact that Arellano and Santos-Volpe have played for x years before coming to ETHS, they still are willing to take advice from anyone and everyone on the team. Having players who are able to take and learn from criticism to improve, leads to a desire for success, and in result, team success. “[The underclassmen] are super willing to learn and listen and really want to hear everything you have to say, regardless of whether or not you’re a coach. I

think that everybody really appreciates that,” senior captain Halley Seed said.

The underclassmen have been heavily relied upon so far this season, as Seed, one of the team’s star players, has been injured since the beginning of the season with a broken finger. Despite the loss of one of the key contributors, fellow captain Sydney Hollingsworth has continued to lead this team through thick and thin as Seed is forced to watch from the sidelines.

Seed has chosen to look at this experience of being injured as a way to view the game in a different way. Watching each game and practice from the sidelines has given her the ability to point out areas of improvement in the team’s game and to be able to become a more “passive” leader.

Seed has acted as a secondary coach who players trust and feel comfortable around to go to for advice and tips on how to improve. So while the experience of being injured may prove to be a positive for the team in the long-run, Seed still remains anxious to get back in the pool.

“It’s really different when you’re in the game and you are a player, when tensions are super high and adrenaline is going. I think being able to watch from the bench and gauge where everybody’s at through that external view has really helped me see what everyone needs to work on,” Seed explained.

“It’s a good perspective that I’ve gained from watching it from the outside, but I’m also really excited to get back in the water.”

The Kits will continue their push to make it back to state Saturday, March 29, at the St. Patrick Varsity Tournament at St. Patrick High School.

18 - sports

the rundown

Badminton: On the rise

By Eli Cohen

Sports Captain

After a strong season last year where the Kits sent three players to State, the ETHS badminton team looks to keep improving from their third place conference finish last year.

“I expect us to get stronger at our game,” captain Clara Lynk said. “The team works hard on footwork and being able to move around the court well.”

With the teams mobility, quickness and ability to ‘paint the corners,’ it seems likely that the Kits will succeed despite the graduation of their State competitors Maia Robinson and Anne Hruska. Junior Monica Hill also reached the State finals.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Baseball: Slides to Vero Beach

By Sam Beebe, Sophia McCandlish

Staff Writer, Sports Captain

Every year, the baseball team takes a trip to Vero Beach, Florida and competes in a tournament over spring break. “[Vero] allows the team to interact and see each other in a different way,” head coach Frank Consiglio said. “After Vero, guys are much tighter and closer. It’s the main reason we go on the trip: to build that team chemistry.”

At the tournament, the Kits will see a level of competition that’s hard to find while playing games at home.

“Seeing 90 mph fastballs that early in the season prepares us almost to an unnecessary level for when we return,” junior first baseman Noah Leib said. “Going to Vero makes us one of the most seasoned teams going into our regular schedule.”

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Gymnastics:

Flippin’ freshmen

By Eli Cohen

Sports Captain

This season’s freshman-dominated boys varsity gymnastics team aims to be the start of a new and improved Evanston gymnastics program.

Underclassmen make up 14 of the teams 21 members, including seven freshmen. With so many freshmen engaged in the sport at a young age, the team’s lone senior, captain Rafael Salinas, is striving to make sure the program is on the right path.

“As the only senior, I want to make sure I set the bar higher for future teams,” Salinas said. “I want to set a culture that will allow ETHS boys gymnastics to flourish.”

Frank Erwin is entering his fourth year as Evanston’s coach and believes this year’s team is strong but misses the seniority as well.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Boys Lax:

Checking into season

By Hailey Fine

Sports Captain

Despite the drastic drop in seniority this year, boys lacrosse plans to take the season head on and keep up a competitive attitude.

“We graduated two division I and two division III athletes so there are big shoes to fill, but I think our guys will be able to do that,”

coach Rob Fournie said.

This year’s team features 10 less seniors than there were last season, giving the younger side of the team a chance, and some pressure, to step up.

“This year, the goal, of course, is to go far in the playoffs and do better than last season,” junior midfielder Ethan Francis said.

Last year’s season didn’t go as well as the team had hoped for. The Kits lost to Loyola 17-5 in sectionals which ended the season on a sour note. They plan on leaving that in the past as they continue into this season. While the season has just started, the team’s most noticeable strength is their punishing defense.

“Our defense is looking very solid this year. They push the offense to work hard every practice, resulting in great offense as well,” junior midfielder Jack Sload said. “But, our biggest team strength is the energy we have.

It’s never quiet, and it’s never not competitive.”

Along with the already aggressive nature of the game, the team has been conditioning constantly in order to get in the best shape possible for the long season ahead. While being required to condition in sweats and gear, these boys are being pushed to the limit both mentally and physically.

“As much as we hate [the conditioning], it is very beneficial. If we want to beat the best teams, we need to be able to outrun them. There is no doubt it will help better our on-field performances,” Sload said.

Despite the intensity of the training, the Kits are planning on having fun as well. With a tournament coming up in Phoenix, Arizona over spring break, the team will have plenty of time to bond.

“I think we have a very focused and dedicated group that has the potential to achieve a lot this season,” Francis said. “The ultimate goal is to have fun and do our best.”

The team’s next game will be on March 26, the first of many in the Arizona tournament.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Girls Lax:

Youth

movement

By Peter Barbato

Staff Writer

Despite suffering the loss of a seven senior difference last season, girls lacrosse is looking to utilize their youth to turn what could easily be a “rebuilding” year into a success.

Going from 10 seniors last season to now only three, the team has had to quickly shift from a very tightknit, senior led team to a team that now heavily depends on all four grade levels.

“The seniors last year had been playing together for a while, so it was easier for the new players to adjust to their style of playing,” senior captain Grace Tabet explained. “That being said, our team is still super talented, and we’re all really ready to work hard this season.”

Having to adjust the style of play is always an issue that surfaces when a team undergoes a seismic shift like the one the team finds themselves in now.

“I think [the changed team dynamic] will make things really hard for us this year,” junior Julia English said. “Everyone on our team has a specific skill set that they are bringing to the table, but it’s a lot different from last year.”

The team had three all-conference seniors last year, including Marnie O’Malley, who committed to Marquette University for lacrosse, and Sarah Skidmore, who committed to Williams College.

“The roster is definitely a lot different with only three seniors and being majority underclassmen,” sophomore Josie Lambert said.

“However, the advantage of this is that we are all still growing as players, and we have so much more time to get better as a team.”

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Softball: New

coach, new mindset

By Zach Myers

Staff Writer

With their sights set on a conference title, softball looks to bounce back from last year’s regional championship loss to Whitney Young and continue their domination of the CSL South with first year head coach Amy Gonzales.

Having graduated a majority of the starting infeld and five total starters from last year, coach Gonzales looks to bring the multitude of first year varsity players caught up.

“We’re young, we’ve got freshman, a few sophomores and even a few juniors who haven’t yet played varsity, so it’s going to be a new experience for them,” Gonzales explained. “We lost kids who played varsity for

sports - 19 four years or three years last year, so now it’s a little bit about getting the new kids up to speed with everyone else.”

However, with veteran leadership coming from junior Molly Chambers, who is committed to play at Princeton, and senior Lucy Hart, who is playing at Kalamazoo next year, the team looks poised to make a comeback.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Boys

track:

Indoor The definition finals tomorrow of a sport needs

By Chris Werner to be revised Sports Editor

Tennis: Ready to compete

By Chris Werner

Sports Editor

After a 2-5 record against CSL opponents last year and a third place finish at the CSL South tournament, the team has put in trained hard in the offseason and coach Marcus Plonus is excited about what could be in store this season.

“Everybody’s worked hard in the offseason,” Plonus said.

“That’s the goal. We’ve pounded it into everybody’s head that we can’t make you a superstar in the eight weeks during the season, you have to work hard in the offseason. I think that message is getting heard and hopefully Evanston tennis becomes competitive with the top teams in the area.”

Senior co-captain Max Johnson has made it a point of emphasis to not only work on his game outside of the high school season, but to get his teammates to buy into this idea.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

After a strong start to the season, Evanston’s boys track team is ready to take on the State’s toughest competition at the Illinois Top Times meet today and tomorrow at Illinois Wesleyan University.

The Top Times meet serves as the indoor State championships, and as it is the last indoor race of the season before outdoor track begins.

Since the meet serves as a championship, the athletes need to qualify. Last year Evanston sent a school record of six individuals and two relay teams to IWU. Junior long distance runner Max Peterson competed in the meet last year and will take that experience into this year’s meet.

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Girls track: Sprinting to success

By Everneesa Beech, Aldric Martinez-Olson

Staff Writers

While the record-breaking career of current University of North Carolina track star runner Enyaeva Michelin had a historic effect on the girls’ track team, this year’s Kits have confidence that this season is going to be a promising one.

“Last season gave us a good taste of what we can do and now we’re all intending to get to State and become better,” junior Hannah Lipman said.

Although the season just started, the team believes that high performance is a likely possibility. So far, the runners have placed second at meets on Feb. 23 and March 2 at the Olivet Nazarene Perry Rec-Center and Proviso West, respectively.

Full story available on Evanstonian.net

Volleyball: Set for season

By Chloe Haack

Staff Writer

Last season’s tightly bonded boys volleyball team will move into this season with a winning mindset and, hopefully, a winning record.

In the past, boys volleyball struggled to create a winning culture, but this year, with an already apparent positive team chemistry, the team has altered the mentality.

Last year, the team lost to Notre Dame in the regional quarterfinal 2-1, after being “mentally unready” for the match. This year, they hope to stress the importance of resilience.

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By Michael Barthelemy Sports Captain Fourth quarter. Down by one. Game on the line. Immediately, you race up the court, weaving through what feels like an endless stream of defenders. As you see time quickly expiring, and huck up a desperation halfcourt shot. As time seems to move in slow motion, you see this miracle of a shot slowly fall through the hoop and go in! You’ve dreamed of this moment your entire life.

You’re a national champion… in NBA 2K19.

For centuries, the ideology of a sport went undebated. Oxford Dictionary defines a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” Nobody ever bothered to question this definition, because, why would they? Nothing existed to challenge that definition.

Though, as time progresses, we see more and more leagues formed that challenge the traditional definition of a sport. There’s the ESL (Electronic Sports League), the ACO (American Cornhole Organization), the PRO Chess League and so many more. We need to ditch the strict traditional meaning of a sport to account for this wave of new leagues.

The main argument against E-sports and these other new leagues is the obvious fact that there isn’t nearly as much ‘physical exertion.’ You won’t see many working up a sweat playing video games and the most substantial injuries you’ll see are arthritis or carpal tunnel. While these are valid arguments, the workout chess players and gamers gain benefit the brain. There is constant strategy involved, and so while there may be less of this ‘physical workout,’ the amount of mental preparation that athletes put in is substantial.

NASCAR is widely regarded as a mainstream sport, but where is the physical exertion? They sit in a seat for just as long as chess players do, and the only real sweat drivers have is from sitting in a hot car for hours on end. Really, the pit crew is getting a better workout.

Popularity isn’t an issue either, with leagues such as the ACO gaining a massive following over the past few years. On top of the live crowd at events, major networks such as ESPN, Fox Sports and Comcast Sportsnet have televised these unconventional sports, with hundreds of thousands tuning in. In fact, the 2017 Cornhole Championships had a larger viewing than the MLB that day, as well as the final day of the Tour De France.

Arguably the most glaring contradiction in sports is the fact that we give this title to NASCAR, but deny dance the same. Dance is not only incredibly strenuous physically, but mentally as well. Not to mention, dance draws a prevalent crowd, selling out theaters and getting substantial amounts of TV air time.

Obviously, there will be those sports purists who will insist that classifying something such as E-sports as a sport is complete and utter blasphemy. I’m not arguing that these leagues need to replace the NBA or the NFL, that’s simply an impossible task. I’m just saying that there is no reason why we should continue to scrutinize and insult these leagues for what they are. These leagues are fresh and fun, and a change of pace that quite frankly the sports world needs.

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2 STAY Photos by Lia Kelly

Clockwise from top left: senior Lance Jones, sophomore Blake Peters, senior Ryan Bost and senior Jaheim Holden compete in the State championship.

By Eli Cohen, Chris Werner

Sports Captain, Sports Editor

[Continued from Page 1] With the departure of the team’s only true big man, 6’8” center Matt Hall, to Ohio Dominican University, Ellis started a five-guard lineup, with no player taller than 6’3”, which came with its fair share of critics.

Nevertheless, Bost, Holden and Jones led the Kits to another Peoria appearance, placing second behind the Belleville West Maroons.

The loss was devastating for Evanston, especially after leading by 10 in the first quarter and by six at halftime.

Belleville’s lengthy lineup eventually wore Evanston down in the post, as their presence drew double teams which opened up lanes for Maroon players to cut into.

The Kits, usually stellar from three-point line, shooting 12-19 from behind the arc in their semifinal victory over Rockford East, only converted on four of their 24 attempts.

While the game didn’t go Evanston’s way, the success of the trio in their Evanston basketball career is evident.

In the three seasons in which Bost, Holden and Jones were varsity mainstays, Evanston went a combined 108-15 and racked up 16 playoff wins.

“We want to leave a legacy of brotherhood,

leadership and togetherness,” Holden said.

The themes of brotherhood and togetherness were evident this season when sophomore Louis Lesmond moved to Evanston from France.

Lesmond had the difficult task of coming into a completely new culture and country but the senior guards welcomed him to the team with ease.

“They did a tremendous job this year accepting him and the role that he had on the team,” Ellis said. “That’s one thing that I’m most proud of. In the beginning of their careers, guys were coming in and trying to make a name for themselves, now the’re graduating and making a name for their team.”

Even though the guard trio of Bost, Holden and Jones will all be in different uniforms next season, skilled underclassmen including sophomores Jaylin Gibson, Isaiah Holden, Louis Lesmond and Blake Peters are more than ready to step into leadership roles.

“Especially with Jaheim, I’ve never seen a person with better leadership skills, with the way he was able to bring us all together, and without his influence we definitely would not have made it to the State championship game,” Peters said.

As Bost, Holden and Jones end their careers in orange and blue, they also end an era easily considered as some of the most successful basketball played in Beardsley Gym.

Soccer looks to prove themselves against Loyola tonight

By Chloe Haack

Staff Writer

Junior midfielder Calista O’Connor looks down the field to pass.

Photo by Lia Kelly

After a sectional semifinal loss last season, the girls soccer team aims to build upon their past success with the addition of six freshmen.

Seniors Hadley Bushala, Annika Destefano and Keara Kerr, all college commits, are looking to lead the team to a successful postseason run.

Last year’s 11-8-3 record was not enough to earn the team a sectional championship spot, as a 3-0 loss to New Trier in the semifinal ended their season. However, redemption is on everyone’s mind.

“We are focusing on putting equal emphasis on every game, no matter the team, and are looking forward to playing [New Trier] again this year,” DeStefano said.

The team will play the Trevians at Lazier Field on April 30, just one game on the grueling schedule the Kits face, which also includes games against Loyola and tournaments like the North Shore Invite and the Naperville Invitational.

The team is driven to increase their camaraderie, especially between the various grade levels on the team. Being a captain, DeStefano is working to create a more inclusive culture throughout the program.

“I hope to show the underclassmen, especially

the newcomers on the team, how special it is to play for your high school,” DeStefano said.

Sophomore Ryann Lucas will make the position switch to offense this season, after spending a year on the defense for the varsity squad last year. Through this change, the team hopes to utilize Lucas’ quickness and skill with the ball to jumpstart the attack for the beginning of the year.

While most may think that having a 50/50 split between underclassmen and upperclassmen would give the team a disadvantage, senior captain Kat Sehgal knows the team can use it to help intertwine the ages further.

“We are also trying to get rid of some of the cliqueness that we’ve had in previous years and have everyone on the same page,” Sehgal said.

“I really hope that I can help everyone get more comfortable on the team to the point that we all trust each other on and off the field.”

Evanston currently holds a 2-0 record after a 3-0 win to open the season against Lakes Community High School, highlighted by a shutout from goalie Sylvi Imrem and goals from freshmen Carly Menocal and Brealyn Viamille and junior Callista O’Connor. Then, last Saturday, the team picked up their first conference victory, defeating Niles North 2-1.

Tonight, the team will face off with Loyola at Lazier Field at 7 p.m.