The Antlerette Issue 95 Issue 1

The Antlerette Issue 95

September 2020

Volume 1

Issues with the Patriarchy Jaylie Gianatasio, Staff To some, the patriarchal society might seem like something we’ve overcome, but it’s apparent that it is still very present in today’s modern world. The patriarchy is an ideology in which men have the power and control in every aspect of our society. This leaves women to be an afterthought. The patriarchy is present everywhere, with matters such as the normalization of sexual and non-sexual harassment, being forced into specific gender roles, the wage gap, and exclusion in the workplace, simply because one is a woman.

Just in 2017, a reporter was denied access to the Speaker’s Lobby, a room next to the House of Chambers in Washington D.C. that a lot of reporters are allowed access to interview lawmakers. The reporter was apparently denied because what she was wearing was deemed “inappropriate”. What was she wearing? A sleeveless dress. Of course, it is important to dress formally when it is required for your job, but showing one’s shoulders shouldn’t be seen as inappropriate.

However, women are constantly over-sexualized to the point where giving women free agency over their own bodies seems impossible.

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Women don’t want to be gawked at and cat-called, so they try to dress in modest or less revealing clothes but then are shamed for not being more “lady-like”. Yet when women begin to feel confident in their clothes and bodies, they are degraded for it and objectified. There doesn’t seem to be a way to appease everyone, even though the only people women should be appeasing is themselves. As young women, such as myself, mature into adulthood, the pressures of appeasing misogynistic guidelines intensify. These restricting, stringent, parenting roles are set to control a female's everyday life. While we have come a long way from every woman staying at home, many are still expected to give up a working life and let someone be the so-called breadwinner for us. Many women are expected to give up dream jobs and hobbies to make others happy.

Our whole lives we are taught this – to make everyone else happy. The small things, such as taking the man’s last name in marriage and a sexist dress code, to bigger precedents like normalized assault are instilled into boys’ and girls’ minds. From a young age, both are trained to think that these types of misogynistic tendencies are normal. Society wants people to follow along as the older generations did, but the new generation is evidently changing that. The new women in this society have decided it is time we start to make ourselves happy. It is time to put ourselves first. It is time to destroy the patriarchy.

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Pink Tax Aminah Batcha, Staff The issue of the pink tax involves women/females quite often unknowingly being charged extra for female hygiene products. This happens all over the world where feminine products are being sold. For instance, these products include but are not limited to haircuts, clothes, and hair products. This has been occurring for many years.

It is unfair that people who require feminine hygiene products are sometimes unaware of the incredibly high amount of extra costs they incur just for being female. Additionally, many people are not aware that personal necessities, such as tampons and sanitary pads, have a sales tax, due to them being considered “luxury items”. Clearly the government thinks menstruation is a luxury! To give some insight on what a luxury item really is: it’s something that is not essential but highly desired and associated with the wealthy or affluent people. It is clear to see that this is nowhere near the definition of the process of menstruation and what items are absolutely essential for handling it. In order to fully grasp the issue of the pink tax, consumers need to be aware of how discriminatory this issue is and how it has been occurring for many years. Women pay 7% more than men due to this.

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How Society Views Men and Women of Today Grace Eki-Edo, Staff It’s the 21st century. The world is changing. Why can’t society change with it?

Society still criticizes the men and women of this generation because of things that we do in our daily lives that don't fit its standards. All around the world, problems such as men degrading women, men’s masculinity, rape, and racism are all pushed to the side and not talked about because they're not deemed “important’’.

In the United States and Africa, rape is a big issue. In the United States, there are about 433,648 victims (12 or older) that have been raped or sexually assaulted over the past year. Younger people of 12-34 are at higher risk of getting raped or sexually assaulted. Men can also be affected by sexual violence, but women are assaulted at a higher rate. In Africa, rape is a big issue because women can’t even go outside or wear what they want to wear because, On Facebook, a Nigerian man was sleeping with his daughters before they got married, even managing to impregnate one as well. In another case, a 36-year-old Nigerian woman was molested as a child and an adult. It is sad and disturbing that nothing has been done about rape and no matter how many women protest about it, it seems our voices are still ignored. A man’s masculinity is a huge issue among boys because boys are taught at a young age to not express their feelings because they will be looked at as a “girl’’. They are taught from a young age to not cry, to be tough, to play sports. The big problem is the notion that men are not allowed to cry or show any emotion for that matter. When boys cry, it's like a sin. Society has made it evident that if a boy or a man is seen crying, that they are now recognized as a “girl’’ or a “crybaby’’. I have even had my fair share of shock when a boy started crying in front of me.

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I was shocked because I had never seen a boy cry before, and at that moment, I realized that all the things that people were saying about boys and men were all fake. Boys and men do have feelings; they just hide it from the world because they don’t want to face the criticism that society will say about them. was shocked because I had never seen a boy cry before, and at that moment, I realized that all the things that people were saying about boys and men were all fake. Boys and men do have feelings; they just hide it from the world because they don’t want to face the criticism that society will say about them. Society needs to drop this stereotype about men and boys not expressing their softer side and leave them alone. Some fathers enforce men's masculinity because they don’t want their sons to be part of the LGBTQ+ community. Fathers should be happy with who their sons are and be supportive of their choice. If boys and men express their feelings more without anyone judging them, they will become more generous.

The colorist’s idea of dark skin vs. light skin needs to stop. It’s only dividing up the complexions and adding tension to the lighter and darker skin people. For example, the idea of a guy preferring light skin to dark skin women is just a preference, but if the guy starts to make fun of a dark skin woman, that’s when an issue arises. What colorists fail to understand is that by taking part in that scenario, you are inadvertently making a darker-skinned person feel insecure about something he or she cannot control, and it should not be that way.

Society needs to care about the things that are happening around the world with men and women and take it seriously instead of taking it as a joke.

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How to Support Your Friends’ Mental Health Shayna Hawk, Staff According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 1 out of 5 Americans struggle with a mental illness in the U.S. each year, although the severity can vary per individual. Stress levels in teenagers are especially high due to school, activities, and personal drama. Teens are more likely to have an issue with mental health. For teens and young adults, friendship is especially necessary to balance stress, and friends often offer support. But in many severe cases, friends aren’t the best of help for mentally ill teens. Losing friends can be detrimental.

So if you have a friend with a mental illness (a condition that affects a person’s mood, thinking, and behavior) and don’t know how to help them, please take the time to learn about their struggles. Here’s some advice from my experience with being mentally ill and having mentally ill friends.

Personally, I have dealt with being diagnosed with a few mental health issues and I have lost friends due to misunderstandings of these issues. Many of my problems have to do with how I was raised and it affects my mood and behavior.

I get irritated very easily, much like my mother, and I lash out. Lashing out in front of people can often be uncontrollable, but I’ve lost friends over it even after feeling guilty and apologizing and explaining my issues to them. Sometimes I just avoid them completely after apologizing because I feel like a burden, and sometimes they just avoided me until I realized they didn’t want to deal with me anymore. I have been getting help for my personal issues for a few years now in order to stop myself from showing excessive anger in front of people I care about. I also try to help my friends when they feel sad to show them that I am there for them. Much of the advice I give on mental health comes from the friends I had who have helped me deal with rough times in my life and from my counselor, who helps me

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handle my relationship with the people I’m with. my first piece of advice, do listen to your friends and attempt to be understanding or sympathetic. Don’t compare them to other sad or angry people you know or deny their feelings.

From personal experiences, I tell people what I have and people won’t believe me because I act a certain way. But if I get a mood swing and lash out in front of that person accidentally, I immediately turn into a person comparable to their drunk angry uncle or their manipulative parent when I am my own person. So my first piece of advice, do listen to your friends and attempt to be understanding or sympathetic. Don’t compare them to other sad or angry people you know or deny their feelings. From personal experiences, I tell people what I have and people won’t believe me because I act a certain way. But if I get a mood swing and lash out in front of that person accidentally, I immediately turn into a person comparable to their drunk angry uncle or their manipulative parent when I am my own person. At times, friends will tell you exactly what they struggle with and it could be anything from depression to PTSD or OCD. So if a friend tells you what they struggle with, do your research on that issue, and ask how you can help them out and be a supportive ally in their mental health journey. Sometimes, your friend won’t tell you what they are going through and as a friend, don’t bombard them with questions until they feel obligated to force it out. Everyone copes with certain issues differently, and that is completely valid just as long as they are not hurting themselves or others. Instead, just offer support no matter what. Show them a kind gesture and let them know you will be there to help them no matter what. Dealing with mental illness can be difficult, so do take yourself into consideration. You may or may not have a mental illness yourself. But everyone deals with stress, so your own care must come first. If a friend is being too harmful to you and making your state of happiness worse, they don’t need to be in your life. That being said, don’t discard a friendship without any prior sign, because that can often make their mental state worse. Don’t say you’d rather not be their friend in the middle of a fight or disregard them one random day. Try waiting for an appropriate moment to tell them how you are feeling. For example, when my mom was

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being awful to her friend back when she was a young adult, she didn’t even realize it because she wasn’t getting the proper help she needed. But her friend wrote her a letter expressing her thoughts and they are still friends today. This is because of the fact that they valued each other enough to get through my mom’s rough patches, which led to my mom getting Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). If they are truly your friend, they don’t mean any harm. To sum it all up, friends are important to us as humans to make our mental states healthier and it’s ultimately important to let them know they are not alone. A lot of these do’s and don'ts I have listed come from my personal experiences with past and current friends of mine. I cannot stress enough how important it is for someone to not feel alone. Dealing with extreme feelings of loneliness for around 8 months damaged how I perceived the world. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. If it can be avoided with the help of others, I’d want that in a heartbeat.

I was not a perfect friend at the time and can admit that, but I know my intentions in life and I know I do my best to be a nice and relaxed person. Most mentally unhealthy people are just trying to get better, and friends who know how to help can be the first step to achieving a healthy state of mind.

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Social Anxiety following 2020 Ryan O Sullivan, Staff We have all been there, out in public, and you see that specific person... Maybe it’s a teacher you’re not extremely acquainted with, an adult you haven’t seen for years, or an ex boyfriend or girlfriend. Nevertheless, the scenario most of the time is extremely uncomfortable or awkward. We might resort to hiding behind a tree, sheepishly waving, or maybe just completely running away and hoping they may not notice. Now we are faced with an insurmountable amount of social pressure from the coronavirus pandemic. The resulting factor from this pandemic might be reflected in our ability to communicate or interact with others. I would be lying if I told you I didn’t believe 2020 would lead to a wave of social anxiety in the next generation.

An excellent example of social awkwardness I have experienced has come in the form of an awkward encounter last week. My friend, Greg, and I were out getting food, and he said some of his friends from school that he hadn’t talked to in a while were walking around the spot we were at. In an extremely tense moment, Greg put his head down as his friends entered the restaurant we were in, trying to avoid any social interaction. Soon enough, we got our drinks and exited the shop. Next, in another awkward and cringey scene, Greg’s friends walked by noticing that it was him, yet not saying anything either. I had never expected this from Greg. Normally, he is a social butterfly and would run up to someone in this position. So what changed? What has happened this year that has led to the outcome of this social uncomfortably? There are numerous outcomes that may result as the answer to that question. With the fate of the world in our researchers’ hands, this could all be over next week, or in a year. In between these periods of time, some of us might have experienced episodes of depression, helplessness, or

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a large distancing between friends and family. The truth about humans is that we live off social interaction. A life with little social interaction may be detrimental to a person’s mental and even physical health. Through these times, we have to continue our relationships with good friends that we enjoy talking to and spending time with. Maintaining a healthy social life is so crucial because it can be extremely challenging to wake up, look at the same walls over and over, and go back to sleep. We have greatly reduced the number of relationships being built. We need to start referring back to how we were composing ourselves before the quarantine. Ways that we can put ourselves out there is reaching out to old friends, communicating with others online, safely in person, and playing games online. Ways that I have maintained my relationships are by playing games with my friends online and continuing to make plans and meet up in person with friends, of course with precaution.

This lack of social relations can put you at risk of developing social anxiety or social phobia. The symptoms of this disorder include intense fear of being judged, negatively evaluated, or rejected in a social environment. As a result of the events in 2020, we will most likely start to see exponential growth in social anxiety cases. Perhaps we may even see a generation of teens and young adults with a looming fear of awkward or normal social exchange.

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Our Failure Benjamin Carrillo, Content Editor Failure is defined as the omission of a task or project.

The day we left school feels so off for many reasons. For me, personally, I was planning a potluck for the following week and had multiple interviews and campaigns for the class council election. The abrupt end still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth anytime I think of it, but like many others, I was sure we would be back in school after a couple of weeks. I was excited to see what the future had in store for us, but now it’s the middle of September and we’re still inside of our houses, longing to go outside and see people again. I’m often thinking to myself, “this all could’ve been prevented,” and “what could we have done differently?”

What could we have done differently? A phrase I think of constantly.

COVID-19 is the wake-up call we all needed. We became so entrapped in our own little bubble, and it shows that we as a nation have failed to properly handle this virus. Instead, we’ve taken this small task and blown it out of proportion refusing to follow proper social distancing procedures, living with our failure.

From the beginning, it has been “Wear a mask and stay six feet apart.” This idea has been pushed by local governments since the middle of March. So what is making people think that they can go outside and still socialize? We should consider the opinion of anti-maskers. Masks are admittedly very uncomfortable to wear, and especially during summer in a world record-breaking heatwave, it can be hard to wear a mask. But I digress. Time and time again we have seen these masks do their job. Wearing a mask is not just for your safety, but it’s for the safety of everyone else around you. The masks were never meant to be a political statement. Not wearing one could cause you to lose people in your life. Especially in such a hot spot like California, masks are incredibly essential. We've passed

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Florida and Texas for most cases in the U.S.A., and yet we still see people outside without a mask protesting something that truly isn’t going to go away via willpower. It’s understandable to be upset that the masks are hot and it’s hard to breathe. It's important to remember that this virus will not properly be contained until we, as a nation, understand that the country will not heal until we wear that mask. Another aspect of our nation’s failure that we have all seen on social media time and time again are the parties that are still taking place.

Just as recently as August 6th, we saw a group of about 60 “influencers'' and “celebrities'' go out and party celebrating a comedian by the name of Larry's birthday. How are we supposed to trust these so-called “influencers” to do their job and actually influence when they fail to practice what they preach? Though many have apologized, that doesn’t excuse their behavior and the overall pandemic behavior. But their hypocrisy is still evident on their social media platforms. On them, you can easily spot a photo of them hanging out with a different person every day. From a different celebrity to their family, to another collaboration with some celebrity. It’s truly astonishing to see these people that have impressionable fans as young as 6 years old that look up to them as they fail to do their job. Even on a much wider scale, you can see something called the Alabama COVID Party, where regular people, not even celebrities, are willingly trying to get themselves infected to have some so-called “fun” (if you can even call it that). From a critical point of view, you can consider this ultimate failure at its finest.

While critically reviewing the United States’ handling of the Coronavirus, it becomes very clear to see that we, as a country, have had a lack of care, to say the least. Towards the future, we need to do better, hold people accountable, and understand that this virus won’t go away by just saying you want it to. We can do better and atone for our failure.

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The Reopening of Schools and Theme Parks Kaitlin Rohaly, Staff Many theme parks and schools have recently reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Disney World and Universal Orlando have reopened, even though Florida is the second state with the most COVID cases in the United States. Theme parks have reopened in different parts of the world, but the difference between the other countries and the U.S. is that the U.S. has far more COVID cases than any other country in the world. There haven't been any signs of stopping either.

Disney World and Universal Orlando slowly reopened in Florida as cases were spiking. Just like any other business, Disney wanted to reopen the parks for the upcoming summer vacation season.

Disney opened Disney Springs on May 20th, Universal opened June 3rd.

Downtown Disney in Anaheim, California reopened on July 9th and Disney World opened Magic Kingdom on July 15th. Disney Springs took precautionary measures to ensure the safety of guests and cast members. The Disney website, Walt Disney World Resort In Orlando, Florida, explains some of the requirements to enter their park. You are required to enter a temperature screening before you're allowed into Disney, face masks required for people ages 2 and up. You're also expected to practice social distancing and Disney themselves have increased focus on sanitation and added additional hand washing stations. Disney World and the other Disney World theme parks opened with the same precautions taken and advertised guiding principles that would be implemented on your vacation.

Measures such as enhanced cleaning, physical distancing, and reduced contact. In addition to all of those things, Disney banned eating and walking at the same time.

The website, Deadline, explains, “Previously the rule’s exception on masks was limited to eating and drinking. But that loophole has now been closed as

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patrons were seen walking throughout the park with beverages and food sans masks.” If you're going to enjoy a Disney treat, you now have to eat it in a designated eating area, as well as no more meet and greets with characters. Now you can talk to characters if they are standing on a balcony, and the princesses have a special time of day called “The Princess Procession” where you can see princesses, at a distance, walking through the park, and a similar process for Mickey and his friends. But that loophole has now been closed as patrons were seen walking throughout the park with beverages and food sans masks.” If you're going to enjoy a Disney treat, you now have to eat it in a designated eating area, as well as no more meet and greets with characters. Now you can talk to characters if they are standing on a balcony, and the princesses have a special time of day called “The Princess Procession” where you can see princesses, at a distance, walking through the park, and a similar process for Mickey and his friends.

Universal opened with similar precautions to the Disney parks. On the Universal Orlando Resort website, it shows their rules that guests and staff are supposed to abide by. Face masks required as well as temperature checks, marks on the floor to maintain distance, and required hand sanitizer when needed as well as the encouragement of washing hands often. They also ensure you on their website that team members will wear face masks and be trained especially during this time. They also have more strict cleaning procedures as well as limiting capacity of the park. And as anybody would say, both parks encourage you not to come if you're feeling sick.

Downtown Disney has implemented all of the same precautions. Disney World and Universal Orlando are the only parks fully open in the U.S. All of the Disney parks in Asia have reopened as well as Disneyland Paris. So far, no cases have been reported of any cast or team member from any parks. It’s understandable for the big companies of influence that Disney and Universal are to reopen their parks, but is it really a good idea too? So far, their efforts in preventing the virus from entering their parks have been successful, but only time will tell.

With all the theme parks reopening in time for summer, the school year was right around the corner. Schools had closed in early 2020 due to the pandemic while our numbers were down. But many people insisted that we open schools when our numbers were higher and still growing.

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Seniors VS The Recession Caleb Castleberry, Staff With people constantly losing their jobs in the midst of a recession caused by the COVID19 pandemic, the graduating class of 2021 will be entering an entirely different world than that of any previous graduating class. Because everyone is losing employment, the job market for incoming workers has become hypercompetitive.

According to the Pew Research Center, unemployment has drastically increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. unemployment rates were at 3.5% in February, which was among the lowest recorded since WW2. Since then, unemployment rates have gone up to 13.0% in May. This unemployment rate is already higher than that of the great recession from 2007 to 2010, which peaked at 10.6%. People that do not participate in the workforce but do want a job are not counted in official measurements of unemployment, meaning that current unemployment rates could be understated.

Due to such high unemployment, millions of people are all looking for jobs at the same time. This means that there will be significantly more applicants for fewer job positions available. Employers likely will be more selective when it comes to hiring. Incoming graduating seniors, who often have little to no experience, will be overlooked. Jobs will go to candidates with more work experience before the graduating class even gets considered.

While employers are always looking for candidates with the most experience, there are now a lot more people applying for jobs that also have more work experience. Seniors can prepare for this by building a resume with extracurricular activities and doing volunteer work whenever possible. Being more involved on campus and in your community are great ways to impress employers while still

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still having less work experience.

It is important for seniors to be prepared to enter the workforce while facing these new challenges brought on by the pandemic and the resulting recession.

With the job market becoming hyper-competitive, graduating seniors must find ways to build a strong resume with little to no prior work experience. By doing volunteer work, and being active within your community and campus, seniors can put themselves ahead of their newly found competitors when applying for open job positions.

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Influencers Speaking Up Emily Corrales, Staff Throughout this year, we have seen many tragedies such as the Australian wildfires, the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matters protests, the unrighteous death of Vanessa Gullien, the Lebanon bombing, and many more. We have seen celebrities and other public figures use their large social media platforms to speak up about these events and even attend these protests to help spread awareness.

One of the first tragedies to happen this year was the Australian wildfires. This event caused nearly three billion animals to die or be removed from their natural habitats according to CNN. Not only did it affect the animals living there, it also affected the people living in Australia. Homes and businesses were burned in the process of firefighters trying to contain the fire from spreading even more. While the wildfires were happening in Australia, there were posts all over the media about it telling us to share the videos or pictures of the wildfire with other people to help spread the word.

Celebrities and influencers were donating money and signing petitions for not only this cause but others as well. For example, there’s the Black Lives Matter movement, which mainly started because of the death of George Floyd. These protests empowered people from everywhere to march in their communities, not only in the United States, but in other countries as well. Tik Tok was one of the primary platforms to display what was happening in the streets all around the country, and by talking about the unfair treatment of people of color through videos that lasted only a few seconds. But it only took seconds to make people feel empowered and encouraged them to want to play a role in stopping the discrimination that is happening all around them. Due to these protests, there have been some changes for the better, laws are being changed or added for the good of the people, the police department has been reviewing and altering law enforcement policies if needed. This goes on to show how people that have a social platform can influence others.

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How EGPD is Handling Black Lives Matter Selena Enriquez, Staff With more and more folks understanding how racial injustices are built into our government systems, the Elk Grove Police Department (EGPD) has an obligation to respond to community demands about the status of their service regarding the mistreatment of people of color and poverty-stricken communities.

Last month, the Elk Grove City Council put forth a policy called “community policing” in response to Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists calling for police reform and a defunding of police systems, in addition to the reallocating said funds to other social service agencies who can better provide support to nonemergency or non-police related incidents. This is a policing strategy that focuses on building ties with the communities that they serve. However, the City Council has no plans to defund or divert funds from the police. In my personal opinion, if we are going to put millions of dollars into policing, we need to make the effort to train officers to better handle situations of conflict. Study after study has shown that more training leads to less fatalities and brutality as officers are taught different means of handling different situations. This still doesn’t stop killings however.

What do these reform efforts look like? On August 12th, Darren Suen remarked in a city council meeting that officers are skateboarding with children and Mayor Steve Lee stated that “this is what the youth want to see”. As “the youth” that Steve Ly is referring to, I’ll be the first to say that this is not what we want to see. Injustice still perpetuates throughout the system. Many officers transferred to the EGPD from the Sacramento Police Department, the same department that did nothing to serve justice to Stephon Clark and drew national attention to their negligence. Stephon Clark was a suspect for a local car break-in, and was

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running from the police. He ended up at his grandmother’s house, pulled out his cell phone, and was shot 8 times, which led to his death. The officers involved, Terrance Mercadal and Jared Robinet, claimed they feared for their lives which is why they used excessive and deadly force. They “confused” the cell phone for a handgun. They have yet to be fired from Sac PD. We want to stop seeing people being beaten and brutalized by a system that has been inherently flawed since its creation. According to Eastern Kentucky University, the police we’ve come to know now originated in part from slave patrols and night watches designed to keep minority groups “in check”. It makes perfect sense that they still target minorities to this day when we analyze their behaviors and biases.

Officers to this day exhibit something called “implicit bias”. It’s when they don’t try to directly target people of certain race, class, or gender, but end up doing so due to their unaddressed preconceptions about those groups. This can affect the statistics we see in government databases and what is shown to us in the media, which also helps form our own unconscious bias. For example, black people do not commit more crime. White people just get away with it more because of implicit bias.

It’s a system that has had little change. We want to not be afraid around officers who genuinely mean well. I’m happy to see an effort being made to try and solve police brutality and power struggles between law enforcement and the communities they serve. This issue is not easy to fix.

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) is starting a new working group called Equity, Race, and Inclusion adopted their course of action on August 20th, created in response to the protests about George Floyd. SACOG is a regional joint power of authority consisting of council members from the six counties in the Greater Sacramento area: Placer, Yolo, Yuba, Sutter, Sacramento, and El Dorado counties. In the words of an EGPD officer himself, “We only have 20 minutes to solve five years worth of problems. It’s a lot [of work] on our part and yours.”

My first task for this group: fire the cops who killed Stephon Clark.

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Toxic Masculinity in the Rap Industry Maiya Lopez, Staff Today in the twenty-first century, if you indulge in pop culture, you’re likely aware of the rap industry and what rap music is. The chances are you listen to it regularly and have heard it commonly while streaming music. But what goes more unnoticed is how much toxic masculinity is weaved into the lyrics of your favorite songs and engraved itself in your favorite male rappers’ mindsets. Toxic masculinity is a cultural concept of manliness that glorifies the dominance and manipulation of women. A lot of male rappers tend to portray a sense of entitlement and ownership over women in their songs. A big reason some male rappers and some men, in general, have toxic masculinity is that they feel the need to establish control and create a barrier between men and women, solidifying heavy gender roles that hypersexualize and objectify women.

The idea of toxic masculinity is normally unnoticed by the average consumer and therefore is not talked about as often, especially in such a male-dominated rap industry. Eminem is notoriously known for his controversial lyrics, most of which are about women. For example, in his song “Love Game” he says, “Snatch that b**** out her car window, she screamin’ / I body slam her onto the cement, until the concrete gave and created a sinkhole / Bury this stink h* in it, then paid to have the street repaved” It is very apparent that these are extremely disturbing lyrics. Big rappers like Eminem have no problem using their huge platform to show their young and impressionable fans that it's okay to normalize assault.

Eminem is far from being the only rapper to do this though. Rappers Kanye West, Chris Brown, Snoop Dogg, Post Malone, and many more have objectified and hypersexualized women in their music. In many rap songs, there seems to

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be a recurring theme: committing sexual acts on a woman. If it's not that, it's them describing female bodies in an unfavorable tone. Another example can be found in the lyrics of Post Malone’s “Psycho”. “I'm hittin' Lil' mama, she wanna have my babies / It's fifty on the pinky, chain so stanky / You should see the whip, promise I can take yo b**** / Dolla ridin' in an old school Chevy, it's a drop-top / Boolin' with a thot-thot, she gon' give me top-top / Just one switch, I can make the a** drop.” Lyrics like these seem harmless, however many impressionable young fans of these big rappers are learning that it's acceptable to sexualize and objectify women.

Toxic masculinity and misogyny have been a heavy part of rap culture since its early days. It’s been normalized for years, but I think it's time to finally put a close to this offensive era. Consumers don't understand how harmful and triggering lyrics like these can be to women. It's upsetting to see how big of a problem this is, but barely anyone is talking about it. By spreading the word, holding artists accountable for their portrayal of women, and not listening to hypersexualized songs about women, we can denormalize the sensitive discussion being glorified in songs, putting a stop to toxic masculinity.

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Problems with Distance Learning Part 2 Kyle Williams, Staff The Coronavirus has made a huge difference in how we live our day-to-day life.

For us students, it has made an impact on how we learn and how our teachers are teaching us via Zoom. With the new ways of doing our normal activities come some things we will struggle with along the way. The plan the district conducted for distance learning last year varied drastically compared to the new school year. Now, given the fact that the staff had more time to plan out how to do it this year, distance learning was able to be more of a coherent plan rather than just a thrown together method to end the year. But despite this, distance learning still has some very apparent flaws.

Starting off with the first day of school, it was a complete mess. Synergy had completely crashed, causing some people to be absent or tardy to their firstperiod class. The technology issues do not stop here, as a lot of kids may not have complete access to WiFi. Or there are the kids who may have WiFi but it isn’t very strong either due to other siblings also having to use Zoom or just a bad connection. Personally, I have noticed that the bigger the class is, the slower the Zoom call is, also making it much harder to make out what the teacher is saying.

Also with Zoom, I’ve had to use it through my phone as my laptop was not working properly. I noticed a lot of features with Zoom do not work on your phone the way they do on a computer.

Last year we did all 6 classes at one time and we didn’t do Zoom meetings every day. Instead, teachers had office hours once or a few times a day to drop in and ask any questions or address any possible concerns. We had to basically teach ourselves all the curriculum and didn’t have a strict class to focus on at a time.

This year, we only focus on three classes at a time, which is a little bit of a stress

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reliever. But I also feel like when we transition into the other three classes and then transition back into our first three classes, we are bound to forget a lot of things. Like the speed and efficiency of each teacher or the topics, we had discussed previously, because of the 2-3 month gap since the last time you had been a part of the class.

Overall, these are all just personal opinions that have been gathered within the first few weeks of distance learning. There can be tweaks made here and there, but overall everything is going as smoothly as it can for doing school online.

Everyone has their own problems or opinions with the subject at hand and it is up to us to fix any problems.

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Gen Z is the Protagonist Emma Thogmartin, Staff Starting in May, the United States began seeing the rise of the Black Lives Matter protests after the unjust death of George Floyd. In all these protests, Generation Z is a big player. This generation nobly stands against this continued injustice, but where did they learn to stand for their beliefs and gain the strength to do it?

Generation Z was born between 1996 and 2015, and they've grown up on media in which they have learned the skills they need to protest; specifically dystopian and fantasy media where a teenage protagonist is chosen to defeat the big evil government controlling the citizens. Books like The Hunger Games or Divergent have inspired these kids and they are determined to use what they’ve learned from these stories.

Growing up reading about various protagonists fighting corrupt systems has allowed Generation Z to draw parallels between the systems and governments seen in dystopian media to our own, applying what they’ve read to the real world and encouraging them to be skeptical of what is presented to them. Personally, I’ve seen a lot of posts across social media comparing the current U.S. government to the Capital in The Hunger Games, typically illustrating the rich elite screwing over the lower class citizens. That parallel is seen today in rich politicians passing tax laws that only benefit those higher up and continuing to grow the wealth gap.

There are parallels to Avatar the Last Airbender (ATLA) where members of Gen Z debate on social media about if the U.S. was in ATLA, would it fit better as the Fire Nation or Ba Sing Se. The Fire Nation’s overly powerful military, tendency to create war to gain power and blatant race supremacy fit a lot of the criticism of the U.S. The reasoning for people choosing Ba Sing Se is because the U.S. often

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denies problems that need to be faced in the country and puts on a facade that these problems don’t exist. Some have even compared the two-party system to factions in Divergent and how they divide us more than they help us. With these comparisons, it's easy to want to do something about it, so Generation Z is stepping up to the plate. With these comparisons, Gen Z begins to see themselves as these characters and starts applying the actions they’ve seen demonstrated in them. Seeing their emotions played out on screen is definitely a big influence on Gen Z. For example, in ATLA, they can see themselves in all the characters grieving over loved ones lost to a corrupt and uncaring regime when large parts of Gen Z are losing their friends, families, and communities due to the hands of the police, those sworn to protect them or make the world a better place. Gen Z is not only seeing their feelings reflected in the media, they are also being presented with answers to fight against those who are harming their communities. An example of this would be Katniss Everdeen, when she starts her journey to protect her sister from the Hunger Games. She realizes how it's the government's fault for the citizens’ deaths and takes a stand against it.

Gen Z has learned to stand up for what they believe in despite the challenge.

All these dystopian and fantasy series have unintentionally shaped the world view of Gen Z and inspired their actions. Now is just one of the first opportunities we can see it on a large scale, whether that be online activism, attempting to educate family and friends when they make ignorant comments, or in-person protests. Gen Z has seen where compliance with corruption gets people in dystopian media, but they’ve also seen what protest will do and they’ve made the choice to protest.

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Iligtas ang Pinas Jordan Ritchie, Editor-in-Chief If you’re reading this now, despite not understanding the title of this article, you’re already doing more than most. Most people who come across something that they don’t understand would dismiss or brush off what they’d seen instead of taking the time to acquire the knowledge they’re lacking so that they could attain that understanding. And for taking that small yet paramount step, I commend you. Therefore, for doing so, in hopes you’re one of the few who’s curious and seek to understand what I’m about to talk about, I’ll tell you what the title of my article means.

Save the Philippines.

It would be selfish and untrue to say that the Philippines is the only country suffering from a dire situation. We’re aware of the devastation that occurred in Beirut, the challenges women are suffering from in Yemen, and every ableminded American knows of the conflicts we’re facing here in our own nation, but while the Philippines is constantly praised for their food, talents, and beautiful beaches, most people don’t know it as anything more than a tropical tourist destination. Most people don’t know that there have been thousands – no – countless extrajudicial killings in the past 4 years. Most people don’t know that among that countless numbers are over a hundred children, that these killings are casualties in a ruthless war in which the streets are the battlefield. Or that the Filipino people are currently being stripped of their freedom of speech, that those in the field of journalism, the very institution that gives me this platform to speak about this matter, are being murdered. You might be wondering why all these horrible things are happening. To even begin to comprehend that, let’s get into a little bit of context, starting with the War on Drugs and the AntiTerrorism Act of 2020.

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In 2016, the then-mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte promised at a campaign rally, “If I make it to the presidential palace… you drug pushers, holdup men, and do-nothings, you better get out because I’ll kill you.” Later that year, he was elected the president of the Philippines. However, 2016 not only marked the beginning of his 6-year term, but also the start of his vicious war on drugs. Duterete allowed – no – encouraged people to shoot and kill any drug dealers and addicts, even offering to reward those that do. In his own words, “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now there is 3 million… drug addicts… I’d be happy to slaughter them.” “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.” Many nonFilipinos have expressed blatant outrage at these orders, but most of them aren’t aware of how serious the illegal drug problem in the Philippines is. The most commonly abused drug in the Philippines is a variant of meth called shabu, also known as the poor man’s cocaine. In 2012, the UN reported that the Philippines had the highest methamphetamine abuse rate in East Asia.

However the drugs themselves are not the only problem, as it doesn’t take long for shabu users to get addicted, and many abusers turn violent as a result of the addiction, leading to domestic violence and more acts of crime to satisfy the addiction. According to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) data, over 8,000 barangays [districts] in the country struggle with this drug issue. In Metro Manila – the country’s National Capital Region – 92% of the barangays were affected by drugs. So President Duterte’s urgency in ridding the country of this addicting adversary is not unfounded. The Philippines is plagued with crime and drugs are a major contributor that must be stopped, and most Filipinos agree.

However, Duterte’s actions concerning the drug war should be viewed as an issue of crime and law enforcement; it doesn’t matter if you believe if the drug war is right or wrong, it’s now become a matter of human rights. The UN reported that it’s possible that tens of thousands have died in this war, and many of them were innocent and not involved in drugs at all. Yes, the drug problem in the Philippines is serious and it must be fixed, but the violence has gone too far because no amount of justification can wash away all the carnage of

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this war. In history and in today’s world, there have been few crises solved without blood spilled. But many in the Philippines and outside of it agree that this war’s body count has risen too high. There have been thousands of extrajudicial execution, extreme police violence, hundreds of homicides not on record, and no one is talking about this. It doesn’t matter if the cause of this war is a human or a narcotic, it’s still a war, and we cannot win a war that remains a secret. We must take advantage of our freedom to speak, because while we still have that power, others may not, which leads me to my next point of discussion: The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. Also known as the Anti-Terror Bill, this law was signed by President Duterte this past July and has already struck worry and fear into the hearts of the Filipino people. You might have even seen the hashtag #JunkTerrorBill going around on social media as netizens expressed their disapproval of the law. The purpose of the Anti-Terror Bill is “to protect life, liberty, and property from terrorism… and to make terrorism a crime against the Filipino people, against humanity, and against The Law of Nations.” “Huwag ho kayong matakot kung hindi ka terorista,” (“Do not be afraid if you are not a terrorist) Duterte said, in an address to quell the worries of the people. However, the danger of this law is that it expands the definition of terrorism and infringes on people’s rights. The law defines a terrorist as someone who “Engages in acts intended to cause death … to any person or endangers a person’s life”, “Engages in acts intended to cause extensive damage or destruction to a government or public facility, public place or private property”, or “Engages in acts intended to cause interference with, damage or destruction to critical infrastructure… when the purpose of such act… is to intimidate the general public… or spread a message of fear” or to provoke or intimidate the government. This means that even if a person never carries out a crime, they will be deemed a terrorist because they had the intention to do so.

The law also dictates that a person may be secretly wiretapped or put under surveillance if they’re even suspected of being a terrorist and that such suspects may be arrested and detained without a warrant, and detention can be extended up to 24 days. In addition to that, a person who incites terrorism through “speeches, proclamations, writings… or other representations tending to the

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same end” will be imprisoned for 12 years, and any person found guilty of this definition of terrorism will be sentenced to life in prison with no parole. This means that anyone who does something the government finds provoking or intimidating is treading on thin ice with the risk of living the rest of their life behind bars. The law clarifies that acts such as advocacy and protest aren’t included in this new definition of terrorism as long as they don’t “create a serious risk to public safety”, but this law has drawn a thin line between freedom of expression and terrorism, enraging many Filipinos now preaching the mantra “Activism is not terrorism”. And though this exact definition of terrorism is exclusive to the Philippines, it is not exclusive to Filipinos. If a person takes part in any act detailed in the law’s definition of terrorism while not in the Philippines, even if you are not a citizen of the country – if you’re a Filipino-American, a tourist, just a visiter, a complete foreigner – you can still be arrested without a warrant for your “crime” while in the Philippines. By now, I’ve probably scared all travel enthusiasts into crossing the Philippines off their bucket list, but distancing ourselves from the problem doesn’t erase it. Though we may live in America and have enough problems of our own, we cannot turn a blind eye to injustice even if it doesn’t affect us. As foreigners, we have little power in other countries’ affairs, especially as young people, we have even less.

But we have our minds and we have our voices. If we can learn anything from these horrible situations, it’s that we shouldn’t take our right to speak up for what we believe in for granted. Though it’s devastating that others’ freedoms are being stripped away, we should take pride in that we have the power to stop this massacre. If we don’t spread the word about this issue, it will continue to grow. If we don’t use this opportunity to educate others, no one will have the option to learn. So even if you don’t have the power to change the law or put a stop to crime, you have the power to rally others to help do so. The more that people know about this crisis, the greater chance we have of putting an end to this calamity. So we must speak out. Filipinos lost their right to speak out in an instant, and who’s to say that it will never happen to us? While we still have the power to do so, we must use our voices to spread awareness about people in danger who need our help. Because without our voices, cries for help go silent and unspoken issues become forgotten.

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