Um–obviously? Granted, the article in question is from the Daily News and any material they circulate should always be taken with a grain of salt…or after a few shots of tequila.

The story only serves to provide evidence to my earlier blog about the inequalities with the so-called unbiased SHSAT. So, YES, to all those who protest that the exam provides equal opportunity for admission into the specialized high schools of NYC…this is the proof that you weren’t looking for. Does it really require a study? All one needs to do is ask a student who attends the school rather than conduct a study that is a thorough waste of time since it appears to point to the obvious, for anyone familiar with the saga anyway.

As one source in the story puts it: “These are predominately schools for the privileged,” said David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Grad Center. “It’s about access to tutors, access to information and access to better middle schools.”

Which just goes to show that nothing in life is really unbiased–a combination of luck and economic status is an extremely significant factor.

This story does not reflect that of media bias or racial discrimination, but rang home when I came across it.

In 2008, a young couple fell from the roof of my apartment building early in the morning. I woke up one Saturday morning to see my backyard swarmed with police and feds, and to my horror, saw the body. The man was wearing a white t-shirt splattered with blood from the impact of his fall.

To my knowledge, the case was never resolved–the couple was apparently drunk from a night out, and it was unclear why they were on the roof because they did not live in the building. But it was one of those memories you don’t ever forget. For years after their death, friends and family of the deceased would come visit the spot where they fell in our backyard. I would keep vigil by the window some nights, watching people howl with grief and feel it resonate under the empty sky. It wasn’t the first time I heard of such an unusual death in my neck of the woods. It wouldn’t be the last. But it was a terrible, unreasonable way to die.

This just in–yet ANOTHER black man, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shot to death by a white police officer. On video.

One of the officers involved in the incident was recorded saying the following:

“He shot me! He shot me, man. Oh, my god, I’m losing my breath,” Harris says as officers pin him to the ground following the lethal gunshot.

“You fucking ran! Shut the fuck up! Fuck your breath!” an officer shouts as Harris lies dying.

This is nothing short of abhorrent. I initially started write these blog posts in an effort to show how often minority-related issues are presented in the media and what sort of light is shed on these issues, but I never thought I would be handed so much ammunition. As one person put it, “another day, another hashtag.”

#JusticeforEricHarris #BlackLivesMatter

In other news, Munira Khalif, a high school senior from Minnesota, was reportedly accepted to ALL EIGHT IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS!

Munira is SOMALIAN, MUSLIM and a WOMAN–sure as hell sounds like a triple-threat if the media ever saw one.

Before anyone pulls out the race card or defaults to cries of AFFIRMATIVE ACTION (a concept I am sure most opponents know nothing about), lets take a look at what Star Tribute lists as some of Khalif’s accomplishments:

“She started the nonprofit Lighting the Way, which helps East African diaspora youth empower their counterparts in the Horn of Africa by making education accessible. The organization has raised about $30,000 to provide scholarships and tackle sanitation issues. An organization in Kenya donated $250,000 to help build a library in Somalia.

Khalif is also a global youth ambassador for A World At School, a campaign focused on ensuring universal education.

Khalif also founded a Social Consciousness Club, a platform for students to discuss domestic and international issues, such as hunger in America and foreign aid.

As a teen adviser for the U.N.’s Girl Up campaign, she mobilized young people in her community to send letters to Congress in support of legislation fighting against child marriage.”

That’s more than what many people of all colors achieve in a lifetime. This young woman deserves all the accolades in the world for defying odds that people of her race and background face in the land of the free and still making all these achievements. Go Munira!

Earlier in the week, Officer Michael Slager of South Carolina was recorded shooting and murdering an unarmed black man.

The unwarranted deaths of black males in America have become appallingly commonplace. These events and how they parallel Americans’ lives is eerily similar to the way many people respond to distant wars in nameless countries–if it doesn’t affect one’s own life, it doesn’t cross their mind at all.

I receive a lot of news through my social media feeds, and the only people save for a handful that commented anything about this event were my black friends.

To quote a favorite rapper of mine–and please excuse the NSFW language–

“Then hang the phone up, and proceed to lay the wood,
I came fast like 9-1-1 in white neighborhoods.”

Word.

If you are currently a student at Binghamton University, there is a high probability that you are aware of the ongoing battle, for lack of a better word, between President Stenger and the campus group “Students for Change”, an organization dedicated to fostering a more positive environment and university experience for students of color on campus as well improving minority representation at the school.

According to Students for Change, members repeatedly attempted to get in touch with Stenger to address their concerns to no avail, until this past Wednesday when an open-forum lecture was held to discuss the issues that they had been collecting thus far.

Pipe Dream reported that the atmosphere of this meeting grew increasingly hostile as Students for Change bombarded the president with difficult questions to which he responded to with a repeated “I don’t know” among other vague answers.

I can state without hesitation that I am both an avid and vocal advocate for the promotion of diversity and furiously condemn the under-representation of the minority population. While I remain wary of commenting on these events, I am astounded by the backwash of negativity and discrediting of the group and its’ claims that has amassed in the wake of these past few events. The amount of hate unleashed against this group is totally mind boggling. Based on the content of the articles, I can understand having a negative perception of what is going on. But most opponents of the group are commenting with total bias, and a lack of understanding of the roots of the organization and why they are going about trying to gain recognition for their cause in such a brutally vocal manner.

Without remarking on the validity of either sides’ arguments, I think it is safe to say that without a lack of understanding of the group’s concerns from a personal standpoint, it is very difficult to wave around sweeping epithets of how things should be done, or commenting on the groups’ baseless points or methods of action. The group could possibly bring the level of professionalism in which they present their demands up by a notch, yes. However, the core of their arguments are rooted in such deep emotions that at times it can be nothing short of impossible to cave to professionalism. In an earlier blog I posted a couple of years ago, I wrote about being randomly searched by the police at my local train station. Both times, I was accompanied by people who were not part of the targeted demographic for the police. Even now, I can recall the sting of humiliation and fury I felt at being put on the spot, as well as the wrath that tumbled in my mind at being marginalized in such a way. If a person does not have this sort of experience, then it poses a serious problem as to whether they are able to accurately criticize Students for Change. This is not to say that any criticism is unfounded. However, without the personal anecdotes to back it up, on what ground do these opponents of the group stand on?

I Googled the phrase “Germanwings crash” and “Andreas Lubitz” in the hopes that the results I was looking for would enable me to solidify the rant that I am ready to unleash. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. Let’s take a look at the following articles–

Crash Victim’s Father Calls for More Focus on Pilot Welfare – ABC News

Andreas Lubitz, Germanwings co-pilot: The tortuous trail to ‘Why?’ – CNN

Excerpts from the CNN article:

“The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that Lubitz suffered from mental illness.”

“Officials say he passed a psychological test when he was hired, had no known ties to terrorism and showed no sign of medical distress during the flight.”

Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot ‘wanted to destroy plane’ – The BBC

Germanwings Crash Raises Questions For Pilots Taking Depression Drugs – Forbes

Depression. A focus on pilot welfare. No ties to terrorism. Mental illness.

WHY IS THIS MAN NOT CALLED A TERRORIST?!

This is not an attempt to deviate attention away from the horrors of this event. I am not trying to push a political agenda or force my opinions down anyone’s throats. I am not excusing the heinous actions committed by terrorists over the years. I just want events like this to shed light upon other, real issues that have ties to ones like this.

Why, why is it that media outlets have no qualms about stamping a terrorist label upon individuals with a darker shade of skin or some sort of Islamic background who are involved in terrible situations like this? I have no problem in believing that the Germanwings pilot possessed some sort of mental illness–after all, what sane person would have the ability to commit such mass murder? (Don’t answer that.)

Of course, that first question was rhetorical. Much of the public is well-aware, or so I hope, of the strings attached to maintaining a firm “colored people/Muslims/people who fit in our ‘other’ category only” theme for a number of reasons–political power, financial gain, swaying public opinion for private purposes, etc etc etc.

It is a seemingly unrelenting phenomenon that people will try harder to excuse the actions of Caucasian terrorists by digging into mental histories and historical backgrounds dating from birth: anything to find a reason, none of them being terrorism. Where is this sort of reasoning when it comes to the popular opinion of terrorism? Do we consider the upbringing, the background or the mental histories of these individuals? Where is the equality there? Don’t all lives matter?

Now, the term terrorism is commonly understood to mean something along the lines of “one who uses terror (read: violence) to for political means.” According to a Yahoo! News article, pilot/murder Andreas Lubitz was quoted telling his ex-girlfriend that he was worried “health problems” would dash his dreams and vowed one day to do something to “change the whole system”. Hmm, commit an act in order to gain ground in his beliefs? Sounds kinda like the media-touted definition of terrorism, don’t you think?

But it’s OK folks, he is white after all. No need to jump the gun here, he clearly poses no threat as a terrorist.

Generally, I try not to take part in too much dialogue regarding Israel and Palestine simply because it often feels like a circular discussion with no acknowledgment of truth or dissent on either end because my peers are too deeply ingrained in their personal beliefs to truly allow themselves to be swayed by views that do not parallel their own.

I say this not to berate anyone, but to make it clear that despite an individual’s level of education and knowledge, the role that a person’s upbringing plays in their identity also serves to heavily entrench them in the beliefs that correlate. In essence, if you are a Muslim then almost by definition you support Palestine, and if you are Jewish (referring mostly to American Jews), then you are more than likely a supporter of Israel.

Before reading about this BU senior’s decision to hold up a Palestinian flag at the Shabbat 1500 event on campus, I immediately knew there would be a serious backlash from the Jewish population at this school. Ordinarily, I would neither support nor condemn vocalizing political views at an event like this, but I can say on behalf of this student why he chose to do something like this. As someone in the comments section of this article stated, the disproportionate amount of Jewish/Israeli supporters and community far outnumber the Islamic/Palestinian one and is not immediately apparent unless you are part of the latter minority, and therefore any attempts to make a conversation regarding the mentioned conflict can hardly be conducted peacefully without an overwhelming number of proponents for one side to the point where the opponents’ views are drowned out.

As soon as this op-ed gained attention, it jumped to becoming one of the most-read articles on Pipe Dream for the week. The comments section generated some good discussion, but plainly painted an accurate picture of how back-and-forth conversations regarding the conflict often becomes. Instead of viewing the incident as isolated and trying to figure out why the student would do such a thing as what I would call a peaceful demonstration, a barrage of furious commentary materialized instead, with calls of ignorance and antisemitism. I was initially taken aback, but later deemed this response as standard considering the demographics of our student body. What pains me about this article and the response to it was the predictability from start to finish: one student taking a stand, a uproar of disapproval, and then back to flat lining.

Ah yes, the return of the SHSAT dilemma. Let the same tired yearly dialogue with no lasting change commence.

To add a bit of background to this story, New York City’s top public high schools is a set of nine that admits between 5,000 to 6,000 students total to their schools by utilizing an objective entrance exam called the Specialized High School Admissions Test.  I took the exam myself nearly ten years ago along with over 30,000 of my peers. I distinctly remember the gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach when I arrived at the Bronx High School of Science to take the exam one Saturday morning, unbeknownst to the fact that the row of hunter-green doors that heralded the front entrance would become familiar to me come the next four years.

The SHSAT has come under fire in the past few years for consistently admitting a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic students into the specialized high schools. I can attest to the fact that Bronx Science was overwhelmingly populated with white and Asian students; I can practically count the number of minority (used loosely since Asian is clearly not a minority in this case) students were part of the populace.

In 2012, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took action with a lawsuit that targeted the SHSAT for being racially biased. According to Gothamist.com, “The complaint against the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) that students take to get into the city’s specialized high schools is not a new one. For years there has been public concern about the fact that the test seems to favor certain Asian and white populations over black and Hispanic ones. For example, “of the 967 eighth-grade students offered admission to Stuyvesant for the 2012-13 school year, just 19 (2%) of the students are African American and 32 (3.3%) are Latino.” For context, 70 percent of the city’s public school students are black and Hispanic.”

To no one’s surprise, most people are adamantly against the idea of change for the exam. For one, it is generally agreed that changing the exam’s components and the schools’ admissions criteria will do little to address the problem of lack of diversity within these schools. I agree with this point–a recent study conducted by the Research Alliance for NYC Schools at NYU Steinhardt showed that even while accounting for a different admissions process, such as incorporating grades, test scores and school attendance, would hardly make a dent in increasing the prevalence of minority students. However, what the lawsuit does is shine a light on a problem that has regularly occurred and been ignored for a long time. Because of the consistent excellence of students who attend these schools, the lack of diversity has been ignored. This is not the fault of the students; I know for a fact that many if not most applicants for the exam work extremely hard to perform well on the test, and continue with excellent academic performance throughout high school. It does not mean, however, that the school system is flawless.

Addressing a problem like the lack of diversity in these schools is a conversation where one must walk on eggshells these days–it seems like whenever the topic of minorities is brought up, we hear collective sighs of exasperation and a rousing mantra of the same arguments from proponents and opponents. For current students and alumni of the school, it is normal to feel the need to rush to the aid of the institute that has provided so many opportunities for them. But if we are to be the generation to change our future, we must address the problems in the present that will only worsen with time. Minority representation is not important for the sake of having some color in an underrepresented student body. Black and Hispanic students deserve the same opportunities, and shouldn’t lose out for lack of education during middle school, proper guidance and information, and lack of funding–which, might I add, are all significant contributors as to why they are such a highly underrepresented group in these schools.

It feels so painful to know that this country is so advanced, so powerful, so gifted, and yet this is one of the gripping social issues of today.