The Paw Print

A news publication created by Baruch's College Now high school journalism class

Archives for August 2017

I’ll Give You The Sun

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It will make you love the color orange and understand life on a deeper level.

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is an American young adult novel that focuses on the lives of two twins named Noah and Jude.

This book deals with serious issues that affect many teens today. It is important for people to read this novel in order to have a better understanding of what it is like to be a teenager in today’s world.

Jude enters a relationship with a boy much older than her. He pressures her into sex highlighting the debate of consent.

Many teenagers feel peer pressure and the book shows how this can affect people by showing the long term effects it had on Jude, and how she regrets losing her virginity at a young age. It also shows how even though Jude did not say no, it doesn’t mean she said yes either.

Consent is an issue that not many people are willing to speak about, but it is important because many people are uninformed. Even Yale students are chanting around campus vulgar things about consent and claiming it doesn’t exist.Many people think that consent is not needed or that you don’t need to say yes to consent, but this isn’t true.

The book also focuses on Noah’s acceptance of being gay.There are many ways Noah and Brian are discriminated against for being gay. Noah’s boyfriend was on a baseball team and suffered severe bullying because he was gay. Thus making Brian not wanting to openly admit being gay. Many people are discriminated due to sexual orientation and the book shows how even through bad experiences you should still accept who you are and not pretend to be someone you are not.

The book discusses grief and how it affects mental health. When their mother dies it affects the twins greatly causing them to bottle up who they are. While at first they do not deal with their grief in a healthy way, it is important to overcome it. If a teen reads a book where everything is perfect it will make them feel dysfunctional but if they read about overcoming past trauma even if it wasn’t handled in the best way before, it makes them feel better.

The descriptive nature of the chapters makes the reader feel like they are reading the mind of a teenager.

In conclusion it is important to read this book because it discusses and gives the reader a better understanding about many issues that are affecting a lot of people but are not discussed as much as they should be.

The Invisibility of Black Autism

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Autism is known by most as the “White Person’s Disease”.

Autism: a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts.

I recently discovered this twitter thread:

 

It made me think of 3 very important questions:

Are black children and minorities less likely to even get diagnosed with autism? Therefore less likely to get treatment earlier on when it’s most vital.

Are minorities in general given less sympathy when it comes to learning disabilities like autism and other similar conditions?

Is autism in fact a “White Person’s Disease’?

 

My first response was to go to Google and see if this twitter thread was just an isolated experience for one black mom. The other immediate lightbulb that went off was “How many people of each race have autism? Maybe majority diagnosed are white and that’s why autism isn’t heavily focused on in the black community?”

I went to Google and typed “people with autism broken down by race” and thousands of results came within seconds. Articles with headlines like “Blacks are less likely to get diagnosed with autism” or “Autism Race Problem” or “Autism, Like Race, Complicates Almost Everything” were screaming at me. There’s a whole community of people who see and believe that there’s a real problem with blacks and autism, a divide that needs to be dealt with.

Of course, I don’t believe in a utopian society where race never has an affect on anything, but something as simple as a mental condition shouldn’t have any link to a certain group of people.

From its discovery autism has been linked to white people. It’s now became this unfortunate stigma that the black boy having a tantrum “needs a whooping” yet the white boy “must be on the spectrum and needs treatment.”

“In some of the first clinical descriptions of autism, psychologist Leo Kanner wrote that many of the families who sought his opinion were white and middle- to upper-class… Kanner failed to consider was that the parents who had the resources to seek out a specialist about their child’s developmental problems were likely those with resources to begin with. In 1940s America, those parents were almost exclusively white, and ever since, autism has been treated largely as a white disease,” says Carrie Arnold, a Pacific Islander magazine staff member.

1 in 68 people have autism. Autism has been found, by CDC, to not be linked to the race, culture or socioeconomic status of a person, but simply to the symptoms. Yet according to the Pacific Standard, “when you look at children and adults actually diagnosed with autism, white children are 30 percent more likely to receive an autism diagnosis than blacks, and 50 percent more likely than Hispanics, according to 2014 data from the CDC. Minority children are also diagnosed significantly later than white children.” According to the CDC, while many children are diagnosed with autism at around 4 years old, researchers have determined that African-American children may be diagnosed as many as 18 to 24 months later.

Research and statistics indicate that blacks and minorities in general aren’t being treated the same as whites, even in an area that should be as racially unbiased as the medical field. But the real question is why?

Some parents aren’t as lucky as Camille Proctor, who found a support group filled with other parents whose children have been diagnosed with autism. Unfortunately for Proctor, she was the only black parent in the room. She couldn’t identify with the other parents the way she wanted to and she couldn’t get responses to certain questions. The white parents didn’t know how to answer when she asked for advice on how to deal with her son encountering the police, no one else saw it as an issue, she explains in an interview with the Pacific Standard.

With the recent movements against police brutality, I’d say, and Proctor would say, that it is a big issue. Things like this never come into play when the average person thinks about autism. In this interview with NPR.org, Proctor explains her concerns regarding blacks with autism and the police. Most people have a lack of understanding about what being autistic really entails, which could easily lead to an officer assuming that a black person with autism raising their voice at them is angry or one who is hesitant to answer a question is being resistant.

Autism, like many other diseases should be viewed as having NOTHING to do with a specific race. Every person deserves access to treatment and support groups and all the things they need to deal and cope with their autism.

Gas Leaks: Whose Fault is IT? NYCHA OR Con Ed?

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Throggs Neck tenants are fighting to survive the rest of summer, as they deal with a gas outage that started Friday, July 28 in two connected apartment buildings.

Tenants fail to understand why and how this happened as the cause remains under investigation. The first meeting was held on Wednesday, August 2 when tenants met with the neighborhood President Monique Johnson and NYCHA representatives. They claimed the buildings gas would be back on by the end of August. No representative from Con Edison was there.

ConEd has had a total of 217 gas leaks in NYC in the year of 2017 alone.

One tenant who happens to work for Con Ed claimed fulfilling that assumption is not possible. As NYCHA ignored her response, she explained to the tenants that she has seen records showing ConEd came to turn off the gas yet she doesn’t see that they’ve processed the next step. The young woman explained that in cases like these there are numerous steps that have to be taken. She explained, “first they cut the gas off, then they investigate to see where the leak is coming from, then there’s a process where they have to put in a notice for a construction permit, which alone can take up to 30 days by itself.”

One tenant argued, “If the paperwork alone is going to take up to 30 days you [NYCHA] know my gas is not going to be cut on in 30 days. We’re going into 2 or 3 months now.”

There will be weekly meetings with updates on how the process is going.

In the meantime NYCHA has teamed up with City Councilman Mark GJonaj to offer support to tenants while the gas is out by holding free weekly fish fries and barbecues in their local center strictly for those without gas. NYCHA has also given out hot plates to each household.

The meeting also discussed opportunities for tenants to receive extra food stamps as needed, even for those who may not meet the requirements to receive food stamps. NYCHA also discussed assistant programs for seniors who are homebound and for those who suffer from illnesses that prevent then from being able to cook and shop for themselves. These programs consist of food delivery services such as Department for the Aged (DFTA), Meals on Wheels, and God’s Love We Deliver.

While NYCHA may think it has won over the people with all the extra help, tenants still left the meeting uneasy about when their homes are going to be safe and normal again.

The Death of Cable T.V.

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its a tv
Photo Credit: arstechnica.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s the early sixties. Television is wildly popular and becoming more mainstream each year in America. Families, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances gather together to watch T.V., and a revolutionary outlet for the spread of news is born. Who could have imagined that something so life changing could become obsolete so fast?

50 years later, and the consumers’ mind is beginning to shift.

The internet was created in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee, but streaming video has been relevant for about a decade. Since the beginnings of companies such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and recently Amazon; people have steadily been making online streaming part of their daily routine, with Netflix alone having almost 82,000,000 members.

There are two main reasons for this. One, the $10 or less a month subscriptions to most online streaming services – with the exception of YouTube, which is free – is far less expensive than the hundreds of dollars a year that cable TV can cost. However revenue for these online companies reaches into the billions each year.

In addition, having things to watch online is much more convenient than watching live or even recorded TV. Not only can people watch on their computer, phone, or tablet, but they can watch anytime, with no restraints on the number of episodes or videos they can view.

The overall consensus by data gathering companies is that streaming shows are overtaking the popularity of traditional television; in fact, each year the number of new unique viewers rises by 146 percent, according to Adobe.

Older generations on average are more likely to have cable subscriptions than the younger ones, 80 percent of 32-48 year olds picked pay TV over online subscriptions, but as time progresses and the majority of content is produced on the internet, this will change.

“I never really thought of anything other than cable as being practical,” an anonymous senior living in New York City explained. “Everything’s on TV… when you’re paying extra on the internet for something you already own, it isn’t responsible.”

As practically all future generations will grow up with the internet, this view will dramatically change: Young people now aren’t used to the rituals of television, and don’t have patience for non-instant forms of media.

So now with the online streaming market taking off, who are the major players?

Most people have a Netflix subscription by now, and Hulu as well as Amazon both offer a vast selection of online stream-able content. But what’s interesting about these streaming companies, is that while buying the rights to certain T.V. shows and movies – they’re producing dozens of their own as well.

Traditional television networks like HBO and AMC, as well as CBS are putting almost all their content online – with dedicated streaming services. Also, virtually all TV channels have some sort of presence on YouTube, whether it be late night talk show clips, or small news segments.

While some say cable T.V. holds a lot of nostalgia with its name and history, it’s now an outdated way to consume programs. Online streaming will prove to become a much better and efficient platform to put shows on. Now that being said, the same companies that provide cable also happen to own the internet, (Internet Service Providers like Verizon, AT&T, etc.). So how the death of T.V. will play out, especially with new rollbacks on Net Neutrality, will ultimately be up to the companies who make the decisions.

 

Why Can’t You Say the N-Word?

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Asian, Middle Eastern, and Hispanic people in urban areas have seemingly become comfortable with using the N-word as their expression of friendship with black people which is in many ways insulting. This word has never been used to describe or belittle them and there is no need for it to be part of their vocabulary.

In the Oxford dictionary black (adjective) is defined as “of any human group having dark-colored skin, especially of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry.” However, black should be defined as people with undeniably African or Australian Aboriginal features such as wide noses, thick lips, kinky hair, and darker skin because they are the “niggers.”

Many people use the excuse that their ancestors were black to use the N-word. A “Negro” is defined as “a member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara” also relating to black people. Therefore, if someone’s race or culture is technically not black, these derogatory terms do not apply to them.

A black person may use the term as they wish. This is a word he or she cannot escape from because it’s been deeply embedded into this country that this is what “black” is and this is how the world will always see “black.” We are the so-called “nappy haired, horse mouthed, black bucks” that white America shaped us out to be. But we’ve come to own the stigma of being black in America and we have even reclaimed ourselves by referring to ourselves as “Niggas.”

Some people feel like since they’re being friendly, it’s fine to say the N-word. But that isn’t necessarily the case. For example, if two friends from the Middle East were joking around and calling each other terrorists, it would be funny to them being that it’s a word they’ve both felt personally victimized by. However, had one of those friends been of another race, it would be seen as an ignorant remark being that other races are rarely, or never, accused of being terrorists.

Many light-skinned Hispanics that I have confronted about using the N-word say, “but my ancestors were black,” to which I respond, “good for your ancestors.” Simply put, Hispanics are a mix of multiple races and peoples, whether they be African and Spanish or Native and Spanish or African, Native, and Spanish. Therefore, that makes them not one or the other but all. You are not black, your ancestors were. You have been able to escape the same reigns of terror black people have face. There are even black Latinx people who experience racism in their countries and are called “Negra/o” because they cannot escape their black ancestry. They cannot escape because the black African blood runs through their skin and features.

For mixed race people, possibly half black and half white, it is how white passing you are that determines whether or not you have the choice to say the N-word. If your features are predominantly black, you are prone to grow up manipulated by white America, you will fear their system. If your features are predominantly European, you have an advantage and are likely to have privilege.

A black person may as well be defined as someone who is manipulated by white America at birth. Someone angered and insulted by the terms “Nigger” and “Negro.” A person whose dark skin and African features apparently defines the content of their character. A person so connected to their African ancestry that they would have either been on the plantation or in the house looking after the white man’s child. And if you can’t personally relate to any of this… You’re not black.

Donald Trump Refuses Invite to Speak Annual Assembly of the NAACP

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       U.S president Donald Trump has rejected the invitation to attend the Annual Assembly of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

       This continues Donald Trump’s cycle of ignoring issues in minority filled communities and puts Donald Trump’s interest and care for the African American community in the U.S in doubt. Leon Russell, chairman of the NAACP told associated press, “we have lost—we’ve lost the will of the current Administration to listen to issues facing the Black community.”

       The NAACP has been one of the most influential American associations focusing on civil rights. “During his campaign, President Trump asked us ‘what do you have to lose?’ This is the second time President Trump has refused an offer to speak at our annual convention. We get the message loud and clear.” Russell said in the same interview.

       Trump has gone on record calling Mexican immigrants“criminals” and “rapists,” along with his “great relationship with the blacks,” so his refusal was not a surprise to many people, “This president has shown no concern to help minorities in America. It worries me as an African American, not only that he refuses the invite but with the statements he’s had in the past and now refusing to speak at a conference of one of the biggest civil rights groups in america to help colored people and minorities.” This was the opinion of a resident of Carroll gardens on the issue. Another Interviewee was not so much worried as much as angered; “this president is idiotic, I am disappointed in the U.S for allowing such a person to become president and him refusing this invitation is yet another sign of his ignorance.

 

Deer Infestation in Staten Island

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                     The deer population has more than tripled in the last six years.

 

Golf View Court locals are urging the community to place deer crossing signs warning both drivers and pedestrians after a significant increase in both traffic and health safety complaints. Staten Island Live reported the deer population on the whole island, “jumped from 24 to 793 in six years.”

Members of the community have shown concern particularly towards the intersection of 4 crossing main roads which lack guard rails to separate both the golf court and the forest to the street. A resident of the neighborhood for over ten years commented, “It’s a menace. They have no natural predators so they’re multiplying so quickly.” In the last week 4 neighbors had deer sightings on the intersection.

Some residents are taking action to try to place signs in the area. Another resident, Maria Morales shares, “Even in the daytime, deer roam and it’s not the best when you have a pet. I fear for ticks and Lyme disease.”

Lyme disease, carried by deer ticks is a possible threat to both pets and their owners. Although, not all ticks carry the infection. Deer can carry a variety of illnesses however, that should be broadcasted. Including: Anaplasmosis, Avian Influenza, Babesiosis, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), Escherichia coli Infection (E. coli) among others according to American Veterinary Medical Association.

The city is taking action to reduce the population of the species. SiLive.com recently uncovered, “The city spent $2,778 for every deer vasectomy performed during the first year of the management program, according to Parks Department numbers.”  Some hunters have taken advantage of the nuisance, though it is illegal to hunt in the five boroughs. There has only been one deer poacher caught out of the already limited number of reports. DEC spokesman Sean Mahar according to SiLive said on the subject, “Poaching is a serious issue and DEC aggressively investigates any reports of illegal hunting activity.”

Raymond Lacen, another decade long resident of Golf View Court agrees with city’s tactics and states, “There needs to be some form of population control, or the issue will become something out of control.”

JAY-Z is Sorry!

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4:44 was released on June 30th 2017 and is Shawn Carter’s aka JAY-Z’s 13th album. It’s safe to say Jay has reinvented himself with every album he has made from The Blueprint in 2001 to Magna Carta Holy Grail (2013).

Not only is Jay a rapper, entrepreneur, label owner, and a businessman, but he is an African American married man, and father. And in this album the world gets to meet the vulnerable and apologetic side of him as he airs out his entire life to the public and puts some of it to rest.

Starting with the opening song Kill Jay Z, the grammatical context of the title, ties with the fact that Jay has decided to change his name from Jay Z to JAY-Z, putting it in all caps, and bringing the hyphen back. And from that one can assume that Jay is in fact erasing the “old Jay Z,” the very version of himself that inspired Beyonce’s Lemonade album.

In the title track 4:44 Jay apologizes no less than seven times in four minutes and forty-five seconds. Jay admits to the infidelity, to his disloyalty, to not being good enough, or mature to be the man he claimed he could be.

Not only is 4:44 the song Beyonce herself may have been waiting for but the song is what the world has been waiting for. This song says not every cheating incident has to end in an ugly divorce. This song says if JAY-Z can man up and apologize so can you guys (you know who you are). He admitted his faults and made art out of it. It becomes heartfelt for fans to see projects like these become more personal and less for publicity and radio play.

In an interview with IHeartRadio, Jay explained the making of 4:44, saying, “I woke up, literally, at 4:44 in the morning…So it became the title of the album and everything. It’s the title track because it’s such a powerful song, and I just believe one of the best songs I’ve ever written.”

There is a powerful message in every song of this album. In the Story of O.J. we see Jay’s view on black culture and how we have to stick together in order to push forward.

Smile, Jay says, in an interview with iHeart Radio, “is just what it is. There are gonna be bad times, and those bad times can do two things: they can get you in a place where you’re stuck in a rut, or it can make your future that much better because you’ve experienced these things.” This song is also the first time Jay’s mom, Gloria Carter’s homosexuality is publicly revealed with the lyrics “Momma had four kids, but she’s a lesbian/Had to pretend so long that she’s a thespian,” he reveals. “Cried tears of joy when she fell in love/Don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her.”

On other songs like Bam, Moonlight, Marcy Me, and Legacy Jay reminisces about problems in the music industry, letting go of his ego, his old days as a hustler and the legacy for the Carter family name.

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Not only is the album a masterpiece on its own, but since it was released Jay has been dropping visuals that go along with the sound one music video at a time and fans are living for it.

Donald Trump Did Not Trump All of The Latino Vote

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Latino Trump supporters proudly hold signs at 2016 RepublicAN convention

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the United States has become more divided than it’s been in the last decade. This shows America needs to learn how to listen to one another because we live in a multicultural and diverse opinionated country.

Latinos are among the fastest growing demographic in the U.S. The number of Latinos eligible to vote has grown by 4 million since the 2012 election. They were a group that the candidates had to watch out for during the 2016 campaign, and Donald Trump made his views clear during a 2015 speech when he stated, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,”

This statement made it impossible to believe that any Hispanics would give  Trump their vote. Surprisingly, Trump won 29 percent of the Latino vote. Since they’re a part of a group that Trump has constantly disrespected, what made them inclined to vote for him?

Reymy Vasquez, 27, from New Jersey is among the 29 percent who voted for the Republican Party in the 2016 election. Vasquez grew up in what he called a “rough” neighborhood in New Jersey, which consisted of a mostly Latino and Middle Eastern population where people weren’t always driven to excel. He also voted for the Republican Party in the 2012 election. At first, during the 2016 race, Vasquez was going to vote for Marco Rubio. Slowly he saw his views align with Trump and he redirected his support.

Vaquez states that his primary reason for voting for Trump was tax reform. His parents are immigrants from Honduras who fought hard to get where they are and they didn’t take assistance from the government or anyone. He feels that people in this country, especially people from “rough” neighborhoods take advantage of the aid the government gives them. His family now are homeowners and college graduates. Vasquez feels that society needs to glorify those trying to make something of themselves instead of pitying those who receive from government programs without contributing to society. He feels that Trump could help manage what tax money is being spent on so he can “start putting our money where it matters most.”

On the topic of illegal immigration, Vasquez supports Trump. He feels that as illegal immigration increases, safety decreases and Americans need to take care of that problem. Just as the president once said, Vasquez himself saw “many of those [Muslim] people take up their respective flags when the towers went down.” He feels like we need to, “focus on the problems that this country is having not the problems that others are, we should worry about ourselves and not everyone else.” He believes in strengthening America’s immigration system and making sure they are aware of the intentions people have as they enter the country.

To Vasquez, Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” represents stability, the American Dream for truly hustling families, safety for Americans and putting America before anyone else.