Neil – hallRIGHTSfall2109

Speech/Lecture

Neil Duran

English

As I look at each and every one of you I see the future, a future encased in a dense layer of ignorance. I implore you to attempt to break the habit of monotony, deviate from the path society has conditioned your brain to follow, create your own truth. There is an inherent diversity in all living beings: but a critical question stand does this diversity constitute a difference? We’re taught that certain physical characteristics and genealogy define your race, this concept of race is widely accepted by the population. What many of us don’t know is that race isn’t something as simple as the color of your skin or your chemical make up. What is the difference between me and you? What makes your skin darker than mine? What makes your hair fairer? What makes your eyes lighter? It’s the result of environmental stimuli that your predecessors underwent, this insinuates that at some point us as people as humans, we intersected and were a unified “Race”. I’m old my idea of race has already been cemented into my brain, even as I educate myself on the topic I still find it difficult to grasp. Your young you have the room for objectivity, the burden of ignorance is replaced by innocence. But how can you understand such a foreign concept, when your elders struggle with it themselves, alienating themselves into stagnant groups. The wisdom we have as adults are plagued by bias, we pass on information but in our own unique ways. We pass on our mannerisms and prejudices creating reflections of ourselves in the youth. We create the bias, we create the race, we create the exclusion when we should create unison. These are all premises that fall into the category of “racial skepticism”, what is racial skepticism you may ask? It’s a philosophical theory which suggests that Race isn’t a real concept, Naomi Zack a racial skeptic summarizes their argument like this “A summary of the racial skeptic’s argument against the biological foundations for race, sequentially summarizing the scientific rejection of essences, geography, phenotypes, post-Mendelian transmission genetics, and genealogies as possible foundations for races. Aristotelian essences, thought to ground the common characteristics of distinct species, were correctly rejected by early modern philosophers.” To summarize the summarization to be a racial skeptic is to challenge the validity of a long-held belief. I wanted to talk about this as a belief since in my opinion, most racial barriers are a result of faulty logic. One example of this is the self-segregation of people globally, there have been constant instances of people unconsciously dividing themselves on the bases of race. A prime is an example is Europeans and Africans, Europeans believed themselves to be above Africans because of their belief in Manifest Destiny or the white man’s burden. The superiority that they held in high regard lead to 400 years of oppression on their fellow man. Would the same situation play out if the Europeans were racial skeptics? Most likely, but at least it won’t be a race issue anymore. Racial skepticism isn’t a fix-all that’ll magically whisk away all the problems or tensions between people in this society. Racial skepticism, in my opinion, can be an effective tool in dispelling stereotypes and other situations along those lines, it isn’t going to prevent large scale acts such as slavery. But maybe with this ideology all black people won’t be seen as criminals, all Mexicans won’t be seen as immigrants, all these microaggressions that are present in everyday life will slowly fade out of existence. Imagine the good we can do if we acknowledge that we aren’t separate, more job opportunities, more diverse communities, more potential to grow! The boundaries that have been established over centuries of oppression and disdain can easily collapse through the spreading of tolerance. Prejudice is inevitable but only when those ideas are already cemented into your way of life. The only way to break this cycle of prejudice is to teach students these values, philosophy isn’t touched upon in-depth in high schools. Introducing kids to philosophies like racial skepticism can help kids make a decision on what they want to believe instead of playing into a narrative. Through education, these prejudicial values can be stopped in their tracks and a more open mind can be created. Individuality is built through experience, giving kids the ability to learn about these values will result in more free thinkers. Children who are given the chance to attain this knowledge will grow up to pass the same ideologies to their kids creating a new cycle of intelluatilism aimed at dismantling the bias in everyday life.

Essay draft

The 13th Amendment was drafted in 1865 marking the end of 400 years of oppression towards African Americans. The 13th Amendment was split into two sections, Section 1, the more important section states “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Slavery is regarded as ine of the most heinous periods in United States history. It was centered around the dehumanization of Africans, Africans were taken from their homes by the Europeans as well as being captured and sold by their fellow countrymen for economic gain. They were then forced to do intense labor and were treated like property. This perpetuates the idea that they were not human, which lead to White Americans to have a sense of superiority towards them. They used this sense of superiority to justify their treatment of the slaves. Many events were crucial to the drafting of the 13th, the Civil War being the most infamous. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars ever fought on American soil, 620,000 Americans died in the Civil War. To put that figure into perspective roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation’s wars, this means that the Civil War makes up nearly 50% of all American casualties ever. The war was between the North and the South, the North consisted of highly industrialized cities, that believed that slavery was outdated and inhumane. The South was more rural but more densely populated, and fought to maintain slavery. Their clash resulted in the North winning and the subsequent abolishment of slavery in the united states of America as a nation. This was monumental, a 400 year tradition was now broken and now African Americans were free from their physical shackles.

The 13th Amendment talks about a lot, the main purpose of the amendment is to prevent citizens from being forced to work against their will. What does that mean exactly? This means that another person or entity can’t compel you to work against your free will. A lot of people agree with the 13th amendment and glorify it for its implications, but fail to see the darker aspect of the amendment. Slavery isn’t 100% abolished, if you have committed a crime then for the time that you’re serving in your sentence you’re a slave to the state. I find this part of the amendment as one of the aspects I disagree with, since forcing someone to involuntary labour goes against everything the 13th stands for. Crime shouldn’t be punished with more crimes, the struggle to end slavery persists today since it still exist in American prisons. The amendments were created as a safety net to protect the freedom of citizens, allowing their voices to be heard and preventing the government from having absolute power. That freedom should extend to you even if your incarcerated, being behind bars doesn’t change the fact that you’re an American citizen as well as person. The purpose of the 13th amendment was to humanize people and prevent higher powers from taking advantage of a weaker class and exploiting them for labour. This still happens not only within the jail system but in the outside world as well, this can be seen with the use of immigrants coming from different countries being used as cheap forms of labour. These people lack the ability to get established jobs for many reasons, they may not be able to go through official channels due to immigration status. Or they simply just lack the skills, this makes them cheap workers that companies can hire to do labour, and due to their lack of knowledge they are paid less than they should be making.

Stanford University is one of the world’s leading teaching and research institutions, producing household names such as President John F. Kennedy, Reese Witherspoon, and even Sigourney Weaver. It also hosted the research of Micheal James, who endeavored to bring the concept of race to philosophy. In his piece “Race” which he published Wed May 28 2008, he highlights what race is and it’s influential presence in history, all through the lense of philosophy. One of his first examples is The Iberian Peninsula was one of the first regions of europe to promote anti-black sentiment, as well as being one of the first regions to use Africans as slaves. While they’re subsequent enslavement of Africans continued their use of European Christians as slaves became taboo. Micheal James states “Iberian Christians may have come to associate blacks as physically and mentally suitable only for menial labor. In this they were influenced by Arab slave merchants, who assigned the worst tasks to their dark skinned slaves while assigning more complex labor to light or tawny-skinned slaves (Frederickson 2002, 29)”(Michael James 2008). Race was used to differentiate intelligence amongst slaves, darker meant dumber, lighter meant smarter, this idea that the characteristics of another determines their capacity is a reoccuring theme in Michael James’s piece. In this day and age that topic is perverse, but Michael defines race as:
(1) Races reflect some type of biological foundation, be it Aristotelian essences or modern genes; (2) This biological foundation generates discrete racial groupings, such that all and only all members of one race share a set of biological characteristics that are not shared by members of other races; (3) This biological foundation is inherited from generation to generation, allowing observers to identify an individual’s race through her ancestry or genealogy; (4) Genealogical investigation should identify each race’s geographic origin, typically in Africa, Europe, Asia, or North and South America; and (5) This inherited racial biological foundation manifests itself primarily in physical phenotypes, such as skin color, eye shape, hair texture, and bone structure, and perhaps also behavioral phenotypes, such as intelligence or delinquency.(Michael James 2008)
Michael James provides an objective perspective towards the technicalities of what race is defined as, he continues this trend as he describes different schools of thought when it comes to how people define their race.
The most intriguing aspect of “Race” has to be the contemporary philosophical debates, these debates center on varying schools of thought when it comes to race. One example being Racial naturalism which is defined as “Racial naturalism signifies the old, biological conception of race, which depicts races as bearing “biobehavioral essences: underlying natural (and perhaps genetic) properties that (1) are heritable, biological features, (2) are shared by all and only the members of a race, and (3) explain behavioral, characterological, and cultural predispositions of individual persons and racial groups” (Ron Mallon (2004, 2006, 2007) (Michael James). I learned that this is the original school of thought, all other perspectives on race deviate from Racial naturalism. In the article Michael also brings up another interesting school of thought called Racial skepticism. This is exactly what it sounds like, it’s the belief that Race as a whole doesn’t exist. Racial skeptics believe that race as a whole doesn’t exist, Racial skeptics such as Anthony Appiah (1995, 1996) and Naomi Zack (1993, 2002) points out that geographical differences nor physical differences make someone a different race. While they acknowledge the differences between humans, they simply state that geneology doesn’t reinforce the idea of the race. Zack concludes: “Essences, geography, phenotypes, genotypes, and genealogy are the only known candidates for physical scientific basis of race. Each fails. Therefore, there is no physical scientific basis for the social racial taxonomy” (Zack 2002, 88) (Michael James 2008). But where do these principles fail at? As I examined this article an interesting idea was presented the idea that the physical difference of humans is a result of environmental stimuli and physical adaptation. This is distinction is used to drive the argument towards the belief that race doesn’t exist since the only inherent difference is the result of environment, meaning that if the same environmental stimuli was applied to everyone we’d all be the same. This was an interesting point since my research into If Racism Is Inevitable, since this brings up an interesting hypothetical. If racial skepticism is true can it be tangible solution against racism? Is this ideal marketable enough to appease the masses? Sadly no, Racial Skepticism will never take off for the simple fact that many people believe that race makes people different. This sentiment won’t disappear if you introduce them to a new philosophy, also the fact that it’s a philosophy will cause others to question the scientific background of the argument.

The University Of Notre Dame also published their own take on the philosophy of race. Tina Botts of the University Of North Carolina did an in depth review of Albert Atkins attempt to simplify the concept of race so “mainstream” philosophers can understand (Tina Botts). In Atkins original piece he speaks on the validity of race, he investigates the scientific backbone of race, to see if it’s grounded in biology specifically. This piece shows critical analysis of the philosophical work of Albert Atkins providing an easy to read interpretation, that further expands on Atkins own ideas. The writer demonstrates a deep understanding of Albert’s ideas but does demonstrate bias when summarizing the article. She concludes with a brief sentence supporting Atkins point of views. The rest of the review was outstanding as the critical analysis showed a more natural answer to Atkins observations. Atkins philosophical views at times are difficult to process and Tina Botts helps clarify certain ideas, as well as providing a template in which you can follow the order in which Atkins arranged his piece.

In the review Tina Botts brings writes about the foundations of race, and the lack of scientific backing that Albert Atkins brings to light. Albert states blunty that “ Race is not real” but then proceeds to try and determine if race has a social reality (Tina Botts). Albert Akins first talks about how race has no real scientific background making it a psuedo-science at best, he then starts talking about social realities. Tina proceeds to explain a social reality like this “there are differences in how race is identified, thought of and talked about in different societies and social settings” (52). To support this conclusion, he compares the socio-historical practices, behaviors, conventions, and institutions that gave rise to the concept of race at work in the United States with the same socio-historical practices that gave rise to the concept of race at work in Brazil. In the United States, Atkin links the rise of the concept of race to the “massive importation of (African) slave labor into the Americas” (52) (Tina Botts). Social realities are the social implementations of race, how race is used to identify someone, how it changes how others interact with an individual, etc. The division of race is something that happens unconsciously, as people believe that the division of people is natural. Albert talks about how people justify this decision by believing it’s “Scientifically endorsable” (Tina Botts). An example of this would hispanics only hanging out with hispanic, and when asked why they justify it by saying “Oh we all look the same so we SHOULD be together”. I love this idea of race being a natural idea since this idea holds true to so many people. While your intentions may not be malicious, many people separate themselves into groups, and especially amongst their own race. The greatest part in my opinion is this happens unconsciously, we as a species are so conditioned to lean towards our own race. When you learn that there is no scientific implications on race, and it’s a construct not founded in facts or biology it allows you to access your surroundings and see the serious impact this has on daily life. Is this idea perpetuated by our own bias? Atkins talks about that too, he talks about how Racial profiling is not justified. He says this on the topic “the tool used to connect a particular (racial) characteristic with a particular profile often seems to be suspect or inappropriate in some way” (Tina Botts). Tina Botts goes on to summarize Atkins explanation of racial profiling and says “this racial profiling is probably not a good thing, and the reader is left wondering whether this is as unsurprising a result to Atkin as it is to the reader. If so, the reader is left wondering if Atkin regrets having developed his taxonomy of race at all.” (Tina Botts). She brings up an interesting point since racial profiling is always perceived to be bad, but Atkins explaination of it seems anti-climatic. Since he’s simply telling us something most of us already know, but the true point of his spiel about racial profiling may be deeper than we think. Through mediums like racial profiling ideas like racism are perpetuated, not blatantly but through subtle judgements a person makes throughout their lifetime. These thoughts sow seeds of doubt in our minds and further the idea of a difference between us as people and reinforces the idea of the inevitability of racism. If we believe in race as a concept we also believe in racism, since one cannot exist without the other. With thoughts like these racism truly is inevitable, since the perceived differences between us will continue to exist.

curiosity report

Is racism inevitable?

https://www.racialequitytools.org/fundamentals/history-of-racism-and-movements/overview-and-timeline1

Revison

Have you ever experience silence? Silence so deafening that you can hear the lights buzzing? Yeah me neither, in my 5th-grade classroom that silence was mandatory. When I heard the silence it gave me an uncontrollable drive to fill it with anything, who knew that a quiet room was so loud. My homeroom teacher dreaded me for this fact since I stood up to this silence never conforming to its oppression. It felt like a hostile environment that I only experience when I was in school. The silence antagonized me goading me into screaming back at it, this meant that I spent an uncharacteristically large amount of time in detentions. My teachers were at their wits end with me, my inclination to misbehave earned me the title of “Troubled”, but I preferred “Harbinger Of Disorder” or the HOD for short.

With my new title of “Troubled’’ therapy was recommended by school administration to my parents, but Neil The Troubled will not be defeated by some second-rate therapist misdiagnosing me. I countered their mind tricks with some well-placed deflection, dancing around their questions beautifully leading to them concluding that I’m just a smart-ass. “Therapy” became an excuse to not go to school, I ended up missing out on crucial opportunities to socialize. My time in elementary school was coming to an end and I hadn’t gained anything from it, no meaningful friendships, no teacher recommendations, and worst of all, I still wasn’t the HOD. Through my older sister, I was able to land a spot at the Urban Assembly for Applied Math and Science also known as AMS. My perception of middle school was basically The Silence Part 2, this time it was a 15-minute walk away. AMS was considered a great school in comparison to the other schools in my district, at the time boasting a 70% graduation rate. A lot of you may be thinking, 80%? “That’s pretty average” and you’d be right if we weren’t talking about the Bronx. The fact that I didn’t have teacher recommendations made the application to get into AMS difficult, I had to go through a home interview. I was able to make it through the interview successfully with some prepping with my sister, and landed a spot in the school. Neil The Troubled has now started his first day of the sixth form, he stands outside the bathroom and reaches into his pocket, he promptly takes the Liquid Ass out of his pocket. He proceeds to spray the entire bathroom entrance with Liquid Ass, and he would’ve gotten away with it too if it weren’t for that meddling security system. Now out troubled protagonist is sitting by himself in the Dean’s Office, the Silence once again present leading him to assess his position and contemplate his fate. That’s when the woman who changed my life walked in Miss Russiello walked in, I’ve never gotten reprimanded so harshly by someone I’ve never met in my entire life. I couldn’t help but smile which didn’t temper her rage, but who wouldn’t smile? At last, an adult who so brazenly disrupts the Silence, concerned onlookers staring at me like I’m a convicted felon. Little do they know that I’m getting chewed out for a harmless practical prank, take that Silence! Russiello or Russi for short did something that other teachers didn’t, she tried to relate with me. She made a conscious effort to not just be my teacher, but also my friend, as well as my ally against the Silence! She never once told me I had to be quiet or conform, she always told me to be myself, but try to be a better version of myself.

Our relationship blossomed even more in high school, due to us having a great relationship this lead to many of the complaints against me to go straight to her. I wasn’t afraid of her setting me straight, or of her giving me a punishment, I was afraid of disappointing her. This bothered me so much that I felt ashamed to come to her with any of my problems, she had so many other children to look after, how can I expect her to make time for me? I saw myself and my actions as a burden to everyone, my fight against the Silence was successful but at what cost? Others are being hurt by the aftermath of my actions, my mom, Russi, my dad, I made the decision to relinquish my voice. I lied, I have experience silence that is deafening, but it’s at those moments you hear the most. It’s in the moments of absolute silence that you achieve clarity, my clarity was suicide, the eternal silence of death. If I’m not around how can I burden anyone? I wouldn’t have to worry about the opinions of my teachers or peers anymore since I’d be conforming to their standards. Neil The Troubled will now be Neil The Silent.

Parent-teacher conference my mom and I are receiving my grades from my advisor, I make a comment about wanting to kill myself while in class. A small morbid joke, those words held a lot of weight, my advisor notified Russi about my sly remark. She got super pissed off at me, “Don’t you dare say your going to kill yourself” “I’ll fuck you up! You can’t escape me”. It took the threats of Russi and tears of my mom to find my voice, I had regained my most valued possession, the ability to contradict the monotony of life the Silence. If wasn’t for Russi I wouldn’t be here today, and I truly believe that. Her voice found mine, for a teacher to be my savior was truly unexpected. I love her for being there when I needed her, and still being there when I need her, the Silence isn’t something you want to face alone it’s best to bring back up.

My Revision Blog Post

In my revision, I have a lot of goals set for improving my paper. I plan on improving the organization in my story by adding more crucial details, these details will fix the gaps and jumps I have in my story. I also plan on fixing my grammar mistakes since I didn’t indent or space out my essay into paragraphs. My revision will reshape the structure of my essay, I want to move some events around to see how cohesive the story becomes. I want to change the introduction and make a better hook that relates to my topic. That will be my hardest though since I will have to think of a whole concept to attract readers. My first paragraph should be more concise when I’m talking about the early stages of my life since those aren’t the important years. This can also bore readers I plan on focusing on my high school years, these years were eventful which can give me a better story. The climax of my story also seems a little late a good idea will be to centralize this idea, this gives my story a more traditional structure. Individuality is also something I aim for I want my story to stand out amongst my peer’s story. I’ll achieve this goal by making my revision hit all the points I highlighted in this blog post. If I’m able to successfully implement my story elements then I should be able to create a beautiful story that has a great message behind it.

250 Blog Post

As I read our chapter of the I AIN’T GONNA LIE one reoccurring motif is apparent. A struggle that both I and my peers partake in within the chapter was adjusting to a new environment. We all struggle to make a change in our stories, this highlighted an issue that is present in all high schools. The issue of “fitting in” where do we all fit in the grand scheme of things. We all struggle to fit in when we are bombarded with new social norms and expectations from our peers. Many try to stray from the status quo only to be alienated or be perceived as weird for being themselves, my struggle was trying to find common ground with someone, trying to find someone who I can relate with became more of a mission than anything. While reading Rex’s piece I felt a moment of joy and thought, “BRO THAT’S A FUCKING FACT”. Rex talked about his struggles of finding motivation and how different the atmosphere of high school was compared to college. One quote that resonated with me was, “single day just felt the same and it was exactly the same, waking up every morning for school, go home and do the work assigned time that’s due whenever, shower, sleep, and repeat.” Rex talks about the monotony of high school, how mundane it can all be and I had this exact mindset going into my senior year. The same boring routine over and over, all I wanted was a break, an escape that can allow my brain to receive a new wave of information or a new routine. Rex’s quote really hit close to home, because this mindset leads me to believe that there was no purpose in life and this didn’t help with my depression.

Final Draft

The Bronx home to the second greatest baseball team The Yankees, a melting pot of multiple ethic groups, and the birthplace of modern hip hop! A significant portion of my life i’ve spent absorbing the plethora of experiences the Bronx has to offer, ranging from exciting games at Yankee stadium, and also living one block away from the esteemed Grandmaster Flash’s old project building. “Plethora Of Experiences” Neil you only named two things, what about “the melting pot of multiple ethic groups”? We’ll get into that eventually, see I can’t talk about the people of the Bronx without talking about the public education of the Bronx. Out of my 17 years of my life roughly 12-13 Years were spent in public education system, and it was to put into simple terms “shitty”. While I will admit that the years leading up to the Obama administration were bearable, the minute Michelle Obama changed the standard for school lunch everything went downhill. The first problem being that the food changed from being actual food, to “healthy” alternatives, which boiled down to pre-made microwaved food. The Bronx was notorious for it’s bad food in general and these changes made it worse; crappy school lunch was the least of my problems in elementary school. I was deemed a troubled kid young, and encountered my fair share teachers who would’ve loved to not have me as a student. I ended up not spending a lot of time in elementary school, and spending most of my 4th and 5th grade year in therapy. This was counterproductive since I missed out on key moments that kids have during their elementary school years, recess, making friends, gym periods. My therapy sessions ceased since it started to take a noticeable toll on my family financially, and as I transitioned into middle school my life continued to deteriorate. I lacked the necessary social skills to make friends, and developed an anxiety disorder ironically named SAD. Social Anxiety Disorder made it difficult to make friends, since I was constantly afraid of being judged to the point that I would avoid human contact. I tried to emulate my older sister since she was smart, popular, outgoing, and had a lot of friends. My attempts yielded some results, I needed attention so I made a conscious choice to become a trouble maker. I didn’t like teachers anyway so stopping lessons and slowing down the classroom was a win-win for me. High School was the turning point for me since I stopped being awkward, and started to mature immensely. Raymond Keith Gilyard is both a writer and a professor, but most importantly he’s been in the NYC education system, he talks about his experiences in his piece “Voices of the Self”. Within this piece he talks about his firsthand experience with school and his struggle with drugs he brings up one experience and states “Mrs.Brody, called me in for a long talk. She was a nice person, engaging. This was serious talk. No sermonizing. Just a realistic look at things. She suggested I enroll as an outpatient at Greenwich House.” Keith Gilyard talks about his schools efforts to bring him back from his heroin addiction, the counselor is recommending him to rehabilitation center, promptly after this encounter more faculty in the school do what they can in their power to make sure Keith graduates. This made me think about my outlook on education since it still hadn’t changed, teachers/faculty never did anything for me, when I struggled with depression, when I yearned for attention, no teacher came and gave me what I needed. A helping hand, all I wanted to hear was that someone cared, I’ll admit partially it’s my fault since I treated them like crap, but it’s kinda their job to help me out soooo that’s on them. My mental issues still burdened me in high school, but I had friends now which helped keep my mind distracted. I created meaningful relationships and really enjoyed the merits of friendship, unfortunately I still didn’t have anyone to relate to. 12th grade year is when I really distanced myself from school, I essentially missed the whole year, due to lack of motivation for school and life itself. What I wanted was a teacher like Mrs.Brody or the other teachers in Gilyard’s life. I didn’t have this connection until the 12th grade, What was different about this chapter in my life is that my teachers actually cared for me. My first period teacher would call me so I can come to school, even if I was late I was accepted with open arms. For once educators cared about me, after so many years of being neglected, the people I wanted to acknowledge me had done it. Even with their efforts not much changed in me, it wasn’t until half way through the year that their dedication to my success was apparent. After receiving barely passing marks I was done with school, I tried to be interested but I was having trouble immersing myself into the mentality of scholar. Mentally I was somewhere else and around this time is when I was contemplating suicide, the dean of my school was notified by my advisor after she overheard me talking about it. My dean of advisor broke into tears upon hearing this, since she knew me for nearly a decade and loved me like a son. The efforts to make me want to live and succeed were not apparent to me until that moment, every time she tried to avoid giving me harsh punishments, she would give me detentions and hope I learned my lesson. Their love for me made me wake up and realize that I deserve to graduate, just like Gilyard, when and effort was made to improve my life by others, I decided to take it and make my way through the hardship.

Unit One Rough Draft

The Bronx home to the second greatest baseball team The Yankees, a melting pot of multiple ethnic groups, and the birthplace of modern hip hop! A significant portion of my life I’ve spent absorbing the plethora of experiences the Bronx has to offer, ranging from exciting games at Yankee stadium, and also living one block away from the esteemed Grandmaster Flash’s old project building. “Plethora Of Experiences” Neil you only named two things, what about “the melting pot of multiple ethnic groups”? We’ll get into that eventually, see I can’t talk about the people of the Bronx without talking about the public education of the Bronx. Out of my 17 years of my life, roughly 12-13 Years were spent in the public education system, and it was to put into simple terms “shitty”. While I will admit that the years leading up to the Obama administration were bearable, the minute Michelle Obama changed the standard for school lunch everything went downhill. The first problem being that the food changed from being actual food to “healthy” alternatives, which boiled down to pre-made microwaved food. The Bronx was notorious for its bad food in general and these changes made it worse; crappy school lunch was the least of my problems in elementary school. I was deemed a troubled kid young and encountered my fair share teachers who would’ve loved to not have me as a student. I ended up not spending a lot of time in elementary school and spending most of my 4th and 5th-grade year in therapy. This was counterproductive since I missed out on key moments that kids have during their elementary school years, recess, making friends, gym periods. My therapy sessions ceased since it started to take a noticeable toll on my family financially, and as I transitioned into middle school my life continued to deteriorate. I lacked the necessary social skills to make friends and developed an anxiety disorder ironically named SAD. Social Anxiety Disorder made it difficult to make friends since I was constantly afraid of being judged to the point that I would avoid human contact. I tried to emulate my older sister since she was smart, popular, outgoing, and had a lot of friends. My attempts yielded some results, I needed attention so I made a conscious choice to become a trouble maker. I didn’t like teachers anyway so stopping lessons and slowing down the classroom was a win-win for me. High School was the turning point for me since I stopped being awkward, and started to mature immensely. My outlook on education still hadn’t changed since teachers/faculty never did anything for me, when I struggled with depression, when I yearned for attention, no teacher came and gave me what I needed. A helping hand, all I wanted to hear was that someone cared, I’ll admit partially it’s my fault since I treated them like crap, but it’s kinda their job to help me out soooo that’s on them. My mental issues still burdened me in high school, but I had friends now which helped keep my mind distracted. I created meaningful relationships and enjoyed the merits of friendship, unfortunately, I still didn’t have anyone to relate to. The 12th-grade year is when I distanced myself from school, I essentially missed the whole year, due to lack of motivation for school and life itself. What was different about this chapter in my life is that my teachers cared for me. My first-period teacher would call me so I can come to school, even if I was late I was accepted with open arms. For once educators cared about me, after so many years of being neglected, the people I wanted to acknowledge me had done it. Even with their efforts not much changed in me, it wasn’t until halfway through the year that their dedication to my success was apparent. After receiving barely passing marks I was done with school, I tried to be interested but I was having trouble immersing myself into the mentality of a scholar. Mentally I was somewhere else and around this time is when I was contemplating suicide, the dean of my school was notified by my advisor after she overheard me talking about it.

Author: Neil