Everyone Has a Story

            This past weekend, I was in New Orleans for a college tour of Tulane University. The culture is very different down there in that the population as a whole is a lot more friendly. Strangers come up to you if you're lost and offer help, and people are a lot more talkative to people they don't know. The first person we encountered in New Orleans was our taxi driver who took us from the airport to our motel. He was pretty chatty from the start and my mom and I ended up having a really interesting conversation with him. When we told him where we were from, he told us how much he loved "chi town" or "the chi" as he also called it, and that he and his roommate used to visit there when he was stationed in Indiana in the army. He told us all about his experiences in the army, and that his 34 year old son is also in the army now and is currently stationed in Afghanistan, so they barely are able to see each other. He shared memories of when his son was a child, taking him to the Garden District (uptown New Orleans), going to the zoo and feeding the ducks.
           The conversation then moved to Hurricane Katrina. I learned that when it hit, his house was so damaged that he had to gut the entire thing. Over the next couple years, he alternated between staying in hotels and houses of friends and relatives. It was very hard for him to get back on his feet after losing so much. Fortunately, his community helped each other a lot with the process of rebuilding, however outside of that they weren't getting much help and it was really tough. Observing other people's predicaments and how hard everyone had to work to recover, he told us he took this realization away from the whole experience: "that's what I learned about American citizens, they are resilient."

             I was so intrigued by his story, and all the bits and pieces, memories from his life that he shared with us. It's so interesting to talk to a complete stranger, someone who has a completely different life than you and  has experienced so many different things from what you have. To hear a personal experience straight from a victim of a disaster like Hurricane Katrina has so much more impact than just hearing it on the news or in school. I was able to hear the thoughts, feelings and memories of someone who was actually affected, who lost so much in the process and is still feeling the effects almost 8 years later. What really struck me was what he observed about Americans being resilient. It was really interesting that he was able to take that positive stand point on the whole experience and see the good that came from it, which was a whole community working together to recover. Talking to this man was really interesting and definitely a breath of fresh air to hear this mans story, who is so different from the people I usually talk to. This experience has made me more aware of other people's experiences and life stories. I encourage you to start up a conversation like this with someone as unknown to you as your taxi driver, because you never know what you might get out of it.

Chicago Gun Violence Gets National Attention

              This past Friday, there was a tragic shooting in which an 18 year old girl, Janay McFarlane, was killed while leaving a store in North Chicago. Her sister had just attended Obama's speech on Chicago gun violence a few hours before. After reading this in the newspaper, I was curious how much widespread attention this story was getting. When I searched the story on Google, I found this article coming out of the Bay Area in San Francisco. This caught me slightly by surprise that people all the way in California were talking about this. It reminded me of our previous class discussions when we talked about the lack of publicity that many Chicago shootings dealing with minorities usually get. There are fatal shootings going on just a couple miles away from us every day that we never hear about, however this story is a much bigger deal and it obviously getting a lot of publicity.
             This caused me to evaluate what makes this story different from the others, and what caused it to become something of national attention. When you look at the details, there are things that make it jump out. It doesn't say exactly where Janay was when she was shot, but it does mention she was in a north suburb. This differentiates the story from the multitude of shooting incidents that happen in the south of Chicago. The fact that this happened in a northern suburb might have made it more of note because that area is generally a lot safer and these incidents are much less frequent. Also, the irony of her sister having just attended a gun violence speech that Obama gave might have been another factor into why this shooting story was of interest compared to others.
             Do you agree with the points I made about why this Chicago shooting got national attention? Are there other reasons that you think contributed to it?

How open is New Trier to the public?

            Yesterday in class, a point was brought up that really interested me. There are many  stereotypes given to our school that are simply untrue. We're not all rich kids who wear designer clothes, nor are we all geniuses who get straight As. Those narrow ideas of what our school is defines only a small percentage of us. However, the one thing that can't be denied that is that when it comes to racial diversity, this school is pretty lacking. In class, we were discussing the fact that even though this is a public school that is open to anyone, meaning that the goal is to have it be diverse, there is a clear lack of racial diversity at New Trier. It brought up the question to my mind, how public is this public school? It technically is a public, but in some ways it seems more like a private school. Its prestigious location only allows for certain people to be able to attend. With the average African American or Latino income lower than that of the white Americans' average income, this school has obviously become very predominantly white, because of the high property taxes it takes to live here. Yes, this is a public school and anyone is welcome, but its exclusivity rules the majority of many groups of people out.
              This brought a connection to my mind of what we have been discussing with Reconstruction. Even  though African Americans were finally free, there were so many restrictions on them and in many cases, they were only really free in the technical sense of the word. It was very difficult for them to get jobs and better their lives in society because of many factors. With racism very prevalent in society, many people turned against them. Also, the difficulty for them to obtain a thorough education made it very hard to have the qualifications for many jobs. Even though they were proclaimed "free," there was still so much off limits to them. This connects to the observations about New Trier because even though it is a public school, it is essentially off limits to many people because of the money needed to live in this area. This blocks our school from having the diversity of most other public schools.
Do you think the general lack of racial diversity at New Trier is a problem that needs to be addressed? If anything, what do you think could be done about it?