The James Logan Courier

By Rebecca Soltau, Entertainment Editor

On Thursday morning, during second period, Principal Don Montoya came on the school public address system to address the school in his bi-annual State of the School. As usual, Mr. Montoya reminded students and staff of the major school rules, like Off and Away and things like that.

But this year, Mr. Montoya brought in Krystal Henderson, a senior, who expressed her views on the recent explosive violence that has plagued our city for the past year. In a very articulate speech, she called on the student body to "put aside racist stereotypes" and stand up against violence.

Unfortunately I seemed to be one of very few who people who agreed to take a stand. I was disgusted as I sat in horror as one of my classmates declared "This girl doesn't know s*** about it. What the f***does she know?" The class only submerged deeper into the sludge of ignorance as the student stated "It's human nature. We can't do anything about it, so we might as well just accept it. We can't change the world."

Did I mention that he said he wasn't an advocate of violence? Merely ten minutes later, he was screaming incoherently at the teacher with a stream of obscenities flowing from his mouth. At one point, one of the girls had to hold onto the back of his shirt to keep him away from the teacher.

Does anyone else see the hypocrisy?

And as for not being able to change anything. Excuse me? I seem to remember only NINE students in Little Rock, Arkansas, initiating a pretty damn big movement of change. Oh, and that guy, what's-his-name? Martin Luther King Jr.? He helped changed something, right? What was that?

Oh yeah. SEGREGATION.

So to say that a school of 4500+ students can't change something like violence in our lifetime is stupid and ignorant and brainless. Not believing that you make any difference is exactly the reason why we lose people.

To say that we can't solve the problem that took Dr. King, Vernon, Biniam, Jesus and so many other nameless victims so forcefully from the world is a disrespect to their lives as well as their deaths.

Learn something sometime.