If you follow the happenings of the Trump administration as closely as I do, you’ve experienced the barrage of headlines and op-eds that resulted from the revelation that Vice President Mike Pence retains a personal policy for working with women: not working with them at all.
Apparently, the Vice President of the United States decided, in an effort to supposedly respect his wife, that he should never be alone with a woman, for fear that sexual attraction will come into play in the relationship.Continue reading →
A lot of my peers hated high school. And I don’t blame them. After experiencing college and the diverse, wide world that is out there for all of us, it’s easy to write off your high school experience as just a blip on the timeline that got you to where you belong.
But I can’t seem to write off mine. Perhaps that’s because I enjoyed high school. I had great teachers, a great school, and friends from a diverse set of experiences. I got to experience things that I’ll remember for the rest of my life, in large part because my high school, Liberty High School, paved the way for me to do so.
I don’t really believe in the term “melting pot” as it assumes a type of assimilation that I can’t behind, but Liberty was probably what you think of when visualizing that trite term. Our school was the only one in the predominantly white and wealthy district to be over 50 percent minority students and it shows. I knew it was Holi, not because the news told me, but because the Hindu students at school celebrated with an explosion of color after school. The amazing black students at our school had revitalized a step team whose performances were always my favorite part of the pep rallies. My memories of multicultural days in elementary school is dominated by the Asian and South Asian parents taking over the cafeteria with good food and music.
That’s not to say that we were without problems or racism. That’s a pipe dream if there ever was one. Oftentimes, our school was a place to celebrate for students of color, while white students ignored it completely or looked down upon it. The experiences of black and Latinx students were downplayed in favor of Asian and South Asian experiences. Our parents still complain when an apartment complex, which housed most of the lower income, minority, or untraditional families, got zoned to their school. What was viewed as good, popular, or wholesome was the white, Christian, sports-oriented sect of our high school, which I imagine is still true of many of the high schools in the country.
While this remains true, what also remains true about LHS is the fact that minority students have been the lifeblood of our school and its successes. Dozens of National Merit scholars, successful UIL competitors, exemplary sports teams—look at their pictures, those students of color.
But last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton came after some of those students, those students that make my former high school the pillar of success that it is. Continue reading →
If you know me at all, or even follow me on social media, you know the emphasis and importance I place on a person’s civic duty to vote. Casting a ballot is more than supporting a certain candidate, it’s about exhibiting that you care about the future of your country and your community.
The number one excuse I hear for abstaining from voting is the reasoning that a single vote cannot change the outcome or result of an election. But for college students, especially here at UT, that reasoning simply does not hold true.
Last year around this time, Kevin Helgren and Binna Kim, current Student Body President and Vice President, won their election to their university positions by an extremely small margin—143 votes to be exact. Continue reading →
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 2:14-17
I have a lot of problems with the Church. There. I said it. Acting like I am someone who upholds every doctrine and verse in the Bible and the catechism of the Catholic church, which I was raised in, would be a lie and I’m not a liar. I have issues with the gender roles that are often assigned to girls and boys at a really young age. I take issue with the pervasive idea that being gay is a sin and I completely support marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights. I could go on for awhile, but the point remains that I have some issues with the way I, and others, were raised within Christianity.
Yet, still, I find that my faith informs how I look at and interact with others. How could it not? In the Christian way of teaching, we are taught from a really young age what it means to love someone without reserve. What it means to be a self-sacrificing, giving person. What it means to be a person of God and of faith.
That means, by definition, that my faith is not about me. My faith guides me to make the right, just and equitable decision without regard for myself, or it should. All of this is dictated by the same idea: love others, with no asterisk.
From the time we enter school on that first day of kindergarten, we are taught that our job is to do well in school, to make the most of our intellectual talents, to contribute to the world and to maximize our potential. Along with most of my friends, I live in a secure and blessed world where college is not a maybe, but a must. I live in a district that has a 98.8 percent graduation rate, compared to the national average of 82 percent. I live in a district that has 4o elementary schools, 16 middle schools, and a whopping 9 high schools, with many more on the way.
I am one of 52,000 students in FISD, something that I am exceedingly thankful for. As I go off to college, I have slowly began to realize just how lucky I was to have grown up in a district that emphasized my education as much as it did. I was offered every AP class under the sun, given the tools I needed to do well in college, and had the opportunity to experience extracurriculars in a way that I know many students in the country and the world don’t get to experience.
“Today, we’re going to start our unit on feminism.”
That sentence, uttered by my AP Literature teacher a few months ago, excited me. For just half a second, I allowed myself to fantasize an ideal world of intellectual discussion. For half a second, I allowed my brain to begin preparing itself for reading works of literature that would foster reasonable debate. For half a second, I was looking forward to something outside of the usual coming-of-age theme that our English teachers have been beating into our heads seemingly since we were born.
However, that half a second was ruined before my teacher could even begin her second sentence.
My doomed fantasy was shattered an instant later by a loud groan coming from the back of the class, prompted by that offensive and automatically abhorrent word: feminism.
And of course to make matters worse, the groan had come from a fellow female.
“In your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team… Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine”
-Taylor Swift
Yes, I really did just start out this blog post with a quote from a Taylor Swift song. Just let it happen. Something about OG Taylor Swift lyrics just ring so true with me, especially in this particular area of high school relationships.
And yeah, this is a completely different subject area than my usual focus on current events and politics, but I couldn’t help it.
I think there’s something about being a senior in high school and being only as wise as a seventeen year old can be that I’m starting to realize that everything my peers and I are focusing on is completely skewed.
Today wrecked me. I don’t even know how to write this. How do you write about your own speechless sadness? How do you write about how people you’ve known forever can say things that make you physically sick to your stomach? How do I write this? How do I articulate this hopelessness I feel?
After school today, I didn’t go straight home. I didn’t go and get started on my homework. I didn’t immediately go get food. I didn’t do any of my normal things.
Instead, I sat in my car and cried. I sat there and cried for a good twenty minutes. I cried, and cried, and cried.
I cried because today was the day I really did become disillusioned with our country. I cried because I realized how small I was in the face of the utter hopelessness I felt. I cried because of how much in the world just feels like utter and total crap.
Today, in opposition to the President’s plan for the acceptance of 10,000 refugees into the country, our Texas Governor Abbott released a letter to President Obama saying that Texas would not allow Syrian refugees into our state because of threats from terrorists. He was joined by now 22 other US state governors.
Donald Trump. If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know the guy makes me crazy. Scratch that, if you’ve even had a conversation with me in the last three months you know he makes me crazy. His lack of maturity, disrespectful nature, and ego make me want to throw something at my TV screen every time he speaks. I truly believe he’s a racist, in addition to possessing an attitude towards women that is downright shameful.
In all honesty, he’s likely not the only candidate running for president who has these ideas, he’s just the only one with the balls and disregard for basic respect to actually voice them. Oh, and the ability to say whatever he wants because he’s rich enough that he doesn’t need support of donors and the like.
And, of course, he’s being hailed as a hero of the cause against political correctness by many. While that’s great and all, somehow I don’t think championing your cause against political correctness behind someone who is simply a bigoted person is going to help. After all, there is a difference between being taking a stand against political correctness and just being downright uneducated and racist.
I want to preface this post by saying I am Christian, and more specifically Catholic. I’m proud to be one and consider my faith to be a huge part of who I am.
What’s sad about this whole topic is that I felt I needed to justify everything I am about to say by pointing out my Christian faith. What I’m about to say being pointed out by a someone of a different faith or no proclaimed faith wouldn’t be taken the same way.
Why? Because as someone who has the unintended fortune of belonging to a faith accepted by the American masses, I have the unequal advantage of belonging to what is viewed as the “moral right.” Because as someone who is Indian in descent but is also Christian, I am considered to be more acceptable to what people view as the American way. Because as soon as people find out that I am Catholic and not Hindu or Muslim, they relax because I belong to what they view is “normal.”
From the time we enter school on that first day of kindergarten, we are taught that our job is to do well in school, to make the most of our intellectual talents, to contribute to the world and to maximize our potential. Along with most of my friends, I live in a secure and blessed world where college is not a maybe, but a must. I live in a district that has a 98.8 percent graduation rate, compared to the national average of 82 percent. I live in a district that has 4o elementary schools, 16 middle schools, and a whopping 9 high schools, with many more on the way.
sarah philips 