Newspapers / Grimsley High School Student … / May 1, 1997, edition 1 / Page 2
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Human Relations Day fails to enlighten By Jenny Ballen Reporter Human Relations Day. Every year the sopho mores and freshmen filter into classrooms with fif teen other disinterested kids. And to what avail? The idea is a good one: to make students more culturally aware and accepting of one another, but does it re ally work? From what I’ve seen in the past two years, the answer is no. Every student dreads Human Relations Day. The fact is, it’s boring. We schlep from the auditorium to our rooms where we meet our spunky facilitator. Then, we discuss Grimsley’s racial relations and pos sible solutions to all of our problems. Well, that’s the way it’s supposed to happen. Most of the time we just sit around and doodle or drool while our fa cilitator tries to squeeze some kind of opinion out of us. Of course, not all underclassmen are apathetic and unresponsive. Some of the people were downright opinionated. The lucky facilitators who were as signed these outspoken kiddos probably had a good session where most of the people eventually got in volved. Still, the effects of this three hour exercise (or should 1 say ordeal?) have yet to be seen. Dur ing the break, we were back in our old cliques, sip ping our sodas gleefully. Not 30 seconds before, we denounced the voluntary segregation to which we subject ourselves; now we lounge around the hall way, back with our old groups of people. It’s just not that easy to integrate people. How many Grimsley students do you know that would “say hello to someone new everyday” or “start eating lunch with a new group of people”? Maybe a hope ful handful, but not many. Cultural awareness at Grimsley is not going to occur after “more Human Relations Days” or even after "getting rid of all the teachers, especially Mr./Mrs. (least favorite teacher here).” Integration and open-mindedness have to come gradually. You can’t shove cultural awareness down the throats of a dozen slouching bodies and expect them to come away from the session renewed and ready for desegregation. We students here at Grimsley already know the situation on campus. Everyday we see a majority of white students eating outside and as almost entirely black group eating in the cafeteria. This happens not because we are close-minded and ignorant, but because it’s what we’re used to and it’s where our friends are.. At lunchtime after Human Relations, we all met our friends at our usual place and sat down to have our lunches where we always do. It was no different from any other day: whites outside and blacks in the cafeteria. Campus looked the same as it always did on every other day. Masic has lost its soul By Cesar Alvarez Reporter Music has always been a staple for civi lized society. Any civilization, ancient or modern, is often characterized by its music. Music is the voice of the people and their lives. So \vhy is today's popular music so bad? Over the y ears popular music has con stantly changed in terms of musical techni calities and overall presentation. But ever since musicians have been identified more by \s hat they look like than by the quality of their music the taste of the public has taken a swift turn. 1 was watching a no-name awards show on VI1-1 the other day and my screen was graced w ith the presence of some random bluesy-rock playing white guy. 1 his illustri ous musician played a song with a melody composed primarily of three notes and one basic blues chord. He sang a few' lyrics, play ed a gutsy electric guitar solo, and ended with a smile, fhe severe mediocrity of this song would not have bothered me one bit under normal circumstances. However. I noticed that thousands of people were jump ing out of their seats and screaming and clap ping for this guy, as if he had wowed them with his passionate rendition of “Three-Note One-Chord Blues." Doesn't it bother any one that w ithout 500 watt amps and distor tion the majority of popular music is nothing more than simplistic and silly? In pre-Elvis America all of the famous musicians were famous because so many people loved their music. Once rock and roll came into the scene music turned in to some thing that could be visually manipulated. The good looking, flashy exciting musician w'ould always win out over the virtuoso. TV and mass media have visualized our society and brought everything into new light. Under this new light, however, good music is not recog nized. Music doesn't evoke passion any more. Today's music rarely makes any sort of po litical, meaningful, or even entertaining state ment. It is all about money and fame. I don't have too much criticism for Mr. Blues Man on VH-1, because he is making a much better living than 1 am. It's the fact that the American public finds so much value in such shallow' and two dimensional music that irks me. Music has the capabilities of saying so much more than that, but w'hat makes it often times is standardized music that could just as easily have come out of a some other musician and sound relatively the same. People enjoy a certain performer or type of music because it speaks to them and they understand it. Someone who loves classical music might get the same feeling from lis tening to Tchaikovsky as a punk rocker would get fromThe Offspring . The differ ence is that it takes more thought, emotion, and positive energy to understand Nutcracker Suite as opposed to Come out and Play. Much of today's music is extremely repetitive and alike in its structure. It seems to numb, rather than engage, the minds of its listeners. 1 fail to comprehend why popular music has taken this dive in quality. Regardless, however, of what 1 understand, it is very frightening that successful musicians are no longer created by the musicians themselves, but by Hollywood and MTV. Too many people have stopped listening to the music and started to look at who’s playing the mu sic and w hat they are wearing. Volume 73 Issue 9 fhe High Life Staff welcomes comments in the form ol letters to the editor from students, faculty, and the reading public. Letters may be turned in to the office. All letters must be signed. The slaff re.serves the right to reject any letter containing libelous statements, the right to edit for length and grammatical errors, and the right to ascertain the truthfulness of its content. I he High Life is published eight times a year and is produced b\ the students of Grimsley High School, 801 Westover ferrace, Greensboro, NC 27408. I'he High Life functions as a medium for cre ative journalistic pursuits as well as a training instrument for aspiring journalists, artists, and w riters. The High Life functions as a public forum for student expression. Editors in Chief: Rachel Green and Sarah Pendergrali. Editorial Editor: Simon Newman. News Editor: Brian Schiller. Feature Editors: Sarah Atkinson, \4ary Kathry'n Ross, and Anna West. Sports Editor: Mark Robinson. Exchange Manager: Randall Ariail, Advertising Man agers: Julie Samel and Jill Statham. Business Manager: Alayna Bingham. Staff Writers: Ben Blackwood. Sarah Blackwood, Kelly Cirincione, Lindsey Gulya, Nikia Jones, and Whitney Wright, Reporters: Cesar Alvarez, Jenny Ballen, Emily Duquette, Lisa Ellisor, Scott Fischer, Mark Gordon, Meganne Raines, Hallie Rojeski, Emily Schiller, and Sarah Warner, Adviser: Linda Kidd. Grimsley deserves more respect By Lindsey Gulya Staff Writer Students here at Grimsley always whine and protest, saying that our school “sucks.” Sure, Grimsley isn't perfect (in fact, some people suggest that w'e'd be better off in prison); but 1 think that w'hen you consider the other options, Grimsley is the only de cent school to attend. My intention isn't to pick on all the other schools in our system or to pinpoint every little problem they have. Tm just going to say that there's a lot of differences between Grimsley and other schools. Grimsley is the oldest high school in Greensboro and by far the largest. Students complain about Grimsley’s immense size, saying it’s impossible to get from one end of campus to the other in the five minutes we have between classes. Okay. I agree it’s a pain, but if you think about it, we could be going to a school without a huge front lawn for students to relax and eat lunch on or woods to do hands-on nature studies in. If all our classrooms were in a few simple main buildings, we’d have over-crow'ded halls or, even worse, one-way halls where you get in trouble for walking in the wrong direction. That would definitely not be easier on us. A major problem at some schools is vio lence. Okay, so we had some guy go dow'ii Service Drive with a shotgun and 15 rounds of ammo in the back of his truck. Nothing came of it; it s not like he even had the gun out. And we had a scary incident, over two years ago. that many of us still remember well. Although this weighs heavily on our record of violence, it is one incident. We at Grimsley really don't have to worry' about guns or other weapons. Most people I know feel pretty' safe at Grimsley, students and faculty alike. It’s not like we worry about having a gun pulled on us for bumping into someone in the hall or acci dentally rear-ending their car. Don't laugh because at some schools you can actually get threatened for those stupid things or just because somebody thinks you looked at them wrong. Nearly every day there is some kind of conflict in other schools, whether it be a flstfight just to see who's tougher, or a cat fight over a guy. Fights abound in certain schools to the point where there are at least 2 or 3 big fights a w'eek, fights where every one around stops to watch. It’s seldom that we have serious fights here at Grimsley; 1 can count on one hand the number of times a fight has been such a big deal that 50% of the school heard something about it. The biggest problem I have with other schools is the social aspect of the school. At almost every school, there are different cliques and groups of people, even at Grimsley. But 1 have noticed that in some schools, people are judged only by what group they re in, the way they look, and the other people like them. There are the preps, the rednecks, the thugs, the alternative people, and the people who are just plain nerds. And in the mind ofthe students, there is nothing in between. Grimsley, however, is not as socially binding or inhibiting as other schools. Our students don’t all fit into one of the strictly regulated social groupings that other schools have. A lot of students at our school are just... well, themselves- individuals who don’t imitate or fake something they’re not. We are also a whole lot more open-minded and accepting of different people. Like me, many students here have friends that are from all walks of life and that are completely differ ent form each other. We can call a lot of people friends even if they don’t talk like we do, dress the way we do, hang out with the same people we hang out with, or enjoy the same activities. It’s easy to hate school- after all, it’s in hibiting and oppressive. Classes are not fun and neither is learning. I’m sure everyone, even the teachers and administration, could think of about a thousand places they would rather be than school. But the fact is, we have to be here. It’s required by our parents, not to mention the law. As horrible as school is, our school isn’t all that bad when you com pare it to all the others. I recently saw a friend of mine who trans ferred out of Grimsley because of how much he had hated it. He had been at his new school for almost a year, so 1 was surprised when he told me he was coming back to Grimsley next year and had to ask why. His response? It was very similar to what my friends who have gradu ated from Grimsley have told m e : " Y o u never know how much you value something until it’s OOPS! The Speak Out on page 4 of the March 11 edition of the High Life said that the Guidance office asked Josh Johnson if he was aware of the drug policy. It was the Attendance Of fice, not Guidance, which posed the question j ^
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