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The controversy surrounding racial profiling is unfairly placed, considering the recent misuse of the term and the considerable benefits that it provides.
According to the Minnesota House Of Representatives, racial profiling is a relatively new term, and as such, its definition has been subject to ambiguity, which inevitably leads to confusion and controversy. As of now, there are two accepted definitions of racial profiling, one narrow, and one broad. The narrow definition uses race as the sole basis of the stopping, searching, or questioning of an individual, while the broad definition is the use of race as one of several factors of the stopping, searching, or questioning of an individual. Unfortunately, the general public has the belief that the narrow definition is the sole definition of racial profiling, and I believe that this stems from the portrayal of police-minority violence in the media. Whenever a police officer stops someone based on their race, it’s for a just cause. They are trained to do a brief search of people who fit the demographic of criminals in their area, whether they are African American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or Caucasian. It just so happens whenever something awful happens during these searches, that’s when the media picks up on these stories. If you run a news station, what would attract more attention: a caucasian police officer shooting a young African American man during a routine stop and search, or a caucasian police officer discovering contraband during a routine stop and search? The shooting would attract much more attention, because of an effect in our brains called the negativity bias. We as humans are more likely to be attracted to horrible events or tragedies, which also explains why we stop to look at car accidents on the freeway, or crowd around a crime scene. If the news only broadcasts horror stories of police stops, the outrage of minority communities would make sense. Now, the main counterargument here is that cops can have underlying racist tendencies during these stops, and I do concede that that can be true. However, racist or not, this is how police officers are trained. They are trained to stop and search those who fit the crime demographics of their area, whether if it entails they are black, white, Hispanic, Muslim, or Asian. My call to action is this: the news should cover more of the positive aspects of police stop and seizures. By accomplishing so, the public can be fully informed that race is not the sole factor for police stops. After all, this is all in an attempt to reduce, and hopefully, prevent crime. Reporter: Jacob Zacky
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Gun control decreases crime. If gun control is regulated, then we will have less crime. Accessing any type of firearms makes killing easy, efficient, and impersonal which will increase crime.
I haven't gone through any firearm violence, I wouldn't want anyone to go through this. In the future, I wouldn’t want my kids to go through metal detectors to get into school every day. Furthermore, Sarah Mervosh from The New York Times stated, “Gun violence in America kills more than 30,000 and injures almost 70,000 each year. The United States has the highest gun violence than other worldwide countries.” Americans die each year because the government doesn’t want to have any gun laws. In addition, Christian Britschgi from the Reason said, "It's not a leap to say that no 16-year-old should have ready access to a firearm outside the immediate supervision of an adult." Many parents have firearms in their house on plain sit and don’t have them in a good place lock. Young people get hurt and traumatized after any type of shooting. Every day kids are scared to go to school. Parents and teachers are terrified to go to stores, schools or anywhere, nowhere is safe anymore. Dylan Kraemer was in classroom 1214 in the Parkland shooting. Dylan's last words knowing he might not see his mom never again said, “Mom, I love you there is a shooting at my school if anything happens I love you so much.” Lives are on the line every day. Many people say the opposite. They say mass killers often find ways to kill even without firearms. Having gun control isn’t going to make any difference, they will find a way to get a firearm, mass shooting isn’t going to stop. They think by taking their guns is taking away their second amendment Citizens have the right to want to feel safe. Having gun control keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We as citizens should start taking control of what’s right for us, like by voting for a president that cares about what goes on in the world and doesn’t care just about himself. Let’s start to make a difference for the future of the kids and they don’t have to go through this or go through metal dictators to get into school because we couldn’t do anything about it. Reporter: Amairani Sandoval Over the years, there has been a long debate about whether parents should implement curfews in their homes as a way to keep their children away from crime or harm, to keep order in the household. Although this is true, studies have shown that curfews aren’t as effective as people believe them to be.
Several studies have been conducted to determine if curfews are useful to cities and homes, and they showed they are not effective.According to the news outlet, WHYY, in 1976, Detroit implemented a curfew for children that lasted from 10 P.M to 9 A.M. A study done on this showed juvenile crime dropped by six percent, but mid afternoon crimes rose 13 percent. The news outlet, BrandonGaille, covered a study done in Monrovia, California, a city that had a daytime curfew. They discovered that crime rose by 53 percent during curfew hours, and it decreased by 12 percent while the curfew was suspended. I believe there is enough evidence that suggests that curfews do not automatically keep children safe from danger, but there have been results where curfews are useful in keeping kids safe. I am not discrediting curfews as being completely useless, but people need to understand their children can be in the middle of danger at anytime, and that’s reality. Curfews will not prevent children from staying out of trouble, as they can easily go looking for it before their set curfew time. Anyone can be kidnapped, go rob a store, or commit any other crime, and it can take place in the middle of the day. From my personal experiences, I can attest to this. I have witnessed several family members, teens, get arrested for vandalism or doing drugs, and they occurred before the sun goes down. Although there is enough information that suggests curfews are completely effective, it has been useful to a lot of families. There are many families who set curfew for their children, and it works like a charm. Parents should not give their children a curfew because they are ineffective and fail to show significant change in juvenile crime. The police should not be involved in the decision making whether a parent will assign a curfew. Parents and their children should come to agreement on set terms for when they are out of the house. Reporter: Andrew Camberos Video games have become a central focus on today's media captivating different people and age groups with reasons varying from the games visuals, story, soundtrack, or play style. Today games continue to become more influential in today's pop culture, with many people starting to make assumptions that video games are the cause of mass violence and domestic terrorism, although video games were made only made for entertainment purposes.
A game that has been heavily praised and criticized is the Mortal Kombat series, which introduced a new concept to the fighting game industry by inputting a certain command the player was able to perform a fatality, which were finishers used after defeating an opponent. With the popularity that the game received with fatalities, there were also criticisms from the American public and parents who were concerned over the belief that these fatalities were influencing their children into becoming more rebellious and violent. With the controversies behind the Mortal Kombat and other games for their use of video game violence, on September 16, 1994 the Entertainment Software Association, established the ESRB rating, which began to provide information to both consumers and parents about the games purchased, and began to separate video games by age groups with I.D.’s being needed in order to buy violent video games. Today games are being used as a scapegoat and also wrongfully coming back under fire, with shooter games such as the Call of Duty series being called out after the 2019 El Paso and Dayton shooting, by President Trump and politicians for being a driving “cause” of those events. In a press conference in the White House, President Trump implied that video games are the problem and the main cause for the shootings, with the former being “A culture that celebrates violence”. It is true that some video games are unnecessarily violent, and it might influence aggressive tendencies, with the American psychological association finding “consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect''. Although video games may cause teens to be more prone to aggressive tendencies from it’s violent nature, it does not cause mass shootings, with shooters often being exposed to video games. What should be done instead is for people to acknowledge video games aren’t the problem, and should focus on different solutions to overcome shootings like improved background checks, the banning of assault rifles to the public and high capacity magazines, while also pinpointing the actual cause of these tragedies instead of a narrow minded view towards video games. Video games are being used as a convenient scapegoat, the longer it takes for people to realize it the longer it hinders any progress in finding any real solutions for mass violence in America. Reporter: Lorenzo Sevilla Standardized tests have been around since 1926 when the College Board introduced the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). Since the SAT was released, it has been a staple in the college admissions process, but there has been some controversy to this test recently. These recent controversies show that the SAT should no longer be needed as a means for college admission.
Starting in 2001, the University of California school system (UC) began to think of dissipating the need for SAT scores for admissions. College Board began to think of ways to keep the SAT requirement for UC schools and released the essay portion of the SAT in 2005. The essay portion of the SAT failed to produce the results they hoped for, and again the UC school system is thinking of eradicating the need for SAT scores. In fact, “Nearly 50 accredited colleges and universities that award bachelor’s degrees announced from September 2018 to September 2019 that they were dropping the admissions requirement for an SAT or ACT score” according to Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, in a Washington Post interview for the article “A Record Number of Colleges Drop SAT/ACT Admissions Requirement Amid Growing Disenchantment with Standardized Tests.” This has added to the 1,050 schools that have already done the same. In 2019, news broke that some high profile parents had been bribing school officials millions of dollars to forge SAT scores to get kids into college. One of these bribes was upwards up $6.5 million. This shows that the system is corrupt and needs to change to be fair to all, not matter their money situation. Dozens of parents and college coaches have been accused in the college admissions scandal, with many facing jail time, but they did it to provide a better future for their child. In the end, was it worth it? Students work hard everyday to get into their dream school, but are losing to people who can buy their way in. I worked with a woman who was a C student in highschool, but was able to get into Stanford University with her SAT score. The system is broken, especially with colleges getting rid of SAT requirements and the recent college admissions scandal. The need for standardized tests should be eliminated to provide the most fair college admissions process. Students should be looked at based on their excellence in school and extracurricular activities, not just one test. In order to have the most fair college admissions process, the SAT requirement for college admissions should be eliminated. Reporter: Myles Witte Women have always been expected to be wife and mother material, dress a certain way and depend on their husbands financially, but the minute they choose to make their own decisions receive backlash for it. Between 2010 and 2014 there was over 25 million unsafe abortions that occured worldwide. It may be that they live in a country where healthcare is not an option, they can’t afford healthcare, or they are too afraid to get professional help. Those are only a few of the numerous other reasons. Recently nine states passed laws which will forbid abortion from occuring in their states. Alabama being one of those nine states has the cruelest ban. The Alabama abortion ban states that a woman can not have an abortion at any given time, period. Georga, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio are the states that do not allow abortions regardless if it was rape or incest. The only time an abortion is permitted is if the mother’s life is at risk and she is no more than 6 to 8 weeks pregnant. The bill was passed forward by men and the final approval for the bill was approved by Alabama’s governor Kay Ivey which is a woman. Those voting for the abortion ban were Republican men in Alabama. Those men were some of which were important to the Alabama state such as Senator Garlan Gudger and politician Clyde Chambliss and many more. The number of votes were so high to the point where it was enough to have the bill passed through both the State House and Senate, despite a number of women voting against the bill. As a female myself, it terrifies me that such nonsense is being allowed. It doesn’t matter if they just found out they are a couple days pregnat because they will not be allowed to have an abortion. No one is to say what another person is or isn’t allowed to do to their own body. No man or woman should be there to justify and take a woman’s right to an abortion. How is it that men get a choice on how a woman chooses to treat her body? As strange as it may sound, some may experience an unnoticed pregnancy for weeks and even months. It can be that they may have an irregular period, no signs and symptoms, and if they are overweight they may not be able to notice. The possibilities are endless as to why some may not know they are pregnant, but why should someone be punished for not knowing? Reporter: Gisselle Suarez
Estancia High School seniors only have 2 more days of high school. These seniors will be taking finals both Monday and Tuesday, meanwhile Wednesday and Thursday they will be having activities to enjoy their last couple of high school days. Wednesday they will have Senior Takeover that will start right after rehearsal and it will all be free and accessible. This event will be in the student parking lot and it will consist of a taco truck, Hawaiian shaved ice, music, yearbook signing, games, and just spending more time with their classmates. On Thursday, there will be Senior Brunch at the Costa Mesa Country Club, doors will be opening at 8 in the morning. The brunch will start off with a couple of speeches, yearbook signing, senior superlatives awards, eating, and music. These following seniors have a couple of words of advice for the incoming seniors. Dayana Martinez says to, “push yourself and do your best, get good grades and try to do things like getting involved- you won’t regret it.” She will be attending San Jose State University in August. Cesar Alcala will be attending Cal State Long Beach in the fall, the following advice he wanted to share to, “keep up with important deadlines as there will be so many in your senior year.” Andy Herrera will be attending Vanguard in the fall and wants to share what he realized while applying to colleges this year. His advice is, “to research colleges early! Don’t take too many AP classes because they don’t help you get into college.” Seniors have had four years of experience and memories of their high school careers. Each senior had one favorite memory that stood out to them. Maria Hernandez Juarez, valedictorian, stated her favorite memory was, “falling off the bus seat with Aileen and Cesar there.” She will be attending Golden West College. Nessa Osso will be attending OCC and her favorite memory was “[the] senior bonfire and singing I Fall Apart by Post Malone.” Christopher Ramirez will be attending OCC in the fall and his favorite memory was, “playing for the basketball team.” Hayden Pearce will be attending the University of Arizona in the fall and his favorite memory was, “being league champion in both track and baseball senior [year].” Many seniors had to agree that attending or even being part of the Battle of the Bell was their favorite memory because there was tension, and everybody got to express their school spirit. As seniors are heading out, they do have knowledge and experience of what they want incoming seniors to do so it can be their best year yet. As senior class president, if you asked me my sophomore year what would senior year look like for me… I wouldn’t expect to tell you what my senior year was actually like. This is my last year and I definitely put myself out there. My advice for anybody and everybody is to find something you never expected to do, try it and maybe you’ll change the world. That one change can start off small, but it can turn into something big, someone always notices. Senior year is not the hardest year, it requires keeping on track with high school and post- high school plans. Be great! Reporter: Jennifer Neri
Exquisito, a small Mexican dessert place in Santa Ana with a 4.0-star rating on Yelp. They serve a variety of desserts ranging from spicy to sweet. They are mostly known for their Esquite, corn with Hot Cheeto crumbs served in a cup or on a stick. Once you step in this small dessert shop, you get the feeling that you have entered a friendly environment. The staff is very friendly and they will answer the questions of their clients with patience and understanding. I ordered a banana split with no chocolate ice cream and no chocolate syrup. It was about a 15-minute wait for me to get my dessert. This wait was due to the fact that they were understaffed. There were only two employees working at the moment, one was taking people’s order and the other one was making the desserts. It was a reasonable time to wait considering there were only two employees at the moment. When my family and I received our desserts, mine looked pleasing, and it was satisfied my sweet tooth. My mom got a concha, a Mexican sweet bread, cut in half with a vanilla ice cream scoop in between and drizzled with caramel. The next dessert on my table was a Mangoniada and corn with Hot Cheeto crumbs on top. At my table we had a variety of flavors ranging from sweet, sour, and spicy desserts. It was a friendly environment that demonstrated the genuine attitude of the Latino/Hispanic culture. Exquisito has an open environment where the customers can speak to the staff easily and are able to ask anybody for recommendations. This experience with amazing desserts and a friendly environment at a cheap price is very possible at Exquisito. All dessert prices average from $4.25 to $7.00. It has something for everybody to enjoy. Making it a lot easier to pick the perfect dessert for you. This place is a B+ for dessert places in my opinion. It is located at 2509 W McFadden Ave b, Santa Ana, CA 92704. Reporter: Jennifer Neri
IBM CREATED THE FIRST SMARTPHONE EVER CALLED THE SIMON PERSONAL COMMUNICATOR IN 1992. SINCE THEN, MANY NEW SMARTPHONES HAVE BEEN CREATED BY DEVELOPERS LIKE APPLE, SAMSUNG, NOKIA AMONG OTHERS. ACCORDING TO A 2019 STUDY THE AVERAGE SMARTPHONE USER CHECKS THEIR DEVICE 47 TIMES A DAY TOTALING 17,155 TIMES A YEAR. IN ADDITION, 85% OF SMARTPHONE USERS WILL CHECK THEIR DEVICE WHILE TALKING TO FAMILY OR FRIENDS.
PHONE ADDICTION IS REAL. IN A BROADER PERSPECTIVE ANYTHING CAN BE ADDICTING. I CLAIM THAT ADDICTIONS CAN BE GOOD AND BAD FOR BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH. GOOD ADDICTIONS ARE ONES THAT ARE PRODUCTIVE FOR EXAMPLE SOMEONE WHO IS ADDICTED TO WORK. HOWEVER, TOO MUCH OF IT CAN BE EXHAUSTING THUS, BAD FOR YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH. AN EXAMPLE OF A BAD ADDICTION IS CIGARETTES. MANY BELIEVE THAT SMOKING REDUCES MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS BUT THE BENEFITS ARE OUTWEIGHED BY THE BAD PHYSICAL EFFECTS ON THE BODY. PHONE ADDICTION IS BAD. YES, PHONES CAN BE EXTREMELY HELPFUL WITH THE INTERNET AT YOUR FINGERTIPS BUT NO ONE SHOULD EVER BE ADDICTED TO A DEVICE OR THE CONTENTS WITHIN IT. AMERICAN EXPERTS LIKE JANE E. BRODY EXPLAIN HOW PHONES AND SOCIAL MEDIA DISCONNECT US FROM WHAT REALLY MATTERS. REAL LIFE CONNECTIONS, NOT DIGITAL ONES. AS HUMANS, WE VALUE HUMAN CONNECTION BECAUSE IT’S NURTURING. MORE NEW AND IMPROVED PHONES ARE BEING PRODUCED AND SO IS THE ADDICTION THAT SEPARATES US FROM REAL LIFE CONNECTION. BRODY CONTINUES TO SAY “SCREENS ARE STEALING TIME THAT CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS SHOULD BE SPENDING ON PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES AND SPORTS, READING, OR CREATING AND ENGAGING DIRECTLY WITH OTHER CHILDREN, ALL OF WHICH ARE CRITICAL TO HEALTHY PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT.” FURTHER PROVEN IS THAT THOSE WHO SPEND MORE TIME ON THEIR PHONES HAVE AN INCREASED RISK OF DEPRESSION. PERSONALLY, I DON’T TAKE MUCH OF A LIKING TO SOCIAL MEDIA. WITHOUT THE REAL-LIFE INTERACTION, SOCIAL MEDIA ENABLES PEOPLE TO ACT AND/OR SAY THINGS THEY WOULDN’T SAY IN PERSON. FOR EXAMPLE, THE YOUNGER GENERATION IN OUR SOCIETY USE THE WORD “SHADE” TO CLASSIFY THE ACT OF INDIRECTLY CALLING OTHERS OUT. SOCIAL MEDIA IS WHERE IT COMMONLY TAKES PLACE AT AND IT USUALLY, IN MY EXPERIENCE, FORCES YOU TO BECOME UNCERTAIN AND INSECURE ABOUT YOURSELF. IF SOMEONE IS ALWAYS ON THEIR DEVICE THEY CAN EASILY BE EXPOSED TO THIS MENTALITY. OVERALL, SOCIAL MEDIA IS BAD BECAUSE IT SETS UNREALISTIC STANDARDS AND ONLY PORTRAYS THE BEST MOMENTS OF OTHERS PEOPLE'S LIVES RESULTING IN A DECREASE OF SELF-WORTH. President Donald Trump has announced that he would like to send men back to the moon, a feat which has not happened since December 11, 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission. His reasoning is to restore America’s legacy of leadership in space and to help National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) gain more information about our space and the solar system. Trump would like to eventually send a man to Mars, and he hopes to do this with his space policy directive, which he signed back in February of 2017. NASA hopes to land astronauts at the moon’s South Pole and gather new information with their current equipment. Many members of the science community are behind Trump on this revival because they believe it will lead to new groundbreaking discoveries and gain further knowledge on lunar science. With new technology, it is believed that missions to the moon will be both robotic and crewed, leading to more useful information to promote travel to Mars. Currently, NASA is creating robotic prospector missions that will help extract the oxygen and hydrogen needed to survive on the moon and launch expeditions to Mars further in the future. This process will reduce the need to get air from earth and will allow further space expeditions even more possible. Vice President Mike Pence hopes this feat will be accomplished by 2024. NASA believes this is very possible, and with the recent increase in government funding and technology being better now than ever before, the possibility is even greater. NASA’s biggest concern is the landing sequence, since it has to be designed, built, and tested before it can be sent to space. Man should be sent back to the moon because of the possibilities that come along with 47 years of scientific and technological advancement. What NASA could learn by going back to the moon could be the key to having life on Mars. Without exploring the unknown, nothing new could be found to further the possibilities for the future. That is why modern space exploration in could ultimately be the answer to advancing human existence to the next level in the future and beyond. Reporter: Myles Witte
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