Now What?

It’s no secret that the hateful vandalism sprayed on school walls on Sunday, March 13 evoked a strong response from Pali students. A school-wide protest quickly developed the following morning, as students voiced their rage, shock and frustration. By fifth period, the rally’s leaders had organized their thoughts into a set of demands, including adding an African Studies course for 11th-grade history, implementing stricter punishments for discriminatory actions and reducing prices for school buses. Such demands were reiterated at the Unity Rally nearly three weeks later. However, it remains to be seen if these ideas will be put into action.

A month later, the impact of the vandalism has slowly subsided. Many students who attended the forum on Monday, March 14 and who participated in the Unity Rally on Saturday, April 2 have likely forgotten how moved they were by the speeches and stories they heard — moved, for a moment, to take action. However, as the pressing nature of the problem disappeared, so too did the desire to drill deeper.

Last year, following the release of a disturbing Rapchat post by a former student, the Black Student Union (BSU) hosted a forum for students to stand up, share their experiences and voice their concerns. The forum focused on discrimination both at the school and in the outside world, raising issues regarding the use of racist slurs such as the “N-word,” segregation between racial groups and stereotypes perpetrated against blacks and other minority groups. Though the discussion was a moving experience, few tangible actions were taken as a result of student concerns.

This time, we cannot let the issues fade away. Racism and discrimination cannot be taken care of in isolated events. It should not need to take a catastrophic occurrence for students, teachers and administration to take action. In order to truly progress, we must uncover the underlying issues plaguing the culture of our school and greater society that allowed these hateful events to occur.

Yes, the perpetrators of this particular act of vandalism were arrested and punished, but how many others out there share the same hateful attitudes towards blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews and members of the LGBTQ+ community? Or towards Muslims, women, the disabled and other groups who, though not mentioned in the graffiti, are similarly maligned? Sadly, these sentiments manifest at Pali High.

Perhaps the most obvious example of this racial disharmony can be seen nearly every day of the week: Students of different races and ethnicities rarely sit together at lunch. Whole swaths of the campus are almost exclusively inhabited by specific ethnicities come lunchtime, leading to near-total racial homogeneity among social groups. This is particularly unfortunate as it isolates Pali students from the diverse experiences and perspectives that make this campus so cosmopolitan.

The problem goes deeper than that, however. Advanced Placement (AP) and honors classes suffer from a grievous dearth of minority students, limiting their options for college admission and restraining them from reaching their full potentials. Many minority students have complained that they, by virtue of their race, are viewed by their teachers as unfit for these rigorous classes. Such a mindset will handicap students before they have even received their first grade.

Pre-held biases among students also damage race relations at Pali. Many teens here still struggle with the concept of microaggressions, the subtle but offensive comments that pervade the lives of minority students. Even the Unity Rally, which was meant to be a transracial protest against racism and bigotry, was attended by relatively few white families. If people claim to be allies of people of color, then where were they when the school community needed them? Whether it was meant this way or not, their lack of attendance appeared apathetic.

In order to address discrimination at Pali, we need to take continuous action to create awareness and increase participation among students and the outside community. Ideas from the protest on March 14 should be formalized into goals and addressed point by point by the administration. There should be an African Studies class in place as an option for 11th-grade students to fulfill their U.S. history requirements. The Board’s project, Dough for Diversity, should be revamped and advertised so that commuting students — predominantly from minority groups — can receive financial aid for the monthly cost of traveling to school.

These are just a few out of the plethora of actions the school can take to change the culture of the school. We can discuss which ideas would be the most impactful, we can debate which parties should be held responsible for fulfilling which promises and we can disagree on how this matter should be handled. But we must work together to take continuous action and not just let this event be swept behind us.

The assumptions made about our generation often center around apathy, laziness and short attention spans. Let’s prove them wrong.