On December 12, Principal Larson scheduled another assembly after he shut down the last assembly two weeks ago. He talked about how we are a family of students and staff, we are here for each other and we need to respect one another.

Our school also had another guest speaker, Terry Hollimon. He came to talk about his heritage and why other people shouldn’t take advantage of people of color. There was some positive reaction to Hollimon’s speech. “I though that it was pretty empowering and hopefully the students have picked up on that and not taking it as a joke because it was really serious,” Aaliyah Collins said.

Another student felt similarly. “I though his speech was really good he pretty much said exactly what all of us were thinking,” Alaina Bol said.

One of the topics Hollimon covered was the use of the ‘n-word.’ Several students responded to how they feel about people saying the n-word in front of them. “I hate it a lot. It makes me feel really uncomfortable and I just think that it’s a word that shouldn’t be said,” Brian Kapenda said. “I feel uncomfortable because I think that they are uneducated on what the n-word truly means,” Tiara Hollimon said.

Students continued the discussion of the use of the n-word. “Its very frustrating, they don’t really have a right to say it and when they do, I kind of just stand there in disbelief and think, did they really just say that? It’s also sad that they think they can say it,” Collins said.

Some students don’t think that other students promote racism, however they think they are see it happen and don’t take action. Other students mentioned speech is situational and at times t’s okay, but it never is. Sometimes it just happens when students aren’t really thinking that it happens.

The assembly with the wi-fi hot spots prompted much of the discussion the last two weeks about racist remarks at school.  “If you’re being aware of it, you can stand up to something that isn’t right,” Hollimon said.

“Reach out to families, and make a bigger deal about it, if you hear something in the halls just report it to a teacher and tell parents that their kids are saying stuff like that, because it usually starts at home,” Kapenda said.