Paly Digital Fieldnotes

Paly Digital Fieldnotes Coverage and discussion of Paly 4/18 vandalism 

Paly Voice coverage:  http://palyvoice.com/2016/04/18/campus-defaced-with-racist-pro-trump-graffiti/

Story told with interviews of administrators, school faculty: ex: “We take pictures and get rid of it as soon as possible,” Berkson said. “Unless we have a lead, we are limited in action. We clean it up right away, so the person responsible doesn’t get the attention they want.”

Superintendent emails Paly Voice…In an email to The Paly Voice, Supt. Max McGee stated that he encourages students to stand against bigotry. “Hate speech is a serious matter, and those who defaced our campus will suffer serious consequences,” McGee said. “We are immediately removing the graffiti, but more importantly, I trust that our Paly students will not tolerate any expression of racial, ethnic or gender disparagement and will take positive steps to assure that our campus is kind, safe and welcoming for every individual.”

Most of article was interviews with students:  The graffiti appeared just as Paly began its first annual Change In Our Schools Week, intended to celebrate student diversity and promote respect. Junior Cezanne Lane, an organizer of CIOS Week and Associated Student Body spirit commissioner, was also taken aback by the hateful comments.

“This is really shocking for a community that I thought was so progressive,” Lane said. “Hopefully the person who did it didn’t mean it, but those words are harmful.”

Senior Dami Bolarinwa said he is disappointed by the graffiti. According to Bolarinwa, the Black Lives Matter movement carries an important message that people need to hear.

“That’s truly heartbreaking to see that people have reverted to such disgrace of integrity,” Bolarinwa said. “Black lives and many minority lives are targeted, so it saddens me to know students at Paly feel that way and are continuing to target students on campus with vandalism as this.”

Senior Sergio Valente said he believes the messages do not represent the values of the Paly student body.

“When I saw the graffiti I assumed that the people who created it were just doing so as a joke and thought it was funny,” Valente said. “I think there are many better ways to express juvenile fun and it’s sad that they chose to do so in a way that can be offensive. I also don’t think that it is something that needs to be blown out of proportion as it was the actions of presumably a few individuals and need not reflect on the school as a whole.”

Junior Maya Lathi said she thinks that people have the right to express political opinions, but personal beliefs should be shared in ways other than graffiti.

“With regards to the ‘Black Lives Suck’ graffiti, I think it is sad to see that this is a view a fellow student has, but it shouldn’t be considered representative of our tolerant student body,” Lathi said. “In regards to the ‘Trump 1237’ graffiti, while I disagree with the politics of Donald Trump, I respect each citizen’s right to believe in whatever politics they’d like to. There are more respectful, less destructive, ways to express one’s opinion than vandalism.”

Senior Reuben Kramer said he hopes people learn to value respect and tolerance.

“I think that it’s embarrassing that someone would do a hate crime, especially on campus,” Kramer said. “I would encourage people to stand up to racism whenever they see it, because it has no place in this world.”

Also, interesting editor’s note: Editor’s Note: For a few minutes, an extension on one of our editors’ browser changed all mentions of “Trump” to “Drumpf.” We apologize for this brief departure from correct spelling.

Comments section: 

1. comment from “Jeff”, who has a history of trolling other sites with racist provocations. 
2. “Voltaire”, “labeling “black lives suck” a hate crime is an overreaction. The message “black lives suck” is not specifically targeting the whole african-american population as a whole or insinuating that literally black lives do not matter . Instead the message is a parody of the movement “black lives matter”. The message was aimed at the movement, a small minority of the african-american population who do not represent african-americans. While I would love to discuss the outdated goals or lack thereof of the black lives matter movement with someone, I disagree with the usage of hate crime. Not only is it a misuse, using the term devalues the word for when a true hate crime occurs.” Voltaire’s only comment is on this article—throwaway handle; in response to another user saying [his] handle sounds pretentious, [he] says, “Its an old gaming handle I used, can see how it comes off pretentious though.”

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CBS Local story:  “I was just like surprised,” Student Brendan Sperling said. Sperling, one of the few African American students on campus, said he did not feel threatened by it. “Probably just some low life kid who couldn’t say it to anyone’s face, so he tried to be cool and write it down,” Sperling said.

Voice interviews with students (YouTube) [292 views]

Noor Navaid, freshman “I don’t think that is appropriate here at Paly, because it’s sucha a diverse school, it’s really disappointing that some students think like that” Mariah Poitier, senionr “I know that Paly has been getting more grafitti this year. The recent tagging that happened was offensive, it’s Paly’s new problem…. For the Trump one, even though I personally do not agree with a single word that comes out of his mouth, that is more of political speech than hate speech. Even though his views and opinions are the exact opposite of Paly’s, in terms of being accepting of diversity and immigrants like that since we’re such a diverse campus, Black Lives Suck—besides the actual wording—that people like me suck—and the play on the Black Lives Matter movement, besides the police brutality, showing how we can love ourselves besides the way we are depicted on TV, it’s that I consider hate speech because it is attacking a specific group of people, and I think they wrote that knowing that people were going to see it.”  Charlotte Cheng, sophomore: “I’ve heard about the Trump 1237 ones, and I think everybody is entitled to their own political opinions, but I think the “Black Lives Suck” is very disrespectful.” Eoin O’Farrell, senior: “I think it’s definitely hate speech. I mean, at the end of the day, if you’re saying, ‘black lives suck,’ you are directly discriminating a group of people based on skin color, that’s obviously racism and hate-filled speech… I think there’s very little admin can do on this [directly] unless they know who did it. I think there’s very little students can do, unfortunately. I think there are some people in our community who think that’s the way things should be, that racism has a place in our society. That’s unfortunate. " Jennifer Zhuge, junior: “I feel like there’s a fine line between free speech and hate speech. I remember in 10th grade, we were talking about how if there’s no clear and present danger, it’s not a so-called ‘very big thing or very dangerous thing.’ If one person is writing stuff on walls, of course that’s offensive, but if they’re not actually taking action  to actually hurt a certain group of people, I would say that categorizes as free speech… He is an entrepreneur slash businessman. He doesn’t need to be very careful about what he says. He can state, obviously what he believes, and sometimes he can be very radical about it. Other nominees in the political race, their lives depend on politics. But Trump has already earned a living for himself being a businessman and entrepreneur, so I feel like even if the stuff that he says most of it I do not agree with, he is allowed to say it.”  Cam Huard, senior: I will say that students should just be mindful of how people express their opinions. Obviously, vandalizing school property isn’t the best or most civilized way of expressing your opinion… In the sense that that’s very controversial, yes I would say that’s very fitting of Trump supporters. If anything, this is the kind of thing that gets Trump supporters going. This is what they support—controversy, being loud, and speaking their mind. ” 

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