Affairs of State
Stand Up For Your Wrights
Laura Carpenter
Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: Editorial & Opinion
Apathy runs rampant at Wright College. At any other school those might be fighting words, but here people simply yawn, glance at their cell phones, the clock on the wall and then wonder what they'll eat for dinner. In the past year or so, students could pick and choose from a wide array of national issues to speak out about - rising prices at the pump, deceitfulness in the Bush administration, banks and credit card companies playing fast and loose with our money, and of course the war in Iraq. The list closer to home runs just as long - escalating unemployment rates, home foreclosures, a publicity seeking former governor, rising textbook prices, and the exorbitant number of murdered students. Still, it seems very little protesting took place.
In her online Global Journal article from Sept. 23, 2007 called, "The War in Iraq: Apathy is Our Greatest Enemy," Linda S. Heard said, "What does it take to shock us into action these days? An Opinion Business Research survey of Iraqi families indicates as many as 1.2 million Iraqi civilians may have died as a result of the war." She further explained, "It's also the equivalent of killing every Arab-American as per the 2000 census or every man, woman and child in, say, Amsterdam."
Those deaths happened in another country, but Chicago Public School (CPS) students are being murdered at an alarming rate, according to police statistics already more than 30 this year. At a press conference on March 9, former CPS CEO Arne Duncan said, "Our children should not talk about 'our goal is to go to the store.' That breaks my heart. We have far too many children talking about 'if I grow up,' not 'when I grow up." It should break the hearts of every one of us. In any other city children murdered on our streets would make even the most ambivalent person clamor to start a demonstration, but when the Wright Times wrote about the rising murder rate in Chicago, the paper didn't receive any comments online. The I-Doser article from months before - a story about a brainwave synchronizer that emulates the use of drugs among other things - received more than 20.
In her online Global Journal article from Sept. 23, 2007 called, "The War in Iraq: Apathy is Our Greatest Enemy," Linda S. Heard said, "What does it take to shock us into action these days? An Opinion Business Research survey of Iraqi families indicates as many as 1.2 million Iraqi civilians may have died as a result of the war." She further explained, "It's also the equivalent of killing every Arab-American as per the 2000 census or every man, woman and child in, say, Amsterdam."
Those deaths happened in another country, but Chicago Public School (CPS) students are being murdered at an alarming rate, according to police statistics already more than 30 this year. At a press conference on March 9, former CPS CEO Arne Duncan said, "Our children should not talk about 'our goal is to go to the store.' That breaks my heart. We have far too many children talking about 'if I grow up,' not 'when I grow up." It should break the hearts of every one of us. In any other city children murdered on our streets would make even the most ambivalent person clamor to start a demonstration, but when the Wright Times wrote about the rising murder rate in Chicago, the paper didn't receive any comments online. The I-Doser article from months before - a story about a brainwave synchronizer that emulates the use of drugs among other things - received more than 20.
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