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In today's Civitas newsletter:
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 Calendar
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Date
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Time
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Activity
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Where
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Tuesday,
August 4
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6:00 AM - 7:00 PM
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Election Day in Missouri
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Locales in MO or absentee
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Friday,
August 7
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9:00 AM - 2:30 PM
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Final Scheduled Day of Civitas 2020 Summer Internships
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Unlikely in person; likely ZOOM
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Tuesday,
August 11
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1:00 AM
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Final Summer Civitas Newsletter
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At your computer, tablet or phone
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A Personal Reflection of Devastation
by Myla Croft
On the night of June 1, there was total chaos throughout the city of St. Louis. As a resident of the downtown area, I heard sirens and helicopters all night long. After watching the destruction in my neighborhood, I woke up with a heavy heart. According to the
St. Louis Post Dispatch, more than 70 businesses in the city had been ransacked by looters and opportunists. A preliminary list by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department included 17 cell phone stores, nine beauty supply stores, eight pawn shops, three Foot Lockers, ATMs, car dealerships, and a church. A few stores in the Washington Avenue business district had been hit by looters as well. The 7-Eleven on 17
th
Street was ransacked and set on fire. More than any other business, the looting and burning of the 7-Eleven affected me on a personal level because it is only two minutes away from my home. I have always known the store to be a staple in the community. I was disappointed that a community store was destroyed for selfish and opportunistic reasons. In an interview with KSDK, franchise owner Abe Eshein said, "It's just sad that a small group of people can have such a devastating effect on somebody's livelihood and take away the message that the peaceful protesters were trying to convey." Eshein hopes the company will rebuild. However, the final decision is up to 7-Eleven . Since then, employees of the store have been transferred to other franchises. In my opinion, the looting of businesses gave the media the opportunity to overshadow the message of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The movement prides itself on having non-violent protests, but the news has a tendency of putting opportunists and protesters in the same box. Since then the media coverage of the protests has died down, but the movement has continued.
It has been a month since the 7- Eleven convenience store on 17
th
Street was set on fire. When I went to visit the store earlier this week, it was like a ghost town. There were no cars sitting in the parking lot. The store was boarded up. On the far-right side, someone had spray painted "NO LIVES MATTER UNTIL BLACK LIVES MATTER."
There was a new painting on the far-left side. Someone had drawn the St. Louis arch, angel wings, and flowers. I assume an artist created this artwork to bring hope to the community. I do not know if the store will ever be able to recover from this, especially during a period of economic recession. However, I still hope that the owner, Abe Eshein and the community will be able to bounce back from this devastation.
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Schools Struggle in Teaching Empathy
by Riley Weber
Empathy is an attribute that is strived for. In order to completely understand everyone, empathy is needed to put yourself in someone else's shoes. It is universally acknowledged that the world is in need of more empathy, especially after the recent events of George Floyd. But how do we increase it? We spread it, teach it.
I have grown up in a peculiar situation of empathy being taught to me third to eighth grade. Our district began dealing with a large amount of racial issues, and our sister school put a plan into place where students were led by other students in discussions about inclusive empathy, and just the general struggles they all went through in their day to day lives. Students added mindfulness practices and other things that allowed the student body to better understand each other. There, the plan was very successful, not only did the number of incidents they saw decrease, but the students began to look forward to these lessons, elegantly named circle time.
After our sister school's success, my school decided to give this student-led empathy teaching a try, with one small twist. Take out the student input part. This was a common practice as my school tried to teach empathy and dignity, allowing the adults to take the lead. This worked fine when we were younger, before we developed our own ideas and had our own experiences. Now, we no longer could connect to the same poem, and breathing deeply together wasn't going to solve all our problems.
As students were mixed together, we all seemed to experience some very structured conversation: list three things you like about school, list three things you hate about school, what is your definition of family. We all knew what they were trying to get at, how do you think that the school could be improved when it comes togetherness and understanding each other. However, no one wanted to say it. Our student leaders were handed scripts to repeat to us like robots, and the conversations started and ended in three seconds.
Teaching others how to be empathetic is difficult, it's hard to know if you have succeeded. Students were quick to voice their dislike of the program, yet no real changes were really made. The difference between our school and the successful one in the district was the way in which they took student feedback. Some students didn't feel comfortable talking with a bunch of strangers about their deepest darkest secrets, so our students suggested better ice breaker activities. Not two truths and a lie or what's your favorite color, but more physical challenges, like who can build the tallest tower out of marshmallows, so that students could bond over their struggles that way. Others suggested allowing us to pick our own groups, and then combining those groups so that we could have discussions without fear of loneliness.
Throughout the year, none of our requests were listened to, and no real change was seen in the empathy in the school. If anything, it got worse. However, for the next school year, a new plan has been put in place that will hopefully allow the students to have more of a say in the activities, so that conversation will be comfortable and the school can improve.
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The Kids are Alright, at Least, They Should Be
The eyes are always on children, and for good reason, I suppose. The platitude is never "the elderly will change the world" after all. For better or for worse, America is obsessed with the idea of generations. More specifically, America is obsessed with determining exactly how terrible each generation is. The Millennials are lazy, Gen X didn't do anything, The Boomer's destroyed the world, Gen Z did...something, and so on ad infinitum.
I'm a member of Generation Z, albeit among the oldest members. My generation has a lot to reckon with, and we're doing our best to figure that out, I genuinely believe. But now, there's already a new generation stepping into play. Generation "Alpha" (which, if anything, proves the need for a new taxonomy for generations) has members that include essentially anyone under the age of ten, and they're already active.
I went to the "Children's March" in Kirkwood on Saturday, June 27th with a handful of friends. I didn't know what to expect, other than it was organized by an eight-year-old, and that my friend described it as "baby's first protest."
They were right. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Would I have preferred something more potent? Something loud? Something serious? Yeah, but I got all of that when the McCloskey's pointed guns at me on Portland Place the next day. And though I can't speak for anyone else, I'd rather guns didn't get aimed at literal children.
Protesting is not an easy thing to do, nor should it necessarily be. But you can't expect someone who's never marched before to immediately sign onto an event that might end with a gun being drawn or worse. I don't know that the child who organized the Kid's March was looking at what he produced with such a lens, but what he produced stood as it did. I saw a neighbor of mine, one who I wouldn't expect to see at a march, standing with two of her kids.
Not everyone can or is ready to do a high-stakes protest. It's easy to lose sight of that once you get to those high-stake protests.
Generation Alpha is perhaps the most technologically literate generation ever. And if not literate, they're certainly native to the internet. They know what's going on, more so than some of us might. Generation Alpha is also a terribly new generation.
What exactly will become of them isn't clear, but if an eight-year-old can see what's happening in America or the world and wants to help because "kids can help too," then I have a decent bit of faith the kids will be alright.
And you should too.
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The Truth About Diversity in the Publishing Industry
by Emily Scott
In recent years, the publishing industry has prided itself on the amount of "diverse" reads that companies have been churning out. On the surface, this is a good thing - a great thing even. But once you really look into it, you will begin to notice how much "diversity" is lacking, and it really becomes a problem when companies decide that their efforts are good enough. No further work is needed, and they are off the hook. At least that's what they want you to think.
Black protagonists are few and far between, and the novels we do see them featured in are always focused on racism - a good step but the industry could do better. A significant part of dismantling racism lies in reading, promoting, and producing novels that just feature a Black protagonist simply living their life. This normalizes Black people enjoying and celebrating life, and doesn't just promote Black struggle as a norm. Not only is there an issue with Black protagonists, but Black authors get the short end of the stick even more so. For example, due to the recent Black Lives Matter Movement, an incredible surge in purchases of anti-racism novels was seen in the U.S., but when the New York Times Bestsellers list came out, the leading book in the anti-racism category was White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo - a white woman. Furthermore, white is the only skin color that is not an upfront descriptor of a character. If the character has dark or brown skin, it is typically noted when the character is introduced, but if the character is white, their skin color is not necessarily mentioned. Why? Because it has become a norm in literature that characters are, by default, white until it is mentioned otherwise.
In terms of LGBTQ+ representation, the issue is simple. Almost all of the best-selling novels focused on or featuring an LGBTQ+ relationship is a male-male romance, and occasionally you will see a female-female romance thrown in there. The so-called diversity when it comes to LGBTQ+ completely disregards an important and essential aspect to the community - gender identity. Transgender characters? Hard to find. Non-binary? Even harder. Not to mention asexual representation which I can't even name one book with. The publishing company loves to label themselves as all inclusive but books featuring anything but a male-male romance or a heteroromance barely even make it as best-sellers.
Some of the blame falls more on readers for not being conscious of what books they are reading, but the publishing industry has a large influence on what the public reads. Advertisement, placement on shelves, number of review copies sent, and what books are published are all the industry's call. Pressure has to be put on them to make change otherwise we will continue to ignore the stories of so many other marginalized groups.
(Disclaimer: I did not address the issues regarding other racial minorities - Asian, Latinx, Middle Eastern, or Indigenous Peoples - nor was I able to even touch on other aspects of diversity such as disabilities or mental health due to length constraints.)
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Meet A St. Louis Progressive Champion!
 Although not a St. Louis native, Megan is pretty close! She is a well-known figure in St. Louis politics and continues to run for office, including her current race for state senate representing the 5
th District, which encompasses the St. Louis City downtown area. She has been serving as a St. Louis alderwoman for the 15th Ward for over 5 years and part of the Executive Committee for the Missouri Democratic Party and the Board of Directors of Local Progress. While she may not have gone to high school here, she can answer the question of where she went to graduate school - St. Louis University - where she earned a masters in Educational Leadership. She now is completing her Ph.D. at SLU in Educational Policy, while also working at Washington University's Brown School of Social Work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Additionally, Megan has regularly met with Civitas, including at City Hill a couple summers ago. This time, we talked on Zoom about current events, such as COVID, protests in St. Louis, and her race for state senate.
Born in upstate New York, Megan had connections to Missouri through her parents who are teachers from Kansas City. In 2005, she found St. Louis through the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs. She stayed in the city to work in the nonprofit and education sectors, including Shalom House, Lemay Child and Family Center, and ChildCare Aware of Missouri. This set her up to work with and advocate for the people in the community.
In public office, Megan has proven to her constituents and the city that she will fight for progressive change to better our community, including a higher minimum wage, oversight of the police, reproductive rights for women, protection for domestic violence and sexual assault survivors, legalizing marijuana, and proper community development. In her time on the Board of Alderpeople, she has created and passed legislation for sexual assault victims to be protected against eviction and allow for a two week unpaid leave, sued the City when the Board did not comply with a federal injunction, and helped open a shelter amid gentrification in the 15th Ward.
As a state senator, Megan will continues making beneficial policies as well as doing more on the state-wide level, such as supporting education, pren
atal care, minority populations, Medicaid, sexual assault prevention and protection, unions, and much more. Remarkably, she has knocked on doors in every ward of the senate district she hopes to win and to bring St. Louis needs to Jefferson City action.
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Actions Versus Pictures Versus Words
by Martriana Muhammad
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Middle Art Piece by a Website Called UNPLASTIC
Actions, Pictures, and Words...Oh My...
With today's political climate, it's unsurprising that we are getting a hefty combination of all three, an information overload if you will. In our current world, in order to get an influx of attention and influence, a series of three things are often used: actions, pictures, and words. Of course, I state these in their simpler forms, each of these things has more to them than just the simple word. It's these three things that I will be discussing in my upcoming independent project-the impact they have on the political world and to what extent, as in how effective they are to the people, does it matter who it is, is it enough, what does the media say, etc.
For one thing, the phrase Actions Speak Louder Than Words has always rung true. When someone actually does something for the current world, to a certain degree, they get a lot of attention. People love to hear what good someone has done for the community. It shows what a person is actually made of and what they stand for. On the other end of the spectrum, unfortunately, you could still say the same. Positive actions often don't get the same amount of attention from the news as negative actions. Actions get arguably the most media coverage;they get spoken about the most, get people riled up just by seeing them, and provoke almost immediate reactions; proven by more than just this year, 2020, but by multiple events in the past centuries.
Now, pictures, on the other hand, provoke thought, providing a different list of reactions. Now, pictures is a layman term. It's much broader than that. When I say "pictures," I mean art pieces, videos and recordings, video games, photography, political cartoons, TV, and movies. The artistic work of others is really good at getting the attention of the media and the public. I believe that there is nothing that can truly affect thought more than "pictures." Since the creation of art, it has always had an influence from Ancient Egypt to the Renaissance to the Modern Era, and this fact will never change.
On one last hand, words are also a powerful force. How many times do you see quotes, books, speeches, lyrics, lines for media, social media posts, and others reposted all over the Internet? It's a no brainer that words carry power. Words have carried humans into wars, peace treaties, into the unknown, helped/hurt in civil unrest, etc. The power words carry can invoke a slew of emotions from all sides, and it's hard for people to deny that. But that power can only go so far.
In my coming Independent Project essays, I will continue to highlight the positive and negative of each topic in its entirety, analyze their impact and importance, and figure out which one wins the power struggle of public attention.
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Media Bias
by Sophie Lodes
This summer, for a variety of reasons, the topic of bias has become a focal point of conversations. There is bias in the media, implicit bias, racial bias, political bias, personal bias-name something and bias can probably be added. America has switched from examinations of conscious, to examinations of bias.
And this is important because those reluctant voters who do not engage in politics and do not vote think critically about the media they consume-the media that informs on politics and candidates running for office. Which means one of the biggest obstacles to engaging more voters, particularly political introverts, is media bias.
Increasingly, Americans talk about the polarization of America, how each group forms a bubble, reading and internalizing only the news that reaffirms one's own positions. So, Republicans watch Fox News and Democrats watch CNN and moderates watch...? To each their own. Which means those political introverts who consume news critically recognize the bias on both sides of the spectrum and, not trusting the media, thus feel uneducated about politics and further isolate themselves.
So, bias, especially media bias, acts as a roadblock to political involvement if one wants to consume unbiased, non-partisan, factual news. But, although most people could say that the news is biased, perhaps a better question to ask is how is the news biased? Perhaps, media bias could be tackled or political introverts could find news they trusted if media bias was broken down into how's. Or, people could begin to demand changes in media reporting if they knew what the biases were beyond just the stories or quotes in the stories that led a story to be deemed right or left.
Media bias starts with the stories chosen for print or to be posted online. Is Fox News reporting on international COVID numbers while CNN is reporting on George Floyd playlists? That's story bias. More specifically, is one news station reporting on crowd size at a rally while another is reporting on speech content? Or, is one station reporting on what Candidate X said about unions while another station is reporting on what that same candidate X said about immigrants in the same speech?
Even more focused is language within the article. Was George Floyd killed, murdered, or did he die? Were the protests peaceful or nonviolent? Do COVID cases spike or climb or continue to rise? Is a paper non-partisan or non-political or non-biased?
Media bias is more than just left or right and what quotes they run or which way their op-eds lean-the bias runs deeper, down to each individual word. If we want to engage political introverts or restore faith in the media, then maybe transparency is the way to go. Explain the choice of stories, explain or standardize word choice. We trust what we can see...perhaps it's time to see how the news get made.
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Drones show a message about social distancing as they fly over the Han River in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday, July 4.
Yonhap/Reuters
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This past week at the United Nations
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