Everyone is up in arms about the site we have created. It's having quite the impact on everyone.

Why?

People are arguing about it, getting in a huff, and feeling the need to send hate mail.

My favorite part has to be everyone guessing who's who on the NST staff. No one knows, but they all think they have a pretty good idea. You people couldn't be farther from the truth. I've heard multiple assumptions from multiple people regarding who's who. No one is right yet.

We've been called cowards, fools, and all but terrorists (when someone calls us terrorists, they make our case stronger). How so? Because that's the most popular term for radicals these days.

At the same time, we've been called geniuses, revolutionaries, and my personal favorite... "correct!"

Woodruff has been slipping down the drain for some years now, and we feel the need to prevent any more degradation of our school. We're not doing this because we HATE Woodruff. Much to the contrary! We adore it, and want to prevent it from shutting down by helping people who CAN make the changes needed make them happen.

AN EXAMPLE, IF YOU WILL!

Racial riots were held at Woodruff in the times of the civil rights movement and for some time after. Look it up, you'll see that I know what I'm talking about. While there may not be problems with rioting... often... in our halls, we have one very strong problem with racism still happening. This problem lies in racist terms being promoted.

The word "nigga," which is used EVERYDAY in our halls, was a word people would fight over. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED OVER THIS WORD IN THE PAST.

But does that stop the abuse of this word? Nope. In fact, people support it. Endorse it even.

And boy, does it make our campus sound like the height of intelligence! Racial slurs being converted into a term used in everyday society, in every sentence! OH JOY!

I honestly think this word should be an automatic suspension.

I can't call someone a kike, gook, spic, wetback, honky, jewbag, beaner, a bukkake warrior, buttonhead, a Cheech, Ching-Chong, wop, or anything of that variety, but people can go around using the most popular American racial slur and get off scot-free, especially in front of administration officials. That's horseshit no matter what way you look at it.

(Many of the racial slurs I used can be found at http://www.rsdb.org/ along with every other racist insult you could ever want. The internet is great, isn't it?)

That's just one of our school's many problems that needs to be confronted. Not only is it racist, as well as disrespectful, but also it degrades an entire race of people, not to mention it further promotes stereotyping for the future. It makes students look like a bunch of unintelligent, racist, worthless burdens on society.  Sadly, that’s just the stereotype we get.

Our school's already on watch, as seeing how it's such a low scoring school. The shootings and gangs aren't helping much for our image, either.

We could blame No Child Left Behind, or some other outside problem.

But that's outside the point.

Either way though, the use of racial terms need to stop and stop now.