With the recent increase in hateful crimes against certain minority groups in the United States, said hate has spread among young people and high schools all over the country. This hate has reached local areas in Cincinnati, at places such as Withrow High School and Hebrew Union College.

    Some students at WHHS have faced discrimination themselves, and just like many other minorities in the country, they have had to deal with recent racist behavior from society.

    Malak Alwawi, ‘19, is one such student. Alwawi has faced discrimination for her religion and because she looks different; her ethnicity plays a big role in her life and decisions that she makes.

    “What you see in someone isn’t what you see on the outside, but the inside, and if you judge someone because of their race or religion, that is just intolerable,” Alwawi said about ethnicity and its role in society today.

    When faced with discrimination, she said that she handed off the issue to an adult and let them take care of it because “heating it up will just cause so many more problems, and handing it off to an adult is a better solution than fighting.”

    She also has advice for other minority students dealing with a similar issue.

    “I’d keep being who I truly am, so if someone calls me a terrorist, I’m going to try to be even nicer to that person to prove them wrong.”

    Noah Levy, ‘19, believes this is a time for people to come together and support each other.

    “This is a difficult and scary time for Americans, especially minorities, and I feel that we should come together and help each other instead of being pitted against each other and fighting,” Levy said.

    SENIOR Michael Allen believes in something that Christopher Wallace, also knows as The Notorious B.I.G., once said: “You can’t change the world unless you change yourself.”

    “A lot of people have a racist mindset, and unless those people change, the world will forever stay the same,” Allen said.

    He thinks children are the people who will grow up to change, but if the parents are discriminating against someone, the kids will grow up to do the same as their parents.

   Although many see the lives getting tougher and things looking bleaker, it is more important now than ever that everyone stands together as a community and continues to rise against these acts of discrimination and promote the unity many at WHHS believe in so strongly.