WInnetka Teen Stabbed-Breaking News. South Side Teen Stabbed-Just Another Story.

Last night, a confrontation broke out on a quiet suburban street in Winnetka, Il. One senior boy, who attends New Trier High School, was stabbed in the chest and rushed to the hospital for non life-threatening injuries. The student, who will remain anonymous, posted a picture on Facebook of himself at the hospital and said, "Stab wounds are dope...so r punchcard lungs". Dozens of people are making statuses on Facebook saying to "pray" for this victim. However, another Facebook stood out. It read, "A person got stabbed and sent to the hospital today in a domenstic violence case in a rich white neighborhood. Dozen of murders in the southbsidehtoday and nobody mentions it".

The words, "dozen murders in south side...nobody mentions it" especially caught my attention because this Facebook user brings up a really strong point. According to Chicago Red Eye, "In February alone 14 victims have been murdered" in the south side of Chicago. These 14 murders did not catch any attention from the media because of how common a murder is in the south side. However, in Winnetka, New reporters from all over the area are capturing the story of a stabbing that left both teens alive.

Any disputes between teens that lead to violence are tragic, but what stories do you think deserve to be extensively covered by the news?

Should Bone Marrow Donors Be Paid?

This morning as I watched Rock Center, one story caught my attention about an ill child in need of a bone marrow transplant. The mother, Doreen Flynn, waged a legal battle to make it possible for bone marrow donors to be payed for their donations; Flynn thinks because of the money, many more people would be willing to donate. Throughout the years thousands of donors have backed out of bone marrow transplants, but I wonder,  if the donor was paid, would they have gone through with the procedure?

Although there are many arguments for and against Flynn's case, Jeff Rowes (Flynn's Lawyer) argues something that many people wouldn't consider. Rowes argues that, “Bone marrow is just like anything else in the world... it’s valuable. And if you compensate people for it, you’re going to get more of it, it’s just that simple”. Rowes' argument is simple: supply and demand. The more in demand something is, the more it's worth.

Rowes brings up a good point about a constant American ideal of capitalistic solutions for solvable problems. In many cases, people are willing to cooperate more if money is involved for compensation. Unfortunately, this means that the people who would donate for the good will of others, aren't praised for their charity; it's the people who would never donate before that receive the bonus of money.

This is only one example of an "American Way" to solve problems using pure capitalism,  but do you think think market based answers are always an appropriate solution?

Is Race a Deciding Factor for College Admissions?

As Seniors in high school all around the country are receiving letters of admission or rejection to colleges, I can't help but think about how someones "race" plays a role in the decision.

We would like to think that race has absolutely no factor when applicants are being looked at by admission offices, but unfortunately that's not the case.

According to the New York Times, some highly selective schools, like Rice University, take race into account when looking at their applicants. Chris Muñoz, vice president for enrollment at Rice since 2006, says, “From an academic standpoint, the qualifying records, the test scores, how many AP courses, they may all look alike,  that’s when we might go and say, ‘This kid has a Spanish surname. Let’s see what he wrote about.’ Right or wrong, it can make a difference.” 

How much a "difference" does it actually make? Unfortunately, it's very unclear at Rice University and many other institutions. The one thing we can look at however is the numbers--they can't lie. Although its a small margin, multiracial applicants being admitted is 23%, while whites are being admitted at 19%. Four percent can really make a difference when looking at thousands of applicants. 

Do you think college admissions should take race into a factor when looking at applicants? 

The Facts of Racial Profiling.

 Although we like to think that there
 is equality between blacks and whites in our country, the truth is, we are far from it. There has bee a constant struggle ever since the 1800's to treat blacks as equal as whites. We start with slavery, then to black codes, then to Jim Crow laws: The list code go on forever. Although we are no where near where we used to be, we still are racial profiling, especially when it comes to looking for suspects breaking the law to become incarcerated.


Unfortunately, people of color have been arrested at much higher rates than whites even when committing extremely similar times. The Huffington Post, "Black males had an imprisonment rate that was nearly seven times higher than the incarceration rate of white men". Seven times is such a staggering number to begin with, but we should also take population into consideration, which will makes theses numbers even more unfathomable. White people make up the supermajority at 72% of the U.S. population, while Blacks only make up a mere 13%. So, if we take population into consideration, Blacks are actually being imprisoned at a rate of 35% compared to whites.

Is it because of history that has made it harder for us to wrap our brains around that it is just color defining the people? Or is it the fact that some people are still for segregation as we have seen the many attempts to halt desegregation throughout our nations history.

Why do you think we are still "judging" people by the color of their skin? Do you think blacks are treated as equally as whites?

All comments are welcome!