http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=11953503
Friday afternoon I learned about this incident while having a meeting with the Cedar Falls Police Chief, Mayor, and City Attorney. As I was showed pictures of the graffiti, seeing it i was upset knowing that this type of activity is still going on here in the city. This is the first time mentioning anything about it, because seen it on the news.
Friday afternoon I learned about this incident while having a meeting with the Cedar Falls Police Chief, Mayor, and City Attorney. As I was showed pictures of the graffiti, seeing it i was upset knowing that this type of activity is still going on here in the city. This is the first time mentioning anything about it, because seen it on the news.
I had just written a blog about something else that went on at a Cedar Falls vs. Waterloo Basketball game. So, then to see this, it seems there are a lot of things going on in this town and within the high schools in the surrounding areas as well. I know we had talked about these problems in class last week, and I have heard of other things going on in other classes within the Cedar Falls Schools about targeting minority populations. It seems like there are a lot of things that need to be done within the surrounding schools. The fact that I also haven't heard a lot about these things going on, and I have been living in this town these past four years. I don't know if it would be better if it was publicized that these things were going on, but I also haven't heard of other things being done to prevent these sorts of actions from going on in the town and within the schools.
Frankly, I was disgusted to read about this incident occurring in Cedar Falls. Does anyone know what is being done about this? It hasn't been publicized very much either. I do agree with Lindsay when it comes to the publicity. I'm not sure what would happen if it was publicized better. Honestly, I think people should be made more aware that this is occurring in the community.
When I read this news story, I thought about what we talked about it in class regarding acting out prejudice. These incidents are obviously going beyond avoidance, and as Alex pointed out in his earlier comment about what is happening at UNI, physical attacks are occurring. This is totally unacceptable. Also, in the news article, it said swastikas were also used. I was pretty alarmed when I read that. I guess I would like to think that people in this area wouldn't do things like that, but I guess I need to revise my thoughts on that issue. The bottom line is that what is happening here is unacceptable, and people need to start taking a stand against this and saying we won't tolerate this type of behavior in our community.
Heather, I truly understand what you feel, and it does upset me because we shouldn't have to be going through this in this community. But it is the ignorance of either teens, young adults, thinking that it is funny by trying to oppress another race or religion.
I did not mention anything to anyone about the vandalism because it was a privet meeting on Friday, and before it was publicized on Tuesday in the news, I had already gotten phone calls from news reporters as well as newspaper columnist wanting to interview me and the others who attend the meeting.
Most people who I have spoken to always mention that no matter were you go racism, discrimination, and stereotypes' will always be around.
Secondly, I ways hear this as well "I am not a minority, so I really don't see a problem." With that answer what are they really trying to say, is it because of the color of there skin. Our they afraid of change; always blaming or pointing the finger to another city or to Waterloo, instead of looking at the whole picture, by failing to recognize the problem.
How or in which way can we change, or fix the problem to make people recognize that there is a problem?
Alex, to make people realize there is a problem first publicity needs to be increased. This was the first I had read about this ( I usually focus more on national and world news). There also needs to be follow up to the initial story, where people are able to see consequences.
I mean they should be able to find who did this. It isn't something that people stay quiet about. It was probably people in high school and that means they will talk about it at school (because they are already dumb enough to do it) and someone will over hear. There is also a good chance that the person or people who did it were from North Cedar because of the location. Not very many people from town go out that way unless they absolutely have to (I mean they freaked out when there was talk of some of their kids having to go to school at North Cedar). This becomes a fairly focused area to watch because there are probably only 100 kids from north cedar at the high school and even fewer who would do something like this. The problem comes because no one wants to be the guy that rats out their class mates, no matter how bad of a hing they have done. What we need to find is a way to convince kids that it is ok, and even good to turn in people who do stuff like this. But getting that culture change in high school kids is easier said than done.