So, it’s been a bad day. You got to school late, forgot to study for that math test, and woke up with another pimple on your forehead. When things couldn’t possibly get any worse, you hear someone shout your name, followed by a de-rogatory comment. You try to shake it off, but you can’t seem to forget about the awful insults. Bible Beater, Jew-Nose, Towel Head. It’s as if your religion is some-thing to be ashamed of. Students witness, en-dure, and even partake in religious discrimina-tion on a daily basis. As hateful slurs become subconscious comments, more and more students become accepting of this unacceptable behavior. Part of the reason teens at West aren’t as sensitive to differing be-liefs may be because of the lack of religious di-versity in the school. “People in this part of the country, especially in this school, are mostly Christian,” Comparative World Religions teacher Jim Torrez said. “At our school, it is not as reli-giously diverse [as op-

posed to some schools in the OPS district]. There’s just not a lot of pluralism here when it comes to re-ligion.” Although Christian-ity is the dominating religion by far, Mormon is a specifi c branch of Christianity targeted by students who are not appropriately informed. Junior Caleb Williams is one of many students who belong to the Mor-mon community. Williams expressed that his peers confront him on a regular basis with assumptions regard-ing his religion, such as not being able to drink soda or listen to certain genres of music. In fact, a majority of the students interviewed for this story did not recognize Mor-monism as being affi li-ated with Christianity at all. “[People often as-sume] that I’m a polyga-mist [(polygamy: the state or practice of be-ing married to more than one person at the same time, according to Merri-am-Webster)],” Williams said. “It’s really annoying because it happens a lot. People try to debate with me about why I’m a po-lygamist, but I’m not. I’m seventeen. That doesn’t

even make any sense.” In addition to Mor-monism, Jehovah’s Wit-ness is another religion that often faces prejudg-ment. Sophomore Ame-lia Rice, who has prac-ticed this belief since birth, felt equally offend-

ed by the misconcep-tions against her religion. “[People assume] that we’re just the re-ligion that goes and knocks on people’s doors

to talk to them about Je-sus,” Rice said. “Some people think that we don’t believe in Jesus, which is entirely untrue. They’ll say we make up our God. It’s sad because people say those things without knowing what

we believe in, but I like to prove them wrong when I tell them ‘yes, I do be-lieve in Jesus.’ While students who don’t practice Christian-

ity are not of great num-bers, they are still victims of discrimination here at school. Senior Tim Sew-cheon was brought up in a traditional Buddhist household, and felt that teenagers show less em-pathy for those in reli-gious minority. “When it comes to anything but Christian-ity, people get all weird about it,” Sewcheon said. “Since we are differ-ent, or of a different reli-gion, people often frown upon it or look differently at it.” Because of the preju-dice against minorities, Sewcheon often shies away from being open about his religion. “Most people don’t know I’m a Buddhist; I only tell people if they ask. I’m afraid that if I tell them, they’ll say some-thing bad about it, or something bad about me,” Sewcheon said. In agreement with Sewcheon, junior Nicole Lindell had strong opin-ions about religious pre-judgment on minorities. Lindell described her religion as pantheism, which is “a doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe,” according to Merriam-Webster.

“[I see discrimination] especially with Islam,” Lindell said. “In light of the Paris attacks, a lot of people tend to think Muslim men and women are terrorists. They de-note their beliefs, they denote their humanity because a few people decided to pervert their religion.” Collectively, inter-viewees agreed that the most commonly targeted religions by students are that of Islam and Juda-ism. Due to the height-ened bigotry against the Islamic religion, a few Muslim students respect-fully declined to be inter-viewed for this story. As far as intolerance for these two religions go at West, students agreed that prejudice against Ju-daism is more prevalent. It is also a common-ality for students to be more willing to judge an individual based on physical attributes that would fi t this religious stereotype. “Faithism is directly tied to racism in that way, in appearances,” Lindell said. “I see it quite often with having a big nose and people thinking you’re Jewish.”

Continued on page 7

A L S O I N T H I S I S S U E

THUNDERBEATTHE

Bellevue West High School • 1501 Thurston Avenue, Bellevue, NE 68123 thethunderbeat@gmail.com • www.thethunderbeat.org

402-293-4068 • Dec. 18, 2015

Bryn Estlund teaches us how to makegingerbread waffl es on page 8.

Learn about what it really takes to get a GED on page 6.

Read about transitioning from middle school sports to high school sports on page 5.

EMMA LARSON

FEATURES EDITOR

State changes school grading protocolBROOKE RILEY

COEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

“Eeny meeny miny mo, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go. My mom said to pick the very best oneand you are not it.” When I fi rst heard this rhyme, it was in el-ementary school at re-cess. We would line up

by class to go inside to lunch and the teacher would use the rhyme to pick which class line got to go in fi rst. I always thought the rhyme was cheerful and catchy. Until I found out “tiger” wasn’t the origi-nal word. The original rhyme sung by children

on playgrounds in the mid 1900s replaced the word “tiger,” with the word “n---er.” The “n---er” version of the rhyme referenced slave trading. When buying slaves, own-ers were said to grab a toe, piece of skin or appendage and twist. If the slave yelled, it was thought to be an indica-

tion that the slave would be a trouble-maker. It appalls me that a rhyme I was hearing as a young kid was actually based off a word used in the history of our na-tion to degrade African Americans.

Continued on page 3

CODI PIERCE

BUSINESS MANAGER

‘Discrimination is inherently human:’ Students open up about religious prejudice

Opinion: N-word off limits

The State of Schools Report (SOSR) recently updated the way schools are graded. Accountabil-ity for a Quality Educa-tion System, Today and Tomorrow (AQuESTT) is the new accountabil-ity system that raises the standards for our schools to receive a high grade. According to the Nebraska department of Education, one of

AQuESTT’s priorities is to support schools. The new grading makes it hard for schools to receive an “excel-lent,” providing room for improvement. The system now grades schools as a 1, 2, 3 or 4 (needs improve-ment, good, great and excellent). Bellevue Pub-lic Schools was classifi ed as a “good” school dis-trict. “We have some ar-eas to improve but are

happy with the starting point,” assistant principal Dr. Fran Pokorski said. The data used to grade schools is taken from the academic per-formance from NeSA reading, writing, math and science tests. Instead of a profi cient counting toward a school’s grade, students now have to get an advanced. The system takes into account NeSA test scores and graduation rates like the old system,

but also looks more into the school for support and growth. The new system takes factors other than NeSA into consideration before giving a school a grade. These factors would include college and career ready educa-tion, support of students and families, building community partnerships, and much more.

Continued on page 2

“It appalls me that a rhyme I was hearing as a young kid was actually based off a word used in the history of our nation to degrade African Americans.”

“When it comes to anything

but Christianity, people get

all weird about it.”

Tim Sewcheon

The Christmas trees in the library refl ect the ‘narrow religious spectrum’ at Bellevue West.

Photo by Em Brandon

Graphic by Jacob Kunes

Commentary Dec. 18, 20153 The Thunderbeat

As seniors get closer to fulfi lling college ap-plication deadlines, and move on to fi lling out scholarship applications, I hear most of my peers complaining about how affi rmative action has helped minority students gain fi nancial aid. Affi rmative action is an advantage given to minorities and women in education and jobs. Many people believe that affi rmative action

leads to their minor-ity peers getting twice the amount of money cleared to go to college.

Religion does not equate with terrorism

THUNDERBEATTHE

Bellevue West High School • 1501 Thurston Avenue, Bellevue, NE 68123 thethunderbeat@gmail.com • www.thethunderbeat.org

402-293-4068 • Dec. 18, 2015

thethunderbeat@gmail.com

NEWSEm Brandon, Editor-In-Chief

Brooke Riley, Co Editor-In-Chief

COMMENTARYRae Rangel, Managing Editor

SPORTSAJ Forbes, Sports Editor

FEATURESEmma Larson, Features Editor

ENTERTAINMENTKylie Fenger, Entertainment Editor

ADVISERJulie Rowse

The Thunderbeat is published six times a year by Bellevue West, 1501 Thurston Ave. Bellevue, Nebraska 68123. The Thunderbeat is a student-run publication in con-junction with the Video Yearbook. The Thunderbeat is published by White Wolf Web in Sheldon, Iowa.

ADVERTISINGCodi Pierce, Business Manager

Continued from front page

Recently at school I heard a Caucasian fe-male verbally say some-thing along the lines of, “I don’t see how the word is so offensive, my family uses it at home all the time.” Another Cau-casian female said some-thing like, ‘We shouldn’t forget about it because it’s part of our history and it happens.” People seem to want to believe that the time of racial prejudice against African Americans was so long ago when, in fact, the Civil Rights Move-ment was only 50 years ago. “N---er” is a snarling police dog of a word. A dialect of three white su-premacists who in 1998, chained James Byrd Jr. by his ankles and drove three miles down a Texas road until Byrd’s body hit a culvert and decapi-tated him. A verbal form of the 1963, 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by four KKK members

which killed four young girls and injured 22 other churchgoers. A spoken recovery of 14-year-old Emmett Till’s body in 1955, after two white men beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to a cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the Tallahatchie River. The word “n----r,” is defi ned as a contemptu-ous term used to refer to an African American. However, it has such a greater context now. “N---a” is a linguistic bond expressed between African Americans as a form of “bro, dude, or man.” They may use it to show camaraderie within their culture and what they’ve been through as a race in the history of our nation. People may say, “If they can use “n---a” as a word meaning friend, why can’t other races use it?” It’s not right for other races to use the word be-cause it’s a word that has been twisted from nega-tive to positive by the Af-rican American race. For Caucasian peo-ple to use the word is wrong because they aren’t realizing the form of the word that they originally implemented. Since Caucasians were

CODI PIERCEBUSINESS MANAGER

Presidential can-didate Donald Trump called for a ban of Mus-lims in the United States. The ban was met with high criticism from Re-publican candidates, democrats, and most of the public according to a poll conducted by NBC News-The Wall Street Journal. Though Trump had no plan to put his words into action, many of his supporters were quick to

join his cause. When speaking of the Islamic State Group, many are quick to as-sume that every Muslim is exactly like them. A majority of our country’s people quickly judge others before process-ing their thoughts, auto-matically playing into our fears. Fear of terrorism makes sense. It is a real fear to have. Fear of Mus-lims, however, isn’t. Religious scholar Reza Aslan said to CNN, “We’re using two or

RAE RANGELMANAGING EDITOR

No room for racial slurs in language

Misconceptions exist with scholarships awarded to minorities

the race who began us-ing “n---er,” there’s no positive form of the word they can claim, including “n---a.” There is slightly more lenience for Latinos to use, “n---a.” Latinos were discriminated against nearly as much as African Americans were during the Civil Rights move-ments. During “Operation Wetback” from 1953 to 1958, the U.S. Immigra-tion Service arrested and deported more than 3.8 million Latinos. Latinos are frowned upon just as much as African Ameri-cans for being in the United States. Where African Amer-icans were degraded by being called “n---ers,” the Latino’s are suc-cumbed to racial slurs such as, “spic, wetback, and beaner.” They were not the ones that called African Americans, “n---ers.” Therefore, they are “al-lowed” more freedom to use the word, “n---a.” The word “n---er,” has a negative connota-tion. It dehumanizes Af-rican Americans and de-moralizes America. All racial slurs, need to stop. People can’t claim music, people can’t claim their race owns it, people can’t claim any of that. It just needs to stop.

According to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Fastweb.com and Fi-nAid.org who spoke on

Girls are growing up too fast

I remember when I turned 13, I thought that everything was going to change. I was fi nally al-lowed to wear makeup, have “boyfriends” and dye my hair. I was go-ing to be a whole new person. Ex-cept, I wasn’t re-ally. I was in mid-dle school and as grown-up as I thought I was going to be… I wasn’t because I wasn’t ready for it.It wasn’t until 9th grade when I was ready. However, as a senior now, I’m looking at 13-year-olds and see-ing girls that look older than I do. They aren’t kids any more, but it isn’t their fault. The American Psy-chological Association saw this happening and created a task force to combat young girls’ sex-ualization. Eileen L. Zur-briggen, Ph.D., chaired the group and said “There’s a real syndrome happening.” If you walk through a ShopKo in the little girls’ section that used to be full of fuzzy socks and mini purses and trinkets,

EM BRANDONEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

you’ll notice that these sections are now laced with, well, lace. Don’t get me wrong, trying out makeup and messing around with grown-up clothes was very much a part of my childhood. It was only a small part though. There are so many little girls that have become wrapped up in the “big girl” world that they’re not experi-

e n c i n g

their childhood the same way past generations have. I’d say that it’s ridicu-lous to worry about this because every genera-tion is different, but this change is having “dev-astating psychological effects,” said Dr. Gail Gross, Ph.D., Ed.D., M.Ed., a nationally rec-ognized family and child development expert, au-thor, and educator. “Because it is not possible to accelerate

emotional maturation, children may act grown up, but they don’t feel grown up,” Gross wrote. “In essence, children may appear to speak ‘adult’ while their feel-ings are crying ‘child.’” It’s hard seeing 12-year-olds on Insta-gram wearing six layers of mascara and pucker-ing their lip-stick covered mouths, because I know what they’re missing. Be-ing young was so much fun. Lately, it seems like little kids don’t have that. It’s not the childrens’ fault. Marketing and

media make it impos-sible for girls to really

fi nd other little girls to compare them-selves to. When everything around them is “sexy wom-

en,” they’re going to model themselves after those women. If you look at “then and now” photos, dolls like

Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch Dolls and My Little Pony sud-denly have makeup, silky hair and...hips. Yes, even the ponies. These unsubtle, dras-tic changes have gone seemingly unnoticed by parents and children. Little girls are absorbing these as their expecta-tions. All I know is that I’m tired of seeing little girls stressing over eyeliner instead of Club Pen-guin and I’m worried for younger generations.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Graphic by Rae Rangel

National Public Radio in March of 2011, minori-ties don’t recieve a lot of scholarships. Minorities account for one-third of scholarship applicants, and only 28% of those applicants receive them. The U.S. department of Education found that minorities account for 34.3% of the college stu-dent population in the U.S. Not every minority receives scholarships be-cause most scholarships are privately-funded or given from the school it-self. Caucasian students tend to receive 76% of all institutional merit-based scholarships and are 40% more likely to win private scholarships. The reason that white students are more likely

three examples to justify a generalization of peo-ple.” This generalization is what needs to stop. Christians do not need to explain away the actions of the KKK nor did they have to explain the actions of Charleston church shooter, Dylann Roof. Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology at University of North Caro-lina at Chapel Hill, and David Schanzer, Associ-ate Professor of the Prac-tice in the Sanford School of Public Policy, found

that “an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States...In con-trast, right-wing extrem-ists averaged 337 attacks per year.” The toll, they explained, has increased because the study was published in 2012. There are people who use violence and religion to justify their ill intentions. Like Aslan, President Barack Obama said, “No

re li gion is re spons ible for ter ror ism. People are re-spons ible for vi ol ence and ter ror ism.” He went on to say that “ter ror-ist groups like al Qaeda and ISIL de lib er ately tar-get their pro pa ganda in the hopes of reach ing and brain wash ing young Muslims, es pe cially those who may be dis il lu sioned or wrest ling with their iden tity.” This is no lie. Young Muslims deal with these things every-day, not knowing how to react when someone is

telling them that they are wrong. While one of our edi-tors Emma Larson was writing a story on reli-gion, students who prac-ticed Islam wished to not be interviewed. The reason behind this was due to the fear they had if their peers found out about their beliefs. As a staff we recog-nize that these myths and assumptions about the extremists are not refl ective of the Muslim population in our school, state, or the U.S.

to win private scholar-ships is because those types of scholarships are funded by individuals and organizations where white students generally tend to lead or partici-pate. For example, Fu-ture Farmers of America is an organization that fo-cuses on agriculture and leadership. In an aca-demic article, the Journal of Agricultural Education found that 80% of the members are white. A white student in the FFA is more likely to be giv-en a private scholarship from the FFA because there are more of them involved in that activity than a minority student. So while organizations and individuals do not actively try to discrimi-

nate against students, as Kantrowitz said to NPR, “it shows that when you have scholarships that are for characteris-tics that you value, then people like you are more likely to qualify for those awards.” The only case where minorities tend to get more money is for fed-eral need-based schol-arships. Need-based scholarships are given to students who belong to low-income families. Mi-norities tend to be a part of the low-income popu-lation. The bottom line is this: scholarships aren’t only for minorities, white kids have access to them. Minorities don’t “get all the scholarships.”

Graphic by Sara McCourt