A Reflection on Campus Sexual Assault Incidents

Over the past few days, we have been reflecting on two incidents regarding alleged or confirmed incidents of sexual assault in Los Altos High School and Palo Alto High School which have happened in recent years.

One point I have noticed several people bringing up regarding sexual assault cases in general is that it is often difficult for sexual assault victims to testify regarding their crimes and to cooperate with the legal systems, lawyers, and schools to help them investigate and collect evidence to build a case based around the truth.

One thing that victims need to be aware of is that if they decide not to cooperate with investigators looking into the case no matter how hard it is for them to do so, then unfortunately they can not expect action to be taken against the alleged suspect without the case being investigated and a conviction occurring against the suspect.

The Washington Examiner had found that nearly 1 in 5 rape accusations brought up in college campuses are false and the power that a woman can leverage over a man's life if she falsely accuses him of rape is tremendous and dangerous. There are many instances of men's lives, careers, reputations, and lives being ruined over a false rape accusation and true rape victims need to come forward so they can get justice in their case and real rapists will get charged and locked up for their crime (again rape is a truly horrendous and disgusting crime which one could take part of). At the same time however, we need to provide safeguards for people who could possibly get their lives ruined over a false accusation while at the same time allowing for victims to get the justice that they need in a rape case.

Asylum

Many Central Americans who want to come to the United States mainly come to start a new life. But others desperately come because they want to seek asylum. The reason being is many of these people are threatened by the gangs (Mara 18 &MS13) who are very violent and cause many homicides. Honduras and El Salvador are considered the most dangerous countries in the world. An example is in 2014, Honduras had a murder rate of 84.6 per 100,000 population. In which there was a total of 5,936 murders in 2014. In addition, many of these people who want to seek asylum are unaccompanied minors. Kids who leave at a young age and their parents who have no other option because if they stay they´ll eventually end up dead.  

Most Powerful Global Documentary

It's no secret that we've seen so many documentaries in Global, but which one is the most powerful to view? For me, I think the one that stands out the most was the one about Jordan Davis, an innocent African-American teenager who was shot through the door of his friends car, by now-criminal Michael Dunn for playing rap music and "identifying" himself as a thug and a threat. It's a shame and a complete embarrassment for us as a nation to say we have come so far from slavery, when in fact innocent teens and adults are being shot at for, I hate to say it, being black. This documentary really portrayed to us what is going on in the world now. Unlike the documentaries we had viewed that happened about twenty to fifty years ago, whereas this happened about two or three years ago. What also was key about this was being able to witness the evidence brought against Michael Dunn, interviews with Jordan's friends, and most importantly, how the trial was decided.

Sexual Assault on College Campuses

The documentary we're watching is bringing up a very important issue, the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses is far too high and definitely not talked about enough. However, it's not like these perpetrators get to college and just develop aggressive habits, these are the same people who would be committing sexual assault in high school as well. Unfortunately, high schools usually fear the parents of their naive students and don't like to bring up sensitive topics like sexual assault. But if sexual assault and consent was talked about constantly, and high school students were fluent in the language of consent by the time they graduated, maybe some of the thousands of sexual assaults that occur in colleges each year would be prevented. The consent workshop we attended at school a few months ago was very informative and did a really good job of presenting the information in a light yet serious way. But this was the  first year that the school organized the consent workshop, it took a publicized sexual assault by a Los Altos student for the school to take action. We shouldn't  wait until a tragedy and then do damage control to prevent it from happening again, we should ALWAYS be taking action to prevent things like sexual assault from happening in the first place.

Music, My Definition

After writing a quick blog about Payam's documentary and how music has changed the definition of fashion, I starting thinking more about Natalie's presentation about what music can do for others and what it means to many. Being an athlete, I think whenever I bring up music, everyone tends to think that I just listen to it before a game, which is true no doubt, but I feel there's more to it than people just think of right off the bat. For me, music is something that brings a new side out of me. Usually, I'm just kind of a shy and quiet kid who just kind of goes along with the flow of things, doesn't really put himself out there as much, and just kind of takes everything in. I've always been that way, in the sense of keeping things in, but music has been the thing to let everything that's inside of me out. Music is something that is ingrained me, and although I'm usually quiet, the one thing that makes me loud is the music I listen to everyday. I use music as sort of something to break the ice with new people I'm meeting and bring me out of my shell. Whenever I song I know really well is playing, I always start to kind of lip-sync the lyrics, then go out singing or shouting them along with the artist playing. People then start to see this new kid come out and the confidence level in me starts to raise greatly. I also do the same thing before football games. I will listen to certain songs before and sometimes be found in the bathroom just singing the song to myself in the mirror. It looks goofy, especially me listening to hard core rap and hip hop songs, but it's something I've always done to just bring out a new side of me. Something that I can use to easily let out a new Nick in a sense to the world. I find that my definition of music is a way of releasing an inner part inside of you, an inner part inside that is trying its best to get out.

Payam's Documentary-Fashion and Music

From watching Payam's documentary on how fashion has changed along with the different styles of hip hop from the late 80's to currently, I found it very interesting. For me, it is honestly the coolest thing see how such a thing as music can have the ability to change something as essential and almost as basic as clothing. I remember growing up, being around my cousins and their friends as they would be listening to E40, Nelly, 50 Cent and the G-Unit, Lil Boosie, and the style of clothing that was essentially cool were bandanas, sports teams hats, baggy jeans or sweats, Jordans and Airforce 1's, and baggy white tall tees were what they were all wearing. I remember rocking those from elementary thru middle school, because even though music styles had began to change, I still would listen. I will say as I have started to listen to more and more modern music, my style of clothing has definitely changed to a more "fitted" look, like Payam had mentioned in his video. I think it's a really cool thought to think of. The majority of us probably just walk around buying clothes because we see other people wearing them, but to me, it's a good little adventure to see the motivation behind why those we are getting fashion trends from chose to wear these types of clothes. It's even cooler to see that music is the reason behind it.

being bilingual

There are times for me when my English isn't crisp, sound terrible, and at the same time there are times where my Japanese isn't at it's best. I mumble, cannot say the word fluently, stutter and it irritates me when it happens because I feel like I'm giving the listeners a hard time. People hit me with the "huh what you say?", or "say that again", and I'm in need of how to make my English at it's best whenever I speak it. I make myself think in that specific language when I speak it, so it's not the problem in where I'm thinking in the opposite language when I speak the other. I'm just curious if anybody else had this experience, and how the fixed it.