When I was first approached by a student handing me a newspaper, I thought it was just a copy of the Echo newspaper, but as I looked at it more closely, I realized that it was another newspaper made by social studies teacher Kara Cisco and her students.

As I started to look through The New Abolitionist, I became very interested as students talked about the different struggles they faced as students of color. The newspaper inspired me to look at the school system more closely to see how students were being treated.

The New Abolitionist dug deep into the issues that students of color face, how it affects their learning and the way they feel at school. I was very shocked about the statistics as they compared how students of color and white students are treated differently.

This newspaper really opened up my eyes because although I don’t struggle with all of the issues personally, I understood how some of my peers may have felt as they wrote about their experiences.

One thing that stood out to me was when some of the students described the insecurities they felt as they were the only students of color in a predominantly white IB or AP class. I related with this writer because I also have struggled with this in the past and I have felt like an outcast in my class because I was the only black student.

I also appreciated how they talked about how talking with the students would be more beneficial instead of suspending them right away in order to provide the support system for the students of color and make them feel important.

Overall, I really appreciated how the newspaper was very well written. It highlighted important things that needed to be talked about and also provided very interesting statistics to back up those claims. I enjoyed hearing about the different perspectives throughout the newspaper and understanding how students of color need to be more supported. This could help people to focus on getting to know people instead of stereotyping them because they are of a different race.