Daniel Mapp is a 25-year-old poet in Athens. Mapp shares his experiences of being a person of color in America.

Mapp says that minorities have a disadvantage in America because the judicial system is against them. He goes on to talk about how there are more Latinx people and black people in prison than the Caucasian population.

He mentions that the stereotype surrounding blacks in America is a stereotype of them being “viewed as criminals and drug dealers and potential felons.”

“Black Lives Matters to me is the fundamentals that we need in our generation. It is trying to bring about equality rather than division. It gives us a voice.”

When asked about the best thing one can do to help the black population, Mapp offers this advice, “Get out, ask people what they go through every day. Don’t stereotype each other. Ask what can I do for you and what can we do for each other. It is about communicating, if you communicate it lessens the division.”

He ends by saying he has hope for the future generations and thinks America is moving in the right direction and will come together and become more integrated.

“Let us rebuild ourselves. We need to be noticed rather than labeled.”

Mayu Takushima is a 21-year-old exchange student from Tokyo. Takushima shares her experiences as being a Japanese exchange student in America.

For Takushima, she has experienced many advantages as a Japanese student at UGA. She says she is considered unique and interesting by her classmates and friends. She appreciates the advantages as a Japanese person in the U.S. She does not personally experience discrimination.

In Takushima’s opinion, being called Asian rather than individuals taking the time to understand where in Asia specifically she is from offends her at times.

“Being called Asian is a little bit offensive to me because I think originally I would not consider myself as an Asian, because Asia is very broad and vague and there are so many different countries which all have different histories, cultures, and values and just saying ‘Asian’ cannot be applied to the whole country.”

Women in Asia face discriminations and stereotypes in America according to Takushima.

“Some American people assume that Japanese women are very gentle and we will never reject them so sometimes it makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Osama Mor is a fourth year Pre-Med major at UGA. Mor shares his experiences of being a member of the Muslim community in America.

Mor considers himself both a Muslim in America and a Muslim of America. He points out the destruction that American foreign policies have brought to Muslim countries around the world. He mentions how it is hard for him to disassociate himself from the struggles and the experiences of other Muslims around the world.

“At the same time that Muslims around the world are suffering from U.S. foreign policies, I cannot ignore that also at home, the Muslim community here is also facing struggles due to islamophobia, due to anti-Muslim policies, due to the United States government that marginalizes us.”

Mor elaborates on how being a minority can pose as a disadvantage in the United States.

“If you are a minority, that comes with a whole list of struggles. Simply not having the privilege of being a majority is almost sometimes in and of itself alienating.”

Mor goes on to speak on how the United States has a long history of exploiting its minorities, of making them feel unwelcome, alienating them, oppressing them – not just for Muslims but for black people, brown people, the LGBTQ community, many of the indigenous American communities, and the Latinx community. He shines light on how, in that context, there are only disadvantages to being a minority in America.

Since the Trump administration, Muslim communities throughout the United States have evidently been more fearful for their lives.

“It is without a doubt that anti-Muslims, bigots, racists, islamaphobs, white supremacists, feel like they have a platform now, an opening and a freedom to express those bigoted beliefs. They are not unwilling to use violence. They are not unwilling to harass. They are not unwilling to really disturb Muslims now.”

Mor goes on to mention the intersectionality amongst all minority groups in America.

“What happens to Muslims in this country, the oppression faced by Muslims in the United States, cannot be disassociated from the oppression faced by black people and Latinx people, the LGBTQ community, and the indigenous peoples of this country. Of course, each struggle is unique in its own way – it has its own experiences – but the fact that they are all linked is important to mention to highlight the great importance of solidarity between our communities.”

Tyler Metcalfe is a 19-year-old Journalism student at UGA. Metcalfe shares his experiences as a person of color in America.

Metcalfe mentions how though he has a lot of pride in being black, he recognizes there are discriminations in the work place and in other areas against black people.

He talks about how socially he has been affected by disapproval from mothers of girlfriends because he was black. “You just get looks and stuff in certain situations.”

Metcalfe mentions that though there has been a rise in hate crimes towards minorities in America recently, he does think that America is headed down the right path.

He says that the biggest threat towards black people in America is the war on drugs. “I definitely think the incarnation rates at the height that they are at now are a problem that needs to be addressed.”

“The whole idea behind Black Lives Matter is not to say no one else’s life matter, we are saying that our lives matter, so can you please stop shooting us.”

Beto Cacao is a member of the Latinx community in American and has been living in Athens for 17 years. He shares his experiences of being an immigrant in America.

Cacao speaks about how a large disadvantage for his community is the derogatory idea that someone who is a Latinx is inevitably also illegal.

He elaborates on how immigrants face both issues of segregation and discrimination that other minority groups face, but on top of that they also face the threat of deportation. He mentions how his community even see cases where U.S. citizens have been detained or deported, regardless of being a legal citizen, simply because of the color of their skin or their accent.

Cacao tells of incidents where individuals will ask him “where are you from,” pointing out his accent and the color of his skin and allowing those factors to legitimize why they think Cacao could not be from America.

“There is this pattern of seeing someone like me with an accent like I have and asking this question ‘where are you from.’ As a Latino, we constantly have been pushed from and denied from this ‘Americanism’ in every sense of the word.”

“Here in the USA, you cannot be an American unless you are white. We suffer every day.”

Cacao speaks on how, when one person is deported, the whole community suffers. This suffering is seen in schools where these children become depressed, aggressive or distracted because they are consumed by this thought of their deported relative, or they are consumed by this fear that they might come home to find their other family members having been deported. Through this, the whole community suffers, from the children in school losing their family, to the family losing their bread winner, to the employer losing their employee.

“It is an illness in our community. This is a real fear in our community.”

Cacao speaks about why he thinks many people are not upset with the inhumanity behind the deportation process. He says this is a twofold issue, one because “deportation happens in the shadows” and two because of the criminalization of the immigrant.

The criminality of these people is enforced through the language and the speech used, making the sole presence of the immigrant community criminal. Terms such as “illegal alien” are strategically repeated and reused to perpetuate the dehumanization of the immigrant community.

“We use this language where we say that there are criminals who are affecting our citizens, so we have a divide between the ‘illegals’ and the citizens. When people see the word criminal, they will never empathize with these people because they view them as criminals.”

Luz Morales is a 19-year-old student at UGA studying Agriculture Education. Morales identifies as Mexican and shares her experiences of being a Mexican in America.

“I love my culture. I love the food we eat and the ceremonies that we have, the celebrations we have and how close family is. Being a Mexican is just really powerful to me. I couldn’t imagine not being Mexican.”

Both of her parents are documented residents in the United States, but Morales experiences frustrations having to constantly specify whether she and her family are “legal Americans.”

“A disadvantage for me is that I don’t fit in. I don’t fit in over here in the United States and I also don’t fit in in Mexico entirely.”

Morales mentions how often she feels as if the United States alienates her and her people through certain documentation processes such as specifying “preferred race” on census documents and only having the option to bubble in “other.”

“People do ask me what am I…I don’t know which I prefer better, whether someone is assuming I am white or assuming that I am Mexican, because either way they are still assuming.”

Morales goes on to talk about personal hardships faced by the Hispanic communities in America. She mentions how derogatory terms such as “illegal alien” or “wetback” are heard by her community on a regular basis in America.

“I’ve seen on individual levels and on global and national levels of people being harassed, people being scared, people not knowing what to do. There are people who have their green cards and have their permanent residencies and are scared to visit their families in Mexico and not be able to come back. There is a lot of fear, and there is a lot more hate against people. None of it is okay.”

Morales mentions that the biggest threat in her community is deportation. Morales says that a lot of families are going to be separated because they do not have their residency papers finished. She mentions how a lot of kids are going to lose their parents and must go to social services because they are not “legal.”

“The hardest thing that we have to face is that we have to prove that we belong here and that we actually provide value to this country. We have to constantly prove that because not everyone sees this value in the same way.”

Kalah Mingo is a 20-year-old journalism student at the University of Georgia. Mingo shares her experiences as a woman of color in America.

Mingo talks about personal experiences of discrimination on an intimate level in her early years of college when she encounters her friends saying “the n word with the hard r” around her without considering how it might offend or affect her.

“It hurts a lot more to know that even though they are supposed to be your friend, that they would say such a derogatory term.”

Mingo says the biggest threat to black people in America is the cyclical phase of poverty and lack of education. Additionally, she mentions that the way in which other people view black people is an influential thing that holds the black community back.

“People who get out of those situations are the exception, they’re not the rule. You can’t really change a whole pattern of people based on exceptions.”

Kalah also touches on how black women experience a form of racism through a reinforcement of certain stereotypes. The stereotype of being the loud, ghetto, angry black woman who is overtly sexualized in media and TV is something Mingo says is a burden her community must overcome daily.

For black men, Mingo mentions a different kind of stereotype they must face, “Black men are always viewed as the villain or the thug. People are trying to paint this narrative of black me being scary or thugs and it is just not true.”

“We matter, we exist, we are individual people who have lives and those lives matter.”

To help get a better visual of where these hate incidents occurred and to whom they targeted, here are some helpful graphics and charts to depict where these post-election hate incidents occurred on a national level, across particular locations, targeting which people, and a day-to-day count of the incident reports. All data below is courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center and a combination of FBI reports and media reports on these hate incidents.

This  graphic depicts where the hate incidents occurred on a national level. States in red are the highest occurrences down to green states which have zero occurrences. 

This graphic depicts the particular locations in which these hate incidents occurred.

This graphic explains which people groups these hate incidents were targeting.

This graphic depicts a breakdown of the count of hate crime indents on each day from Nov. 9 to Nov. 18.

1.

Spotify: $5 month    Instagram: Free   Snapchat: Free  Twitter: Free Facebook: Free

All of the media I use is free–except for Spotify which I pay $5 a month for. The New York Times and other news outlets that I follow on Twitter have a cap on how many times you can access articles for the month, but I am able to get past that by switching from my phone to my computer. I also used Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat today which are all free. From the amount of media I consume a day, I would say paying only $5 a month for all of the media I am constantly using is definitely worth it.

1. Media use

• Twitter: free
• Instagram: free
• Email: free
• Facebook: free
• skimm.com

Overall, all my data outlets are free of cost to access. I do have to pay for the data or wifi used to access these sites. Similarly, I probably “spend” about 3-5 hours a day on social media. It is easy to gain news through internet feeds and keep up with current events that way. I also am able to stay in contact and engage with friends and family in more ways than just in person contact. I would say yes, that it is worth it since there is so much to see and gain knowledge about through social media.

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As a native of Dublin, GA the news of my small town is rarely breaking. During a twitter search I found that discussions involving Dublin, GA were mostly about events going on downtown, at churches and different places to eat. The biggest incident in the last few months was when an active shooter began firing in the local hospital. The most active twitter member that posted about Dublin, GA was the Courier Herald, a local newspaper. Every week the Courier Herald would post “pictures of our past” and discuss historical stories related to Dublin. Tornado warnings, high school sports and tweets about an Italian restaurant were the primary topics posted.

I am not surprised by the discussions on twitter. As a small town, big events are rare and news breaking stories are difficult to come by. The presence of Dublin, GA on twitter may be small, but the topics discussed are well known to each and every citizen.

I am from Eatonton, GA, and incredibly small town located just an hour south of Athens. I live on Lake Oconee, which is a pretty popular location for people to buy second homes and vacation spots. Unsurprisingly the biggest thing I found on Twitter regarding my hometown was real estate. Most of the most recent tweets were all listings of lake houses and properties in the area. The feed was comprised of many “Just listed!” lake houses and potential properties.

My hometown is the golf cart famous Peachtree City, Georgia. Many of the twitter posts were links to people’s Instagram because people set the location to Peachtree City. I found a high schooler’s tweet where she expressed her desire to leave the town–a tweet I have made many times before. A few ads came up for jobs, real estate and pest control. Famers market vendors also advertised that they would be at the local famers market on Saturday, and one even gave a shout-out to the Falcons. An AJC article reported how teenagers crashed more golf carts in PTC, which isn’t surprising since you’re able to drive one beginning at age 15 with a permit. It’s also easier to crash the golf carts on the paths/not as many traffic or driving rules as well.

My hometown of Alpharetta is discussing a multitude of topics: the Falcons, new job postings, and a story of a middle school girl found safe after she had been missing for a few days.  The tweets about the Falcons and the job postings don’t surprise me; we’re so close to Atlanta, sports and jobs are bound to be the subject of attention. The story of the girl did, however, take me off guard. It’s good to hear she’s safe, but we usually don’t have cases like this.

On Thursday night, Athens-Clarke County Fire Department responded to a fire in the Windfair apartment complex which destroyed 10 of the 25 units, but no one was injured, according to the fire department captain on site.

The firefighters arrived to the complex at 9:05 p.m. when “flames were bursting through the roof and residents were gathered outside on the sidewalk, “Captain Mary Smith said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but no foul play is suspected, according to Smith.

The fire department report states that 25 of the renters will be displaced and that those residents lost almost all of their possessions.

One resident affected by the fire was Thomas Jones. Jones has lived in the apartment complex for three years and does not have renters insurance.

“I lost everything. I am not sure what I will do next,” Jones said.

On Thursday night, almost half of the units in Windfair, an apartment building on the east side of Athens, were completely destroyed in a fire.

According to Captain Mary Smith, no one was injured but 25 renters will be displaced. The source of the fire, she said, is still being investigated, but they “do not suspect foul play.”

Smith said firefighters arrived at the complex at 9:05 PM. “Flames were bursting through the roof and residents were gathered outside on the sidewalk, she said.

Thomas Jones, a Windfair resident of three years, does not have renter’s insurance. “I have lost everything. I am not sure what I will do next,” Jones said.

Many residents are also pet-owners, and like Jones, were able to rescue their furry friends. A few, however, are still missing.

Spending the past twelve summers at camp is bound to teach you the art of removing splinters, Caroline Harty says, as she’s had to deal with tons of kids running barefoot on the docks.

“The secret is to squeeze, pinch or use a needle,” Harty said, “and don’t let the kids see what you’re doing.”

The removal of the splinter is supposedly a much less painful task than calming the kids down.