Continuing the celebration of Not in Our School Week, students will “dissolve” stereotypes and share slam poetry, rap and step dance on Thursday during lunch.
A pool will be set up in front of the senior deck at lunch for students to write down stereotypes on slips of paper and watch the words diffuse into a cloud of colors.
According to senior Albert Chen, the “dissolving stereotypes” pool on the senior deck will be a good starting point for students to confront their own misconceptions toward people of different race, religion and sexual orientation.
“I think that it [the dissolving stereotypes activity] will raise awareness to issues concerning social equality and that it may be a step towards abolishing resentments or unfair labels,” sophomore Andre Gouyet said.
Students will also speak out against discrimination through slam poetry, rap and step dance performances. Junior Osceola Ward plans to perform his own slam poetry.
“I have two new pieces, and I will do at most four,” Ward said. “Racism is the main theme of the whole collection.”
Following Ward’s performance, senior Conor Ney will take the floor with a rap performance.
“I’ve heard some of his recordings on Facebook, so I am excited to see how he performs live,” junior Nadav Gavrielov said.
NIOS Week faculty adviser and language teacher Magdalena Rivera invited Ney to perform after hearing him rap at Camp Everytown this year. Ney expressed his interest in taking this opportunity to perform for Paly students.
“I’ve been rapping since my freshman year, but I’ve only begun to take it more seriously in the past year,” Ney said. “I’ve performed at a few small open mic events, but aside from that, this will be one of my first performances.”
After writing a rap about cultural pride during Camp Everytown, Ney decided to channel his creativity into writing another piece against discrimination for NIOS week.
“I wrote the song I’m going to perform specifically for Not in Our School Week,” Ney said. “I tried to embody the spirit of Not in Our School Week without writing a really cliché song.”
A performance by senior Julisa Russel and her group of step dancers will conclude the lunchtime event.