March 29, 2024

Kyra Dates and classmates protest presidential election

Lilly Fuller (left), Kyra Dates (middle) and Ava Alexiades (right) protested the presidential election last November by wearing black in semblance of the country's "funeral". Their bracelets are hand created by Dates and then sold to donate money to LGBTQ+ charities. Courtesy of Ryan Demarest

By Tiffany Feng

Staff Writer

Following the recent national presidential election, in which a certain candidate trumped his opponents, several students of Mira Costa have demonstrated their concerns about the results through protests and other actions.

On Nov. 9th, junior Kyra Dates and several friends participated in a silent protest against the election of President Donald Trump at Costa. The protest consisted of the students wearing black apparel and carried signs that promoted their views on the affair. In addition to student protests, senior Jane Fishman gave out free, handmade bracelets with words of positivity to Costa students.

“This country is supposed to be built on freedom and equality and I believe that this election has revealed how sexist and racist our country truly is,” Dates said. “While huge progress has been made recently towards equal rights, it is very likely that the progress could be erased in the next four years.”

Decided the night before, the students that participated in the protest wore all black and carried signs that had the words “not my president” displayed across the front. The color black was used to symbolize their grievance for the loss of their country when Trump was elected.

Photos: Junior Kyra Dates and friends participate in #NotMyPresident silent protest at Mira Costa High School.

“Being of an age that we can’t vote, I think it was important that my friends and I could represent our views on the election in any way we could,”Alexiades said. “A lot of us were pretty heartbroken and scared after the election considering that we did not want Trump to become president; it was nice to collectively show our concern for the results. We have to accept that he’s our president but that doesn’t mean we have to support the ideals that he stands for.”

Many participants of the protest believe that the president elect does not support and represent the rights of women, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, and other minorities. Although there was a lot of sympathy from other students that supported their protest, there was also definitely some backlash from classmates, Dates says.

Link: Visit an article about the president elect

“It’s absurd; the mere ignorance of the individual shows up to nothing about the election,” junior Tony Shar said. “I think the fact that they said ‘not my president’ is actually nothing because technically speaking, he is the 45th president of the United States and there’s absolutely nothing that they can do about it. People can wear whatever they want but the country has been standing for over 250 such years and another president doesn’t mean the end of the country by any means or its decline an international political power.”

The #NotMyPresident protest was not the only form of student protest that was occurring on campus. Jane Fishman and her friends personally hand-created over fifty bracelets that each displayed words of positivity on the beads that she and others handed out to friends and students around school for free.

Link: Other student protests occurring on campus

“I have a bracelet and I like wearing it because of the positive message it sends,” junior Jackie Soliman said. “I think equality is one of those baseline things that is very necessary and important for any type of society. That’s why we try to promote it because it doesn’t have to be political necessarily, we just want to share the idea that everyone deserves equal opportunities and chances.”

Fishman created the bracelets simply with a trip to a local craft store at which she bought beads and string to make the accessories. The bracelets were mainly give out to friends that had similar views as Fishman’s and they produced an overall positive reaction Fishman said.

“After the election I noticed a lot of people were really bummed out with the results; they were really nervous about the state of affairs and human rights and how they would be personally negatively affected,” Fishman said. “I felt the same way and I just thought it would be a nice thing to do and show that there was still positivity out there.”

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