Author Archives: Resita Cox - Page 2
Offensive graffiti spotlights race at Kinston High
In an apparent reference to Jim Crow-era segregation laws, someone had used a marker to label two water fountains “white” and “colored.”
With Kinston High being a predominantly African American school, this joke created a lot of controversy in our hallways. While the Kinston High administrative team never discovered who was responsible for the tasteless prank, one would think the culprit was likely a black student or a white student.
We Kinstonians must take back our city
Crime rates have been on a constant rise for the past several years, In fact, two years after there were no recorded homicides in Kinston, the city has mourned the loss of 10 citizens to violent crime so far this year -- a rate nearly 10 times higher than the national average.
Yet somehow nothing seems to be changing in our city. One thing is certain: While the crime rates are going up, the ages of the victims and killers are continuously going down.
Judging a book by its cover
Unfortunately, these are the words that come to mind when some in Lenoir County think of Kinston High. However, the misunderstanding of Kinston High School is very perplexing. How can people form an opinion about a school that they have never attended?
Walking through the hallways of Kinston High each day portrays an opposite view of which the public thinks. While every school has students that misbehave, the students who go to Kinston High School to learn… actually do it. We have had a constant growth in graduation rates for the past several years and, as our school newspaper The Viking Press reported last spring, 78 percent of the class of 2011 attended two or four-year colleges or universities. Yet somehow the public opinion of Kinston High School has yet to change.
