4 The QUEE NS Courier • NOVEMBER 17, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com AFTER THE ELECTION Students at Fresh Meadows high school condemned for alleged Trump-inspired harassment on city bus By Suzanne Monteverdi [email protected] /@smont76 On the day after Donald Trump was elected the country’s new president, some students from a Fresh Meadows Catholic high school allegedly made some discriminatory comments toward other students on board a bus last week — and the school’s principal has condemned them. Word began to spread about an incident which transpired on an MTA bus on Nov. 9 between some St. Francis Preparatory (SFP) school students and students from another school. Information about the alleged hateful incident was posted on a public Facebook post that has since been shared more than 200 times. The post was written by Adriana Medina, the sister of one of the students who was on the receiving end of the comments. She published the following: “More texts from my sister: I was on the bus and this group of girls from St. Francis Prep get on. They look around and looked at me and said ‘Aren’t you people suppose sic to be sitting in the back of bus?’ I looked around and saw that there were mainly black and Hispanic people sitting in the middle of the the bus. I asked this girl to repeat herself and she says ‘Aren’t you supposed to be sitting in the back of the bus now? Like Trump is president!’ Please share this with your friends. THIS IS WHAT TRUMP DOES. It hasn’t even been a day. PEOPLE THINK IT’S OK TO DO THIS NOW??” St. Francis Preparatory School Principal Patrick McLaughlin spoke to the entire student body Thursday morning, Nov. 10, addressing the incident, as well as similar derogatory remarks heard from students within the school. “Apparently some SFP students made disparaging and very inappropriate remarks on a MTA bus yesterday directed at students from another school. There were also hurtful remarks made in hallways and classrooms that were equally disappointing,” McLaughlin said in the statement, which was posted on the school’s website. McLaughlin stressed that while everyone may have different opinions about the election, “we have all committed to being a part of this Franciscan community that preaches love, respect and peace.” “I expect that everyone lives out this mission to Walk the Walk and Talk the Talk in mission,” according to McLaughlin’s statement. “All matters of disrespect will not be tolerated and going forward our deans will take immediate action.” The alleged incident seems to be part of what the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that defends civil rights, previously described as “the Trump effect.” A report from the law center found that bombastic rhetoric from Trump and his surrogates during his campaign has led to an increase in bullying and harassment in schools across the country. Jackson Heights holds rally to celebrate diversity and ease fears after Trump’s election By Angela Matua [email protected]/@AngelaMatua Three days after Donald Trump was elected president, community groups and elected officials organized a Unity Rally to ease the fears of the large immigrant community in Jackson Heights. Councilman Daniel Dromm, Assemblyman Ron Kim, members of Friends of Diversity Plaza and Jackson Heights residents gathered at Diversity Plaza at 37th Road and 73rd Street where the main message of the night was “diversity trumps hate.” “Thank you Jackson Heights for showing up today,” said Shekar Krishnan, a member of Friends of Diversity Plaza. “What we have shown here is 100 percent the unity in our diversity as a community.” Erin and Kriton Dolias, Jackson Heights residents, attended the rally with their 5-month-old daughter, Melina. “We’re not happy with the election results on Tuesday and just decided to come out and show our support for Hillary and for everyone around here,” Kriton Dolias said. “There are probably a lot of people around here worried about who’s going to be in office in January.” Erin Dolias said she attended the rally because she is concerned about her daughter’s future. “We’re worried about the world that’s going to exist for her and it doesn’t feel like there is much you can do at the moment but it feels like the only thing we can do is show our support and hope that people all over the country are doing the same thing,” she said. There were short performances by musicians in the community, including Queens-born rapper Heems, who is in a rap group called Swet Shop Boyz. The duo, consisting of Heems and Riz Ahmed, the lead actor on the HBO show “The Night Of,” recently released an album that explored race and the racism they face as men of Indian and Pakistani descent. Dromm said he organized this rally because he needed “to be amongst people who feel the way that I feel, who understand the feeling that I had on Wednesday morning when I woke up and thought I was in a nightmare.” He said Trump’s election was “frightening” and saw many worried faces as he walked to his office on Wednesday. Dromm added that last April he visited P.S. 222 and that principal Yvonne Marrero announced through loud speakers that Councilman Daniel Dromm would pay students a visit. “A couple of minutes later, a little boy said, ‘Ms. Marrero, Ms. Marrero, come to the class because a little girl in the second grade is crying and we can’t get her to stop,’” Dromm said. “The little girl mistakenly heard Daniel Dromm as Donald Trump. She was afraid she was going to be deported.” “We will fight. We will stand up to the beliefs of Donald Trump. We will say ‘no’ to Donald Trump’s beliefs,” he added. “We will urge all of our elected officials to put in the path every obstacle humanely possible to prevent him from implementing any of his terrible programs.” Nick Gulotta, the Queens borough director of community affairs for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, said that President-elect Donald Trump would not take away services that have been implemented in the city. He also added that stop-and-frisk would never again be practiced by the NYPD. “On behalf of Mayor de Blasio and the entire administration, I want to reassure you that we are going to fight in every single way that we know how to protect our sisters and brothers regardless of their immigration status,” Gulotta said. “No matter who the next president is, they can’t take away from us universal pre-K; they can’t take away paid sick leave; they can’t take away paid parental leave; they can’t take away the progress that we’ve made.” Photo by Angela Matua/THE COURIER Jackson Heights residents, elected officials and community organizers held a Unity Rally after Donald Trump was elected president.
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