The halls of Parker school are evenly filled with activism and ignorance when it comes to politics. While the future Kamala Harris’ walk the halls handing out posters about what we can encourage others to do about climate change, the uneducated stand in the corner trying to understand how their mom’s Tesla is making a positive difference when it comes to glaciers melting in the Antarctic. Teachers watch from their classrooms admiring the young adult’s initiative, drive and that they really care that much about the environment to bring the issue to the hallways of school. Meanwhile when it’s the notoriously conservative kid walking through the halls handing out informational posters about why America’s debt could be detrimental for us all, everyone looks the other way; not because they don’t care about the debt, but because they believe no matter what this republican thinks about the government, that they definitely wouldn’t agree with it, because they are liberal.  As someone who doesn’t identify with solely one political party, I have witnessed time and time again my peers putting themselves into knowledge bubbles. 

Gen-Z getting all of their information from social media mirrors the cable news division of older generations. Social media has the ability to take out a snippet of an entire presidential speech that a candidate gave and give you 30 seconds to two minutes that can completely sway your opinion on that candidate. Social media is giving teens only half of the story. What you learn on social media is all from the hashtags and people you follow so all the information you are ingesting––no matter if you’re a republican or democrat––is drastically incomplete, reductive, and one sided. 

Kids in this generation don’t make an effort to get a balanced news diet. Social media and parents’ political views are the embodiment of what their kids end up believing and preaching when in reality, the kid never gave themselves the chance to expand their repertoire of knowledge and develop opinions of their own. 

Parker school is infamous throughout Chicago for being filled with liberal white kids. Parker’s liberal community combats this assumption and preaches the diversity of the school while at the same time playing right into the idea that it is primarily filled with liberals by seeing anyone that identifies as a conservative as someone who’s an outcast with an opinion that isn’t valuable. 

The polarization and political divide are not just things that happen at Parker, it happens globally on a much bigger scale. Partisans act more radically and violently on a global standpoint than just a couple of whispers and snickers in the hallways of Parker.  The somewhat recent storming of the capitol is a very extreme example of anti bi-partisan collaboration behavior. 

The same radicalism is seen in the book The Thing Around Her Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “Everyone supportive of the pro-democracy press knew of her husband…” “He fights repression with the pen…” “The soldiers had detained her husband for two weeks and broken the skin on his forehead…” In the story The American Embassy, the act of a brave radical is appreciated by some and completely discounted and punished by others. In this situation it’s the democrat whose opinions are being ignored and written off as impertinent. The government killed this man’s child and went on a rampage searching for him because of what he wrote instead of at least considering it to be the truth. 

It’s our own fault that this divide is happening in our world and worsens day by day. It’s essential for all citizens to try and get their news and information from more than one place and to keep an open mind when it comes to your peers opinions. 

The polarization within politics is only getting worse and it’s eliminating all chances of there being bi-partisan collaboration. While globally nothing can be done immediately, Parker can make more of an effort to be more inclusive and considerate of all peoples opinions. Democrats are no smarter than Republicans and vice versa. It’s just a matter of eliminating the stereotypes and bias when it comes to the political parties and not having to agree, but at least keeping an open mind, when it comes to opposing parties researched and educated opinions.