Letter From the Old EICs
BY SERENA HAN '20, KIRTANA KRISHNAKUMAR '20, & ANJALI RAMAN '20
We’d like to begin with a story.
It all began last year, when our predecessors bid us farewell. As the first EIC trio, we so insightfully decided in our first letter that two is a party, but three isn’t a crowd—just a really big party. And we’ve certainly partied together over the last year. We partied during the 2019 Graduation Issue Mishap, through late night cult circles in the Mac Lab, and even while writing these EIC letters.
All the while, there’d been a larger story at play.
It’s an insidious story, one buried under the earthy soil of ignorance—a story whose roots have spread underfoot; it’s the bitter seed from which society reaps its crop and that we as Americans continue to water. The murder of George Floyd exemplified the brutal realities of being Black in America, yet none of us should be shocked by the circumstances of his death. After all, this is a story we are all too familiar with: Over-policed neighborhoods. Mass incarceration. Corrupt law enforcement. Senseless killings. And for many of us, it’s a story we have the privilege of burying.
It feels like now, in 2020, reality has demanded we dig. As journalists, our responsibility lies in avoiding sensationalism and in doing our due diligence. It requires us to look inward, at ourselves and our communities. It implores us to question: who has been excluded from our narrative? And what can we do to rewrite that legacy?
There are many larger newspapers and organizations, and perhaps their public statements ring louder and prove more salient, but we must make ours at The Spectrum clear nonetheless: Black Lives Matter, and our telling of its stories matters too. As we pass on the torch to Michelle and Anushka, we know they will tread with care to tell the narrative about our rapidly changing world. We hope it will be a better one.
Signing off,
Serena, Kirtana, and Anjali
It all began last year, when our predecessors bid us farewell. As the first EIC trio, we so insightfully decided in our first letter that two is a party, but three isn’t a crowd—just a really big party. And we’ve certainly partied together over the last year. We partied during the 2019 Graduation Issue Mishap, through late night cult circles in the Mac Lab, and even while writing these EIC letters.
All the while, there’d been a larger story at play.
It’s an insidious story, one buried under the earthy soil of ignorance—a story whose roots have spread underfoot; it’s the bitter seed from which society reaps its crop and that we as Americans continue to water. The murder of George Floyd exemplified the brutal realities of being Black in America, yet none of us should be shocked by the circumstances of his death. After all, this is a story we are all too familiar with: Over-policed neighborhoods. Mass incarceration. Corrupt law enforcement. Senseless killings. And for many of us, it’s a story we have the privilege of burying.
It feels like now, in 2020, reality has demanded we dig. As journalists, our responsibility lies in avoiding sensationalism and in doing our due diligence. It requires us to look inward, at ourselves and our communities. It implores us to question: who has been excluded from our narrative? And what can we do to rewrite that legacy?
There are many larger newspapers and organizations, and perhaps their public statements ring louder and prove more salient, but we must make ours at The Spectrum clear nonetheless: Black Lives Matter, and our telling of its stories matters too. As we pass on the torch to Michelle and Anushka, we know they will tread with care to tell the narrative about our rapidly changing world. We hope it will be a better one.
Signing off,
Serena, Kirtana, and Anjali