Currently Informed
informedcurrently@gmail.com
Aryan Mukherjee
May 7th, 2024
Currently Informed Supports Students’ Free Speech
We, at Currently Informed, support the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, and encourage citizens to exercise the chief clause enabling freedom of speech so long as the speech is peace-loving, kind, and without hate.
Ever since the war between Israel and Gaza commenced in late 2023, protests have broken out across the globe, with the United States being no exception. As of May 2024, student protests on college campuses such as University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles, DePaul University, Art Institute of Chicago, University of Michigan University of Virginia, and many more have swept across in a primarily pro-Palestinian manner.
Many universities have been and still are concerned for the safety of their students, with classes canceled and protestors removed from many of the campuses listed above after violence ensued between protestors and authorities.
Specifically, at USC, a protest encampment was cleared away due to protestors “breaking the law”, according to the president of the school. At UCLA, the campus with the highest coverage of protests, classes were canceled to be resumed online, and the safety operations of the campus as a whole are to be reassessed following the great violence that broke out during a protest. Many of the other campuses featured arrests, forced removal, riots, and more.
With the safety of college students a massive concern for many Americans at the moment, we at Currently Informed are committed to take a stand. We believe in the idea that the First Amendment right should be protected at all costs for it is the foundation upon which our democracy is built. However, we also firmly support the restrictions around which the First Amendment is bound, namely “incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and threats”.
Especially with the steepening number or arrests (2100 as of May 5th, 2024) combated against the claims of students insinuating that certain universities hold volatile ties with an “unfavorable” foreign country, it is also time that all measures are weighted equally for universities to make an educated and judicious decision. Clearly, falsifications that hope to slander a university’s name or meddle with their private business goes against the values of education and the premises of the First Amendment clause. Yet, preventing protestors from expressing their views in a peaceful and legal way also infringes upon the rights that citizens possess.
Ultimately, we stand in the middle ground with the protests, and believe that they should be allowed to continue so long as they do not impede on the safety, well being, and educational value brought to other students who are uninvolved. We hold that universities should set the standard straight and ensure that what they are doing is constitutional; if so, then we support what the higher educational figures do under their own jurisdiction.
And, circling back to our primary statement of course, we support the right of every U.S. citizen to free speech that is peace-loving, kind, and hate-free.
Sources:
“College Protest Live Updates: Police Respond to Clashes at UCLA; Clear Columbia Campus.” AP News, apnews.com/live/college-protests-palestine-updates.
Volokh, Eugene. “First Amendment - Permissible Restrictions on Expression.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019,
www.britannica.com/topic/First-Amendment/Permissible-restrictions-on-expression.
CNN, By Dalia Faheid, Liz Enochs, Catherine Nicholls, Antoinette Radford and Maureen Chowdhury. “Live Updates: University Protests at USC, UVA, Michigan Campuses amid Israel’s War in Gaza.” CNN, 5 May 2024,
www.cnn.com/business/live-news/university-protests-pro-palestinian-israel-05-05-24/index.html.
Currently Informed
informedcurrently@gmail.com
Aryan Mukherjee
May 1st, 2024
Currently Informed Supports Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
We, at Currently Informed, are excited to celebrate the unique culture and historical presence of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the month of May.
An Asian American can be defined as anyone who is, of any generation, Asian, and is or has had family who have immigrated to America. Pacific Islanders are those to reside on the islands of the Pacific that are territories of the United States. Unfortunately, both groups faced debilitating racism, hatred, and gut-wrenching conditions in our country’s past, and the month of May is set to rectify such painful memories by rejuvenating in glorious tradition. From conventional dances to games to songs, Currently Informed looks forward to spotlighting the various facets of Asian American and Pacific Islander culture throughout the month and showcasing our support.
But why specifically was May chosen to be Asian American and Pacific Islander month? What makes May so special? Well, according to the official government website of the month crossed with various other historical sources, both the first immigration of the Japanese to America AND the construction of the transcontinental railroad (which was headed chiefly by Chinese laborers) occurred in the month of May. Because of this, the month was chosen to club in and celebrate the achievements of practically all minority groups which were targets of the country’s history of unfair treatment and racism. The only group that is exempt from this are African Americans, which have dealt with the brunt of the damage that our country has inflicted and have February to themselves.
Amongst the challenges that such groups faced include: Japanese internment during WWII, independent islands annexed and monarchies overthrown, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and even slurs and accusations following the recent COVID-19 pandemic. All of these obstacles made it difficult for Asian American and Pacific Islander voices to be heard, so now we must let them roar.
Specifically, Currently Informed hopes to encompass Asian American and Pacific Islander culture in a plethora of different and unique pieces of writing, all of which will dive deep into their past and grope at their future. From pieces about music, food, dances, festivals, and more, we will try to cover as many aspects of the culture as we can in order to educate the public and celebrate the occasion.
If you want to learn more about Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, or want to engage in culture-specific activities that will flourish for the next few weeks, be sure to check out the variety of resources and events taking place at your local libraries, parks, and museums. Happy reading!
Currently Informed
informedcurrently@gmail.com
Aryan Mukherjee
February 25th, 2024
Currently Informed embraces Black History Month
February is Black History Month. Great, you say, feigning a smile and then going back to texting your friends racist jokes in your group chat. Now imagine what you’ve done in a more flushed out sense. Millions of African Americans were ransacked, beat, lynched, raped, and had their wills extracted out and burnt to a crisp under excruciating amounts of pain and sacrifice, their struggles so real and so incredibly dark that Black History Month was created to honor their suffering in our history. And you have just slandered that all because times have changed and you refuse to look back. You see, this is not just a special month where you would greet your African American friends with a little more cordiality than would typically be beckoned. Rather, it is a testament to something that many could never even imagine living through- something to be remembered.
To briefly sum up, Black History month originated as an expansion of “Negro History Week” established in 1926 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. Woodson was the co-founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and made it his mission statement to enunciate African American contributions to American society in the way that they truly were, cutting down the fallacies from white mainstream media in the process. During that time period the Harlem Renaissance was also in full bloom, so for the first time in exactly 4 centuries since the trade slave, an isolated and abused group of people that had no comfort, no recognition, and no acknowledgment of even being living breathing humans outside of their own tight-knit families was finally being accepted into the United States of America for a little bit more of themselves. Later, in 1976, President Gerald Ford created Black History Month to balloon out from this week, and the tradition has flowed out ever since, our nation’s sweltering scars gradually healing themselves through small compensating steps in the right direction.
And so we end happily ever after, with Black people getting at least some resemblance of an apology and actions made towards improvement. Or do we? Historians and scholars worry today that negligence by the newer generations has resulted in such fervent cultural explosions of Blacks to ebb away and away, and many fear that this part of our new communities will be forgotten in just a few decades.
Thus, we at Currently Informed embrace Black History Month and wish to bring about a resurgence in the celebration of a people who our beloved country was literally built upon: day by day, article by article, act by act. Ultimately, we hope to see Woodson’s dreams firmly fastened into society’s clutches for infinitely more generations to come, preferably with the help of all of you who have just finished reading this.
Currently Informed
informedcurrently@gmail.com
Aryan Mukherjee
February 10th, 2024
OUR STANCE ON MEDIA LITERACY
At Currently Informed, we believe that everyone should have an equitable opportunity to traverse the Internet and have access to digital media in a world where it is becoming ever more prevalent. The digital divide, or gap between those who have readily available and reliable access to the Internet and those who don’t is something that has risen by 11% in the past decade and a half, and surges from a few main factors.
For one, there is geography. Internet Service Providers simply do not have enough money and resources allocated to them by the government to extend their transmission network lines to every corner of the planet. To compensate, they just implement services in the most packed and urban places available to ultimately make as money as they can.
Additionally, there is income. In most areas of the United States, schools and libraries are lucky enough to have the funding available to provide access and lessons on media literacy to youth. Yet in less affluent regions, that luxury is scarce, and most people are unable to work towards understanding the intricacies behind social media and technology in general.
This is problematic for a multitude of reasons. For one, social media is a dark and scary place. In the past, gimmicks such as the Blue Whale Challenge and Bird Box Challenge have resulted in thousands of deaths, primarily amongst youth and adolescents. Additionally, malware is an extremely prevalent threat within already existing operating systems, so those who do have access to the Internet but have not had the education to know what to look out for may be led awry into potential loss of millions of bits of data and personal information.
In the past, bills such as Assembly Bill 873 have been proposed to try and alleviate the ongoing crisis. But as is mentioned in the embedded link for it, efforts simply are not enough. This is why we at Currently Informed are striving to pass something different, something better than ever before something to hopefully lead towards a future where nobody ever gets themselves hurt or killed because they didn’t know what lay ahead of them after every click and scroll.
Stated herself when asked about the matter, founder Kashish Sachdeva of our organization sums up our stance and goals as pointedly so: "As the founder of Currently Informed, I'm driven to empower individuals with the knowledge and skills to navigate the digital landscape safely. In a world where challenges like the Blue Whale Challenge and online scams target our youth, it becomes imperative for us to champion social media literacy. Our commitment is not just a statement of support but a proactive step towards fostering a community that is informed, vigilant, and resilient in the face of online threats."