Hi, my name is Sidney Carr and I am a sophomore at Hazen Union High School in Hardwick Vermont.  I am still caught between topics so I have not chosen one to share with you today, instead I have talked with my brother, mom and dad about the topics on their minds.  I have three different topics of high interest from three different people.  All of these are problems that are in need of a solution, hopefully I can help with at least one.

When I approached my brother, Garett, and asked him about a social issue that bothered him and that he wanted to change, he immediately replied with Islamophobia.  I then went on to ask him why, “People are ignorant”, he said, “Most ‘terrorist attacks’ are performed by white men who are against their government, but nobody discriminates all the whites.”  What Garett was truthfully saying, is that people target all Muslims, regardless of if they are terrorists, or normal citizens living their life with a look of hatred or scaredness look with every corner they turn.  Imagine being a Muslim child growing up in America.  They get judged everyday by people who walk across the street when they are about to cross paths with and their friends parents and even sometime their friends.  We need to change this, it is a growing problem.

“Homelessness”, my dad had reluctantly answered.  “Although it takes time to find them, can start helping them with even the smallest generosities”.  There are homeless people everywhere and if everyone wants to help we will provide shelters for people all across the world, people we don’t even know.  I would say that there is probably at least one person without a home or food in every town.  This should be fixed so that even if they don’t have a luxurious home, they will have a place to go when the weather is bad or to sleep.

I then went on to interview my mother.  After a bit of thinking, she said education was the most important social issue she faces in her very own community.  When I asked why this was the topic she chose, she replied whit, “I really believe that knowledge is everything”.   I think that this is the most important topic here because if we had a better education system, there would be no homelessness or Islamophobia.  If we had a better education system then everyone would be well educated instead of just going to school to gossip and watch your classmates struggling to keep an ‘A’ grade on the second week of school.

Each one of the people I interviewed had different thoughts on what the biggest social issue is, which probably means that if I interviewed three more people I would have three more issues.  There are hundreds of problems in our world today, lets start by choosing one and solving it.

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