“Injustice for one is injustice for all.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dear Diary, Today I went to a protest march. I went to support people who are against racism and especially to support Black people as they are treated unfairly. I went to show Black people that I am with them and will stand up for them. It is not enough to not be a racist. You have to stand up and show up in support. I went because I believe Black Lives Matter. I went because I believe racism is wrong and people should not be judged by the color of their skin or how they look. Just because of the skin color, Black people have to face a lot of discrimination. They are not given the same opportunities to grow as others. And I don’t understand why this injustice? We all are the same inside, just like two eggs. If we crack a brown egg and a white egg, it will be the same inside, there is no difference. The world belongs to all of us. We share the same earth, water and air. When Nature doesn’t treat us differently, why should we treat each other differently? What happened to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other Black people is so unfair. And this is what the protest is for. When our peaceful march started,It was raining, yet a lot of people came. Everyone had masks on. A lot of them were holding banners that said “Black Lives Matter.” I made one which said “Spread Love Not Hate.” I loved reading all the different slogans. One of them said “Injustice for one is injustice for all.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” We all were repeating after the person who led the March. Leader: “Black Lives Matter.” Us: Black Lives Matter Leader: what do you want? Us: Justice Leader: When do you want it? Us: Now We kept repeating more slogans for about 2 miles and reached our destination. Then two Black women talked about how it was different for them growing up than their white friends. They were followed for no reason and could not go to the coffee shop without a cop staring at them. It made me realize the difference between privileged and not-privileged. They spoke about cops and their brutality. How just because of their skin color, Black people are more likely to be stopped by police. How people around them are suspicious of them. Their speeches were powerful and I was thinking how people can be so mean. I felt sad hearing their stories. We observed 8 mins and 46 seconds silence for George Floyd by kneeling down. Doing so made me realize how difficult it must have been for him with the knee on his neck and unable to breathe. I think everyone had the same thoughts as me since the whole crowd was quiet even after the time was up. I am glad I joined the protest. I learnt a lot of things and what I can do to stop racism. We can start by not treating others badly due to their skin color or how they look. If we see someone being treated unfairly, we should speak up and tell someone about it. We can also help them by listening to them and understanding them. The most important thing that I learnt from going to this March is that “Silence is violence.” That means we should not keep quiet when something wrong is happening in front of us.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Weekly Creativity #119: Draw a Bicycle from Memory
Make a detailed drawing of a bicycle–from memory.
Saturday Newsletter: September 19, 2020
“A Man’s Friend” by Hanna Gustafson, 13 (South Burlington, VT)Published in Stone Soup September 2020 A note from William First of all, thanks to all of you who signed up for the Saturday Writing Workshop and Book Club. The shift from a free class on Fridays to a paid class on Saturdays went without a hitch. Last week, the first Saturday class, had 42 students! In terms of geography, they ranged from Saudi Arabia to the West Coast. It really is the miracle of Zoom. This Saturday, 9am Pacific, the class was taught by guest teachers, Denise Donnio and Jennifer Rinterknecht. Their workshop, “Dragonfly Narratives,” was fabulous. They were Zooming from Strasbourg, France, where they teach. You can still sign up for the workshops at EventBrite. Registration is week-by-week from now through December 16, which will be a performance reading via Zoom for all of you. The last week of each month is the Book Club for Writers session, so that is what you could join next week. We need your help! Please consider joining our new Outreach and Marketing Committee. This is a call for adults, but if you are a student, and think that you have some ideas and skills that could help us bring Stone Soup to more people, then you are free to attend the organizational meeting, as well. Addressing our adult Newsletter readers more directly, if you have the skills and the time, please join the organizing meeting. The first meeting is Saturday, October 2, at 11 am Pacific. It is a Zoom meeting. You will receive the link when you express interest in coming. We need a ton of help! Stone Soup has always been strong on good programs, and weak on marketing. Please fill out this questionnaire. Thank you! We need help with marketing and promotion to a wide range of audiences, and through a wide range of media. Obviously, we will need to focus. What we focus on will, in part, depend on the skills you bring. In addition to help with marketing ideas, and with the nitty-gritty of carrying some of them out, we also need help managing this committee. So, if you don’t have marketing skills and are a brilliant organizer and people person, and have the time, then please come to the meeting on October 2. Please visit our website to look at the new blog posts that are linked, below, and to explore. Blog authors always appreciate comments, so if you like what you read, please take the time to let the author know. We give everyone a few free views per month, and unlimited viewing if you take out a digital or print subscription, starting at $4.99. It does take money to run Stone Soup, so all subscriptions are appreciated. Thank you. For this Saturday’s project I’d like to refer you to the 117 writing prompts that are posted on our website. There are so many fabulous prompts written by Stone Soup staff and by Stone Soup writers that I am sure that you will find something to inspire you this weekend. As always, if you are super happy with what you do, please submit it to Stone Soup so editor Emma Wood can consider it for the magazine. Until next week, Monthly Flash Contest Deadline tomorrow, Sunday September 13 Congratulations to this month’s Flash Contest winners! Flash Contest #23: Create a piece of flash fiction written from the perspective of the first object you saw when you woke up this morning. Your narrative should be no longer than 250 words. For our first monthly version of our regular Flash Contest we decided to request a piece of flash fiction from an unusual perspective: that of a random object. Given that we asked for the perspective of the first thing the writer saw when they woke up in the morning, we gained a lot of insight into the inner lives of lamps, pets, curtains, toys, clothing, bedding, books and magazines, desk items like pens and pencils, and many other stalwarts of the bedroom. It was so much fun to read the various lively and perceptive voices you gave to these inanimate (or non-human) objects. Many of them seem to take a very dim view of the humans they have their silent eyes on most of the day (or night), especially all the things they witness that they would rather not see . . . Congratulations to our Winners and Honorable Mentions, listed below. You can read the winning entries for this week (and previous weeks) at the Stone Soup website. Winners “The Silent Stalker” by Chloe Chan, 12, Bellevue, WA “Worst Fear” by Scarlet He, 9, Scarsdale, NY “Travails and Humiliations of a Cotton Shirt” by Iago Macknik-Conde, 13, Brooklyn, NY “Wanted” by Daniel Wei, 13, Weddington, NC “Woes of a Blanket” by Lacole Yang, 13, Irvine CA Honorable Mention “Story of the Bed” by Vaishali Andukuri, 10, Oakland, NJ “Day of a Pencil Box” by Judah Davidoff, 9, Brunswick, MD “The Proud Life of a Blanket” by Lucy Kershen, 13, Norman, OK “The Life of a Lamp” by Chloe Mancini, 9, Glenside, PA “New and Improved” by Sanvi Patel, 11, Midland, MI “Morning from the Eyes of a Doll” by Joycelyn Zhang, 10, Oakland, CA Remember: the next monthly flash contest will be based on the first weekly prompt of October! Highlights from the past week online Don’t miss the latest content from our Book Reviewers and Young Bloggers at Stonesoup.com! We published a pandemic-themed poem from Luca, 12, called “The Invasion.” Simran, 9, wrote a powerful poem about Black Lives Matter called “Why are we so silent?” Does your room represent you? Julia Marcus, 11, writes a poem about her room and how it is “embedded with her personality.” “The Tyrant Virus” by Benjamin, 11, is a hopeful poem about the pandemic. Read about last Saturday’s writing workshop here and join us next time! Here’s a link to our Eventbrite page. Check out Pragnya’s review of Gordon Korman’s book The Unteachables, which she says is full of “twists and
