HSC Student Shoots No-Shoot Doc

Airiqa Hoheb hit on a discovery: Police spend seven times longer in training on how to shoot than on how not to shoot.

Hoheb found the fact while doing research for her 10th grade Social Justice Symposium at High School in the Community. She presented the outcome of her research, a documentary, to a panel of adults on Wednesday.

“This is the land of the free, they say. But how can we say we’re free when some of us can barely take a jog down the street?” Hoheb asked in the documentary.

Sophomores present at the HSC Social Justice Symposium every year as part of their English and U.S. history courses.

English teacher Dianna Carter has worked with the 10th graders on their projects for the past six years. Carter said that the students start their research in January and learn how to make visual and rhetorical arguments over the course of the semester. The symposium presentation acts as the final for the classes.

The symposium is normally mandatory but became optional this year as the Covid-19 pandemic hit each of Carter’s students in different ways.

“Some are taking care of sick relatives. Some are now doing childcare. I’m not blaming any child for not participating,” Carter said.

For the 30 percent of Carter’s students who are participating, it’s a chance for closure at the end of a tumultuous year, Carter said.

Social Justice Solutions

Four of Carter’s students presented to a panel of educators this past Wednesday afternoon over Zoom.

Rowan King argued that there should be stricter laws around hate crimes and closer watch over hate groups. Saad Ourodjeri offered individuals options for countering Islamophobia. Adriana Careno Sanchez analyzed the Trump administration’s family separation policy and its effects on child psychology, with the help of translations by bilingual teacher Ricardo Rodriguez.

Unlike her three peers, Hoheb decided to create a documentary instead of a slideshow.

“A slideshow couldn’t make you feel the emotion of what’s happening. A documentary is a better way to get that across,” Hoheb said.

According to the panelists, Hoheb nailed this goal.

“That was unbelievable — absolutely amazing. I’m teary. I am so impressed with not only the message that you got across but the way you did it,” said math teacher Barbara Crowley.

Crowley suggested screening the documentary to a wider HSC audience.

The documentary layered infographics, footage of protests and pictures of those killed by police officers with narration, a speech by Malcolm X and Childish Gambino’s song ​“This Is America.”

Hoheb provided four solutions that could reduce police-perpetrated violence. Hoheb argued that police departments should spend more time training to de-escalate conflict and implement policy changes that have worked elsewhere. She said that cities should decrease police funding and create independent committees to investigate cases of police brutality.

Defunding police departments have become a rallying cry in recent protests both in New Haven and nationwide. Hoheb explained that it was a necessary step in shifting power from police departments to communities whose trust they have broken.

“We have to change their financial power to wake them up and get them to listen,” Hoheb said.

The documentary ends with a video of two toddlers, one black, one white, juxtaposed with audio of a distraught man screaming about police brutality.

“We have to do better overall so our children and future generations will not have to live through the same horror,” Hoheb said.