Dear Future President,

My name is Trei Martin-Hobson from Boston, MA and I’m a Senior at Community Academy of Science and Health and I also play basketball for the school as point guard. One of my main focuses is to go to college and major in Chemistry while also playing the game I am so passionate about: Basketball because it has done so much for me.  I’ve met a great group people from this game and it continues to allow me to open more doors.

As an African American citizen of the United States, I strongly believe in trying to eliminate the media's views on African American Crime within our television programming.  As an example, whenever I turn on the news, it is always showing negative images and actions of my fellow Black men instead of the positive actions. The media portrays African American communities as places of poverty and violence. One thing I can no longer tolerate is the constant bashing of people that look like me although we have serious problems such killing one another, these are exceptional cases.

 Let us not forget the thousands of cases in which other races are also doing some sort of violent actions against each other as well. Furthermore, I would like the media and you to show how there are other issues that are no reported by the media, such as people abusing their bodies with drugs such as meth, cocaine and heroine.   This has become an epidemic. I feel as though the media is wrong in a way in which it only shows the wrongful and shameful acts of the African American and never sheds light on what we do as a people to help advance our society.

 I would like to leave you with this and say, media is POWERFUL; whatever you put on can change a person’s perception of a group of people. I abhor the media when it prefers to show how my people die and go to jail, rather than graduating or positively contributing to the community.

          Sincerely Trei,