On April 3rd, Dale Connelly and Emily Krumberger from KFAI came in and worked with Spectrum on something new: podcasting. After a quick session on podcasting basics, the staff went about creating their own podcasts, one of the topics being political correctness in our senior speeches.
Krumberger is an AmeriCorps volunteer at KFAI. Connelly is famous for being on the Minnesota Public Radio for over 30 years, and is now the News Directors for KFAI, 90.3 FM, a Minneapolis community radio. Connelly said that he believes that podcasting is the future of radio for the next generation.
Molly Apple ‘14, Nolan Lindquist ‘14, Clare Flanagan ’14, Iman Pakzad ‘14, and Janhawi Kelkar ‘13 discussed senior speeches and political correctness. They collectively brought up a variety of sentiments concerning this issue. Each answered his or her own question presented by Apple.
We, as the student body of Blake, are cautious about respecting each other and our respective cultural and racial identities, but as Pakzad observed, many of us feel the restrictions in our community due to a fear of causing offense. Flanagan reflected that the speeches concerning political correctness were less likely to receive a standing ovation precisely because the audience members don’t want to offend anyone in particular by standing in support of the message.
The controversy around political correctness at Blake exists because some students believe that there is not enough political correctness while others believe that there needs to be much less. But this topic itself is not discussed too often.  Therefore, as Kelkar said, we can start our discussions with the senior speeches we hear.  Visit www.blakespectrum.org to tune in!