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I have lived in Lawrence almost my entire life. I have been in the Lawrence Public School system my entire life. People like me, know this city and how it truly is. Whilst an outsider’s observations may prove useful at times, prejudice and bias do not. Lawrence has been my city of opportunities. I have met people, and had many accomplishments here. Reporters, seemed to always be focused on the negative parts of Lawrence that they fail to praise the city for what it has done for the up and coming youth. Various educational programs in place play a key part in some of these children’s lives, including my own at a time. The progress this city is trying to make always goes unseen. I wish, someone would do an expose on how amazing some of my peers and the rest of the youth are.

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All right, so I know Lawrence hasn’t been the best city out there for a while now. We have our corrupt mayor, corrupt school system, and corrupt streets, yeah, yeah, I get that. What I don’t get is when somebody from the outside decides to criticize this city for its negatives when they haven’t even gone out of their way to look at the positives. Jay Atkinson’s article in the Boston Magazine, which refers to Lawrence as the “City of the Damned,” basically states that we have little to no hope of surviving as a city. I’d like to think otherwise. I’ve been around the city for a while, and I’ve seen in for its good, and its bad. Yes, there is violence, poverty, and corruption. The city’s been in bad shape, and it has been looking bleak recently. But when I look around, I see a light in the darkness. I see artists, innovators, and leaders. There people who start as young as their middle school years in this city and start to make a difference, and those are the people who will bring the light of Lawrence’s potential into view for our neighboring cities. We’re in a city in need yes, in need of a movement, not all this negative criticism we’ve been getting from everyone around us. I believe the culture developed in this Immigrant City will eventually lead us into a renaissance, a reform in which we finally get the courage to move past the judgments laid upon us and turn Lawrence into a city we can be proud to be from.

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I have been in Lawrence Public Schools my entire life. I’m a senior at Lawrence High School, in the top 5% of my school, and have had many accomplishments throughout my academic career. I’ve never once walked into my school and felt that my life was in danger or that anything terrible was going to happen. Yes, there are negative aspects to this city, but it is only exaggerated by ignorant people who’d rather turn a blind eye to the good aspects and don’t bother to take a look at other cities. I guess it’s easier to be a negligent, lopsided, racially prejudiced journalist than one that actually looks at the facts.

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Ok, I really have to be honest about this article. After reading it, I thought this article was the most exaggerated piece of [BS] I’ve ever read. The only reason our city looks so bad is because of our mayor and the whole MCAS thing. I’ve lived in Lawrence for practically my whole life and I have never, ever witnessed or heard of any type of violence before. I mean, I heard it in newspapers, but then again, I hear the same type of [stuff] all over other towns too. My opinion of this town is that it’s just like any other town. There are good parts to it, and bad parts to it. But my cousin has told me of other towns that are worst than Lawrence in MA, and I’ve always felt safe living here. Beside, this article is too based on statistics and other crap. Overall, it’s just the morning news: over exaggerating the truth just to get people’s attention.