AWOL - Issue 4

AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE » WINTER 2009 » ISSUE 004

COVER PHOTO An intersection o f old and new — construction in DC’s Penn Quarter in 2005. The site is now home to a McDonalds and $250,000 lu xu ry condos.

DIVIDED This issue’s theme is “Divided.” We explore d iv i­ sion in the intersecting spaces o f culture, politics, and economics, capturing problems th a t remain stagnant and polarized in our country and on our campus: John Ely interrogates the underlying as­ sumptions o f division. AWOL correspondent Robbie Cavooris reports from Argentina on shifting terrain in South Am erican politics. Emily Reid explains AU’s co-opting o f the dream art history classroom.

And Delaney Rohan and Jamie Smolen lead the is­ sue w ith exhaustive reportage from the voices o f AU’s custodial workers. We hope this magazine w ill illu m in a te resonating issues in national and cam­ pus life, and invigorate efforts to overcome the d ivi­ sions laid out in these pages.

EDITORS: EDITOR AT LARGE: Bobby Allyn EDITOR IN CHIEF: Chris Lewis MANAGING EDITOR: Amberley Romo DESIGN EDITOR: Jessica Taich SECTION EDITORS: John Ely, Alex Burchfield, Kekie Pegher COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR: Seth Shamon

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS: Katie Le/eure, Jessica Taich

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Meghan Sweeney, Chris Lewis

AWOL STAFF WRITERS:

LIKE A STORY? HATE A STORY?

Sarah Allen, Brotuyn Flores, Suzanne Monsiuais, Richard Phillips

W ant to jo in AWOLl’ W rite to us: awolau@gmail.com

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

Support/Affiliations:

Robbie Cauooris, Kaity Chapman, Peter Harrison, Mike Lally, Kyla Nouell, Carly Oboth, Nora Pullen, Emily Reid, Delaney Rohan, Jamie Smolen, Steue Spires, Isaac Stone

AWOL is published w ith support from Campus Progress / Center for American Progress (online at CampusProgress.org) and the support o f AU Student Activities,

SHOUTS FROM THE CORNER 3

PASSING THOUGHTS COLUMN: DIVISION by John Bly

9 MISSING THE BOAT by Richard Phillips

Division: is it something we can fight?

3 WOMEN ATHLETICS: ALWAYS THROUGH A DUDE’S LENS

11 BARRY FARM: A DEVELOPMENT PLAN SHROUDED IN UNCERTAINTY

From working-class Pennsylvania to Tenleytown

5 MONEY WOES: FINANCIAL AID AT AU

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by Kekie Pegher The steep cost o f college

by Delaney Rohan and Jamie Smolen

The ties between poverty and obesity

UNCIVIL WAR by Shay Longtain The fa ll o f “we" in American politics

1 9 V.I.P. PROSPIES DISPLACE ART HISTORY

by Emily Reid Prospective students get the red carpet treatm ent

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Benefits, unions, corporations, and A.U.’s employee underclass

CLUB PROFILE: INVISIBLE CHILDREN

by Kaity Chapman Child trafficking in Uganda

Am erican troops have a continent up in arms

ARAMARK AT AU: THE SEARCH FOR SOLIDARITY

7 A PAINFUL PARADOX by Sarah Allen

A M arxist in the belly o f the beast

W hat w ill happen after the bulldozers?

13 THE U.S. IN COLOMBIA: SPLITTING SOUTH AMERICA by Robbie Cauooris

PROFESSOR PROFILE: RICHARD CAMBRIDGE

by Nora Pullen

by Alex Burchjield

by Brotuyn Flores It ’s not ju s t biological

5 ALONG CLASS LINES: THE CULTURAL DIVIDE by Bobby Allyn

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The Eagle, “Sex-perimentation,” and How Progressives Missed the Boat

21 AWOLNEWSWIRE w h a t the m ainstream media should be telling you

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ARBITRARY NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE GROWS BLOODY by Suzanne Monsiuais Letts, Anderson, Hughes, and the loathsomeness o f hum an hate

PASSING THOUGHTS COLUMN:

DIVISION

By John Bly

he “obelus." That short horizontal line and the two dots it separates introduced division to us as just another m ath­ ematical function early in our childhood. As we grew older, we began to see division didn’t solely occur between numbers. It parted families and carved up cities; it dissected countries into classes and political factions; it separated the world into haves and have-nots. It was the blade of the guillotine and the bayonet; it formed barbed wire fences, cement walls, and imaginary lines on maps; it tore apart atoms. Division was no longer performed solely on paper. It became a pervasive and ugly social fact.

Yet, is it something we can fight? Genocides, religious cru­ sades, Manifest Destiny and fascism—all are engendered by di­ vision and its opposite. Inherent in each is a lust for unity and togetherness. We tend to think of community as a positive thing, ignoring that every group, precisely because it is together, ex­ cludes and sets itself apart from others. At the same time, a group suppresses w ithin itself the different identities, people, sub­ groups, actions, and ideas that threaten its own cohesion. It is easy to see that the separation of one into many is violent. What remains less obvious is the violence im plicit in any attempt to force many into one.

To progress towards a world less rent by dichotomy, we must recognize and reject what up to now has been silent­ ly assumed: the idea of a whole—a one—that can be either gathered or divided, then given specific boundaries. Yes, it is boundaries that we must begin to question: those physically erected between countries, those socially constructed preclud­ ing some Americans the right to marry, and those ideologi­ cally construed between terrorists and freedom fighters. They all prevent us from fully understanding one side or the otherespecially the Other, being so different from ourselvesand each must be opened up so that there is possibility for dialogue and movement.

We speak and think of ideas as fixed and well-defined. We need to appreciate that ideas do not stand alone, but influence and are informed by other ideas. We mince words as though they had only one meaning, a single concept to which they exclusively and unequivocally refer. We have closed off and set limits. We have created boundaries.

To at once oppose and move beyond this, we should look to what French philosopher Jacques Derrida calls plus d'un, literally, both more than one and no more one. It is a little heady, but has very simple implications. The mosf relevant may be that ideas are nei­ ther frozen, monolithic, nor homogeneous. W ithin each lie con­ tradictions and possibilities that w ill remain unexplored until we open up the space to address them.

Every part of life is divided. There are divisions between.

“It is easy to see th a t the separation o f one into m any is v io le n t W hat rem ains less obvious is the violence im plicit in an y a tte m p t to force m any into one. ”

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around, within, and among us. It is not unification that w ill solve this, but openness; not cohesiveness but connectedness. Progress cannot be realized solely through construction, because struc­ tures enclose and obstruct. It is necessary to take our institutions (political, social, economic, and linguistic, among others) and re­ move inner and outer walls to create space—to alter and form them in such a way as to keep their meanings, processes, and possibilities open-ended. • John Bly is a junior studying philosophy, environmental studies, and international relations. He is a section editor ofAWOL.

WOMEN ATHLETICS:

ALWAYS THROUGH A DUDE’S LENS

By Bronwyn Flores

n theory, nothing in athletics is up for debate. You either win or lose. You’re either faster or slower. But somehow, once the characteristic of “gender” is introduced, these standards of merit turn to retrograde stereotypes. For instance, an athletic guy is a “jock.” An athletic girl, on the other hand, can be any number of things—softball players are “dykes,” rugby players are “butch” and cheerleaders, dancers and gymnasts are “hot.”

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Shouts from the Comer are concise but hard-hitting pieces that combine solid reporting w ith an editorial spark.

A 2005 National Institute on Drug Abuse study found that five percent of high school girls, compared to about seven per­ cent of boys, admitted to using anabolic steroids at least once.

Those girls that continue to use steloids during their adult life are judged more for their appearance than for how it affects their athleticism. On the bro side, the steroid debate is framed in some­ what legitimizing terms: Do they give an unfair advantage or is the game just changing? Whereas discussions of women and ste­ roids is likely to garner a “gross,” “ew,” or “look at her jaw!” The at­ tempt to mask physical differences backfires. Women try to m ini­ mize the difference between them and their male competitors, but instead just end upbeing further marginalized.

While some women in sports are dismissed as too masculine, others are ousted for their fem ininity - “too pretty” to be taken se­ riously. Consider the case of ESPN personality Erin Andrews. She is a young, established professional sports journalist striving to succeed at a network that is run, geared toward, and stocked full of men. Never mind that. She has covered professional hockey, college football, professional basketball, and minor league base­ ball. But there’s one problem: she’s a hot blonde and alumna of the University of Florida dance team. If that wasn’t enough, a stalker filmed her naked in her hotel room and leaked it for all the world to drool over. Despite her worthy accomplishments, she w ill be forever known in the stereotype-charged world of sports as “that ESPN girl w ith the naked video.” • Bronujyn Flores is a junior majoring in print journalism and political science.

PHOTO;BUZZDEMON.COM

Men and women already have certifiable biological differ­ ences which distinguish them in a field determined by physical abilities — do there need to be any more? In athletics, it seems so. Female athletes are stereotyped by merits of attractiveness or resemblance to their “dude” counterparts.

Appearance in athletics didn’t seem so, for lack of a better word, apparent until South African track star Caster Semenya won the 1500 meter and 800 meter races at the World Champion­ ships in Athletics in August. Still new to competitive running, she cut a jaw-dropping 25 seconds from her best 1500 meter time and eight seconds from her best 800 meter time, a feat most runners spend years striving for. When Semenya won both events, two possibilities surfaced; either she’s juicing or she’s a he.

In the end, it was discovered that Semenya was indeed a man, at least on the inside. Externally, she had female body parts.

Internally, she had male testes, which produced the hormone tes­ tosterone that arguably gave her an unfair advantage. But even when questions surrounding her gender were answered, some still wondered, “well, what if she was a girl?”

Perhaps her gender wouldn’t have been questioned if she hadn’t taken home the gold. Or maybe it wouldn’t have been questioned if she cut a more socially acceptably feminine figure.

But her victory and her masculine appearance shed light on the greater issue: females that can stack up against the males are either questioned or seen as not feminine.

Some girls w ill go to great lengths just to be taken seriously as a competitor. Sure, male swimmers shave their body hair and wrestlers shed amazing water weight, but just like their male counterparts, girls resort to injecting steroids, too. The difference is that men use steroids to break world records, whereas women use them to maybe make it in the books. Maybe.

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2003 4

ALONG CLASS LINES: THE CULTURAL DIVIDE

By Bobby Allyn

university has given me a sense of otherness.

Coming to AU, I had never traveled out of the Mid-Atlantic, the latest issues of the Neiu Yorfeer or Harper’s never appeared on my fam ily’s coffee table, and I thought every working person got paid by the hour (seriously, I didn’t know what a “salary” was).

College is supposed to be a time of reinvention, a time when stu­ dents discover who they are and plot career paths, but for me, and the droves of other AU students from working class backgrounds, it can be a time of social readjustment.

I didn’t know what it was like to skip to Europe w ith my parents, enjoy the company of doctors and lawyers, and I didn’t have the kind of historical and literary inheritance that students with well-read, educated parents had. (This is not to discount my self-education and stellar middle-and secondary-schools, but the kind of intelligence acquired from something as simple as having books around a house and parents who can, at any time, serve as human-encyclopedias helps you intellectually expand in ways which are hard to quantify.)

When I arrived at AU, I didn’t want to reveal to my new friends that I wasn’t well-traveled and sometimes didn’t understand them, so I acted like I was in-the-know, hoping they wouldn’t realize my cultural fluency was a masquerade. To avoid alien­ ation, I tried “culturally passing.” In Border Crossings: Working-Class Encounters In Higher Education, Richard Greenwald and Elizabeth A. Grant describe the experience as: “Feeling elation for having ‘made it ’ but, at the same time, despair, for not truly fitting in ... Working-class students recognize early on how socially unpre­ pared they are for college.” , Surveying a class of thirty-five students in a freshman semi­ nar, the ethnic diversity is immediately apparent. But the socio­ economic, invisible. Glass, through the access to resources and the accumulation of cultural capital, is prevalently articulated

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AMERICAN VlAy OF LIFE MAEAZINE

at AU, but rarely discussed. For example, food: the way you talk about it, to a certain extent, can illuminate your class back­ ground. This seems banal and innocent enough. But how and why you know about food, besides your geography, is a question that interrogates your underlying assumptions. Little did you know — or maybe you do know — that most foods other than the typical American staples are reserved for the upper-middle class. Caille en Sarcophage anyone?

Students analyze class as a subject of scholarship, but not as many consider it a human reality; they’ll rush to enroll in sociol­ ogy and cultural anthropology courses, yet most take more time memorizing the areas of intersectionality than they do trying to understand working class folks.

Confronting uncomfortable realities, like not being able to pay for dinner when out with friends and having parents who don’t know what the LSATs or MCATs are, let alone give advice about them, is part of the working class divide. And since the dif­ ference isn’t always visible, it isn’t difficult for students to pass - but it is ultim ately insincere and self-destructive.

For working class students, the hurdles are high from the start.

College tuition fees have risen 375% since 1980 and cuts in state funding for higher education are rampant. Pell Grants, based entirely on financial need and a way schools try to accom­ modate students from lower-income backgrounds, have been fro­ zen at $4,050 since 2003. That’s the maximum yearly award. This year, as a part of President Obama’s American Recovery and Re­ investment Act, the annual award increased by $600, the equiva­ lent to, in many cases, the tab for a semester’s bookload. So just making it to a college campus is a daunting and often financially insurmountable task for many working class families. Commu­ nity colleges and state universities have given students without trust funds and disposable parental checkbooks a chance to pur­ sue the American Dream of higher education. But culture trumps economics. As Greenwald and Grant suggest, “[The] working class has jobs, not careers - their work is not geared toward social mo­ bility. [They are] paid wages, not salaries.”

It’s not that the working class lack motivation or the capac­ ity to engage in rigorous academic study, but they need to earn money to pay bills and stake financial independence early on. Ad­ ditionally, there is no social expectation of college attendance in many working class families. In fact, many working class parents encourage their kids to jum p into the workforce, as it would add an additional income to the family. But when a working class stu­ dent is inspired to enroll, the local community college appears to be the only financially viable option. The retention and gradua­ tion rates at many of these institutions, in part due to small cof­ fers, understaffed faculty, and the high levels of commuting stu­ dents, are dismal. However, when a blue-collar student starts at a competitive institution, worlds collide.

AU should implement a program pioneered at The University of Wisconsin-Madison to address campus-wide cultural divided­ ness. At Madison, a group of working-class students launched the Working Glass Student Union (WCSU) which offers peer-to-peer support spaces for working class, first generation, and non-traditional students. The Union also organizes educational workshops which specialize in training the majority of the student body on

class issues. Madison’s student government funds the WCSU, and the program is tremendously successful. AU certainly has the student interest and university resources for such a program to flourish. It now is up to students and faculty to vocalize their in ­ terest and for Student Activities and SGA to support the effort.

An AU Working Class Student Union would address the social realm of the working-class divide head-on. As put by Greenwald and Grant, “If students knew that ‘people just like them’ exist in places like this, we could better serve as role models and mentors for them.”

But it needs to more than rousing discussions among classaligned students. Making student biographies a part of the class­ room so that fellow students can gain insight into the unique, diverse backgrounds of their peers would be useful and instruc­ tive. And something as simple as incorporating class difference into curricula that are geared toward analyzing diversity would be another step toward inclusion. This would help AU students of all backgrounds celebrate their class as a part of their interesting and multi-layered identity and not feel forced to “pass” or squirm under social pressure. • Bobby A llyn is a senior studying philosophy abroad in Goteborg, Sweden, and is the founder o/AWOL. A version o f this essay appeared in the October 11, 2009 issue o f The Chronicle o f Higher Education.

MONEY WOES: FINANCIAL AlO AT AU

By Kelcie Pegher It costs $47,386 to attend AU this year, a six percent increase from last year’s tuition. W ith a tuition hike during the recession, many students struggling to finance their education are caught in a bind.

This figure, noted on AU’s website includes tuition at $34,456; room at $8,630; and board at $4,300. W ith the cost of college ris­ ing, sophomore Kayla Herrington is worried about how she’ll pay for the next two years of college. Looming over her undergraduate career is the prospect of 25 years of debt repayment. How is she going to alleviate her money woes?

“I would love to go into the Peace Corps after college,” she said. (The Peace Corps has a program for reimbursing college loans where volunteers may apply for deferment of federal Staf­ ford, Perkins and Consolidation loans and partial cancellation of Perkins Loans.) “But if I don’t get that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

While AU retention rates are high, AU students are wonder­ ing what to make of balancing their budget and attempting to re­ ceive a top-notch college education. In a recent e-mail sent out by the university, the financial aid office noted a six percent increase in financial aid applications. Though a college education is more important in the present day than ever in the past, the widening gap between tuition and a middle class fam ily’s income makes it more difficult to reasonably afford.

Congress is attempting to advance a bill called the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which the federal government

would use the next ten years to invest $40 billion by cutting subsidies for private loan companies and funneling the cash to Pell Grants. According to themiddlecrass.org, TUITION: thirty years ago Pell Grants were able to $34,456 cover 77 percent of the cost of attending the average four-year public school, but today ROOM: it covers only 35 percent, failing to keep up $8,630 with today’s college prices.

Struggling students are chock fu ll of BOARO: suggestions for reform. A student who pre­ fers to remain anonymous discussed what $4,300 she had suggested for changing the finan­ cial aid system. Though she comes from an affluent family, with eight siblings, she pointedly asked financial aid to consider how much a family can afford, not just their as­ sets. Though a student’s family may have an expensive car, anom­ alies — like a family with nine children attending private univer­ sities — can conflate black and white methods for determining financial need.

As most know, the bundles of FAFSA and other required doc­ uments the financial aid office — to be fair, the federal govern­ ment — requires can get complicated and even make the most prudent students miss opportunities. W ith three brothers in col­ lege and four siblings attending a private high school, her family is already over-extended. When this student asked the financial aid office if she had sent in all the appropriate forms, she was given a thumbs up. However, she didn’t realize that sibling enroll­ ment forms were available, and she missed an opportunity for a lot more potential aid.

Another issue brought up by students: who is paying for the loans? Kayla Herrington argues that it is unfair to assume that loans are being paid by parents. Many students feel that financial aid should take into account who w ill be paying back the loan post-college, the parents or the student.

When a scholarship that Herrington had received didn’t pro­ cess, she was left with a stop on her account and a $6,000 balance.

On her Student Snapshot, she was unable to figure out what had happened until she realized her scholarship had never been put in. She said there should more accountability w ithin the financial aid and student accounts department. W ith a simple change in her Student Snapshot, her records were altered, w ith no paper trail to track the changes.

“Honestly, if something as important as a scholarship falls through, send a letter,” she said. A $6,000 change in what she was paying forced her to scramble for money on the heels of the new semester. In a single parent household with siblings, this can be a tremendous load to shoulder.

Students at AU hope for ways to make the financial aid bu­ reaucracy more streamlined and transparent. As long as a life­ long debt repayment remains the norm, financial aid should at least make it easy for students to figure it all out. •

AU COSTS

Despite several e-mails and phone calls, financial aid could not be reached for comment on this article.

Kelcie Pegher is a sophomore studying TK. She is a section editor of AWOL. WWW.AmLAU.ORE oWINTER 2009 B

A PAINFUL PARADOX

By Sarah Allen

n the DC metro area in 2006, 24 percent of adults were obese and 19 percent were below the poverty line. This is no coinci­ dence. Poverty and obesity sometimes occur simultaneously— in the same city, neighborhood, or even household. Lower-class families are particularly susceptible to obesity because of the added risk factors connected w ith poverty, according to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), a national non-profit working to eliminate hunger and poverty.

The relationship between poverty and obesity has played a part in the on-going health care reform debates. The Kaiser Fam­ ily Foundation found that among the 46 m illion people in Amer­ ica who lack medical insurance, about two-thirds earn less than twice the poverty level. Slate’s Daniel Engber calls this “a dense web of reciprocal causality.” In a September 28 piece on this topic, he wrote: “Anyone who’s fat is more likely to be poor and sick.

Anyone who’s poor is more likely to be fat and sick. And anyone who’s sick is more likely to be poor and fat.”

The connection is multi-faceted. First, many low-income families face lim ited dietary options. Flealthy organic foods avail­ able to the middle-and upper-classes are not always accessible in lower-income neighborhoods, let alone affordable. Not everyone can fit Whole Foods in their budget. Thus the expense of eating healthy contributes to poor nutrition.

“The ‘Whole Foods idea’ really misses [low income popu­ lations] and ignores them for the large part," said Dr. Robert E. Lynch, a pediatrician from St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, one of the top hospitals in St. Louis.

He said that numerous nutritional challenges result from poverty; struggling mothers, for example, often dilute m ilk for their kids w ith water to make it last longer.

Poor nutrition is only part of the problem. In addition, lowincome families face lim ited access to healthcare, poor physical education in public schools, and stress resulting from economic instability. Parents often skip meals in order to feed their children, and then overeat later—which contributes to both hunger and

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“Anyone who’s fat is more likely to be poor and sick.

Anyone who’s poor is more likely to be fat and sick.

And anyone who’s sick is more likely to be poor and fat.”

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obesity. Lower-income families also have less time to cook meals and exercise.

So these families go to fast-food joints like McDonalds or Burger King and buy high-calorie, sugar-laden meals for their children because they are filling and affordable.

On top of all of this, the media may be exacerbating the problem.

“Parents can try and instill in children some sense of nu tri­ tion and understanding,” said Kathryn Montgomery, who directs the Project on Youth, Media, and Democracy through AU’s Center for Social Media. “They are going against a flood of highly persua­ sive marketing machinery that is teaching the exact opposite.”

She also said that parents are far more detached from the rising digital media culture—a culture that should also be equally responsible for educating young people.

Parents want to feed their children the healthiest foods; chil­ dren want to eat what they see marketed to them. Often, the de­ sires don’t match up.

The result: children in low-income families have a higher risk of obesity resulting from advertising and tight budgets which forces their parents to put unhealthy food on the dinner table.

Abolishing the fast food media bombardment is a pipe dream, but organizations like Bread for the City are trying to fight the poverty-obesity paradox. For thirty-nine years, they have been providing food, medical care, and legal services in the DC metro area for free.

Operated by volunteers and funded by benefactors, this or­ ganization distributes grocery bags fu ll of nutritious meals to struggling families, which include fresh produce. Bread for the City also funds projects in DC that grow produce locally and save money.

It’s a step, but can more progress be made? Lynch thinks so.

“I think education is the number one tool,” he said.

“Low-income families ought to think collectively. There are movements to have farmers markets; there are collectives and cooperatives,” Montgomery said. “I w ill hope that they would join together w ith other families, because that’s how we get change.”* Sarah Allen is a sophomore studying foreign languages and communication media.

UNCIVIL WAR

By Shay Longtain

n September 12, 2009, our city was under attack. Crowds of “Tea Party Patriots,” clad in conspicuously patriotic clothing, descended upon Washington brandishing picket signs and lawn chairs. One sign read “We came unarmed: THIS time.”

While the irony of a “patriot” threatening to overthrow his government may elicit a chuckle in some, gestures like these are representative of a frightening new development in American politics. Dissent has always been fundamental to the democratic

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process, but this new fire that has ignited under the far-right dur­ ing Barack Obama’s nascent presidency threatens to undermine American unity and derail dialogue efforts at a time when our nation needs it most.

Sam Hagedom, treasurer for the AU College Democrats, ap­ preciates the disputatious nature of American democracy, but ex­ presses concern regarding these recent trends of discord.

“America has a tradition of lively — but civil — debate,” Hagedorn said. “Sometimes I worry we’re slipping away from that.”

From town hall outbursts to flamboyant picket signs, a num ­ ber of the methods used to express dissent in recent months are anything but civil. There is a difference between questioning the policies of your president and questioning his legitimacy to govern. Barack Obama has been the target of an unprecedented number of these attacks, some of which contain undertones of violence. The ridiculous argument of the “birthers” that President Obama was in fact born in Africa preceded a deluge of subse­ quent, equally ludicrous accusations. He’s Muslim. He’s a ter­ rorist. A communist. A fascist. Another Hitler. The only thread of cohesion uniting these accusations is the intent to make Ameri­ cans fear their president. Which, given the gravity of the issues currently facing our nation and the world, is far from patriotic.

Michael Steele, the chairman for the Republican National Committee, took a different view in his debate w ith Harold Ford Jr. in Bender Arena earlier this year. According to Steele, such at­ tacks are simply evidence that “the people have largely spoken” in expressing their discontent w ith the government’s “reckless” approach to health care reform.

The bitter partisanship of late has exacerbated existing trends of political polarization in America. According to Brook­ ings Institution, the Washington-based think tank, modern trends of political polarization can be traced as far back as the civil rights movement. However, the ideological gap between Democrats and Republicans is currently at its “highest level in over a cen­ tury,” and today there is “literally no ideological overlap between the parties.”

This is bad news for a nation sorely in need of solutions. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes, “There is no more ‘we’ in American politics at a time when ‘we’ have these huge

problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that ‘we’ can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective ‘we’ at work.” At times, it can appear that partisan fervor has reduted important issues to polit­ ical games of tug-of-war — what Paul Krugman has termed “poli­ tics of spite.” In this combative atmosphere of politics, the issue in itself seems to be less important than who “wins” and who “loses.”

After reading Farhad Manjoo’s True Enough, every AU fresh­ man is aware that polarization in America stems in part from our existence in an information age. People tend to seek out like-minded opinions that reinforce existing world views. Today’s amazing chorus of voices on the airwaves and on the Web makes this process of self-validation easier than ever before. It wasn’t always this way. “There used to be a time when everyone watched Walter Cronkite. Everyone was seeing the same stories,” Sam Hagedom said.

“The ridiculous argument o f the “birthers” that President Obama was in fact born in Africa preceded a deluge o f subsequent, equally ludicrous accusations.

He’s Muslim. He’s a terrorist. A communist. A fascist.

Another Hitler.” ^ This polarization is, to some extent, a cultural phenomenon.

The GOP base is overwhelmingly white and aging — according to a Gallup poll conducted in May of 2009, 89 percent of Repub­ licans identify as white. Furthermore, a recent poll conducted by Pew Research Center reveals that Obama’s approval rating among white seniors is only 39 percent. According to SIS professor Gary Weaver, who teaches a course on cross-cultural communication, increasing political tensions are partly a reactionary cultural backlash to social evolution in America. For the white and elderly (especially male) contingent of the population, the election of a black president, combined w ith the social shifts of the modern age, is cause for alarm.

David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the Times, sees a similar cultural resistance but denies the importance of race.

Instead, Brooks sees a modern populist movement in the vein of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, characterized by fam il­ iar rhetoric “for the ordinary people and against the fat cats and the educated class; for the small towns and against the financial centers.” According to Brooks, Obama’s government of the “highly educated” was guaranteed to spark a populist backlash, and that such movements by nature are always “ill mannered, conspirato­ rial and over the top.”

Regardless of its causes, political polarization is dividing America. If we as a nation are to meet the challenges that face us, it is necessary for Democrats and Republicans alike to recog­ nize that regardless of political affiliation, we are all driven by the desire to better America. Once this bridge is established, we may shift the tone of our national debates and replace detrimental hostility with spirited collaboration. • Shay Longtain is a freshman studying International Relations.

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2003 8

FIELD REPORTS

UNPOPULAR PROGRESSIVE OPINIONS COLUMN ta p o rtu g u c s

MOST political movements, especially those w ith ambitious or even radical goals, require some level of confidence in their ide­ als in order to function. Yet too often, a movement’s confidence can morph into stiff rules that are disconnected from the com­ plexities of the real world. The recent controversy over The Eagle’s sex column entitled ‘“ Sex’-perimentation defines Welcome Week: Don’t let hook-ups be break ups,” shows one area where the pro­ gressive movement’s response is lacking. In this case, the progres­ sive movement’s reflex approach to issues of rape led it to over­ look the column’s real affront to progressive ideals.

There is much to criticize in the column, but the passage that has caused the most controversy is the opening line: “It’s three in the morning. You have it inside you right noiu. It kind of hurts ...You thought you would never be that girl, but there you are, in your drunken haze.’’

After the startling introduction, the rest of the essay ad­ vises this hypothetical freshman female college student that she should resist the urge to date her drunken hook-up partner.

She should instead pursue other men whose positive inner quali­ ties are more discernible outside their horny drunken Welcome Week haze.

A firestorm erupted after the article was printed. Sarah Brown, the Director of Women’s Initiative, called out the article for normalizing rape. The Eagle fired back with a tactless editorial, saying that W I’s response represented a “knee-jerk reaction”that they should know “better than to cry w o lf’ on an issue as critical as rape. , A second letter to the editor from a member of A ll’s Sexual Assault Working Group explained that sexual assault is defined as “any conduct of a sexual nature ... without consent.” The letter went on to argue that if a person is intoxicated they simply can­ 9 AMERICAN

(WKOF LIFE MAGAZINE

not give consent; in the scenario depicted by the column, sexual assault occurred. The second letter was authoritative in its defini­ tion of terms, but applying these terms to real-world situations is sometimes difficult.

M P £ , CONSENT, AND THE POWER OF WORDS The campus discussion of the ‘“ Sex’-perimentation” column focused exclusively on rape. But looking at our hypothetical wom­ an, it is almost certainly the case that she did not believe rape had occurred. Her position is not uncommon among women con­ fronted with the technical definition of rape.

A seminal survey by University of Arizona public health pro­ fessor Mary Koss found that one in four college women have ex­ perienced rape or attempted rape. The most perplexing part of Koss’s survey is its finding that nearly 73 percent of the women who were raped did not believe what happened to them consti­ tuted rape or attempted rape at all. In another major study, the Department of Justice found that roughly 3.5 percent of college women experience sexual assault in a given year. This is dramati­ cally higher than the rate of reported college sexual assaults — under 0.04 percent between 2005 and 2007. (AU’s numbers are congruent — about one reported sexual assault per 3000 female students.) These numbers suggest a non-report rate approaching 99 percent.

Why is the reported rate of rape so disconnected from the counts found in surveys?

Field Reports dig deep into stories, tracking down witnesses, activists, victims, a n d PYDprts to fin d th e truth behind the headlines and emotion behind the ledes.

First, there is a lack of awareness about what constitutes rape or a reportable sexual offense, as indicated by the contro­ versy over the Eagle column. Also, many women likely hesitate to report acquaintances or friends who have committed crimes against them. Others fear that if they choose to press charges, they w ill be ensnared in a drawn out legal process which w ill pub­ licly shame them. Finally, victims often internalize blame for the aggression committed against them. For example, many of the women surveyed who have experienced sexual assault cited ‘miscommunication’ as the cause.

But progressives must be conscious that despite all this, some of the non-report rate is due to real disagreement over what constitutes consent. Looking at subject of the sex column, it may be the case that the hypothetical victim both went into the night looking to have drunken sex and did not regret having it afterward. It’s not so clear, but that’s really the point.

“No means no,” of course, but that doesn’t mean that sexual violence has a simple definition. “The truth is that there is a gray area,” said Sarah Brown of Women’s Initiative. “Because sexual interactions are such personal experi­ ences, each individual experiences sex in a different way. What may feel like a violation of one’s body to one man or woman may not feel that way to another.”

That’s why Women’s Initiative erred in applying the defini­ tion of rape strictly rather than using finesse in their advocacy.

The term “rape” is extremely powerful, conjuring a fairly spe­ cific association in the minds of most people: an unexpected at­ tack by a frenzied male stranger who then violently penetrates a woman. This is the most prevalent image of rape, but i t ’s not the most common form that occurs. The statistics show that between 80-90 percent of rape victims knew their assailant beforehand.

This type of rape is usually referred to as “date rape” or “acquain­ tance rape.”

The primary motivation behind most criticism of The Eagle’s sex column was centered on educating students on campus that whether you called it a “drunken hook-up” or “acquaintance rape,” it is still rape nonetheless. The problem with this approach is that because of the charged nature of the word accusing a newspaper of legitimizing rape is a very serious charge. Given this, it ’s not surprising that the Eagle’s response was both unconstructive and defensive.

The concern here is a tactical one. How should progressive organizations use the word rape given its potency? The key is to use it when it can be constructive rather than accusatory. The point of our criticism should be to foster dialogue, not stifle it. To interrogate, not condemn.

A PROGRESSIVE RESPONSE The Nation recently called the surge in the popularity of sex columns a “radical progressive moment,” making it tricky for pro­ gressives to criticize them. We do not want to come off as oppos­ ing sex generally or alienate precisely the people sex columns are trying to educate.

According to Sara Bendoraitis, Director of the GLBTA Resource Center and professor of Gender and Violence, the best response is to “emphasize factual inaccuracies and to present an alternative opinion.” The sex column in The Eagle certainly war­ rants a strong progressive response, but what would the best strategy look like?

The proper response to the sex column would be to frankly recognize the real ambiguities that exist over drunken hook-ups.

Instead of making rape accusations, the progressive critique should object to the fact that the situation depicted in the Eagle column is normal.

This approach is best exemplified by Amanda Hess, who pens the Sexist column for Washington City Paper. She asks: “Why is it considered normal for women on campus to choose disappoint­ ing, painful, hazy sex?” Ironically, the answer to this question is also contained in the sex column itself It is not a coincidence, then, that the rest of the column en­ courages women to submit to men by laughing at their jokes and acting like the acquiescent, coy female caricature from Hol­ lywood movies. It is not a coincidence that the article assumes that women who participate in drunken hook-ups are looking for a relationship. Finally, it is not a coincidence that these same women who are being told drunken hook-ups are normal are si­ multaneously told that they should develop their “mystique” by withholding sex.

Both the article’s drunken hook-up scenario and its relation­ ship advice convey a disappointing statement on gender roles on college campuses today. Society holds gender as a dividing line, with each side replete w ith stereotypes and essential tropes. This artificial division between women and men is contradictory, dam­ aging, and oppressive.

It is this state of affairs that we progressives have to criticize, and to which we should present our more equitable alternative.

The first step, however, is abandoning our own rigid ideas and inflexible reactions in favor of nuance and constructive criticism.

From there we can talk about how to break down the divisions created by sexist stereotypes and create a society where we rec­ ognize individuals not sexes. •

“IT’S THREE IN THE MORNING. YOU HAVE IT INSIDE YOU RIGHT NOW. IT KIND OF HURTS ... YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD NEVER BE THAT GIRL, BUT THERE YOU ARE, IN YOUR DRUNKEN HAZE.'

Richard Phillips is a senior studying political science and an AWOL columnist.

2003 1 0

BARRY FARM: A DEVELOPMENT PLAN SHROUDED IN UNCERTAINTY

by Alex Burchfield / P hotograph by Chris Lewis

amel Richardson fiddled w ith his cell phone. Sitting around a developments of low-income youth in Southeast D.C. This week’s topic: the city’s plan to demolish and redevelop 654 houses in the table next to him were three girls who bantered and came in Barry Farm neighborhood. and out of the room as they pleased. Oreos, squeeze bottles In many ways, Barry Farm is a rough place to grow up. More of yogurt, and hot dogs lay scattered across the table. Anthony than half of the heads of households are listed as unemployed, Gualtieri, a Ph.D. candidate in the anthropology department at and the median income is $14,000. Richardson grew up in Barry AU, tried in vain to settle the students down. After ten minutes, Farm and went to Birney Elementary, the local public school. Re­ order was eventually restored. Gualtieri. who directs these weekly calling a conversation he had with an elementary school student, meetings, began going through the day’s agenda, chatted w ith Richardson said one of the toughest parts of living in a neigh­ students about their week and addressed any questions. borhood like Barry Farm is the psychological impact of pervasive Facilitating Leadership in Youth (FLY) is the non-profit behind violence on neighborhood youth. these meetings—a group promoting the educational and personal “Students shouldn’t have to say, ‘oh no, I have to get in the

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11 AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

“You never know, you could pull up to Barry Farm one day and find a bunch o f bulldozers there.”

house before dark because someone is going to shoot me.’”

Shanae Washington, who also attended the meeting, echoed Richardson.

“My mom grew up in Barry Farm and she said it ’s not the same anymore. It used to be a family oriented community. Every­ body took care of each other. But it ’s not like that any more. It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible place.”

The conditions in Barry Farm are in need of change. In the capital of the world’s wealthiest nation, third world problems lie right across the Anacostia River. The question is not whether the District is aware of the poverty in Southeast, but how the city pro­ poses to up lift its poorest neighborhoods, and what lies in store for residents.

The idea to renovate Barry Farm, along w ith neighboring housing projects Park Chester and Wade Road, was presented in 2005 by then-Mayor Anthony Williams. After a spike in vio­ lence and drug-related crimes culminated w ith the shooting of a 14-year-old girl in January 2004, the city government realized that something needed to change. Mayor Williams proposed the demolition of housing projects in poverty-ridden neighborhoods throughout D.C., replacing them w ith affordable housing for middle-income families to move into and poorer families to stay in. This would create a mixed-income community that lived in near identical housing units. The plan also sought to capitalize on 2005’s booming housing market by subsidizing certain units and maintaining others at market price; those who were able to afford the housing units could buy into the market, while lower-income families would be provided w ith affordable, subsidized homes.

Disregarding the concern over whether endemic violence can be quelled w ith bulldozers and incoming homeowners, the people who stand to see their homes demolished are worried. Making matters worse, the project appears to have no end in sight.

The largest concern among families has been the right to re­ turn to their redeveloped homes, which are being renovated un­ der the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development’s “New Communities Initiative,” a city-wide revitalization project.

They have released a 42-page document outlining the redevelop­ ment, detailed mostly w ith idyllic sketches of life in the future Barry Farm. Only a single paragraph and vague bar graph, hidden away on page 39, explain how long residents w ill be displaced.

Candace Hetchler, the communities and evaluations coordi­ nator at FLY, has been listening to the concerns of Barry Farm’s youth, and said that there is fear among residents whether “they w ill be able to find housing for their entire family, or if it ’ll be the same price that they’re paying now when they return.”

“It makes me nervous, because whenever you see a project like this at a standstill there may be something else going on be­ hind the scenes,” Hetchler said. “Then you never know, you could pull up to Barry Farm one day and find a bunch of bulldozers there.” She fears that developers are moving forward with the project, making decisions behind the backs of residents.

During the FLY meeting, the students complained about Mayor Adrian Fenty’s delivery of information about the halted re­

development process. Richardson was particularly frustrated by the information he had received.

“Gradually over nine months, they’re like ‘Oh we’re just go­ ing to move some people,”’ he said. ‘•Then they’re like, ‘Oh a lot of you won’t be able to come back.’ That was a year and a h alf later.

Then, ‘The majority of you all probably w ill have to go somewhere else; we’ll figure out where you can go.”

Fenty has deflected concerns about the opaqueness of the project. During a January 2008 press conference that announced another “New Communities” project in Columbia Heights, Fenty reiterated former Mayor W illiams’s promise that “Every resident may come back.”

But can they really? Throughout the mid-1990s, w ith the help of Hope VI funds under the Clinton administration, urban housing projects have been demolished and redeveloped w ith surprising success; however, in many cases, only a third of the original resi­ dents end up coming back. Jonathan O’Connell of the Washington Business Journal wrote last year that after the redevelopment of many low-income housing projects across the US, including the notorious projects of Cabrini-Green in Chicago and East Lake in Atlanta, less than one third of the original residents returned.

Anthony Gualtieri who was directing the meeting with the FLY students, also cited concerns about Fenty’s promise.

“The right of return issue is a big sticking point.” He alluded to public housing regulations that often bar applicants with a trou­ bled past. “Mayor Fenty said ‘Yes, you can go back if you qualify. If you can test negative for drugs; i f you don’t have a felony on your record; if you meet the requirements, whatever they may be.”

After four years of little to no headway in Barry Farm, the question stands: where is the project going from here? The an­ swer: nowhere too soon.

It is no longer 2005, and the plan to redevelop has h it a stag­ nant housing market. According to O’Connell, the prospects for encouraging middle-income families to move into Barry Farm look grim; the amenities and other human services that attract middle-income families are nonexistent. The money needed to subsidize public housing isn’t there either.

Asked in an e-mail about how changing economic conditions w ill affect Barry Farm, O’Connell offered a pessimistic prognosis.

“The economy, and the housing market in particular, has worsened dramatically,” he said. “Prospects for a turnaround are still better here than for almost any part of the country, but it is still very difficult to finance construction of any kind. In addition, the city has less money to put into the initiative because of falling tax revenues.”

But in the meantime, residents w ill continue to wait with their fingers crossed, hoping they won’t be permanently dis­ placed, and hoping the redevelopment w ill address their needs. A “New Communities” survey of Barry Farm youth found that em­ ployment and safety were the most pressing issues.

“You can fix it up, make it into condos, do whatever you want to do,” fly ’s Shanae Washington said. “But its not going to bring a big outcome until you figure out what the neighborhood actually wants; what the community actually wants.”

Alex Burchfield is a sophomore studying philosophy and international relations. He is an AWOL section editor.

m m jm u i u . o / i B » w ///T E ff 2009 1 2

“You’re not going to be able to control the Americans. This constitutes a grave clanger for peace in Latin America,” -Rafael Correa

President Obama will soon throw American troops deeper into the war-torn jungles of Colombia.

An agreement he recently signed called the US-Colombia De­ fense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), w ill allow American troops to operate in seven Colombian m ilitary bases for the next ten years. The US Forces, who currently work in only one base, are part of a mission to help Colombian troops in their fight against drug cartels, particularly those with links to the terrorist group known as the Revolution Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

News of the agreement has shaken South America, worsen­ ing relations between Colombia and its neighbors and distracting regional efforts at cooperation.

1 3 AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE MAGAZINE

enezuelan President Hugo Chavez has lead the opposition to the DCA since it was first reported by Colombian magazine Cambio in July. In a television appearance following the report, Chavez called the accord “a new aggression” against his nation. ‘‘They are surrounding Venezuela w ith m ilitary bases,” he said.

As Robert Pastor, AU professor and former US National Secu­ rity Advisor on Latin America, explained in an e-mail, “Chavez is worried that the US and Colombia might take action against him, and his closest allies in the region—Bolivia and Ecuador—support Chavez unequivocally.”

The DCA dominated the latest summit of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), an integration body in the style of the European Union that seeks to forge cooperation on the conti­ nent’s challenges. Mr. Chavez, along w ith Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Evo Morales of Bolivia, repeatedly denounced the plan.

“You’re not going to be able to control the Americans. This constitutes a grave danger for peace in Latin America,” Correa said. “They’re mobilizing for war,” Chavez added.

Uribe responded by arguing that the bases pose no threat to the region, and that it was a matter for Colombia to decide.

“The only focus that Colombia has is to end its internal war,” Uribe said.

While Chavez and his allies may be the most vocal opponents to the DCA, they are not alone. Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil and Michelle Bachelet of Chile have also criticized the agreement, a fact which, according to Pastor, should worry the White House.

“I do not believe they had opposed similar efforts in the past, so it might be related to the magnitude of the commitment and the failure of the US to do a credible job of briefing these countries as to its purposes,” he said.

In other words, a lack of US engagement, perhaps best illus­ trated when Obama declined an invitation from Lula de Silva to discuss the issue at a summit, is creating a sense of distrust that permeates beyond the Colombia-Venezuela border.

Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America department at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, said the White House had been rash in its handling of the issue.

“It has h u rt the Obama administration’s credibility in the re­ gion at a time when the administration was attempting to really set a different path in US-Latin American relations that was m ul­ tilateral, that involved working w ith allies,” she told The Washing­ ton Post.

The climate of wariness stemming from the bases has led uneasy nations to assuage their fears by investing in arms, ac­ cording to Roque Panas, a research associate for the issue track­ ing non-profit North American Congress on Latin America. He explained in an October 1 article that South America was already in the midst of an arms race, and that expanding the American m ilitary role in the region w ill exacerbate it.

“The increased US presence gives South American leaders an obvious reason to invest in their militaries. The lack of transpar­ ency in the negotiations over the base deal, which were conduct­ ed in secret and only addressed publicly after Cambio broke the story, did little to assuage the anxieties of leaders who interpret the US m ilitary as a threat.”

V

Panas’s analysis seems to be holding true; w ithin two months of finding out about the agreement, leaders were championing new weapons purchases. In September, Lula da Silva signed an agreement with France to buy foiflr attack submarines and 50 m ilitary transport helicopters, and opened negotiations to pur­ chase a fleet of French fighter planes. That same week, Chavez secured a $2.2 billion line of credit from Russia to buy tanks and rocket launch systems. Chavez explained his decision to buy the new weapons on his weekly television broadcast, saying, “We can guarantee Venezuela’s sovereignty, which is now threatened by the United States.”

An altercation last year highlighted the danger of this in ­ creased m ilitary spending as it brought three countries to the brink of war. In that incident, Colombian forces, acting on US in ­ telligence information, bombed and then raided a FARC camp in the Ecuadorian jungle, killing seventeen rebels. In the aftermath, Venezuela and Ecuador mobilized troops at their Colombian bor­ ders, called home their ambassadors in Bogota, and threatened war if a similar cross-border attack were to occur again. As all three of these nations strengthen their militaries, they may feel more inclined to act on such threats.

While some analysts hope that regional integration—that is, increased trade and cooperation—w ill prevent war, the DCA controversy seems to be weakening those hopes. Economic in ­ terdependence has already shrunk as Venezuela stopped issuing im port permits for Colombian goods in response to the Defense Cooperation Agreement. And political cooperation has been test­ ed as well, according to Paula Serna Salazar, a research associate with The Council on Hemispheric Relations, a DC think tank. Ser­ na argued that Colombia’s decision to ignore the the complaints of UNASUR has weakened faith in multilateralism.

“UNASUR has one position—they don’t want the bases,” she said. “And Uribe is saying, ‘I’m going to accept these bases, I don’t care about UNASUR.’” The result is an overall reduction in the value of such efforts at integration that might have acted as safe­ guards against war, she said.

The DCA has garnered little attention in the United States, despite the consequential implications of the agreement—it threatens to tear apart a region and deepen an arms race, yet other issues seem to have buried it. The American mainstream press mentioned the DCA only once in the month following the initial report in Colombia. In Britain by contrast, various BBC pub­ lications and London’s The Daily Telegraph mentioned the DCA fourteen times in the same time period. In Latin America, the is­ sue has been ubiquitous from the start, and many have formed strong opinions on it.

“I think the US government is a threat to all developing coun­ tries. That’s why I don’t feel comfortable with the bases so close to us,” said Tiago Fabris Rendelli, a Brazilian graduate student in Buenos Aires, Argentina.“They think the concept of democracy is only valid when it serves the US. When it ’s in the interest of other nations too, they don’t have eyes or ears for it.”

Robbie Cauooris is a junior, currently studying international re­ lations abroad in Argentina.

mw.Awoi/iv.o/iB

2009 14

by Delaney Rohan and Jamie Smolen

The typical AU student lives an economically- secure life on a tidy CAMPUS OF MATERIAL COMFORTS. B U T FOR THE 1 0 6 CAMPUS CUSTODIAL EMPLOYEES WHO DO THE TIDYING. THE PROSPECT OF A SECURE AND COMFORTABLE FUTURE REMAINS IN INDEFINITE PURGATORY. T h EY’RE CAUGHT BETWEEN A POWERFUL BUT SLUGGISH UNION AND A MULTINATIONAL CORPORATE SUBCONTRACTING BEHEMOTH, LEFT STRUGGLING TO OBTAIN THE

---------------------------- 1-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BENEFITS AND PERKS THAT MOST OTHER

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AILEMPLOYEES TAKE FOR GRANTED.

Continued on pg 17

WWW.AWOLAU.ORG ’’ WINTER 2 0 0 3 IB

FIELD REPORTS

need to pay us more money because now, life is too ex­ pensive,” said one Aramark employee at AU. “We need to pay for houses. I have children. I need to pay for babysitting. I have to pay for many things,” she said.

To protect the identities of employees who spoke out about their job conditions, all names have been withheld in this article.

Aramark, an employer of more than 260,000 and an indus­ try leader in custodial services, acquired the contract to provide housekeeping and custodial services at AU in 2001 after pur­ chasing another subcontracting company, according to Aramark spokesperson Karen Cutler. In 2008, the company enjoyed $12.4 billion in profits, operating in 22 countries for thousands of insti­ tutions, including over 500 college campuses.

While Aramark’s business has prospered, Aramark-operated facilities have been ground-zero for protests in Texas, Illinois, Cal­ ifornia, New York, Pennsylvania, and the District for what unions and employees contend are substandard labor policies. Now, em­ ployees at AU want their piece of the $12.4 billion.

I. THE BENEFITS “I can get health insurance, but it is not very good,” said an­ other worker. “It’s not worth it.”

According to the first employee, who has worked at AU for over a decade, no retirement program exists. “[Employees] go home and they don’t bring w ith them anything. No retirement.

Only social security,” she said.

The contract between Aramark and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU — the union that represents AU’s work­ ers) expired on September 30, launching an arduous process of renegotiation that could last up to three years. In the interim pe­ riod, employees w ill retain existing benefits including twelve sick days every year and some vacation time, according to an Aramark representative on campus.

“After thirteen years, they get twenty days of vacation. They have short-term disability coverage of up to 25 weeks, which Aramark pays 60 percent. They have maternity leave of up to 2 months,” said the representative.

Employees said that life insurance is also included, but that a more generous contract is needed to ensure a comfortable future for themselves and their families.

“It’s bad when you’re on the job here for twenty-, thirty-, fourty-something years... and you leave w ith no benefits,” said an employee. “It’s sad. If they had a retirement fund and they would take something small out of our pay, then at least we would have something to fall back on.” She added, “That’s the thing everyone’s worried about right now.”

Since housekeeping was outsourced to Aramark, AU employ­ ees have witnessed a precipitous erosion of their wages and bene­ fits. (Employee wages are also nickel-and-dimed by fees necessary for the job. 'Two workers described how they pay close to $1,200 yearly just to park the three or four weekdays they work. With an annual income of below $25,000, parking costs amount to almost five percent of an employee’s fearly take.)

Aramark employees are now fighting an uphill battle to ob­ tain the benefits they once had.

“Housekeeping employees enjoyed incredibly generous ben­

1 7 AMERICAN VtA^ OF LIFE MAGAZINE

efits,” said Joseph Eldridge, AU chaplain and accomplished human rights activist. “Good health care, free classes through a tuition re­ mission program for themselves and their families, vacation, sick leave, maternity leave,” he said. “But the university wanted to save money and lower costs, and they saw contract work as a viable al­ ternative, so they contracted out food service and housekeeping.”

II. THE REPRESENTATIVES The SEIU has made a priority of organizing custodial employ­ ees who work for the so-called “Big Three” - Aramark, Sodexo, and Compass Group. When SEIU came under the leadership of cur­ rent President Andy Stern in 1996, the union increased its mem­ bership by 60% to nearly 2 million. Stern has been an innovator in union organizing, eschewing traditional methods like striking — which has been all but abandoned by the SEIU — in favor of what he sees as more successful tactics.

A hallmark of SEIU’s expansive growth over the past decade has in part been the deliberate transformation of the American union into a powerful political force. In 2008, Stem told NPR’s Neil Cohen that: “I don’t think anymore that the power of unions comes from its ability to strike. I think it comes from its ability to participate in the political process and to change America in issues that we’ve been talking about, like health care.”

He makes a compelling case. Wage increases, larger repre­ sentation, and powerful lobbying are undeniable achievements his leadership has helped bring. He asserts that m ilitant tactics and abstract discussions of democracy have all but hindered the progression and growth of unions in an age of corporate mergers, diversified industries, and transnational development. But some of the methods he employs are controversial.

Gritics w ithin the labor community claim that SEIU’s largess makes it unrepresentative of its members. According to socialistworker.org, some SEIU branches like United Healthcare Work­ ers disdain Stern’s tactics. They say SEIU’s hunger for expansion leads the distant union power brokers to grow numb to the con­ cerns of members.

Indeed, there’s some evidence that SEIU is pursuing the union’s power at the expense of its rank-and-file. Kris Maher of The Wall Street Journal reports that secret agreements between SEIU and large employers have become popular. The agreements exchange employer-friendly contract provisions for withdrawal of opposition to union organization. Employers are permitted to choose the preferred locations of unionization without the knowl­ edge of effected employees. The result: SEIU expands its member­ ship, employers don’t have to cough up profits for salaries and benefits, and workers are hung out to dry.

‘‘ W e r e

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OF THESE BACKROOM DEALS? T h ERE'S NO WAY OF KNOWING FOR SU R E ... BUT INCLUDED IN THE PREVIOUS CONTRACT IS A SUSPICIOUS .

CLAUSE FORBIDDING A r AMARK EMPLOYEES AT

AU FROM s t r ik in g "'

Were the workers at AU victim to one of these backroom deals? There’s no way knowing for sure, as union officials are mum on the issue, but included in the previous contract is a sus­ picious clause forbidding Aramark employees at AU from striking.

“They can strike i f their contract expires and it is not extend­ ed,” said an SEIU Local 32BJ (the Local that represents AU workers) representative who spoke without attribution. This, she said, “is often an indication of a good relationship.”

The 32BJ official credited SEIU leadership for pay raises and increased vacation since union recognition in 2001, but Aramark employees at AU bemoan concerns unaddressed by the union.

“We don’t really have a good union, anymore,” an employee said. “The people running it don’t do nothing for us. They can’t negotiate well. I don’t go to some of the meetings because they can never tell you anything good, so I never go. They don’t do much for you, anyway.”

Another employee hoped the union would fight for benefits relating to “wages, retirement, education, classes for English and computers, insurance, more vacation, and a bonus at the year’s end.” Other concerns raised by employees include disabilities, parking costs, and understaffing.

“We are in the very early stages of bargaining and have not discussed wages or benefits,” the 32BJ representative explained.

“Workers are updated about the bargaining process one or two times a week” and “union leadership tries to figure out from mem­ bers their overall goals, but also their bare minimums,” she said.

“We are reviewing proposals and w ill be setting dates to meet again soon.”

Workers are anxious.

“For now, we stay in negotiations. We don’t know w hat’s going to happen. We’re waiting now,” an AU worker said.

And in a time of uncertainty, campus-wide support is absent.

“The other day I saw an article in the Eagle about one of the ladies in the Eagle’s Nest... I said to one of my co-workers, ‘too bad we never see an article about us,”’ another employee lamented.

“We need it to up lift our spirits. That would be nice.”

III. ARAMARK AT AU On the most basic level, employees and students are m utu­ ally obligated to one another - to ensure the campus stays clean and to maintain a certain level of respect. But some say studentemployee obligations must extend far beyond the bare minimum.

Aaron Montenegro, a member of Solidarity, a student group advocating better treatment for employees who work at AU, has tried to find ways tuition-paying students can pressure the uni­ versity to do its part for employees.

Twice last year, he brought proposals to open forums with the AU administration: first on his own, and then again w ith AU’s Community Action and Social Justice (CASJ) Coalition and 1,000 signatures. They wanted Aramark employees to be included in the tuition remission program that once allowed employees and their families to take advantage of AU classes and programs.

“They shot us down,” he said. “The administration told the students that tuition remission was something Aramark and the union had to handle.”

The representative from Aramark’s Housekeeping depart­ ment disclaimed responsibility.

“This is the responsibility of the school to decide on. House­ keeping stays neutral,” she said.

AU also refuses to take ownership of the issue. Last spring.

Human Resources VP Jorge Abud told the Eagle that AU’s officials “don’t really have a role” in tuition remission. The remission pro­ gram, he said, “did not seem to be something that was a strong interest to the Aramark workers.”

The three employees we interviewed for this article expressed support for more education benefits. Aramark employees say stu­ dent support has been invaluable.

“They help us a lot,” one employee said. “They worked w ith us to help get us a raise. They are always fighting for us. We are very pleased that they did that. During certain times of the year, they would go out of their way,” she said. “The students really help us a lot and we are very proud of the students.”

Both Montenegro and Rev. Eldridge encourage student out­ reach to the employees, because it has worked in the past. A few years ago, AU, “organized a sort of living wage task-force to figure out the living wage in DC, which they determined to be around $12. AU requirements were adjusted accordingly,” Eldridge ex­ plained.

But until such an initiative is undertaken again, AU w ill con­ tinue to maintain an underclass of employees with fewer benefits and services, struggling for the comfortable life enjoyed by other professors and its more visible workers.

For Montenegro, the fact that a wealthy university doesn’t adequately compensate all of its employees mars the school’s im ­ passioned Methodist commitment to social justice.

“The university gives students tools to realize social justice and effect change abroad,” he said, “but at the same time it ig­ nores possibilities right here on campus.”

Delaney Rohan is a graduate student studying Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs. Jamie Smolen is a sophomore studying international relations and economics.

Students looking to get inuolued can contact CASJ at casj@amerkan.edu. The group holds meetings on the Jirst Utesday of every month in Kay x3333. Solidarity plans on holding meetings and actions in the upcoming months. Students can join the/acebook group “Solidarity AU" or contact Rev. Eldridge fo r more info. Community Learners Ad­ vancing Spanish and English fCLASE) is a group that prouides English tutoring/or many of Aramark’s Hispanic employees. Contact themat au.clase@gmail.com.

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JABS AND JEST

PROFESSOR PROFILE

RICHARD CAMBRIDGE

By Nora Pullen

ho knew that mild-mannered Richard Cambridge, SIS pro­ fessor and strident Marxist, spent the last th irty years be­ hind the walls of the World Bank? Incongruous? No, it ’s just a window into the multifarious nature of one of AU’s most dynamic.

Born in the former British colony of Guyana, South America, Cambridge attended Queens College, an exclusive British prepa­ ratory school. He grew up under the guidance of his father, a lu ­ minary of the Guyanese independence movement. A t 18, Cam­ bridge came to the US on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1967 during the Vietnam War — cementing his budding political activism.

Through his outspoken dissent on the campus of Macalester Col­ lege in St. Paul, he became acquainted w ith Hubert Humphrey, the vice president under Lyndon Johnson, who was a professor there at the time. “Young man, you know you’re agitating a lot,” Humphrey said. “But you’re not doing anything. If you really want to do something. I’m prepared to help you. What is it that you want to do?”

Cambridge wanted to make a difference. Humphrey encour­ aged him to pursue graduate work in the United States, and wrote his recommendation for the Johns Hopkins School of Internation­ al Studies (SAIS) , where he earned his Ph.D in Economics. He completed a portion of his graduate work at the Bologna Center of SAIS in Bologna, Italy, where the political climate was even more radical: it was the only Communist-controlled city in Italy.

From Bologna, Cambridge had the opportunity to travel to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. “My politics were leftist and it was one of those rites of passage. You know, i f you’re going to be radical left, you have to have that on your visa,” he said of the trip. While in Moscow, he learned more about an ideol­ ogy which he had praised despite what he calls his incomplete understanding.

Cambridge admitted that the Soviet experience softened his radicalism.

“There were many little things that you noticed: the m in­ ute you arrived in Moscow your passport was forfeited,” he said.

“Then young people approached you expressing their desire to have your blue jeans. They would do or trade anything to get a pair of blue jeans. That’s when you began to see the fallacy of the system that committed members of the opposition to prisons or asylums because they opposed what was going on in their coun­ try. You knew this method of governing would come to an end.”

After returning to the US, Cambridge applied for a summer job at the World Bank, which ended up as a career with a salary that would have made him a millionaire back in Guyana.

“You can only work on those institutions from the inside,” he said, rationalizing his employment at what one of his Bologna professors called “the capitalist institution par excellence.”

He may not have upended the mechanisms of global capital­ ism, but the Bank hasn’t mainstreamed his political ethos.

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“Those views don’t change; in fact, they get reinforced when you’re in this business, because whatever part of the world you go to offends your sensibility when you see the disparities that ex­ ist,” he said. “It devastates you and you get angry and you want to do something about it. And through the work of the World Bank, there’s an opportunity to try and do something about it.”

As an economist at the Bank, Gambridge has witnessed ab­ ject poverty and hardship in nearly every part of the world, from Galcutta to Somalia. There have been times when he was over­ whelmed w ith what he witnessed, making it difficult to continue with a project. He mentions an indelible experience he had work­ ing in Bangladesh.

“One day I saw a crowd in the street and there was a na­ ked woman who was in the street banging on these buses and nobody was protecting her. She clearly was mentally challenged, but I thought when a society gets to that point that nobody would protect her, I ju s t ... I couldn’t go back.”

But it hasn’t stymied his drive; “My passion for development came when I actually started doing development work.” • Nora Pullen is a sophomore studying literature.

“ V .I.P .” PROSPIES DISPLACE ART HISTORY

'Tour visit to American University is like a premiere!” reads a new section of AU’s Web site, which lauds the birth of the “Green Room” in the Katzen Arts Building.

The Green Room was developed as a replacement, or — judg­ ing from the enthusiasm of the description — an upgrade, from the old Welcome Center once housed in Centennial Hall. (The old Welcome Center has been replaced by the Perch, the new hang­ out and revenue-generator which has become popular among

Jabs and Jest is a place for innovation, new creations, and the arts, delivering expressive pieces t|ia.t,c.Qpbitif.vhsdplB,^^,^^ ....

“It is very hard for me to understand why prospective students would want to watch contrived movies about campus when they are already on campus”

The university’s choices in regards to the new Welcome Cen­ ter “seem particularly insensitive to the needs of students and faculty,” according to Broude. Prospective students w ill be treated “like V.I.P.s” when they visit the Green Room, but it seems that once they get here, they’re only B-list child stars. • Emily Reid is a junior studying studio art.

students.) The Green Room’s Web site tells prospective students that they w ill get “the fu ll V.I.P. treatment.” Prospies might get the red carpet treatment, but in order to make way for these celebrity tourists, current students are getting pushed aside.

The Green Room was constructed in a corner of the Katzen Arts Building over the summer. It’s in Room 201, which in the past was used mostly for art history classes. But now the Welcome Center’s use of the room has lim ited its availability for students and professors.

Katzen is a big building, so one classroom wouldn’t seem like that much of a loss — but there’s a little more to the story.

Before Katzen was built, the art department was fragmented.

When the building was being planned, faculty whose offices and classrooms would be housed in it were given significant say in how the building was constructed. After a long interment in that embarrassingly bleak section of campus known as the Watkins building, the possibly radioactive and nearly windowless carcass hidden behind the south side dormitories, the art historians on campus had one major request of the new building which was to be dedicated, in part, to their field of study: a room designed specifically for the study of art history.

Room 201, equipped with two large screens, a powerful pro­ jector, and ample seating, was the answer to this plea. Norma Broude, art history professor and co-director of the department’s programs, said the room was “a dream come true.” Professor Broude has been w ith AU for over thirty years, and says she has “been dreaming of a room like 201 since I started here.” But now that the room has been co-opted by the Welcome Center, art his­ tory classes have once again been moved around and pushed aside, mostly relocating into smaller rooms in Katzen or Ward, according to Glenna Haynie, the A rt Department’s administrative coordinator.

Broude said she was particularly upset “that we were thrown out not for academic reasons, but in order to make way for a the­ ater where prospective students can watch videos about campus.”

She added, “It is very hard for me to understand why prospective students would want to watch contrived movies about campus when they are already on campus.”

CLUB PROFILE INVISIBLE CHILDREN

By Kaity Chapman

IM A G IN E having to covertly shepherd thousands of children into secure lodgings at the end of each day to avoid gang kidnappings. There are 11,000 of these “night com m uters” in Uganda’s northern Gulu district alone, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Hum anitarian Affairs (OCHA). AU students on cam pus can ’t forge peace in Africa, but they are taking courageous steps to educate their classm ates about the terror of child trafficking.

The m r in Uganda is twenty-five years deep, the longest running w ar in Af­ rican history. The conflict is between the official Government of Uganda (GoU) and a group of rebels, led by loseph Kony, who call them selves the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), since it is believed among the rebels th at the Lord has asked them to overthrow the GoU. When the LRA did not gain enough support to overthrow the government, Kony resorted to kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers.

In fact, experts claim th at 90 percent of Kony’s army were abducted as children.

The failure of the the lu ba Peace Conference between the LRA and GoU in 2006 and 200 8 was a m ajor set back. And it cam e so close. A final peace agree­ ment was negotiated in March 2008. But obstinate Kony never appeared to sign the accord, deterred by warrants from the International Crim inal Court. Without Kony’s com pliance, the conflict endures.

"It is m ind-boggling how little international attention there has been and also how difficult it has been over the years to fund the work for the children, the reintegration of the children who have escaped, and a real response to the crisis in the north,” said Ian Egeland, who heads CCHA, on the organization’s Web site.

This grueling hum anitarian crisis has spawned Invisible Children, a nation­ wide organization th at spreads awareness of Uganda’s child trafficking. AU stu­ dents have created a cam pus chapter and participate in a Invisible Children sister program called Schools for Schools, which sponsors fledging schools in Uganda.

The program supports student scholarships, construction of facilities, w ater and sanitation, supply of books, and teaching development.

AU’s Invisible Children chapter has organized two film screenings and is planning other assorted fundraisers this semester, including coin wars in the residence halls. The club is also organizing a book drive to raise supplies for a sponsored school.

“W hat I love about this organization is th at it does not underestim ate the power of youth,” said AU Invisible Children mem ber Liz Rauh, “Children should not have to be turned into killing m achines. They deserve to live the sam e lives we do.” *For more information join the Invisible Chlldren@AU facebook group.

Kaity Chapman is afreshman studying international relations.

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JABS AND JEST Last spring, we printed a page of “Forgotten Current Events." We’ve decided to make it a regular feature— each issue highlighting a group of ongoing current events that haven’t gotten the media attention they deserve, and adding neglected context to public discourse on important issues.

DECEMBER 2009

AWOL NEWSWIRE

SOMALIA

OBAMA AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

his year, drought has again struck East Africa, making millions dependent on food aid. The situation is most dire in So­ malia, where half the population relies on international aid for basic sustenance: one in five children face acute malnutrition, and over a million people have been displaced by conflict in the country. The United Nations received less than half the money it asked for in its latest appeal, leading many aid workers to predict that food aid will run out in No­ vember, which would leave many of the hun­ gry with no recourse. Aid workers are also at risk of being kidnapped while operating in the country, with over a dozen in captiv­ ity. Lacking a central government since 1991, Somalia is mired in a civil conflict between rival Islamic groups, clan militias, and the internationally backed government. The food shortage will likely worsen the course of the conflict in the coming months, causing many to dub this Somalia’s worst humanitarian cri­ sis in 18 years. -Mike Lally

resident Obama announced to much fan­ fare last January that he would close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a dra­ matic about-face from the policy of George W. Bush. But when it comes to civil libertiesrelated cases currently in the federal court system, the Obama Administration has bare­ ly diverted from the legal strategy promul­ gated by the Bush Administration. The De­ partment of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, has discouraged the Supreme Court from considering the case of the Uighers penned up at Gitmo, and has claimed the “state secrets” privilege in cases related to extraordinary rendition and illegal sur­ veillance and wiretapping. Additionally, the White House has consistently opposed inves­ tigating past abuses by the C.I.A. and N.S.A., and now appears ready to support reautho­ rization of significant portions of the Patriot Act. Obama’s forceful stance against torture is something to be commended, but we are a long way away from restoring the rule of law in this country. -Steue Spires

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THE NEW COLONISTS WATER FOUND ON MOON, MARS n July, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander con­ firmed the presence of water in a soil sam­ ple, a breakthrough that came after months of probing and testing the Martian soil. In September, NASA made another incredible discovery when water was found to exist all over the surface of the moon — not only in polar craters as was previously thought.

These discoveries have the possibility to completely reshape our understandings of both the moon and Mars. In the words of Jack Burns, chair of the NASA Advisory Council’s Science Committee, “In my mind this is pos­ sibly the most significant discovery about the moon since the Apollo era.” In an era that has seen NASA’s budget increasingly constrained, perhaps these two discoveries might reopen the nation’s treasury to scientific pursuit.

-Peter Harrison

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AMERICAN VtA'i OF LIFE MAGAZINE

ast month’s massacre of over 150 people in Conakry, Guinea elicited a surprisingly rapid response from the Obama administra­ tion. The massacre, conducted by the troops of Guinea’s iron-fisted military dictator, Capt.

Moussa Dadis Camara, gave the world an abhorrent display of human baseness. Sol­ diers raped woman in public and, in some cases, used their rifles as tools of penetra­ tion; the scene was especially revolting for a Muslim country such as this one. But be­ hind the scenes of the Obama administra­ tion’s human rights PR campaign across the continent, the US. has failed to speak out against new colonists: China. In an effort to strengthen its economic foothold throughout Africa, China made a seven billion dollar deal with Camara’s government to mine bauxite, a mineral used to make aluminum. Guinea currently remains one of the most under­ developed countries in Africa. In deals with countries like Sudan and Congo, the Chinese

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economic presence has provided minimal support for local infrastructure, which these countries desperately need. -Alex Burchfield

THE REAL POVERTY RATE? he U.S. census bureau reported in Octo­ ber that the nation’s poverty rate rose to 13.2% in 2008, the highest level in 11 years.

The New York Times writes that economists say the poverty rate “portends even larger increases this year.” There are currently 39.8 million Americans living below the poverty line of $22,025 a year for a family of four.

However, the federal poverty line is a mis­ leading standard of economic well-being.

According to Katie Beran in Z Magazine, “a family in Madison [Wisconsin] consisting of two adults and two children needed an annual income of $47,667 in 2004, just to meet the basic threshold of economic selfsufficiency.” For families in Manhattan, the necessary baseline income was $78,741. Be­ ran writes that according to the Economic Policy Institute, “42 percent of families living in cities and 30 percent of families residing in rural areas fall short of basic family selfsufficiency thresholds." While the increasing poverty rate certainly signifies hard times for more Americans, tracking the number of families earning less than $22,025 is no way to provide a complete picture of hardship.

-Chris Leiuis

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One Saturday night, I stand on the harder.

The great divide between two highly similar and notionally divid­ ed ways of life: that of North side and that of South side. Here, in the so-called “Tunnel,” the two breeds mix indiscriminately. They temporarily forgo their pride and sacred identity to fu lfill cravings for curry, an elongated sub sandwich, or a $60 haircut.

Perched on the curb between Jacobs Fitness Center and the Eagles’ Nest, I can hear the chatter of girls in the distance: talk of pre-gaming and some place called Town. Their high heels click on the asphalt like the hooves of a poorly-coordinated Clydesdale.

They are making the trek from North to South, as if to find oth­ ers like themselves, those who were not so unfortunate as to be assigned to Leonard or McFoul or, god forbid, Hughes, “the place where fun goes to die.”

The harsh pierce of Jersey dialect rings in my ears as I cling to my five dollar foot-long Subway sandwich. I nervously tear a piece of honey oat bread from the thin paper wrapped expertly around it. I chew quickly, rodent-like. I stare at the spandex-clad creatures from the Shore as they pass me, turn around, and sprint back to the safety of my North Side nest in Leonard Hall. It is cold outside, and I do not want to spend an extra second in the unfor­ giving breeze. I wanna flee to my heated room and the comforts of “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team” on CMT. I wonder how such a divide came to be and, in my muckrak­ ing search, came shamefully fruitless. I reach only a vague con­

clusion that the two complexes of campus have been divided on the basis of geographic location. Could it be a matter of practical­ ity? Or is it an insidious conspiracy to divide the wild from the sane, the brutish asses from the prudish masses? Indeed, there must be something perpetuating this divide, and I must find out what it is.

I set out to gauge how students feel about our pernicious partition, w ith loaded language in hand. I pose to one unsuspect­ ing student the following question: If you were to compare the North-South division at AU to either the bloodbath between war­ ring North and South Vietnam or the callous segregation of races in apartheid South Africa, which would you choose? When denied the option of neither, the respondent reluctantly chimed: “Viet­ nam, I guess ...because of the North-South thing...”

Shocked, I stand unable to process the gravity of the divisions we have created. When I think of Vietnam, I think of brutal mur­ der and oppression; I think of the 16 years of American pillaging which brought enormous costs to all those involved; I think of the loathsomeness of human hate.

This is our world, AU, let us not destroy it so.

Suzanne Monsiuais is a junior studying economics, and a stajf writerforAWOL.

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