BINGHAMTON REVIEW
Business
Siddharth
Dear Readers,
From the Editor
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. At time of production, February hasn’t even ended (thanks to this newfangled “Leap Year” I’ve been hearing so much about). As such, this article came out a week late on account of our “Spring” Break, where we all return to our homes in the midst of miserable March muddiness. Hopefully we all got some rest and did not experience some enormous international tragedy which now makes something in this issue seem in terrible taste.
Unrelated, be sure to check out my article on Israel-Palestine dialogue on campus—a timeline of major events from October 7 to February 14—on pages 10 and 11. I’ve tried to present all the relevant facts in a neutral manner, so this will either please everyone, or piss them off.
Also, be sure to check out Barbara Zavala’s article on pages 8 and 9. In all my years at Binghamton Review, I have never seen an article like it. For reference, the average Binghamton Review issue contains about 14,000 words. Barbara’s full story currently contains 17,000. Of course, this story only contains about 2,000—the first of many parts. But believe me: her arduous journey from the U.S. to Honduras and back over the border is well worth reading in full. Stay tuned for each future part.
That’s all I have for this issue. Be sure to check out the readership survey below. We’re slowly but surely gaining good data on those who actually read us…
Sincerely,
Arthur O’Sullivan
Our Mission
Binghamton Review is a non-partisan, student-run news magazine founded in 1987 at Binghamton University. A true liberal arts education expands a student’s horizons and opens one’s mind to a vast array of divergent perspectives. The mark of true maturity is being able to engage with these perspectives rationally while maintaining one’s own convictions. In that spirit, we seek to promote the free and open exchange of ideas and offer alternative viewpoints not normally found on campus. We stand against dogma in all of its forms, both on campus and beyond. We believe in the tenents of free expression and believe all sudents should have a voice on campus to convey their thoughts. Finally, we understand that mutual respect is a necessary component of any prosperous society. We strive to inform, engage with, and perhaps even amuse our readers in carrying out this mission.
Views expressed by writers do not necessarily represent the views of the publication as a whole.
Advice Column
I offered to give you all life advice. These were your questions.
How do you write advice column questions?
Slowly
how i do i sexually satisfy my girlfriend Slowly
I’ve been trying over and over again to get a fifty in the campus bowling alley, but after hundreds and hundreds of times, I just can’t do it? How do I up my bowling game? The last advice column I asked this in didn’t help.
Slowly
How do I take the Fourier transform of a rectangular pulse function?
Slowly.
How quickly are you going to let go of your stupid “slowly” joke?
Lento
How fast should I take the curve of the nearby elementary school in my daily 2pm booze cruise?
Uhhhh
So my father leaves my home to get milk at five miles an hour to get to the grocery store ten miles away. It’s been five days, why isn’t he back?
Lemme do a little math here. Five miles per hour—he’s going a little slowly—to travel ten miles… Two hours to get to the grocery store, and two hours back?! He probably died from drinking spoiled milk. Now stop asking stupid questions.
Should I consider reading the Bible to impress the telepathic people in my HVAC class?
It seems like you’re already considering it. So I assume these telepaths are already impressed. What do I know, though? I’m not a mind reader.
I was steroid-pilled exercise-maxxing in the East Gym the other day, but all these goddam Zoomers and betas keep hogging the benches. They are literally worse than ISIS. How do I scare them off.
Two words: Kimchi placed in a sealed, compressed container in a locker over six weeks, until such a point as the gaseous pressure buildup slightly cracks the chassis, releasing the smell of Hell’s capital city of Dis—Pandemonium itself. The zoomoids literally can’t handle it. After that, by all means, try and bench the bar and then fail.
How many monitors is too many for my… personal interests. I don’t even want to know, but the answer is three.
Written by our Staff
I got my dick caught in a zipper and now every time I orgasm it hurts. How do I resolve this?
Ah the old “zipper circumcision”! I’ve seen this case a lot in my pre-medical practice. The solution’s pretty simple, though you might not like what I have to say.
Why do I keep seeing naked old men in the gym?
Naked old men go to the gym. If you do not want them there, please refer to my “two-word” solution above.
How do I untie my corset. I’m a man btw hehehe… You know those YouTube chiropractors that use the Y-Strap to yank people’s head and decompress their spine? Imagine that, but you’re in a corset and I’m yanking you out with the Y-Strap. You could also think of it as like trying to get your fingers out of a Chinese finger trap. Whatever floats your boat, young man!
Why do my tits hurt? Tits aren’t real.
Why do they keep making live-action remakes?
Because around the time that the “Stephen Universe” children’s cartoon was invented, Western Civilization officially lost its ability to create cartoons. Gone were the days of classic animation like Looney Tunes, Popeye, and Johnny Test. Now everything’s crap and the only “good” things are made with “real” people.
Where is the funny? I looked everywhere but I still can’t find it. Binghamton Review lost its humor somewhere around the “sink-pissing” debate article. Like urine in a porcelain basin, we’ve been circling the drain ever since.
How does it feel to have other publications (BUTT, Pipe Dream) ripping off the advice column gimmick YOU started?
Need life advice? Email manager@binghamtonreview.com for more wacky, quirky, and zany responses.
If Gen-Eds Were Useful
By Angelo DiTocco
My experience of adjusting to college over two years ago was obviously not a cakewalk. There were a lot of aspects of higher education that I was not familiar with. But the one thing about this school that really made my eyes pop out and my jaw drop to the floor was the sheer amount of general education credits needed to graduate. This number sits at nearly a dozen for most of us, and the administration has even decided to burden this year’s freshmen with two more requirements, the “Critical Thinking” and “Information Literacy” credits. Not only does this mountain of gen-ed requirements prevent students from taking electives in fields they are actually interested in, but sometimes these classes won’t even fit into students’ schedules at all, forcing them to spend extra money to take them over the winter or summer.
So what’s the point of making students jump through all these hoops just to obtain their degrees? Supporters of gen-eds tend to say that their purpose is to make students more well-rounded. However, their definition of “well-rounded” is questionable. When I think of the skills that a well-rounded individual would have, writing essays about obscure historical topics and integrating with u-substitutions are not the first two things that come to mind.
The skills that do come to mind are those that reflect one’s ability to live a balanced and independent life. Unfortunately, those skills are often absent from today’s youth, whom you’ll hear using the term “adulting” to refer to their struggles to complete basic tasks. Classes on “Global Interdependencies” don’t seem to be helping with that.
It’s unlikely that this will ever change for the better. Even if Stenger himself wanted to overhaul the system of gen-ed requirements, whatever state officials are breathing down his neck would have other ideas. But a man can dream, and dream I will. So here are a few ideas for gen-eds that would be way better than the ones we have now.
Culinary Arts
It’s common knowledge that anyone born after 1993 can’t cook. This is evidenced by the fact that fast food places can make their burgers as expensive as $10 and still make a profit because zoomers don’t know any better options. So why not put students through a culinary arts class? Here, students will pick up the most efficient food preparation and cooking techniques while learning how to keep themselves safe in the process. Once that’s done, they’ll be able to put their skills to the test with a new recipe every week or so. Fans of the “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice” credit will be pleased to see a curriculum that includes cuisines from around the world (except for Britain; we can all live without beans on toast). The course would also cover topics such as shopping on a budget and making meals in advance to ensure that even students who are short on time and money can still make good use of the material they’ve learned.
Personal Finance
Another skill in which this new generation seems to be
lacking expertise is managing money. A personal finance course would familiarize students with all the skills they need for that. Topics like budgeting and saving for retirement will ensure that they get the most out of the money that they do have, while lessons on investing strategies can help them get some extra cash on the side. Students will also be equipped with the ability to navigate the unnecessarily complex fields of taxes and insurance. Career-related topics such as applying for jobs and creating an effective resume can possibly fit here as well.
Home Skills
There may be a time when the average member of Generation Z will finally have enough money to own a house. If that’s ever the case, then they will need to know how to maintain their property. This class would prepare its students to deal with whatever issues may plague their humble abodes. No longer will people need to pay hundreds of dollars to a plumber or an electrician for something that they could fix in a few minutes with the right knowledge. And why stop at stuff around the house? Knowing how to fix a leaky faucet is important, but so is knowing how to change a tire.
Going back to the home, while we’re at it, why not cover a bit of interior design as well? That’ll hopefully put a stop to the epidemic of living spaces that look like this:
Physical Activity
Finally, here’s the one gen-ed requirement that Binghamton actually gets right. Modern technology is creating a generation of couch potatoes, so it’s important that students get acquainted with some form of exercise. Even if they don’t become preworkoutmaxxed gigachad powerliftersTM, they’ll still have an activity that they can rely on to keep them in shape. We don’t want our country’s 40% obesity rate to increase to 50%, after all.
Conclusion
I hate to be That Guy who makes complaints like, “why does school teach us all this useless stuff,” but it’s clear that the gen-ed system in its current state could use some massive improvements. Under the new set of gen-ed requirements that I’ve outlined, rather than trying to comprehend 50 pages of word salad every week or struggling to memorize math formulas they’ll never use, students will be engaged with hands-on lessons that they can immediately apply to their everyday lives. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a generation of young adults who actually know what they’re doing.
The Right Should Abandon The Gender War
There are only two genders,” proclaims another picket sign in front of yet another school board in some suburban town. This image conjures up the apparent last resistance of the rightwing en masse to ‘protect our children’ from the ‘pervasive practice’ of gender ideology. It’s not uncommon to hear a boomer reminisce on the halcyon days when “you were either a boy or a girl” while watching yet another Fox News piece on yet another trans pride parade. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh produced one of the most controversial documentaries of the decade with “What Is a Woman?”, a question so salient that it drew in 170 million viewers on Twitter during its weeklong stay on the platform. Suffice it to say, talk of “gender” resounds across college campuses and retirement homes alike across the country, with some calling the end of Western civilization as we know it.
The truth is that the right has been duped, hoodwinked right under their collective noses for decades, and they don’t have the awareness to recognize it. The scholars—the intelligentsia— have succeeded in transforming society by using parallel warfare. When the concept of gender was first introduced by psychologists and sociologists in the 1950s and 60s, its prominence was particularized and minimal. Before that, in the West and everywhere else, the biological human dichotomy was easily identified in a binary between male and female, called ‘sex’. What sociologists recognized is that trends in culture seemed to align with said sexes, but not wholly and not perfectly. If one culture held a certain value for men, another might not. What is considered “manly” in culture A may not be in culture B. This conception was important for sociocultural analysis.
By Shayne O’Loughlin
Gender, as a concept, became popular among academia during the mid-to-late 20th century, eventually germinating outside of it as well. The second-wave feminist movement embraced the term. As early as 1949, in her book “The Second Sex”, Simone de Beauvoir wrote, “one is not born a woman, one becomes one.” The point of this exercise was to differentiate between the biological fact and the learned traits provided by the culture at large. For instance, a woman’s role in domestic life, feminists argued, was created and enforced by a patriarchal society, and could be subverted for the betterment of women as a whole. These feminists argued that said roles were reinforced by laws and codes that subjugated women as second-class citizens to their male counterparts.
Sexologist John Money, academic researcher and pioneer of such terms as “gender role,” infamously abused child subjects in his experimental theory.
In various cultures, there also exist alternatives to man and woman, a so-called “third” or sometimes even “fourth” or “fifth” section of society. In some Polynesian societies, certain males carried effeminate roles as healers, called mahu or fa’afafine, who lacked political power and were subject to sexual advances by other men. In the Indian subcontinent, hijra are emasculated young, and function basically as women within society. In the Balkans, sworn virgins are females who take on the freedoms and responsibilities of men in exchange for a vow to forgo all sexual or reproductive activity. How do we define these? It would not be fair to use the concept of sex interchangeably with these distinctions, argued the sociologists, and so it was necessary to create a new term and a new lens for studying this aspect of culture. This was “gender.”
Sexologist John Money was made infamous for his experiment on how ‘gender roles’ (a term he coined) could be taught to children and impact their development and identity. In it, he urged the parents of a newborn with a botched circumcision to give the child a sex reassignment surgery and raise their son, David Reimer, as a daughter. Along the child’s development, Money would force Reimer and his brother to strip naked and play with each other, imitating thrusting and other copulative activity to affirm the gender differences between the two, while he recorded and took pictures for his ‘research’. At the age of 14, David learned the truth from his parents and chose to detransition and live the rest of his life as a man, although both he and his brother would commit suicide in their thirties. While it cannot be concluded that Money’s abuse of the boys at a young age led to their depression, it’s likely a leading cause. The whole fiasco became the most popular criticism of the ‘gender’ movement in its wake.
While the Money story is certainly disgusting, it would be fallacious to dispose of all gender theory on these grounds. One key example of a coercive situation conducted on children does not eliminate the conceivability of someone presenting as a gender that does not align with their sex. Part of the reason this distinction is pointless is because the methodology of gender theory is itself too arbitrary, but we’ll touch on this critique later.
Continuing the timeline, many scientists who allied themselves with the feminist movement (see also: the movement to replace the referent ‘he’ with ‘she’ in academia, now overtaken by the referent ‘they’) saw the term ‘gender’ as preferable to ‘sex’, and from there the number of references to ‘gender’ skyrocket-
ed, particularly in the social sciences. Others, including the FDA in 1993, adopted ‘gender’ to remove any connotation the term ‘sex’ had with sexual intercourse. They would later reverse their decision in 2011 to adopt the correct usage of the term when compared to its biological counterpart. What this trend shows is a gradual topdown dissemination of a term into the culture at large in just a few short decades.
The FDA in 1993, adopted ‘gender’ to remove any connotation the term ‘sex’ had with sexual intercourse. They would later reverse their decision in 2011 to adopt the correct usage of the term when compared to its biological counterpart. What this trend shows is a gradual top-down dissemination of a term into the culture at large in just a few short decades.
Much has been said about the role academia plays in influencing culture. Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci believed that social change could only come when ‘natural intellectuals’ could ascend to positions of education. Similarly, the founder of Objectivism, Ayn Rand, believed that change in philosophy could only effectively come from infiltrating the academic world. One might say that the permeance of gender theory into the mainstream is convincing evidence towards this strategy’s efficacy for wider social change.
A group of Hijras, legally recognized members of a “third-gender” in South Asian cultures.
Few conservatives seem to understand the history of ‘gender’, but does that really matter now? They have been using the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ with wanton disregard for decades now, as ‘gender’ has seeped into the zeitgeist and replaced ‘sex’ on all but the most vital personal documentation. It’s under their breath and in their minds, and their use of the word has all but enshrined it now as a victory by the left.
Can gender theory be criticized on its own terms? Certainly. Gender theory embraces a top-down model of cultural analysis, that is, the responsibilities inherent to men and women in any given society are the way they are without much explanation—they exist in a sort of normative void. The American culture is seen as a grand edifice composed of various subcultures and explained by “turtles all the way down” reasoning. From
this, how can we define what is masculine (man) versus what is feminine (woman) in any given culture?
The point is that we can not. Here are some concerns for top-down culture: if every culture has its own definitions, its own goalposts, for what is masculine or feminine, then what of people in every other culture? If culture lies on a gradient between masculine and feminine, how can anyone ever be fully masculine or feminine? Is every man with long hair or painted nails in the United States trans without their knowing, or are the arbitrary lines of gender different for them? If gender is so completely relative, then what is the point of defining it in the first place?
The ultimate conclusion of the gender theory line-ofthought is that “gender” is a feeling relative to each person, which is interpreted through lived experiences. This means that gender comes down to whatever you, alone, feel like. If I feel like a girl one day, I can be a girl, or non-binary then non-binary, or as something else, then something else entirely. But then we must acknowledge that if this is the case, then analyzing gender through norms or general movements is absolutely pointless. In fact, if gender is dependent on personal experiences, then isn’t all gender a floating abstraction?
As it turns out, the only way to combat it is to accept its ultimate conclusion— the one that I support—that gender must be abolished.
We derived a similar conclusion in an earlier article I wrote in Binghamton Review (“The Case For Linguistic Universalism”) that relativism necessarily fails. Conservatives have long failed to combat gender theory, but as it turns out, the only way to combat it is to accept its ultimate conclusion—the one that I support— that gender must be abolished. Instead, I believe that if the right is to adopt a winning strategy against what they perceive as the self-destruction of society, that they must become conscious of their language and return the focus to biological sex.
There are a number of reasons why conservatives won’t go through with this, however. The first is that they fall prey to the exact same problem in their own methodology. They necessarily accept the conceit that culture is an entity which one must abide by, and therefore face the same hurdle. Specifically, conservatives support the idea of gender so long as they can keep the traditional “gender roles” in place. They have a need to embrace “top-down” culture as a mark of collective pride, in order to justify things like social cohesion and national identity. If they didn’t, what would they be trying to conserve in the first place? It seems, then, that the culture war as a whole and its constituent theaters (e.g. the gender war) are fought on relativist quicksand.
How can we resolve this ultimately fruitless effort? Stay tuned for my next article, where I discuss emergent cultures and the individualist alternative.
True Story: I Crossed The Border
By Barbara Alexandra Zavala Pinto
Iwill begin writing the most important text of my life by saying thank you. Thank you to Koen Gieskes, my freshman year professor for EDD, whom I once promised this story to (I thought I’d never see him again for a while), and Arthur O’Sullivan, the Editor-in-Chief whose encouragement gave me the confidence to write my full story. I’ve decided to forego the simplicity of a quiet life with this “behind me,” as it were, to highlight the ever-burning pyre of injustice in this world. There’s a lot to write about, and this story will be split into several long articles.
For context, I was brought to America by my parents in 2006 on a ten-year visa. I was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, so I am not a U.S. citizen. I had no idea that my mom and I weren’t American citizens until I turned 16, when it expired. Suddenly, just getting a work permit, driver’s license etc. took countless trips to lawyers’ offices. When my visa expired in 2016, we began a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization case. My late grandmother was a U.S. citizen, so my mom divorced my dad just so that my grandma could pass on her naturalization. Everything went according to plan for 3 years. I was blissfully finishing high school (about as much as anyone can), and gathering legal documents and thirty petitions from U.S. citizens declaring that I was a good influence on my community who deserves naturalization. The last step was to go to my home country of origin, Honduras, where I would receive my first step to naturalization, permanent residency.
Mine was the perfect dream, actually… It was my actual American Dream.
I was a minor in the year 2019 in the eyes of immigration law (under
21), so if everything had gone to plan, I would’ve simply become a U.S. permanent resident, with no more obstacles ahead of me (Social Security Number, ability to participate in elections, ability to receive scholarships and FAFSA etc.) to pursue my dreams. Mine was the perfect dream, actually… It was my actual American Dream.
I was told to put my book away. I don’t know why. I was just reading the part about Winston feeling like his every movement was being watched.
All this was to avoid the life I saw people living in Honduras: poverty, crime, exploitative working conditions, no matter what color your collar. I learned this from a man whose name was Cesar, a store manager and homeowner in Honduras before he decided to illegally migrate to the U.S.. Cesar did everything by the book: he studied, bought a house, got a good degree in Honduras, and still yet at 30, he was irreversibly in debt, caught in a culture that hindered his success, in a pond (“employment pool,” if you will) too small—an entire continent too small for his ambitions. He earned the highest education possible in Honduras, and his wage was nowhere near livable for 3 kids, a mortgage, and a non-poverty lifestyle. He just couldn’t save money on a $600 USD per month salary as a Honduran manager in a store that mimics Best Buy. So when I saw society outside of America, I saw people oppressed. They don’t even know the outrage that would result if Americans had to suffer even one of the things: the water infrastructure going out (periods of the day with no running water—even if you pay your bill—by order of the government, extreme crime, unreliable official information et cetera. If I had stayed there to live out my adulthood, I would have had a similar fate to Cesar—if not worse!
Going to Honduras was my first time leaving the U.S.. I came with clear expectations and plans, thousands of dollars, and half of my ado-
lescence invested in a two week trip whose sole purpose was to gain permanent residency. Well, political conditions were a perfect storm in February 2020. Donald Trump was in office, and “coronavirus” was an excuse to close the border. These two things worked against me, dear reader, and my “two week plan” was made much more complicated…
It was February 14th of 2020 when I saw Binghamton University for the last time until Fall 2022. It was February 20th when I attended that fateful meeting in Honduras. If all had gone well, I would’ve never had to endure the long journey and violence which would follow.
I was reading my favorite book: 1984 by George Orwell in the waiting area, an immigration officer a few feet away in a secluded private room. I was told to put my book away. I don’t know why. I was just reading the part about Winston feeling like his every movement was being watched.
Finally, my mom and I entered the meeting room. The immigration officer sat behind bulletproof glass. We talked with him through a small window. Our folder had a single red dot on the bottom right corner. We were not told the contents of that folder— which he didn’t even open. He only told us that we were missing an I-35 waiver for illegal entry to the country in 2006—something our lawyers said we didn’t need. He pointed at me, recognized my upbringing, and just said “lots of kids who speak even less Spanish than you have been in this situation…”
I was dumbfounded—in a freeze response. There wasn’t exactly a 911 to call for emergency legal services (“Help I locked myself out of my car country”), although there should be. On this exact day (February 20, 2020), Trump ordered that all green cards be
denied to prevent coronavirus spreading to the U.S. via foreigners. Thus, when my application was denied, I had no way of getting back into the country; I had no legal status. I felt flabbergasted and deceived, my muscles couldn’t hold themselves up. I was suddenly denied from all my property, all my accomplishments, and all my dreams.
I was a straight A student all my life. My teachers always said I was destined to do something great. If these immigration officers knew that about me, would it change their minds? If they saw I wasn’t just anyone? I actually disagree strongly with even entertaining these questions because everyone deserves a second chance, no matter whether their future is “bright” or not. The law should not be the deciding factor in one’s pursuit of happiness.
When I took AP US History, we learned that indentured servants migrated to new countries no matter how destitute they were, because all of their debts would be paid off after working under a sponsor—they had jobs secured before even moving. I felt, then, that they had more social mobility than me at that moment.
I still could’ve “gotten in” to America, but it would’ve taken seven to eight months of waiting in Honduras (possibly longer due to the offices shut down due to COVID). Here’s a point of view you can read while I find myself unable to write in the first person:
“The daunting conditions of US Immigration policy at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in the case of this “immigrant,” Barbara Zavala, who had been living in the U.S. all her life, and desperately did not want to stay in a country in which she found herself totally ostracized, caused a panic.”
I panicked. I knew we could not live in the Honduran house my mom raised me in. It was 2020, not 2000, and things got worse in our absence. Still, we owned that house. Nobody lived in it, as far as we knew. We locked it and left it empty for over a decade. It was located on a dirt road and left vacant for years. This made us perfect
victims: no friends, no family (who could protect us); we were Americans who didn’t know “the way it works around here” (i.e. violence and corruption), and we owned that house as property. We were prime victims for burglary and I, as a young woman, was prey for kidnapping and selling.
So, we returned to my childhood house. Then, on the first night, the gangs showed up.
At first, we were staying with an aunt from my dad’s side just before the appointment. If everything had gone to plan, we would’ve left as quickly as we arrived. After the failed appointment, my aunt told us she couldn’t support keeping us indefinitely but that she wouldn’t kick us out while we found what to do. Well, we had nowhere to go other than our old abandoned home in the slums. It was dangerous, but none of our family members could’ve maintained our stay. Why? Because in Honduras, electricity is turned off at 7 pm; water is turned on in the mornings and evenings and saved in storage to use throughout the day; the A/C is only turned on at night—on low. We would’ve inevitably incurred much higher costs for any household which took us.
So, we returned to my childhood house. Then, on the first night, the gangs showed up. They apparently had been using our abandoned home as a nexus for drug trading and illegal activity. I learned this while on my phone at night in the living room, my mom in the bedroom. A car pulled up. I was confused. Before I could react a group of men came in with guns already pointed at me (they saw the lights on inside the home and were infuriated). “Turn around!” I was commanded. The only thing that went through my mind was “they’re not going to kill us, right?” I turned around. I looked at my mom as she walked in, wondering what she was going to do. I saw the fear surge in her body. As I was facing the wall, a man pointed a gun to the back of my head. Was I actually being threatened?
“So you own this house?” The man yelled sternly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about” my mom kept repeating to them; she was protecting her information to see what they wanted. “We know you’re lying” they yelled… I knew the gun was behind me. They hounded us. They made me cry. They made my mom cry. My neck felt tense, any movement I made could’ve been wrong. I was not going to indulge their sadistic fetishes or give them a reason to kill me. My mom only cried through her tears and the whimpers she had to defend herself were “Please don’t kill us, we’ll do what you want…” But I heard her remain quiet as the man asked her where she kept the papers, while the gang ripped our bags open and took out all our clothing. We’re lucky they left us our phones. I was standing, I felt someone touch my arm and back. He said that if my mom doesn’t start answering soon, “We’re going to start doing stuff to her [me]” and asking “You don’t want that to happen, do you?” She tried to offer them money, or arreglar. They denied it, insisting they wouldn’t leave until the house was theirs. Time felt distorted. All I remember is the gun being held behind my head but me only facing the wall, whatever edges my vision could reach and the couch I was facing. I was impatient somehow—I immediately wanted it to end. I was not going to cry so as to not bring attention to myself. I stayed quiet as a mouse.
We left for good that night at like 6am. The day was March 10, 2020. We sobbed and called my dad. Our only hope was to return to the U.S….
In the chaos, my mom verbally agreed to give them the papers to the ownership of the house just to get them to back off. He said he wanted them tomorrow. I stayed looking at the wall until they left. We left for good that night at like 6am. The day was March 10, 2020. We sobbed and called my dad. Our only hope was to return to the U.S….
The State of Israel-Palestine Discussion on Campus
Over five months have passed since the outbreak of war in Gaza following the October 7th terrorist attacks on Southern Israel. The military response from the Israeli government and IDF has caused worldwide consternation. Debate rages at all levels; invocations of “genocide” are commonplace. All are forced to reckon with past and present wrongdoing. No part of the world is unaffected, not even Binghamton University.
A number of dramas and conflicts have erupted between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine students on campus since October. Some have reached far beyond the bounds of “the brain,” eliciting reactions from the community, national commentators, and even Congressmen. At the same time, a number of protests, discussions, debates etc. went off without major incident. The purpose of this article is to construct a timeline of significant events on campus relating to the Israel-Palestine debate. In doing so, I intend to demonstrate the state of the discourse—the good and the bad (not to mention the ugly). I will attempt to do so with as little personal bias as possible. To that end, I have interviewed both Saul Hakim of the Binghamton University Zionist Organization (BUZO) and a local organizer for the Palestinian cause who has requested to remain anonymous, citing that “students nationwide have been doxxed, received death threats, been told they should be raped by Hamas in instagram comments for their support of Palestine. [Supporters of Palestine] have been alienated, discriminated against, and attacked in workspaces.”
I asked both for supplemental information and clarification of the timeline across these past five months. Without their input, this article would be so much more limited and biased. My deep thanks go to both of them for their willingness to interview, comment, and respond quickly and thoroughly to my (sometimes harebrained) questions.
The Timeline
This timeline begins on October 7th, with Hamas’ attack on Southern Israel and the outbreak of war, where Omer Neutra, IDF tank commander and prospective Binghamton Student, was taken hostage among over 200 others.
On October 8th, Jewish Students gathered to mourn the dead of the previous day’s attacks outside of Dickinson dormitories. The following day (October 9), numerous Jewish organizations held a “Unite Against Terror” vigil, where students gathered by candlelight in silence, punctuated by speeches, songs, and testimonies from affected individuals. The same day, SJP released a statement on instagram, stating, “The violence that has culminated in the past couple of days is the result of more than 75 years of ethnic cleansing, pogroms of Palestinian towns and villages, regular desecration of sacred Muslim and Christian sites, and massacres that go unspoken in Western media.”
Days later, on October 11th, university president Harvey Stenger offered condolences to those who lost loved ones in Israel, assured the safety of students on campus, and called for re-
By Arthur O’Sullivan
spect and civility in political discourse around the issue.
On October 12th, SJP held its first protest for Palestine—a “Rally for Palestinian Solidarity,” at which BUZO members were to counterprotest silently, though video evidence reveals at least one counterprotestor shouting “Am Yisrael Chai” and obscenities at the crowd. In this video, a girl is seen raising her arm in apparent mockery of the counterprotester’s height. This was initially interpreted as a Nazi salute, but later dismissed by all parties. What was confirmed, however, were chants of “long live the intifada” among SJP protestors.
Counterprotestor Eli Menache accuses an unnamed woman of raising a Nazi salute at him. UPD, BUZO, and administration dismissed this as false.
In response to this and a Hamas call for a ‘Day of Rage’ on October 13th, President Stenger increased UPD patrols on campus. This, along with Stenger’s previous statement, would receive criticism from SJP and multicultural groups for failing to support Arab, Muslim and Palestinian students and “relieve the tension on campus.”
The days following were largely silent. BUZO held numerous tabling and informational events in this time, without reported incident. Hillel likewise hosted Alex Lederman, a Senior Policy and Communications Associate for the Israel Policy forum on October 16th.
Things heated up, however, between October 24th and 26th. In that interval, Chabad led students, parents, and alumni in an 18 hour “One People; One Body.” trip to Israel. This trip included visits to wounded IDF soldiers, civilians, and those who lost fam-
ily members. As this went on, SJP held a speaker panel with Palestinian students recounting their experiences in the West Bank under Israeli occupation. On the following day (October 25th) SJP held a “Walk out for Palestine.” This was also counter-protested, though not directly organized by BUZO, but composed of many of its members. This protest is infamous for a statement made by Jacob Wisnock, former Pipe Dream columnist and now-resigned SJP E-board member, who responded to a counter-protester’s sign by yelling into his megaphone, “If Hamas is worse than ISIS, then Israel is worse than Nazi Germany.”
A torrent of viral tweets followed from prominent accounts such as StopAntisemitism and Chaya Raichik (creator of the right-wing account “Libs of TikTok”). Local and national news featured the statement, even reaching as far as the Toronto Sun (whose hard-hitting, fact-finding writers reported our location as “BINGHAMPTON, NY.”). SJP was quick to denounce Wisnock’s “assertive position,” as were BUZO and even NY-19 Congressman Marc Molinaro (though in somewhat stronger terms).
President Stenger, meanwhile, issued a statement on October 29th not directly addressing the controversy but condemning “all acts of violence, hatred and bigotry directed at any individual or group.” He balanced this by maintaining the first amendment rights of all students, “even on matters some may deem offensive or hateful,” while still encouraging those receiving direct threats to report them to UPD and student conduct. He did not name any specific instances of this occurring, though my anonymous source informs me that Wisnock and his parents were doxxed and harassed following his comment, such that the latter two were even kicked out of their synagogue.
Binghamton’s attention was diverted from Israel-Palestine tensions on October 30th when Natalia Malcevic, sophomore, was found dead at the base of the Library Tower—a suicide. Binghamton’s campus was shaken to its core: classes were canceled, events were postponed, and students gathered to mourn in silent vigil. Both BUZO and SJP had events planned for October 31st. The former, however, announced a postponement and alteration of its “Israel Education Fair” and hostage memorial, respectively. The latter made no such announcement, and I have not received any confirmation that its “Palestine 101” event was postponed or canceled. (For context, many clubs restarted events on October 31st, and at least one, College Republicans, held its scheduled meeting on October 30th.)
Things resumed on November 6 when an anonymous student issued a petition for “Binghamton University Students, Staff, Alumni, and More in Solidarity with Palestine,” calling for ceasefire and an end to the Gaza blockade, They quoted former Israeli NSC director Giora Eiland in describing Gaza as “a huge concentration camp.” That same day, Harvey Stenger donated to BUZO’s fundraiser for Israeli hostages.
On November 14th, SJP and YDSA co-hosted a screening of the 2020 film Gaza, mon Amour, by Palestinian brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser. That same day, multiple on-campus Jewish groups were marching in Washington D.C. alongside many similar organizations; this was dubbed “Bearcats March for Israel.”
November 17th saw tensions flare once again. BUZO had reserved Lecture Hall 5 for a speaker event with Charlotte Korchak of StandWithUs, a pro-Israel nonprofit. BUZO members entered the lecture hall, however, to find it plastered with
various anti-Israel posters alleging that pro-Palestinian student groups were being censored and surveiled. The organization still allowed their guest to speak with UPD officers present. This event went viral similar to Wisnock’s “Israel is worse than Nazi Germany” statement. SJP was suspected, but not confirmed, to have been behind the posters. This suspicion prompted Congressman Molinaro to call for the ban of SJP at Binghamton University, and across the country. When asked about this in an interview, BUZO President Saul Hakim declined to comment on whether SJP should be banned from campus at this time, maintaining that “all student groups that operate on campus, especially relating to this matter, should take care to ensure that all information disseminated is accurate, does not spread hate speech or incite violence, and conducts their actions in accordance with university and SA guidelines. Any group in violation of those principles should be dealt with accordingly.” My anonymous source meanwhile argued that Molinaro’s statement reflected “neo-McCarthyism” and violence against political opponents.
Little came of this, and things appeared to de-escalate as the semester drew to a close. On December 7th, SJP held a “Vigil and Speak-Out” for civilian deaths in Gaza, leaving paper flowers at an impromptu memorial. No counterprotest was documented. SJP also began the spring semester with the Thurgood Marshall Pre-Law Society, reviewing South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice against Israel on the charge of genocide.
BUZO likewise began the semester with tabling events and a collaboration with StandWithUs, where students would wear shirts and bear posters demanding the release of Omer Neutra at the men’s basketball game on February 8.
It appeared that a rocky equilibrium had been established since the prior semester’s tumult—that each side’s activism would be recognized, but ignored, by the other.
Pipe Dream’s February 11th Sex Issue overturned this presumption when the paper published an opinion by columnist Julie Ha titled “Sexual trauma does not justify further violence in Palestine.” In it, Ha argued that the New York Times selectively reported on the rape of Israeli women on October 7th while ignoring sexual assault of Palestinian women. Ha based this on a now-deleted twitter post where a sister of one of the Oct. 7 victims claimed that the New York Times pressured the latter into dramatizing her assault. Ha claimed that this was part of a scheme to vilify Arab men, and use it as a “means to genocide.” The initial article, however, left all claims unsourced, confused the identities of the October 7th victim and her sister, and used the phrase “white woman tears” to describe the phenomenon. Under intense blow-back, Pipe Dream updated its online article and pulled all print issues. Pipe Dream’s succeeding “ALL EYES ON RAFAH” edition published two letters to the editor: one by Miriam Frankel titled “Me Too unless you’re a Jew,” where she excoriates Ha for apparent hypocrisy and anti-semitism; the other was written by Julie Ha herself, clarifying her stance on sexual assault and the violence of October 7.
The damage was done, however. With both sides once again inflamed, the February 14th “Palestine Day Moratorium” protest became another flashpoint in the campus debate. This will be the subject of the next article in my series. There is too much to cover here in too little space, and what was lost in timeliness will be gained in perspective.
A Peek into Modern-Day China
By Midas Leung
Many don’t know nor care about what’s happening in China, as the world almost exclusively focuses on events in the Middle East. But in China, shit’s brewing: stock and housing market crashes, jobs on the decline, a college degree will get you a manual labor job. The economy is on a decline and since the “one-child” policy, fewer children can take care of their parents. Many of these kids who have dim prospects of marriage or finding a job have given up and decided to live frugally till the day they die.
On Feb 3, for instance, thousands of vehicles were stranded on a highway, and because people have EVs, the heat can only stay on for so long. They were eventually forced to resort to burning tree branches on the side of the road to stay warm.
The term Tang Peng translates to “lying flat,” and grew in popularity over quarantine alongside societal pressures and “996” jobs (9 am-9 pm 6 days a week). Many Chinese have given up and decided to retreat from society to just live for themselves. This does not mean they isolate themselves, however. Tang Peng is a passive-aggressive resistance movement. By removing themselves from the economy and living for themselves, practitioners hurt the Chinese economy by not allowing low-paying jobs to be filled. This led to other countries like Mexico gaining a productive advantage in the world economy.
Another big problem is “Tofu Dreg” construction or “Tofu Buildings,” a term which was coined during the 2008 Sichuan earthquakes. The quakes exposed the sheer amount of buildings that could be easily destroyed—as if constructed with tofu. Corruption and a lack of resources to sustain the massive housing market in China is considered a leading cause. Construction crews and resource contractors will skim off the top of every project, leaving minimal money for the actual construction. This naturally leads to poor craftsmanship, in which concrete is replaced with plastic and recycled rebars are used in critical areas. The most recent “Tofu Building” scandal, at
A “tofu-dreg” kindergarten destroyed in an earthquake. (Photo taken by Archey Firefly and originally posted to flickr.)
time of writing, saw the deaths of almost an entire school’s volleyball team where their room collapsed on top of them. This story was covered up by the local government.
China is also suffering in the electric vehicles (EVs) market. Ever since their introduction, EVs have been looked upon more favorably than gas powered cars for their greater fuel efficiency; one battery charge could be equivalent to one half or even one quarter of a full gas tank. The problem, however, is that they are made with the same principle as the aforementioned Tofu Buildings. China is currently experiencing one of its coldest winters in recent memory, and many of its car batteries don’t last as long due to lack of insulation and being made with suboptimal material. Those who purchase a car will be promised an extensive range in kilometers on their battery. Yet in reality, it would take them maybe one half or even one quarter of the way; that doesn’t include heat or air-conditioning.. If those are turned on, the car’s driving range will drop dramatically. On Feb 3, for instance, thousands of vehicles were stranded on a highway, and because people have EVs, the heat can only stay on for so long. They were eventually forced to resort to burning tree branches on the side of the road to stay warm.
Kavanagh was confronted while playing a public piano on video, and unfortunately in the background, Little Pinks were making a propaganda video, and did not want to be filmed by others.
Some Chinese people don’t care about these problems, however, and still fanatically support the regime of the Chinese Communist Party. This group of people is coined as the “Little Pinks.” This is a joke about those students who participated in the People’s Liberation Army with their red bandanas. One of the Little Pinks’ activities has gone into the mainstream recently because of a famous piano player, Brendan Kavanagh, who had been attacked by the group while each were trying to record a video. Kavanagh was confronted while playing a public piano on video, and unfortunately in the background, Little Pinks were making a propaganda video, and did not want to be filmed by others. During this confrontation, the Pinks got close and Kavanagh pushed them away. Finally, the police were called and the Little Pinks were mocked both worldwide and even in China.
Now through the lens of a 1st generation American, I see these horrible situations and know that to live in China would be nothing worse than Hell for me. Though some China may say the same about me in America, citing our own manifold problems. But to that I say, “haha suckers you live in a shithole. And to my Taiwanese friends, may you regain the mainland.”
The Bettman Blues
By Aiden Miller
Why the NHL’s hot, and the NBA’s not” was the infamous phrase printed by the now-defunct Sports Illustrated magazine after the New York Rangers’ historic Stanley Cup win against the Vancouver Canucks in June of 1994. Riding the coattails of that win—their first in 54 years (the 2nd longest Stanley Cup drought in history)— newly elected commissioner Gary Bettman and the National Hockey League (NHL) were touted as ‘saviors of hockey’ by reporters and media outlets across Canada and the United States.
So what happened? Gary Bettman happened. Over the last 30-plus years, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has significantly tarnished the National Hockey League as a brand and has cultivated a toxic culture within the league and the sport itself.
the labor dispute created a grave schism between Bettman and the players, leading to further animosity between the parties in future collective bargaining. Even though the 1994-95 lockout had turned out to be only a blip on the radar, it set the stage for an all-out battle merely ten years later.
Many believed the young commissioner could usher in a new golden age for the National Hockey League at a time when many believed the National Basketball Association (NBA) was on the outs. Viewership numbers and revenue statistics reflect the exponential growth of the NHL in the wake of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final: NHL-licensed merchandise sales eclipsed one billion dollars, a 600% increase from 1989 to 1994 compared to the NBA, which only experienced a 333% increase over the same period. During the Final, viewership records for networks like CBC Sports and MSG Networks were smashed, with Game Seven of the series drawing a record 3.28 million cable viewers. The NHL’s video games series contributed to the league’s newfound success and popularity, selling over a million copies. In 2024, it’s abundantly clear that the NHL has come nowhere close to matching the NBA’s popularity and revenue. So what happened? Gary Bettman happened. Over the last 30-plus years, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has significantly tarnished the National Hockey League as a brand and has cultivated a toxic culture within the league and the sport itself.
Gary Bettman’s first misstep—and maybe his greatest—was the 1994-1995 NHL lockout and proceeding lockouts in 200405 and 2012-13. On the day of his inauguration for the commissionership in February of 1993, the New York Times reported that “Bettman’s mission is simple: Put a stop to labor unrest,” inadvertently foreshadowing the coming lockout in the 1994-95 season. For those unaware, a lockout is a work stoppage initiated by employers during a labor dispute with a company. In this case, Gary Bettman and the NHL decided to instigate a lockout against the union representing NHL players, the National Hockey League Players Association (NHLPA), for failing to agree to a collective bargaining agreement. As a result, the 1994-95 season was condensed from 82 games to 48 games, the shortest NHL season in 53 years.
The lockout put a considerable dent in Bettman’s reputation. Popularity decreased among the general public. Sports media in Canada and the U.S. relentlessly reported on the most minute details of the ongoing labor dispute. As a result, many fans felt alienated by the league, leading many to become uninterested in the NHL, killing much of the momentum it had gained from the historic Stanley Cup Final just five months prior. Most importantly,
For the second time in only nine years, a lockout caused the NHL’s upcoming 2004-05 season to come to a grinding halt. Deep animosity between Gary Bettman and the NHLPA and continued arguments over the implementation of a salary cap had caused this one. Before the 2004-05 season started, Bettman and the league office wanted to implement “cost certainty,” a system that linked player salaries to the league’s revenue. The new salary system came in the wake of an NHL report that claimed only eleven profitable franchises league-wide and that the NHL had lost $273 million during the 2002-03 season. Bob Goodenow, the executive director of the NHLPA, called the idea of “cost certainty” a euphemism for a salary cap, the primary cause of the 1992 players strike and 1994-95 lockout. In an unprecedented turn of events, the two sides could not come to an agreement, and the entire season was canceled. The season’s cancellation marked the second time in history the Stanley Cup had not been awarded, the other being 1919 when a flu epidemic ended the Finals early.
The cancellation of the 2004-05 NHL season sent ripples through the entire sports world. Many executives, players, and fans in every sport were shocked that a labor dispute between the league and its players could result in catastrophe like this. Worried about fan backlash and financial repercussions, the MLB, NFL, and NBA sought to strengthen their relationships with their respective player associations to avoid a fatal lockout like the one experienced by the NHL.
The ramifications were more significant for the NHL itself. Many fans had grown infuriated by the actions of Bettman and Goodenow, leading to Goodenow resigning from his position as executive director of the NHLPA and Bettman becoming arguably the most disliked commissioner in sports. The lockdown made many NHL fans flock to other sports to fill the void the canceled season had left in their hearts. The Canadian Football League (CFL) and the NBA experienced increased viewership during their 2004-05 seasons. Teams were also economically devastated by the lockout, losing millions of dollars in revenue from ticket sales and TV ad revenue. To add insult to injury, the new labor agreement in the wake of the 04-05 lockout resulted in the controversial addition of the shootout and the draft lottery, which are still heavily criticized today. (I am one of those critics.)
In the eyes of the sports world, many now look at the NHL as the ‘little brother’ of the four major North American sports leagues. The NHL brand and leadership, specifically Bettman, has been significantly tarnished. When he was elected commissioner,
Bettman was touted as a man who would end labor unrest in the league and allow the NHL to flourish in popularity. In his tenure, however, Bettman had engendered the most significant labor dispute in North American sporting history and tanked the popularity and revenue of the league he sought to save.
The NHL lockouts of 1994-95 and 2004-05 are only one of the several chapters in Bettman’s book on how not to run a sports league. Another Bettman debacle that has had many fans on edge is the NHL’s participation in the Olympics or lack thereof. One of Bettman’s most popular moves as commissioner was allowing NHLers to participate in the 1998 Winter Olympics. In the Olympics prior, national teams typically consisted of junior hockey players and players from other international leagues. The decision was very popular amongst fans and players seeking to finally be able to represent their country on hockey’s biggest stage. Thus, NHLers participated in many more Olympic games after 1998: 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014.
In 2017, however, Bettman and the NHL made the unpopular decision to disallow players from participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics. The decision stemmed from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which runs the Winter Olympics, refusing to pay a $14 million insurance fee to ensure that NHL clubs were adequately compensated for a player’s salary in case a player got injured in a tournament. Yet the failure of the IOC to pay the insurance fee was not the sole factor that prevented NHLers from participating in the Winter Olympics. Bettman, in a press conference held after the decision, stated that it was not a wise financial decision to participate in the Winter Olympics because “we [the NHL] kind of disappear for two weeks because historically the I.O.C. hasn’t even let us join in promoting our participation in the Olympics.” The decision not to participate in the Olympics may have been financially savvy for Bettman and the NHL, but like most of his judgment calls, he found many adversaries. Media members and fans alike (including yours truly, famously complaining on his Twitter account about hockey) claimed that the lack of NHL participation in the Winter Olympics stunted the growth of hockey as an international game and prevented many NHLers from achieving their dream of winning a gold medal. Like the lockouts, the situation looked terrible from the outside, garnering lots of negative publicity for the league, and once again tarnished the league’s image in the eyes of fans and media alike.
One of the most disturbing moments in Gary Bettman’s tenure as commissioner has to do with his failure to handle the Chicago Blackhawks’ sexual abuse scandal properly. In May of 2021, it was reported that an unknown Chicago Blackhawks player had accused the team’s video coach, Brad Aldrich, of sexual assault during the team’s Stanley Cup run in 2010. It eventually came out that Kyle Beach, a former hockey player, had accused Aldrich of sexual assault. According to a 107-page report, Blackhawks executives held a meeting about the sexual assault claims and decided not to investigate the matter any further. It was not until 2021, when the lawsuit by Beach was filed, that these allegations had been in the mainstream media. It’s also important to note that in 2013 Aldrich was found guilty of sexually assaulting a minor in junior hockey. It was clear that based on this conviction that the possibility of these allegations being true was high. When Beach tried to come out with his allegations in
2010, the Chicago Blackhawks director of human resources only gave him two options: resign from the team or face termination. In the wake of the lawsuit and report, both Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman and now Florida Panthers coach Joel Quenneville, who at the time of the sexual assault was the coach of the Blackhawks, resigned from the team. The only penalty the organization faced from Bettman and the league was a measly $2 million fine. I say measly because the Chicago Blackhawks are worth over $1.8 billion. Now where did Bettman go wrong? Bettman refused to permanently ban Quenneville and Bowman from ever holding another position in the league. Furthermore, Chicago executive Kevin Cheveldayoff was not disciplined for his role in the matter even after being found to have been present during the meeting. To add insult to injury, Bettman refused to take future draft picks away from the Blackhawks as a punishment for knowingly hiding sexual assault from the league. Eventually, this resulted in them drafting arguably the biggest hockey prospect first overall in the 2023 NHL Draft, just two years after the lawsuit became public. In 2024, the National Hockey League is the only major sports league that still does not have guidance on how to handle sexual assault cases. This is not the first instance of the NHL mishandling a sex scandal, and it will not be the last. If Bettman and the league do not address how to handle these situations, hockey culture will continue to delve into its more toxic side.
Bettman deserves credit where it is due. He has successfully expanded the NHL into broader regional markets like Las Vegas and Seattle, gaining new fans and more revenue for the league. Furthermore, Bettman has signed massive television deals with the likes of ESPN and NBC, allowing the NHL to grow the game and generate more revenue. However, we can not hide the fact that Gary Bettman has cultivated a toxic culture and has tarnished the National Hockey League’s reputation by continuously prolonging labor disputes, preventing NHLers from attending the Winter Olympics, and mishandling sexual assault cases that fall on top of his desk. Is it time for sports’ longest-tenured commissioner to finally hang up skates?
