B ALL BEARINGS FALL 2016
Y H W WE K N I TH E R ’ E W T H RIG Cognitive processes make it inherently difficult to compromise. p. 24 The Ripple Effect p. 16
America, the Plurality p. 20
The Downfall of Society p. 32
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BA L L BEAR I NG S
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR C able news lingered in the background as my family ate dinner in late June of 2015. This is how most family dinners went—my dad turned the TV to face the dining room table, the remote next to his silverware to adjust the volume as needed. Family dinners in my home are often accompanied by political discussion, and this night was no exception. The marriage equality ruling by the Supreme Court had occurred just a few days prior, and the story on the news speculated about what this meant for our nation. My dad and I began our usual political discourse. We would make snide comments toward one another, a conversation would escalate into a heated argument, and then my mom would tell us we were ruining dinner and needed to stop talking. This evening, however, was more frenzied than usual, and at one point, we were shouting at each other across the table. My mom ended the conversation when she shouted over us, stating that we were no longer allowed to discuss politics because we couldn’t talk about them—we only argued about them. Since that day, my dad and I rarely engage in political discussion. When we do, it often has a similar outcome—my mom stepping in and reminding us we
are not allowed to talk about politics. This semester, Ball Bearings has built a conversation around the issues that divide our nation. Our cover story (“Why We Think We’re Right”), delves into the psychological reasons behind our inability to compromise—the same reasons that have forced my dad and I to stop discussing politics altogether. With this edition of our magazine, we aim to build a dialogue around these polarizing issues that allow little room for compromise in our society, including guns, drug legalization, and immigration. As our nation becomes more divided, there is less room for common ground and understanding, which affects Congress’ ability to pass legislation, but also our ability to compromise and understand in our daily lives. We are not taking a political side with this edition of our magazine. Rather, we aim to demonstrate that the issues we perceive as black and white often have gray areas in between that need to be examined for an issue to be fully understood. Our generation is the future of our nation. If we can’t learn to recognize our own biases and understand the perspectives of those we disagree with, we will continue to polarize our nation and leave less room for understanding and compromise.
INSTAGRAM:@ballbearingsmag TWITTER: @ballbearings ballbearingsmag.
EXECUTIVE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alex Kincaid EXECUTIVE EDITOR Lauren Donahue MANAGING EDITOR Samantha Stevenson ART DIRECTOR Jessica Goldy
EDITORIAL ARTICLES EDITOR Vanessa Ford SENIOR EDITORS Katie Grieze Taylor Hohn Miller Kern Michele Whitehair STAFF WRITERS Kaitlin Lange Merritt Mclaughlin Taylor Meyers Julia Steele
PHOTO PHOTO EDITOR Dan Jacobsen INSTAGRAM EDITOR Rachel Ellis PHOTOGRAPHERS Emily Wright Terrence K. Lightning Jr.
DESIGN
ALEX KINCAID
editor-in-chief amkincaid@bsu.edu @alexkincaid22
LEAD DESIGNER Roth Lovins DESIGNERS Stacie Kammerling Erika Espinoza Ashley Downing Tyson Bird Sierra Therrien Megan Axsom Kaleigh Friesen Jenny Alvaro Tia Zook Jennifer Firoved Amanda Bailey Hannah Patton Liz Young ADVISER Kathy Jesse
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BALL BEARINGS • FALL 2016
CONTENTS FEATURES
GRAPHICS
16
34
THE RIPPLE EFFECT Conventional wisdom suggests that one person can’t make a difference in society. Maybe that wisdom is wrong.
THE 20 AMERICA, PLURALITY By the year 2044, the minority population in America will outnumber the traditional white majority. Experts say this will bring about many changes in education and politics, so that they better serve the new face of America.
rt o p y p Su part e th
THE TIPPING POINT Americans consider similar issues when casting their ballots, but Democrats and Republicans disagree with what they consider to be the most important.
35 POLITICAL CARTOON Everyday language that was once accepted is now overly censored.
One Nati for A on ll
GLOBAL 44 OUR DISASTER
WE THINK 24 WHY WE’RE RIGHT Cognitive processes make it inherently difficult to compromise.
DOWNFALL 32 THE OF SOCIETY
Blue Li ves Matter
Your Voice Matters!
M O D E E R F
VOTE!
Each generation has its own “end all” moral issue that is supposed to destroy American society. But to date, nothing ever has.
People are beginning to feel the effects of climate change, despite the fact that 20 percent of Americans still deny its existence.
ves i L k Blac atter M
Lande of the Fre 1
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//news
Discuss& Debate Campaigns cast light on issues that polarize the nation. Police shootings, minimum wage, immigration, and health care are a few issues that have prompted arguments among Americans throughout the presidential election.
POLICE BRUTALITY
43%
TENSIONS RISING
say always following the rules is not compatible with getting the job done
Fatal police shootings have spurred protests across the country. In September of 2016, Ball State’s football team went up against Eastern Kentucky. Fans filed into their seats, and just before kickoff, “The StarSpangled Banner” echoed through the stadium. The crowd stood, pressed their hands against their chests, and faced the flag. At the south end zone of the stadium, a sea of fists pointed toward the sky. Expressions solemn and stern. All wore black. The group of students wanted to draw attention to what they consider to be racial oppression in America. These students received inspiration from Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who didn’t stand during the national anthem at the August 2016 preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. Kaepernick was also protesting racial tension. According to a database compiled by the Washington Post, a total of 991 people were killed by police in
2015. Before the Washington Post began collecting this information, there was no reliable database that documented such shootings. The FBI collects some of this information, but law enforcement agencies participate voluntarily, and are not required to submit information. Asia Royal, a student at Ball State, says she has little confidence in the current state of the criminal justice system—but she does hold hope for the future. She wants to become a police officer herself. “Because I am African American and female, I don’t really have a voice. I am a minority,” she says. The Black Lives Matter movement formed in response to these killings, and advocates for the recognition of mistreatment of black Americans. According to a study by Pew Research, 14 percent of white Americans strongly support this movement, compared to 41 percent of black Americans. story: breanna heath
84% 52%
witnessed fellow officers using more force than necessary
say that it is not unusual for a police officer to turn a blind eye to improper conduct of other officers
61%
do not always report serious criminal violations that involve the abuse of authority by fellow officers
How Police
See It
source: ncjrs.gov illustration: kaleigh friesen
5
//news
BY THE NUMBERS
Who’s helped by raising the minimum wage?
88%
are in their 20s or 30s
36%
are 40 or older
56%
are women
28%
have children
source: dol.gov
MINIMUM WAGE
MAKING ENDS MEET
The reality of minimum wage leaves some struggling to maintain financial independence. Sandy Curry gets up every day at 9 a.m. to go to class an hour later. His classes end at noon and he immediately catches a bus to take a half-hour ride to Party City where he spends his shift either running the register, making balloon bouquets, or stocking the shelves. He works about twenty hours a week, earning minimum wage, totaling around $580 before taxes each month. At the end of the month, he pays $429 in rent. Like many other Americans who earn minimum wage, Sandy is just scraping by. Minimum wage was first established in 1938 during the Great Depression to ensure that families could earn a living wage, starting at twenty-five cents per hour. Over the years the federal minimum wage has been adjusted because of inflation and was most
recently updated in 2009 to $7.25. This is also Indiana’s minimum wage. However, the value of that wage is decreasing. According to a 2016 report by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, minimum wage would have to increase to nearly $10 an hour to have the same value today as it had in 1968. Around 4 percent of the hourly paid workers in America are receiving wages at or below the federal minimum. About half of those hourly paid workers are under the age of twenty-five, like Sandy. A four-person household with two parents working forty hours a week on the current federal minimum wage would earn enough to surpass the poverty line. However, a single parent with one child would fall below the
poverty line if they were to work the same amount of time. This can cause debate among Americans about whether to raise the minimum wage. According to a 2016 poll by YouGov and the Huffington Post, 53 percent of individuals believe raising the minimum wage would help Americans, while 34 percent feel a raise would hurt them. Sandy would like the minimum wage to increase; he thinks it would help with his struggles to pay his bills. The Department of Labor says that a raise in minimum wage would not devastate the country’s economy. The department also states that the value of minimum wage begins to decline the instant it is in place, making it difficult to keep up with inflation rates. story: taylor meyers
IMMIGRATION
THE MELTING POT The Syrian refugee crisis has sparked debate concerning immigration policies in the United States. Lucas Jackson is a student from the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. He decided to attend Ball State in order to learn more about American culture. Before Lucas came to the United States, he needed to obtain a J-1 Visa—a nonimmigrant visa for people participating in work and study abroad programs. He also had to gain the support of his government, speak to the U.S. Embassy, and complete more than eight months of paperwork. Lucas has visited Tahiti, New Zealand, Vanuatu, and a majority of European countries and says that America is the hardest country to migrate to. There were 42.4 million immigrants living in the United States in 2014, up from 41.3 million in 2013, according to
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a report by the Center for Immigration Studies. This is a larger population than the entire state of California. Today, almost one in five American citizens are immigrants. Immigrants accounted for nearly 17 percent of the active workforce in the U.S. in 2014. A 2016 report by Pew Research found that 59 percent of American voters felt that immigrants strengthened the country, while 33 percent felt they were burdens. This divide shows no signs of dissipating because of generational gaps in how immigration is viewed. According to a Pew Research study, 76 percent of Millennials thought immigrants strengthened the country because of their hard work, whereas only 60 percent
of Generation X felt that way. The immigration debate has been more prominent because of civil war in Syria. This has caused refugees to flee into America and other European countries, creating a fear of potential terrorists who might enter the country within the refugee flow. In 2016, Pew Research estimated that as of September, more than 12 million Syrians were displaced from their homes. The United States has accepted around 10,000 at this time. According to a Bloomberg Politics poll, around 53 percent of Americans do not want to accept any refugees at all. Twenty-eight percent, however, think that the United States should proceed to resettle the 10,000 already taken in. story: matt keyser
HIGHER EDUCATION
VALUE OF A DEGREE
As more students enroll in higher education and receive college degrees, the value of those degrees decrease. Jennifer Lagomarcino graduated from Ball State in 1981 with a degree in speech language pathology and audiology. She continued her education at Butler University, where she earned her master’s degree. She then went on to work as a speech pathologist for Indianapolis Public Schools. After that, she worked for Noblesville Schools. Jennifer never felt the need to question the importance of getting a degree or if it was worth her time, money, and energy. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, roughly 20.5 million students are expected to attend college in the United States in 2016. This means
that enrollment has increased by 5.2 million students since 2000. This year, colleges and universities are predicted to have 1.9 million graduates with bachelor’s degrees, 798,000 with master’s, and 181,000 with doctorates. With the increase in the number of students working their way toward a degree, the actual value of those degrees is declining. Rather than only a handful of college graduates entering the job market, the majority of people have college diplomas—making them less valuable. Brandon Bute, associate director of Ball State’s Career Center, says the
value of a degree depends on what value the student places on it. Students could be looking for an increase in income, may want to become an expert in their field, or may be searching for self-satisfaction and achievement. Although salaries are dependent on the career, job security is still higher with a college degree, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that only 2.8 percent of those with bachelor’s degrees or higher were unemployed in 2015. For those with only a high school diploma, that number was 5.4 percent. story: hannah derleth
HEALTH CARE
THE PRICE OF HEALTH
Americans disagree on the way to pay for health care, and medical debt is a growing concern for many. For Ball State students, a new policy was implemented this year at the university’s health center. Before this change, the health center welcomed walk-in appointments. Now students must make an appointment in order to see a doctor. For student Myla Townsend, this new policy made sense. “If you respect their time, they’ll respect your case.” Many students, like Myla, are able to get services—like stitches—through the health center without payment at the time the service is needed. This would otherwise cost more than $2,000, according to Advisory Board, a health care analysis firm. Each semester, $76 is added to each student’s bursar account. This is all that is necessary for them to receive health care through the university. Indiana residents pay an average of $276 a month for health insurance. That rounds out to around $3,312 annually. A report from National Health Expenditures states that health care spending in the United States grew by 5.3 percent in 2014, or around $3
trillion—an increase of around $100 billion since 2012. And the cost is continuing to rise. College of Health professor Jagdish Khubchandani says Americans pay too much for facilities and professionals. In his opinion, the United States spends too much on treatment, and not enough on prevention. If focus shifted to prevention, he says, the United States would likely not spend so much on health care. Another reason for our high cost is the price of prescriptions. Khubchandani says Americans are charged more for prescriptions than individuals are in other countries. For example, the cholesterol-lowering drug, Crestor, costs about $86.40 per month in the United States. In Germany, the second-most expensive country for this drug, it costs $40.50, and in India, the same drug costs $3.60. Without those free medical services provided by Ball State, many students would have to find other ways of getting health care—which would lead many to more debt. A 2014
report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that roughly 49.2 percent of Americans are living with medical debt—which accounts for nearly one-third of all debt of Americans. The average individual with overdue medical debt owes $1,776. The study points out that our rising debt is partially due to the confusion people have about what they owe, and who they owe from those medical bills. Overall, Americans are split regarding how to handle the nation’s health care. A 2016 Gallup poll found that 51 percent of Americans wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Forty-eight percent wanted to keep it in place. story: samantha kupiainen
7
POT OR NOT? A conversation about how the legalization of marijuana could impact various professions photo: emily wright
story: kylie kaiser
//q&a
N
ationally, support for marijuana legalization appears to be surpassing the resistance. Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe that alcohol is more harmful than marijuana, and more than half officially agree that marijuana should be made legal, according to Pew Research Center. Regardless of legality, years of prohibition have yet to deter consumers from purchasing or using marijuana. In fact, 49 percent of people in the nation admit to having tried it. In addition to our nation’s capital, there are twenty-five states that have laws legalizing marijuana in varying capacities. Ball Bearings sat down with professionals in a variety of fields to discuss the ways in which legalization of marijuana would impact their careers.
NURSE PRACTITIONER Carole Tengblad Carole Tengblad initially established her registered nurse (RN) title at Danville Memorial Hospital in Illinois. She spent fifteen years as a labor and delivery nurse, fifteen years as a medical oncology RN, and twelve years as an oncology nurse practitioner. The legalization of marijuana would be a landmark decision for the medical world and to the oncology population. There has been no narcotic medication that would provide consistent pain relief for this category of clients. Their cycle of pain relief is full of peaks and valleys that result in a quality of life that none of us would choose voluntarily. Early in my hospital-based career, I recall a patient who used illegal marijuana regularly to control the pain she experienced as a result of advanced metastatic breast cancer. She had better pain relief than any other patient in the unit—even those who had adequate access to narcotic medication. I am definitely pro-legalization, both for medicinal and recreational use. Legalization would be an excellent choice. It would resolve the stigma attached to use of marijuana, would resolve the street-corner sales, and empty the local jails and prisons of the petty crime of marijuana use. Although there are those who are addictionprone and will abuse the drug, legalization should reduce the challenge of [getting the substance] and using it to excess. I do not personally use marijuana but I do believe it has a justifiable role in the current world we live in.
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND CHIEF OF POLICE James Duckham
James Duckham is the director of public safety and chief of police at Ball State. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia and a Juris Doctor from the Pace University School of Law. Duckham has more than twenty-five years of experience in law enforcement including positions at SUNY Dutchess, the Greenburgh Police Department in White Plains, New York, SUNY Purchase, and the New York City Police Department. I’m opposed to the legalization of marijuana. There’s not a lot of data on the impact [legalization] would have on law enforcement. Marijuana has just been decriminalized and legalized recently, so we’re really just starting to see it on campuses. More so on [college] campuses than in municipal police departments. So, I’m not really sure what the impact would be—and I don’t want to speculate— but maybe more people would use marijuana if it were legal, and if we took the criminal stigma away from it. I’m from New York. It wasn’t legal there, and it obviously isn’t legal here in Indiana. I’m going to support whatever the law is because I’m sworn upon the laws. There’s some sense from campus chiefs that it’s going to take more resources to investigate [marijuana] crimes. Because if you decriminalize [marijuana], it still may be a policy violation on a campus—so you’re still going to have to respond to that. I’m probably one of the few people who can say
9
//q&a I’ve never smoked marijuana—that just wasn’t my thing. The quality of marijuana [today] has just gotten so much better and stronger, so I think that we don’t know how that’s going to affect people if they can buy it. Now there are so many edibles and oils, and so many ways people can ingest the chemical THC. And it’s not regulated. I think that’s a big concern.
AT T O R N E Y AT L AW Ryan Groves Ryan Groves is an attorney at law for Beasley & Gilkison in Muncie, Indiana. His areas of practice include civil litigation, family law, and intellectual property. Groves earned his Bachelor of Science in microbiology from Indiana University, Bloomington and his Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law in Dallas, Texas. I guess it depends which kind of law you practice that determines whether the impact [of marijuana legalization] is largely negative or positive. From a criminal point of view, it would hurt [lawyers who deal with criminal cases]. You’re not going to have any clients coming in for help with getting small possessions or dealing charges off their record, or just helping them work through those legal proceedings. From a civil side, which is what I do, it would certainly be positive. It’s just another aspect of the marketplace that gets opened up for legal enterprises to start up and start opening businesses, creating jobs, that sort of thing. I think the political environment [in Indiana] is such that we will be one of the last states in the country to actually make it legal, from either a medical or recreational point of view. I think the federal government is going to have to decriminalize it before it’s okay to use in Indiana. We’re a conservative state in a conservative part of the Union—I mean, we are one of the most conservative states in the Midwest. [Legalization] would certainly open up new sectors of the economy for small businesses. I would assume the growing part of it would be heavily regulated. There would be an opportunity for legal professionals at that point to help, not only with writing those laws but helping small businesses to start up and begin the cultivation process. And then, certainly, in the marketplace, whether it be selling to hospitals, doctors offices, pharmacies, or starting up bakeries in the Village or anywhere else in the state. The fact that it’s not yet legal federally has huge implications for small businesses taking in, essentially, drug money. For a long time out in Colorado, those business were only operating in cash because they wouldn’t
10 • ballbearingsmag.com
even put it into banks, as they were scared the federal government would come in and seize it. President Obama has directed his departments to not seize any kind of funds brought in through those businesses, so at the moment they’re allowed to—sort of allowed to—utilize the banks and not have lots of cash sitting around their farms or businesses. Right now, we have this dichotomy where it’s legal in some states but it’s prohibited across the country under federal law. And I don’t think the government is going to be able to allow that to continue much longer. I would expect them to do something in the next five or ten years.
H E A LT H E D U C AT O R Elizabeth Peeler Elizabeth Peeler is a health educator in the Office of Health, Alcohol, and Drug Education at Ball State University. She earned her Master’s in Public Health (MSPH) in health promotion, education, and behavior from the University of South Carolina. She earned a Bachelor of Science at Appalachian State University in cell/molecular biology, along with minors in chemistry and art history. I am not for the legalization of recreational marijuana use due to the safety concerns and questions surrounding long-term use of marijuana recreationally. As for the legalization of medical marijuana, I agree with the [Food and Drug Administration’s] statements. [The FDA] supports those in the medical research community who intend to study marijuana, as well as researchers who conduct adequate and well-controlled clinical trials, which may lead to the development of safe and effective marijuana products to treat medical conditions. With the current legalization laws across the country, my fellow public health colleagues and I have already started seeing the impact legalization has on our field. Currently, I have to educate students about the potential harms surrounding marijuana use as well as dispel commonly held myths surrounding the safety, use, and legality of marijuana.
M E N TA L H E A LT H COUNSELOR Cheryl Kaper Cheryl Kaper is a licensed mental health counselor, a board certified counselor, and is certified with the American Academy of Bereavement. She began her career working as a middle school guidance counselor
before teaching at Purdue University Calumet as a guest lecturer. Kaper later went into private practice for twenty-five years and, in that time, developed a therapy program for emotionally handicapped students for Cooperative School Services. She served as a therapist there for ten years. The only way I can think of legalization impacting my personal field of therapy is that a couple of my clients wouldn’t have the funds to pay for my services if not for their marijuana “business.” In general, I actually can’t come up with any difference it might make. Substances are substances. People’s struggles are people’s struggles. Period. In terms of my profession in general, I just can’t see why legalization would have any impact. Personally, I don’t see legalization as being such a bad thing. I think the idea of it being a “gateway” drug is passé at the least, and was probably always pretty bogus. I think there are many legitimate medical uses for marijuana— specifically compared to alcohol, which is legal and basically only used for recreational purposes. Legalizing marijuana would mean the availability of “clean” products, so-to-speak, as well as guidelines for safe, realistic medical use.
CLINICAL ADDICTIONS COUNSELOR Amanda Whitten Amanda Whitten is a licensed clinical addictions counselor as well as a licensed marriage and family therapist. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Ball State University and has been working in the field for seven years. She also holds two Master of Arts degrees, one in addictions counseling and one in marriage and family therapy—both earned from Indiana Wesleyan University. I think there will be an impact [from the legalization of marijuana], though I cannot predict exactly what it will be. Whether marijuana is legal or not, I feel it will always be an addictive substance and can have a negative impact on some people’s functioning. I often compare marijuana to alcohol in this regard, as many people can relate to how alcohol can have a negative impact on someone’s life and functioning. I will continue to approach cannabis as a recovery issue. In my opinion, I recognize that we will more likely than not reach a point where marijuana is legal. I feel there are many dynamics that need to be considered. [For example] how do we determine if someone is “too under the influence” to operate a motor vehicle? The reality is, we can’t measure marijuana in the system the way we can alcohol.
The drug’s interaction with an individual’s body chemistry is more difficult to predict. What potency should be legal? And how strong is too strong? Marijuana today is about 57 to 67 percent more potent than marijuana in the 1970s and new hybrids continue to be created. How do we educate children and teenagers on the potential risks of marijuana use, such as genetic predisposition for cannabis-induced psychosis and mood disorders? Additionally, we do know that cannabis use in childhood and adolescence negatively impacts cognitive development. The risk of underage use likely increases if a substance is legal. My hope is that as Indiana and other states look at whether to legalize marijuana, they look at all sides of the issue. Again, I can’t predict the exact outcome.
FA R M E R Scott Rice Scott Rice is the owner and operator of Rice Farms. He earned his bachelor’s degree in agriculture business from Purdue University. He has thirty-nine years of agriculture experience farming crops such as corn, soybeans, hay, wheat, and tomatoes. Personally, I wouldn’t identify as being in favor of the legalization of marijuana, though not for any particular reason. I don’t suppose that legalization would result in much of a noticeable impact for me and my line of work, adverse, or otherwise. I couldn’t really say how my life or my career would change if I grew marijuana. I can’t foresee how it could affect any of the other current crop productions, nor the prices of said crops. Other than the good-natured hassling I would inevitably get from colleagues and other farmers for growing it, I can honestly say I do not think it would change much of anything in the field of agriculture. Sure, some people would likely follow suit if farming marijuana became a viable option. However, I don’t anticipate a massive change in agricultural focus if it became the case. The standard crops would still need to be planted. The laws and opinions regarding this controversial substance vary radically. Despite the plant’s longestablished reputation as a gateway drug, it is projected that it could potentially decrease alcohol abuse and sedative dependence. As we continue to see growing numbers of states reap the health and societal benefits, it becomes more difficult to debate its relevance. Overall, the legalization of marijuana is a complicated and continuously evolving subject that draws both criticism and curiosity. Ball Bearings has edited statements for clarity.
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//column
AMERICA’S TWO-PARTY SYSTEM A FIGHT THIRD PARTIES CAN’T SURVIVE
L
ibertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson took the stage at the Conference of Mayors in Indianapolis in the summer of 2016 to an almost empty room. Just a day earlier, the ballroom was three times as full as mayors and reporters watched Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Afterwards, Clinton left without speaking to the media. Johnson, on the other hand, stuck around for twenty minutes to talk with reporters. The weekend was a perfect representation of Johnson’s campaign— largely ignored by the major parties and struggling to get his message out. “The system is designed to make it difficult for us to get to that tipping point,” Joe Hauptmann, the chair of the Indiana Libertarian party and director of Johnson’s Indiana campaign, says. As a third party candidate, Johnson has little chance of winning the election because of the way the electoral system works in the United States. The American political system isn’t set up for third party candidates to succeed, and never has been. In Congress, only two people aren’t
12 • ballbearingsmag.com
story: kaitlin lange
illustration: amanda bailey
from the two major parties: Angus King and Bernie Sanders. The last time a third party presidential candidate even received any electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968. Duverger’s Law states that electoral structure determines how many parties the system typically has. Countries with representation that directly mirrors their population tend to have more than two parties. This means that parties receive proportional representation to the amount of votes they receive. In countries like the U.S., which only allow one representative per district, two-party systems tend to be created. Daniel Reagan, chairperson of the Department of Political Science at Ball State University, listed numerous other factors that contribute to the low chances of a third party ever winning the presidency. Historically, there have been two parties, starting with the Federalists and the Antifederalists. Another less crucial reason third parties struggle to gain ground is that it’s challenging to even get on the ballot in every state. While the
majority of states allow write-ins, candidates have to collect signatures to actually get on the ballot. Then, to participate in debates, they must appear on enough states’ ballots and be polling at an average of 15 percent, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates. As Reagan put it, it’s not a level playing field for third party candidates. Reagan says third parties can still be influential, even though they won’t ever win considerable votes. In the past they’ve held the role of influencing the two parties to adopt major viewpoint changes. The Republicans adopted the abolitionist movement before the Civil War. And now, some argue Trump could be tapping into the frustrations of the Tea Party movement. Hauptmann believes if the party reaches a tipping point, it could replace one of the major two parties— and Johnson thinks he could play a role in upsetting the system that keeps third parties down. In July, Johnson said the two-party system is a dinosaur, and he’s the comet coming to wipe it out.
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//column
The Way We See
TERRORISM
Domestic terrorism accounted for slightly more than 73 percent of acts of terror in the United States between 1980 and 2000. International terrorism, although widely discussed, only made up 26 percent. story: julia steele
illustration: jennifer firoved
T
he barrel of a .44 pistol was pointed in Raisuddin “Rais” Bhuiyan’s face. At the other end, a redheaded man demanded money from the cash register of the gas station he worked at. Before he knew what was happening, Rais’ blood gushed from his head, collecting on the floor where he collapsed—though the bullet didn’t kill him. Rais is a Middle-Eastern American who emigrated from a successful life in Bangladesh to study in America, he says. In Bangladesh, he had been an air force officer, jet fighter pilot, and a Microsoftcertified systems engineer. He left his supportive family and all that he knew to study in America. Anand Giridharadas, a New York Times columnist, wrote the book The
14 • ballbearingsmag.com
True American, which brings the story of Rais to light. The shooting took place on September 21, 2001. The man who attacked Rais, Mark Stroman, intended to get revenge for the events of 9/11 by shooting any Arab he was able to find—and Rais was one of them. Stroman later admitted to his crimes in a videotaped interview before his trial. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection, and was executed on July 20, 2011, in Huntsville, Texas. Since the War on Terror, many Americans have developed the stereotypical image of a terrorist being of Middle-Eastern descent. In a study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2007, only 21 percent of Muslim Americans thought support existed for
extremism within the American Muslim community. Forty percent of the general population thought otherwise. Pew Research also found that 28 percent of Muslim Americans had experienced what they considered to be suspicious looks, and 22 percent had been called derogatory names. More than half say that the U.S. anti-terrorism policies target Muslim Americans for increased surveillance. There is a distinction between acts of terror committed by Americans and acts of terror that result from foreign interference. International terrorism consists of terrorist actions that originated outside of the U.S. but are played out in the United States. Domestic terrorism is any unlawful violence
YET ANAND THINKS THAT A PERSON LIKE ROOF— A HOMEGROWN TERRORIST—IS OFTEN ONLY THOUGHT OF AS A “LOST LITTLE BOY.”
committed toward Americans by Americans for a political or social cause. According to Dale Watson from the FBI, of the 335 incidents of terror that occurred within the United States between 1980 and 2000, 247 were considered domestic while only eightyeight were international. Despite the fact that Americans are far more likely to experience domestic terrorism, international terrorism tends to cause the most fear. Fifty-nine percent of Americans are worried about the threat of terrorism by those who come from other countries, according to a New York Times and CBS News poll. Sixty-three percent are worried about foreign-influenced terrorist acts committed by people living in America. Giridharadas says much of this fear comes from misrepresentation, and because people consider foreign-influenced terrorism to be international terrorism. This leads him to believe there is a greater fear of international terrorism, even though the threat is not as prominent. Often, Americans do not classify domestic terrorism as “terrorism.” Dylann Roof shot and killed nine black Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. The shooting was a result of his feelings toward race and religion. Even though his actions could be considered domestic terrorism, he was charged with a federal hate crime. Giridharadas believes people don’t tend to justify the acts of individuals like Roof. Instead, he says, acts of domestic terrorism like this are minimized. People like Roof are labeled as “troubled” instead of as terrorists, even though Roof’s actions and ideology mirrored those of white terrorist organizations. When a foreign person commits this type of crime, the act is correctly and
immediately labeled as terrorism. Yet Giridharadas thinks that a person like Roof—a homegrown terrorist—is often only thought of as a “lost little boy.” The minimization of domestic terrorist acts is furthered when legal charges call the acts anything other than terrorism. This is true with Stroman’s trial as well. The general public treated it as a hate crime rather than terrorism. According to Giridharadas, Stroman was tried with capital murder while committing a robbery. But when Stroman shot and killed another
Incidents of Terror 335 247 88
incidents occured in the U.S. (1980-2000) were considered domestic incidents were considered international incidents
man, Waqar Hasan, who was grilling hamburgers in his store in Dallas, there was no attempt of robbery. Clearly, money was not Stroman’s motive. To Giridharadas, this was another example of minimization. Stroman was a self-defined “American terrorist,” and an Aryan Brother, a member of a white supremacist organization. The intention behind the crime, which was to eliminate Muslims in response to 9/11, was minimized and displayed to the jury as an act driven by the desire for money. The jury would then be more inclined to view Stroman as a lost man who robbed a gas station to get money instead of a man driven by hate. Rais understands the fear caused by
reports of international terrorism. He feels apprehensive when boarding a flight and experiences grief when he hears of radical acts of terror. However, in Rais’s experience, fear of foreign terrorism comes from the media isolating and focusing on specific incidents committed by terrorists of a different nationality. So when terrorism is not committed by Muslims, the fear is less intense. Rais says that the solution requires not placing blame on one group or minority, but instead coming together to solve the problem. In a case of domestic terrorism from June of 2016 in Orlando, Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen who was born in America, shot and killed forty-nine people in a gay nightclub as he called the police and declared his allegiance to ISIS. However, no evidence has been found to prove this connection. But Mateen did claim to have the same ideology as ISIS. Giridharadas says that the Orlando case is especially scary because foreign organizations don’t need to have direct contact with anyone for individuals to claim an organization’s ideas. Technology has enabled individuals from anywhere to find and adopt the ideologies of radical organizations. The line between domestic and international terrorism is blurry. Mateen committed this act within the U.S. without foreign contact or involvement, but he was still foreigninfluenced. Giridharadas believes that the value Americans place on whether or not a terrorist act originated elsewhere is misplaced because technology spreads ideas anywhere, even without foreign coordination. Terrorism has evolved alongside technology, and most terrorism affecting Americans is domestic. It is therefore important that cases of this kind are treated as what they truly are: Terrorism.
15
THE RIPPLE
EFFECT
Conventional wisdom suggests that one person can’t make a difference in society. Maybe that wisdom is wrong. story: vanessa ford Desmond Searcy, a thirty-seven-year-old home health care aid, is in his Muncie home. The news is on, and reporters are talking about a town in Michigan, slightly more than four hours away from his house in Muncie. The town is Flint. The entire community lacks access to safe water because of contamination. He thinks of his children—his family—and how it could just as easily be them in that situation. For the next few days, he couldn’t shake the idea of Flint. He couldn’t explain why it bothered him so much—it was just one of those deep-seated feelings that took root inside and wouldn’t go away. By the second day after President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint, he was growing more and more frustrated. He couldn’t just sit and watch anymore. Although the Flint community was receiving support, he didn’t think it was enough. He had been praying for the residents of Flint, but he knew that faith alone was not going to solve the problem. He wasn’t sure what a single individual, such as himself, could do to help a community of more than 100,000 people in a situation as severe as this. But he knew he needed to do something. That something was the Water Drop Relief Project. His goal: Collect one hundred cases of water to personally deliver to a church in Flint that he had previously been involved with. The day he decided to launch his oneman operation, Desmond sat down at his computer after his kids, Akil and Aalayah, left for school and created a flyer for the project. On one side, it described the project, gave information about the goal, and how people could donate. On the other side, it had a graphic showing a water faucet connected to a globe—one small drop dripping out to join the collection of water in the bucket beneath. The top of the flyer read: “The Water Drop Relief Project. Help aid those affected in Flint.” After finishing the flyer, he posted it to Facebook, and encouraged people to
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spread the word. He hoped that his friends, family, and coworkers would be able to increase exposure and donate if they could. He didn’t think it would be a big deal to donate a case or two. Five dollars worth of water isn’t much to some people, but it would mean the world to those in Flint. Desmond then went out and purchased sixteen cases of water to go toward the project, allowing the project to hit the quarter mark shortly after its conception. Fifteen more cases were waiting for him when he got home, followed by twelve more later that day. Twelve hours into the project, the goal was almost halfway reached. He didn’t realize initially how a small project, started by one person, could move a much larger group of people into action. He also didn’t realize that by directly asking for their help and giving them a way to do so, he was making it easier for them to want to be involved. He had created a way for other people to feel connected to the issue. While there’s a complexity driving one’s decision to get involved, people are more likely to help if they have a personal connection, or if they feel like they’re connected to a group. It’s why a place like Facebook can be such a powerful motivating force in the early stages of a movement—it allows people to reach out to those they know and get them interested. That’s why Desmond turned to Facebook to get things off the ground. He hoped his group of people would make his cause their cause. However, the reality of the situation is that he also just got lucky. Most of the time, when we try to get our friends to help with something we feel passionate about, we are ignored. Most people can recall, or are at least familiar with, a time when they or someone they know attempted something much the same as what Desmond did. What we usually find out is that our friends just don’t care, or they don’t feel like they need to. The attempt usually flops. Although it’s not something we really think about, or even try to understand at all,
there’s actually a reason this happens. When faced with an emergency situation, no matter the size or type, any given individual will go through the same process in their minds—whether or not they should help. It’s automatic. The process that we go through leads to the person who witnessed the emergency, or has knowledge of it, making a critical decision. They will either decide to help, or they will end up convincing themselves that it isn’t something they need to be personally concerned about and that it’s someone else’s problem. This choice is a result of something called the bystander effect. Ball State social psychology professor Ron Truelove says, simply put, the bystander effect is the tendency of people to ignore other people who are in trouble, and not really get involved. The way this actually goes down can be different, depending on how many bystanders there are and how they’re interacting with one another. What it all boils down to, though, is that there are essentially three ways it happens. If a person is alone when they see something, and think no one else saw what happened, they’re going to feel more responsible for it and will be more likely to help out. That’s what usually happens when a single person acts alone. But the bystander effect also happens in groups. That’s where problems tend to occur. If someone is in a larger group—with friends, family, strangers—and collectively sees something happen, he or she is less likely to do something. It’s a shared experience; the responsibility of helping gets diffused among all of the bystanders and everyone then waits for someone else to act. Because of course, someone else will do something. The problem is, that’s what everyone is thinking, so, in most cases, nothing ends up being done about the emergency. Even more problematic, the bystander’s group doesn’t even have to be real or physical. In a community, even if there isn’t anyone around, one is able to convince himself or herself that surely someone else saw what happened, or someone else is already working on solving the problem. This can keep someone from acting. In psychological studies, it’s a common practice to conduct experiments to examine behavior and reactions to certain types of situations. Truelove mentioned one study aimed at discovering more about the bystander effect. The study consisted
of a woman riding her bike along a path, completely alone, just coasting from point A to point B. The people who were conducting the study placed a man along the path, obviously hurt and probably incapacitated, clearly in need of help. They wanted to find out if the woman would stop and help, even though the man was a stranger and she didn’t have any connection to him. When she reached the man, she looked down, saw him, and then went out of her way to go around him, continuing her journey. She was alone, she was able to help, and she left him alone and did not stop or even attempt to assist him. There’s more to it than just being alone and being present when something happens. Sometimes, people don’t want to help because they feel like they might get hurt if they intervene. Truelove thinks that this is what happened in the case of the woman on the bicycle. But sometimes, it comes down to just not feeling any personal connection to the emergency, which Truelove mentioned being a key deciding factor for a single bystander. However, sometimes even personal connections fall through. That’s the rub. Just because you know somebody—just because you’re friends with somebody—that doesn’t mean they will help you. That’s the reason why people so often stop trying to help: It’s really, really hard. When Desmond was reaching out to members of his community, attempting to increase the amount of water he could collect and gain more support for the cause, he experienced the failure of a personal connection firsthand. He was at a barber shop, getting his hair cut, and decided to bring up his project. He had known the man to be a community activist, and thought he would be willing to donate some water. Much to his surprise, the man said he wouldn’t be able to donate. Desmond was confused at first, and asked what he meant. He couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t be able to donate something as simple and as cheap as a few bottles of water. He went on to tell Desmond that there were issues in Muncie, their own community, that weren’t being addressed and should be focused on first. Why help another community when their own needed help, too? Desmond was astounded at the level of disconnect there could be, just because a
E V A S T N I L F
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THAT’S THE FACE OF FLINT. THAT’S THE FEAR OF: ‘I DON’T KNOW WHERE MY NEXT MEAL IS COMING FROM. I DON’T KNOW WHERE MY NEXT CLEAN DRINK OF WATER IS COMING FROM.’
DESMOND SEARCY
person wasn’t a part of the same community as the one that needed help. A personal connection, just knowing Desmond, wasn’t enough to move that man to action. The decision process gets slightly more complex when more people are involved, which is where the second part of the bystander effect comes into play. Because there are multiple people who are aware of the emergency, the responsibility for helping becomes shared amongst them all—theoretically decreasing the amount of responsibility that they each feel individually. The more people there are, the more likely it is that the bystander effect will occur. People don’t naturally tend to think it’s their business to help. There are ways to overcome this. The easiest is for one person to take charge and delegate responsibilities to other individuals. Specificity makes it personal, which is then more likely to lead to actual assistance. However, people are more likely to help immediately after a crisis than they are after time has passed. Truelove explained that after the immediacy of an emergency has passed, people will stop feeling as connected to it, because the shock wears off and they won’t feel as urged to help. He used 9/11 as an example. People who didn’t need to be there volunteered at the very beginning. However, as time went on, people felt their help wasn’t needed anymore. This happened in the case of Flint, which is why Desmond encountered people who didn’t want to help, and also why his efforts to increase help were actually effective. His project ended up being more successful than he could have ever hoped for, and he had the bystander effect to thank for that. Desmond hit his goal after five days. By the project’s end a week later, he’d collected more than 600 cases of water—six times as much as he had originally hoped for. Because he had so much water, he couldn’t take it all to Flint on his own, and had to reach out to more members of the community to help him get it there. He happened to get into contact with the owner of a moving company, All Star
photo provided: desmond searcy Volunteers for Desmond’s Water Drop Relief Project carry water into Kingdom Life Ministries.
Moving, who was willing to provide transport for the water. Free of charge. On January 30, 2016, Desmond and his children followed the moving truck with their van. The drive was more than four hours, and by the time they would have reached Flint, it would be late, so they all stayed in hotels. Due to the water crisis, they couldn’t stay in Flint, so they chose cities near the area. Desmond and his children stayed in Saginaw that night, and the next morning they arrived at Kingdom Life Ministries in Flint at 9 a.m. as planned. As they unloaded the water, Desmond allowed himself a small moment to feel relieved. They had finally delivered all of the water that had been piling up in his house for the past two weeks, completely taking over two rooms. Since it was just him and his two kids, the loss of the rooms didn’t affect their daily life much. They were just glad to be able to help Flint residents. Desmond was able to overcome the bystander effect, not just by creating the project and acting as a single individual, but also by taking responsibility for helping and delegating responsibility to others. After Desmond’s initial feeling of relief came happiness. They had been able to contribute in a much larger way than he originally planned for, and he was glad. However, as soon as they finished unloading the water from the truck into the church, Desmond went into planning mode once again. He wanted to turn this success into a series of successes, and now that the first drop was done, he could start on the next with a better idea of how to help. He thought of one Flint resident in particular as he made this decision—a little boy who had come with his mother to help unload the water at the church. The boy was around seven years old. The entire time he
helped out, he looked afraid. “That’s the face of Flint,” Desmond said, showing a photo he had taken with the child on his phone. “That’s the fear of: ‘I don’t know where my next meal is coming from. I don’t know where my next clean drink of water is coming from. How is this affecting everyone? I’m scared because I hear all of the stuff everyone is talking about.’ That’s the face of a kid who doesn’t understand. Who has been affected by this and doesn’t even understand what exactly it is or how he’s been affected.” The memory of that child stays with him and drives him in his continued efforts to help. In the beginning, after word spread about his project, people began to contribute and donate water in much larger amounts than Desmond had thought possible. As it turns out, once people knew specifically what they could do, they were willing to help. Even in aspects other than donations, like figuring out how to get the water to Flint and how to get more publicity, Desmond was delegating responsibilities. He reached out to specific people for specific reasons in order to help in specific ways. He overcame the problem that most often leads to the bystander effect, according to Truelove: Not knowing what to do. Desmond’s idea to act alone in creating the project, and then gain the support he needed to actually carry it out afterward, shows how the bystander effect can be overcome. It shows how efforts to help society can be successful. It allowed people to feel personally responsible and like they could do something themselves. When it comes to activism, enacting change, or simply helping one who needs it, one person’s actions can truly be the spark that leads to societal change.
19
AMERICA, THE
50%
story: michele whitehair graphics: tyson bird
Angie Gick, the owner of Teddy Bear Child Care in Muncie, Indiana, completely changed the day care center’s food options. She hired a Middle Eastern dietitian to help with the change— eliminating pork from the menu. Almost 75 percent of the children at the center were Middle Eastern, and she wanted to take pork off the menu to better serve them, as they are not allowed to have it. It sounded easy, but there was a lot more involved in cutting out pork than simply taking sausage gravy and pepperoni out of the kitchen. Meatballs, and anything with lard or gelatin—like canned goods, refried beans, marshmallows, fruit snacks and even some yogurts—had to go. Chicken, too, needed specific monitoring, as only specific kinds are acceptable. Fish sticks also had to be watched. Today, about 10 percent of the children at Teddy Bear Child Care are Middle Eastern, and 5 percent are Chinese, Angie says. The menu remains pork-free, and she has added vegetarian options for more concerned parents. The diversity reflected in Angie’s day care might soon be the norm across the nation. In 2014, more than half of children younger than five were a minority race, as were 49.6 percent of those between the ages five and nine. This means that as these children grow up, more of the American population will consist of minority races. In fact, according to 2014
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Census projections, America will be a majority of minority races—a plurality— by the year 2044. Some states already have a plurality. These states include California, Hawaii and New Mexico. By the year 2060, the minority population in America is expected to rise to 56 percent. This shift is expected to cause many changes, from what children are taught in the classroom to the state of politics, our nation will change as America becomes less white and more diverse.
Educating a Plurality Some students taking a multicultural education course through Michael Ndemanu, an assistant professor of multicultural education at Ball State University, ask him why his class is important for them—students who grew up in a racially homogenous suburban school system, and plan to return there when they graduate. The reality, though, is that schools are becoming more racially diverse, and will continue to do so. Ndemanu says that racially homogenous school systems may become more rare as diverse school systems expand. A 2014 report by the National Center for Education Statistics found that the minority student population became the majority in the 2014-2015 academic year—so this
4 4 20
nsus he e C the dicts t r a e y pre lurality u a Bure jority/p ver ma crosso ur occ will
change is already happening. Angie’s day care is just one of many diverse day cares in the nation. One day, Angie was picking up a child from kindergarten. He had been a student of hers at Teddy Bear Child Care for two years, and in that time he had gone from not knowing a word of English to speaking and understanding it well. As his kindergarten teacher put him in the car seat, Angie remembers her telling him, “You forgot your lunchbox. Here it is. Oh, I don’t even know why I’m trying. He doesn’t understand me anyway.” Angie flashed her a disgusted look. She couldn’t believe what she said to him while he sat there completely understanding her words. Angie took over and buckled him into the car seat. “Did you have lunch today?” Angie asked him.
PLURALITY By the year 2044, America will be a majority of minority races, and will need to adapt to changes in education and politics that do not serve a white majority.
“Yeah.” “What did you have?” “Date cake.” The two carried on an effortless conversation. The boy could talk in complete sentences, but the kindergarten teacher hadn’t seemed to notice that he could understand English. This incident, according to Maria Hernandez-Finch, a professor of educational psychology at Ball State, can’t happen if a diverse class wants to be successful. The classroom that will be best suited to educate a plurality is one that takes those diverse cultural backgrounds that students bring in, and uses them to add to the lesson, rather than disregard them. This, she continued, will involve both teachers and administrators doing continuous self-examinations to reflect on their inherent biases, to better be able to teach their students. A successful classroom will show the students that their experiences are respected and appreciated. This equal education curriculum is not attainable in the current system, Hernandez-Finch says. The tax base for the community in which a student goes to school tells a lot about students’ educational opportunities, and the current property tax system, which funds schools, means schools with expensive homes get more funding. Neighboring schools in districts with low property values are then poorly funded because their property taxes are
relatively lower, Ndemanu says. Considering that a 2012 PBS report says the poverty rate in the black and Latino children population is 38.2 percent and 32.3 percent, respectively, the probability of children of color attending poorly funded school is very high. The parents of this new majority in public schools often live in low-income neighborhoods because they cannot afford the expensive homes which will, in turn, open the doors of quality education to their children, Ndemanu says. Some of the reasons that explain poverty in largely black neighborhoods are the lingering effects of slavery, Jim Crow laws, “separate but equal” regulations, and racist housing policies. For Latinos, the lack of English proficiency skills has contributed to the hindrance of academic and subsequently economic growth, Ndemanu says. As a result of economic hardship, they tend to live in low-income neighborhoods where their real estate properties yield less property tax. Teachers are also part of the problem— being overwhelmingly white. A 2015 report by the U.S. Department of Education stated that 82.7 percent of teachers in the 2011-2012 school year were white. This poses a problem, Ndemanu says, because many of those teachers were raised in middle class homes where English is spoken. As school systems are becoming more diverse, many students may not speak English in their homes.
THEY’RE SO USED TO PEOPLE NOT UNDERSTANDING EVERYTHING THEY SAY.
ANGIE GICK Ndemanu says one way to fix this inequality would be to dismantle the current system for deciding how funds are given to schools. He calls for new policies that utilize a progressive income tax system to fund schools equally. For Angie, the children at Teddy Bear Child Care don’t seem to see race, or language barriers. Their top priority is play. “They’re so used to people not understanding everything they say.” As with every situation involving children, there are the occasional issues, but Angie says the children at Teddy Bear Child Care all get along with each other. “They just get it,” she says.
Reinventing Politics If the current political party stances remain similar in the coming years, Angie’s class of diverse students will, by the numbers,
21
Though the current generation has a clear white majority, the next several generations will transition the United States into a ‘majority of minorities,’ as other races begin to overtake the white majority as the single largest demographic. Photo taken in Union Square, New York by Dan Jacobsen
largely vote Democratic, which could spell disaster for the Republican party. A person’s voting practices have a lot to do with their demographic background, according to Ball State professor of political science Joseph Losco, and race plays a significant part in that. Minorities are more likely than nonHispanic whites to vote Democratic or Independent, and this has the opportunity to change the outcomes of elections at every level of government. As America becomes more of a plurality, the votes of groups other than whites will have the biggest impact on elections. America’s future as a plurality may spell trouble for the Republican party in the coming years, as the party has traditionally pulled much of its support from the non-Hispanic white population, which is slowly losing ground as the voting population becomes more diverse. In the 2008 election, 42.5 percent of American adults were non-Hispanic white voters. For the 2012 election, this number was down to 41.7 percent. Black voters made up 7.2 percent of America’s voting population in 2008, and 7.5 percent in 2012. Between the 2008 and 2012 election, Hispanic voters went up from 4.3 percent to 4.8 percent. These statistics do not represent huge jumps in numbers, but Losco says they soon will.
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Losco says he thinks the black population feels empowered by President Obama’s success in 2012 and that there will be a high turnout to the voting booths this year, and future years. Along with the growing empowerment of black voters, Losco says in twenty years, the Hispanic population is likely to be the most powerful voting force in the country. In the American Southwest, the Hispanic population already holds significant political power, and as the numbers increase, that power is expected to expand to other parts of the country. According to Census data, the Hispanic population grew by 1.3 percent between 2010 and 2015. In the same time frame, the black population grew 0.7 percent and the Asian population grew by 0.8 percent. California is an example of the political changes that Losco says will most likely spread to the rest of the country. In 2015, the state was 62 percent minority races, according to Census data. In what Losco calls a domino effect where an increase in diversity means an increase in Democratic votes, it should not be surprising that California is a majority blue state. As this trend spreads across the country, and as the voting population increases, the white electorate represents the slowest increase of all the races. The white voting population grew by 2 percent between
THIS YEAR, THERE IS A CLEAR DIVIDE BETWEEN THE WHITE AND MINORITY POPULATIONS.
JOSEPH LOSCO
2012 and 2016, according to a study by Pew Research. In the same time, the black electorate grew 6 percent, the Hispanic electorate grew 17 percent and the Asian electorate grew by 16 percent. Unlike previous elections, this year’s election is very polarized, especially when it comes to the demographics of each candidate’s supporters. “This year, there is a clear divide between the white and minority populations,” Losco says. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is playing to and being supported mostly by women and minorities. Despite its 2012 report detailing the reasons behind the Republican Party’s 2012 loss to President Obama, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the other hand, has a support system primarily composed of the white population.
RACE AND PARTY
A 2014 Pew Research study compared how voters identify themselves with both race and political leaning. Minority groups tend to identify as Republican less frequently than other political leanings.
Democrat
White
Independent
40%
25%
30%
64%
Black Hispanic
34%
Asian
37%
5%
26%
5% 5%
44%
13% 46%
The report detailed the importance of, among other changes, an increased emphasis on reaching out to minorities. Losco says that the results of this campaign will likely display the future path of the Republican party. If Trump becomes president, he says, the party will show that a toned down but similar approach to the one he is taking is still a viable approach. If Clinton wins, however, the party will have to start from square one in identifying their outreach procedures. Either way, he says, the
52
Republican Other
11%
Republican party will need to eventually move toward appealing to the minority population—because minority children are already reaching a plurality, and soon, they will be the ones who vote. Angie is seeing America’s transformation into a plurality happen before her eyes at Teddy Bear Child Care. As she looks out on her classroom, there is no unifying skin tone, no unifying culture, and no unifying religion—a foreshadowing of what America will look like in the not-so-distant future.
9% 6%
64.4
Melting pot: Percent of the population by race and Hispanic origin for the United States population eighteen and younger, 2014 and 2060. *The Census defines a “minority” as anyone belonging to a group other than non-Hispanic white. By 2060, this number is projected to overtake white alone. 35.6
48
33.5
24.4
13.8 13.2 4.7 0.9 0.6 White
Black
American Indian/ Alaska Native
8.9
7.9 4.1 0.2 0.2
Asian
Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander
Two or more races
Hispanic
Minority*
source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2014 national projections
23
WHY WE THINK WE’RE RIGHT Cognitive processes make it inherently difficult to compromise. story: vanessa ford photo illustrations: erika espinoza and stacie kammerling
25
In late September of 2013, Congress was trying to come to an agreement about the budget for the 2014 fiscal year. They couldn’t agree on funding for the Affordable Care Act—Republicans voting to defund it while Democrats resisted. By the end of September, they still hadn’t made a decision, so the spending plan couldn’t be solidified. Without that plan, the government can’t run, and so it came to a halt.
From October 1–16, 2013, the government was shut down. This led to approximately 800,000 government e m p l o y e e s losing their jobs indefinitely, and another 1.3 million required to work without knowing when they would be paid again. People who had nothing to do with the decisionmaking process were being affected by other people’s inability to come to an agreement and make a decision. When making decisions, people often don’t think about how they came to the decision that they did.
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They don’t stop to wonder why they’ve chosen one side of an argument, and why that one side is right while the other is wrong. People know what they think is right, and leave it at that. In general, this process isn’t taken any further. But some people have made a career out of studying it. Kerri Pickel, a psychology professor at Ball State University, studies cognition, or how the brain works. She explained that our brains naturally put things into categories to help sort information, and it’s something that happens in all individuals. However, some—and she would argue most, to an extent—people take this a step further and develop biases, which is something no one is quite able to explain. A bias is a departure from rationality, but there’s no exact explanation for why they come about. People have all kinds of cognitive biases hardwired into their brains that basically control how they make decisions and choose sides—an answer to the previously mentioned “why.” These vary from
person to person in type and how prevalent they are. Pickel explained that not everyone seems to have these present in the same way as others. Not everyone has the same experiences or makes the same choices, so their biases aren’t going to be the same, logically. For example, Pickel says that one person could dislike someone based on an experience they’ve had with a person who’s similar. Another person, who didn’t have that same experience, might not hold that same feeling of dislike. No one’s experiences are the same, so the biases that an individual has will tend to show up differently. These biases aren’t always bad or problematic, though. They work in conjunction with one another to help individuals assure themselves that they are making the right decision, or have the correct opinion. It becomes a problem when this isn’t the case—when someone is wrong and doesn’t want to be wrong, or when a person uses their bias to justify discriminatory behavior.
A GROUP MINDSET Nora Hopf sat on the curb outside of an abortion clinic in Louisville, Kentucky. She could see women walking to and from the clinic, but she wasn’t allowed to talk to them—the attendants wouldn’t permit it. She wanted to make sure they knew they had options, that they were loved and they could talk to her, or anyone, about what else they could do. But she, along with the group of pro-life students from her hometown of Jasper, Indiana, were prevented from doing that. They had been taken there as a part of the group Teens For Life, which was sponsored by her church. The advisors wanted the kids to see what an abortion clinic was like. She felt overwhelmed with how much she wished she could help the women, and that’s one of the reasons she decided to make that her own, personal cause. Nora has been pro-life for as long as she can remember, and she says that most of the people in
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THE ANATOMY OF DECISION MAKING Scientists are studying the brain to understand and explain how we make choices every day. Our brain processes options and their outcomes to choose the best decision. But this is a complex subject we are only beginning to uncover. BREAKING DOWN THE BRAIN The new field of studying decision making is known as “decision neuroscience.” The actions of specific neuronal circuits in our brain ultimately control our thoughts. Decision neuroscience uncovers these circuits, which map thinking on a cellular level.
MAKING A CHOICE Logic isn’t the only factor helping your brain make a decision. Many functions in the brain contribute to your choices. Other influences include: Memory
Emotion
•
Adaptive behavior
PREDICTING OUTCOMES While making a decision, our brain is posed with mental stimulation to predict an outcome based on experiences: How did this work out for me in the past?
How did this work out for others in the past?
Are there emotions that alter my decision?
•
•
Perception
Rewards
CROSS DISCIPLINARY STUDIES The human brain is so complex that many disciplines use their expertise to study why and how we make decisions: Psychology
•
Biology
•
Economics
THE CEREBRUM The cerebrum is divided into four sections in which functions overlap to contribute to making everyday decisions.
FRONTAL LOBE This is the largest area of the brain, which controls reasoning and decision making.
OCCIPITAL LOBE This section controls the ability to read, write, and understand spatial relationships.
PARIETAL LOBE
TEMPORAL LOBE
This area rests above the ears on both sides and controls memory, speech, and comprehension.
This lobe is the most posterior part of the brain, which controls sight.
graphic: stacie kammerling
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sources: kavlifoundation.org, northeastern.edu
her life are supportive of this and don’t oppose her views. She first got involved when she heard about the group from people at her church, and she has stayed with a similar set of people since coming to Ball State. She joined the Ball State Students For Life group as a freshman and even became president as a sophomore, a position she continues to hold. One of the reasons that Nora may have these opinions is due to a cognitive bias called the falseconsensus effect. Obviously, there isn’t one single factor that entirely determines how opinions are formed but who one surrounds themselves with does have to do with which ideas and thoughts one is exposed to. Oftentimes, the people associated with an individual the most, such as family and friends, feel similarly on important topics, such as politics or religion. This is the main component of the false-consensus effect. A person sticks to those who are like-minded—people who affirm his or her beliefs. Because these people hold the same opinions, they tend to believe their opinion is the correct way to think. This is the false-consensus effect in a nutshell. When an individual actively associates mostly with people who feel the same as them on a regular basis, they begin to develop a mindset that it is the norm. Since others around an individual feel a certain way, and confirm that person’s mentality, there is an assumption that all people feel the same. Pickel says that when this bias is present, we go through a process of determining what we should believe and what’s the right opinion. We start by thinking of our own belief and what we personally feel about a subject. For example, in Nora’s case, she thinks that women should consider all of their options before having an abortion. Then, we move on to what we know others believe. However, we don’t know what every person believes, and we aren’t able to. So we go with what’s available: The opinions of people we know. We tally up their beliefs and compare them to ours: Are they pro-life or pro-choice? Usually, according to Pickel, the people we know share the same beliefs as us. This is mostly true in Nora’s case. She grew up in a conservative town, and the people she chose to associate with were also pro-life. Thus, when a person goes through this process, he or she comes to the conclusion that most of the people close to him or her feel the same, and therefore this opinion is the correct one. Yet the false-consensus effect isn’t the only mind trick at play here. There are other ways we convince ourselves that we are right and our way is the way.
PEOPLE ARE DEFENDING THEIR BELIEFS without ever really having considered that they may be WRONG. AN IRRATIONAL FEELING Emily Skelton was in highschool when a friend of hers introduced her to someone they knew and thought she would get along with. The person was a straight, white, cisgender male and Emily was immediately scared of him. She didn’t have a reason—she had just met him and he had never done anything to give her that impression, or make her scared of him. But because of a traumatic past experience with a person who was similar to the guy she was introduced to, Emily was afraid he was going to hurt her, like the previous man had. She avoided him for a while before finally realizing that she was acting irrationally, and in a biased way. This happens every time Emily meets a man who shares the same characteristics as the one from her past, and she can’t necessarily control it. She can only recognize and attempt to counteract it. Emily’s experience demonstrates confirmation bias. This is a pretty individualized cognitive process, meaning that it doesn’t necessarily depend on other people to form. Instead, it bases its influences on past experiences. With this, a person sticks to his or her own beliefs and rejects others by actively refusing to take in information that contradicts their own feelings. At the same time, they seek out information that supports their feelings, taking it to mean that they are, in fact, right. They confirm their preexisting beliefs and reject or ignore the others.
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5 TYPES
of cognitive biases that affect your decisions Pickel said that when this is at play, the person wants to be right, and wants to support his or her stance on the topic, so they won’t even pay any attention to information that threatens the validity of their point of view. For Emily, this means that at first, all men who remind her of the past experience are a threat, and not much can convince her that they aren’t trying to hurt her. This process happens first by forming a hypothesis, or a thought, about a certain topic. In Emily’s case, due to her experiences, she has an aversion toward straight, white, cisgender men. Because she feels that this type of person is inherently bad, she only sees information that proves that feeling she holds. When a person is experiencing confirmation bias, like Emily, they take information that validates their views as proof that their thoughts about the topic are correct, without considering the other side. Essentially, this boils down to finding a fact and taking it at face value, never questioning its accuracy. Pickel said that this is problematic because it’s not the proper way to test a hypothesis, or in this case, a thought about a topic. It could mean that people are defending their beliefs without ever really having considered that they may be wrong, or that there may be another way. Scientifically speaking, the result that they’ve come to can’t actually be trusted, since it never went through a process of comparing it to the opposite. In other words, sometimes we have no idea what we’re talking about.
AN EMOTIONAL DEFENSE Right before the presidential debate in September of 2016, Josie Weaver and Alex Abasi went to a friend’s house to watch the debate together. When it came time for it to start, there was a disagreement about which channel to watch it on. One roommate suggested CNN. Josie got upset and said, “You would put it on CNN because you agree with them.” Alex said something similar about Fox News. Both of them felt that those channels would be biased in how they represented the debate. They thought that the outcome would be misrepresented, because they each felt that the other’s station’s commentary would not be objective. Even though all news outlets were broadcasting the exact same live stream of the debate, they continued thinking that the one they favored somehow offered more impartial versions. Another, slightly more involved, type of cognitive bias is called motivated reasoning. It
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ANCHORING BIAS People rely too much on the first piece of information they hear
BANDWAGON EFFECT
When one person adapts the belief based on the number of people who share the same belief
CHOICESUPPORTIVE BIAS
Even if a choice is flawed, one tends to feel positive about it
ZERO-RISK BIAS
When making a decision, someone eliminates uncertainty so that no harm can be caused by it
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
When someone allows his or her expectations to influence how he or she perceives the world
source: mentalfloss.com
takes confirmation bias a step further and actively puts down opposing sides. Motivated reasoning is highly powered by emotions. People get defensive when they discover that they may not be right, so instead of accepting this fact, they bring out the guns and shoot down the other side. If the information supports their opinion, even the smallest bit, it’s used as if it is definite—even if a person knows, deep inside, that it’s not. We want to be right, at any cost, because the alternative is something we don’t like to handle—defeat. When Josie and Alex were trying to get their friends to watch the debate from their preferred outlet, they had no basis for thinking others would be biased. They also didn’t have any proof that the news outlet they wanted to watch it from would be more accurate, considering it was a live debate. They had an opinion, and they wanted to be right—so they said the other side was wrong. This can also occur when a person discovers information and defends it in a biased way. They have a goal—proving that they are, in fact, right, and everyone else is wrong—and so they go about achieving that goal in a biased way. Rather than approaching the search for information in an objective manner, some may search only for information that proves the point they want to make and likewise, information that disproves the other side. This can be dangerous, because some people cannot be swayed, no matter how much information is presented to them. And this causes a rift. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter. But sometimes it does.
AN INABILITY TO AGREE On September 27, 2016, a group of Ball State students crowded around a man at the Scramble Light, yelling and crying, trying to drown out his words. The man was a representative of Cincinnati’s Official Street Preachers organization, and was there to spread his beliefs—which consisted mostly of an anti-gay message, as well as some others that the students found offensive. “You’re all going to Hell!” The preacher shouted at students as they waited for the chirping sounds that meant they could cross safely. “You believe it’s okay to be a homosexual, and so you’re all sinners, doomed to Hell!” Students were outraged, believing that he had no right to spread what they considered to be hateful messages. They crowded around him, and another preacher who joined later in the afternoon, and even held signs that countered his, such as “Love never fails” and other messages they felt were positive.
IF YOU’RE CONVINCED THAT YOU’RE RIGHT, LOGICALLY, you aren’t going to be searching for reasons why you might not be. IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.
They were clearly upset at the presence of the preachers, and argued relentlessly with them. This interaction lasted well into the afternoon until the preachers finally left. Both sides, the preachers and the students, were spewing information at one another, trying to prove that they were right and the other wrong. They exchanged Bible verses and different interpretations of what those meant, neither side giving in to the other or accepting what they had to say. The students were angry, some in tears, and both the preachers and the students felt like they were correct in their views. No sensible, calm conversation could be had, because both were too set in their opinions to attempt a rational exchange. This encounter didn’t end in violence—it was simply a standstill of butting heads and strong-willed individuals. But what it shows is that arguing over opinions and being unrelenting in personal views is sometimes problematic, causing the aforementioned rift in society. The cognitive biases that lead to our stubbornness in opinionforming are there for a reason—making decisions and sticking to them is good for us and humanity’s survival. There’s no doubt that constant indecisiveness would be problematic. But inflexibility also causes problems and divides us on things that might be best if we were united on. Which is a problem. No one is sure why or how we develop these cognitive biases. Pickel’s best guess is that it’s a byproduct of the way our cognitive system works. We’re naturally inclined to sort things into categories in our mind, because if we didn’t, our brains would get overwhelmed. This includes people, as well as things. It’s not wrong or bad; it’s just what we do. However, going the next step and using those biases to treat people differently, or assume that an opinion is the correct one, is not something that we’re required to do to avoid confusion.
So the presence of cognitive biases is inherently human. The way that they’re used, however, is a result of experiences and upbringing, as well as some things that still haven’t been completely figured out. It’s a tough concept to grasp, which is why most people don’t give it a second thought. We think the way we do because we just do. And that’s that. Except that it’s not. Because if we want to have a chance to get over these biases, to realize that we’re not always right, and we’re not always going to be, then Pickel says that we need to recognize that these biases exist. Just through increasing our knowledge about them, and how they can affect our decision making, can help us to examine our own actions and make changes. Just the act of stopping to think about why we believe what we believe, as well as entertaining the thought that we might not be right about it, is enough to somewhat counteract the problem. This is what Emily does to decrease her biases of straight, white, cisgender men. She wants to be a therapist, and she knows that there isn’t room for biases in her future profession. Because she is able to acknowledge their existence, she’s also able to overcome them. If you’re convinced that you’re right, logically, you aren’t going to be searching for reasons why you might not be. It just doesn’t make sense. Which is why so many of us are in this situation of thinking we’re right when we might not be. And also why addressing the problem might be necessary. However, there is no fix-all to this problem. There are so many different factors at play here that it would be impossible to change the way we all think, according to Pickel. We’ll probably never be able to stop everyone from thinking that their way is the only way, but it might be possible to change a few. And that’s how progress can be made.
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THE DOWNFALL OF SOCIETY Each generation has its own “end all” moral issue that is supposed to destroy American society. But to date, nothing ever has. story: miller kern illustrations: sierra therrien
“Stairway to Heaven” played backwards supposedly sounds like a satanic message. Rachel Kraus, a sociology professor at Ball State University, grew up in a time when this theory was new. Parents didn’t allow their children to listen to heavy metal music. It was sending them bad messages and had dire consequences. People feared that heavy metal would draw children and teenagers to cults, which were a real concern to many parents in the 1980s. Rachel remembers hearing myths about cults that would sacrifice animals and babies. Concerned parents believed heavy metal and hard rock music promoted satanic ritual culture. “Don’t listen to heavy metal or hard rock because you’ll hear satanic messages. They’ll encourage you to kill yourself. They’ll encourage you to use drugs or drink alcohol,” Rachel remembers hearing. Cult culture was supposed to lead to the destruction of America’s youth. But it wasn’t the first perceived threat to American morality. Fear of advancement has been present as long as civilization has existed. Socrates warned against writing because it would create forgetfulness as people would use their memories less. With the invention of the printing press, fear spread, as literacy of the masses was suspected to destroy society. According to a 2015 Gallup Poll survey, 72 percent of Americans believe the United States is in a moral decline. Each era has moral issues that were supposed to be the downfall of society and the corruption of the youth.
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In the 1920s, that issue was the invention of the radio. In the 1950s, it was the invention of the television. The 1960s brought rock ‘n’ roll, and MTV’s coverage of sex in the 1980s appalled conservatives. The unifying theme of each of these youth-corrupting new technologies or trends has been this: It has never been the great downfall that was predicted.
RADIO
“Good evening. This is professor Reginald A. Fessenden speaking to you from Brant Rock, Massachusetts at the tower of the national electric signaling company.” These were the first words spoken over radio waves. The white noise behind Fessenden’s voice was crackly and harsh. Fessenden produced about an hour of talk and music for technical observers and amateurs to hear over radio waves in December of 1906. Others experimented with radio over the next couple years, but the trend didn’t stick. It wasn’t until 1908 that regularly scheduled programs started to broadcast. Radio was considered to be the death of morality of the ‘20s. Radio content was different than any other content people had been introduced to before. The programs discussed contemporary, progressive ideas and political notions. People who listened to the radio began to think differently. Radio kickstarted what was supposedly the scariest movement at the time period: Progressivism. Progressivists were seen as wanting to reform the government with their liberal agendas.
They wanted to enact policies, such as big business control, that caused a need for a bigger, full-time government. Cities were developing, the government was gaining more control, and new technologies were being introduced. Infrastructural changes were coming, and the radio helped spread the progressivist message.
TELEVISION
Karon Luther rushed through cleaning the house on Saturday morning. She wasn’t allowed to watch TV until she finished all of her chores. After finishing them all, she plopped herself in front of the basement television set and turned on The Ed Sullivan Show. “Oh my gosh. Do you have to watch The Ed Sullivan Show?” her dad asked. He was not a fan of the show, which featured politics, comedy, and rock ‘n’ roll. The King of rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis Presley, performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1957 and was only filmed from the waist up. Elvis the Pelvis was censored for being “indecent.” In the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, the television made its way into American homes. Karon’s mother worked for Magnavox, so their family was able to purchase a television set relatively early on in the TV’s mainstream cycle. Karon, now retired, remembers having a TV for all of her life. The introduction of the TV caused a decline in use of the radio. But new concerns soon emerged. Children, it was believed, were going to lose all motivation and become lazier than ever. They were going to spend all day staring at a screen, being corrupted by television programs. Again, the scary “P” word cropped up. Progressivism seeped into the television programs American children watched. After people calmed down about TVs corrupting their children, a new concern arose—TVs were going to give everyone cancer by emitting radiation. World War II and Cold War propaganda elicited fear of radiation from Russia, and this fear seeped into the homes of Americans.
LITERATURE
Kelly Mahoney stood talking on the phone in the corner of her classroom, trying to appease a student’s mother. “Ma’am, you’re right. The character had a thought about a female character, but the thought was shut down immediately,” she said. “There’s still too much sex,” the woman on the other end of the phone said. “All right, we can get your daughter another book to read.” Kelly is a high school English teacher at Leo Junior/Senior High School in Leo,
Indiana and that book with “too much sex” was The Giver. The book in which characters literally took pills to stifle their sexual urges. The book with no sex. The issue with the written word doesn’t belong to a time period—it’s always stirred up controversy. The Harry Potter series caused a huge commotion with some Christian parents. They believed the books promoted dark magic and went against God. One concerned parent even went as far as to call Harry’s magic a “satanic practice.” When kids read Harry Potter books, Kelly believes they’re most likely not connecting them to God or Satan. They read the stories because they relate to the characters. Children aspire to be intelligent and brave like Hermione and Harry. They’re not seeking out dark magic and satanic rituals. There are other books for that. Since 1982, more than 11,300 books have been challenged to be banned from U.S. schools, according to the American Library Association. As an English teacher and a mother, Kelly thinks parents who ban books from their children are taking a simplistic approach to something complex. They get scared and are quick to boycott anything remotely threatening. They’re unable to get past the literal.
TODAY
Currently, citizens are waiting for new technologies and trends to destroy all morality in America’s younger generations. Kids learn to use an iPad before they learn to talk. Millennials are known as digital natives because they have grown up surrounded by new, digital technology. The average American teenager spends about nine hours engaged with the internet each day. Social media use and obsession with self-promotion are surely a sign of the moral corruption of the youth—right? Less than a third of Americans think the internet has a positive influence on morality, while almost half believe it has a negative influence. Bruce Geelhoed, a history professor at Ball State University, uses a flip phone that he doesn’t regularly charge. But he knows that we, as a nation, cannot shield kids from technology. New technology spreads throughout all levels of society, regardless of class or age. If people want it, they will find a way to get it. So now we wait for the internet or the next big technological breakthrough to corrupt our youth and destroy society. Until it does, maybe we can actually enjoy what technological advancements allow us to do.
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//reported
G N I POINT P P I T
THE
Americans consider similar issues when casting their ballots, but Democrats and Republicans disagree with what they consider to be the most important. story: holly westerfield
graphic: tia zook
There is a variety of considerations people take into account when voting. Some people are considered party voters, people who vote for the candidate associated with a specific political party. Others are single-issue voters, people who cast their vote based on a candidate’s stance on a specific issue. Both Republicans and Democrats consider similar issues in the voting booth, but those issues have different levels of importance for voters. The following table shows how important a candidate’s stance is on various issues when casting their ballot. PERCENTAGE OF REPUBLICAN VOTERS
PERCENTAGE OF DEMOCRATIC VOTERS
Terrorism and National Security
92
82
The Economy
92
85
Employment and Jobs
80
Health Care and the Affordable Care Act
88
75
The Federal Budget Deficit
83 62
83
Foreign Affairs
77
The Size and Efficiency of the Federal Government
77
Immigration
76
62
Taxes
74
66
Education
49
67
The Distribution of Income and Wealth in the U.S
90 75
49
Gun policy
61
Government Regulation of Wall Street and Banks
70 69
47
Social Issues such as Gay Marriage and Abortion Climate Change
65
34 21
46 69 source: gallup.com
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//visual
WHEN POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GOES TOO FAR illustration: amer abasi
H C T A W A N WAN D BEAUTY AN ? THE BEAST
DON’T YO U MEAN TH E AESTHETIC ALLY PLEA SING FEMALE-ID EN AND THE N TIFYING PERSON ON-AESTH ETICALLY PLEASING MALE-IDEN TIFYING PERSON, A CCORDING TO SOCIAL NO RMS. . .
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//q&a
The Role of Guns For some Americans, the Second Amendment is a basic right. For others, it needs to be reevaluated. story: emily sabens
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I
n 1620, the Pilgrims sailed to America aboard The Mayflower, bringing only their most treasured items with them to the new country. Historians believe amongst all of the keepsakes and family heirlooms stored away below deck, the Pilgrims brought their firearms. Guns have long played an important role in the history of America. Oftentimes, firearms are viewed as symbols of freedom and power in our country. Looking back, it is no surprise that guns are seen in this light. From early explorer Christopher Columbus sailing to America on his ship loaded with cannons, to early settlers using guns to hunt and kill animals to feed their families, as well as “The shot heard ‘round the world” that initiated the American Revolution, guns have often been associated with the American ideology of liberty and patriotism. In recent years, guns have been spending a lot of time in the public eye. However, much of this attention has been negative. Within the last twenty years, there has been an outbreak of mass shootings across our country. In 1999, thirteen individuals were killed and twenty-four were injured at the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. Later, in July
of 2012, twelve were killed and fifty-eight were injured at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Then, in December of 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and proceeded to shoot twenty firstgraders and six adults. And yet again, this past June, forty-nine people were killed while dozens others were injured at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida—making it the deadliest mass shooting to ever occur on U.S. soil. Around 37 percent of American adults own a gun in their household, according to Pew Research. Many have urged the American government to create stricter laws on obtaining guns. Some have even pleaded that firearms be banished once and for all. However, opposing sides have argued that guns cannot be taken away, stating that it would violate the Second Amendment of the American Constitution. To better understand why there are such strong opposing sides on this topic, Ball Bearings sat down with a military veteran, several students, a member of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and the president of Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence.Their responses indicate how guns have affected their lives personally as well as what role they think guns play in American society.
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//q&a
GREG LANE Greg Lane is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps Infantry. After serving for seven years and being deployed at various locations around the world, Greg came to Ball State to study nursing. The first time I shot a gun, I was fifteen. Some friends and I were out hunting squirrels. I don’t remember a lot of stuff from when I was a kid after being deployed. You have to keep in mind that some of the most gunstrict cities in the country have the highest murder per capita by guns, so I don’t really believe in any manner of restricting reasonable gun owners. If [the American government] were to have the concept of ‘If we ban guns, people will stop owning them,’ they should probably focus on making forks illegal so they can stop making people fat. Their concept behind ‘If we ban it, people won’t do it’ is really stupid because murder and drugs are illegal and good, wholesome citizens do neither one of those things. So, if you put a ban on guns, all you’re doing is taking guns out of respectable, wholesome, law-abiding citizens. Therefore, it doesn’t do any good.
CATHERINE BOLTEN Catherine Bolten is an associate professor of Anthropology and Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University. Well, I guess I was a small child when I first saw a gun on TV. So that would be about thirty-five years ago. It was probably on the TV show MacGyver. I watched that a lot when I was younger. I see guns as a threat to the health and safety of every single American. Whatever people are to say about their right to own a gun, loss of life that occurs from gun violence far outweighs the arguments being made on the side of people’s rights to protect themselves with guns. You can protect yourself in other ways. And actually, statistics have shown that owning a gun makes you four times more likely to be shot with one
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than if you don’t have one. So it’s the mere presence of guns that increases the possibility that someone is going to lose their life. And even if people, who hold that the Second Amendment is sacred, if they didn’t have guns in their homes, they would be much less likely to be victims of gun violence.
JULIUS KOVACS Julius Kovacs is a sophomore at Ball State University studying telecommunications and legally owns a gun. Well, [I’ve seen guns] in media and just in [video] games. I played a lot of games [with guns in them] when I was younger, and [I saw guns] in movies, of course. But the first contact with an actual gun besides toys and stuff was at a shooting course with my mom about safety. It was shotgun shooting with clay pigeons. That was when I was around ten. I think the roles of guns in America are obviously self-defense, sporting, and then hunting. I think the concept, for me, is that this entire nation was kind of founded on [guns]. The colonists were allowed to have their own guns, and that’s why this country is around. It’s a national identity sort of thing. But, I think self-defense and all those other things are still relevant today.
ERIKA JAGGER-DEHEER Erika Jagger-DeHeer is a longtime volunteer with the Indiana chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. The first memory that I have of coming into contact with a gun would be as a young girl, probably at the four or five age range. My uncle was a police officer in Chicago, and when we had family events, he would arrive in uniform and would obviously be carrying his service weapon. I don’t own guns, but several of my friends and family members do, and I support their right to do so—as does the organization that I’m a part of, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. The roles that guns play in their lives range from
I SEE GUNS AS A THREAT TO THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN. WHATEVER PEOPLE ARE TO SAY ABOUT THEIR RIGHT TO OWN A GUN, LOSS OF LIFE THAT OCCURS FROM GUN VIOLENCE FAR OUTWEIGHS THE ARGUMENTS BEING MADE OVER THE SIDE OF PEOPLE’S RIGHTS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES WITH GUNS. YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF IN OTHER WAYS.
CATHERINE BOLTEN
recreational hunting, to being active in the military, to keeping a weapon for self-defense. As volunteers within the gun-violence prevention movement we advocate for laws, such as universal background checks, that support the Second Amendment and keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons. So, even though the roles that guns play in our individual lives vary widely, the vast majority of us believe that common-sense safety measures like universal background checks and preventing child access to guns can, and should, go hand-in-hand with our right to own them. And my role is to help get those measures in place.
ED SMITH Ed Smith is the president of the organization Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence. His response was received via email. My first encounter with guns was in the Navy
during the Vietnam War. I do not own a gun, but feel that guns are for sports, including hunting, and for protection of one’s home. Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence is focused on education and state legislation. With a legislature consisting of approximately 80 percent Republicans, we are unable to get gun control bills to move forward for debate. As a result, we are trying to get a bill introduced in the 2017 legislature that would ban the open carry of assault weapons on our streets. We don’t feel that we could get a ban on assault weapons this year and therefore we are proposing a ban on only the open carry of assault weapons. Guns are a means of protection, can help to provide food and other essential supplies for families, and can be used for various recreational sports. However, guns can also be used for senseless crimes such as mass shootings and the killing of unarmed civilians. The call for reform stems from these fears, but others fear losing guns altogether. Ball Bearings has edited statements for clarity.
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//essay
The Privilege We We hear about gender privilege, we hear about racial privilege, but the role class plays is often overlooked.
story: merritt mclaughlin
I’m crouched behind a dumpster at my high school in Dover, New Hampshire in 2009. The snowflakes float down around me, landing on my arms that are hugging my knees close to my chest. The harsh light from the street lights casts a shadow over me, keeping me hidden behind the cold metal bin. I’m silent. And I’m covered in sweat—for two reasons. The first is that I just spent two hours at color guard practice. The second is that I’m nervous, and I’ve been crouched in this position for fifteen minutes. At practice, we are the same. We are required to wear all black, making us uniform. We step in time, we work together perfectly. Too soon, we leave practice and go home to very different situations. My teammates file into their warm cars. I wait
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until they are gone, and then leave my hiding spot and begin the walk home. In high school, I was always hiding. Despite outward appearances, I was letting my low-class status define me. I was ashamed of my class and terrified that my peers would find out and judge me because of it. The role that class plays isn’t always talked about, so I’m talking about it now.
Easy to Ignore Each practice was the same story: I’d crouch behind the dumpster and wait until the last car left the lot before standing up and walking home. Although we lived in the same town, were the same age and gender, and even had the same skin color, the girls
on my team and I had very different upbringings. According to Gallup, around 48 percent of Americans self-identify as low-class or working class. But I still felt like an outcast. On my team we had to pay for costumes, makeup, shoes, and other fees. Sometimes the coaching staff and the other middle-class girls didn’t understand that not everyone could provide money for these things right away. This could lead to dissension within the team. Not paying right away didn’t mean I was forgetful or didn’t care—I cared a lot. My family just couldn’t cough up that much money at once and still survive. The same types of frustrations and issues between classes are happening on a much bigger scale in America today. A Pew Research survey of 2,048 Americans revealed that 66 percent of the population consider there to be significant conflicts between the upper/middle class and the lower/working class. The survey showed that all main demographics—that is white people, black people, old people, young people and everyone in between—now identify considerably more class conflict than they have in the past.
photo: emily wright
Don’t Talk About
According to the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, lower class families have significantly more stress than similar middle class families. That stress comes from financial difficulties, the cost and effort of moving, possible exposure to violence, and simple day-to-day struggles. This kind of stress, which is mostly unique to the lower class, can result in depression, anxiety, and aggression in children and teens. These symptoms make getting out of the lower class very difficult. People in the upper and middle classes generally do not have to think about where their next meal is coming from or how they’ll get to work on a day-to-day basis. The study previously mentioned found that those in upper and middle classes tend to ignore the benefits of belonging to their class. This can mean they don’t recognize the effects of belonging to an advantaged or favored class. Additionally, they might not be conscious of the effect it has on people who are not part of the privileged class, which can lead to alienation of the lower class and cause class conflict.
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Outside Looking In I was desperate to fit in with the middle class and wanted to avoid conflict. I didn’t want to be seen as an outsider. If I asked for rides, people would find out that my family did not own a car. I thought that if they knew that, they’d pity me. I felt that I wouldn’t get the same opportunities they had if they knew I belonged to the class below them. If people knew I was poor, I’d stop getting asked to go places. How would I pay anyway? The trek from the dumpster to my house is about a mile long. I’d wear a hat to cover my hair, and my jacket would be zipped well up to my chin to conceal my face from the wind, and anyone who might recognize me. My boots would crunch through the snow as I listened intently to passing cars for any indication that they were slowing down or getting too close. When I made it home, I’d peel off my clothes, wincing at the action. The skin on my legs was often red from the windburn, and the same with my face. I’d drop into bed, forgetting about the blank, crumpled geometry homework in my backpack. I’d lie there, preparing my body to do the same thing tomorrow. Getting from point A to point B was harder for me than for my peers. A trip that would take others five minutes in a car often took me triple that amount of time. Not only did I have to motivate myself to get up, get ready, and prepare myself for any event I was going to, I also had to find the energy and allow time to walk there. Transportation was a big issue for me. It was incredibly stressful to get somewhere and then spend the whole time wondering how I’d get home and if I’d have to walk in the dark. How long until one of these late night walks didn’t end with me making it home? A solution was introduced to me a few days later at school: Driver’s ed. I was finally old enough to sign up for class. We were told about it in the morning, and I was so excited that I barely heard any of my teachers talking throughout the day. When the bell rang and everyone filtered out of the school, some headed to the pick up lot, and some, like me, piled into the bus. When we reached my stop, my walk home was ingrained into my memory. I’d pass a carton of Marlboros that had lived on the sidewalk for weeks. I’d walk under the train trestle bridge, run up three lopsided steps that line the front door to the building, unlock the wooden door, and walk into the kitchen.
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I tossed papers onto the kitchen table—the driver’s ed sign-up forms. When my mom saw them, four small characters—$-8-0-0—carved new lines into her face and added a touch of silver to her hair. The fee for the class was $800. To my mom, that meant eight months of groceries, 533 rides, or one month of rent in our home that I once angrily declared the shittiest apartment on Pierce Street. There was just no way we could afford it, and I was devastated. Even worse, I felt selfish. Here was my mom, a single, low-income mother who managed to put food on the table and secure us a place to live. And I was so wrapped up in societal norms and fitting in with friends who were middle and upper class that I couldn’t appreciate the things she did in order for us to survive. I wasn’t alone. America’s underprivileged children predominantly live in households led by a single woman. More than 47 percent of children with single mothers are in the lower class, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and they face similar struggles every day.
Making It Work My mom is a very proud person. She is strong and does not like to look weak. She grew up upper-class, but through a series of unfortunate circumstances, ended up in the lower-class and with a child. Even though she had fewer resources than other mothers her age, she raised me. She also found a way to get me to driver’s ed. In the spring, a local radio station had an essay contest, and the prize was free driver’s ed. Even though it probably embarrassed her and
Merritt Mclaughlin, who once relied on the bus as her main form of transportation, now drives her used (and beloved) Volkswagen Bug. photo provided: merritt mclaughlin
hurt her pride, she wrote to the radio station. She wrote about the things I had gone without and how involved I was with school. I won. When she told me, she couldn’t stop smiling. The catch was that I needed practice driving outside of class, and we didn’t have a car, but we made it work. She always made it work. If I didn’t have a mom who cared and sacrificed her comfort to make me better, and if she hadn’t agonized over things that other families around us didn’t even need to think about, I wouldn’t be who I am today. When I was in high school, college seemed out of reach and too expensive. But because of the support I received, I’m at Ball State University today. According to Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of low-income children end up enrolling in college, and I feel so fortunate that I was able to be one of them. Not everyone is that lucky. All too often, we make snap judgments about lower-class people that affect how we treat them. A study at Kansas State University found that stereotypes regarding the middle class were much more positive than stereotypes about the lower class. That is the very thing that motivated me to hide behind the dumpster in high school, rather than ask for help. I didn’t want people to judge me and write me off because of my class. Growing up low class wasn’t easy. It was really, really hard. Things like running through the grocery store to catch the last bus home or having to take three different buses to get to the doctor have made me so much more grateful for things, like simply getting into my car, that are otherwise easily taken for granted. In a way, I am glad that I have had these experiences because it allows me to see other people from a different perspective. I try to empathize with people instead of judging them. I try to understand the role gender, race, or class may have played in the lives of others—and that has made all the difference.
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OUR GLOBAL DISASTER
People are beginning to feel the effects of climate change, despite the fact that 20 percent of Americans still deny its existence.
story: breanna heath graphics: hannah patton
Category (strength)
Hurricane Matthew
TS 1 5 5 4 4 4 3 4 4 2 TS 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 SEPT. 28 SEPT. 29 SEPT. 30 OCT. 1 OCT. 2 OCT. 3 OCT. 4 OCT. 5 OCT. 6 OCT. 7 OCT. 8 OCT. 9
For nearly two weeks, one of the fiercest hurricanes in the recent decade plagued the east coast of Florida along with Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas. Starting as a tropical storm, it quickly grew into a Category 5 hurricane, with winds reaching up to 160 mph. Many believe this to be the work of rising land and oceanic temperatures caused by humans.
Miles per hour
I
n 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake shook northeastern Japan and unleashed one of the largest tsunamis ever recorded in history. The total confirmed deaths reached nearly 20,000. Worldwatch Institute reports that in the United States, more than one hundred natural disasters were recorded in June of 2008—the highest midyear total ever for the country. According to NASA, global warming could affect storm formation by decreasing the temperature difference between the Poles and the Equator. George Tselioudis, a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says a warming climate may decrease the number of overall storms that form, but increase the intensity. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the root cause behind the rise of natural disasters directly correlates with climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the rise of natural disasters, Pew Research reports that 20 percent of Americans don’t believe that there is solid evidence to support the idea of global warming—but this number is at a record low.
source: weather.com
Tragedy on the Rise
250 200 150 100 50 10 20
00 20
90 19
80
0 19
source: epa.gov, cdiac.ornl.gov
300
70
the total deaths caused by Hurricane Matthew as of October 2016
350
19
1,027
the difference in global land-ocean temperature since 1880
400
60
1.908ºF
the amount of carbon, in metric tons, released into the atmosphere since 1751
450
19
374 Bill.
500
50
By the Numbers
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No. of Climate-Related Disasters
Corresponding with the rise in climate, natural disasters are also on the rise
source: accuweather.com
Sea Level Inching Higher
The world's oceans have been recorded since 1880, measuring the average absolute sea level change, or the height of the ocean surface, based on long-term tide gauge measurements. This graphic displays inches gained per twenty-seven-year interval.
1961 +2.3 inches
1907 +0.8 inches 1880 Reference 44 • ballbearingsmag.com
1934 +0.9 inches
2015 +2.7 inches 1988 +1.2 inches
source: epa.gov
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