Wingspan Volume 1, Issue 2

Wingspan May 2015 Issue 2, Vol 1

THE SEAMY SIDE OF ONLINE DATING An international industry.

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Wingspan

THE LOVE & ETHICS ISSUE

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16

20

The Seamy Side of Online Dating

Turning Love Invisible

The 36-Question Cupid Solution?

By Sindhu Ravuri

By Elisabeth Siegel

By Riya Godbole

Young “SugarBabies” find themselves in a bargain of sex for a diploma.

How the media warps what we think about when we think about love.

Investigating whether 36 questions can really make sparks fly.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

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EDITORIAL

Above: The media obscures the diverse voices of minority groups as well as sexual subcultures through inadequate representation or misinformation.

Don't Write Me a Love Song 8

MEIANDERINGS

Cheating the Win 28

By Ria Gandhi & Alex Youn

Sage advice for finding your true love through your musical taste.

And I Knead You, Baby 9

IN A NUTSHELL

In a world of high stakes under arena lights, cheating has become a means to an end in sports.

Below left: College students enlist themselves in sugar dating services to reduce debt.

Below right: Can a questionnaire really lead to love? A writer investigates.

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20

Treat yourself to the truest form of love: food.

Long Exposures by Night 24

ARTIST SHOWCASE Jonathan Dai goes on a journey to capture the mysterious allure of cities at night.

Q&A with Wajahat Ali ('94) 32

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CONVERSATION On Islamophobia and on the future for Muslims in America.

On the Cover

Love is a commodity. International industries like sugar dating sites leave participants with emotional baggage. Cover design by Shay Lari-Hosain.

27 Wingspan Magazine

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Wingspan THE HARKER UPPER SCHOOL MAGAZINE

May 2015 | Issue 2, Vol 1

Editor-in-Chief

Jonathan Dai '16 Photo Editor of Talon.

Third year in the program. His favorite parts of journalism are photography and getting to know fellow staff members.

In his free time, he enjoys exercising, shopping and drawing.

Kacey Fang '15 Managing Editor of the Winged Post. She has been part of the journalism program since her freshman year and served as Features Editor and Copy Editor previously.

Ria Gandhi '17 Features Editor of Aquila. Ria enjoys watching sports and is a member of the Varsity Volleyball team. Ria spends her free time catching up on favorite TV shows, spending time with family and hanging out with friends.

Riya Godbole '15 Lifestyle Editor of the Winged Post.

When she isn’t devouring sushi, Riya enjoys bingewatching Gossip Girl, baking cupcakes and collecting headbands. She loves to make people laugh through her writing.

Priscilla Pan '15 Features Editor of the Winged Post. She is co-creator of food blog In a Nutshell and has been part of Journalism for the past two years, writing feature stories on gratitude to #Foodstagram pieces.

Elisabeth Siegel '16 News Editor of the Winged Post. In the past, she has been a copy editor and reporter. She is also Junior Co-Editor of Harker's Eclectic Literary Magazine and volunteers for a domestic violence shelter.

Meilan Steimle '17 Opinion Editor of the Winged Post.

She enjoys many facets of journalism, from writing and photography to design and graphic illustration. She looks forward to honing her journalistic skills over the next two years.

Alex Youn '17 Business Manager of Talon. This is his second year on staff. Aside from learning new things in journalism, Alex enjoys watching television, wrestling with his dog, playing sports and playing classical guitar.

Sindhu Ravuri

Assistant Editor-in-Chief & Designer

Shay Lari-Hosain

Contributing Writers

Jessica Chang Ria Gandhi Riya Godbole Shay Lari-Hosain Priscilla Pan Sindhu Ravuri Elisabeth Siegel Meilan Steimle Alex Youn

Contributing Photographers

Jessica Chang Jonathan Dai Shay Lari-Hosain

Contributing Illustrators

Kacey Fang Shay Lari-Hosain Meilan Steimle

Adviser

Jessica "Fred" Chang '15 Managing Editor of Talon. Previously Student Life and Copy Editor. She is an avid food lover and half of In a Nutshell, a food enterprise project to be found on inanutshellfood. com and Wingspan Magazine.

Ellen Austin

Website

harkeraquila.com

Contact

harkerwingspan@gmail.com

The student-run wingspan is published by the Journalism program of The Harker Upper School, 500 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose, CA 95129.

Annual subscriptions are $25. Checks may be mailed to the address above and addressed to Wingspan Magazine, The Harker School.

Wingspan publishes in-depth news & feature reporting in an unbiased and professional manner and serves as a public forum for the students of The Harker School. Opinions and letters are the personal viewpoints of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Wingspan. All content decisions are made by student editors, and the content of Wingspan in no way reflects the official policy of The Harker School. The opinions expressed in this publication reflect those of the student writers and not the Harker board, administration, faculty or adviser.

Advertisements are accepted in Wingspan. However, Wingspan reserves the right to deny any ad. Letters to the Editor may be submitted to Manzanita 70 or emailed and must be signed, legible and concise. The staff reserves the right to edit letters to conform to style. Baseless accusations, insults, libelous statements, obscenities and/or letters which call for a disruption of the school day will not be considered for publication. Letters sent to Wingspan will be published at the discretion of the editorial staff.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without prior permission from publishers. Copyright Š 2015 the Harker Journalism program. All rights reserved.

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Letter from the Editors May 2015

Welcome to Issue 2

we're back! Our second issue of Wingspan takes on love and ethics — exploring the dark, musical, humorous, athletic or even culinary. We left it up to our contributors to color and interpret these ideas through their pieces.

As our first volume comes to a close, we are continuing to refine our conception of Wingspan. In Issue 2, you may notice that a few things have been shuffled around, and some typographic elements have been streamlined.

This issue, we want to introduce to you a few new changes — delicious visual and typographical newbies joining our current lineup. As part of this push forward, we’d like to introduce two new repeater columns to join the current lineup, which includes the humor column Meianderings, In a Nutshell and the visual art piece.

The first is Conversation, a Q&A feature with a prominent individual on pressing topics. The other is a feature you’ve already seen before — we are calling the visual art piece Artist Showcase. Artist Showcase was kicked off by the “Silence” street photography narrative in Issue 1, and will be continued by this issue’s “Long Exposures by Night.”

Sadly, this is the last issue with the mouthwatering In A Nutshell food trend column by Jessica “Fred” Chang (‘15) and Priscilla Pan (‘15), who will be graduating this year.

Your Wingspan Editors Sindhu Ravuri (‘15) & Shay Lari-Hosain (‘16)

Sindhu’s passion for journalism crystallized with her internship at the prestigious San Jose Mercury News’ Mosaic Program. Her training gave her field experience, and her article on child-sex trafficking received the internship's Merida Award for fearless reporting. Her trend story "Seamy side of online dating" at the Medill Journalism program was highly appreciated and received the YoungScholars Winner Award under Creative Nonfiction as well as the Scholastic Awards Gold Key. She was the only high-schooler to be invited to speak as a panelist at the 12th World Women’s Congress in 2014 for her research on this topic.

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Shay is also the Design Editor of the Winged Post. Shay has interviewed 2013 Nobel Laureates, author Khaled Hosseini and representatives from eBay, NASA, etc. His writing, design and artwork has received recognition from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the National Scholastic Press Association, the National Federation of Press Women and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

He worked as a graphic designer for Heritage Foundation Pakistan.

Shay is Harker Multimedia Club Co-President and runs for the track team. In his free time, he enjoys making art, playing guitar and piano with friends and running.

Photographs by Shay Lari-Hosain. This page and next page: Illustrations by Meilan Steimle

ISSUE 2 CENTERS ON LOVE & ETHICS.

this will be my last issue as Editorin-Chief. Founding Wingspan hasn’t been remotely easy. The product all of you see has hours, days and months of sheer hard work and grit interweaved in every page. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Wingspan, in many ways, has been like a child of my own. Through her, I learned so much more about myself not only as a journalist, but also as a human. The compassion and positivity I see within my staff, who patiently go through each edit with the utmost care, motivates me as a leader.

I discovered pieces of myself within each person on the staff — be it through Meilan’s optimism, Shay’s perseverance, Kaity’s patience, Fred’s calming advice — the list goes on — and I can honestly say I have my own family with this publication. That I have to leave it so soon breaks my heart.

However, Wingspan will continue to grow next year under the leadership of incoming Editor-in-Chief Shay LariHosain (‘16). You have already seen his incredible design prowess — now wait and watch what he does when he takes over the whole magazine alongside his Assistant Editor-in-Chief Kaity Gee (‘16), Designer & Staff Writer Kaitlin Hsu (‘18) and Copy Editor Vijay Bharadwaj (‘18).

He has a vision very few can emulate, but all can appreciate. I couldn’t be happier knowing this baby is in good hands once I leave.

While I part, I want to thank each of you who hugged me when Wingspan was finally published. And, lastly, thank you to Ms. Austin for holding our hands through this entire experience. We couldn’t have ever navigated the intense world of long-form writing without you.

And with that, I would like to present to you my magnum opus for the last time — Issue 2 of Wingspan, ladies and gentlemen.

Sindhu Ravuri

Editorial May 2015

Pushing Our Ethical Boundaries THE COST OF GOING PAST THE BOUNDARIES AND THE PRICE ONE MUST PAY FOR TASTING DANGER CAN BE TOO MUCH.

a 21-year-old college student “SugarBaby” goes on dates with her 46-year-old “SugarDaddy” in return for approximately $1000 — for her college debt.

Eleven educators in Atlanta changed over 250,000 wrong answers on students’ standardized tests since 2001 — leading to charges of racketeering when their students couldn’t meet the numerical standards — for their jobs.

Tom Brady, who holds the highest winning percentage of the top 50 quarterbacks and counts the most wins in NFL history, is suspended this month for his involvement in “Deflategate.”

Deflated footballs gave the Patriots a better grip in the cold winter air, and an edge in the AFC Championship game — for one more win.

An award-winning reporter cuts corners on fact-checking and sourcing, leading to the retraction of a rape-culture story published in the pages of Rolling Stone — for the story.

Pushing boundaries to break new ground — it’s what sets apart the people who make history from those who wait for it.

But when the “stretch” of our ethical boundaries becomes too thin, are we compromising our integrity for a goal we will never obtain?

As we stretch our arms further and further, we cross the line between drive and the detrimental effects of overextending oneself. Inordinate expectations bring overwhelming pressure.

Out of desperation, students go to great lengths to fund their futures.

Over the past few years, the trend of college students relying on sugar dating sites increased dramatically, with college students making up 44 of the “SugarBabies” in the site’s database. In the search for money, these students are thrust outside their comfort zones in a detrimental way.

This bleeds into high school life as well, albeit in a very different context. In an educational environment like our own, students often feel an ever-present pressure to meet increasingly

higher expectations, begetting student-run cheating rings. The temptation to cheat in schools across the country is widespread, among students and faculty.

Instead of genuinely trying to educate and help their students, educators in Atlanta chose an easy alternative. Under pressure, they ignored their duty to educate students and disregarded their responsibility as role models.

Any high-stakes, competitive environment is overwhelming.

It exhausts our drive, leaving us susceptible to breaching our own ethics.

The culture of competitive sports continues to evolve into an environment governed by the prospect of hefty endorsements or making the front cover of Sports Illustrated. Athletes and coaches lose sight of the true purpose of playing the game: to celebrate human athleticism through sentiments of teamwork, sacrifice and perseverance. These attitudes are prevalent today; the immense pressure to succeed, along with the lurking temptations of using performance-enhancing drugs, has brainwashed athletes from the high school to professional level not just to win, but to win at all costs.

The qualities of teamwork, bonding and self-sacrifice to achieve a collaborative goal are all aspects that constantly draw us back to the world of sports. Looking past the pressure, athletes need to be reminded of their original passion and love for the game.

The media, or even journalism itself, is a labor of love, certainly. That love keeps newsrooms humming with action and reporters grasping for the stories worth telling.

Reporters letting that zeal cloud their judgement cripples the credibility of all journalists, especially when those gaffes come from a name as recognizable as Rolling Stone. Recently, a piece titled “A Rape on Campus,” describing the alleged rape of a University of Virginia student at a frat party, came under close scrutiny because of inconsistencies found in the story of the survivor.

The writer, Sabrina Erdely, began to backtrack on parts of the story she published, and an investigation conducted by the Columbia School of Journalism concluded that mistakes in the reporting and editing process of Rolling Stone led to a “failure that was avoidable.”

Posts flooded the Internet. The “failure” went viral. But at the same time, no one bothered to think of how we aggravated the situation. We, as the public, fed and nurtured the monster. We are the monster of the media.

There’s no doubt that the blunders stemmed partly from Erdely’s personal concern for the issue and her need to amplify the easily-silenced voices of assault survivors. But she only harmed the very people she was trying to help. Erdely’s breaches of journalistic ethics and Rolling Stone’s lack of action in amending their editing process only compromises the voices of assault survivors and the credibility of journalists.

At the time, it can seem like the ends justify the means. We all intend for the best, one way or another; we all have passion and drives that can be overwhelming. However, the cost of going past the boundaries and the price one must pay for tasting danger can be too much.

Protected by our computer screens, we can look at magazines and newspapers and easily critique the flaws in their reporting — and laugh as they pay the consequences. It’s easy to decry the mistakes of the mainstream media, but the media is what the public makes of it. What we post, tweet and reblog shapes the world as we know it. We are the media. If we want to change what we see in print and hear about online in our future, we are the change that must happen today. ●

Wingspan Magazine

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Meianderings May 2015 Is it "Good" Music? The Interactive Guide

Is it “Good” Music? The Interactive Guide

Start Here

Is it a band?

YES Have their songs ever made it to the top 40?

NO Has your dad heard of them?

NO

NO

YES

YES

Was your dad in the Beatles?

YES

Does their name make sense?

NO

YES YES

Is your dad David Bowie?

NO

NO

NO

Does the name of the genre have a hyphen?

YES YES

No. You’re uncultured swine.

Yes. You’re a pretentious member of the bourgeoise.

Don't Write Me a Love Song

NO

Can you tell what the lead singer is saying?

MEILAN STEIMLE

Do you have a romantic heart yearning for companionship? Is your soul as deep as the oceans of your own tears? Never fear! Follow this simple guide, and you'll never be lonely again!

A

re you tired of “hilariously” turning Valentine’s Day into “Singles Awareness Day” on Facebook?

Sick of feeling pressured to use “Single Ladies” as your de facto anthem? Coming to the shocking realization that hours of Netflix can never fill the aching gap below your sternum? Well you’ve come to the right place.

As a self-certified love expert, I might not have first-hand relationship experience, emotional maturity, or even an actual heart (I pawned it off for textbooks), but I do have a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of romantic comedies at my disposal. And at some point in my years of compulsive movie binging, I noticed a pattern: romantic compatibility is inextricably linked to “good” musical taste. So how do you find love in a world that idolizes Taylor Swift and One Direction? It’s as easy as a minor third progression.

For band members: If romantic comedies have taught me anything, it’s that anyone

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Illustration by Meilan Steimle. Right: Photograph by Jessica "Fred" Chang

in a band is a misunderstood, alternative genius destined for sweeping existential romances that defy society. So basically, if you’re in a band, you’ve won love.

Congrats. Just make sure none of your music makes it to the top 40; once your “music” has been embraced by the uncultured masses, your significant other will abandon you because “you’re not the same person they fell in love with.” Serves you right, sellout.

For music snobs: You have a lot of options. As your culturally elitist taste in music proves, you’re a complicated, intelligent, sensitive soul and march to the beat of your own drum. Therefore, you should have very high standards.

If any prospective partners don’t share your love for post-modern indie punk rock or understand that the strangled twangs of the electric guitars represent the strangled angst of your soul, drop them faster than you’d drop a beat.

If reputable sources like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “High Fidelity” have taught me anything, it’s that diverging musical tastes are really just symptoms of deeply rooted, insurmountable incompatibility.

For music enthusiasts: Maybe you don’t have the refined palette and genre exclusivism of a music snob, but you’re still cultured enough. If you play your cards right and only expose yourself to “good music,” you might still have a chance at love. What is “good music”?

Nobody is really sure, but a good rule of thumb is that the more random a band’s name is, the better they must be. (R.E.M.: good. Pink Floyd: better.

Flamingo Saliva: godlike.)

For the mainstream: Do you listen exclusively to the top 40? Do you worship Beyoncé but aren’t quite sure why? Years of film study has taught me that if a large group of people come to a consensus that something is good, IT MUST BE TERRIBLE. Don’t worry; it might not be too late. Burn your UGGs, go on a three-day retreat to detox all traces of Starbucks from your system, and start 24-hour vinyl therapy. You’ll never make a full recovery, but if you’re lucky enough to capture the heart of someone with far superior music taste, just remember to defer to their judgement. Treasure each one of those hand-painted mixtapes.

For everyone else: Maybe you just don’t feel that strongly about music.

Maybe you listen to podcasts and “Fresh Air with Terry Gross.”

Love is impossible for you. Resign yourself to a life of friendly isolation. f Meilan is the Opinion Editor of the Winged Post.

Contact her at 17meilans@students.harker.org.

In a Nutshell May 2015

And I Knead You, Baby Food is the manifestation of love. And there is no more fundamental food than bread. So, by the transitive property of culinary mathematics, there is no more fundamental representation of love than bread. And within the realm of bread lives a breed, the pull-apart bread.

We’re here to show you why it’s worth the effort.

JESSICA "FRED" CHANG & PRISCILLA PAN

Basic crusty bread loaf recipe: Compound Butter Flavored with garlic & parsley Fillings Sliced onions

Wet Mix 2 ½ cups warm water 1 tbsp white sugar 1 packet of dry active yeast Dry Mix

Toppings Parmesan cheese

5 cups flour (and extra for kneading) 1 tbsp salt or sugar* 1 packet of dry active yeast *Important: Know whether you are going to flavor the bread savory or sweet, because you need to add salt or sugar to prevent blandness.

Wingspan Magazine

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In a Nutshell May 2015

Let’s talk logistics. A normal loaf of bread requires slicing and flavoring of each slice. A table to set this up would require multiple knives and additional space for slicing and spreading.

Even a pre-sliced, pre-flavored bread (like a traditional garlic bread) has its downfalls: it is unwieldy for the average set of hands and its shape is nowhere near optimal for the perfect sharing and consuming experience. Inconvenient, much?

Enter the pull-apart bread, a perfectly portioned loaf of lusciousness bursting with pockets of flavor. The slices, if they can even be called slices, feature a crust for grip and a length of soft, inside bread (the “crumb”) entirely infused with buttery flavor. There's no room for bland bread, and even the crust is flavored from the outside. Every bite is perfect.

But beyond logistics, the quintessence of a pull-apart bread is in its sharability. It gracefully (and very portably) encompasses all concepts of love in a 9-inch round. Like milk and cookies, like biscuits and tea, like pull-apart bread and good company.

Jessica is the Managing Editor of Talon and Priscilla is the Features Editor of the Winged Post. Check out more In a Nutshell on harkeraquila. com/category/in-a-nutshell or inanutshellfood.com. Contact them at inanutshellfood@gmail.com.

Fillings Apples (thinly sliced)

Start with the basic bread dough on the previous page (or just buy a loaf of your favorite bread). Don’t forget to eggwash! Don’t forget to brush the top with beaten egg!

Reminder: Decide if you want the product to be sweet or savory, and make sure you add enough salt or sugar to avoid bland bread.

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Photograph by Jessica "Fred" Chang

Butter + sugar + flavor Flavor suggestions: honey, lemon, coffee, cocoa powder, cinnamon

Butter Spread through all the cuts, making sure to cover every part

Savory

Start

Bread

Sweet

Compound Butter Flavored with cinnamon and honey

Butter + salt + flavor Flavor suggestions: garlic, parsley, onions, bacon, basil

+

Âť Check out more In a Nutshell on harkeraquila.com or inanutshellfood.com

Pairing Suggestions Apples (with lemon and sugar) + cinnamon butter + bananas + chocolate + coffee butter

Fillings Fill crevices with anything, thinly sliced (if solid)

Pairing Suggestions Chicken + cream cheese + pesto butter Tomatoes + basil + balsamic butter

Sanding sugar, for a crackly, sparkling finish

+

Toppings Honey sanding sugar

Toppings Top with anything that will melt or crisp up

Grating of parmesan cheese, for a bubbly, golden-brown crust

Wingspan Magazine

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5:52 PM

Online Dating

MESSAGE

About Me

Photos

USERNAME

SugarBaby

LOCATION

Greater London TW4, United Kingdom

The Seamy Side of Online Dating An international industry.

WORDS BY Sindhu Ravuri Illustrations by Shay Lari-Hosain

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L

aura was at her wit's end. The 23-year-old sat alone in her apartment kitchen, staring at the words “STUDENT LOAN” on the crumpled piece of paper in front of her. The type on the letter was crimson, matching the colors of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas — her alma mater. The notice said she would have to pay $400 a month to retire the debt she had amassed while earning her bachelor’s degree. With her parents in California — and too burdened with their own bills to support her — Laura was desperate to find a way out of this financial hole. Help arrived when a friend introduced her to SeekingArrangement, a dating website where wealthy, older men, or “SugarDaddies,” pay for the companionship and intimacy of younger women, known as “SugarBabies.”

Laura (not her real name) put her profile on the site and within one year, she received 500 messages from interested “SugarDaddies.” Before long, she was climbing out of debt, thanks to the financial largesse of the older men she connected with. Her current “SugarDaddy,” with whom she’s been involved for the past five months, gives her approximately $1,400 monthly, and pays her rent and car note.

“He works around my schedule,” she says. “He has a really highprofile job, and can’t be seen a lot of places like clubs because he has an image to protect, so it’s nice that I don’t have to go out and do the boyfriend-girlfriend thing all the time. It’s not about the money necessarily, it’s about the traits that correspond to a man who makes a lot of money, like never being satisfied with yourself, always being hungry for more, always wanting to better yourself and make more money, always wanting to go up the social ladder.”

But, of course, a lot of their relationship is indeed about the money. And while some might look askance at a kind of companionship based on commerce — some might even call it prostitution — Laura sees nothing wrong with it.

“A lot of people think the money discounts from the relationship, and I think it’s quite the opposite,” she says. “If my partner’s paying my bill and helping me out, what’s wrong in that? If someone wants to relieve me of my financial stress, why wouldn’t I want to have a relationship with that person?”

Increasingly, educated young women like Laura are choosing to try to relieve their financial burden by signing up to be datesfor-hire on websites like SeekingArrangement. With more than 3 million members internationally, SeekingArrangement is the world’s largest website catering to older men who seek young, female companionship, according to public relations and marketing software company Vocus.

But SeekingArrangement, while one of the largest dating sites and one of the few willing to go on the record to talk about its business model, is not the lone player in this field. Vocus says SeekingArrangement has several competitors — websites with names like Sugardaddie.com or Mutualarrangements. com. However, an even more telling indicator of the growth

Right: The website of one of the most prominent online services in this business.

of this business, she says, is the fact that the number of young women joining these sites has increased by 58 percent over the past three years, with college students making up 44 percent of the “SugarBabies” in the site’s database (SeekingArrangement offers free premium memberships to college students).

“DATING” YOUR WAY OUT OF COLLEGE DEBT That college students are resorting to selling their companionship online is not a surprise, says Angela Bermudo, SeekingArrangement’s press relations manager. That phenomenon coincides with the skyrocketing costs of higher education. According to the College Board, the cost of attending a public four-year college has risen 27 percent beyond inflation over the past five years. The average published in-state tuition at public, four-year colleges and universities for the 2013-2014 year was $8,893, compared to $2,590 in 2009-2010. The cost for attending a private institution is even higher. The average private school tuition in 2013-2014 was $30,090, compared to $20,930 in 2009-2010.

The Institute for College Access and Success Project on Student Debt reports that the average student leaves college about $26,600 in debt.

“Our graduates in their late 20s should be preparing to buy their homes in a few years, but, unfortunately, they can’t. They have to move back home with their parents because they have many thousands of dollars in student loans. So often students will turn to our site to provide for their basic needs,” Bermudo says.

The 10 colleges most actively involved with SeekingArrangement, according to the website, include Texas State University (189 students), University of California, Davis (192), University of Southern California (211), Kent State University (219), University of Colorado (232), Temple University (251), Georgia State University (269), New York University (347), Arizona State University (409), and University of Central Florida (474).

In 2013, 292 students from Georgia State University were listed on SeekingArrangement, making it the number one “SugarDaddy” school.

Julia is a good example of that. Though like all of the “SugarBabies” and “SugarDaddies” SeekingArrangement made available for this story, she declined to have her full name used, she candidly discussed her motivation for joining the site and her relationship with her current “SugarDaddy.”

She recently graduated from the University of Texas with a double major in law and psychology. Originally, she was uncertain about joining SeekingArrangement. But after identity thieves racked up thousands of dollars of out-of-state purchases on her credit card and emptied her bank account, she couldn’t pay rent for the month. SeekingArrangement seemed like her only option for income.

At first, the arrangements were unsettling. “There are the type of guys who would say ‘Hey, $400, let’s meet up tonight at a hotel,’ ” she says. “It took several months to get used to it. But there were times where I was having so much financial struggle that I was encouraged to get back on the website.”

Financial struggle wasn’t the only reason Julia joined, though.

She says her father was an abusive heroine addict who couldn’t sustain her family. After being adopted and separated from her siblings at a young age, Julia was emancipated

Wingspan Magazine

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by the age of 17. She described having a “SugarDaddy” as like having the nurturing male in her life she felt deprived of.

“He is like a father figure, looking after me,” she says. “He knows my daily routine, knows if I’m taking my vitamins, he’s very, very genuine and loving. We check up on each other, have daily text messages and weekly phone calls.

SeekingArrangement made me feel protected. Someone taking care of you and providing for you is a nice feeling. It’s like having the cake and eating it too — you have fun and the icing added on top of it is like the allowance.”

HOW IT WORKS SeekingArrangement displays a photo gallery of different men and women with the words “Pick your SugarDaddy” and “Pick your SugarBaby,” written over each. Adjacent to these photo galleries are lists of perks to being either a “SugarDaddy” or “SugarBaby.” Amongst benefits listed for being a “SugarDaddy” is having eight “SugarBabies” per “SugarDaddy,” putting the “odds in” their “favor.” The advantages listed for “SugarBabies” include financial stability and being “pampered” by getting an “allowance,” and gifts, ranging from fancy clothing to vacations.

The average “relationship” on SeekingArrangement lasts about six months. The couples “date,” with “SugarDaddies” picking up the tab as well as providing other financial support.

“Boyfriends in the past, if I have gone gambling with them, gave me $5,000 just because they won it,” Laura says. “I don’t ever have to wonder who is paying the bill at dinner, or if I’m going to have to pay for my half. Even though I have a job, I make less than men. As long as I am making 70 cents to a man’s dollar, he should be paying. They’ll go shopping and pick stuff out for me just to present it.”

Though the website also has services for gay “SugarDaddies” and “SugarMamas,” male “SugarDaddies” and female “SugarBabies” make up the majority of its membership.

To create an account, “SugarBabies” must fill out a profile and assign themselves a number — between 0 and 5 — indicating how much money in allowance they seek from their “SugarDaddies.” The higher the number, the more financial support “SugarDaddies” are expected to provide.

“At first I selected 1-3, as I was not desperate for money or

anything,” one “SugarBaby” says. “But this brought in a lot of the $200-per-day kind of guys. They don’t have genuine wealth.

You can tell by the way they were speaking. The 3-5 men will be mature, a little older, more quality.”

Once either the “SugarBaby” or “SugarDaddy” sees a potential partner, they can contact each other through messages on the website to discuss the allowance and a date.

“There are a lot of guys on there who want a traditional ‘SugarBaby’ relationship, where it’s a much older guy who wants to hang out with a younger,” Laura says. “Some guys will want you to accompany them to some party, or they want to go and gamble. They’ll say ‘I’ll give you this much, hang out with me for the night,’ and I don’t really want a one-time transaction.”

PROSTITUTION BY ANOTHER NAME? Is sex always a part of the SeekingArrangement equation? Not everyone associated with “SugarDaddies” agrees that clients expect sexual favors from “SugarBabies.”

“With any ‘SugarDaddy’ I have had an arrangement with, I make sure to emphasize that sex or connection has to happen organically,” says Julia, 28-year-old “SugarBaby.” “It can’t just be forced.”

Though users of the site describe it as an “alternative lifestyle,” whether SeekingArrangement encourages prostitution remains a topic of considerable controversy, says Paul Silverman, Clinical Director of Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), an organization that provides research and information about human trafficking of both adults and children for sex and labor.

“It skates the line between consent and exploitation,” Silverman says of the relationships forged through websites like SeekingArrangement. “Folks who find themselves engaged

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The Seamy Side of Online Dating

Respond

Available?

The Institute for College Access and Success Project on Student Debt reports that the average student leaves college about $26,600 in debt.

in the sex industry often feel like it is an economic necessity, and often very codependent patterns develop where someone feels that they cannot manage life on their own without someone else handling their finances and affairs.”

According to Santa Clara-based Assistant District Attorney Terry Harman, only if a “SugarDaddy” solicits or engages in any act of prostitution as per California Penal Code §647, can he be prosecuted.

“Basically, exchanging money for sexual favors is a crime,” she said.

“However, there are many other arrangements between consenting adults that may offend or violate one’s moral code but do not qualify as a crime, because the arrangements do not meet the elements of the relevant Penal Code sections.”

Legal action has been taken against websites similar to SeekingArrangement in response to demonstrations by various organizations, such as Prostitution Research & Education. MyRedbook.com was recently shut down, in addition to Craiglists’s adult services advertising.

Opponents of these websites, like Dr. Melissa Farley, founder and executive director of Prostitution Research & Education, a nonprofit organization that also conducts research on prostitution, adamantly stress that the operations promote the sexual abuse and exploitation of young women.

“This is prostitution using new technology, that’s all,” Farley says. “90 percent of prostitution today is online.

SeekingArrangement is just one word for it. ‘SugarDaddy’ is another word for john, or sex buyer. The sex industry comes up with a new word every month.”

Farley also said SeekingArrangement relationships are unequal, with the “SugarDaddy” receiving all the authority.

The conceptualization of receiving “sugar” is just “brutal prostitution,” she says. According to her, websites like SeekingArrangement specifically go to campuses to “pimp” out women because of their youth and financial or emotional vulnerability.

WHO WANTS TO BE A SUGARDADDY? Several “SugarDaddies,” on the website are affluent men with high profile jobs. For them, SeekingArrangement provides a convenient method of dating.

“I do not have time for the tribulations that come with a normal relationship, or marriage for that matter,” a divorced “SugarDaddy,” a 47-year-old New York Contract Research Organization employee, said. “With the girls on SeekingArrangement, there isn’t jealousy or the bouts of attitude when you can’t spend enough time with them. Emotionally, I can have someone for when I feel lonely and need a companion to bounce ideas or stressors off of.”

This “SugarDaddy,” who requested to remain anonymous, has two “SugarBabies.” One is a student who lives in the United Kingdom and the other a 26-year-old in New York. He pays the former $2,700 a month, and has been seeing her whenever he travels to London for business for the past year. His New York “SugarBaby” is more like a “regular girlfriend,” he says. He takes her out to his apartment, dinners and shopping. He has been dating her for four months.

“Being of a certain age and divorced, there’s expectation that

you should remarry and live a certain way. That has never rubbed me right, so it’s nice to see that I can be brutally honest about what I want and still have healthy relationships,” he says.

His son has also been introduced to his “SugarBabies.”

“I am very close with my son,” he says. “He understands and sees them as my girlfriends, not as ‘sugar babies,’ I suppose.”

Julia says that most of the “SugarDaddies” who tried to connect with her initially were married.

“I had to specifically add in my profile that I was not looking for married men, because it was all I was getting in the beginning,” she says. “Most of them wanted the whole hook up and leave idea, but that just didn’t feel right.”

Each “SugarDaddy,” Julia said, has his own request or preference for the date.

“A lot of the men are A-personality males, so they are used to having the last word and having their way,” she says. “They don’t have time to waste and know exactly what they want. Some of them might say, ‘I like a girl that’s always going to be dressed up in tight dresses and cleavage. I want to make sure you are always sexy, is that a problem?’ A couple of guys when first talking to me would even request that I not wear panties.”

Paniz Bagheri, the youth and Transition-Age Programs Coordinator of SAGE, says that while “SugarBabies” may think they are merely profiting from a mutually beneficial arrangement in order to retire their debts, Bagheri says they are, in fact, helping to promote the victimization and exploitation of women and children.

“We normalize the objectification and hyper-sexualization of children of younger and younger ages,” Bagheri says. “So, sometimes, young women in college are capitalizing on this to survive.”

But some former “SugarBabies” caution against becoming entangled in what they describe as a dangerous web of dependency.

“I honestly would encourage others to not start or think about engaging in this dangerous activity,” one “SugarBaby,” who started at the age of 15 and is “currently struggling” with ending the lifestyle five years later, says. “Never let anyone control your mind, brainwash, or manipulate you.” f Sindhu is the Editor-in-Chief of Wingspan. Contact her at 15sindhur@ students.harker.org.

Wingspan Magazine

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HOW THE MEDIA WARPS WHAT WE OFTEN THINK ABOUT WHEN WE THINK ABOUT LOVE.

WORDS BY Elisabeth Siegel Illustrations by Shay Lari-Hosain

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I

gnoring the protests of one’s partner may be acceptable, even sexy, in sensational sensual fantasy like $248.7 million-earning novel-turned-movie “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

In real life, though, actions like those portrayed in the film can easily warrant lawsuits.

“fifty shades of grey” follows the romance between 21-year-old college student Anastasia Steele and 27-year-old businessman Christian Grey, who introduces Anastasia to the world of sadomasochism. The first book of the trilogy sold over 16 million copies, earning $95 million, while the film adaptation became the most successful 18-and-over film of all time.

Mohammed Hossain, a 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was charged with sexual assault on Feb. 24 for performing a “re-enactment of scenes” from the “Fifty Shades of Grey” film on a 19-year-old woman, according to the Chicago Tribune.

During the sexual encounter between the two college students, Hossain allegedly bound her arms to the bottom of a bed, used a necktie to cover her mouth, and hit her repeatedly with a belt as she protested.

Although Hossain was later cleared of all charges on March 19 after testimony that the sexual activity began as consensual, the link between Hossain’s actions and “Fifty Shades of Grey” may be more than an isolated example.

According to the Critical Media project, individuals in the U.S. engage with media for eight hours a day on average for almost 365 days a year. That number rises to 11 hours a day when “media multi-tasking” is taken into account.

Dr. Amy Bonomi, Professor and Chair of the Human Development and Family Studies Department at Michigan State University, was “astounded” by the relationship between the two main characters of “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

She took on the task of analyzing “Fifty Shades of Grey” after her graduate students reported that national standards of domestic violence reflect aspects of Christian and Anastasia’s relationship.

“We essentially found that the relationship does mimic what we see in many domestic violence relationships, with Christian stalking Anastasia, controlling every aspect of her behavior, pressuring her to participate in sexual activity that she’s uncomfortable with and using alcohol to lower her defense, and then minimizing the abuse he inflicts upon her,” she said in a phone interview.

In 2014, Bonomi authored the Journal of Women’s Health piece “Fiction or Not? Fifty Shades is Associated with Health Risks in Adolescent and Young Adult Females,” the first study to examine the link between health risks and popular fiction.

Much of Dr. Bonomi’s research focuses on the long-term effects of domestic violence and child abuse, including possible health effects, such as depression, anxiety, asthma or disordered eating.

According to her study, women who read at least one of the three novels in the franchise were more likely to have had “a partner who shouted, yelled, or swore at them” and also “to report fasting and using diet aids at some point during their lifetime” in models that accounted for age and race. Women

According to the Critical Media project, U.S. teens are constantly beset upon by the media, with an average of 8 hours a day occupied by media consumption.

who read the whole trilogy were “more likely to report binge drinking in the last month and to report using diet aids.”

“The books are normalizing and glamorizing violence against women, and yet the book is being cast as very erotic and sexually liberating to women,” Bonomi said. “We can’t necessarily say that Fifty Shades or any other aspect of popular culture causes adolescents to engage in any particular type of behavior. But popular culture creates the underlying context that adolescents are interacting with, so if the messages are glamorizing violence against women, then there may be some uptake of those particular messages.”

Individuals more misguided than malicious, such as Mohammed Hossain, take their cues on sex and romance from “Fifty Shades of Grey” and provide an example of the media’s role in influencing the cultural climate of love.

Erotica and pornography influence and contribute to the sexual behaviors of adults and youth alike, a concept consistent throughout history. But the development of the Internet has caused the prevalence and accessibility of porn to skyrocket.

According to Stop Porn Culture, there are over 68 million daily searches for pornography in the United States alone, and 88.2 percent of top rated porn scenes contain aggressive acts. Recent psychological studies indicate that, internationally, adolescents use porn “to gain information about real life sex.”

T

he media not only shapes the way sexual subcultures are perceived by mainstream America, but also affects viewers’ perceptions and beliefs concerning LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) individuals.

Upper School History Department Chair Donna Gilbert came out as a lesbian in two stages, nine years apart. While her first attempt was, in her opinion, unsuccessful due to a lack of support, her second attempt, occurring nine years later at the age of 28, was spurred on in particular by the “Lesbian Avengers.”

“They pierced everything and had all this ripped clothing and they had that sort of activist sentiment,” Gilbert said. “They literally walked down the halls wearing shirts that said ‘I am a lesbian’ in 1991, and nobody did that. They got harassed, but not a lot, and I remember looking at them and going home and feeling ashamed that these kids were 17, and I was 28 and still in the closet. That’s when I came out to the school community.”

At the time, Gilbert, who was teaching History at ConcordCarlisle High School in Concord, Massachusetts. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College and her Master’s Degree in Classical Archaeology at Tufts University.

She noted that the lack of LGBT representation in the media limited hers and many others’ perceptions of what was and wasn’t possible within the realm of romance for LGBT people.

“The media is sort of the way we figure out what’s safe and what’s not safe in the culture out there, and so when I was growing up there were no real images of lesbians [in media],”

Wingspan Magazine

17

she said. “The entertainment industry assumes that the general population doesn’t want to see images and movies and television of LGBT people. Although they’re becoming more common now in television and in movies, they tend to be fringe characters, and limited and cliched in how they act. Even though we’re making progress, the sense that LGBT people are complex and don’t fit into these clichéd stereotypes is not being portrayed very well, and that’s still played to a heterosexual audience.”

Gilbert finds that she enjoys watching Ellen DeGeneres, a comedian and TV show host who came out as a lesbian in 1997 on the Oprah Winfrey show and now hosts TV talk show “Ellen.”

“I watch the ‘Ellen’ show every single day,” she said. “I think she’s a positive representation of the LGBT community.”

Now, Gilbert is a member of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, an organization that advocates for LGBT rights and focuses on issues such as marriage equality. Gilbert also mentioned that she, along with fellow LGBT faculty members, “felt like we wasted our twenties” as closeted individuals.

“While everyone else was dating and marrying and having families, we weren’t. It’s great if you can have your epiphanies when you’re 17 and be open about who you are, so that you can do the things that straight kids do,” she said.

I

n terms of quantity, LGBT representation in the media has been on the upswing, peaking at 4.4 percent in 2012, according to the 2014 Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s “Where We Are on TV Report.”

The report also indicated that 3.9 percent of 813 primetime broadcast scripted series regulars were LGBT characters, higher than 2013’s 3.3 percent but still not as high as the 2012 record.

In order to increase awareness for the need and value of minority representation in media, the Critical Media Project analyzes media and looks at the intersection of the media and issues of identity.

“We live in a world characterized by cultural diversity, and this project represents an opportunity to explore cultural diversity through the always important lens of media,” the project’s website states. “The media can be both a site of change, but also fundamentally a site that perpetuates ideologies and norms.

Media representations, therefore, are not neutral or objective.

They are constructed and play an important role in imparting ideology.”

According to the project, the media has “played a role in both perpetuating and resisting” societal intolerance both historical and contemporary of LGBT individuals and rights.

“I think it’s important to note that representations are fundamentally political,” Critical Media Project Director, Dr. Alison Trope, wrote in an email interview. “They carry social, cultural, and political meanings which can be internalized.

We’re not aware of it, because these messages align with other ideas and ideologies we’ve been exposed to in other contexts, [such as] family, peer groups or institutional associations. It is important that we gain an awareness of meanings through interpretation.”

I REMEMBER LOOKING AT THEM AND GOING HOME AND FEELING ASHAMED THAT THESE KIDS WERE 17 AND I WAS 28 AND STILL IN THE CLOSET. THAT'S WHEN I CAME OUT.

18

Turning Love Invisible

Dr. Trope received a Ph.D. in Critical Studies from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television and is a leader of the Critical Media Project. Currently a Clinical Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, she authored “Stardust Monuments: The Saving and Selling of Hollywood” in 2012.

She argued that while headway has been made when looking at statistics for LGBT representation in media, the quality of that representation should also be examined, and examined critically.

“In the last two decades, there has been a shift in some media representations,” Trope said. “These representations were largely found, however, in the context of television movies, and largely paralleled discussions around other LGBT issues, such as HIV and AIDS. Generally, despite these historical shifts and introductions of new characters in prime time television as well as cable and online distribution platforms, our media worlds largely still adhere to heteronormative representations and values.

“It’s important to not only cite and note numbers of representations of LGBT individuals and diverse relationships, but also consider the quality of those representations.

Oftentimes, the LGBT characters and their relationships are portrayed in highly stereotypical ways and through comedic lenses.”

Trope pointed to some of the most recent examples of LGBT representation.

“Generally, despite these historical shifts and introductions of new characters in prime time television, such as ‘Glee’ or ‘Modern Family,’ as well as cable and online distribution platforms like ‘The L Word,’ ‘Queer as Folk,’ ‘Looking,’ ‘Transparent’ and ‘Orange is the New Black,’ our media worlds largely still adhere to heteronormative representations and values,” she said.

Gilbert notes that since her childhood and adolescence in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the media has made considerable progress in basic LGBT visibility.

“There were no images, really nothing in the media at all [of LGBT individuals],” she said. “Nobody ever said ‘homosexual’ at all. The jargon didn’t even exist. No one said those things out loud. Even people who were out and gay couldn’t say it.”

Olivia Wood, a senior at Cleveland High School in San Fernando Valley, remarked on the shortcomings of representation politics in looking at the quality of LGBT representation.

“It’s not enough to say, ‘Oh, there’s an LGBT person on this show.’ You have to look at how they’re treated, what actions they take and what exactly they signify,” she said in a phone interview.

In the process of coming out as a lesbian to herself and the world, she found that negative portrayals of lesbians in the

media made her reluctant to accept that label for herself.

“Many lesbians in the media are angry and cavemen and unattractive and will never find a happy loving relationship,” she said. “I feel like those are really big stereotypes about lesbians that get repeated over and over again. Also, almost all the lesbians that I see portrayed positively in media are feminine, and their femininity is portrayed as something positive about them. As someone who’s not particularly feminine, for a long time even before I came out, I looked like a stereotypical lesbian, and so I didn’t want to reinforce stereotypes about what lesbians look like.”

Olivia mentioned shows such as “Glee” or “Faking It” as media components that create a narrative of lesbians as often white, purely feminine women, with representations that “ignore lesbian history and identity.”

In particular, Olivia wanted to spread some hope to other LGBT teenagers.

“It’s okay to have your identity change over time, because that happened to me,” she said. “Everything is still in progress.

Labels are comforting and provide safety and familiarity, but they can’t describe the whole of any one person’s experience, much less an entire community, so it’s okay to be in flux.”

LGBT representation in mainstream media, according to Olivia, has a lengthy uphill road to take before it adequately portrays the complex and nuanced LGBT individuals that exist in the world across all genders and races. f Elisabeth is the News Editor of the Winged Post. Contact her at 16elisabeths@students.harker.org.

Wingspan Magazine

19

THE 36-QUESTION CUPID SOLUTION? in

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18 The 36-Question Cupid Solution?

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SET I:

with recurring bouts of senioritis alarmingly originating in 1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you freshman year, I think it’s safe to say I know a thing or two about want as a dinner guest? tests.

Throughout our forays through Main and Manzanita, we have Okay, stop right there. This is the kind of question students acquired a set of test-taking cornerstones. When you don’t know fearfully anticipate before college interviews after scouring the right answer, bubble in C. If you experience a suspicious the depths of College Confidential, and can only go one of two repetition of multiple choice answers you can almost certainly ways if asked in a colloquial setting. The other person will either conclude that the CIA is conspiring against you, and you should try to unsuccessfully impress you with their poor knowledge never, ever wear low-rise jeans to a final. (Don’t take that last one of American history by selecting Theodore Roosevelt or reveal lightly. I’m pretty sure I spent more time pulling up my jeggings their hidden boy band obsession and pick Jesse McCartney. during the AP Bio Exam than discussing ecology on the free Lose-lose. Move on. response.)

Tests come in all horrifying shapes and sizes: pop, fill-in-the2. Would you like to be famous? In what way? blank, oral, and (my personal favorite) the “that-test-wasn’t-onPCR-last-night-I-swear-to-God” variety.

Um, probably not from forming a marriage from a sketchy love But could a test of just 36 questions make you fall in love? questionnaire you found in the depths of the New York Times According to an article published in early January by the fashion and style section? Just a wild guess? Try explaining that New York Times, Mandy Len Catron certainly thinks so. one to your conservative aunt over FaceTime.

A Vancouver writer currently teaching English and creative writing at the University of British 3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what Columbia, Catron’s “Modern Love Essay” you are going to say? Why? discusses her experience replicating an experimental study conducted by Arthur Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me that there are people that exist Aron examining the ability of a set of AM that do not actually do this? Am I the only one that practically questions to create feelings of love PRA I T H E performs her pizza order like a Shakespearean monologue between two individuals.

O C before dialing Domino’s? Should I be ditching this N T OR The questions are based on the DE ICAL LY O questionnaire to get more serious therapeutic principle that the act of sharing NE LY MO R L help?

I P personal information about T DO NOLO KE A ERFO HAT ourselves with other people S MI 4. What would constitute a can lead to the formation NO GUE HAK RMS “perfect” day for you?

HE BEF ESP ’S ? of intimate relationships.

R E OR Broken down into three sets E D A R E A PI Z Z A Okay, this I can live with. Knowing of 12, each consecutive group of IAL N what your potential significant other I NG questions encourages the individuals to enjoys in his spare time is valuable make themselves more vulnerable than the last, information to start a relationship with. spanning everything from dinner party conversations Unless it involves scalpels or something. to terrible memories. The test concludes with a period of six Then you should get the hell out of there. minutes in which both participants must look into each other’s eyes silently.

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To Due to aforementioned traumatizing test experiences, it is someone else? understandable that I am skeptical about this arguably sketchy questionnaire. That being said, I consider myself to be quite Al r i g ht, even for someone with limited boyfriend an open-minded person, and therefore will honestly, but at experience, I’m pretty sure you can’t woo someone through a times brutally, dissect sections of this quiz myself investigating detailed account of your recent shower-capped rendition of whether or not 36 questions can really spark romantic Beyoncé’s new single. (Even if you did muster up the courage to connections painfully reminiscent of the Katherine Heigl chick tell this story, leave out the part where you used your Pantene as flicks backing up my Netflix queue. a microphone. Love can survive a few secrets.)

» Want to take the quiz? nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/ modern-love-to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this.html

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60-years of your life, which would you want?

I stared at this question for two minutes, genuinely confused at what it was trying to accomplish.

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

Yeah, just got off the phone with my ghost. Apparently I died out of severe annoyance from answering these irrelevant questions.

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

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One, we are both obviously answering this questionnaire with the desperate hope that a Nicholas-Sparks breakthrough will occur and we will be able to plan out our future life in the idyllic Midwestern countryside. Two, I think we’re still stressing about what we revealed in that dinner-guest question and I promise O INT I’m not judging you for liking Jesse McCartney. “Beautiful U YO Y TO Soul” was like my childhood anthem. Seriously.

K ND L Three, we are both staring at each other A AR IC A T R T R M with an alarming combination of fear, M O , CO N U R M E A L L confusion, and disbelief at our R E U T O ability to be dragged into YO . ALS LIEF, SOLV T E answering this absurd L BE NOT S. GS array of questions.

T N’ T A N I A N N 9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

Alright, Mandy, you win. I can’t find anything wrong with this one. I can genuinely say that it would be endearing to hear another person talk about something in their life that they feel thankful for.

DO NT B IND B CA MEN IL F RO U L A R P O R U T H A P L PO KS VA HEA G C VI IN IST X E

exposed to individuals with sass levels like myself.

The first set left me confused and slightly angry. Thanks to a couple of Milanos (okay, it was five, whatever), I am newly reenergized to tackle Set II.

SET II:

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

Honestly, I would probably use it to predict what I should wear tomorrow. This unfortunate California spring-winter hybrid is a serious buzzkill.

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

Another pretty solid question. Even with my snarky commentary, I could see how this question could yield potentially adorable results.

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

Don’t let your mom talk you into front bangs. Also, contrary to popular Indian belief, turmeric and Vicks VapoRub cannot solve all existing health ailments.

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that the other person will probably state something amazing like their treacherous trek up Mount Everest and I will be left to shamefully detail the time I watched six seasons of Gossip Girl in four days.

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

Judging by the amount of words I speak per minute, I would probably be done setting up the scene for my birth by the time I reached my time limit for this question. Next.

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Honesty. The kind of honesty I wish my friends would’ve used to pull me out of answering this mind-numbing questionnaire.

The ability to forget that I ever let myself get talked into answering 36 awkward questions to find the Romeo to my Riya. To be fair, this question could be interesting or cute if not

17. What is your most treasured memory?

Sweet question. Pass.

18. What is your most terrible memory?

I was ready to pardon one memory question, but two seems a bit excessive. Don’t get over ambitious, Mandy. Pick one.

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

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Um, probably trying to fervently avoid whatever mode of terror killed me in the first place? What?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

Refer to my answer to question 16.

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

I am genuinely curious as to what kinds of responses people are supposed to offer to this question. Are you supposed to express it as a percentage? A decimal value? If so, to how many significant figures?

_ 22

The 36-Question Cupid Solution?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

Um, did we not answer this in question 22? Get it together Mandy.

Refer to my notes as to what I would consider appropriate responses from my partner to this question:

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

1. I washed and dried my hair for you. This happens like twice a year.

Compliment it.

2. The sheer gorgeousness of my shoes is directly proportional to the extent to which they are cutting off circulation to my foot. Compliment them.

3. Mention my charming smile.

4. Also my amiable personality.

5. Honestly, if you managed to name one through four, I would be pretty impressed. This can be your wild card.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

5

Are you trying to be my future boyfriend or Sigmund Freud? Pass.

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

This question is more loaded than an AK-47.

A quick can of Coke places me in an over-caffeinated state to face Set III.

SET III: 25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling…”

1. …very embarassed.

2. …very confused.

3. …slightly charmed by the random compliments we shared in question 22. I can’t believe you actually complimented my shoes.

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

If you say “popcorn at the movie theater,” this questionnaire is over. I am not your dream girl.

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

This is actually a solid question. Your significant other should arguably be one of your best friends and thus it is important to brief them on what to expect. I’m going to stay strong on my advice to keep your mouth shut about the Pantene shower microphone. This may be a great time to share information about your raw snowglobe collection or your affinity for destroying your life with addictive television programs.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

MIN ...

Refer to the period of time I spent answering questions 1-28.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

Now would not be a good time to mention your violent sobbing in response to that rescue puppy video you saw this morning on BuzzFeed.

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

If I have to tell my partner one more thing I like about them, I’m going to run out of patience and ideas very quickly.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

The level of discomfort we will be facing in the staring-contest portion of this questionnaire. I can’t look the cashier at 7-11 in the eye when I’m buying a Snickers bar, let alone a guy I’ve never met for the duration of a passing period.

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

If you were to die this evening, I would want you to politely excuse yourself from this questionnaire and focus on your imminent death.

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why? Noise-canceling headphones. My mom would probably be shouting at me about leaving the burner on.

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why? Are we actually placing a competitive misery value upon the demise of each of your family members?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

I just answered 36 questions to find the love of my life through a questionnaire in the New York Times fashion and style section. I think describing the number of personal problems I have at this time would spur 36 more. f Riya is the Lifestyle Editor of the Winged Post. Contact her at 15riyag@ students.harker.org.

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Artist Showcase May 2015

Cars intermittently pass behind me.

The low hum of their engines break the otherwise silent atmosphere of the night.

Bright lights illuminate the bridge, drawing a stark contrast with the black sky behind it. A tap of a remote and my shutter opens. An image appears on my screen two minutes later.

Turbulent waves are replaced with a calm, still sea. The sea of darkness transforms into a bright sky, hidden clouds exposed by light.

Long Exposures by Night

N

ikon D610. 24-70 mm f/2.8. Extra batteries. Remote.

My bag packed, there is only one more thing to do — wait. As dusk approaches, I throw on a sweatshirt, fold my tripod and head out the door. Something about cities at night attracts me. Whether it's the cool evening air, the calm and quiet atmosphere, or the contrast of bright lights against the black night sky, I cannot say for certain. Immersed in dark silence, dirty streets become alleyways of thought and shabby monuments take on a deeper meaning. Armed with a camera, I seek to capture these secrets of the night. Exposing my shots between 30 and 300 seconds, I allow my camera to absorb more light than the naked eye can see, unmasking the darkness and revealing the transience of the world.

I kneel on the street, leaning back against the wall of bushes as I frame my shot. I sit in silence as I watched for the cars to come, fiddling with my trigger in wait. The instant the bright headlights illuminate the dark street, I lock the remote, holding my breath as I watch the car zip by.

As it continues to zigzag down the windy road, I release my shutter and admire the streaks of light dashed across the LCD screen.

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By JONATHAN DAI

Trekking across the Brooklyn Bridge, my cold fingers grasp the tripod as I brace the frigid east coast weather.

Nearly halfway across the East River, I turn back and am met with the bright skyline of New York. Despite the late hour, hundreds of cars pass under me, vibrations shaking the whole bridge.

I stand and stare, mesmerized by the allure of the mysterious cityscape sprawling over the horizon.

I stand at the mouth of the Brooklyn Bridge, the first tower looming above me. A lone American flag waves at its peak, lost in the darkness of the night sky. I unclasp my tripod legs and center myself, unsure what my camera will make of the pure blackness above. As the shutter signals the end of my photo, I stare at my screen, astounded. The fluttering of the flag in the gentle breeze surrounded by the stark outlines of dark clouds combine for an eerie site. The arches of the bridge and the lines of the suspension cables form a gateway, drawing me in to some strange world. I lose myself in the depths of my photo, finally snapped back to reality when my screen shuts off. I look up at the site I just photographed and there stands the bridge masked in darkness. I smile; there is so much more behind that dull, gray structure.

Wingspan Magazine

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I stand knee high in the damp underbrush as I position my tripod on the perimeter of the lake. As I adjust my camera's settings, I catch myself staring not at the Palace itself, but at its distorted reflection in the lake. â—?

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CHEATING THE

WIN

In a world of high stakes under arena lights, cheating has become a means to an end in sports.

WORDS BY Ria Gandhi & Alex Youn

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DONNING THE YELLOW SHIRT OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE. HANGING THE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BANNER. BREAKING THE 10-SECOND MARK IN THE 100-YARD DASH. HITTING YOUR 700TH HOME RUN. W H E R E D O YO U D R AW T H E L I N E B E T W E E N C O M P E T I N G AT A H I G H L E V E L A N D W I N N I N G AT A L L C O S T S ?

D

uring the 2015 American Football Conference (AFC) Championship game on Jan. 18, 2015, eleven of the twelve New England Patriot footballs were inflated below the minimum of 12.5 PSI, enabling easier grip for both quarterback Tom Brady and wide receivers.

Opponents Indianapolis Colts competed with footballs inflated to standard pressure, and the Patriots, who went on to win the Super Bowl, were accused of having an unfair advantage. After conducting intensive investigations, the National Football League (NFL) has suspended Tom Brady for four games without pay, fined the New England Patriots $1 million and revoked two of the team’s draft picks in 2016 and 2017.

This scandal, known as “Deflategate,” sparked nationwide controversy. Mountain View Volleyball Club’s 13-Red team’s head coach, Colleen Carey, says that the New England Patriots should be held responsible for the scandal.

“There’s a lot of things about Tom Brady wanting to keep the balls on the lower end [of the news] and so maybe [“Deflategate”] was actually feasible,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t Tom Brady that knew, but somebody had to know — it was such a big discrepancy [in pressure].”

However, many believe that “Deflategate” has received excessive media coverage.

“In the football world, it’s about the equivalent of wearing seven-eighths inch cleats when you’re supposed to wear threequarter inch cleats,” Upper School Strength and Conditioning Coordinator Ron Forbes said. Before coming to Harker, Forbes was the coordinator of strength and conditioning at the University of Florida and the director of sports performance at Stanford for seven years.

“I just think that was something to stir up controversy.

Basketball players may not be so sensitive that they can pick up a ball and [say], ‘There’s exactly 13 pounds of pressure in here.’

But, as soon as they start to dribble it, they know it’s either under-inflated or over-inflated. Well, it’s kind of the same with a quarterback with a football. You pick it up and throw it, [and] you know it’s under-inflated or over-inflated. Under-inflating a football allows the quarterback to grip it better and throw it better, and that happens every week at the collegiate level and the NFL level.”

What provokes a team as successful as the 4-time Super Bowl Champion Patriots, who were accused of videotaping the New York Jets’ play calls during a 2007 game, to rely on illicit tactics to win? Forbes believes that one of the reasons lies in the financial pressure that professional organizations place on their athletes.

According to a 2014 report from Business Insider, the average annual salaries of professional athletes in the National

Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL) and National Football League (NFL) are $4.5, $3.9, $2.4 and $2.0 million, respectively.

“At that level, I think you’re asking a question that has more to do with financial success and wealth than about winning.

LeBron James was 18 when he graduated from high school,” said Forbes. “I would like to know how many 18-year-olds would act responsibly if you put $50 million in cash in [their] hands and then watched them for the next two or three years. The athletic population is faced with tremendous opportunity to make poor decisions at a very young age.”

Professional athletes have an influence on the actions of aspiring athletes. Those who look up to the players and coaches hope to one day stand in their shoes.

University of San Diego Sports Psychology Consultant Paul Ashbrook reflected on the resonating effect that well-known athletes have upon children.

“Professional athletes often times don’t want to acknowledge they are role models. The thing is, whether they want to be role models or not, they are,” he said in a phone interview. “When most kids are growing up, they say ‘I wanna be like Michael Jordan, or Tom Brady,’ or whomever, so you’re naturally going to be drawn to these people, whether the athletes agree with it or not.”

T

he 2011 “Bounty scandal” of the New Orleans Saints is a notable incident where Saints coaches gave defensive players pay bonuses, known as “bounties,” in exchange for exacting injuries upon opponents during games.

According to the NFL, players from the Saints would receive $1000 for a cart-off, a hit that resulted in a player having to leave the field.

“I think what it tended to be more of was ‘Hey, if you take this guy out, whether it’s for the game or a week, we’ll give you a bonus,’ ” Ashbrook said. “In the eye of an athlete, they’re not looking at it from the perspective of ‘I want to hurt this guy because I don’t like him or that person.’ It’s ‘I’m going to hurt him because I’m going to give myself and my team a better chance to win.’ ” In addition, 2009 Saints defensive captain Jonathan Vilma was willing to offer $10 million to any player who knocked out Brett Favre, the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, during the 2010 National Football Conference (NFC) Championship game.

Although the Saints did not succeed in reaching this goal, the NFL suspended Vilma for the entire 2012 season.

Player safety is already a cause of major concern, especially in the highly physical sport of football. Even with the NFL’s

Wingspan Magazine

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I THINK ONCE YOU’VE WORKED REALLY HARD, AFTER A CERTAIN POINT, IT’S HARDER TO GET STRONGER. SO YOU LOOK FOR AN ALTERNATIVE.

attempts to suppress scandals, it remains difficult to rid the sport of cheating.

“If you’re talking about cheating scandals, that comes down to the character of the program and the character of the team and the character of the players,” Varsity football player Sidhart Krishnamurthi (‘15) said. “That does not come down to the fact that there’s so much pressure to succeed. [Performanceenhancing drugs], recovery drugs, those things that are in the NFL today, I feel like those things are hard to avoid because you’re counted on to make that money.”

Besides violence, some professional athletes resort to the use of drugs. Convicted in 2013, American cyclist Lance Armstrong was stripped of seven Tour de France titles due to his use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

“I understand why he would use drugs, but I don’t think it is the ethical choice,” former Varsity tennis player Alex Mo (‘17) said. “I think that it is unsportsmanlike to do that to other competitors.”

The prevalence of cheating incidents in sports has led to discussion over why professional athletes go to such lengths to perform.

“I think once you worked really hard, after a certain point, it’s harder to get stronger and harder to get faster,” Harker Varsity football player Trenton Thomas (‘16) said. “So you look for an alternative.”

Varsity swimmer Aaron Huang (‘15) believes that cheating can result from an athlete's’ personal perception of competition.

“I believe that once sports lose their sense of fun and excitement and become simply a task or job, competition becomes burden and not a stimulus, as it should be,” he said in an email interview.

Below: Former Varsity tennis player Alex Mo ('17) returns the ball to Menlo's David Ball in a 2014 league tennis match at the Bay Club. Alex told Wingspan that he is against drug use by professional athletes in any sport.

C

heating scandals aren’t purely constrained to purely professional sports. Jackie Robinson West, the 2014 U.S. Little League World Series champions, had its championship title stripped as a result of their use of ineligible players on their roster. By recruiting players from outside stipulated geographical boundaries, the baseball team added more star players to their roster, lending them an unfair advantage over other teams in the league.

Ashbrook shared his insights into why young athletes may choose to break the rules.

“Realistically, there’s probably a couple main issues,” he said.

“Generally, they typically stem from how you’re raised, the norms that are set forth by coaches, peers, and others. You’re a kid and you’re raised in a family where cheating is acceptable, obviously that’s going to be more common, more likely. Those

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Page 28: Photograph by Shay Lari-Hosain. Right: Photograph by Jonathan Dai/Talon Archives

around you, whether it is coaches, peers, or parents, emphasize [cheating] in some way or allowed it in some way.”

As competition increases, coaches and players alike attempt to find more ways to maneuver around the rules of ethical conduct.

According to the 2005 National Youth Behavior Survey, about 60 percent of high schoolers using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) said that professional athletes influenced their — or a friend’s — decision to use PEDs. “At the high school level you might be really good at your sport and when you go to the collegiate level you, the pressure is heightened,” Varsity volleyball player and Yale Volleyball recruit Shreya Dixit (‘15) said in a phone interview. “People who were once great in high school might not be able to feel heightened senses of appreciation in college. In some sports [taking PEDs] is so common at this time that they feel like it’s necessary to take them in order to compete.”

Along with the suspension of the coach, the team lost its championship title, and coaches across the country condemned its actions.

“Shame on the coaches. Shame on the organization,” Forbes said. “It’s one thing to exercise poor judgement through inexperience and immaturity. It’s another thing for an organization and a bunch of grown men to do it. If there’s a segment of our society that needs help, that’s the segment because that’s pervasive now.”

Craig Johnson, Head Coach of the 12U Sunnyvale Girls’ Softball team, echoes that sentiment, reflecting on the impact of this cheating scandal on young children involved in sports.

“That’s when you’re taking sports to a level that it shouldn’t be at, where sportsmanship is not the focus; it’s only winning,” Johnson said. “[Children] should learn that there’s consequences for your action, that even though you think you may get away with something, eventually it comes out and there will be logical consequences.” ● Ria is the Features Editor of Aquila and Alex is the Business Manager of Talon. Contact them at 17riag@students.harker.org and 17alexy@students.harker.org.

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Conversation May 2015

Q&A with Harker alum Wajahat Ali

Interview by SHAY LARI-HOSAIN

Co-host of “The Stream” Wajahat Ali sits in his spot at the news anchor desk in Al Jazeera's D.C. office.

Wajahat Ali (MS '94) is the co-host and digital producer of Al Jazeera America’s news program “The Stream.” He is the author of “The Domestic Crusaders,” an off-Broadway play published

by McSweeney’s which explores the post-9/11 Muslim-American experience. Ali frequently contributes to the Washington Post, the Guardian, Salon, Slate, the Wall Street Journal Blog, the Huffington Post and CNN.com.

In 2012, Ali worked with the State Department to design and implement the “Generation Change” leadership program to empower young social entrepreneurs, initiating chapters in eight countries, including Pakistan and Singapore. He was honored as a “Generation Change Leader” by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and as an “Emerging Muslim-American Artist” by the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Wingspan interviewed Mr. Ali by phone about his efforts to combat Islamophobia.

Starting off very broad, what does it mean to be a Muslim in America today?

Everyone’s talking about you, you’re in the news. Apparently you’re moderate or you’re radical. Your existence is always interrogated, investigated, questioned. There’s amazing questions about the West apparently being at war with Islam, or Islam being at war with the West — oftentimes no one really knows what Islam or the West is.

1400 years of tradition and civilization is scapegoated inelegantly as this one collective hive mentality concept of a sour, dour people who apparently hate life and hate everything and hate themselves.

Being Muslim in America is very exhausting, as a result of this type of marginalized status that some American Muslims or Muslim communities have inhabited in the post-post-9/11 world. We’re living in volatile, uncertain times where the fringe have become the mainstream, and fear-mongering and scapegoating are easy fuel for mileage when it comes to political and media careers.

However, it’s nothing new — Muslims right now occupy a very pivotal role in a remake of “Tag, you’re the bogeyman!” played by LGBT, Mexican immigrants, African-Americans, Japanese immigrants, Jews, IrishCatholics and so forth.

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This page and next page: Photographs courtesy of Wajahat Ali

In 2011, you were the lead author of an investigative report mandated by the Center for American Progress.

It’s titled “Fear, Incorporated.” That’s an interesting title — tell us what the report was about.

Sure. In August 2011, the Center for American Progress published “Fear Incorporated: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” the result of a six-month investigation.

What it does is, for the first time, traces the money and connects the dots to a small, interconnected group of individuals, funders, think tanks, grassroots organizations, media channels and politicians who in the post9/11 climate manufactured anti-Muslim talking points, capitalizing, figuratively and literally, on the ignorance, fear and misconceptions that people have.

We broke down the network to five major groups. First and foremost, it’s the funding — we traced $43 million from seven major funders over a period of ten years, that went to the second

It’s imperative to extend your hand across the aisle in goodwill and know that there will be neighbors and partners.

Other faiths and ethnic groups will grab your hand in solidarity.

group, which I call the Islamophobia nerve center, the think tanks and the scholars and the quote-on-quote “policy experts.”

Predominantly, they’re the individuals who help create many of these memes through policy reports. And then those reports get hand-delivered to the grassroots organizations. For example, Act for America is one of the predominant grassroots antiMuslim networks, cofounded by Brigitte Gabriel, who had said in 2007 that Arabs and Muslims have no soul, and has also said a practicing Muslim cannot be a loyal American and so forth.

The fourth group, then, is the media megaphone: how these memes are popularized through online magazines, talk radio and TV. Predominantly Fox News. These individuals write books, they give each other praises and blurbs in the books, they invite each other on their radio shows, they write op-eds. They’re very savvy with social media. They end up as “terrorism experts” or "Sharia experts" without any experience or legitimacy.

Finally, the fifth group. Quite literally, quotes directly from these reports end up in the mouths of major political players.

In the 2012 Republican primaries, essentially every single Republican Presidential candidate ran with the anti-Sharia meme.

Especially now with the rise of ISIS, many of these players have reared their ugly head again. The good news is, you can trace it back just to a few people. It’s very interconnected, very incestuous, very well-organized.

It coincided with this tragedy in Norway that happened in August 2011. Anders Breivik, a self-described conservative Christian wanted to punish Europe for being too lenient on multiculturalism. He left behind a 1500-page manifesto before he went and killed 77 people. In this manifesto, he cites every single person that I mentioned from the Islamophobia network.

All of his talking points, his worldview about Muslims, is shared by members of both the U.S. and European Islamophobia industry.

How can we change the mindset of mainstream America? I mean, how can we overcome Islamophobia?

Number one: most Americans say they don’t know a Muslim.

One of the root causes of anti-Muslim bigotry, based on the research, is ignorance. Not malice. Ignorance. I think that’s key.

Unfortunately, what [most Americans] do know about Muslims is negative, and that comes from media representation. This type of sensationalism [and] stereotypes have predominated our mindsets not only with foreign policy but also with Western mainstream depictions of Muslims that goes back a thousand years to the Crusades. It’s been this alien horde; brutal, barbaric, backwards. Or it’s this cornucopia of fetishes — magic carpets and hookahs, and shishas and harems.

It always coincides with our foreign policy. In the 1970s, the big villain was Iran. The Iranian revolution. Khomeini. “Death to America.” In the ‘80s, we have Qaddafi in Libya, and then you had Palestine and Israel, and then Iraq and Iran.

One of the ways to fight back is for American-Muslims to be proactive storytellers — to own both their Muslim and American identities and to show it’s not In 2010, Ali received oxymoronic. For American-Muslims, the key thing Harker's Distinguished is to tell their story or else their story will be told to Alumni Award for his them by others — that’s what’s happening. accomplishments as an activist, essayist, It’s also imperative to extend your hand across humorist, attorney-at law the aisle in goodwill and know that there will be and playwright. neighbors and partners. Other faiths and ethnic groups will grab your hand in solidarity. That’s what’s happened with every other group — the

LGBT community, the African-American community — no one does it alone in America. Tell and educate and inform diverse communities that Islamophobia is fundamentally antiAmerican.

I think you have to also have elected officials — we have two of them — and more and more people engaged at the local, state and federal levels. You also have to bridge the trust deficit between minority communities and law enforcement. You have to emerge as the best version of yourself, relying on the best aspects of your Muslim and American values.

It will take a nation of many diverse communities to rise up and be the best version of themselves to drown out the antiMuslim bigots, and push them back where they belong, in the fringe. You need attorneys and lawyers who galvanize around a watershed legal case. You need smart laws, smart bills.

You are the co-host of “The Stream” on Al Jazeera [America]. Do you know of, or do you know personally, any other Muslim anchors on American television?

My buddy Hasan Minhaj from the Bay Area just became a “[The] Daily Show [with Jon Stewart]” correspondent. He grew up in the Bay Area, a few years younger than me. Actually, Hasan and Trevor Noah, the guy who just got tabbed to be host, got hired on the same day. Malika Bilal is a Muslim AfricanAmerican from Chicago who is the co-host of Al Jazeera English’s “The Stream.” Ali Velshi is a Muslim on Al Jazeera America. Aasif Mandvi is another “Daily Show” correspondent.

Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian-American of both Muslim and Christian descent, has a radio talk show. So there are a few, you know; there’s not many of us, but I think we’re getting there.

You also had a play out in 2009, “The Domestic Crusaders.”

When did you start writing it and what drove you to write the play?

I started the play in 2001 as a senior at U.C. Berkeley on the demands of my short story writing class professor Ishmael Reed, who took me out of the short story writing class three weeks after 9/11 and said, I think you should write a play. Things are going to get bad for American-Muslims — I’m African-American, I’ve seen media depictions. One way to always fight back is through storytelling; art. I’ve never heard the Pakistani story; I’ve never heard the Muslim story. Have you read American family dramas like “Long Day's Journey into Night” or “Death of a Salesman”?

I said, Yes. He goes, All right, write me something like that but the Pakistani-Muslim version — I'll see you in two months, give me 20 pages. I begged him, Please let me not do this; I have no idea what to do. And he says, Nope, you gotta write me a play.

Growing up in the Bay Area, I was storytelling without realizing. When I went to Bellarmine, we did sketch comedy with Sanguine Humors [the Bellarmine improv comedy troupe] and at Harker in fifth grade, Ms. Peterson made us do creative projects, and that’s when I found my voice. I won “Best Writer” and “Best Artist” — it was the first time I’d ever won anything — and I wrote a whole bunch of stories then. It’s these passions that we have as children that we take for granted, that sometimes do make the building blocks for our future careers.

I finally finished it as a birthday present to myself when I turned 23. On and off, it took about two years. I wrote it at a time in my life when everything was falling apart, and I needed to create something purely for myself. This was 2003, when George W. Bush was elected President; there was the war in Iraq. Many of the same anti-Muslim memes we have now were present.

In a long story short, I willed it to life, and the play got five

Wingspan Magazine

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Conversation May 2015

weeks at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. It got the New York Times, it got MSNBC, it got Al Jazeera, NBC, Wall Street Journal, local, national, international press, standing ovations.

It was published by McSweeney’s.

Everyone laughed at me when I first started. At the time, when I did it in 2003, especially the Muslim community that was feeling particularly besieged, one doctor uncle was like, “Beta, why don’t you do something useful?”

Faith isn’t enough sometimes. You have to create something tangible, and nothing succeeds like success. The success of the play and my gradual ascension has had a very profound impact on the younger generation.

When I did the play in New York, a lot of kids would come up to me. They’d say, Listen, I brought my dad here because I don’t want to be a doctor, and I just wanted to show them a guy just like me could do it.

That same uncle who mocked me in 2004, in 2009 said, I’ve been in this country for 40 years. My kids have succeeded and gone to good colleges. I turn on the TV, and despite making the American Dream and being successful, they still see me as a terrorist or a taxicab driver. I wish I would've not made my sons into engineers — I should’ve made my sons into writers and journalists like you. So keep doing what you’re doing.

That’s how you help shift the mindset even within our minority communities.

That’s been a very rewarding, positive benefit from this long, lonely uphill journey.

That’s wonderful, thank you.

Now, unfortunately, we’re actually moving to the negative! Can you talk about a personal experience with Islamophobia?

My personal experience with Islamophobia has been taking on the Islamophobes. I attended the Countering Violent Extremism Summit held at the White House in February. Just by attending the summit, I got this hit piece on me by breitbart[.com], which regurgitated many of the inflammatory and slanderous accusations about Muslims that were written against me as a result of writing “Fear, Inc.” You should read it, it’s hilarious.

It proves exactly what the anti-Muslim machine is about. It’s almost this pathological fear of American-Muslims who can gain some prominence in America’s political, cultural or social

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Q&A with Wajahat Ali ('94)

» Check out the extended conversation with Wajahat Ali on harkeraquila.com

THE LOCAL BECOMES T H E N AT I O N A L BECOMES THE I N T E R N AT I O N A L WITH THE PRESS OF A THUMB ON A SMARTPHONE. WE LIVE IN A GLOBALIZED W O R L D, A N D W E H AV E EXTREMISM FEEDING E X T R E M I S M AC R O S S T H E AT L A N T I C .

THE NUMBER ONE RECRUITMENT TOOL A N D P R O PAG A N DA O F I S I S A N D A L - Q A’ I DA H I S T H AT T H E W E S T I S AT WA R W I T H I S L A M .

THE NUMBER ONE P R O PAG A N DA T O O L OF THE ANTI-MUSLIM B I G O T S I S I S L A M I S AT WA R W I T H T H E W E S T.

space and threaten their narratives. So I was apparently antiSemitic — who knows why. I became anti-American. I got called an incubator of radicalization. It’s very comical.

When I first announced that I was co-host of Al Jazeera America, on social media some of the reaction was hysterical and inflammatory. By me simply being Muslim, some people said, Oh, you and your radical Islamist agenda.

Right now, we’re living in some unique times, because the local becomes the national becomes the international with the press of a thumb on a smartphone. We live in a globalized world, and we have extremism feeding extremism across the Atlantic.

The number one recruitment tool and propaganda of ISIS and al-Qa’idah is that the West is at war with Islam. The number one propaganda tool of the anti-Muslim bigots is Islam is at war with the west.

By virtue of exposing it, I’m in the thick of it, but I try to have a sense of humor about it, because you can either cry about it or you laugh, and laughter is a bit more cathartic.

To wrap up, what is the future for Muslim-Americans? Is it getting better or worse?

The future of American-Muslims is tied to the future of America. The way America will treat its downtrodden, will treat its marginalized communities, will be the great test for the present and future of America. Will we rise to our greatest values, will we achieve the American Dream in this evolving of a rough draft of the multicultural experiment that is America?

That’s up to us and our actions. American-Muslims [are a] part and parcel of this experiment, of this burden and this test.

We have to acknowledge the fact that American-Muslims are tremendously privileged, and have it far better than other groups in the past — we are above-average income, very educated. As a community, we have a lot going for us. If we rely on the best of our values, both spiritual values and cultural values, I think we as a community, as American-Muslims and as a nation will truly emerge. Not to give in to helplessness, not to give in to anger, not to give in to the Islamophobes, not to feed the bigotry and not to let it define us. Rather, we define ourselves, become the protagonists of our own narratives, tell the stories to ourselves and to others, and have our stories be by us for everyone. That’s the key. f Shay is the Asst. Editor-in-Chief and Designer of Wingspan and the Design Editor of the Winged Post. Contact him at 16shayl@students.harker.org.

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