Kitsch Magazine: Spring 2016

kitsch pop culture, politics, college, etc.

IN THIS ISSUE:

talking sexual assault on campus wiith liz karns the silenced voices of south asian refugees hamilton the revolutionary political debates as media spectacles decentering the west in the liberal arts

law & disorder vol. 14 no. 2

kitsch VOL 14 NO 2 || SPRING 2016

editors in chief

managing editor copy editor art editor fiction editor

nathaniel coderre jagravi dave

katie o’brien

+ yana makuwa

zooming in

nathaniel coderre

zooming out

katie o’brien sarah chekfa

michelle savran melvin li

yana makuwa

barbara esuoso

watch and listen

yana lysenko susie plotkin

writers

michael alban aelya ehtasham nuha fariha

fiction writers

brian young naroe palacios cruz

nadine fuller

j. gabriel gonzalez

brendan murphy

laura kern

julia pearson

melvin li

matt pegan

cassidy viser

aurora rojer chris skawski

artists

michelle savran maura thomas

advisors

michael koch english, cornell university

aurora rojer

catherine taylor writing, ithaca college

julia pearson

jin yoo julia monteith

cover art

michelle savran

From the ridiculous state of the presidential election and the leak of the Panama Papers, to the national conversations started by Twitter movements like #ConcernedStudent1950 and #OscarsSoWhite, 2015 and 2016 have made it impossible not to recognize the disorder embedded in the law and other institutions.

At best, what’s beneath the long black robe of justice is merely chaos in disguise, but sometimes more sinister forces are at play. This semester with “Law & Disorder,” kitsch is exploring how the arbiters of power in our society affect the order of our lives. Last issue, we chose the theme of “Binaries,” focusing on social constructions and how they govern behavior and identity. So it seemed like the natural next step to turn our attention to institutions and their role in creating and enforcing often-harmful norms.

To that end, some of our writers examined the complicity of governmental structures in marginalizing certain groups. Brendan Murphy argues that the CDC’s recent recommendations to women promote archaic gender roles. Katie O’Brien condemns the discriminatory “bathroom bills” that sanction violence against trans women under the guise of protecting cis women. And Nuha Fariha raises the veil over the U.S. immigration policies that oppress and silence South Asian refugees fleeing political violence.

Other writers looked to the social and political power of the entertainment and media industries. Nadine Fuller and Yana Makuwa discuss how celebrities can and should use their platform to affect positive change by looking at women pop stars and Trevor Noah. However, celebrity is not always a boon—Aelya Ehtasham criticizes the news media for creating reality TV stars out of political candidates.

As students, we can’t help but be concerned with the University as a system that governs us. Chris Skawski contemplates the CUPD’s role on campus, and its enforcement of not just the law but Cornell’s code of conduct. Jagravi Dave criticizes liberal arts schools’ Western-centric approach to teaching the humanities.

And ILR Professor Liz Karns talked to us about Cornell’s lack of transparency on sexual assault, showing how an institution that is supposed to protect us can fail.

In light of all this, it is easy to feel hopeless about the pervasive control of institutions over every aspect of our lives. But we’re going to go ahead and take comfort in the fact that for every loudmouthed, bigoted, moralizing politician, there are hundreds of naive yet well-intentioned college students writing angry thinkpieces to try to prove them wrong.

Yana Makuwa & Katie O’Brien

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

in this issue 4 5 6 7 9

Meet the Editors On the Plaza Klarman’s 5 Best Staircases The Albums of Bernie and the Pope A Reaction to Facebook Reactions

11 Office Space: Liz Karns 13 Questioning the Role of CUPD 15 Alternative Currencies: Ithacash & the Puma 18 How Real is Cornell’s Edifice Complex?

21 A Conversation with a Local Activist 23 26 29 31 33 35 37 39

Learning from the West The Silenced Voices of South Asian Refugees Red, White, & Rose-Colored Glasses Political Debates or Reality TV? Bathroom Bills are Fucked Up How Separate are the Church and State?

The Medical Regulation of Women Hillary Clinton and Gendered Authenticity

41 Hamilton the Revolutionary 43 Kanye: He’s Bigger than Jesus Now 45 By Women, For Women: Feminism in Music 47 Ideology vs Aesthetics with Bret Easton Ellis 49 Why Broad City Is Better Than Girls 51 Qué Abuela?: Hillary Clinton vs Jane the Virgin 53 Trevor Noah’s Importantly International Comedy 55 Kim Kardashian’s Feminist Nudity 57 In the 20-Teens 58 Daydreams and Occurrences

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Phantom Limbs Doubting Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems Sonnet 130 Revisited Caribbean Melancholia Lines to a Cockroach Cave

MEET THE EDITORS nathaniel coderre

yana lysenko

susie plotkin

managing editor

yana makuwa senior editor

assistant editor

barbara esuoso

sarah chekfa

editor in chief

katie o’brien

assistant editor

assistant editor

michelle savran

melvin li

editor in chief

jagravi dave art editor

fiction editor

all in a ll, just aNot we're the wall her bri ck i ... n copy editor

On the Plaza Which song should we replace the national anthem with?

“Let’s Go Crazy, because Prince is a National Hero” -Nate C. “Personally I’d pick Raining Blood by Slayer just to mess with America” -Justin W.

“Light Em Up 2Chainz Remix” -Jagravi D.

“Battle Hymn of the Republic” -Henry S.

“Calle13’s Aguante” -Naroe P.C. “The First King George Song from Hamilton, because America needs to remember that it used to be a colony” -Yana M. “God only Knows” -Caile C. 5

“The Friends Song” -Barack O.

“Formation” -Dolorous Edd “Born to Run, because people still think it’s patriotic.”

-Katie O.

KLARMAN HALL’S 5 BEST STAIRCASES

2. The Creepy Hospital Staircase

photos by Nathaniel Coderre

1. The Absurdist Staircase to Nowhere

3. The Light at the End of the Tunnel Staircase

4. The Rustic Dirt Staircase

5. The Modern MurderBasement Staircase

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Bernie Sanders & APPARENTLY, BOTH THESE PEOPLE HAVE ALBUMS...

1. In 1987, local recording studio owner Todd Lockwood approached Mayor Bernie and asked him to collaborate on a folk album with other Vermont musicians. Surprisingly, Bernie loved the idea, telling Lockwood, “I have to admit to you, this appeals to my ego.”

by Katie O’Brien & Nathaniel Coderre

2. Bernie has been hammering the same line home since 1987, and it repeated throughout the album: “In the United States of America today, there is massive injustice, in terms of wealth and income equality.” His patented doom-and-gloom is a little weird when put up against a cheery, twangy, good ol’ America classic like “This Land is your Land,” but hey, there’s something to be said for ironic juxtaposition.

3. Bernie was not meant for spoken word; I’m surprised a record storeowner came to this conclusion in 1987. I feel like spoken word requires a kind of soothing and rhythmic quality in one’s voice, the exact opposite of Bernie’s always aggressively shout-y and staccato’d tone. Picture him saying “We are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” and now picture it in the middle of soulful, church-choir protest song “We Shall Overcome.”

4. Bernie has absolutely no sense of rhythmic diction, as exemplified by his belabored chanting of the lyrics of “This Land is Your Land:” “I roamed and rambled … I followed [awkward pause] my footsteps” and “I saw(r) above me … that endless skyway.”

5. It’s really, really bizarre picturing Bernie’s voice coming out of a not-old man. Think about it.

6. Hearing Bernie say the word “human” will never not be funny.

And he says it a LOT in this album. “YOO-man brotherhood.” “YOOman dignity.” “The YOO-man spirit. May it never be extinguished.”

7. Back then, Bernie was a little more buddy-buddy with capitalism; it costs 4.95 on iTunes, while the Pope made his available for free. Bernie did sign an agreement to give the profits to charity, but there weren’t any.

8. Bernie thinks this album was a “big mistake.” Cold, Bern, cold.

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Pope Francis here’s what we learned from listening to each 1. Apparently, Pope-albums are a Thing: Pope John Paul II’s begat Pope Benedict’s and Pope Benedict’s begat Wake Up!, the album that Pope Francis dropped in November.

2. So the Pope’s contribution to the album turns out to be just recordings of his speeches and homilies...

Bernie actually went to the studio to record his parts. To be fair, the Pope has to lead one of the most powerful institutions in the world, and Bernie was at the time leading a town full of hippies and cheddar cheese.

3. Bernie’s earnest, emphatic shout-singing provides quite the contrast to the Pope’s hesitant English lyrics, and soothing and smiley homilies in Italian and Spanish.

4. As it turns out, I don’t mind listening to religious homilies if they’re not in English and set to prog-rock and ambient beats. Good way to draw in the crowds, Pope Francis.

5. The Argentinian accent is really appropriate for a Pope. He says a sentence and I feel like he’s shushing me for talking in mass.

6. The man singing in the song “Wake Up! Go! Go! Forward!” is DEFINITELY the guy from Rent. How did this all-star collaboration happen? Is Pope Francis a huge fan of a musical about young, New York artists dying of AIDS? Does he ever think about how his friend John Paul exaserbated the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 80s? All good questions.

7. The Pope is apparently a YOOge environmentalist. The third song on the album (which is my favorite for its sexy Latin beat) is called “Cuidar el Planeta” and opens with the Pope declaring “Dios siempre perdona. ... La tierra no perdona nunca” (God always forgives. The earth never forgives.) So yeah, eternal earthly condemnation from the Pope to all you climate change deniers.

Our verdict: If you’re only going to listen to one spoken word album by an old, out of touch zealot, go with Pope Francis. If you are a diehard not ready to stop “Feeling the Bern”, go with Pope Francis. If you’re Todd Lockwood, still salty about Bernie trying to distance himself from the album, go with Pope Francis. Unless you’re Donald Trump, still feuding with the Catholic Church about a Mexican border wall, go with Pope Francis.

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OFFICE SPACE:ION

T C A E R A mukoma TOwa ngugi S N IO T C A E R K O

O B E FAC

nds o p s e r ok facebo

to

for g n i r o m our cla

Much like a scorned lover enacting jealousy-provoking Machiavellian schemes cunningly designed to capture your guilty attention, Facebook is tacitly begging us to react. The February release of its now-infamous “Reactions” feature suggests an attempt by the company to revive its now assuredly familiar interface vis-à-vis the purported complexity of the range of human emotion.

Now, not only do we have the option to “like” posts, but, when hovering above this “like” button, we are presented with five more emoji stand-ins for feelings to express our own

“

by Yana Makuwa

ion

lidat a v d e t ce multifa

by Sarah Chekfa

feel right to “like” a friend’s post about her ongoing bout of the flu that’s rendered her bedridden for the past two weeks. After all, you (hopefully) don’t like the fact that she is suffering, but rather, you are expressing your naturally virtual condolences to her.

While all that may be true, for me, Facebook’s renovation tells me the obsession with validation that the site provokes in us is a false goal. The mere fact that so many people clamored for an extension of the simple “like” is a reminder of the unhealthy atmosphere that platforms like Facebook

In our desperate attempt to seek human connection, we accidentally forget the impetus that once guided us and instead let the struggle for validation replace our natural drives to action.

sentiments regarding a post: “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad,” and “angry.” It would be rude of us not to acknowledge that we are of course very #blessed to be bequeathed the magnificent ability of expressing a grand total of six(!) technological simplifications of feeling on any post at all in the glorious netsphere that is Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the feature’s benefits, writing that “sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating…people want to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions.” And of course, what he says seems, for the most part, superficially true: When you really think about it, it just doesn’t

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promote. We don’t do things for ourselves anymore—we do them for other people. We act in order to induce others to react to us and our supposedly vainglorious lives. A Facebook post can almost be thought of as a post-act—something we automatically release upon the completion of an act. Because not only do we want people to like our posts, we want them to like us. Of course, we are not always trying to evoke the “like” reaction in others. We are complicated individuals, or at least we would like to think that we are. And, more importantly, we want others to recognize this quality in us—we want them to react to our diverse array of posts with a similarly diverse array

art by Maura Thomas

of emotions to match.

It’s almost endearingly tragic, actually. We just want to connect, to belong, to stand out in the subconsciously conforming crowd in which people and numbers are one and the same. We want others to be “sad” with us, we want others to “haha” with us, we want others to “wow” with us. We want to “love” together, and we want to be “angry” together. And that is human, and so it should be okay. And it is okay.

But in our desperate attempt to seek human connection, we accidentally forget the impetus that once guided us and instead let the struggle for validation replace our natural drives to action. No longer do we act for ourselves. Instead we act for a “like,” “love,” “sad,” “wow,” “angry,” and “haha.” This isn’t good; letting others implicitly co-opt our actions renders our lives meaningless. I will side with Nietzsche here and say that our lives were never meaningful to begin with, but this still saps any enjoyment out of them. Because when we’re doing something and only thinking about how others will perceive it after it’s done, we aren’t actually doing that thing. We aren’t really there because our minds are stuck in the future while our bodies are grounded decisively in the present. Haha!

And when we exchange places—the actor for the audience—when our bodies and minds finally come together, when we are bathed in the manufactured glow of our almostalive laptop screens, browsing our Facebook feeds, we might realize how misguided we were in letting others’ reactions guide our actions. We’ll “love” someone’s profile picture. We’ll “haha” someone’s homemade joke. We’ll “sad” that friend’s flu update. But we won’t actually love that profile picture, we won’t laugh at that joke, and we won’t really feel all that sad

about that flu-besieged friend. We should be feeling all those things, maybe—but we aren’t. We’re robots. We’re apathetic. We don’t react to anything anymore. What’s wrong with us?

Maybe it’s the rote process of seeing different derivations of the same pictures and statuses over and over again, a visual stream repeating itself, currents that we’ve already drowned in trying to inundate us yet again. Maybe it’s our growing disconnect to the world that’s causing this technological break. Maybe it’s even the computer screen in front of us that is separating us from all we genuinely want to connect to. Maybe Facebook Reactions are a commentary on us. We’ve become immune to the spectacle we ourselves have engineered. But at least now we know that all the reactions we act for are false realities. So maybe it’s time we started acting for ourselves.

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OFFICE SPACE:

Liz Karns

kitsch: First off, can you introduce yourself? What do you teach and what do you research?

Karns: I’m Liz Karns. I have a MPH in epidemiology, which is statistics of medicine. And I also have a law degree. Part of my law practice has been statistical evidence and the other part has been sexual assault civil litigation—seeking money damages for sexual assault, as opposed to imposing criminal penalties. So that’s what I did before I came to Cornell.

And then I came here and I started teaching, and the same issues are here as they were in Chicago and every place else. I became very interested in how the process works here in adjudicating sexual assault, and learned that victims didn’t have any representation in terms of policy and procedures at Cornell. The accused were automatically given students from the law school to represent them, and I imagine those law school students were supervised by their law school faculty. The victims were not given any representation.

The way I see that is that it’s like saying to somebody, “Hey, we understand you’ve broken your leg. Here’s a web page for you to figure out how to set that leg and get rehabilitation and get walking again.” It just seemed really unfair to me. So last year I started doing internal representation of victims as a volunteer, calling it the “procedural advocate for the complainant.” This year they made the position more official and it replaced teaching one class. Another lawyer, from outside of Cornell, will be taking it over in May. kitsch: How would you say Cornell’s procedure of dealing with sexual assault compares to other schools? I mean, I know no school is great about it right now, but…

Karns: The good thing is that it’s much better than it was ten years ago, anyplace. But it’s pretty unclear how we’re doing in terms of number of claims to number of violations, etc. because that information has not been made public. And that lack of transparency is the institution’s choice. So if you’re a victim thinking about coming forward, you can’t know how likely it is that the person’s going to be found in violation. But now, by state law, universities have to make those numbers public. So we’ll see. We’ll start seeing how many claims come forward, how many are actually found to have violated our policy, and what were the sanctions. kitsch: Can you elaborate on the institutional barriers a victim faces to coming forward?

Karns: So one thing is really simple. We all know that if you cannot find something on Google in ten seconds, you’re losing people. In my class on the economic consequences of sexual assault, one of the things people did was to go to any institution and try to find out how much time it takes to find out the following things: how 11

long do I have to report an assault, how many sanctions have been given for assault in the past, and who do I report it to? For some institutions it took five minutes, ten minutes tops. But most people found that it would take over an hour to find out that information at Cornell, and some of it you don’t find at all. That’s one of those ways that I think the institution, by not having that stuff super simple and accessible, creates a barrier for victims.

Another one is that under our policy, students have one year to report a sexual assault, and faculty and staff have six months.

Most of our peer institutions have indefinite reporting. And it takes most people a while to get up the courage to report. One of the things that happens is that as you approach the date that the event occurred, you start thinking about how much time of your life you’ve spent on this, right. And, you know, that date rolls around and you just think, “You know what, I’m ready. I’m ready to do it.” Well, if one year and one week has passed, you would be barred from reporting, and having a sanction. And that’s a problem. And that’s a choice that we make. Another one would be the enforcement of no contact orders between the victim and the accused. There are issues around whether or not they’re effectively enforced, and whether they allow a complainant to really have a truly safe space,

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You can see the system failing people in crisis, and it’s a really difficult thing to deal with.

or whether it actually just gives the impression of that.

”

kitsch: Have you faced any backlash or clashing from the administration because of your work on this? What have been some of the personal effects for you?

Karns: I do push pretty hard on things that people are uncomfortable with. And I say, “Yes, but here is the policy and you need to enforce it,” when it might be easier for some people to look the other way. I’m a senior lecturer—I have no anticipation of ever getting tenure, and that’s fine with me. But if I wasn’t doing all this work for Cornell on procedural advocacy I would be consulting on other law projects and potentially doing major litigation. So, I’ve given up opportunities in order to do this; it’s certainly a cost that’s not compensated. I think the level of disbelief that people have of how much a victim needs help in this process is stunning to me sometimes. Again going back to the broken leg analogy, we’d never send somebody out and tell them to fix it themselves. It’s a very intense position—the impact is largely realizing how systems fail.

You can see the system failing people in crisis, and it’s a really difficult thing to deal with. We know from other research that after you’re a victim of assault, your brain is traumatized. That’s a big effect. And then that starts a spiral. And there’s a whole bunch of

Before ILR professor, lawyer, and epidemiologist Liz Karns began volunteering as an advocate for victims of sexual assault on campus, Cornell only provided legal representation for the accused in the adjudication process. We talked to Professor Karns about Cornell’s lack of transparency around its procedures, the administrative barriers to reporting sexual assault, some of the economic consequences of sexual assault for women, and the AAU Campus Climate survey that came out in the fall. costs that go with that. So as an advocate, one of the things that I do is say, “This person should be allowed to have a lower credit load,” or something. But usually nobody’s going to push back on that; the challenge is more about addressing the fairness of the process.

For example, who’s allowed to get extensions in the Cornell 6.4 adjudication process? Sometimes I feel that the opposing counsel is very strategic in how they ask for extensions. And suddenly you realize it’s the end of the year and there’s no effective sanction.

That’s not right. That’s unacceptable to me. kitsch: Can you talk a little bit about your class, The Economic Consequences of Sexual Assault? What are some of the economic consequences that people don’t realize?

Karns: So the biggest is that, there’s a life trajectory that people are on. You’re at college, you’re at Cornell, you’re anticipating a certain job, you’re hoping to get it, you’re doing a lot of training. If something as traumatizing as sexual assault knocks you off course, then there’s a financial penalty for the rest of your life. Absolutely.

If my grades suddenly dip so badly I can’t go to med school, and instead I do something else in the medical allied field but I’m not a doctor, I’m going to have a significant income difference. For some people, they have to start spending more money on transportation.

That is one of those sort of underappreciated things, right, that you can no longer feel good. Imagine that you were assaulted by your friend who you walked home with. Not a stranger, but somebody who was supposed to be helping you. And now when you leave a party, you have to call a cab. That’s a huge cost. Or you have to find other friends. It certainly restricts people’s movements, without a doubt. kitsch: I wanted to ask you about the AAU survey on sexual assault that came out in the fall and some of the things you think it illuminated for us?

Karns: So that was great. Because we finally had a way to say, Cornell, here’s a snapshot of this last year. And also for those students who have been here for four years, when we look at just the undergrads. So I think the surprising number to many people was the percentage of female undergrads who, by their senior year, had been sexually assaulted by penetration. I’m trying to remember the number. It’s around 30 percent. That’s a lot. That’s a lot, and, I think that shocked people.

Another thing that surprised people looking at the survey is how sexual harassment is the major problem in grad school. And the sexual harassment shifts from being your fellow students, to being faculty and staff harassing the students. There’s a big difference on the impact—it isn’t a student harassing you, it might be someone in your field, which could have profound consequences on your work.

This is very disturbing from a training standpoint. We’re looking at training professionals. And who they get harassed by might be other professionals. That’s a huge problem. kitsch: I know there have been some questions around the survey’s statistical validity, so can you address some of the statistical myths around the survey that have arisen?

Karns: Well, the response rate was around 20 percent. And so people say, well that’s not representative of this population. The

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If something as traumatizing as sexual assault knocks you off course, then there’s a financial penalty for the rest of your life.

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consulting company did several tests to look at whether there was a response bias. And there didn’t appear to be. In fact, in the survey, we know that most sexual assault is experienced by women, about six percent of victims are men. For the respondents, it was about 60 percent women, 40 percent men. So, it wasn’t like it was just one group of people taking the survey. Also, our numbers are very consistent—they’re the same rough numbers that we’ve had since 1987. It hasn’t changed. Then in Michigan, they did both the AAU study and a much more careful random sample that was representative—a better statistical and research idea. And the numbers are about the same. So, there are lots of different ways we can check it. It’s representative enough, is my feeling. And we do this every two years. So, not this year but next year, people should fill it out. kitsch: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us about this issue, which I think is so important to highlight, especially in an issue called “Law and Disorder.” Is there anything else you’d like to add with regards to where we are and where you’d like to be?

Karns: I think the best thing is that it’s getting talked about, it’s getting addressed. I think things are much, much better in terms of the available adjudication methods. And now we have to see, how do people actually perceive things? Because it’s not enough to make the claim, right. You’ve got to have the faculty panel agree. That’s a big job. But what faculty panels tend to forget is there’s a huge impact that is being suffered by the victim. People completely ignore that when they start talking about adjudication, they almost always focus on the accused. So, I’m here to say, this is an issue.

by Katie O’Brien 12

THE LONG ARM OF THE why do ithaca and cornell have two separate police forces?

by Chris Skawski art by Melvin Li

About a year ago, CUPD came under fire for allegedly questioning several student protesters ahead of Cornell’s 150th birthday. The students, who had participated in and been identified as organizers, were pulled in to answer questions about their organizing practices and were told, “Disruptions to Charter Day would not be tolerated.” Basically, the administration came down on a group of students using cops to keep them from acting out during a university event.

Student protestor Daniel Marshall ’15 was accused of breaking into the Statler Auditorium. There was no lock on the door, according to the Fight the Fee group that backed Marshall, which meant that he technically broke no laws, so the argument goes. CUPD came at the issue differently; they threatened Marshall with a charge of burglary, according to the Fight the Fee website and a statement made by Cornell Vice President of University Relations Joel Malina, which carries a three-year prison sentence, and told him that if he did not comply he would be “led from class in handcuffs.”

This is the same CUPD, by the way, that issues weekly “Blue Light Emails” reminding you about icy walkways and to put reflectors on your bike.

Wait, wait, wait, you may wish to say to me—how is it that one organization can take on both of these roles? What even is CUPD? CUPD, despite its ubiquity, isn’t exactly all that straightforward. It is a large, varied organization that handles all security on Cornell’s campus and affiliated off-campus property. It employs 76 people, including dispatch officers, K-9 teams, Blue Light Escorts, Patrol Officers, and of course, Chief Kathy Zoner.

For starters (I did not know this at the start of writing this piece), some of these officers can arrest you, and others cannot. Some of them are allowed to carry firearms, and others are not. Some are permitted to carry, according to New York State Law concerning campus police forces, “police batons and 13

other noxious materials” to enforce the law and prevent crime.

In a sense, some of the people employed by CUPD are police officers and others are not.

More specifically, 51 CUPD members are “Special Deputies to the Sherriff” of Tompkins County. They are sworn in by the State of New York and attend the same municipal policetraining center as Ithaca Police Department (IPD) officers. Their appointment is prescribed under NYS Education law (Sections 5708 and 5709, if you’re curious).

If I had to explain CUPD in a sentence: Cornell University employs real live, actual police officers as part of its on campus security force. This isn’t a unique system either. The Ithaca College Public Safety Department (ICPS) also employs sworn Sherriff’s deputies tasked with patrolling IC’s campus. They, too, can detain and arrest you for breaking the law and/or violating the campus code of conduct, even if you’re not an IC student.

They function in just the same way; they call in Sheriffs or State Police to assist in certain investigations; they employ student staff. They provide the service of law to the somewhat autonomous community of IC in much the same way CUPD does.

But let’s put a pin in that for now and examine the other services provided by CUPD. The other 25 members of the department are a mixture of administrators, dispatch officers, auxiliary officers, and student staff. None of these staff members can arrest or detain you; they are parts of the system that backs up those CUPD staff that can stop, search, detain, or use force against you.

“Security guard-trained teams” and Residential Advisors provide “eyes and ears” for active officers, according to the annual Campus Watch brochure put out by CUPD. These “eyes and ears” can issue referrals to the Judicial Administrator and report crimes to officers if an incident warrants further action.

These other facets of CUPD help to provide the highest level of security possible to the Cornell community. They

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ADMINISTRATION spread the net as wide as possible so that campus security may be upheld. As one ICPS officer put it to me when I asked him about it, “as a paying student you’d want those layers of protection.”

And you just might—CUPD answers to University officials.

Their first level of action is a JA, something they give out quite often. Most of the students who run into CUPD end up with a trip to Basics, but not prison. The Campus Watch brochure shows that the vast majority of punitive actions doled out are referrals for drug and alcohol violations.

As Sergeant Dunn (of ICPS) said, “New York State law is more punitive” than campus judicial practices, with campus policies typically focused on educational goals. What is more, JAs are protected by FERPA (a complicated federal law) which locks your educational record from, say, potential employers.

People who have done prison time enjoy no such protection.

So if you’re 18 and a campus security officer catches you with a can of beer somewhere on Ho Plaza, you don’t get arrested (like a friend of mine did while walking off-campus)— you get a slap on the wrist and a course in what alcohol does to your body.

Cornell is insulated in more ways than you might expect.

The legal code governing you changes as you walk down the street. It changes when you step out of your dorm room and onto a public road.

But beyond that, because of the specially tailored nature of a campus-security detail, CUPD and departments like it across the country, are able to provide services that municipal peace officers could only dream about. The Blue Light system is an excellent example of this. Between a unique security regimen and the benefits of private property, Cornell University offers a beautiful network of callboxes with officers standing by to respond to any emergency that might require attention.

The campus judiciary system is not immune to failures, of course. No police force can prevent or respond to every complaint. But among systems that can be created to address that issue, ours is one that goes above and beyond.

The Blue Light emails have even reminded me on occasion about hazardous conditions. Security officers have played instrumental roles in making sure that large-scale gatherings (such as alumni events) are appropriately staffed, directed, and secured for the Cornell community as a whole. They even very kindly reminded me via a $50 parking ticket that I hadn’t adhered to parking regulations.

And yet I can’t just dispel this feeling that something isn’t right. And I think that the big problems with this system come from the very thing that gives it strength: Cornell University has complete power over how their police force is structured and operates.

When I received an email from Deputy Chief Honan in the course of our correspondence in which he defines the function of CUPD as, among other legitimate law-enforcement goals, the enforcement of “other university policies and procedures,” I tensed up a little bit. CUPD is bound, according to its mission statement, to uphold not just the law, but the Cornell Campus

Code of Conduct.

Direction of the department lies with the President of the University, according to the law. He or she can request or suspend more or fewer officers as deemed fit. They can delegate to the Executive Vice President and CFO direct oversight, who can, in turn, rely on the Chief for the day-to-day operations of officers and affiliates. All perfectly legal.

What this boils down to is that CUPD can, and does, function as an arm of the administration. When the Cornell Campus Code of Conduct states, “academic and administrative work of the university must be allowed to operate unhindered at all times,” it gives CUPD a license to do more than issue tickets for noise violations.

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But it’s the same department

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that can be, and has been, a tool of control.

I’m not going to pretend that that directive is somehow an unfair overreach on the part of the University, but I can point out that a broad reading (or a guided one) of the phrase “administrative work” could include a lot of student activities.

If the administration feels that an action might disrupt their work, they have a written justification for going after it.

Last year a couple hundred students raised their voices against administrative decisions with which they disagreed and they became a bit disruptive, as politically minded students tend to do. But when that disruption threatened an interest of the University, the administration used their very legal power of policing to try to control student expression.

What is true is that Daniel Marshall violated Campus Code by entering the Statler auditorium. He even admitted to it and pleaded the charge down; after the Charter Day celebrations, on May 4, VP Malina announced in a statement that the protester had cooperated and accepted the JA. What is also true is that a police force was used in a coercive manner against a student because of his politics.

That’s where it all rests. Campus security is legal, well structured, and beneficial to our functioning as a community; taken in that light, CUPD is a force for good that seeks to keep us all a little safer. But it’s the same department that can be, and has been, a tool of control. What’s to stop it from happening the next time the administration needs a goal secured, a policy or procedure protected, that goes against our interests as students?

The Cornell University Police Department serves the interests of the Cornell community as they are defined in relation to the interests of the administration that governs it.

In general these aims are in line with what most of us would consider making a safe campus. But that same administrative control puts CUPD’s interests outside of our own. We can’t (nor should we) get rid of the police, but when someone else can make the calls, it pays to be informed.

14

IN

COMMUNITY WE TRUST

by Aurora Rojer art by Aurora Rojer

confronting capitalism through alternative currencies The world-renowned economist Bernard Lietaer states, “Money is an agreement within a community to use something as a medium of exchange.” In the United States, we use the dollar. It’s not backed by anything physical; we went off of the gold standard in 1971. So if money is just a medium of exchange that we’ve all agreed to accept, who gets to create it?

The bills in our wallets are printed by the federal government.

But in our modern economy, printed currency accounts for only three percent of the money in circulation. The rest is digital, represented by numbers in bank accounts. The majority of the money in our economy, as explained by the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin (another fiat currency) from 2014, is created by commercial banks making loans. And as we know, when banks make loans, they demand the money back, with interest.

Meanwhile, we have a huge wealth gap, as shown by NYU economist Edward Wolff, who calculated exactly how the U.S.’s total wealth was shared by the population: The top one percent owns 35 percent of the U.S.’s net worth, while the bottom 40 percent of the population has a negative net worth, meaning they are in debt. Further, the money shared by the lower 99 percent is then spent in chains and multinationals, filtering its way back up to the top, where it accumulates. Money is created by the wealthiest people in our country for their benefit, while 40 percent of our population has less than nothing, in terms of wealth. But it does not have to be this way.

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Once upon a time there lived a lovely little town called Ithaca. In it, residents joined together to resist the oppression of the almighty Dollar. Thousands of people bought handknit mittens and organic tea blends from their neighbors, using banknotes featuring Lick Brook, bioregional bugs, and neighborhood children, printed on hemp-based paper.

“We watched Federal dollars come to town, shake a few hands, then leave to buy rainforest lumber and fight wars.

Ithaca’s HOURS, by contrast, stay in our region to help us hire each other,” explains Paul Glover, the founder of Ithaca HOURS, an alternative currency created in 1991. “While dollars make us increasingly dependent on transnational corporations and bankers, HOURS reinforce community trading and expand commerce which is more accountable to our concerns for ecology and social justice.” He describes how it works: “the Ithaca HOUR is Ithaca’s $10.00 bill, because ten dollars per hour is the average of wages/salaries in Tompkins County.

These HOUR notes, in five denominations, buy plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, roofing, nursing, chiropractic, child care, car and bike repair, food, eyeglasses, firewood, gifts, and thousands of other goods and services.” They were also accepted by restaurants, the bowling alley, Cayuga Medical Center, GreenStar, 55 venders at the Farmers’ Market, and even the local Credit Union for payment of mortgage and loan fees.

HOURS promoted local shopping, kept money in the

community, helped to start new businesses and assist nonprofits by making zero-interest loans, and of course increased community ties. Any average Ithacan could pay $10 to buy in and would receive four HOURS, equivalent to $40.

From there, they could be listed in the HOURS newspaper for any goods or services they wanted to offer, and could shop around for anything they needed as well. Twice a month, all members were invited to “bargain potluck” dinners where all of the important decisions, such as how much money to print, who to give loans to, and more, were decided. Anyone who accepted HOURS could vote, making it a truly community-run organization. In this way, money was created by the community, for the community, instead of by bankers and politicians far away.

As idyllic as the Ithaca HOURS were, they also took a lot of upkeep; after 17 years of running the show, Glover left Ithaca for Philadelphia in 2008 (where he continues to do awesome activist work—check out his new project: Logan Orchard and Market (LOAM)). The directory of goods and services offered for HOURS shrank and the businesses that stayed on started to accumulate more HOURS than they could spend. Whereas earlier Glover would intervene and help the businesses figure out how to spend their HOURS, without him they lay dormant.

People slowly moved back to federal currency and HOURS faded into memory.

In 2013, Scott Morris came to town with a new technology and a social justice-flavored plan. Morris was an employee at Qoin, a “pioneering social enterprise based in Amsterdam, providing Consulting, IT and Managed services on all aspects of setting up community currencies,” according to their website.

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Money is created by the wealthiest people in our country for their benefit, while 40 percent of our population has less than nothing, in terms of wealth. But it does not have to be this way.

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His original idea was to sell this software/service to Ithaca HOURS, but they were uninterested. It was then that he decided to start his own alternative currency, Ithacash. Singlebrook. com quotes him saying, “I believe that starting fresh will allow for more innovation and more impact in the community, and ultimately, it will be the community that decides what is or is not valuable.”

Ithacash seems at first sight like a natural outgrowth of HOURS. Newer technology, newer terminology, but same basic principle, right? Well, even from first glance, it’s clear that these systems are not entirely aligned. The name “Ithaca HOUR” is based on the idea that an hour of work should be paid for in a fair living wage (which in 1991 was $10). Ithacash’s Ithaca Dollar, in contrast, is written as i$, by which it aligns itself

with Apple and the American Dollar, both wildly oppressive capitalist enterprises. Aesthetically, with its bright colors, clipart, and abnormal layout, Ithaca HOURS’s website screams “grassroots community organizing.” The i$ website, in contrast, is sleek. With its toned-down color palette of green, white, and steel-grey, it looks like a PowerPoint presentation in an AEM lecture.

But do these differences really matter? Why should we care if our alternative currency brands itself as a grassroots community organization or a tech-savvy start-up? The answer lies in the intent behind these brands. Community organizing exists to help the community. Whether or not it does that is of course dependent on the organization, but Ithaca HOURS existed for the sole purpose of making our “10 square miles surrounded by reality” a better place. Start-ups, in contrast, exist to make money. Sure, they will wax poetic about saving the world one app at a time, but if they are not a nonprofit, they are a for-profit.

And i$ is no exception. According an article in The Ithacan, “Morris said the biggest problem with Ithaca HOURS is that it does not have a strong enough revenue-generating system to support a full-time employee. ‘People who work for currency systems can’t be expected to work for free,’ Morris said. Ithacash will generate revenue with membership fees from participating businesses.” Of course people who are working full-time for a cause deserve compensation. For that reason, nonprofits can and do pay their employees. But for Morris, that is not enough.

On their website, Ithacash states proudly that instead of being a nonprofit, they are a “‘benefit corporation’—a social enterprise which puts priority on the value it produces for the people and the planet right alongside its need to make a profit on the services it provides.” Some might question whether making a profit is really a need in an alternative currency, and if making a profit and helping others are goals that can be aligned.

The answer lies in the theory behind benefit corporations.

In what sounds like a quote from a free-market dystopian nightmare, the B Corps website states, “Collectively, B Corps lead a growing global movement of people using business as a force for good™. Through the power of their collective voice, one day all companies will compete to be best for the world™, and society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity for all,” (emphasis not added). That’s right. Not only do they claim that more market competition will lead to a better life for us all, but they actually trademarked that phrase. And Morris is entirely in agreement with this mission statement. Jeff Stein of The Ithaca Voice quotes him saying “I’m not trying to demonize [capitalistic society]—all we’re going to do is put an alternative money system on the menu and let the free market work its magic.” Morris believes in the power of the free market. He thinks more capitalism will lead to a better society. i$ does not want to merely make a living for whoever is running it, it wants to make a profit. To create a new currency without denouncing the ills of capitalism is to create a second oppressive structure to go atop the first. Instead of banks skimming off the top, Morris would like to do the honors. i$ may be just another cog in the capitalist machine, but the deeper into neoliberal nonsense our society sinks, the more radical the alternatives can become. Take, for example, a third alternative currency: the Puma, from Seville, Spain.

Like the HOURS, the Puma’s stated goals include 16

increasing communal bonds, mutual empowerment, supporting local businesses and professionals, and taking care of the environment; the goods and services provided are, for the most part, ecological or artisanal, and exchanged locally. But what makes them even more radical than the HOUR is that the system functions without any physical exchange of currency (with the exception of a monthly market). The Puma is based on the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS): money is created as “mutual credit.” Every person in the Puma network has a cartilla, a little card where they record their transactions. Say person A is selling homemade jam, and every jar costs five Pumas. Person B buys the jam for five Pumas. Thus person A’s balance is +five

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accept the Puma, so people can buy food, books, and clothing, all from the money they made giving creative writing lessons or selling handicrafts to other unemployed people. And although according to El Pais, unemployment has since fallen, it is still over 20 percent, and higher for youths, meaning the Puma is just as necessary now as it was in 2011.

The Puma is more than a grassroots organization—it’s downright anarchist. It is independent from the Euro and—this goes without saying—the founders are not trying to rip you off. No one is in charge, and everyone works for the common good. The Puma is part of a larger community project: the Casa Pumarejo. Housed in a palace from the 18th century, this

Money is a social construct, so why shouldn’t it be used for the benefit of society? The i$ claims to be working for the public good, but if it’s out to make a profit, it will be taking resources away from the community for its own gain.

and Person B’s balance is -five. Having a negative balance is no problem for Person B, because she is a yoga instructor, and knows that she’ll be making Pumas in the near future. Anyone can carry a negative balance up to 100 Pumas. In this way, money is spent into existence, and every transaction creates equal credit and debit, so that the overall balance is always zero. Thus the Puma (and other LETS economies) do not depend on the judgment and actions of a central authority.

This may seem like a technicality, but it is actually a huge deal. The Puma is not backed by the Euro. You do not exchange your “real” money for “funny” money, but rather create the funny money as you go. This allows for the exchange of goods and services in a community where there is little official currency.

The Puma was created in 2011, when the global economy was in a shambles. Unemployment in Spain was 23 percent, and as high as 50 percent for its workers under 25, according to El Pais, Spain’s leading newspaper. But just because people are unemployed or underemployed, doesn’t mean they don’t have the same wants and needs. Having an alternative currency allows people in the community to exchange their goods and services even when Euros are scarce. Many local businesses

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community center is now owned by the city but run entirely by neighborhood volunteers. They host classes, activities, parties, markets, and demonstrations. The center also houses a number of community organizations, including a support group for victims of domestic abuse, an environmental collective that seeks to counter the ills of consumerism, a communal library, and more. The alternative currency is just one of many radical ways in which this neighborhood is strengthening its personal ties and loosening its bonds to the dominant capitalist society.

Money is a social construct, so why shouldn’t it be used for the benefit of society? The i$ claims to be working for the public good, but if it’s out to make a profit, it will be taking resources away from the community for its own gain. We can do better. Indeed, we have done better, with the HOUR. I suspect i$ will not last long; our residents are smart enough to see through BCorp bullshit. And maybe when it fails, we can follow the LETS structure, like the Puma and at least 232 other currencies in Spain and the rest of Europe. The important thing to remember is that our broken system may be what we’ve got, but that doesn’t mean that there is no alternative.

KILLED BY KLARMAN HALL? how real is cornell’s edifice complex?

by Melvin Li art by Jin Yoo

Even if you’ve never been inside Klarman Hall you’ve at least heard about the massive construction project that shut down East Avenue for over a year—January 8, 2014 to April 19, 2015 to be exact—and got the Temple of Zeus moved yet again (it used to be in a storage basement until it moved in the 90s).

Someone vehemently opposed to the notion of expensive

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The concept of universities bankrupting themselves over extensive construction at the expense of students, known as the “Edifice Complex,” predates websites like Urban Dictionary.

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college construction might shake his or her head at how, once again, bureaucracy and inefficiency have triumphed in the waste of our tuition money on useless construction projects, many of which are for students who probably won’t make too much after graduation. Building things is expensive, especially if you do it right. The April 2015 expansion of Gannett Health Service’s facilities will cost an estimated $55 million once completed in the fall of 2017—the project originally would’ve cost $133 million had the financial crisis not forced the university to table it in 2009. Back on the Arts Quad, Klarman Hall tips the scale at $61 million which, in an era of ever-rising college costs, may at first seem like an outrageously wasteful splurge in exchange for marble countertops, fake Greek statues, and the 28-month destruction of what was once a perfectly good hillside. Such pricey, egotistical, reckless, and superfluous construction projects are surely to blame for busting budgets and raising the costs of attendance at countless American universities—all because some rich alumni really want to

see their names on buildings, right? As Cornell’s already eyewidening tuition increases another 3.75 percent in 2016-2017, it is easy for students to look at Klarman Hall and wonder at a possible link between the school’s construction projects and its price tag. However, we must be careful to note that construction is far from the only possible culprit in the case of rising higher education costs, and at Cornell this connection is not so clear-cut.

The concept of universities bankrupting themselves over extensive construction at the expense of students, known as the “Edifice Complex,” predates websites like Urban Dictionary.

A pun on Freud’s Oedipus complex, the term “Edifice Complex” appeared as early as 1990 in News & Record in reference to a new $40 million public education building in downtown Raleigh at a time when North Carolina faced a $1 billion shortfall. Deyan Sudjic’s 2005 book The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World describes architecture as not simply an art but as tool for the wealthy to cement their legacies in glass, steel, and stone—basically what college alumni around the world do.

Unfortunately for many Klarman naysayers, the truth about Cornell’s large price tag is not as simple as a few extra buildings. First, Klarman’s construction was completely funded by private philanthropy and has nothing to do with the cost of attending Cornell (unlike a certain student health fee). Likewise, about a third of the new health center’s costs will be covered by philanthropy, with the remainder coming from a partnership between Cornell’s schools and the central administration according to the Cornell Chronicle. Class of 1979 economics major Seth Klarman, billionaire and founder of the Boston-based hedge fund Baupost Group, started the Klarman Family Foundation which contributed the leading donation to the project. Designed by Koetter Kim & Associates with work beginning in May 2013, Klarman Hall was intended to solve workspace issues in the College of Arts and Sciences. Goldwin Smith Hall, which has housed the College since 1906, has 18

long suffered from classroom and office shortages, creating problems for the 4000 A&S students and 200 humanities faculty today. Klarman Hall will serve as a new home for Cornell’s Romance Studies and especially Comparative Literature faculty, who were earlier spread confusingly throughout several buildings. The fancy-looking Greek statues adorning Klarman Hall’s atrium were actually taken from Cornell’s own collection of 19th century plastic casts compiled in the 1890s with funds from trustee Henry Sage. If nothing else, Klarman Hall is a reminder to Cornell students that the humanities have not been forgotten by the university in light of other projects such as Gates Hall and the soon-be-to-completed Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. “every building needs a helipad” While Cornell may have gotten lucky with Klarman Hall’s debt-free financing, construction and borrowing a self-declared financial novice, banned the university from have long gone hand-in-hand at this and many other taking on new debt to fund new construction projects in the universities. The most recent trend of rapid campus expansion aftermath of the pause. Skorton emphasized philanthropy and has its roots in the 1990s when growth in federal research fundraising as alternatives to debt, and upon assuming office money, rising tuition, and investment returns triggered a boom in 2006 launched the “Far Above” fundraising campaign—the in university construction across the United States. At Cornell, first of its kind in over a decade, according to MacDonald.

1.8 million square-feet of new dormitories, laboratories, and Construction and campus expansion certainly play a role in rising costs and there are many documented cases of university students having to shoulder the burden of their schools’ construction debt. For example, UNC Greensboro levied $2,390 in total annual student fees in 2013, according to Jesse Saffron at the John William Pope Center. UNCG allocated $707 of that fee to pay off construction-related debt, and $435 to build a controversial new $91 million 225,000-square-foot recreation facility. Because of state budget cuts, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University is currently building a new 150,000 square-foot student union funded entirely by four years of student classrooms were added to the Ithaca campus alone at a cost of construction fees of up to $400. A recent five-year expansion of over $900 million since 2001, according to a Bloomberg report Talley Student Union at NC State University cost $120 million.

by Michael McDonald. This construction boom ground to an Students funded the project mostly by an annual capped abrupt halt on November 3, 2008 when then-President David student fee of $290 that was phased in over four years and Skorton instituted a 90-day construction pause after Cornell’s will remain for 25 years. For comparison, Cornell’s own student endowment experienced a loss as a result of the global activity fee stood at just $241 annually for undergraduates and financial crisis in 2009. The pause, in Skorton’s words, intended $85 annually for graduate students as of March 2016—a sign to help “re-calibrate the university’s capital budget,” was the that perhaps Cornell is much better at keeping its construction harshest restriction on campus construction in Cornell’s recent costs off the backs of students. history. Skorton later announced two major criteria intended to One particularly extreme example of excessive reduce new construction projects to only those deemed most construction’s detrimental effects on a university occurred at necessary. Skorton’s ban on campus construction has long Rensselaer Polytech Institute in Troy, New York. After analyzing been lifted but his strict criteria for approving and funding its school’s tax returns, RPI’s student newspaper, The Polytech, new projects remain—perhaps rightfully—in place. Skorton, concluded that the school had taken on over $1 billion in new

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While Cornell may have gotten lucky with Klarman Hall’s debt-free financing, construction and borrowing have long gone hand-in-hand at this and many other universities.

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liabilities and reduced its net assets by 55 percent over the last 13 years, going from $929.7 million in the 1999-2000 fiscal year to just $414.8 million in the 2012-2013 fiscal year.

The Polytech attributed its findings to President Shirley Ann Jackson’s Rensselaer Plan, which combines major campus construction and the hiring of hundreds of staff to further RPI’s prominence in the higher education community.

Beginning in 2007-2008, the school issued almost $500 million in tax-exempt bonds to fund construction projects such as the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, and the East Campus Athletic Village. The Polytech ascribes much blame to the construction of EMPAC in particular, which was first announced in July 2001 with a planned cost of $50 million and an opening date in the

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great water slide park if it wasn’t frozen six months out of a year.

As students at one of the most expensive universities in the nation, we should not focus too much on our lack of debt-financed construction and instead turn our attention to other price-raising factors. It is great that our student activity fee is around 20 times smaller than that of UNCG but keep in mind that the total out-of-state cost of attending UNCG in the 2015-2016 academic year was $29,758. The total cost of attendance for Cornell out-of-state contract students came out to be $62,744 that same year. Expensive construction projects certainly play a role in raising attendance costs for students at some schools but they do not explain why schools like Cornell are so incredibly pricey. And here is where factors such as school ranking, financial policies, and other possible causes come into

As enrollment in higher education continues to stagnate, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, many universities find themselves spending more on the five-star hotel dorms, top-notch student union bars, brand new athletic faculties, and indoor rock climbing walls necessary to keep hordes of freshmen coming year after year.

Fall of 2003. By the time construction began in 2003, the expected cost had risen to $141 million, and when EMPAC opened in October 2008, they had spent an estimated $200 million on the project. Moody’s Investor Service downgraded RPI’s bond rating from A1 to A2 following the 2006 decision to issue over $160 million in bonds to fund EMPAC. RPI’s credit rating today stands at A3 with a negative outlook.

Despite her risky financial decision making, President Jackson received over $7.1 million in total compensation in 2012, making her the highest-paid president of a private college in the nation that year. Arthur Gajarsa, chairman of the Rensselaer board of trustees, told The New York Times that most of this compensation came from a $5.9 million retention set aside over the last decade to dissuade Jackson from leaving the school. “She’s worth what we paid,” Gajarsa said, “because she has done the job magnificently, and taken the university to a different level.”

Unfortunately, as easy as it is to complain about it, construction costs alone can’t explain why Cornell is so expensive. In fact, if one only judges by the amount of, price of, and perhaps ridiculousness of construction at colleges, then attending Cornell should be a lot cheaper than attending some of the aforementioned schools. It does not take a Dyson student to explain why this is not the case at all. For one thing, what you are building matters perhaps just as much as how much of it you are building. As enrollment in higher education continues to stagnate, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, many universities find themselves spending more on the five-star hotel dorms, top-notch student union bars, brand new athletic faculties, and indoor rock climbing walls necessary to keep hordes of freshmen coming year after year. Say what you want about Cornell but you won’t find any luxury high rises and lazy rivers around our campus, although to be fair, Libe Slope would make a

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play. Operational and administrative inefficiencies have long been concerns of those wary of Cornell’s financial situation.

Skorton in fact announced a pause on non-professorial hiring to last until March 31, 2009 and a “rigorous 45-day universitywide review of operational effectiveness” on the same day he laid down his ban on construction. Last spring’s controversial student health fee was not, in fact, to finance the construction of Cornell’s new health center. Instead, the $350 fee was intended to pay off $4 million of loans taken to cover the cost of Gannett’s increased staff and expanded services.

On June 30, 2009—the very day Skorton’s moratorium on construction ended—the Cornell Chronicle reported that the university faced an operating deficit of up to $215 million by 2013 without a detailed plan of action and downsizing.

Then-Provost Kent Fuchs launched “Reimagining Cornell,” described by Jeff Schweers of The Gainesville Sun as “a strategic plan to streamline administrative costs, eliminate redundant operations and consolidate programs as well as create a single budget model for all the college deans to adopt.” By January 2010, a total of 308 staff had been laid off, with a number of language programs being cut and certain majors being combined into new programs. The university’s deficit stood at $55 million by March 2015, with much of it possibly resulting from a faculty renewal program and increased hiring begun in 2010, according to former Vice President for Student and Academic Affairs Susan Murphy. The Edifice Complex is a very real phenomenon at many universities across the nation but thankfully is a much less pressing issue at Cornell. The administration, however, still has a responsibility to mend practices that continue to bring it financial trouble. By tackling needless construction, administrative inefficiency, and other issues together we can continue striving towards a more financially sound alma mater with the best interests of all in mind.

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A CONVERSATION WITH

Phoebe Brown

Phoebe Brown is a prolific activist and organizer in the Ithaca community. She is involved with many local nonprofits and justice movements, including the local chapter of #BlackLivesMatter, the Multicultural Resource Center at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Cayuga Medical Center, Greenstar Community Projects,TC Food Policy Council, and Ban-the-Box. Last year, Phoebe Brown ran for mayor as a write-in candidate to start a conversation around community needs that she felt were not being discussed enough, like affordable housing. We spoke to her about some of the issues facing the Ithaca community like gentrification and food insecurity, her approaches to activism, her thoughts on the proposed heroin injection sites, and her advice on how to best support and participate in social justice movements.

by Yana Makuwa and Katie O’Brien kitsch: Could you introduce yourself and talk about the work that you do, and why #BlackLivesMatter events are so important in Ithaca in particular?

Brown: For one, I’m Phoebe Brown, I work at the CCE with Multicultural Resource Center. I’m the mentor coordinator for the Ultimate Re-Entry Program. I’m involved in many different organizations in the community to address equity and inclusion for people of color. Why do I think it’s important? Because black people live here. And why do I think it’s important for me to involved?

Because I’m an Africa American woman, who feels like that’s my job.

At one time in my life I dropped the ball; I’m a recovering person, and I missed out in being available for the generations under me for some years. So I feel it’s my duty to work for equity and inclusion because I live in Ithaca, but also because what’s been happening is happening around the world for people of color. And it’s important to me to be a part of the solution; I try to be a part of as many different organizations that are a part of the community. A lot of them I don’t remember until the day I’m supposed to be at the meeting. [laughs]. kitsch: What advice would you give then to people who also want to be part of the solution or who want to be allies to different justice movements when they’re part of the dominant group that’s responsible for some of the problems?

Brown: We’re all responsible for the problems; but I think the first thing to do is build relationships. Build relationships and get to know people, and get rid of some of the assumptions and judgments that we have all been inundated with, from what our system has taught us and brainwashed us with, to learn the truth. And the only way you can learn truth is through conversations and building relationships.

If there’s a community you want to work with, it’s not about going into that community to be a rescuer or savior. Go into those communities asking, “How can I help?” Or go into those communities and build relationships and you won’t have to ask, it will be told to you.

You know, I think what happens a lot for everybody is that we have a lot of assumptions. And I do too, everybody does. But we won’t 21

know what we don’t know until we find out from the people who are living those social issues that we say we want to change. That’s the best advice that I can give; understand what your privilege as the dominant race can do. Open doors, look around when you’re in a space and see who’s there, and see who’s not there. And make an effort to make sure that who you believe should be at the table is there, and whose tables you should be at, you go.

That’s how I believe it, I’ve seen it work, and I’ve been around for a pretty long time. [laughs]. And not only have I seen it work, I’ve seen it not work and I’ve been confused as to why—I’m always learning too. Always be patient, always be willing to go deeper and look inside and ask, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” Because we do what we do not only for the moral part of it, we do what we do because it’s going to be best for everyone. kitsch: We know you ran for mayor in the fall to draw attention to some of the under-discussed issues facing the Ithaca community.

And that speaks to what you were just saying about building relationships and starting conversations and understanding people’s needs. So what are some of those issues you see, what do you think the city of Ithaca needs from the mayoral office?

Brown: We have a lot of things we need. For me, I think there’s this notion that we live in a place where things are pretty good.

We live in a world where things are pretty good, but we’re a small microcosm of everything that’s going on in the world. It looks good, but underneath there is a lot that’s going on. The biggest is our housing problem here in Ithaca, and people aren’t talking about it very much. Gentrification is starting to push families to the outskirts. And the problems that come along with that are lack of transportation, and lack of employment because you can’t get to work. We need to figure out a way to make transportation work for everyone. Another issue is food justice; how do we talk about food justice in a way that it’s not about finding ways to help people plant and grow, but how do we find ways that people can have the ability to shop where they want to buy, buy what’s healthy to them? These issues are all near and dear to my heart. A

lot of the problems at the end of the day go back to systemic stuff, systemic oppression. How do we get people who are grassroots and who have a voice in their communities to feel that they have a voice, and how do we get people to stop thinking that they don’t?

I did the whole major thing to energize and light the fire under

“

If there’s a community you want to work with, it’s not about going into that community to be a rescuer or a savior. Go into these communities asking, “How can I help?”

”

others, so they could see, “Look at her, look where she came from.”

I came from a dark place at one time, I didn’t think I had a voice, I didn’t think that what I had to say was important. But I stepped up and I ran against a mayor that many people love in this community, because I felt the democratic thing is for him to have somebody run against him. kitsch: That makes a lot of sense, it helps push the system, and avoid complacency. So a hot-button issue right now that we thought it’d be interesting to get your perspective about, is the proposed heroin injection sites?

Brown: Some things work for some people, and that might be something some people need. However, my mind goes more to prevention, so that we don’t need those kinds of houses, so that they will go out of business if we do have them. But we also do not have a detox center in Ithaca, at all. So my vision would be to see a detox center with counseling here in Ithaca; a safe house for people who are ready to get clean, I’m a recovering person, so I know there have been moments when I’m ready to get clean, but I can’t get into to a detox center, I can’t get into a safe place. But if there’s a place I can go to at that present time, that would help me right then, would be good. And that is something that I heard would be available in the

safe I house. So the injection sites are not something that would be my number one choice, but I do understand that what might work for me, might not work for someone else who is recovering. But first and foremost is making sure that money goes into prevention.

Making sure schools have studies about addiction, and are talking about addiction. Making sure we’re asking, why is it at peak again?

There’s some studies about what happens to people in desperation.

Because it’s been happening now in white communities, it’s shaking up this whole addiction conversation. kitsch: And then so a last question to wrap up: As I mentioned, this is a student magazine, so I was wondering how you see the role of student communities in Ithaca in terms of activism? I think there’s a tendency for the community to kind of split in two.

Brown: I still believe the same thing about building communities and communication. We have a lot of different communities in Ithaca that commute to find out and meet each other’s needs. I also think that there are a lot of things that are happening in both communities that are good; we need to find out what they are.

Also, the most important thing for me for about students is that students have led most of the movements. Once they get a whiff of, ‘this is what we want, this is what we need to do,’ the changes start to happen. I know in my lifetime I’ve seen that college students make the loudest noise. And they make the noise when we need the noise. So I just encourage the students to make it happen; that they’re responsibility is to the generations behind them. And that is what to do, and that comes from little old me, trying to figure it out still as I live. kitsch: Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us! This has been so helpful. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

My only thing is, movements are like the clock. And they all move together. We’ve got a lot of movements going on right now—we really have to support each other in the different movements. So that’s why I’m involved in as many as I am, at a late age in my life.

I’m trying to let y’all know early [laughs].

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LEARNING

FROM

what i’m missing from a liberal arts education

by Jagravi Dave

This began as a questioning of my hesitations. What was it about the education that I was receiving that made me so viscerally uncomfortable? It was a rejection I felt from somewhere within me: not a well-reasoned argument, but something instinctive and bodily. Why did it feel so strange for me to study these “classic” works, like those of Shakespeare?

Was my education really fundamentally incomplete if I decided I didn’t want to study Plato? These questions themselves are very bodily, about the body—about my body as a brown body in an American, Western, educational system. Was it that the supposedly universal knowledge I was receiving through this system was not, in fact, representative of me? In his paper “Anthropos and Humanitas: Two Western Concepts of ‘Human Being’,” the Japanese philosopher Osamu Nishitani states: “We will be unable to liberate knowledge regarding human being from its unilateral and oppressive structure unless we clarify the kinds of structures and restraints it places upon our Image courtesy of George Patsouras

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‘knowledge’.” I am hoping, then, to seek out these structures that compose the boundaries of my education, my received knowledge.

In the United States there is a valuable educational institution, which we call a liberal arts college. The purpose of a college of this kind is to promote the pursuit of diverse and intersecting intellectual interests, or as expressed by the “About Us” page of Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences, to bely “singular modes of understanding” and to “embrace both heritage and invention.” In receiving a liberal arts education we study the humanities, a pursuit meant to further knowledge of ourselves as humans and to expose us to various schools of reasoning. Both the United States and the liberal arts College of Arts and Sciences position themselves as institutions of the West, a term itself complicated and challenged by many including Naoki Sakai, a professor of Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Cornell University, who argues

THE WEST in “Dislocation of the West” that “it is only our essentialist insistence upon its geographic and cultural uniformity that evokes the putative unity of the West.” I use “the West” to refer to both this perceived sense of unity, and also to the physical location of the United States and the European intellectual heritage with which it aligns itself.

Sakai says that it is this “unity of the West [that] seems to bestow a sense of coherence upon the configuration of disciplines in the humanities,” that makes the knowledge of the humanities appear universal and representative, and that consigns certain areas and populations to “objects of ethnic and area-studies.” In “Anthropos and Humanitas”, Nishitani establishes a distinction between the anthropos, the human being as an object of study, and humanitas, the human being as the knowing subject of all knowledge. From these two terms stem our names for the two disciplines of the study of human

“

One of the problems, of course, is that the West does not just belong to the West anymore. Sakai says, “Global modernization has accelerated cultural, economic, and political interchange between different regions and brought different forms of knowledge and power into more intense interaction.”

The result, he says, is that “we live in an essentially modern world in which the West is ubiquitous.” Even going further back, the influence of the West upon the rest of the world through colonialism is undeniable. The relationship this creates between the colonial European nation and her former colonies complicates intellectual and cultural identity and heritage.

In his paper “Is the Ethnic ‘Authentic’ in the Diaspora?,” R. Radhakrishnan, a professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irivine, asks, “Is knowledge natural or is it a questioning of origins?” Perhaps the latter is what I am trying to do now. Through my birthplace,

If I accepted the canon, accepted the knowledge of the humanities that is grounded in oppressive histories, I would be accepting the erasure of my heritage—or at least one part of it.

beings: from the former Greek term comes anthropology, and from the latter Latin term we have the humanities.

And so the knowledge encompassed by the humanities is knowledge of humans, produced by human beings themselves; the knowledge encompassed by anthropology, however, is knowledge of human beings as objects, as Other, as ones who can only be known about. Thus our study of the humanities exists always in reference to those that have been in subject positions, consisting of the cultural past and present of the dominant culture. Our study of anthropology consists of those deemed by the West incapable of producing knowledge and thus must be studied and classified. And so in a liberal arts college, when we study the humanities we are actually studying the intellectual history of a spatially-restricted tradition—the Western tradition. These are the ideas that form the structure of the educational system of which I am a part, and the result today is the insistence of the Western canon as an essential aspect of education in the humanities. And so when I study the humanities at Cornell University, the standard knowledge I am receiving is knowledge that has come almost exclusively from Western civilization.

”

the birthplace of my parents and ancestors, through languages, a certain kind of culture, I trace an origin to India. Through this language, English, which my parents and grandparents acquired through a British education, which I grew up speaking along with Hindi, Marathi, and Gujarati, I trace another origin to the West. Radhakrishnan again: “How could someone be both one and something other? How could the unity of identity have more than one face or name?”

Is it this duality that I am struggling with? The identity crises among the children of post-colonial diaspora are now fairly well-acknowledged but still not well-understood.

They are crises that most likely cannot be resolved (because how could one possibly resolve such an issue of identity that is a personal struggle for so many?), but perhaps an acknowledgement of the particular dynamic leading to them is a step towards understanding.

I think back, again, to India’s legacy as a post-colonial nation in the modern world. A part of the liberation of India from the British Empire was supposed to be the liberation of Indian culture (with its variations, multiplicity, and conflicts).

Modern trends of globalization have seen a massive migration

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of people. America, in particular, has had a massive influx of immigrants, mostly from Asia, many from India, a country still reeling from British imposition. I am a product of both these processes—the post-colonial process of nation-building in India, and the migration movements across the globe. What does it mean, then, for me to be from a country that only in the last century won a hard-fought liberation from Western colonial rule, and to end up again in the West? Here I am, very much a part of this Western culture, even identifying with it to a large extent, and yet I have this sense that something is missing. What about the knowledge that was and is being produced by those still consigned to anthropos?

In order to study anything other than the established Western canon in this liberal arts college, I have to turn to area studies departments or classes with titles consisting of many labels, such as 20th Century Women Writers of Color in

“

What this means for me, then, is not a total rejection of Western knowledge, but a reorientation of it for myself as one of many kinds and traditions of knowledge.

the Americas, which are necessary in order to differentiate the course material from what would be expected from a class titled simply American Literature. Western colonial cultural hegemony involved not just suppression but also erasure.

Through the history of colonialism, which has followed me to the United States by a certain kind of post-colonial educational doctrine, I feel myself cut off from any kind of knowledge that has been and is being produced in India, and so my education seems incomplete. If I accepted the canon, accepted the knowledge of the humanities that is grounded in oppressive histories, I would be accepting the erasure of my heritage—or at least one part of it. This cultural heritage comes with its share of present-day baggage of continued inequality. Perhaps I am finally admitting this inequality and seeking a way to balance the scales, or some kind of retribution.

If it truly exists for the purpose of encouraging modes of thinking other than the accepted one, and to respect a variety of heritages, the liberal arts institution should be a place where the complexities of intellectual and cultural identity can be explored. The plurality and diversity of cultures existing within the United States in particular must impart this burden upon its institutions of higher study. In addition to the very pressing need for colleges and universities to accept candidates from a variety of backgrounds to take steps towards alleviating inequalities, there is also a pressing need

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to create diversity in the knowledge conferred upon students, especially given the possible diversity in their backgrounds.

This diversity of knowledge is far too often relegated to culture-specific knowledge, as “special interest” areas of study.

Teaching a class on American literature, for example, without including immigrant women of color, who are very much a part of American culture, not only fails to account for the real diversity of American literature, but also works to erase the historical and cultural experiences of students in that class with that background. Liberal arts institutions in the United States, as part of this Western system of power, have access to the knowledge of the world. Maybe these institutions owe it to their oppressive legacies and the products of these legacies— people such as myself—to acquire and distribute knowledge from other parts of the world, considering this knowledge as equal.

”

Ultimately, the question is one of identity: how do I identify myself, and how does this self-identification reflect on my cultural knowledge? For the erasure and suppression of knowledge from my country of birth I feel anger, certainly, but also a certain hopelessness. And, of course, I cannot discount myself from being a part of American culture and so must also accept the heritage, intellectual and otherwise, that comes from being a part of this society. What this means for me, then, is not a total rejection of Western knowledge but a reorientation of it for myself as one of many kinds and traditions of knowledge.

My liberal arts education is for me the place in which this reorientation occurs. I feel the need to supplement Western knowledge with knowledge from South Asia, but I do not claim to be the voice for anyone who might share my background.

Given the incredibly individual nature of identity, this legacy of intellectual oppression as part of the identities of so many must be reconciled by each person herself. There is no definite answer and no clear way forward. In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid says, “Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you.” But when there is no longer a before, the only power we have is to choose on what terms the meeting will occur in the now.

INVISIBLE the silenced voices of undocumented south asian refugees

by Nuha Fariha

“If they do decide to take me in[to custody]

and send me back, they might as well just send my dead body back, because it’s about the same thing.”

That is what refugee Jahed Ahmed told The Nation from his cell at an El Paso Detention Center. The 27-year-old is one of the 159 Bengali refugees who have fled politial crisis and are currently facing immediate deportation. He is one of the latest victims of the transnational migration crisis stemming from political unrest in Bangladesh. After his father’s business was burnt down and he received multiple death threats, Jahed Ahmed decided to make the long trek to America. His fears are not unfounded. According to Odhikar, a Bangladeshi humanrights group, between January to June 2015, 148 people were killed and 4,103 injured due to political violence including enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial killings.

The path to get to America, however, is also incredibly dangerous. In the past, refugees would come to the U.S. and stay well after their passport expired. With stricter immigration laws under Obama’s administration, these immigrants have had to become more creative and take greater risks. As Vice reported, there has been a steady uptick of political refugees taking plane rides to South American countries, then making

the long trek to Mexico, and the even more dangerous trip across the border. What was initially just a 24 flight has expanded into a three-to-six-month ordeal. There are now large criminal networks of smugglers who deal in human lives and are notorious for abandoning their clients in foreign countries. Equally notorious is the handsome fee that many political refugees have to pay in order to get here, a sum that leaves most without any additional funds.

Provided that they can get past border security, refugees face a hostile new home. As the organization South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) chronicled, there is an increase in hate crimes against South Asians fueled by recent Islamophobic hate speech by politicians. As such, refugees lead lives of extreme fear and worry, unable to pursue stable jobs, education, or any form of sustainable living. In the words of the Zadie Smith, “It makes an immigrant laugh to hear the fears of the nationalist, scared of infection, penetration, miscegenation, when this is small fry, peanuts, compared to what the immigrant fears—dissolution, disappearance.” Because of this fear, these undocumented refugees are oftentimes too afraid to pursue any kind of help for their situation.

Even for refugees who manage to find jobs, life is difficult.

My uncle was a refugee from Bangladesh who came here a few years before my own family. He lived in a single bedroom

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in a housing project in Brooklyn with eight other men. They shared a single mattress in an airtight, windowless room. His face was pockmarked with rat bites, and his clothes smelly from his diet of fast food and cigarettes. He would not talk to anyone for fear of being found out. He spent his days as a taxi driver, paid under the radar, and used his meager earnings as a way of supporting his family at home. Over the years, he became depressed, frustrated with an inability to interact with any community. Though he had developed several health problems, he was unable to seek treatment due to his legal status. Last year, he passed away from a heart attack.

Yet these South Asian refugees are hardly what you picture when you think of the phrase “undocumented worker.” Contrary to popular media conceptions, Asians now outpace Mexicans in terms of undocumented growth. In fact, there are well over a million undocumented South Asian immigrants in New York City alone. Given the large number of such immigrants, it is surprising then to see little to no representation of them in popular media. Instead, South Asians have been dubiously brushed over with the “model minority” myth, which holds that all Asian Americans are successful. Part of what makes it so difficult for South Asian refugees to gain political mobility is simply the lack of awareness of their plights. Under the model minority myth and popular media, their voices are silenced,

“

there are large amounts of paperwork, demanding fees, and large amounts of time spent in white institutional buildings, endlessly having fingerprints taken. Of course, this is only for those who can afford to take time off from work, pay fees, read English, and send forms.

For many working class families, like that of my aunt who lives in a housing project in Brooklyn, such a process is simply not doable. For months at a time, her family might become “illegal” simply because their visas have expired and they cannot afford to skip work to make a trip to the Bengali consulate. They work tirelessly at an ethnic deli and plan to send their kids to the best schools. While many of these working class visas are temporary, a large number of immigrants stay well after the visa expires because they want to achieve the American Dream for their children. Recent policy changes, such as Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, do help undocumented children and adolescents become citizens.

However, as NBC Asian America reports, South Asians have the lowest rates of reaching out for these resources. One reason is that refugees have to stay in the United States for five years in order to be eligible for such resources and are often deported by then. Most of the deportees, like Ahmed, are caught at the border.

Fueled by a fear of returning to his home country, Jahed

What faces them now is a laughable system, one that is arduously long, taxing, random, and ultimately very broken.

their narratives invisible. One of the most prominent difficulties in this community is gaining citizenship.

The very first South Asian to apply for citizenship, according to South Asian American Digital Archive, was Bhagat Singh Thind in 1923. After serving in the U.S. military, Singh applied for citizenship. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that due to his non-white appearance, Singh could not be an American citizen. With this precedent begins the long, disappointing history of the American immigration system. During the prime of globalization, the 1965 Immigration Act established fixed quotas of immigrants who could come to America. More recently, the Hart Cellar Act replaced the national origins quota with a skills-based and family-reunification preference system that allowed for a steady stream of Asian immigrants. What faces them now is a laughable system, one that is arduously long, taxing, random, and ultimately very broken.

The dream of a large number of very smart, highly qualified South Asians is to receive the H1B visa, which grants a long term working visa to qualified individuals and can lead to citizenship. However, even for these qualified individuals, the process is very random. I remember standing in the immigration line to come to America when my mother was suddenly told to go to another line. There was never an explanation given. As an immigrant in America, I quickly learned that explanations from the Immigration Center are seldom given. Instead, 27

”

Ahmed banded together with 54 other detainees and started a hunger strike this past October. Among their list of complaints were allegations of discrimination, unsanitary living conditions, extended solitary confinement, interviews without translators, and lack of access to legal resources to properly defend their cases. For example, Ahmed was only given 30 seconds to answer the judge’s questions and was unable to afford any lawyers. His interpreter did not speak Bangla. According to NBC Asian America, these detainees were put in solitary confinement for over 15 days at a time—a period that can have severe psychological effects. The strikes gained popularity as more and more detainees started joining in and two national movements, #FreedomGiving and #Not1More, emerged, aided by advocacy organizations such as Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM).

The most recent movement, #Deported2Death, draws attention to the fact that in direct violation of international law, the names and personal information of the detainees were leaked to the Bengali press, which significantly increased the chances of punishments for them upon their return. This caused outrage amongst the detainees, who said, “When we came here, one of the expectations that we had was that if we file asylum that our information will be protected.” Another deportee, Manik, broke down into tears saying, “Most are terrified and crying about what will happen to them if they are

sent back.”

While the amount of political refugees from Bangladesh has doubled to 580 between 2013 and 2014, the number of granted claims has actually decreased from 63 to a mere 52.

Thirty-five were denied and the rest are currently detained.

That’s an acceptance rate of 10 percent. What waits for the remaining 528 refugees when they are inevitably deported is the imminent danger of imprisonment, disappearance, and death. Many of these deportees are Muslim. According to DRUM, the Obama administration has been notorious for racially profiling and actively discriminating against Muslim refugees by holding them for indefinite and extended periods of time, setting unusually high bonds, and deporting en masse.

One of the reasonings behind this is that BNP, Ahmed’s political affiliate, is currently classified as a Tier III terrorist organization.

Yet, as the National Lawyers Guild has repeatedly stated, BNP is not a terrorist organization, and such a classification prevents the valid claims of many Bangladeshi residents from being properly heard. In fact, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada has demonstrated that many of such refugees are victims of a savage political system that oftentimes acts on personal vendettas.

In addition, the U.S. government does have a nonrefoulement policy which states that refugees may stay in the U.S. if they can prove that they face imminent danger when they head back home. But somehow, serious harm to 4,103 Bengali citizens does not count as evidence of harm, nor do direct threats to Ahmed’s family on public media. Fahd

Ahmed, director of DRUM, notes, “It is alarming that the State Department is getting involved in matters of immigration, detention, and deportation, and so recklessly jeopardizing the lives of asylum-seeking migrants who are escaping repressive and dangerous conditions.”

What is unfortunate is that in the grand scheme of things, indifference and silence to non-white refugees is a very common occurrence. No major news station reported on the El Paso hunger strike because it is a quotidian story. Brown, black, and yellow bodies have always been treated as lesser. When white bodies migrate, it is crowned as a day of celebration (Columbus Day), or simply called “tourism.” When non-white bodies migrate, it is called a crisis for the country they are entering that has to be dealt with harshly. So what if another group of refugees gets thrown back to their home countries, into the arms of death?

And what kind of future do these refugees have in America anyway? They are isolated, deprived of legal rights, education, and health care, not to mention political mobility.

They are treated as less than human beings, beaten physically, psychologically, and emotionally. As DRUM reports, Jahed Ahmed and 84 of the other Bengali refugees were beaten, given horse tranquilizers, and returned home in body bags.

The fate of the remaining hunger strikers will probably be the same. More will come, more will be deported to die, and we will just sit blindly on our throne of freedom, built on the backs of the same non-white bodies. No wonder it’s easier to keep people invisible.

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RED, WHITE

&

ROSE

erasing american history, ignoring the rest of the world

by Barbara Esuoso I’m from Minnesota. For some New Yorkers (emphasis on the “some”) Minnesota is equivalent to Montana, somewherein-the-center, farmland in nowheresville, U.S.A. Maybe this is because of, as Jay-Z puts it, the “Empire State of Mind”, the centralized romanticization of New York City; or maybe it’s due to a much larger issue. Yes, larger than the lack of Midwestern knowledge, and even larger than NYC—a problem of American ignorance, a lack of geographical, racial, and ethnic knowledge outside of the mainstream.

We call ourselves “America” when we are really part of a larger North America and right below us are… oh, right, Central and South America. Our country is submerged in a sea of nationalism, a patriotic pool cluttered with red, white, and blue floating tubes and—okay, enough with the watered down metaphors. Many (North) American cultural practices purport to allow people to unify into a singular American identity. Yet the mainstream narratives of American history and culture place an optimistic veneer over the nation by valorizing the histories of the dominant group, while erasing the experiences of America’s marginalized.

This nation is often thought to be a “melting pot” of sorts, a blend of cultural spices coming together to make a delicious concoction. But perhaps those spices are being masked by the overpowering taste of Famous Dave’s Steak & Burger seasoning. Within our very own borders is a covertly oppressive atmosphere. It exists because of the age-old pressures to assimilate into an “Americanized” norm. We have been historically educated with the idea that everyone must fit into the normative culture, one that praises the English language

and popular American trends. This culture marginalizes nonwhite American minorities as well as immigrants—groups whose cultures are devalued and seen as “Other.” We can see this marginalization of minority culture and language through reactions to Rihanna’s patois-infused song “Work,” which is currently on repeat on every Top 40 hits radio station in America. It was mocked in a Saturday Night Live sketch that showed Ariana Grande mumbling gibberish. Mainstream (white) America does not understand what Rihanna is saying so the song is satirized, yet it still plays on the radio because of its “exotic” appeal and catchy hooks. Americans don’t seek to understand the history behind the use of patois and its symbolism for divisive class categorization in the West Indies, South America, and parts of Europe, and thus contribute to the erasure of this culture as a part of American culture.

These erasures are also historical and appear in our celebration of national holidays. Thanksgiving celebrates the unity of Pilgrims and Native Americans, but completely ignores the large-scale marginalization of the indigenous people of the Americas who were either systematically murdered or forced to assimilate. How many elementary school students know this harsh reality? Similarly, each January we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by giving students a day off from school—the equivalent of patting ourselves on the back for how much “progress” we’ve made since his “I Have a Dream” speech. But do students also learn about the ways people today continue to be judged by the color of their skin, and not the content of their character? Movements like #BlackLivesMatter and Campaign Zero are protesting in the streets and fighting Image courtesy of Intercultural Meanderings

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to solve a nationwide issue of racial inequality the same way that MLK did almost 50 years ago. These holidays strike me as celebratory façades that hinder Americans from understanding the real issues that affect non-white America. Such Americans are, for me, exemplified by members of The Daughters of the American Revolution. DAR, which I was introduced to by the character of Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls, is an exclusive club that celebrates the members’ ancestors who fought in the American War for Independence. The club celebrates America’s supposed independence and freedom, yet excludes the complexities of international competition, racial marginalization, colonization, and cultural genocide that came with this freedom. It “forgets” these stains on American history in the same way that historic national holidays frequently “forget” the injustices that are still going on today. The DAR, Thanksgiving, and other Americanisms are similar in that they all focus on surface-level positivity and neglect the harsh truths of reality.

globalization, is our education system doing enough to inform the next generation about world affairs?

If our general knowledge of foreign countries is lacking, then it would be rather difficult to understand the issues of foreign marginalized groups that reside in our country as well as their motherland. And it is. For example, Haiti was the first Caribbean country to achieve full emancipation from slavery, but it is now a country plagued in poverty and corruption.

Because of America’s position as a first-world country and (controversially) the world’s police, we often give foreign aid in the wake of disasters like the 2010 Haitian earthquake. But how can charitable America understand the plight of Haiti, a historically empowered nation, when the media portrays Haitians simply as charity cases, providers of the opportunity to be a “good person”?

Americans should challenge themselves to break out of our capitalist, self-centered mindset in order to educate ourselves about the histories of countries like Haiti, of continents like

-TINTED GLASSES Such masking of painful realities in our own country unconsciously extends to the ways Americans perceive the international community and its peoples. An example of this occurred some years ago when many Hispanic workers at Chipotle were laid off because they were undocumented. Some of the American public responded positively to this, stating that the Hispanic people should not be taking American jobs. This reaction stems from a lack of understanding why these workers emigrated from Mexico and now must work in a commoditized Mexican (American) restaurant. It is symptomatic of the American tendency to not recognize the complexity of people’s cultural background.

9/11 was a moment in which the United States was shockingly and tragically thrown into contact with the international world. After the attack on the World Trade Center, the pain and fear Americans experienced made prejudice seem more acceptable. As a result, prejudice and discrimination against Muslim Americans has increased, as people conflate “Islam” with “terrorism,” not understanding that Muslims in the Middle East are more affected by terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda than we are. The tendency of Americans to see all of the Middle East as a uniform entity whose people and countries are all the same does not help this issue. I was once asked: can you name all of the Arab countries in the Middle East?

Though I knew, at least, that they weren’t all Arab countries, I honestly could not answer the question. I tried to look past my historical laziness concerning international affairs and I realized that any knowledge of international countries in the high school classroom stopped somewhere around the Vietnam War. I thought to myself: if this is my recollection, then what are other high school students experiencing? In an era of

Africa. We must understand the histories of subjugation and corruption, the powerful and domineering influences of foreign countries, the existence of wealth disparities, and the cultural practices unique to misrepresented countries.

If we educate ourselves about the issues of marginalized and poverty-stricken groups, both in our own country and around the world, we can make more informed decisions concerning relief organizations or policy reform. These are actions that do not need to be piloted by already-educated American politicians or any of the other traditional “movers and shakers”. They are actions that can be created by the American people, those that participate in charitable organizations, nonprofits, and NGOs—the same people that have a democratic voice. There is power in this voice in that individual Americans have the unique opportunity to influence politicians into creating more beneficial policies. The opportunity to better this nation and better foreign countries in need starts first with education.

I’m from Minnesota and I’m also a Nigerian-American. You may be wondering: are there even any Nigerians in Minnesota?

It is a question that I have been asked many times, as if my ethnicity should determine where I live. Such is the accidental ignorance that comes from a societal agreement to categorize and simplify humans in an unnatural way. An accidental ignorance allows us to perceive Haitians as charity cases, in much the same way that we perceive Rihanna singing in mumbo jumbo, and the same way that national holidays are only superficial celebrations. If we continue to live in ignorance and stereotype nations and ethnicities, we will never be able to genuinely help, understand, or empathize with the diverse peoples of our world.

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DEBATES OR REALITY TV? political debates as profit motivated media spectacles

by Aelya Ehtasham and Yana Makuwa The stage. The bright lights. The crowds that conduct themselves like they’re, according to Bret Baier, “somewhere between a library and a Red Wings game.” These elements of the debates seem to call for an introduction like “This season, on the Presidential Race!” After all, the news media has decided that the American people find entertaining reality TV more compelling than serious discussions of economic and foreign policy.

From the very beginning of primary season, media outlets set a comical precedent complete with click-bait article titles to mark the most memorable debate moments: “Christie Fillets ‘Scripted Rubio” from Talking Points Memo; “Donald Trump defends size of his penis” from CNN Politics; “Hillary Clinton Takes Jab at Bernie Sanders’s ‘Shouting’ Remark” from The New York Times. Like Bernie Sanders after hearing yet another question about Hillary Clinton’s emails, we’re all sick and tired of being fed these headlines and shown ridiculous scenarios that leave no room for understanding actual issues beyond vague foreign affairs tactics and incomplete taxation solutions.

During the first televised debate, which occurred between Kennedy and Nixon, each candidate’s appearance affected voters’ preferences more than what each was actually saying.

The story goes that people who heard the debates on the radio thought Nixon won, but those who watched it on TV thought the winner was Kennedy. If you look at footage of this debate, it’s not difficult to see why. Nixon’s shifty-eyed, sweaty-browed manner made him look like someone you couldn’t trust (ahem Watergate), while Kennedy looked tanned, charming, and spoke directly into the camera. For better or for worse, televised debates have been important since they began in 1960, and since then they have had the power to influence the outcome of elections. And making sure these debates are a success is the lofty responsibility of the media.

In spite of this, somehow the media let this year’s primary debates crumble into disarray. Why are the debates allowed to fall so low on the scale of political seriousness?

The first time a clown show of a debate occurred, did media outlets and campaign runners realize that this is what would get America, a nation that idolizes reality TV stars and craves outlandish spectacles, more interested in the presidential race? CNN certainly did, and immediately proceeded to capitalize on the newfound interest in political television. 30 second primtime ads on CNN normally cost $5000, but for their September Primary Debate, they were able to charge as much as $200,000. The prices are now comparable to those of top entertainment TV shows, to match the prime time viewing numbers. Media networks are not immune to corporate motivations, nor should we expect them to be. However, it’s very concerning when the journalistic integrity involved with presenting platforms that will change the fate of the nation is 31

compromised in favor of attracting more viewers, more fame, and more money. Any attempts to make the debates more substantive are likely to decrease viewership and sponsors— and even a small loss is unacceptable in the eyes of media corporations.

Televised political debates have not always been such a circus. The first of the Bush and Gore debates, held on October 3, 2000, was attended by a small audience that did not participate, and clapped only as the candidates were welcomed onstage. The other two had larger audiences, but the media coverage focused on footage of only the candidates and the moderator, seated at a table and having a discussion.

Political science professor Keena Lipsitz argues that this intimate, conversational method is proven to be more effective in conveying information actually related to the positions of each candidate (supposedly the most important factor in choosing whom to vote for). Every trace of this intimacy vanishes when you have more than five candidates on a stage with an audience of between 10,000 and 20,000 people who are ready to laugh or applaud at a moment’s notice.

While debates in the past perhaps have not been as spectacularly frivolous as these, this outcome has been a long time in the making. In a world of politicians, presentation

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Any attempts to make the debates more substantive are likely to decrease viewership and sponsors—and even a small loss is unacceptable in the eyes of media corporations.

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is extremely important, and often warped to appeal to the masses. This year, a disillusionment with the robotic, collected, says-all-the-right-things politician has led many Americans to appreciate the “tell it like it is” speech that candidates such as Donald Trump and, to an extent, Bernie Sanders offer. But this type of rhetoric is really just another costume for half-truths and plans just convoluted and unsubstantial enough that listeners won’t be able to ask concrete questions. The debates are supposed to help us go beyond appearances and reveal the sense or nonsense behind this politics-speak, but this year the media has succumbed and let the ridiculous personas and fired-up audience run rampant.

Reforms are necessary to prevent the escalation of presidential debates to the point of complete banality. To start, we could ask more of the moderators. Irresponsible moderation of the debates by celebrity journalists allows for incredible discord. Candidates speak past their time and talk over each other. Some don’t get enough time to talk at all (a running joke about Kasich that unfortunately hides

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how indicative it is of a broken system). It all becomes a farce and people find it amusing. Short of actually turning off the candidates’ microphones, it is important that moderators be firm in enforcing speaker time limits and shutting down tirades against other people on the stage. Beyond that, the questions that moderators ask often only fuel the drama, and frequently make the journalists part of spectacle. For example, Bernie Sanders chastised Anderson Cooper after he asked Hillary Clinton a question about the email scandal, saying “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails!” And at the Republican debate hosted by CNBC, the moderators were booed for questions that pitted candidates against one another based on thinly veiled morality questions.

John Harwood asked Mike Huckabee if Donald Trump had the “moral authority to unite the country,” and even Ted Cruz could tell that the questions were playing into making the debate “a cage match,” asking “How about talking about substantive issues people care about?”

But the candidates are not without blame either.

Another major problem in debates is candidates making false assertions with reckless abandon. Fact-checking in real time would make the candidates less likely to spout whatever numbers pop into their head in attempt to wield statistics as their weapon of choice, under the assumption that no one can argue with concrete numbers. I doubt many American people take the time mid-debate to check how much Hillary Clinton has really received in donations, or if Trump’s budget for the wall is at all feasible—and should they even have to? Megyn Kelly’s tactic of consistently calling out Trump proved effective in shutting up a stream of lies that, after another candidate’s rebuttal, could have otherwise been seen by viewers as case of he-said, he-said. We should be able to look to the networks presenting the debates to ensure that the content of the candidates’ statements are more or less accurate, and to call attention to moments when they aren’t. A newspaper article can’t quote someone who is flat-out wrong without reporting the truth in the next sentence, and televised debates should be held to the same standards.

Back to Lipsitz’s point: make the debates more conversational. That would put an end to this pattern of candidates attacking the person and not the argument, and the resulting empty exchanges that take time away from substantial issues. But these are the clips that stick in the public memory— not the thought-out pleas for health care reform, nor the discussions of the incredible wealth gap in this country, but the

biting comment directed at any person on the stage and the ensuing crowd noises. This high level of unprofessionalism is exacerbated by the symbolically lofty position given to the candidates. From the stage, the high number of candidates fighting for time to talk, the distance from the audience and moderator, the spotlights—it’s more like watching actors entertain than watching national leaders discuss the country’s issues. Encouraging a conversation where fewer candidates are debating and the moderator can ask questions on a level field would make substantial answers more likely. Another reason to switch to a more conversational debate style is to eliminate audience sound effects. As it stands, we are more likely to remember which candidate the audience cheered or booed more than what the candidate actually said. Factually, a person is more likely to take their peers’ opinions into account than those of a corporation or of the candidates themselves, which also accounts for the effectiveness of poll results on voters. In the current structure, the debates are essentially popularity contests, as emphasized by Trump’s constant cries to look at the polls; ignore the facts, look at the polls.

Whether it’s on E! or CNN, it can’t be denied that creating a spectacle is a tactic that works. But why do the major broadcast media outlets even control the debates in the first place? Networks like Fox, CNN, and MSNBC are well-known for blending news reporting with whatever commentary they think will pull the largest audience, which may make for more interesting programming but not for more informative debates.

The media’s complete control of these debates takes away a disproportionate amount of power from voters. The debates shouldn’t be for-profit endeavors that reduce the candidates into stable caricatures of themselves. Voters should have the right to observe candidates’ demeanors and platforms in a more or less sterile environment, and use that information to make informed decisions about the person they believe should run their country. This isn’t possible when the companies running the debates benefit from creating a circus sideshow.

It is, of course, not easy to re-imagine a system that’s been in place since the 60s, but hasn’t 2016 proven it’s time to try?

It may just be a matter of removing the studio audience and moving all the debates from primetime on CNN to midafternoon on CSPAN. That may mean that fewer people would tune in, but these debates haven’t really revealed that much about the candidates’ platforms anyway. The problem is that the news outlets have a sweet deal with the debates as they stand, and getting them to relinquish that power may be impossible, even if it’s for the good of the country.

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PEOPLE NEED TO PEE bathroom bills are fucked up; let me count the ways

Nearly a year after South Carolina had to be nationally shamed into removing the Confederate flag from the lawn of the state capitol building, North Carolina appears to be vying for the title of “Worst Carolina.” With the passage of HB2, North Carolina has mandated that in public buildings like schools and libraries people must use the bathroom that corresponds with their assigned “biological” sex. The basis for the law is that cis women must be protected from “men” entering the bathroom to prey on them. But this law, of course, most directly affects trans people, who are now prohibited from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. When even Donald Trump decides your law is too extreme for him to support, it must be pretty bad.

The United States does not have much of a precedent for protecting LGBTQ people to begin with; only 18 states have a law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. While North Carolina is so far alone in having a governor sign an anti-LGBTQ bill, it is not the only state with congressional support for such laws—making North Carolina’s HB2 part of a disturbing and recent trend of legislation across the country that actively discriminates against trans people and non-binary people. Just in 2015 and 2016, similar bills have been introduced, and in some cases passed in congress, in South Dakota, Florida, Texas, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

It should be noted that the norm of buildings having two bathrooms labeled “male” and “female” presents a problem for many people to begin with. First of all, anyone who has taken a gender studies class knows that the idea that everyone has clearly categorizable biological sex that falls into a neat binary is false. One in 1,500 to 2,000 people are born intersex, and like everyone, they may have any variety of gender identities, or no gender identity at all. Laws assuming a biological sex binary erase the existence of thousands of people who, I guess, cannot use either bathroom now. These laws also erase nonbinary and gender nonconforming people, who along with trans people, are often harassed in bathrooms when people deem them to be the “wrong” gender. Non-binary media personality Tyler Ford tweeted, “I already avoid public bathrooms due to fear of harassment but the fact that laws are being written to PROMOTE this harassment? terrifying.”

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by Katie O’Brien

The logic behind these “bathroom bills” is based on many false and harmful ideas about trans people.To start, conjecturing that people must use the bathroom that corresponds to their assigned sex at birth rather than to their gender identity implies that a trans woman is “actually” male and a trans man is “actually” female (and that non-binary and intersex people do not exist). Ted Cruz disgustingly exemplified this fallacious way of thinking when he claimed that trans women using the women’s restroom is the equivalent of Donald Trump entering the women’s restroom “dress[ed] up like Hillary Clinton.” But trans women are women, and trans men are men.

The distinction of “trans” versus “cis” is only necessary due to gender norms that are so embedded that people who do not present as traditionally masculine or feminine enough are discriminated against.

But even worse than these bills’ fundamental misunderstanding of gender identity is the rhetoric in support of them that both buys into, and helps perpetuate, the myth that trans people are mentally disturbed, sexually deviant, and/ or dangerous. Florida State Rep. Frank Artiles, who introduced a similar bill to HB2 in Florida last year, claimed that the bill’s intent was to reduce “the potential for crimes against individuals using those facilities, including, but not limited to, assault, battery, molestation, rape, voyeurism, and exhibitionism.” Ted Cruz, again showcasing a unique ability to say the most skin-crawlingly egregious thing possible, said in support of North Carolina’s bill: “The idea that grown men would be allowed alone in a bathroom with little girls—you don’t need to be a behavioral psychologist to realize bad things can happen.” He later went on to suggest that trans people should simply pee in their own homes, so as not to “impose” their lifestyle on anyone else. It’s

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They are nothing more than a form of social control, conceived with the purpose of enforcing a traditional gender binary by telling trans people that their existence is unwelcome.

fascinating that male lawmakers like Artiles, Cruz, and North Carolina governor Pat McCrory are suddenly so interested in prioritizing the prevention of violence against women—or any issue that affects women—for the first time in their careers.

Except the danger they are claiming to “protect” (cis) women and girls from is entirely fabricated—there has not been a single documented case of a trans person assaulting someone in a bathroom, ever. So why are they doing this?

Gender studies professor Katie Oliviero argues in “Vulnerability’s Ambivalent Political Life” that “conservative sociolegal frameworks recognize some forms of precarity and write others out of existence.” She shows that rather than being equally applied across society, the status of “vulnerability” is only granted to the groups already in power. In this case, cis women’s supposed vulnerability is being touted, while trans women’s actual vulnerability is erased. That’s why promoting the idea that trans people are disturbed and dangerous, and that cis women need protection from them, is so harmful and backwards—because trans women, especially those of color, face higher rates of hate-based harassment, sexual violence, and homicide than any other group. This violence is enacted against them overwhelmingly by cis men, and has been increasing in recent years, hitting a historical high in 2015.

Yet violence against trans women of color is an epidemic that largely remains institutionally invisible. Among all 53 known murders of trans women in the U.S. between 2013 and 2015, not a single one was prosecuted or reported as a hate crime.

There is zero risk to be had from trans women sharing a bathroom with cis women; there is, however, a lot of risk for trans women sharing a bathroom with cis men. HB2 and the destructive rhetoric around it does not just affect trans and gender-nonconforming in North Carolina, but all over the country.

On April 29th, it was reported that a Texas man was patrolling the entrance of the women’s restroom, and confronted a woman with short hair whom he “thought was a man.” The demonization of trans people by lawmakers has made it so situations like this are sure to continue to increase, and sure to escalate to increased violence.

Oliviero goes on to argue that through the problem of

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selective legal recognition of vulnerability of those in power, the framework of vulnerability “can function as a site of internalized control, of biopolitics.” The notion of “protecting women” as a justification for discriminating against and controlling the movement of a marginalized group is nothing new. This is the same type of farcical rhetoric that was deployed during the Jim Crow era; the framing of black men as sexual deviants who endangered white women was nothing more than an excuse for segregation with the simple goal of keeping white people in maximum power. The fact that cis women’s safety is clearly not at stake here, and the fact that lawmakers clearly know these laws are not enforceable, show that HB2 and laws like it are never actually about protecting women at all. They are nothing more than a form of social control, conceived with the purpose of enforcing a traditional gender binary by telling trans people that their existence is unwelcome. And not only do they perpetuate and promote a harsh stigma against trans and gender nonconforming people, such laws also give everyone else permission to discriminate and even enact violence against them. This places people in a double-bind where they are criminalized for entering the bathroom where they are safest and most comfortable, but put at perhaps a greater risk for violence if they follow the law.

Teagan Widmer, who runs an app called “Refuge Restrooms” that pinpoints gender neutral restrooms, summed up this impossible and flat-out dangerous position this law places her in as a trans woman: “In a woman’s restroom I might get called a man and yelled at, but while using a men’s restroom I might get called a faggot or a tranny and then beaten up. It doesn’t seem like a controversial issue to me, it’s pretty simple. People need to pee.”

In the end, my voice cannot adequately speak to the depth and impact of this issue on trans people. But as a cis woman, I have no reservations in stating definitively that “women’s safety” being deployed as an excuse to discriminate against trans people is ignorant and hateful. As Salon’s Amanda Marcotte put it on Twitter, “Trans people in bathrooms aren’t creepy.

Republicans who are clearly sitting there wondering what you have under your pants certainly are.” Trans women are not a threat to cis women, and any discussion of “women’s rights” by cis women is incomplete and biased without the inclusion of trans women. Anyone who truly cares about women’s safety should start by trying to help combat the cultural and systemic forces that enable the pervasive discrimination and violence against trans women; they are the women whose safety is the most threatened.

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LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF

GODLESSNESS

are the church and state really separate in the law?

by Michael Alban

As easy as it is to comment on the spectacle that is Donald Trump, we seem to have forgotten that he does not have a monopoly on the curious and sometimes questionable aspects of our presidential race. While much of Trump’s antics are unique to him as an individual and his attempt to achieve what he apparently thinks is best, other candidates have demonstrated more subtle, and perhaps more sinister, issues in the operation of the U.S. government. As is the case with all presidential elections, religion is a topic that is inevitably addressed. We see candidates (in this case particularly Ted Cruz) gain a significant part of their support largely based on sharing the faith of their supporters. A number of candidates have invoked religion in talks about their ideals and motivations. Governor John Kasich even proposed the creation of a governmental agency that promotes what he called Judeo-Christian values.

In urging that “the West begin to embrace again our JewishChristian tradition rather than running from it, hiding from it,” the governor of my home state reminded me that it often seems in politics that we run and hide from the idea of a “separation of church and state.”

Many of this nation’s founders and most prominent political figures have echoed this phrase’s sentiment—a sentiment that has been formative in shaping America’s history. The first official, governmental mandate of the need for this separation is found in the 1789 Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This ostensibly straightforward sentence seems clear in its intent, but history has proven that its interpretation is one that can be hotly disputed. During this election season, at the end of which the selected candidate will be sworn in with his or her hand on a Christian Bible, we might consider to what extent governmental policy upholds this foundational idea. Are the church and state truly, legally separate in the United States?

The Establishment Clause consists of essentially two distinct parts: the restriction of any laws that might show preference to any established religion, and the requirement that the government not interfere with the free practice of religious worship. So we have our first test to determine the separation of church and state of this self-proclaimed secular nation: Does the United States government currently support 35

any law that shows preference to an establishment of religion?

The United States fails this first test in one particular fashion (among others), on such a grand scale that it is almost comical, if only it were not so unsettlingly defiant of one of its own founding principals. The American treasury prints proof of this failure approximately 38 million times every day. On July 11, 1955, Congress passed a public law, “[t]o provide that all United States currency shall bear the inscription ‘In God We Trust’.” Although this phrase had been printed on some currency for a large part of the nation’s history, this act of Congress officially codified the phrase as a motto for currency, and it was in 1956 that it was officially declared the nation’s motto.

The time during which the U.S. government made this choice should not be ignored. Although to many the inclusion of “In God We Trust” on the currency seems second nature simply for its decades of use, this particular instance of governmental support of religion was in fact in response to the fear of

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In its faith-based, non-objective nature, religion becomes essentially a matter of one’s own opinion. Unfortunately, religious opinion seems to have become sanctified above non-religious opinion.

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Communism at the time. It is not terribly surprising (although no more excusable) that the government tried to combat this ideology with religion. Marxist Communism requires a lack of religious belief among the populace, so increased religiosity was a seemingly natural response. While some might argue (and seemingly have already done so, with enough support) that the motto does not violate the Establishment Clause, an impressive level of cognitive dissonance must be had in order for one to support a national motto endorsing praise of “God” while also maintaining that the government “shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion.”

A number of lawsuits have been levied to correct this rather obvious contradiction, but have failed in both the United States Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. In 1970, at the conclusion of Aronow v. United States, the Court of Appeals stated that the motto “has nothing whatsoever to do with the

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establishment of religion.” Furthermore, the court claimed that “[i]ts use is of a patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.” The problem is that the Establishment Clause made no reference to religious exercise, but to “an establishment of religion.” The continuation of “In God we Trust” creates explicit and clear support by the government for a certain faith tradition, particularly a monotheistic and religious one. Thus, the United States perpetually violates its own laws by showing particular respect to established monotheistic religion at the exclusion of its polytheistic and atheistic citizens.

Religious motivation in policy-making is not, however, limited to such unusual times. Even recently, government action has shown clear basis in religious belief, as in the continuance of the ban of gay marriage until 2015. Few arguments are put forth for the restriction of marriage that are not clearly from religious texts like the Bible. The case of abortion is similar: those who are against abortion are often such because of their faith, including policymakers. The issue of policy motivated by religion is subtler than the issue of policy that clearly and directly supports religion. Although somewhat different on the surface, these two types of religious legislation have effectively the same result. Just as in the case of laws directly supporting religion, legislation that is motivated by religion inevitably establishes governmental support of particular religious ideals, clearly breaking the separation between church and state.

This implicit support of a particular theistic worldview seems to also heavily affect matters concerning the second part of the Establishment Clause: that the government will make no laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of the religious.

Before addressing how this clause has led to governmental support of religion at a general ideological level, we should briefly inspect how it has affected policy of the American government. Generally, the state recognition of free exercise of religion has come to mean that accommodations are made for the religious in regard to certain laws. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, these accommodations may serve to exempt “people of faith or religious entities from a particular legal requirement” or to exempt “religious activity from all excessively burdensome laws.” A number of rules have been established in order to separate permissible from impermissible accommodations. From the same Pew Forum article, these rules include that the accommodation “must relieve a burden that specifically affects the ability of believers to practice their religion.” Further stipulations require that the accommodations not grant religious entities powers that are typically reserved for only the government and that the government, should not impel religious practice. Finally, accommodations for the free practice of religion must not

“single out particular religious groups for favorable treatment.” Here in this last rule for accommodation for religious activity we find the fundamental problem in the way government officials seem to have interpreted the Establishment Clause.

Accommodations that specifically allow religious people or entities exemption from law do in fact single out particular religious groups for favorable treatment—therefore creating laws that respect particular establishments of religion. Laws that have ostensibly allowed for free exercise of religion have in fact shown favor to religion as opposed to non-religion. Some such laws include those that require employers to accommodate for religious observances of their employees, or those that allow tax exemption for religious institutions. The legal stipulation that “the government may accommodate religious practices without accommodating their secular counterparts if the accommodation removes a government imposed burden that specially affects religious practice or belief” clearly shows respect for religion, a big problem in a claimed secular state, in that it values religious motivation above non-religious motivation. In its faith-based, non-objective nature, religion becomes essentially a matter of one’s own opinion. Unfortunately, religious opinion seems to have become sanctified above non-religious opinion. Thus, it has become true that saying “my opinion is such that I should be exempt from law” is disregarded in one case (in the case that the speaker is without religion) while it is accepted in other cases (where the speaker is with religion). It is impossible to hold this standard while maintaining that our government is one that does not show preference to religion; these two things are absolutely mutually exclusive.

Unfortunately, correcting this problem means essentially telling people that their faith has no inherent value simply for its religiosity, that a faith-based argument is no more valid than “because I said so” when asking for exemption from law.

This will certainly be no easy endeavor, as it seems many Americans hold religious belief in incredibly high regard. In a national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2014, in which those surveyed were asked to state how certain traits would affect their view of presidential candidates, “atheist” ranked most negative out of all traits—including such options as having had an extramarital affair and having never held office. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed responded that a candidate being atheist would make them less likely to vote for that person. But as much as it may seem that some portion of the nation’s population simply does not mind the occasional breach in separation of church and state, it is important that we try to maximize freedom for all citizens. In allowing religion to influence policy, the U.S. government shows deference to particular faiths, thus enforcing these ideals on those of other faiths or no faith. Due to the subjective nature of religion, we should instead legislate based on that which is objectively demonstrable, even if this may be difficult or not completely unanimous. Making America a truly secular state will clearly be difficult, but it is an important task in supporting the true democracy and freedom that seem to be common ideals. That is, unless the populace would prefer a theocracy, in which case we have bigger problems.

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HOW WE MADE YOUR MOTHER the regulation of women’s bodies in el salvador and the us

by Brendan Murphy For as far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a doctor; I feel like I’ve been called. Sure, this is probably the result of watching reruns of Scrubs and secretly wanting to be JD, but I like to think that it’s nobler than that. I’ve always loved helping people, and I think that medicine provides a unique avenue for doing that. A doctor has a window into the health of his or her patient, and is able to combine objective, scientific knowledge with the subjective experiences of every patient to provide individualized care. But despite these ideals of being a doctor, as recent controversies in medicine from El Salvador and the United States show, the medical community is not always purely objective; politics can disturbingly color it in a lot of ways under the guise of objectivity.

In recent months, the Zika virus has rocked parts of Central America and South America, especially Brazil, sending countries scrambling to contain this outbreak. On the surface, Zika is a mild disease. New Zealand’s Ministry of Health lists some of the most common symptoms in adults as “low-grade fevers, swollen joints, pinkeye, and headaches,” all of which can be ameliorated with some ibuprofen and last less than a week.

But the fuss isn’t about the effects on adults. There’s been a link reported by the World Health Organization in early April between Zika-virus-infected mothers and increased instances of microcephaly in their children in hard-hit Brazil; the children are born with heads that are smaller than normal, and as a result are subject to a slew of intellectual and developmental impediments.

In response to this crisis, El Salvador’s Ministry of Health urged women to hold off on getting pregnant for the next two years to avoid having a child with microcephaly. This proves to be incredibly problematic for many woman in El Salvador, since many birth control measures are difficult to come by.

USA Today’s Liz Szabo reported that El Salvador was one of five countries in the Latin America region that ran out of contraceptive supplies in 2015. Moreover, El Salvador is one of the few countries in the world that has criminalized abortion 37

in every single circumstance. In fact, Stephanie Nolen of The Globe and Mail reported instances of women being arrested for not carrying their child to term, even when they miscarried.

So the expected solution to the problem of giving birth to a microephallic child in is to abstain from sex altogether.

Closer to home, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) just recently issued a press release entitled, “More than 3 million US women at risk for alcohol-exposed pregnancy.” In it, the CDC cites that around 3.3 million women in the United States potentially put their unconceived children at risk by drinking while not on birth control, concluding that women of “childbearing age” who are not on birth control should abstain from drinking. These risks come from the potential of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, which result in physical and developmental disabilities that may affect the child for their entire life. And while fetal alcohol syndrome is incredibly scary, there are some glaring flaws with this report. The CDC includes in its 3.3 million metric the women who engage in sex while their partner is wearing a condom, though a condom is 98 percent effective when used correctly. And as Katherine Glover of Romper points out, these stipulations don’t apply to a great number of women who span a spectrum of sexual preferences.

She notes that there is an intrinsic heteronormative and cisgender bias to this report, since it supposes that any woman is having a certain kind of sex with a male partner that could potentially lead to conception. What’s more is that this release supposes that any woman who does indeed have a child that could be at risk for developing fetal alcohol syndrome will carry the child to term.

Neither of these recommendations from the governmental institutes of health on women’s reproductive health sits well with me. They have angered women across the world, and have been ridiculed by others. Lisa Wadem, associate professor of sociology at Occidental College, has called the CDC press release “extraordinary,” saying it “compromise[s] a woman’s autonomy.” The Guardian’s Sibylla Brodzinsky reports outrage

among Central American women’s rights advocates all over El Salvador, as well as a press release from the Mexican Deputy for Prevention and Health Promotion saying that these guidelines are “not justified.”

It’s not that the basis for these reports is completely unreasonable.

Consider, for instance, how difficult it is for families to take on the challenge of caring for a child with special needs. The Salvadoran families would become fundamentally altered due to children with microcephaly. So yes, the idea that women may want to wait to have children is probably wise. Moreover, the CDC’s advice makes some sense; fetal alcohol syndrome is an affliction that isn’t well understood and could be a serious problem for mothers and children. And there is a link between consuming a lot of alcohol and an increase in developmental disabilities. The advice not to binge drink is certainly applicable to women who are trying to become pregnant.

However, the language of these reports is dangerously prescriptive, in that they presuppose that the role of women is to be child-bearers. These issuances from both the U.S. and Salvadoran governments call on the mothers to potentially change their lifestyles and their goals so that it is easier for them to have healthy children, whether they are planning on having a child or not. They imply that women need to prepare themselves to be vessels for the next generation of Americans or Salvadorans in order to properly fulfill their function. This view completely places a greater emphasis on the care of the child that may not even be born yet in place of the health and well-being of the mother. For instance, while the research into the link between Zika and microcephaly is coming to light, only recently—as Julie Beck of The Atlantic reports—has research turned its attention to neurological effects of Zika

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When medicine becomes a tool for the establishment and maintenance of gender norms by the government, it becomes hard to separate the science and the sociopolitical.

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in adolescents and adults. The woman becomes the expectant mother well before the birth of her child in the eyes of the government with this kind of legislation.

Moreover, much of these governments’ recommendations border on slut-shaming. Neither report seems to confront the idea that women choose to have sex for reasons that aren’t strictly procreational. Many women who have sex don’t do so with the goal of getting pregnant, for a myriad reasons. For instance, they may not want to have children immediately, or they simply never want to have children at all. A woman may not even want to be on birth control and still want to have

sex and still consume alcohol. Her partner can always use a condom, or they can engage in non-vaginally penetrative sex.

These recommendations also continue to perpetuate a cultural disapproval of LGBTQ women, whose sex lives do not at all fall into these guidelines. Should a lesbian couple avoid drinking even though they are sexually active with each other? The CDC ignores this and many other nuanced questions. In issuing these press releases, the U.S. and Salvadoran governments alienate a great deal of women who don’t identify with this contrived norm of the pure, heterosexual woman.”

Perhaps one quote from the CDC’s Anne Schuchat in the press release typifies this slut-shaming most succinctly and condescendingly. In addressing that there is indeed a risk of harming a child while drinking and not knowing it, she asks, “Why take the chance?” How insightful.

When medicine becomes a tool for the establishment and maintenance of gender norms by the government, it becomes hard to separate the science and the sociopolitical. People— especially women—may view the CDC or the Salvadoran Ministry of Health as always biased based on this experience and ignore their advice in the future. That could mean that future, non-biased recommendations from these countries could be met with skepticism and distrust, even if what they say could potentially save the lives of millions. What these governments lose is trust from their people that they will be regarded as individual and nuanced, with lives that span a spectrum of experiences.

Where are these governments to go now? What can be changed or undone to rectify these gross misuses of science to subjugate women?

First, the Salvadoran government needs to reconsider its widespread ban on abortion. It’s understandable for the Salvadoran government to disagree with abortion (it is a very hard-lined Catholic country, after all), but not so that it directly puts the lives of women in jeopardy. Doing this will begin the process that the United States should also embark on: tailoring their governmental medical advice to appreciate and accommodate the nuances of the individual woman.

Blanket statements that disrespect a woman’s agency in her personal life cannot be tolerated from higher-ups. It’s time for governmental bodies to stop moralizing and accept that women deserve to be independent and in control of their sex lives, free from the expectation of having children.

Ultimately, I understand that medicine isn’t entirely separate from societal norms; doctors are susceptible to the same cultural norms that everyone else is. There is no denying that medical advice, no matter how sound or ostensibly objective it may be, is necessarily tangled in how the doctor views the patient. Peter Conrad and Kristin Barker argued in a 2010 paper called “The Social Construction of Illness” that medical knowledge has forever been and will forever be at least tangentially related to the cultural attitudes of the times.

One of their clearest examples of this is how information about premenstrual syndrome and menopause paint “clear ideas about women’s ‘proper’ place in society” and culturally appropriate behavior for women. I find it disheartening that medicine can be shaped this way.

I can only hope that as both a man and a future doctor, I can better myself from examining medical advice with the skeptical understanding of the cultural and political norms Image courtesy of the CDC

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“I JUST DON’T TRUST HER” why are we obsessed with hillary clinton’s ‘authenticity’?

by Katie O’Brien art by Michelle Savran

In 2015, Mitt Romney slammed Hillary Clinton during an MSNBC interview with the following criticism: “When you see her on stage or when she comes into a room full of people, she’s smiling with her mouth, but her eyes are saying, ‘Where’s my latte?’ It just doesn’t suggest that she believes in everything that she’s saying.” Supposedly, simply based on the way her face situates itself when she smiles, Romney can tell that Hillary Clinton is not an authentic person; that her outwardly friendly expressions are actually masking a cold, calculating personality that is worried about who is going to bring her a latte above all.

This is an oddly common portrayal of Hillary Clinton. I’ve noticed that any time the prospect of her presidency comes up in conservative and liberal circles alike, it seems like someone inevitably utters the phrase “I just don’t trust her” or “I just don’t like her”—to the point where they’ve become understood, stock responses even from people who don’t especially follow politics. According to a New York Times-CBS poll, 40 percent of Democrats believe that Clinton is not trustworthy. But according to PolitiFact, an acclaimed fact-checking organization, Clinton 39

actually has the best record of truth-telling of any of the 2016 presidential candidates—she beats Sanders and Kasich, and she blows Cruz and Trump away. Yet the narrative of her inauthenticity and her implicit dishonesty persists.

I’m not unaware of the criticisms of Clinton’s actual policies and actions that have led people to conclude she is dishonest and/or untrustworthy, such as her switching positions on gay marriage later than other progressives. But I’ve never heard anyone call Obama fake, for example, for changing his stance on gay marriage since 2008. Ultimately, as with most politicians, I think the truth about Clinton lies somewhere in between “she’s an evil bloodthirsty Lady Macbeth” and “she’s a perfect angelic feminist hero who just wants to make a better world for her grandkids.” But I’m not so much addressing those criticisms against her as I am the comments that are based on “something about her” that just “seems fake.” I think the standard of authenticity is an odd framework to apply to politicians in the first place—as if anyone whose career depends entirely upon maximizing votes by strategically appealing to as many people as possible within an artificially divided half of the

country, is not going to cater their actions and stances around that necessity.

Backing up the above point, management professor Helena Liu argues in “Doing Authenticity” that “authenticity” is something leaders perform, rather than an intrinsic trait. But even more interestingly, she argues that the social construction of authenticity is gendered, with different criteria applied for men and women. She writes based on the results of her study of media portrayals of men and women in power in Australia, that “being constructed as authentic depends on the leader performing authenticity in line with gender norms deemed appropriate for the socially constructed context in which they are expected to lead.” To show this, she studied the Australian media’s coverage of two CEOs—one man, and one woman— over a long period of time. She found that the male CEO was portrayed as authentic when he acted in line with idealized masculine gender norms (“independent, strong, active, and decisive”) and the female CEO was portrayed as authentic when she behaved in line with feminine gender norms (“nurturing, caring, outgoing, and communal.”) More than that, when the woman CEO acted decisively or in other “masculine” ways, she was represented as inauthentic.

This study is fascinating in its implications for how Clinton’s gender might influence how we see her. It’s basically the opposite of imposter syndrome; not that women feel like imposters in positions of power, but that people view them as imposters in spaces associated with men. Could it be that the reason people perceive Hillary Clinton as inauthentic and fake is, at least in part, subconsciously due to the fact that she is a woman, acting in ways we expect of men, in a space we are

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In a political sphere where women are still only 19 percent of elected officials, are we really to believe that sexism doesn’t continue to color the way we see Hillary Clinton today?

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accustomed to seeing men?

The framing of women as being fake in spaces where they are perceived as outsiders is certainly not an unfamiliar phenomenon. In the music industry, for example: many female music writers have written at length about the misogyny behind the “groupie” label. It implies that women are blindly obsessed fans, seeking the attention of men rather than being engaged artistically. This also manifests itself in the portrayal of male-dominated rock music as gritty, raw, and authentic, versus female-dominated pop music as artificial and manufactured. The tech and gaming industries are notorious for this double standard toward women as well—just look at #GamerGate, and the “fake geek girl” meme. The meme shows a girl with side bangs wearing hipster glasses, captioned with things like “I’m such a gamer...Plays Angry Birds” and “I’m a graphic designer...Uses Papyrus and Comic Sans.” It’s pretty obvious that this meme is based on sexist assumptions that view women and girls in gaming and tech as imposters

who are there simply to try to appeal to men. This meme is strikingly similar to a meme circulating about Clinton and Sanders, based on a fake campaign poster that shows where each candidate stands on an “issue.” The poster shows each candidate’s stance on an “issue” such as “wolves,” “sleeping,” or “Lord of the Rings.” Bernie’s stance is a well-thought out, in-the-know, cool answer, while Hillary Clinton’s answer is poser-ish and comically off-base, an example of her supposed pandering to an audience she knows nothing about. This is not unlike the way their actions are framed: when Hillary Clinton says she has hot sauce in her purse or takes a selfie with Kim Kardashian, people accuse her of “pandering,” implying she is being inauthentic. But when Sanders strikes a pose with Killer Mike, giving a weird side-ways finger gun hand gesture, it is not framed in the same dismissive condescending way; it’s just seen as a testimony to his Cool Guy-ness. It’s unlikely his voters actually believe Bernie is authentically a Killer Mike fan, so it must be part of the broader tendency to give him a pass when it comes to his own politicking (ahem his voting record on gun control), based on his “likeable” persona.

Which leads to the conclusion that someone’s “authenticity” at least stems from their perceived “likeability.” And there is no doubt that likeability is often a misogynistically coded framework under which women who do not act conventionally feminine and delicate are criticized. Documentaries, books, and even commercials have been written about the double standard applied to women in power—they’re described as “bossy,” “frigid,” and “calculating” with such disproportionate frequency that the with words have become gendered. This same attitude toward women who exhibit traditionally masculine behaviors is also what causes certain male news anchors to be put off

by Clinton’s “shouting” (or call her “shrill”), while yelling is accepted as just an endearing part of Sander’s M.O. From the intense scrutiny over her appearance while she was First Lady, to her position from 2001-2009 in the notoriously sexist and male-dominated senate, there’s no doubt that Clinton has had to deal with misogyny throughout her career. While she was First Lady, she was frequently criticized for being independent and career driven rather than domestic and subservient of her husband. As White House documents from during Bill Clinton’s presidency reveal, her staff consequently strategized how to make her appear more “soft” and “feminine,” so as to be more “likeable.” In a political sphere where women are still only 19 percent of elected officials, are we really to believe that sexism doesn’t continue to color the way we see Hillary Clinton today?

Maybe she comes across as fake and “trying too hard” simply because, as a woman, she really has had to try ridiculously hard to balance appearing “likeable” while still commanding respect—all while trying to do her job amidst the skeptical eyes of men—and maybe she hasn’t quite figured out that balance yet. And it’s unfortunate that she has to.

In the end, there are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Hillary Clinton and her policies—she’s far from the perfect candidate. And I don’t mean that there aren’t valid reasons to distrust her, either; people can decide that for themselves after looking at her voting record and policies. However, if you haven’t actually done much research into the matter and she “just seems fake” for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, it might just be because she’s a woman.

40

HAMILTON THE REVOLUTIONARY an uncontested revolution is not a revolution at all

by Yana Makuwa Hamilton is incredible. This is probably one of the least divisive statements in a time when uncontroversial sentences are hard to come by. In a time when more and more people are calling out offensive and exclusionary language, and are in turn being called whiners by others who are clinging tightly to their freedom of (hate) speech, it is remarkable that one musical could have appeal across races, generations, and the aisle congress floor. It was pre-previewed in the White House of the Obama administration, and it was applauded even by Dick Cheney, arguably the second most evil of all the evil conservatives (ahem-Ted-ahem). I know it’s cliché, but if you’d explained this to me a year ago when Hamilton was just a baby play off-Broadway, I would have laughed and assumed you’d confused Dick Cheney with Andy Dick.

But now, as we’re months away from the one-year anniversary of the show’s opening night in the Richard Rodgers theatre, if someone said listening to Hamilton could rehabilitate KKK members and make the blind see I wouldn’t bat an eye.

The show is a force to be reckoned with. In its opening week, Hamilton ticket sales skyrocketed past The Book Of Mormon, grossing more than $1,200,000 per week since previews in July 2015 (for comparison, the average is around $900,000). The cast recording of the show debuted at #12 on the “Billboard 200 Chart”, #1 on “Cast Albums,” #9 on “Top Album Sales,” and #3 on “Rap Albums.” And if money and lists aren’t enough, thanks to Hamilton, on April 18 playwright, lyricist, composer, director, and star Lin-Manuel Miranda won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Just one listen through the album is enough to explain the ridiculous success of this musical. I started to listen to this album for the first time as I was getting ready to leave for work.

Two hours later I found myself still on my couch, headphones in my ears and on the verge of tears. The first 15 seconds of the show contain all the beautifully interwoven elements that will unfold over the next 150 minutes—the trumpeting opening chords followed by a slow and deliberate rap over measured snaps announce the hip-hop–show-tune hybrid; the opening lyrics about the “bastard, orphan, son of a whore” make it known that there will be no lyrical holds barred in telling this story.

Miranda and his incredibly talented cast and collaborators managed to take a dusty history book off the shelf and turn it

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into a gripping story with a score that is so multi-layered and allusive that it eludes categorization. Questlove, who produced the cast album with fellow Roots founder Black Thought, takes 1,200 words in Rolling Stone to talk about how Hamilton is hip-hop in its repurposing of musical and American history, and how, in combining the spectacle of Broadway and the spontaneity of hip-hop, it synthesizes the two styles to become something completely different.

I could go on about the music, the writing, the plotting, and the performance of Hamilton ad infinitum, but suffice it to say that as far as I’m concerned, any question about the artistic genius of this show could only be asked by someone who hasn’t seen or heard any of it, and can therefore be answered by the briefest of YouTube or Spotify searches. But there is, of course, more to Hamilton than questions of musical and theatrical aesthetics—questions of racial representation and political commentary (both historical and contemporary) are as much a formative part of the phenomenon as the fact that after one listen the melodies are stuck in your head in the very best way.

The first thing you’d notice if you were to look at a cast picture is the inversion of the usual ratio of white and brown faces on a Broadway stage. Hamilton’s race-conscious casting has been a central topic of discussion since it opened offBroadway, eliciting a more or less uniformly positive response.

And beyond that, the decision to cast a story about wealthy white men (and some wealthier white women) with Black, Latino, and Asian performers raises important questions about American history, who it’s for, who it’s about, and how we should talk about it 260 years later.

However, it is in this realm of racial historicity where the unfettered praise for Hamilton begins to see some push back. Over the past few months, people have been writing about how the show doesn’t quite make it into the green on their revolution-o-meter. James McMaster, a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at NYU wrote a piece for HowlRound summarizing the main places where he feels the show falls short: the less than revolutionary feminism (Hamilton just barely passes the Bechdel test), its problematic “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” immigration narrative, and the problem of historical erasure despite the race-conscious casting.

Now, I’m not going to contest that the female characters could use way more lines and stage time. I mean, I love Jonathan Groff’s Beatlemania-esque songs as historical punctuation, but does Angelica Schuyler seriously only get one solo when King George has three? The question about historical erasure and accuracy, on the other hand, is one that I am willing to question perhaps because it seems to have gotten the most traction.

Rutgers History Professor Lyra Monteiro and recently published an essay in the Public Historian journal titled “Race-Conscious Casting and the Erasure of the Black Past in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton.” In an interview with Slate, Monteiro (who, for the record, loved the musical) pointed out that Hamilton participates in a narrative framework called “Founders Chic,” which portrays the founders as “relatable, cool guys” but “tends to downplay the involvement of the Founding Fathers in slavery.” Monteiro talks about the way that Hamilton mentions but never really tackles slavery as a main issue, and goes on to explain why casting people of color is not the same as diversifying representations of American history: “Basically what the supposedly color-blind casting does, is it gives Hamilton, the show, the ability to say, Oh, we’re not just telling old, white history. This isn’t your stuffy old-school history that’s just praising white people. Look, we’ve got people of color in the cast. This is everybody’s story. Which, it isn’t. It’s still white history. And no amount of casting people of color disguises the fact that they’re erasing people of color from the actual narrative.”

Monteiro’s point speaks to a real and insidious habit in America to ignore uncomfortable or violent aspects of history for the sake of an attractive narrative. However, I think her premise that the casting in Hamilton was chosen as a way to tell a universal story, “everyone’s story,” misses the subtler inversions and parallels that the show is trying to draw. The way I see it, like Miranda’s first Broadway hit In the Heights (a story about immigration and gentrification in Washington Heights), Hamilton is really telling a specific story about the experiences of people, and particularly people of color, in our time. It is merely using the coming-of-age, war-story, love triangle, melodrama of Alexander Hamilton’s life as a framework.

The specifics that Miranda chooses to highlight in his portrayal of Hamilton’s life are parallels to the problems that affect people of color much more acutely. It isn’t simply a Founding Fathers story for “everyone,” it is a Founding Fathers story for minorities and immigrants, and the proof of this goes beyond obvious lines like, “Immigrants, we get the job done.” In the opening song Miranda sings, “I never thought I’d live past 20/Where I come from some get half as many.” This is by far a potent message for recent immigrants to the United States who come from countries like Haiti where the life expectancy is 23 percent lower than here, or for African Americans, whose life expectancy at 76 is 4 years younger and 5 percent lower than the national average. And while the show may not address the historical violence of slavery, it implicates the violence of the present with a line like: “Or will the blood we shed begin an endless cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?”

This question, delivered at a rhythm and pace that ensures

every word lands audibly and powerfully, is one of many that embody Hamilton’s revolutionary politics. The show uses the past to comment on the state of the present, in the form of asides hiding behind an exciting and entertaining show. It doesn’t have to be historically accurate or portray historical injustices, because at its heart it is retelling a founding story so to mirror the all-too-real-present of a group of people living in a country that does everything it can to isolate, oppress, and erase them.

This message is so artfully constructed that it is easy to assume that Lin-Manuel Miranda had a grandiose plan for all of the cultural and socio-political impact his play would have.

But that thought is incredibly presumptuous. The effects that a work of art has are completely incidental to the author’s intent.

Watching Miranda talk about his inspiration for the show makes it clear that a big part of this supposedly grand intent was plain and simple enthusiasm for the story. While Hamilton was still playing off-Broadway, Miranda did an interview with CBS Sunday Morning. His giddy demeanor when he talks about being inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton is infectious. Miranda says, “[Hamilton] caught beef with every other Founding Father, I mean there’s great drama,

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If someone said listening to Hamilton could rehabilitate KKK members and make the blind see I wouldn’t bat an eye.

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a great love story, there’s incredible political intrigue… By the end of the second chapter I was on Google saying, someone’s already made this into a musical. How can anyone not have made this into a musical.” For Miranda, making Hamilton was about transforming a story that he loved through the art forms he has spent a lifetime mastering. With a self-satisfied twinkle in his eye he goes on, “We take it as a given that hip-hop music is the music of the revolution… All my favorite hip-hop songs are really great musical ‘I want’ songs.” This interview, conducted just as the buzz around the show was beginning to build, proves that Miranda set out to write a musical that melded his love for hip-hop, musicals, and Alexander Hamilton, and it just happened to become a nationwide phenomenon.

And this kind of artistic phenomenon certainly comes with power and responsibility; art, and particularly popular art, can and should be socially conscious. It is hugely important to be critical of movies, music, and shows that actively or passively contribute to marginalization or oppression. As such, I can’t help but appreciate criticisms of Hamilton on some level, and think it’s important to have these conversations. And perhaps the fact that the show even engenders these conversations is revolutionary in and of itself. However, we can’t ask that every cultural object check all of the social revolution boxes— that would fast become tiresome and restrictive. The aspects of Hamilton that set it apart—the musical hybridity, the contemporary commentary, the race-conscious casting (though it may be flawed it is unequivocally groundbreaking)—are radical, inventive, and artful enough to deserve all the praise it has and will continue to receive.

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FROM YOUR FAVORITE FEMINIST MUSICIANS Nadine Fuller

of music make it more difficult for women to succeed.

As Margaret Cho aptly expressed while speaking candidly in an interview for Miss Representation, “the media treats women like shit.” Blatant and subtle discrimination permeates all media created by women, centered on women, and consumed by women. Female consumers often encounter difficulty finding any representation, let alone authentic representation, of themselves in current media. This is especially true of one of the most widely consumed forms of media: music.

Music is meant to be an auditory conveyance of emotion, so then does the music industry’s treatment of women convey society’s feelings towards women? Despite comprising 50

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Women in music are valued as marketable goods, rather than as artists.

by Nadine Fuller The first time Beyoncé dropped a surprise album, a visual album no less, rumors circulated that Time magazine regretted not naming her Person of the Year. Journalists were shocked at how well an album could sell without any real promotion, and then the world just shrugged it off like, “well, it is Beyoncé.”

With a cult-like following collectively self-identified as the Beyhive, she has achieved something few people ever have— artistic and commercial success as a single-name entity. She is a musical phenomenon or, as she put it in “Formation”, she “just might be a black Bill Gates in the making.” Now, pulling the same stunt with her latest, also visual, album Lemonade, the star power of Beyoncé is obvious. It was her work ethic and perseverance in combination with her talent that allowed her to propel herself to where she is now, from successful girl group member to best-selling solo artist, and all this despite encountering adversity as both a woman and a person of color.

It’s appropriate, therefore, that her fan base would consider themselves bees: hardworking creatures, mirroring their queen’s ambition. Unfortunately, though not for lack of talent or determination, most female artists will never attain nearly her level of accomplishment. Prevailing attitudes in the world

art by Michelle Savran 43

percent of the human population and consequently a similar ratio of listeners, women are drastically underrepresented in the music industry. Fusion’s Kelsey McKinney analyzed the U.S. Top 40 songs for multiple weeks in 2015 and discovered a clear gender disparity. Although more female artists are synonymous with the term “superstar” than their male counterparts, in the first six months of 2015, only 29 percent of the Top 40 songs were performed by women. Once on the exclusive list, McKinney states that “songs by women had slightly more staying power,” yet far fewer songs on this list were written by women. None of the songs in the first nine months of that year were produced by women.

The genres of music female artists typically succeed in (think “pop princess”) are not assumed to be thoughtprovoking or revolutionary in the way genres dominated by male artists are often received (think “rock star”). Explained by feminist music scholar Norma Coates, rock is perceived as a more authentic genre; pop, however, is artificial and empty, therefore authenticity itself is coded masculine and femininity is considered manufactured. The common-sense meaning of rock becomes “male,” while “pop” is naturalized as “female.”

Real men aren’t pop, and women, real or otherwise, don’t rock.

Although it is true of all musical acts, women are more likely to be seen as boardroom-built brands than men. This originates from sexist stereotypes infused with cultural criticisms, but also with the way female artists are portrayed by the media.

Furthermore, female musicians find their personal lives dissected and judged continually. Prominent women are constantly subjected to invasive questions about their

romantic history and dating lives—supposedly more interesting conversation topics than the music they dedicate their lives to making. With men, not only are we uninterested in what they are wearing or whom they are seeing, but we’re also laxer in our judgments of them overall. For example, as many feminist music writers have pointed out, when Kurt Cobain struggled with a heroin addiction it was seen as rebellious, and even his near-overdose was not severely condemned.

Amy Winehouse’s battle with alcoholism, on the other hand, did not make her the brilliantly disturbed, tortured artist—she was instead portrayed as a problematic and unacceptable person. This double standard is the norm in the music and pop culture industries, evident in the “acceptable” number of sexual partners allocated to each gender, as well as the “acceptable” public and private behavior.

Though underrepresented in music as a whole, women are especially absent in music awards—another clear indicator of inequality in the industry. Women have made up only 30 percent of VOTY nominations since the VMA’s inception in 1984, and women of color have only received 10.5 percent of nominations. However, when women of color are nominated they are more likely to win, winning 18.5 percent of VOTY awards—a discontinuity that, McKinney suggests, lies in the revelation that nominees are chosen by a committee comprised of older, white, male “industry experts” whereas the actual award is decided according to popular vote. So it is not that the consumers don’t want to or don’t enjoy listening to female artists, but that the music industry’s ingrained patriarchy prevents women from succeeding to their full potential. The music industry is therefore yet another feminist battleground as well as a powerful podium for promoting feminism—one which artists who recognize this have begun to combat from within and utilize.

Women in music are valued as marketable goods, rather than as artists. Rolling Stone, arguably one of the most influential music magazines to date, embodies this phenomenon in its covers. Women only appear on a fraction of the published covers, and there is minimal variation in their posing and styling, as McKinney argues. Three types of photos appear notoriously and repetitively: “shirt with no bra, bra with no shirt, and close-up headshot.” This monotony compared with the variability of male artist covers, speaks to how those in the music industry see female artists as interchangeable sex objects.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one such thinker whose work has been exposed to a wider audience via the appeal of music. Her talk, and now book, We Should All Be Feminists, is brilliant in its straightforward presentation, perfect for mass education. Without the “Beyoncé effect” and her VMA performance, however, it may have remained in mainstream obscurity. Musicians are incredibly influential on their fan base, straddling the divide of both performers and thinkers. When celebrities such as Beyoncé or Marina Diamandis (of Marina and the Diamonds) proclaim feminism to be an important cause to them, it brings more awareness to issues of inequality and begins a conversation. “You were the main reason I became a feminist,” a fan wrote to Marina, proving the positivity of their reach and influence. A study published in Psychology of Popular Media Culture found that listening to “pro-equality” music such as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” lead to better, more

equitable treatment and consideration of women. Therefore, feminist-themed musical content is not only important for more awareness of the issues women face but can genuinely progress the goals of feminism through people’s actions and interactions on a subconscious level.

It can also be problematic, however, to conflate the image the media mandates of performers with feminist ideals.

Celebrities across the spectrum are expected to be public icons and role models simply by merit of their fame. Much time and effort is dedicated to following their lives and their views.

Their opinions and statements carry more importance whether or not the are necessarily experts on the subject of feminism.

Taylor Swift, for instance, with her “Bad Blood”-esque ‘squad’ of empowered women claims feminism while marginalizing issues of intersectionality. Her comments have been met with accusations of merely being a “white feminist” particularly after her overstated Twitter feud with Nicki Minaj over the 2015 VMA nominations. This goes to show that while artists have the power to greatly influence conversations about feminism in the public sphere, they are not infallible and will not always present an uncontested and “right” feminist viewpoint by default.

When a celebrity chooses not to identify as feminist, however, it can be just as damaging as hyper-sexualization, if not more so. They often do so by equating the belief with misandry, as Björk did when she said “[I don’t identify as a feminist] because I think it would isolate me. … You could probably call my mother a feminist and I watched her isolate herself all her life from men, and therefore society.” This perpetuates misinformation about the term feminism, and gives justification to those who would use such inaccuracies maliciously. But more disappointing is the fact that female artists must bear the responsibility of educating the public, instead of focusing on genuinely representing themselves.

It is important to remember when thinking, speaking and writing about feminism that, in the words of Roxane Gay, feminism “is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed.” All “feminist icons,” musicians or otherwise, obviously sometimes act based on interests other than preserving the integrity of feminism.

Therefore, as feminists ourselves we must remember that it is broader social change that matters, not simply the actions of individuals. Although it can seem difficult to overcome such structural inequalities, a little attention to detail (and song credits) can go a long way in supporting all types of female music artists. Music is an excellent outlet for self-expression, and women will continue to use it to express themselves and their sexuality as they see fit (hopefully without creating problematic expectations for other women, and without being disingenuous to themselves). As more and more women become outspoken about the issues that affect them, it creates more spaces for women to be heard, respected, and validated by their peers. It is in this way that feminism and music can flourish together, combatting the music industry’s built-in sexism and entertaining and engaging audiences in fun, occasionally thought provoking ways. Though being a woman, especially a woman of color, generally sets you at a disadvantage, as Jay Z’s grandmother reflected, with words that inspired Queen Bey herself, it can be managed, for “I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.”

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HE’S BIGGER THAN JESUS NOW the life of pablo isn’t a swan song—it’s a promise

by Chris Skawski art by Julia Monteith It’s been over ten years since The College Dropout. It’s already been three since Yeezus. In a twelve-year-long-andgoing-strong career, Kanye West has never not been relevant.

He’s put out singles and verses across the game even in the downtimes between studio albums. He’s produced hundreds of songs for rappers, R&B singers, and pop stars.

Taking the reins from RZA, he reinvented the musicality behind beat production and cemented sampling as a genre mainstay. So what, then, do we make of his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo?

There’s no denying the appeal of this album. If you’re not a Kanye fan and/or you only have ears for ska/alternative fusion bands, maybe you didn’t like it. And if that’s the case, you’re dead on the inside and my article will do nothing for you. If, however, there is even a hint of an artistic Richter scale somewhere in your cynical little heart, I’m willing to bet that it leapt the rails on this one.

“Ultralight Beam”, the album’s immaculate opening number, inspires chills at its least potent and feverish tears at its most. And that’s just the tip of the musically brilliant iceberg.

But before I go nuts telling you why I love it I have to tell you why I don’t.

I can’t say that I don’t hum excessively loudly over the Taylor Swift line in “Famous”. And I certainly initiate conversations at undue decibels to get over the 45

opening line of “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1”. These lines are objectionable for their attitude toward women and their inanity, respectively. And lines like this creep up all over the place, in this album and in albums past. They can’t be forgiven, so to speak, but there are elements of the songs that they come from that are separate and better. Kanye’s sample of Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” and Nina Simone’s “Do What You Gotta Do” both shine, and help him develop his theme of a rejection of the perils of fame. The story of his and Kim’s relationship explored in “Father” extends beyond the vulgar into the intimate, detailing their fights but also their meeting.

The album goes beyond single lines—the thrust behind it comes into clearest focus in the abstract.

It’s like how you can’t stand too close to a Monet, not least because the guards won’t let you touch it.

There’s something to be gained from mainlining the whole thing in one sitting. At the end you’re left with something that you didn’t have before, and if you’re exactly like me, you’re likely scratching your inner arm and twitching slightly. It’s hard not to fall in love with this album. There’s just so much sound.

It blows you away. Every sample, every note, and every line is handpicked for right-then, to work in that moment of song. It isn’t always perfect, but it is always good listening. If you laughed when you heard

Kanye was dropping a gospel album, I hope you tripped real bad and scraped your knee, because he made it work.

If you knew nothing about Kanye’s discography until right this second, TLOP breaks it down for you. There’s experimental mu-

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He’s created his own image every step of the way and forced us all to watch.

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sicality in “FML”, “Feedback”, and Yeezus. It’s the kind of sound where you think, Man, I miss when Kanye was rapping, but you listen anyway because it sounds like techno heaven. His flow is in peak form on “Highlights”, “No More Parties in LA”, and both his freshman and sophomore albums. It’s crisp. It’s clean (stylistically not lyrically). There’s a pained introspection in “Real Friends” that he borrows directly from 808s & Heartbreak, the single most criminally underrated album of all time. There’s even the grandiosity of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in “Wolves”, and “Pt. 2” (which is an actual track on the album, I promise). It’s the “there’s too many notes” of rap music, it’s 45 what got people to call MBDTF his greatest work, and it’s what keeps Kanye Kanye and not anyone else who is probably worse at this sort of thing.

For me, though, it all comes together at the midpoint

with “I Love Kanye”. Here he calls out the perception of him through the years. Everyone who wrote, thought, or wished they had thought the cookie-cutter idea “Kanye is different now and I’m grumpy” is being parodied here. He’s not an idiot, and he hasn’t been isolated from the haters. For every change, Kanye has brought something new to rap music. He’s created his own image every step of the way and forced us all to watch.

This is the point at which he, more than ever, owns what he’s doing. Even more than toasting to the douchebags on “Runaway”. Suck it world—Kanye doesn’t carry a backpack anymore.

He’s inspired so many wannabes and up-and-comers he makes The Real Slim Shady look like a joke.

What makes TLOP so great, though, is what it means for us. While I’m writing this Kanye is working on the “final” version of the album. And while I get chills thinking that we’re working at the same time, I will publish this article and be done with it.

TLOP will never be done, just as Kanye the artist will never be complete. What we have here is Kanye sustaining his output.

He isn’t going to micromanage every detail like on MBDTF, and he’s not going to wing 30 hours worth of music into one album like Yeezus. He’s just going to keep making things. He has an album coming out this summer, or so he claims, and unlike the inevitable superhero movie backlash, I don’t think the listening public is likely to become oversaturated with Kanye. Ye’s idol Tupac made so much music they released most of his albums after he died and no one complained. With Ye so committed to keeping things going, hopefully we’ll hear a lot of it before he goes.

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MAKE AMERICA PSYCHO AGAIN bret easton ellis on art, ideology, and “like”-button culture

by Matt Pegan Controversial author Bret Easton Ellis has always maintained a mutually critical relationship with the public.

While his most famous work, 1991’s American Psycho, served as a scintillating critique of the soulless, commercial aspect of the 80s, its graphic portrayal of the torture and murder of sex workers prompted the feminist movements of the time to christen him with a label that has chased him throughout his career: misogynist. Wherever Ellis shares his points of view, accusations of sexism have never been far behind. For the past several years, flare-ups have taken place predominantly on social media. The most recent occurred in December 2015, after Ellis argued that the ten accusations of rape levied against pornstar James Deen are not credible. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, he shockingly claimed that the accusations were the product of jealous ex-girlfriends and a witch-hunt mentality, and that basic standards of consent are implicitly checked at the door of a porn set.

Unsurprisingly, Ellis’ lengthy explanations of some of his more controversial or flat-out offensive opinions have not managed to convince people that he is not a misogynist, causing some people to dismiss his entire body of work as

a result. But despite his many detractors, many still find his condemnations of culture and his artistic endeavors both entertaining and insightful. Thus Ellis stands as a polarizing literary outsider, and a fascinating public artist.

These days, the primary medium through which the author expresses himself seems to be his eponymous podcast, each episode of which features a conversation between Ellis and any artist who “strikes [him] as interesting enough to bring on the show.” The list of former B.E.E. Podcast guests is vast and impressive, containing many of the most cutting edge names in music (Kanye West, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig), television (Mad Men Creator Matt Weiner, Portlandia co-stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein) and cinema (Quentin Tarantino, Gus Van Sant). Despite these big names, Ellis puts the spotlight of each episode as much on himself as his guest.

He opens each episode with a lengthy monologue, and then structures the conversation with detailed questions that often hinge on one of his many criticisms of the current state of American pop culture.

The main target of the author’s ire is a set of predominant trends in Millennial culture, trends he has dubbed variously as “the sentimental American narrative,” “the cult of the ‘nice guy’,” and “victim culture,” all of which are united as products of a cultural era obsessed with positivity, sensitivity, and relatability. Whether he’s lamenting the cultural beatification of the late David Foster Wallace as a lovable everyman, as opposed to the deeply contradictory and ill person he actually was, or defending Alec Baldwin against the accusations of homophobia leveled at him following a 2013 anger tantrum in which the actor allegedly hurled a slur at a videographer, Ellis makes no attempt to conceal his contempt for the insistence on feel-good narratives, political correctness, and the Millennial Generation as a whole.

In his December 2015 podcast, an interview with Quentin Tarantino, Ellis took the time to lay out his full diagnosis of what he calls “Generation Wuss,” describing its members as “self-victimizers who overreact to the slightest thing that alters their self-made safe spaces ...where they can only have friends who agree with them about everything, and all the things they like, and tune out anything that might challenge them, scare them, or god-forbid have a differing opinion than theirs perhaps entering into a debate that would help them become an adult.” The consequence of this cultural shift for art, Ellis went on to say, is that we have entered into an era

art by Jin Yoo

in which “ideology [trumps] aesthetics, where your opinion of something better tie into a corporate groupthink ideology, often of a politically-correct leaning that distorts aesthetics.”

After all, Ellis concluded, “[s]ocial justice warriors never think like artists...and they are incapable of being nuanced when they lash out at people for not agreeing with them.”

I imagine Millennials reading these words will have one of two reactions. They might find them repulsive, considering Ellis to be at best a mere curmudgeon, and at worst a white cis-man reacting aggressively to the threat posed to his privilege by language politics. Alternatively, they might find Ellis’s cynical, distinctly Gen-X, perspective refreshing. This cultural era, after all, is one marked by the bite-sized social-media post, in which nuanced opinions seem a rarity. Identity politics are happily coupled with “like”-button culture, propagating a simplistic “you either are on board with equal rights for all, or you are not” type approach to social justice, which reduces activism to a mere act of branding yourself with a hashtag, or by reposting an article.

Though I think the concerns of the former category are justified, I will confess to falling somewhere more toward the latter. Bret Easton Ellis is at least a bit of an asshole, but his grievances regarding the social-media generation might be spot on. Though he is far from the first person to make such criticisms about Millennial Culture, he is uniquely qualified and motivated to make them, given the degree to which he is in

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If art is not left open as an outlet in which we can explore fear, nihilism, uncertainty, and whatever else simply can’t be fit into any one ideology, then it scares me to think of where else in culture these ugly, but unavoidable parts of life might find their way.

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active dialogue with popular culture—as evidenced by his list of guests—and his history as the writer of highly controversial novels.

One key to understanding Ellis’ anti-Millennialism is his Gen-X-ism: the fact that his success is owed largely to the trends of a more ideologically disillusioned era, in which a certain brand of fairly transgressive art had more of a home in American popular culture. This fact is evident, for example, in the premier episode of the pocast featuring fellow Gen-X controversialist Marilyn Manson. As an indication of the era out of which these two artists arose, it is interesting to note that Ellis’s and Manson’s respective magnum opi each sold over one million copies, despite being titled American Psycho and Antichrist Superstar respectively. The current trends toward group-think positivity leave the legacy of Ellis’s type of art and persona dubious. How could there be space in the safe-space for American Psycho? For Ellis, the drive to apply the standards of this safe-space around the collective set of opinions and works of art that make up culture—which is arguably, in essence if not conscious intent, the project of the social media social justice described above—spells doom for his work, and promises storms of future controversy for him as a highly-

opinionated commentator.

Some will argue that those trends which work to relegate Bret Easton Ellis to a thing-of-the-past are none other than those of social progress, and that however unfortunate it might be for Ellis, to argue against them is to argue for their reversal, which would be reactionary and irresponsible.

Even granting the PC ideology this lofty status as “true progress,” Ellis still has a strong point to make in renouncing of the domination of art and culture by any ideology, and the incapability of “social justice warriors” to respond to art in a nuanced manner.

The problem with ideology trumping aesthetics is that ideology is closed where aesthetics are open, can’t maintain contradictions where art can embrace them, and is compelled to categorize what aesthetics can leave ambiguous. In general, ideology can never capture the complexities, and account for the darker sides of human nature in the way that art can. No ideology can ever see outside of itself, so a piece of art, or interpretation of a piece art, produced in a totally ideological manner is necessarily highly limited: at best an effective political pamphlet.

The issue is one of looking at particulars out of context: deciding on the meaning of a work of art based purely on its content while ignoring its framing. It is this sort of reading which might lead one to the fallacious conclusion that because American Psycho portrays vicious acts of murder it must encourage this sort of behavior. Note that what prompted outcry in the months leading up to the publication of the book was not the work as whole but several of its most violent passages, which had been leaked, photocopied, and distributed.

Ideologically you can’t justify the content of the novel in any but the most reductive “this book is a call against the evil that men can do” or “the violence which capitalism breeds,” so get-out-and-make-a-change types of interpretation, which obviously miss the real point of the book. Artistically speaking, the portrayals of sadism and murder can be viewed as having a far more nuanced meaning, perhaps acting more to sublimate angst than normalize oppression: more to simply portray, metaphorically, a dark reality than to encourage any particular behavior.

Thus if Ellis’ words are correct, and social media and social justice have combined to usher in an era in which “ideology trumps aesthetics,” then the future of both popular and political culture will be one of even deeper division. If all of popular culture comes under the subjugation of a single ideology, and one coupled with a “like”-button culture unkind to nuance at that, then what remains for those people—stirred by one demagogue after being labeled by him a “silent majority”— who perceive this ideology, at best, to hold nothing for them, and at worst, as a threat? Is it any coincidence, I ask, that at the same time our popular culture is veering towards groupthink positivity and sparkly-clean political correctness, our political culture is veering toward nasty division and low- blow discourse? If art is not left open as an outlet in which we can explore fear, nihilism, uncertainty, and whatever else simply can’t be fit into any one ideology, then it scares me to think of where else in culture these ugly, but unavoidable parts of life might find their way. Bret Easton Ellis might be an asshole, but at least he’s a novelist and not a Republican frontrunner.

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GIRLS IN THE CITY if you’re only going to watch one show about millennial women in nyc, it should be broad city

by Susie Plotkin art by Julia Pearson

There is a scene in the second episode of the third season of Girls where Hannah, Shoshanna, and Adam are on a road trip upstate, and Maroon 5’s One More Night is playing on the car radio, and it is so funny. Hannah and Shosh are singing along to the song really badly, botching the words and commenting on the lyrics in-between breaths, and Adam is just staring at the road miserably until he finally loses it and punches the radio off. When I first watched that episode, I must’ve rewound that scene seven times, each one setting me off into a fit of hysterical laughter. That was also when I realized that I sort of hate Girls, because for all of the humor and wit the show has, until that point it was never actually laugh-out-loud funny. The road trip scene is so simple, but by far my favorite 20 seconds of the series. It’s carefree and messy and imperfect and it doesn’t take itself too seriously; it was, in essence, the least Girls-y scene in the series. It’s also what it’s like to watch every episode of Broad City, which I like to think of as an upgraded version of Girls. Broad City fills the glaring problematic holes that Girls has, all the while being significantly funnier and less draining to watch.

These two shows are, of course, very similar. They both star female friends, they are both set in New York City, they are both comedies (in their own rights), and they both speak to Gen Y. But the ways each show has utilized these shared aspects are so different, even in just their setting. Girls includes the city insofar as it uses Brooklyn as a hip home base for its main characters. Broad City, on the other hand, engages with it. In the episode Stolen Phone, for example, Abbi’s phone is accidentally taken by a tourist and she uses its GPS to track it around the city. She watches it go all the way uptown to Harlem, where 49

she’s happily ready to retrieve it, but then realizes with horror that it moved slightly downtown to the elitist Upper East Side.

Whereas It’s easy to imagine the four friends in Girls grabbing brunch one weekend against the generic backdrop of the UES, Abbi and Ilana braced the territory as a foreign and horrifying threat that demanded confrontation.

But it’s hard to picture the friends in Girls getting brunch together anywhere, because they don’t actually seem to like each other. In the five seasons of the show so far, the core four friendships of its plot have been consistently fragile and stereotypically shallow at best. The women are constantly annoyed with one another for some absurd reason, like the time Marnie was pissed at Jessa for missing the abortion she scheduled for her, or when Hannah couldn’t take how selfish Marnie was at her own wedding. These situations are often funny because, despite their intentionally hyperbolic content, as isolated incidents they are very relatable. But when the overwhelming majority of interactions between the women include them being subpar friends to each other, it calls into question the authenticity of their relationships, and that relatability is lost. They so rarely are supportive of each other, so rarely act in each other’s interests before their own, that it’s nearly impossible to imagine a real-world scenario where they would still be friends. Not to mention the fact that often when the women hurt each other, they embody the worst stereotypes about female friendships. Perhaps the most offensive of these is that women put men above one another (see: the time Jessa hooked up with Hannah’s ex-boyfriend, the time Marnie hooked up with Hannah’s (other) ex-boyfriend, or the time Marnie hooked up with Shoshanna’s ex). In Broad City, however,

Abbi and Ilana’s friendship is literally never in question. They adore each other, validate each other, uplift each other, and they certainly never do anything to undermine each other.

When Abbi needed a new shirt to go to a gallery opening ASAP, Ilana without hesitation went with her to get one, and when Ilana needed someone to pretend to be her to cover her shift at the co-op, Abbi threw on Ilana’s clothes and started saying “Yas, queen!” every other sentence. Nothing—not their relationships with men, not their jobs, nothing—takes precedent over their friendship. In this sense, Broad City is refreshing; so rarely in shows that star female friends is drama between them not central to their plots (what would Desperate Housewives or Sex and the City have been without the short-lived but frequent fights between their main characters?). The overwhelmingly drama-free friendship between Abbi and Ilana eliminates the underlying assumption about inherently dramatic women that so many similar shows rely on to keep their plots exciting.

Even more frustrating than the unstable friendships in Girls is the reality that, after five seasons with four incredibly flawed women, none of them have been through a fraction of the character development that the show’s men have. Consider Hannah’s ex-boyfriend Adam, who started on the show as her selfish and cold lover. When they broke up and he started seeing another woman, Girls further painted him as a villain by including an incredibly disturbing rape scene between Adam and that woman in which she clearly wasn’t consenting to what was happening. This scene was extraordinarily worthwhile in demonstrating the grey space involved with sexual assault that is often not considered, and for that it should be lauded.

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In this sense, Broad City is refreshing; so rarely in shows that star female friends is drama between them not central to their plots.

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But the aftermath of how Adam’s character was treated was problematic; if we flash forward a few episodes, he suddenly becomes a romantic and loving boyfriend to Hannah. A similar thing happened with, Charlie, Marnie’s ex-boyfriend. Charlie started on the show as a very sweet character who was very in love with Marnie. In the third season, though, he broke up with Marnie out of the blue and maliciously told her that he never loved her—leading the audience to believe he was just a bad guy. However, in the most recent season Charlie briefly reappears, explaining to Marnie that the reason he acted so horribly was that his father had just committed suicide. Thus, Charlie becomes a character that is complex and garners sympathy for his worst actions, a feat that, in my opinion, the girls of Girls have not yet accomplished. For me, this begs the question: why are the women, in a show created by a woman, stuck with their negative traits, but the men can go from pure evil to understandably flawed and sympathy-inducing?

Granted, Broad City is a much lighter show than Girls by design, so character development issues are more muted.

Part of the hilarity of Broad City is that all of its characters are

remarkably flawed, but none learn from their mistakes or grow in any way. In this sense, the characters of Broad City live in an alternate reality padded with privilege, because they never actually face any consequences. Girls, too, is overcome with privilege, but these shows deal with this shared phenomenon in starkly different ways. When Hannah was cut off from her parents in the pilot episode of Girls, for example, she didn’t need a new job because Marnie started to pay her half of the rent for their beautiful Brooklyn apartment. Whereas situations like this are rampant in both Girls and Broad City, in Girls they’re so rarely checked by reality or even acknowledged in the script as moments of privilege—they’re expected and routine. In Broad City, however, they’re often hilariously dramatized and made into a joke. In The Last Supper, for example, the girls celebrate Abbi’s 26th birthday with dinner at a fancy French restaurant, paid for in advance by Abbi’s dad. This episode fully embraces how ridiculously privileged this scenario is, from the girls trying (and failing) to speak French to their waiter to Abbi rubbing toilet paper on her face in the bathroom because it’s so soft. The absurd way the girls act in the restaurant mirrors the absurdity that is Abbi’s father paying for his adult daughter’s birthday dinner, thus subtly nodding to how extreme and unrealistic such a scenario is. It’s not that portraying people with privilege is unrealistic in and of itself, I would just much rather watch a show that joked about how ridiculous it is than one that accepted it as normal.

The two shows handle race about as differently as they handle privilege. While both star white girls, only Broad City includes people of color as integral characters on the show (like Hannibal Buress’s Lincoln, Ilana’s sort-of boyfriend, and Arturo Castro’s Jaime, Ilana’s roommate). In contrast, one of the only substantiated characters played by a person of color on Girls was one of Hannah’s love interests played by Donald Glover, and he only lasted two episodes. However, both shows have run into issues regarding diversity in more ways than just their casting. In Broad City, Ilana’s character has been accused of cultural appropriation in more ways than one.

For example, the phrase “Yas, queen” was lifted pretty nonchalantly from black drag queens and trans women of color, as Zeba Blay at Huffington Post pointed out. Instead of flat out ignoring this criticism though, the show addressed it at the end of the episode Rat Pack. Here, Jaime pointed out to Ilana that her big, hoop earrings with “Latina” written in them were insultingly culturally appropriative, telling her, “It’s almost like you are stealing the identity from people who fought hard for it against colonial structures.” While this may not answer for all of Broad City’s cultural appropriation crimes, it has started to acknowledge one of its biggest criticisms, which Girls has still yet to do.

Between the rampant privilege, horrible friendships, and stagnantly flawed characters of Girls, I always feel emotionally drained after watching an episode. Broad City, though, always leaves me smiling. The thing is, Broad City isn’t a better show because it doesn’t face many of the same problems that Girls does, it just recognizes that those flaws, are, in fact, flaws, and uses them as the foundation for some of its greatest punch lines. Every episode of Broad City is hilariously messy and imperfect, so every episode of Broad City feels like watching that road-trip scene in Girls.

50

¿Qué Abuela? being latinx according to hillary clinton versus jane the virgin

by Nuha Fariha art by Melvin Li

In December2015, I woke up to the surprising news that Hillary Clinton was an abuela. I repeat, Hillary Clinton is now an abuela. I just want to reiterate this statement because I had to read it several times before it made any sense. Hillary Clinton? Abuela?

The article was written by Paola Luisi, who has family roots in Uruguay. According to Luisi, she was struck by the ways in which Hillary reminded her of her own grandmother. Since her meaning was not clearly conveyed in the actual article, it is easy to see why many young Latinx readers would become angry. After a vocal backlash on social media with the hashtag #NotMyAbuela, Clinton’s campaign issued a public apology.

Some responders critiqued Clinton’s immigration policies. In 2014, Clinton supported a movement to deport unaccompanied minors back to Central America, despite the fact that such deportation was against U.S. immigration policy and that these minors qualified for humanitarian aid. In a press conference last August in Las Vegas, Clinton defended her position by stating: “Specifically with respect to children on the border, if you remember, we had an emergency, and it was very important to send a message to families in Central America: Do not let your children take this very dangerous journey.” Such a bold and distinctly un-abuela-like stance should prevent anyone from calling Hillary Clinton an abuela.

The technical term for what Clinton’s campaign did is ‘hispandering.’ The term means faking an interest in Hispanic issues and culture for self-advancement. It’s easy to see, in this case, that Clinton’s campaign made this overt gesture in order to maintain, and perhaps gain, new Latinx voters. The campaign recently released its second Spanish language ad “Una Bandera” a few weeks ago to rally voters in New York.

Given the fact that voters are equally split among Sanders and Clinton, according to a poll by the Public Research Institute, it’s understandable why Clinton would resort to such grand

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gestures.

Yet it would be wrong to single her out in this discussion as ‘hispandering’ is a wider issue in politics. During the White House 2015 Cinco De Mayo celebration, President Obama began his speech by mentioning tacos, churros, margaritas, and tequila. On the campaign trail, many politicians stop by stereotypically Latinx restaurants, as Sanders did when he visited King Taco in Los Angeles. Of course, some Latinx political experts, like Sylvia Manzano, have stated that ‘hispandering’ is not necessarily harmful and doesn’t come from a place of bad intentions. Instead, such politicians are just trying to acknowledge a group that has been traditionally ignored. Others, like Pilar Marrero, claim the term itself is denigrating because it does not exist for other minority voters such as African Americans, the elderly, or farmers.

At first glance, the purpose of ‘hispandering’ seems innocent. It seems like a way for a well-meaning politician to reach out to an audience that has been and continues to be underrepresented in many fields. And that purpose is good.

It’s just that the way politicians usually go about such issues is both extreme and reductive. Instead of openly engaging in conversations, they assume that Latinx audiences are only interested in issues typically viewed as their territory.

Ultimately, the term critiques politicians who, according to Julio Ricardo Varela from Latino USA, “think taquería stops, broken Spanish, and talking solely about immigration is the best way to Latino voters.” There are more ways to incorporate Latinx culture than referencing abuelas.

So what would be a better way to reach out to Latinx communities? Politicians need to view immigrants as humans with complex life experiences rather than reduce them to stereotypes and a political issue that needs solving. In the media, shows like Jane the Virgin and Fresh Off the Boat are able to humanize the immigrant and minority experience in

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America in a way that political campaigns haven’t been able to figure out. What works in these shows is the fact that they let the immigrant population speak. They do not translate, but simply transcribe the experiences.

In particular, the character of Alba in Jane the Virgin does a great job of conveying the nuances of being a Latina immigrant without defining her by that identity. Played by Ivonne Coll, Alba is first portrayed as a traditional grandmother: conservative and poised. That is not to say, though, that Alba is perfect, sedate, and asexual. At times, Alba loses her temper and snips at her daughter Xo for being an incompetent mother.

She pursues relationships with unsuitable men, like Pablo Alonso Segura, who had left her once before, but to whom she seems inexplicably drawn. She is regretful about her own life decisions, especially remaining celibate for many years after the passing of her husband.

Another one of Alba’s biggest regrets is not obtaining her green card. Throughout the show, there are subtle traces of her fear of being discovered by the police, like when her granddaughter’s feud with a neighbor brings cops to her front door. She becomes irate when she learns that her daughter’s criminal record might affect her green card application. She sits through unnerving citizenship interviews and meetings with lawyers in terror. Powerful Alba is reduced to a frozen statue in front of the white immigration lawyer. Finally, there is the moment of unfiltered joy when she receives the treasured card.

The show treats immigration not as a political issue or

Politicians need to view immigrants as humans with complex life experiences rather than reducing them to stereotypes and a political issue that needs solving.

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just a debate talking point, but as a human issue, embracing the messiness of an immigrant’s life. It includes women and men in multiple generations, each struggling to define what it means to be American in their own way. What drew me to Jane the Virgin is the fact that it doesn’t romanticize the experience of being an immigrant. To be an undocumented immigrant has serious implications both for an individual and her family.

Alba does not come to America and find a warm, welcoming community or a dream job. She doesn’t play out the tired narrative of the American Dream. She doesn’t view the country with a rosy perspective. Remaining undocumented, she carves out a life for herself. Instead of relying on the tired tropes of an undocumented worker struggling to make it in America or reaching unrealistically high levels of success, Jane the Virgin humanizes Alba into a character who does neither, and who is warm, flawed, and relatable.

It’s extremely powerful to see such a depiction of the immigrant experience because it’s one lived by millions of Americans. Immigrants are not, as Hillary and other politicians seem to believe, “others” who will respond uniformly to thinly veiled “outreach” efforts. The Latinx population is not a monolith and viewing it as such is harmful. It’s clear that Latinx voices count in elections, otherwise politicians would not go out of their way to make such extravagant gestures toward the population. It is equally clear, however, that such gestures are inauthentic, hollow, and ultimately indicative of how little the politicians understand or value these populations.

Photos courtesy of hillaryclinton.com and Jane the Virgin

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WHY ISN’T HE

FUNNY

IN AMERICA?

trevor noah’s importantly international comedy

by Yana Makuwa

When word got out about Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show, everyone from armchair bloggers to contemporary historians took to the Internet to mark the end of an era.

Everyone who cared to opine agreed that Stewart’s version of the show was a game-changer in the worlds of comedy, politics, and television. Never before and never again, they all said, will there be a comedian who can hold up the magic mirror of accountability to American society and politics. And they weren’t necessarily wrong. In the PBS NewsHour article titled “5 times ‘The Daily Show’ actually influenced policy,” they cited Congress passing the 2010 bill to help 9/11 first responders, and the Department of Veteran Affairs changing its health care policy, as two instances where a television host on Comedy Central made the United States government shut up and listen. How could anyone follow that act?

Enter Trevor Noah. He was hired as a correspondent in December 2014, and three months later was announced as the successor to the legendary Stewart. He’s been hosting the show for about seven months now, and has more or less done a good job. He has a solid team of writers and correspondents that he clearly trusts and depends on, he’s had ample material with the current presidential election well underway, along with some sizeable local and global scandals (Flint, MI and the Panama Papers, for example). But, as much as it pains a fan of my caliber to say it, his comedy just hasn’t been great.

I’ve been watching his specials since the release of Daywalker in 2011, and immediately loved his sarcastic, fun-loving, and kinetic style. We all knew the show wouldn’t be comparable to Stewart’s, but I, for one, had high hopes for his potential, and expected slightly more from Noah than what I got. He doesn’t dig very deep into the issues (most of the information 53

he shares could be found after a Google search or two), some of his jokes are easy or predictable (Trump’s tan is orange and something about hot women), and his interviews often fail to incite unique or unexpected responses from his guests (although everyone should watch his segment with Lindsey Graham, which is masterful).

I am confident that this is not because Noah is a lesser comedian than Stewart. Their styles are very different, and it’s hard to compare them because I only know the end of Stewart’s career after he had years of maturing and craft refining, and Noah is really still at the brink of his career. And it’s not simply because he isn’t American—the wild success of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight rules that out. The reason for his only-average Daily Show must lie elsewhere, and I believe the place to look is Noah’s other comedy.

I recently lucky watched Trevor Noah’s 2015 stand-up special, Pay Back the Funny, and it felt like a happy reunion with an old friend. It’s not as though I had actually been deprived of his humor. Even though I’m not blown away by their quality, I watch episodes of The Daily Show whenever I get the chance.

But there was something about this show that felt different, like the relief of coming home after travelling for far too long.

Maybe that’s because, for him, it really was a homecoming. He recorded the version that I watched in front of a live studio audience in Johannesburg, his home city. In front of the Joburg audience, Noah joked about electricity shortages, the colonial history of Indians in South Africa, and anxieties about losing accents and identities in leaving S.A. for the U.S.A. It was far from the weak and easy comedy I’d seen on Comedy Central— this was the Trevor Noah I had fallen in love with five years ago.

Leno Letterman King O’Brien Daly Fallon Philbin Harvey Kimmel Stewart Maher Carson Cooper Povich Hall Meyers

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Noah simply seems too far removed from the culture

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here in the U.S. to be able to replicate the magic he has in South Africa on The Daily Show.

What Pay Back the Funny and his earlier standup have that his work on The Daily Show doesn’t, is a sense of familiarity and closeness to his culture that grounds all of the jokes. Noah’s intimacy, not only with the South African audience but also with the material, gives his humor an important accessibility. Even when he’s making jokes about America, like one in Pay Back the Funny about being not-famous but invited to the Met Gala, his jokes have a more conspiratorial tone to them—he brings his audience in on the secret. Trevor invites us into a situation where together we are the awkward outsiders experiencing the weird ways of the American elite. And when he makes political or social commentary about South Africa his jokes come across as more confident and biting. He is able to make fun of both South Africans for being shocked by the status quo of load shedding (regular power cuts in an area due to shortages), and the governments and power companies responsible. It is this combination of inside jokes, observational humor, and biting political satire that is missing from The Daily Show.

Noah simply seems too far removed from the culture here in the U.S. to be able to replicate the magic he has in South Africa on The Daily Show. He’s not comfortable enough as an insider to strike that insider-outsider balance that makes the type of humor that Stewart set as precedent possible. John Oliver manages to avoid the outsider-foreigner problem with the format of his show. He takes the time to go so in depth on an oddly specific, but still relevant-and-important issue, exposing its ridiculousness or gobsmacking awfulness to the point that all of his viewers feel like outsiders along with him.

He has also been living in the U.S. for much longer than Noah, and seems much more comfortable inserting himself into the Great American “We the People.” Of course, John Oliver can spend a full hour on a notoriously lenient cable network asking

people to “make Donald Drumpf again,” and Noah unfortunately doesn’t have that luxury. And so every weeknight we watch him hit and miss the mark of American political satire.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not arguing that everything Noah does on The Daily Show is a failure. When he isn’t trying to be an insider, he shines, as when talking about international issues, and particularly African ones. His most revealing and interesting satire of the U.S. happens in segments comparing Jacob Zuma’s extravagant corruption to the leaks of the Panama Papers, or comparing the state of the Ugandan presidential elections to the U.S. primaries, or comparing Donald Trump to famous African dictators of the 20th century. What John Oliver achieves by going incredibly in-depth, Trevor Noah achieves by merging two worlds and allowing one to comment on the other.

The Daily Show’s signature is not only its bitingly satirical comedy, but the lasting impact left by that satire. What separates Noah from his predecessor is that, beneath Stewart’s excellent rhetoric and compellingly fidgety and shout-y persona, he had the ability to put an ‘us versus them’ dialectic to work to hold the political monolith accountable. And as hard as Noah may try, this closeness to the culture and subject isn’t something that can be forced. Trevor Noah’s power instead lies in the way his transnational perspective impacts his ability to effect change in comedy. Perhaps he should direct his Daily Show efforts towards a new brand of multi-nationally comparative satire instead. Noah can’t replicate the Jon Stewart effect, but he shouldn’t be trying to. If he can find a way to imbue late night political satire with a new outward looking and global quality, he could leave his own legacy that would not fall in the shadow of Jon Stewart’s.

WHY SHE DOESN’T JUST “SWALLOW THE CAMERA”

kim kardashian’s feminist nudity

by Julia Pearson

To understand what we value as a culture, one needs to look no further than what we see on our many screens. Film, television, and music are spun in a cyber and cellular network, all forming a glossy, viscous secretion of our society—and the emblem of it all is none other than Kim Kardashian, queen of us mere Millennial plebes. Here is a woman who has harnessed the power of our addictions, aspirations, and insecurities to build (and break) a digitalized empire upon her ass. If Kim were Hera, America would be her Argus, all 100 eyes vigilant upon every selfie-taking flash of her finger.

For someone so constantly on the tip of society’s tongue, it is no wonder her nude selfie was met with a significant amount of public scrutiny. Bette Midler responded, “If Kim wants us to see a part of her we’ve never seen, she should swallow the camera.” Actress Chloë Grace Moretz also imparted judgment: “I truly hope you realize how important setting goals are for young women teaching them we have so much more to offer than just our bodies.” These were just the two tweets (out of a tirade) that Kim shot down later via Twitter. Others defended Kim, for example Miley Cyrus, who captioned her Instagram of Kim’s ass-emoji, “can we put the cuntiness aside for one fucking day and love / celebrate one another!” It even inspired a 10-foot mural reproduction in Melbourne—which was promptly defaced with the word “SLUT” hours later. Why would a photo of the female nude body be so inciting when we face facsimiles of the same form in so many other contexts?

It is precisely because of its context. Kim’s selfie—because 55

it was generated and placed online of her own free will, because she is a public figure, and because it was posted a second time on International Women’s Day—summits a slew of discussion that seeps through many of the systems that assemble our society as it is. The controversy is rooted in a sort of triptych commodification: of the self, of a celebrity, and of a woman.

In the widest view, we live in a society that is increasingly entrepreneurial. It is easier than ever to create a public image of yourself to some advantage, whether that’s an Instagram model advertising a clothing brand, or your friend’s unflattering profile picture suggesting her self-deprecating humor and insouciance. Social media is the perfect medium for painting a public image, ranging from your ‘aesthetic’ to your political views. It’s easy to get lost for a while in this half-fantasized reality in which everything is processed by a dreamy VSCO filter and food looks almost too delectable to eat.

But Kim isn’t an acquaintance Snapchat-storying her latest jaunt to Chipotle. She’s a celebrity, and inherently removed from followers by another layer of unreality. Because Kim inhabits a world so distant—with a Birkin bag painted by George Condo included—it’s easy to view her not as a person, but as a monogrammatic mirage of the modern American Dream.

She created her own ridiculously successful industry using just her identity and her body. But being ubiquitously exposed makes her vulnerable. She holds just as much of herself as she does of her audience—we project our own connotations,

interpretations and insecurities onto her. There is a dichotomy in what she represents as a public figure: she is part her own creation, and part whatever the population commodifies her as. In this latter half, she is a vague notion of wealth, ego, beauty, narcissism, goals, and sex appeal, depending on whom

“

that is so marginalized. Her sexuality is still instrumental, but in a culturally metacognitive way. She utilizes the patriarchy, while it is utilizing the public for capitalistic profit.

Kim Kardashian’s nude selfie is a fiercely feminist act, whether she intended it to be from the outset or not. It refers us

We are the condemnation we project onto her— we are not uncomfortable with Kim, but with the systems she questions and contrasts.

you talk to.

These nebulous reductions often obscure some of the more important things Kim reflects, notably the patriarchy’s gaze. Our projections are, after all, the projections of the more invisible frameworks of society. According to feminist philosopher Judith Butler, we live in what she calls a “heterosexual matrix.”

The body is understood both physically and subconsciously, and the subconscious construction is “defined within the context of the language and with the opportunities brought by it,” as summarized by Neşe Öztimur. The heterosexual matrix discourse limits female sexuality “around the satisfaction of male sexuality, and this makes the female body ‘an object of desire’ for the male.” Simply put: women struggle to retain agency in the way their bodies and actions are perceived.

Their bodies and sexualities are often defined in terms of their instrumental value, rather than being seen as autonomous.

Kim, in posting her nude selfie, is weaving together these three narratives and thus inciting a subliminal layer of discomfort within the public. Why do we care so much about her? Because Kim is selling her self using her celebrity platform, and capitalizing on an image drenched in the associations of the male gaze to retain attention and fame and money.

Her blog published after her selfie reads: “I am empowered by my sexuality. I am empowered by feeling comfortable in my skin… [a]nd I hope that through this platform I have been given, I can encourage the empowerment for girls and women all over the world.” In this way she is subverting the heterosexual matrix, asserting her sexual agency, and calling for others to feel emancipated in the same light. Yet, her entrepreneurial worth relies on the people’s patriarchyinstilled perceptions for profit. She is aware of the value of shock in attracting consumers and uses this to her advantage—we both condemn what she is doing, due to the biases of the gender system, but are also drawn to the liberty in which she portrays something

”

to some of the major underlying maladies of our society. Under its façade as a body-positivity act, it’s about agency connected to self, public self, and female self. Kim Kardashian would not be the face of pop culture if we did not build a society that allowed it. We are the condemnation we project onto her—we are not uncomfortable with Kim, but with the systems she questions and contrasts.

art by Julia Monteith 56

In the 20-Teens

by Laura Kern

In the twenty-teens I learned to drive, gave a speech in front of 4,000 people, and made it into an Ivy League school. Daniel Radcliffe took a selfie with me, and I took a selfie with James Franco. I discovered a love for adventure stories and a hatred for phoniness. I was diagnosed with sciatica and scoliosis, and I decided not to do anything about either one.

I was moon-faced and heavy-set. I had no friends, but one mortal enemy. One night she got drunk and high and wrapped her car around a telephone pole. She killed her best friend’s boyfriend and now reads at a second grade level. I went to a fundraiser for her and friended her mom on Facebook and I told myself it was because I was the bigger person.

I started reading Harry Potter and found friends. I finished reading Harry Potter and found nonfictional ones. Secretly, I still prefer the former.

I joined scholar bowl and math team and cemented my place on the social ladder. I memorized all 26 amendments, learned how to factor, and fell in love with Pythagorean triples—and my locker neighbor. I made friends with a girl who used to be funny, but then got pretty; she told me that my eyes were small, that my stomach was soft, that my hands were manly. I was too afraid of loneliness to cut her off, and she knew it.

I grew eight inches and lost twelve pounds. I cut my hair and bought stylish glasses. I started telling people I listened to better music, and then actually started listening to better music. I met smart, funny people and we played board games and complained about classes together. I moaned with them about Shakespeare, went home, and read Macbeth aloud under my covers. I decided I wanted to become a writer, then a physicist. I took calculus and decided I wanted to become a writer again.

My grandfather died, and I cried with my dog. My dog died, and I cried with everyone.

I wrote “Love is for children” on my legs and sang show tunes in the shower. I clandestinely became obsessed with Disney princesses ten years too late. I cried at fictional weddings. I wrote bitter poems about the ignorance and futility of romance and spat at people holding hands until someone wanted to hold mine. People thought I was intelligent, and I still dread the day they discover otherwise.

A boy at school died, and people asked if I knew him.

I said no, but realized later that I did.

In the twenty-teens, I got my grandmother’s beige Buick Lucerne. I went poor paying for twelve miles per gallon. I was so focused on getting rid of the coffee stains that I missed the ketchup spots. I drove with my windows down on the coldest day of the year because the heater still smelled like her hand lotion. I loved my car.

I watched my friends get drunk. One girl switched shirts with my boyfriend. Everyone woke up the next morning and went to church, except me.

A policeman shot an unarmed boy, and I watched my hometown fracture. Arguments erupted in my English class. People wore black, and others were scared to. I wasn’t allowed to drive at night anymore. Two boys dressed up in headdresses and moccasins for Western Day during Homecoming Week, and someone started a Twitter campaign to rape and beat “these racist fuckin white boys.”

One of the boys was Puerto Rican; the other was half Japanese.

I started dating my best friend of six years. I left for college and we counted the days until I came home again. He cried when we said goodbye, but called me two weeks later to tell me he had met someone else. (It was the girl he switched shirts with.)

I felt lonely among 21,000 other people. I watched The Sound of Music and cried, but I couldn’t figure out why. I told funny stories and no one laughed. I did my own laundry and felt powerful, then spilled iced tea on my last pair of shorts and wrote an essay in my underwear. I dreamed every night that my glasses broke. I hung up two posters of Harrison Ford in my room and wanted yet another. I missed my mom. I called home crying at 2AM and my dad told me I could drop out if I wanted to. I did want to. I do want to.

In the twenty-teens, I discovered myself and was disappointed. I discovered the space between child and adult, disposable and reusable, swimming and drowning. I discovered depression and friendship and self-destruction and love. I discovered the escape of Harrison Ford and Harry Potter and The Walking Dead and Doctor Who and more and more and more in the twenty-teens.

This poem was inspired by the Leonard Michaels poem “In the Fifties.”

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Fictio n

& Po

etry

Daydreams and Occurrences I only see dimples gentle cheeks and secrets I don’t want to keep long stare fog through my tired fingers Mirages they say occur when one thirsts and I was born deep in the desert’s soft curves manger surrounded by crows and vultures I know what remains are but I can’t see light emanates cotton candy hair a halo tulle and a lover’s soft touch Dry dirt beneath my work roughened knees pastel afterimages haunt me still I wasn’t taught to kill but the gauzy blue trance entices me and for the first time I occur

phantom limbs flex my phantom limbs for me tell me that I’m sane touch me where my heart don’t reach exacerbate the pain form me shape me call me good tell me that I’m fine direct my paths and wash my feet I lay me down supine I stare directly at the sun you compliment my tan I’m blinded blonde and having fun you chased me when I ran my fire sizzles drizzles out can the rain wash me clean? like acid burns that open up I scrub at each small seam

by Naroé

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doubting Gödel’s incompleteness theorems

by Cassidy Viser in order to understand you must first have the sense of what systems are they whole or complete do they exist in your mind or outside do they invoke in your imagination in your mind’s eye four walls eight windows or the opposite it is a question of projection not of the numbers but of you of how you are able to move in relation without spinning without distancing the truth from the not truth and why is the parting glance such a sorrow if recursion is implacable i mean almost nebulous how do you then eliminate f if you do not know it i mean it is like a dance it requires you to move backwards when you’ve gone too far forwards step back into proportion into spellbinding meticuluum i mean rather predictably continuum why do you care about the output if your grammatical imprecisions are the output themselves it is a new grammatology a new life-world being-world it is all still but constantly moving you find one f and another falls away in its place methodically doubting itself is that why you want to know it---------- is that why f falls falls falls and how do you then return from this disjunction this occupiable vistresence that is prone to shatter it brings with it all the difficulties of knowing how to know i mean if the propositions are undecidable then how do you decide is it in the decreed falsities where you find the fatal paradox or beyond how is it for you i want to know i want to know it inside and out to step inside the subnumerical vacuum and dance i mean it is so delicate it might break and if that distance can become calculable then tell me what are you

Sonnet 130 Revisited

by Brian Young My love is not a big thing, nor is grand the palpitation and explosion in my heart when our frames are reintroduced.

And, no, our parting wasn’t Shakespearean, nor will our meeting be Odyssean as we are only ourselves. The earth won’t grant to man the vastness of nativity but once, although the seasons birth forever.

Yet there is a new part of me, each day, that is born out of loving you. Compare me to Odysseus and you Penelope, me Juliet, you Romeo we’d never align. Love’s written as it’s spoken with a script deciphered by a union’s math.

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Caribbean Melancholia

by J. Gabriel Gonzalez The wind, I think– when it blows grey and purposefully from the north– rots the left half of mangos, or maybe it drags the petulant grease to the browning horizon where knife struggles against fried pork before Soledad stands a sleepy watch over an anxious city, her hands smudging the veranda railing, swaying a soporific dance, the heaviness in her belly worsened by the weight of the wind and the inescapable feeling that Today was cancelled, for fear of rain.

Lines to a Cockroach Cave

by Melvin Li The surface of water, when disturbed, erupts outward— Fleeing harmoniously in a perfect ring.

The omniscient, efficient, and delicious mountain below Leaps up as if to catch the falling star. Hundreds of millions Of years led to billions of patient mouths, but only The few dozen under the treat can enjoy the best of the day’s prize.

Still others nearby rush to the site and demonstrate The opposite of the rippling effect, creating a small hill On the side of the teeming mound.

Guano, nectar of the heavens, is all the tiniest nymph Ever needs. But even the oldest mother alive Is always glad for a visit to the factory of a lifetime Of sweets. Nothing can replace flesh and passion— The lustful motions of countless mouthparts Make skeletons of small mammals in a matter of hours.

True kissing, however, is for asses, which when rubbed Together on occasion, Yield more young eaters for company.

These grow upon the rising mountain, shedding Their shells and learning the best drop zones on the slope.

The six-legged tubes live to share, eating shit and Shitting for others to eat. When finished they simply rest And are often swallowed up by neighbors. The rejected Join the skeletons underneath thickening layers of life, Lust, and litter to be crushed to dust.

There is no progress unless one goes by mound height Which in theory should rise with the Screeching ceiling.

Otherwise there is the cycle of corpse-eating that Leads to corpses. The essence of a single being, After being eaten, moved, and eaten may make its way Around the entire cave in a few generations.

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thank you!

Professor Liz Karns

Phoebe Brown JOE SHELTON and Cayuga Press Michael Koch, our trusted advisor The Student Assembly Finance Commission Georgia O’Keeffe, for the lovely watercolors

art by Kasten Searles

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