The Pioneer Newspaper April 7, 2016

THE PIONEER Covering the East Bay community since 1961

California State University, East Bay

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THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

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Suspects arrested in Hayward home invasion SEE OPINION PAGE 4

LETTER FROM THE NEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SEE SPORTS PAGE 9

KAEPERNICK ON HIS WAY OUT OF SAN FRANCISCO

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NEWS

ASI proposes CSUEB’s first African American resource center

By Ruoxi Bi & Michael White

By Louis LaVenture EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

By Ian-James Vitaga

ly-targeted poverty alleviation program,” said DeVaro. “There’s winners and losers and the winners aren’t necessarily the people you want to be helping.”

California’s minimum wage may surpass most of the states in the country, 44 of which are $9 minimum wage or below, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, but it isn’t the only one to make the jump to $15. On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a law that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 over time, according to a news release by the New York State’s governor office. However, the increases would differ for employees working in specific counties, cities and for small or large businesses, while California’s would

Driving down the entrance to the overflow parking on the corner of Harder and Loop roads is smooth, until your car physically enters the lot.

As soon as your tires touch the rocky road, a pothole greets you.

If you washed your car recently, prepare for the dust clouds that are kicked up all day long by drivers pulling in and out of the lot to eventually coat your vehicle completely. Finding a parking spot is a slow roundabout of guessing where you will fit best — you have to estimate the space between vehicles since there are no painted guidelines.

Like me, you might even be scared of popping a tire by the sound of the rocks crumpling beneath them as you creep through the lot.

Furthermore, the warning “All vehicles must be out by 5:00 p.m.” means that if you have a night class that runs later, at some point you will have to move your car. The lot doesn’t have overhead lights and it becomes difficult to navigate in the dark.

I’ve witnessed people slip almost every day while walking and I am guilty of it too. In spite of all this, it’s the closest parking lot to Meiklejohn Hall and a savior when the other lots are full. Given all this, my question is simple: why not pave it?

It’s been here a while. The overflow was converted from a soccer practice field in 2014 to provide extra parking for the first two hectic weeks of a quarter, according to Derrick Lobo, manager of parking services at Cal State East Bay. Each time a new quarter starts, students fill up all of the general parking lots when trying to find their classes, get their books and buy their parking permits. To accommodate the parking demand, the overflow lot became open year-round because so many students use it.

It would have been most logical to pave this lot at the same time that parking lots A and B were upgraded, but that didn’t happen.

“There is no plan to pave the overflow parking lot. There would need to be Environmental Impact Studies done,” said Lobo. “[This study] deals with storm drains and current bioswales which remove silt and pollution from runoff water on the surface and lead into the bay.” Anytime an infrastructure development is proposed, it is required by law to have an assessment of the positive and negative impacts the project will have on the environment.

Even though we have to stick with the rocky road for now, we are not completely out of luck.

The lot is going to be upgraded right after graduation in the spring, according to the parking department.

It will be extended from 220 to 320 spaces, potholes will be filled and wooden logs are going to be put in place to designate parking spaces because painted parking lines typically don’t last longer than a week, according to Lobo. Development for this first

SEE WAGES PAGE 8

SEE OPINION PAGE 4

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HAYWARD POLICE DEPARTMENT

Jordan Walker, left, and Anthony Gonzalez were charged in connection with a kidnapping and home invasion robbery in Hayward on March 24. Both suspects are expected to appear in Hayward court on April 18. da Accord with five occupants flee the scene at a high rate of speed. Officers attempted to pull the vehicle over but the driver did not yield, and eventually lost control, crashing on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Myrtle Street in North Hayward, according to the Hayward Police Department.

Walker, Gonzalez and the unidentified third male suspect fled the vehicle on foot while the two female suspects stayed in the car. The only information about the two females provided by HPD was their cities of residence, Palo Alto and Redwood City, respectively.

HPD Sgt. Tasha DeCosta said these aren’t usually random acts and they have reason to believe that the residence may have been targeted for drugs.

Officers found two guns in the vehicle and another firearm in a bush near the location where the accident occurred. Two of the recovered firearms were taken from the residence. All three victims at the residence, including the kidnapping victim, denied medical attention but are cooperating with the HPD investigation, according to DeCosta.

All four suspects are currently being held at Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin.

Gonzalez will appear at the Hayward Hall of Justice on April 18 at 9 a.m. and Walker will appear in court on April 20 at 9 a.m.

According to the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, both men will make pleas after they are arraigned and Gonzalez will have a follow up proceeding for a motion to set bail.

California minimum wage to hit $15 by 2022

By Kali Persall

SEE OPINION PAGE 4

Dread the overflow lot: Rocky road to student parking CONTRIBUTOR

Of the five suspects under suspicion of home invasion, evasion of officers and assault with a deadly weapon, four were detained and two were charged with up to seven different crimes.

This bizarre scene unfolded in Hayward on March 24 leaving one suspect still at large and two female suspects’ names and possible charges private, according to the Hayward Police Department. Police identified two of the suspects as Jordan Walker, a 22-yearold Oakland resident and Anthony Gonzalez, a 24-year-old from San Leandro.

Walker was charged with seven crimes, and Gonzalez with six, most of which were felonies and included robbery, kidnapping to commit robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and evading officers.

The HPD confirmed that sometime after 10 p.m., five suspects in a Honda Accord kidnapped a man at Harder Road and Franklin Avenue in South Hayward. They then drove to the Plaza Verde apartment complex on Berry Avenue less than a quarter mile away, where two men and a woman were inside a residence. Multiple suspects in the Honda entered the unit with a gun and assaulted the men, taking money, electronics, jewelry and a small amount of marijuana, according to HPD. A neighbor heard the disturbance and called 911. When HPD arrived on the scene at 11:55 p.m., they saw a Hon-

CONTRIBUTORS Members of Cal State East Bay’s student government passed a resolution earlier this year to create an African American Resource Center on campus, which is set to provide academic support to African American students.

“The resource center is targeting African American students at CSUEB because they are disproportionately doing worse than any other races [on] this campus in terms of academic performance and retention rate,” Luis Cardenas, vice president of External Affairs for Associated Students, Inc., told The Pioneer.

Cardenas drafted this project after reading a December 2015 Pioneer Newspaper article that addressed the Blackout Movement. East Bay Blackout is a new student collective formed at CSUEB that is not yet considered a club but whose members are concerned with the quality of support and educational development for Black students on campus.

“Many students from African American community are addressing a few but very important issues,” Cardenas said. “They feel they don’t belong to the university, or the student quality or the education wasn’t really for them. So then I realized that I have to take an action as a student government leader.”

Cardenas believes the African American Resource Center will be up and running by the end of this year or next year and will likely be placed in a vacant office in the library or in the Student & Faculty Support Building.

According to the official resolution distributed to the university in January, the Resource Center aims to focus on the academic development and success of African American

Spring 2016 Issue 1

MANAGING EDITOR The people have spoken and legislators listened, finalizing a California law that will set the minimum wage bar high for the rest of the country.

On Monday Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that will increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 dollars by 2022. The state minimum wage is currently $10 and is one of the highest in the country.

In some California cities, it is higher.

In 2014, voters passed Proposition J to raise the minimum wage in San Francisco incrementally to $15 by 2018, according to the City of San Francisco’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement. It is currently $12.25 and will increase to $13 on July 1, 2016.

The new law was set in motion by a compromise between labor unions and legislators on March 26, according to the Associated Press. The law will take effect next year, increasing 50 cents on Jan. 1, 2017 and will reach $11 in 2018.

It will rise one dollar each year after, until it hits $15 in 2022, according to the Governor’s office. Businesses with 26 or more employees will be immediately subject to these terms, however those with 25 or fewer employees will have extended time to phase in the increases.

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, authored the statewide legislation last year as SB 3, which originally proposed to raise the minimum wage to $13 by 2017 but stalled in the assembly due to a lack of support. Leno told the Associated Press that the new legislation emerged as a development of that bill.

“My strong support for a statewide minimum wage that raises California families, women and children out of poverty is unshakeable,” Leno told the Sacramento Bee last year. California is currently home to approximately 7 million hourly workers, of which 2.2 million earn minimum wage, according to the

governor’s press release.

According to Jed DeVaro, Department of Management professor and Chair of Economics at East Bay, lowwage workers and their employers will be affected the most by the minimum wage increase, but not necessarily in a positive way. Small businesses may take a hit as production costs rise and California will likely see cutbacks in employee hours, a shortage of jobs as employers become reluctant to hire and even some businesses being forced to close because they can’t afford to pay the increased wages.

“If we go back probably 25 years, this was an area on which economists agreed that it [minimum wage] wasn’t a very good idea,” said DeVaro.

DeVaro explained that minimum wage laws stem from good intentions, with the main goal to help those living in poverty rise out of it, but they are poorly targeted. However, since higher minimum wages can discourage businesses from hiring new employees, the people the law is meant to help are often the ones negatively impacted. Current job-holders and low income workers who still live with their parents in high income households, like students, will be the ones who benefit, according to DeVaro.

“The problem is, it’s a very poor-

GRAPHIC BY TAM DUONG JR./THE PIONEER

2 OPINION

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER EDITORIAL STAFF

Trump dominates the GOP in a racist America

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Louis LaVenture

louis.laventure@csueastbay.edu

MANAGING EDITOR

Kali Persall kali.persall@csueastbay.edu

COPY EDITOR

Wendy Medina wendy.medina@csueastbay.edu

ONLINE AND SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

Casey Peuser casey.peuser@csueastbay.edu

VISUAL EDITOR

Tam Duong Jr. tam.duong@csueastbay.edu

ILLUSTRATOR

Crystal Jeffers crystal.jeffers@csueastbay.edu

STAFF WRITERS

Erik Khan erik.khan@csueastbay.edu

Elizabeth Avalos elizabeth.avalos@csueastbay.edu

VISUAL JOURNALISTS

Kristiana Federe kristiana.federe@csueastbay.edu

Melody Platt melody.platt@csueastbay.edu

SPANISH EDITOR

Pavel Radostev Pushina pavel.radostevpushina@csueastbay.edu

EDITORIAL PRODUCTION ASSISTANT ILLUSTRATION BY CRYSTAL JEFFERS/THE PIONEER

Gilbert Antón gilbert.anton@csueastbay.edu

By Sean McCarthy CONTRIBUTOR Good morning America.

It was sunshine and warm weather in Hawaii and Mississippi when Donald Trump won three more states, and their delegates along with them, during the presidential primaries. However, in California, Vermont and Oregon, the weather remains cold, rainy and drab: the liberal states appear to cry for the nation as we inch closer and closer to a Donald Trump nomination.

The Democratic Party has consistently engaged in meaningful debates.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have been fighting dirty, constantly hitting each other below the belt with insults involving each other’s wives. Trump will lose against either Democratic candidate because in regard to a solid political policy, he has nothing to show. However, his rise to power showcases the racism still prevalent in America.

Trump is a force to be reckoned with.

He won three states, tied with Cruz on another and lost Ohio, John Kasich’s home state. He has won 736 delegates in 20 out of the 30 primary elections, according to The New York Times. Trump needs 1,237 delegates to secure the Republican nomination.

Trump is originally from New York, so if he wins in his home state, it will widen his lead considerably. “If I win New York, [the election] is over,” Trump said in an interview with The Hill Newspaper on Jan. 6.

Cruz is the only real competition left in the race. However, he is toast if his losing streak continues.

Kasich should have dropped out of the race by now, but hasn’t. He won Ohio but that is sure to be his only victory.

He has yet to win in any other states and that is unlikely to change, due to Trump’s popularity.

Trump will become the GOP nominee. He is charismatic and he is rich, really rich. “Rich people think about money logically, while average people see money through the eyes of emotion,” wrote Steve Siebold in his book “How Rich People Think.” Some Americans look at the trillions of dollars of national debt the U.S. has accrued and feel the urge to elect a leader who can rectify the situation. However, it is naïve to believe that Trump is a great businessman simply because he is rich.

Time Magazine listed Trump’s top 10 business failures in April of 2011, which included his acquisition of Trump Airlines for $365 million in 1990. He added maple-wood veneer to the floors, chrome seat-belt latches and gold-colored bathroom fixtures. In 1992, the airline was seen as too extravagant and the soaring gas prices of the pre-Gulf War era caused the business to fail. Subsequently, Trump defaulted on his loans.

Trump’s campaign is focused on barring Muslims from entering the country, deporting 11 million illegal Mexicans from the U.S. and building a wall on the border, which “Mexico will pay for.” With idiotic and racist policies like those, it is no surprise that uneducated

White people support Trump. He plans to keep his supporters stupid. At a Tea Party convention in South Carolina in January 2015, he stated that as president he would cut funding to the Department of Education.

Ninety-one percent of Trump supporters are White and more than half of Trump-backers are female. Of those people, half are between the ages of 45 and 65, 34 percent are 65 or older and only two percent are younger than 30.

Half of his voters have a high-school diploma or less, and only 19 percent have a college degree, according to a study conducted by Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank based out of Stanford. Eighty percent support the ban on Muslims from entering the country, 70 percent support the right to possess a confederate flag, 38 percent wish the south won and 16 percent believe Whites are superior, according to a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling in South Carolina. The PPP use voter registration information and purchase sample lists, which link voter registrations to phone numbers.

Former Grand Wizard David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan pledged the support of the KKK to Trump, which he would not deny on national television.

Duke still has a strong voice in the realm of White supremacists nationwide although he is no longer the leader of the KKK. Duke is also known for his failed attempts to become the President of the United States in 1988 and 1992. Duke was the precursor to Trump, a social

figure who believed that being famous was enough to qualify a candidate to become POTUS and planned to bring back a segregated America. Trump disassociated himself from Duke on Twitter in February, according to U.S. News and World Report reporter Gabrielle Levy.

Trump understands that many of his older white voters do not use Twitter, so they couldn’t have seen him disavow Duke. These viewers will continue to believe that Trump has no problem with the KKK. Trump is also supported by the following white supremacist groups: The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi news site, American Renaissance, a white supremacist magazine, League of the South, a white supremacist secessionist group and the National Policy Institute, which promotes the “heritage, identity, and future of European people,” said Daniel Marans and Kim Bellware in the Huffington Post in August 2015.

Trump does not do well against his Democratic counterparts. In a poll of 920 people conducted by CNN from Feb. 24 to 27, the participants said Clinton would beat Trump in the presidential election 52 percent to 44 percent and Sanders would edge Trump 55 percent to 43 percent.

As long as the Democratic Party avoids any major scandal, Trump stands no chance of becoming president. Trump embodies the racism that plagues our country and holds us back from making America great again.

Marina Swanson marina.swanson@csueastbay.edu

FACULTY ADVISOR

Gary Moskowitz gary.moskowitz@csueastbay.edu

FACULTY COORDINATOR

Dr. Katherine Bell kate.bell@csueastbay.edu

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OPINION 3

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

Stop pinning women against each other on social media

By Elizabeth Avalos STAFF WRITER In the current digital age we live in, social media reigns over most of our lives. We convince our online following that we are the protagonists of a perfect life, and we subtly but voluntarily compete with each other through the way we portray ourselves on our personal online accounts.

But for some, especially girls and women, digital-era competition has become less voluntary, more imposed and primarily based on appearance. The Ayesha Curry versus Kim Kardashian comparison that recently swept the Internet serves as a pivotal example of how social media, and the media in general, pin women against each other.

Golden State Warrior and current NBA MVP Stephen Curry has been in the limelight the past few seasons and his “perfect” wife Ayesha and their children have also captured the attention of many. Last December, Curry tweeted about her personal preference of “keeping her stuff covered up for the one who matters” when she steps out of the house.

A few months later, in early March, Kardashian tweeted a naked full-frontal selfie where she placed black censor bars over her intimate parts. Neither one of them directly targeted the other, but the Internet was quick to compare the two posts and women involved.

Both of these women clearly present themselves very differently in public and statements along the lines of “we have too many Kims in this world, and not enough Ayesha’s” bounce around

from Twitter to Instagram accounts daily. Both women have become the standard of high and low, to which the average woman is compared on all major social media platforms.

This type of social media-instigated competition is not a new or strange phenomenon. In the music industry, Adele can hardly enjoy a certain level of success without the media bringing Taylor Swift’s album sales into the mix, under headlines that state that the success of one makes the other look like a “nobody.” In the entertainment business, headlines often tell us how “jealous” Kylie Jenner is of big sister Kendall for her ongoing success in the modeling industry.

Just last week, two of our nation’s current presidential candidates engaged in a “Twitter war” after Donald Trump retweeted a picture of an unflattering shot of Ted Cruz’s wife next to a glamour shot of his own wife, agreeing with the caption on the photo that read, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

For critics on social media, the degree to which Curry and Kardashian are being compared has very little to do with their personal success and very much to do with how they choose to dress — or not dress — in this particular case. This is the larger issue with this comparison game.

How these women choose to dress does not define them. How these women choose to raise their children does not make one better than the other.

How these women choose to embrace their sexuality does not determine their worth or their value as females.

Both of these “types” of women can coexist without the world having to

choose which one is better. Society shouldn’t have to put one down in order to praise the other or lose its mind every time one makes a decision that others don’t agree with.

In 2012, Time magazine reported that female bullies target other females in the workforce 70 percent of the time.

It becomes harder to support our female colleagues and peers when we are constantly told that women are our biggest competition simply because of our shared anatomy. Workplace bullying or competition in relation to appearance may vary from place to place, but the need to compete with one another is born long before a woman enters the workplace.

Many girls and women have close friends that do things much differently than they do. They make different clothing and makeup choices and they have different role models. But just because one wears a longer skirt or shows less cleavage does not mean that one is more deserving of respect than the other. More importantly, a woman is not limited to identifying herself as an “Ayesha” or a “Kim.” I am neither.

When social media tries to pin women against women, they are pinning women against their friends, coworkers and colleagues, among others, and it is tiresome. I never signed up for it and I am sure I can speak for most women when I say that unless I am competing with someone for a job, a promotion or in a soccer match, I want no part in it.

There is enough success to go around for all.

There seems to be something about women empowering each other that bother many, but becoming aware of

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID MELCHOR DIAZ/FLICKR

The media creates competition between women who didn’t sign up for it. the division among us that is constantly being encouraged is a great place to start fighting back. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a male-dominated world is what has lead women to successfully create change in the past.

Voting rights were not accomplished through catfights with one another, and our ongoing fight for equality in the workplace will not be either. We will always be stronger together than we will be apart.

New people-rating application: Hurtful or harmless?

By Kali Persall MANAGING EDITOR When I first heard about “Peeple,” the app notoriously dubbed “Yelp for humans,” the app hadn’t even been launched yet, and the talk wasn’t positive. Let’s face it, an app that allows users to rate and review employers, exes, coworkers and anyone else they know, similarly to how one would rate a restaurant or dentist through the business review platform Yelp, is sure to attract a fair amount of criticism.

On March 7, the free app officially launched in the Apple store. An active Facebook account, a smart phone and a cell phone number are all that a user needs to write a public review about anyone they want. If that makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone.

According to CEO Julia Cordray, to review someone on Peeple, you would first clarify his or her relationship to you as being either personal, professional or romantic. Next, you can write a review on the person, which will then be published to their profile, pending their approval of it.

Reviews that aren’t approved by the reviewee won’t be published, but they don’t completely disappear either. A paid upgrade in development called the “Truth License” would unlock every review about a person, even the one’s they choose to hide, for a projected price of $0.99 a month, according to Cordray.

If someone is not on the app, you can invite them through Facebook messenger or text, which is where a Facebook account, smart phone and cell number come in. If that person chooses not to join Peeple, the reviews will never go live and can never be accessed, even through use of the Truth License, according to Cordray.

Based out of Calgary Alberta, Canada, “Peeple” is the brainchild of Cordray and Nicole McCullough, friends who initially devised the concept in April 2014 as a more efficient process to connect with people in their personal and professional lives.

The developers touted Peeple as a “positivity app” on their website, with the purpose of showcasing people’s positive attributes, but The Washington Post was quick to call it “terrifying” and dubbed it as the “Internet’s Most Hated App.” According to Peeple, over 15,000 users signed up within a week of it’s debut in the Apple store and has received extensive media coverage. However, not all publicity is good publicity.

Social media pages for the app display a perpetual barrage of angry, insulting comments that brand Cordray as a liar and even a criminal. Entire Twitter pages, such as @PeopleagainstPeeple, were created for the sole purpose of bashing the app, and the developer has even received death threats.

Peeple has sparked a violent hurricane of hostility and outrage in the media that has snowballed dangerously.

When targets are painted on the backs of the developers themselves, it’s safe to say that a line has been crossed.

I’m still on the fence. I think the intentions behind the app are good and there’s potential for it to enhance users’ reputations, if used constructively. Cordray should be applauded for her innovation, and at the very least should be spared the hostility.

On the other hand, people on the internet are not inherently kind, as suggested by Cordray, who optimistically thinks people will use the app to uplift, rather than bully each other. The death threats and hate mail she has received in response to the app is a testimony to the human capacity for cruelty.

Is she naive, as talk show host Dr. Phil suggested in an interview prior to the app’s release, or is she on to something?

I am also concerned about what this signifies for the future of our connectivity. If humans, in all our complexities, can be summed up by a single emoji representing a good, bad or neutral experience as the app allows, aren’t we taking away value from that person, rather than adding to it?

The original prototype proposed a five-star rating system, granted users the ability to create accounts for others and prohibited users from deactivating their accounts. In response to severe backlash regarding these features, Peeple pushed the launch of the app back six months and added additional safety buffers, according to Cordray.

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“This is not a bullying app,” said Cordray. “We don’t tolerate any sort of bullying or irresponsible recommendations.”

According to Cordray, the worst thing that can happen is that a user receives a single bad recommendation, for which they can take immediate action to have removed or reported. No longer is there an estimated 48-hour waiting period for a response from developers. Action is instantaneous.

Currently, the app is 100 percent opt-in, meaning nobody can create an account for you, and users have full control over what is posted to their profiles. They can delete recommendations, block and report users and deactivate their accounts.

Cordray clarified that app users have to be 17 and older to download it through the app store, verified by the information supplied on your Apple ID. There’s no official way to enforce this, of course, as anyone can provide a false birthdate, but that’s nothing new; the same can be done on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Even though the privacy safeguards of social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram aren’t very different, the consensus seems to be that these protection policies should be more stringent for an app that operates solely on the premise of rating other people.

While I applaud Cordray’s innovation and agree with the positive idea behind the app, I still feel that the process needs

to be refined.

Will employers be more likely to pass up someone who has a negative review on their profile before giving them an interview? Will screening potential dates or new friends before meeting them become the norm? Will the “Truth License” do as people have suggested, sell privacy at a cheap price?

On the other hand, this could be an extremely useful tool for navigating college life. As a transfer student who started at Cal State East Bay in September, I had to start from scratch. No friends to clue me in about their favorite and least favorite professors or tutors on campus.

Peeple could have made my transition a lot easier and in the post-college process of job-hunting or applying to graduate school or internships, recommendations are key. A stockpile of positive reviews certainly doesn’t hurt.

“Think of your character as a new form of currency,” Cordray told The Pioneer. “Your character and the way you show yourself in this world is more important than a resume.”

Peeple is designed to strengthen the connection between humans. But I wonder, if people judge each other by ratings rather than a personal connection, does the app have the potential to kill relationships before they even start? When the quality of a human is quantified through an app, we seem to be moving dangerously further from the human connection and closer to total dependency on a Wi-Fi connection.

4 OPINION

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

Letter from the Editor

By Louis LaVenture EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Dear Readers, The first thing I would like to do as Editor-in-Chief of the Cal State East Bay student newspaper is thank the previous editors I have worked with at The Pioneer: Shannon Stroud, Tiffany Jones and Yousuf Fahimuddin. I was able to learn things from them that allowed me to gain the valuable experience that was necessary for me to step into my new

position.

My promise to our readers is to produce relevant, quality content for our print, online and social media platforms that go beyond the surface. We would like to make The Pioneer a go-to, credible source for all things East Bay and beyond. To accomplish this we’ve created a stringent editorial process to ensure that we will push the envelope when it comes to journalism, whether it is through words or visuals.

However, in order to do this we need your help.

I write this letter at a dire time for print journalism, which seems to be con-

stantly shifting its focus to online and social media. This was made extremely evident on Monday when six local Bay Area newspapers merged into two, which resulted in a loss of more than 40 journalism jobs locally. So I urge you to let us know what you want covered. Help us produce the content you want to see by contacting us via email, phone, or in person at our pitch meetings every Monday at 4 p.m., which are open to anybody who wants to contribute.

We want to be a voice for the community and cover things that are happening now and affecting East Bay communities and citizens. I encourage any and all

of you to let us know how we are doing so we can continue to progress as a publication and an organization.

Outreach and inclusion will be a huge part of the focus from our new leadership at The Pioneer. Every Thursday when our print issue comes out, make sure to look for The Pioneer Newspaper table on our Hayward campus. This will give us vital connections and input from students, faculty and staff that we hope will eventually develop into relationships that can increase the value of our content.

If you can’t attend our meetings, I encourage you to reach out to us on Face-

book, Twitter and Instagram so we can get feedback on what you want to see.

We will continue to progress online as well by producing more videos and informational visual content to accompany well-reported stories. Help us stay on top of all things East Bay so we can continue to provide you with high quality journalism. Thank you for your time and support.

Sincerely, Louis LaVenture

Cover up your bodies ladies, show off your brain

By Vanessa Pineda CONTRIBUTOR

On March 8, Kim Kardashian posted another shameless naked selfie with the hashtag “Happy #InternationalWomen’sDay.” As she posed in front of a mirror, all that could be seen was her naked body. Her nipples and a small portion of her pelvic area were censored by two little black boxes.

International Women’s Day is celebrated annually to recognize the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It also reminds people that progress has slowed in many places across the world and further action is needed to accelerate gender parity.

Women’s History Month in March honors the accomplishments of great women and the ones that are still to come.

Kardashian did not leave much to the

imagination, as you could tell she was fully unclothed. Contrary to what some may think, posing naked on social media is not a form of feminism. Let’s call it what it is: showing off your body to get attention in order to get more likes. This should not be hidden behind the guise of feminism.

On social media, young women and underaged girls post provocative pictures, sometimes in lingerie and thongs or with nothing on at all. We see pictures of excess cleavage in a bra and even girls lying nude in their bed. It is everywhere.

Some artists like Nicki Minaj show off their bodies and are viewed as sex objects. In an online interview on YouTube posted in 2015, Minaj said that she doesn’t want girls to see the “Anaconda” music video and think, “let me go and shake my ass.” But for much of the video, Minaj is either bent over in a thong, twerking or giving a lap dance to rap

artist Drake. In the interview she continued to say her biggest concern is that her fans are educated. Minaj is sending the wrong message. When young girls who idolize her see that video, they copy what she does. They do not think about education, instead they think about getting attention for their assets.

Women pose for attention or to gain notoriety as sex symbols, but this doesn’t make sense to me. Women should not sell their souls for attention. Women should be valued for their intelligence and independence. Men don’t have to take off their clothes to be respected or valued; if women want to be equal, they should be held to the same standard. International Women’s Day is about equality between men and women.

Feminists fight against the patriarchy to show they are powerful just like men.

The first wave of feminism was about the injustice women faced with voting

and property ownership. The second wave emphasized how women faced sexism and patriarchy in their personal lives and the third wave focused on the individual. Some say that the Internet may have sparked a fourth wave of feminism online. The new wave, like the ones before, challenges misogyny and sexism portrayed in advertising, film, literature, media, and more through the Internet and social media.

There is nothing wrong when women pose nude for a micropolitical statement. For example, women pose nude to highlight body diversity, or breast cancer survivors pose nude to inspire other women who are facing the same battles.

When done right, posing naked can be a form of activism for a greater purpose.

Just posting a naked picture to be flattered is not the same. Showing off your body to the world is unacceptable for men and women. I would not want

my future husband to pose nude, just as he wouldn’t want the mother of his children to pose nude. Our nudity is a private matter.

There’s always this different standard for women and men. Women are constantly judged for their appearance, especially when they lead a life in the public eye. Hillary Clinton is criticized for how she looks and what she wears, but Bernie Sanders escapes those judgements. If women want to be empowered and taken seriously, we must rely on our intelligence and hard work, rather than our looks.

Regardless of what is portrayed in the media or what celebrities or models you see posing naked, do not fall into that trap of objectification. Kardashian did not honor National Women’s Day with her selfie. Posing naked for media popularity is not a statement of first, second, or any other wave of feminism.

NEWS

Center From Page 1

students by providing specialized academic advising, student-to student and student-to-mentor programs and scholarship opportunities.

ASI has not allocated a budget to fund the center, nor have they determined an exact opening date. That will be up to a task force, which has not yet been formed. The proposed African American Resource Center will also be open to students from any other races and ethnicities.

According to a ranking of four-year public universities by The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Almanac published during winter 2015, CSUEB is the fifth most diverse university in the nation.

According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the national average graduation rate of African American college and university students is 42 percent, compared to 62 percent for white students.

The Journal also said over the past seven years, the Black graduation rate has improved in almost all of the nation’s highest-ranked universities. In California, there has been a major improvement at the University of California, Berkeley over the past decade; since 1993 it has increased from 51 to 70 percent.

Similar improvements in Black student graduation rates have also occurred at UCLA. The Journal stated that UCLA’s graduation rate improved by more than 13 percentage points from 1998 to 2005.

East Bay’s sister schools, CSU Fullerton, CSU Long Beach, CSU Poly Pomona, CSU Northridge, CSU San Marcos, and San Jose State, already have, or are working, to establish an African American resource center, or similar programs.

Parking From Page 1

improvement is scheduled to start after spring quarter and is projected to be finished before the start of fall quarter 2017. It will cost approximately $139,000 dollars.

According to Lobo, there are future plans to build additional housing units near the Pioneer Housing residence halls and on the current site of the overflow lot.

They will reportedly be built with a parking structure near lot C1.

As for the time limit on the parking lot, the 5 p.m. cap is due to a lack of proper lighting, poor

“CSU Poly Pomona has only four percent of student body as African American and they have an African American resource center,” Cardenas said. “We have 11 percent African American population but we do not have African-American-focused resource center.”

ASI also wants East Bay to increase its hiring of diverse faculty, staff and administrators to reflect the diverse student population.

“I’ve had my first Black professor this year and I’m graduating in the spring and I’ve been here for four years,” Michelle Fletcher, a member of Naturally Me, a club focused on Black art, health and historically Black Greek Letter Organizations, told The Pioneer in December 2015. “That within itself says a lot.”

ASI also wants to improve the cultural, racial awareness and understanding of all staff and faculty members.

“Our faculty does not reflect the student body in terms of diversity,” said Cardenas.

“And also the lack of diversity sensitivity training on behalf of the faculty and staff.” Cardenas explained that ASI’s goal is to help every staff and faculty member understand African American culture and community, so they can support and interact with students more efficiently. They are also working to increase the population of African American faculty with the ultimate goal of hiring diverse faculty, staff and administrators to reflect the student population.

According to Cardenas, when he introduced the plan to the External Affairs committee, about 65 students turned out to show support for creating the African American Student Resource Center. Then it went to the Board of Directors where another 70 students showed up and supported the resolution.

patrol visibility and general safety concerns, according to the University Police Department. However in summer, the sun goes down well after 5 p.m., so the cap should be moved accordingly to accommodate the students who have late-night classes.

There are measures that need to be taken in order to pave the overflow lot, but students pay a minimum of $6,000 dollars for tuition per academic year at East Bay, according to the CSU Budget Office.

The money from students should be put toward improving services and other resources on campus that serve students best, like paving this lot that students use everyday in order to make it less dangerous and more accessible.

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THE PIONEER

Anna with her box of medicine that she must prepare and take every day.

Anna is asleep on the couch, still in the clothes she wore to dialysis. She made it up the flight of stairs and could not make it to her bedroom to change.

Anna understands that popcorn is not healthy for her, but it is better than if she ate candy and drank soda. She finds it difficult to change her lifestyle.

Dealing with Dialysis

By Sean McCarthy CONTRIBUTOR

My mother, Anna, has had diabetes for more than 15 years; she has been a dialysis patient for the last six years. In the years since she first started dialysis, she has slowed down tremendously. Growing up, my mom was always the life of the party. She made everybody laugh, smile and want to stay by her side. Our family loves her; she is the heart and soul. She has the soul of a saint, always seeing the best in people and giving to those in need. She still has an amazing personality, but she has been sapped of her playful spirit. My greatest fear is that she will never see her future grandchildren. She may never see me graduate from college. She is the only person in our family with an O+ blood type, which limits who can donate a kidney to her.

In the United States, 650,000 people undergo dialysis as a result of kidney failure every year, according to

Anna must lean on something in order to regain her composure and breath. She takes a few breaks when walking small distances.

UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine. Kidney failure can stem from different types of disease, but diabetes accounts for 44 percent of all kidney failure patients, according to UCSF. Diabetes is a disease that causes a person’s blood sugar to rise to extremely high levels. When the body doesn’t produce enough insulin to break down the sugar consumed, the spike ensues. As a result, patients have to undergo dialysis, a process where doctors take liters of fluid out of the patient’s body and reinsert the fluids. This procedure is very invasive to the body and can either be treated overnight, or in more serious situations, at a dialysis center, according to the American Diabetes Association.

More than 100,000 Americans are currently on the kidney transplant list but less than 20,000 kidneys are donated annually. You do not need to be a doctor to save a life. You can sign up to become an organ donor at OrganDonor.gov and save the lives of many other people in the event that you pass away.

PHOTOS BY SEAN MCCARTHY/THE PIONEER

Anna sits up and waits for a while. She cannot stand up quickly, otherwise she gets lightheaded and can pass out.

NEWS 7

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

Crude oil by rail a possibility in Benicia

By Kali Persall and Vanessa Pineda MANAGING EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTOR

A controversial proposal by the Valero oil refinery that would bring in thousands of tons of crude oil a day has some Benicia residents seriously questioning whether it’s time to peel the “It’s Better in Benicia” bumper stickers from the backs of their cars and relocate.

Originally proposed in 2013, the project would bring 70,000 barrels of crude oil into the Benicia oil refinery facility by roughly 100 railroad tank cars daily. It would not increase the amount of crude currently brought to the refinery through pipeline and marine vessels, but instead would replace 81 percent of the oil imported by ship. According to Valero, the refinery can process up to 170,000 barrels of oil per day.

Trains have been known to derail, and in cases where crude oil was on board, have killed people, ruined the environment and destroyed the value of entire towns. Benicia residents are divided on whether the transportation developments are necessary and worth the risk to the environment.

The Benicia City Council heard Valero’s appeal for the project on March 15, which was initially rejected the city planning commission, after four nights of hearings and public comment, on Feb. 11 where over 145 people signed up to speak, according to Amy Million, principal planner of the city. The planning commission reviewed the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) before unanimously concluding that the potential risks to the environment in the event of a derailment or unloading accident were too significant to justify approval.

After hearing Valero’s appeal a month later, the city council is currently deliberating whether or not to approve the crude by rail project.

Three proposed possible train routes between the Southern California border, Roseville and Benicia would follow the Union Pacific railroad and pass through various cities throughout the state before arriving in Benicia. According to the Revised Draft EIR, project-related train traffic on the train routes would generate nitrogen oxide emissions that could turn into ozone, which could exceed air quality standards in air districts along

PHOTO BY KALI PERSALL/THE PIONEER

The Valero oil refinery in Benicia waits to hear whether the city will approve its proposal to bring in 70,000 barrels of oil daily by train. the routes. This is considered one of the 11 significant unmitigatable impacts on which the planning commission based its decision to deny the proposal.

Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) is a poisonous gas and air pollutant that is emitted by automobiles, industrial sources and fuels that contain nitrogen, such as oil, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. When mixed with volatile chemicals in the presence of sunlight, it can form ozone, also known as smog; a gas that can cause serious respiratory damages when inhaled. According to the EPA, ozone can cause coughing, throat irritation and even reduce lung function, and is one of two pollutants that pose the greatest threat to human health in this country.

Fifty nine letters opposing the project were published in the final EIR, many containing concerns about the harmful effects that rail transportation could have on the environment. Valero’s crude by rail project was proposed shortly after a 74-car freight train carrying crude oil derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, a town of roughly 6,000. Forty-seven people were killed and nearly 6 million liters of oil seeped into the land, water and atmosphere during the fire that ensued, according to the Montre-

al Gazette. Many residents are worried that a similar disaster could occur in Benicia, a city of roughly 28,000.

“I have a two-year-old grandchild and I worry how this will affect him,” said 16-year Benicia resident Beverly Edmonds, 67. “Will he be living in this lovely place or a toxic, decimated shell of a town or will his health be affected by toxic fumes or the effects of a rail disaster?”

According to Mario Giuliani, the city’s economic development manager, oil refineries were the city’s saving grace when the Benicia Arsenal, a military reservation next to the Suisun Bay, closed down due to lack of funding and employment opportunities in the early 1960’s. According to the city of Benicia, the arsenal was a staging area for several wars and employed thousands of people before its closure in 1964. With the displacement of so many people, the town suffered a major economic downturn according to Giuliani.

According to The Benicia Herald, Humble Oil bought some of the vacant former arsenal land in 1967. Not long after, it changed hands again when it sold to the Exxon Oil Company. The refinery’s presence brought in the oil industry and anchored the economy in Beni-

cia, replacing many, if not all or more, of the jobs that were lost after the arsenal closure, according to Benicia city officials. Valero bought the refinery from Exxon in 2000 and currently provides over 400 jobs. According to the EIR, the project would create 20 permanent full-time jobs and 120 temporary jobs.

From the $3 million in property taxes that the refinery pays the city annually, the city only keeps 24 cents on the dollar and the rest goes to the county, schools and other programs in the area, explained Guiliani.

According to Sue Fisher Jones, public affairs manager of Valero, the Benicia refinery is one of only two in California to earn the Voluntary Protection Program “Star Site” designation, which recognizes organizations that have implemented health and safety programs that successfully control occupational hazards. The refinery earned its title in 2006 and has since passed two recertification audits. The other refinery with this designation is the Valero located in South Los Angeles.

“I have lived in Benicia since 2003 (worked at Valero since 2005) and have never experienced a community Shelterin-Place,” Jones told The Pioneer. Shelter-in-place is an emergency response

plan in which people hunker indoors to avoid hazardous air pollution.

A Facility Profile Report by the EPA revealed that Valero released 1,068,877 pounds of chemicals into the environment in 2014. The total amount released in the United States for that year was 3.4 billion pounds.

Andres de Soto, spokesperson and steering committee member for Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community (BSHC) helped form the organization around the time of Valero’s proposal in 2013. BSHC opposed the project from the beginning and recommended that it be reviewed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) which requires agencies to identify the potential significant environmental impacts of their projects in an EIR. The EIR looks at all the potential scenarios and issues of a project and evaluates whether the applicants are equipped to handle them. For example, in the case of a derailment, emergency response teams benefit by knowing what specific type of crude oil is being transported in order to better tackle the specific situation. “The dirtier, the heavier the crude, the more sulfur, creating more noxious emissions,” explained Soto. Valero declined to release the specific type of crude oil to be transported, labeling it a trade secret, according to the EIR. Giuliani believes that those who don’t support the project don’t necessarily oppose Valero specifically, but oppose the oil refinery process itself. “If they had proposed to bring water in instead, no one would’ve cared,” he said.

Citizens are also concerned about the effect the project will have on the value of property. According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, a fire at the Richmond Chevron Refinery in August 2012 caused a 14.62 percent drop in property taxes. A 2006 study by Stephen Farber from the University of Pittsburgh confirmed that housing markets are sensitive to real or perceived risks associated with being located close to a site that contains hazardous material, such as a refinery.

“My husband and I probably have another ten good years,” said Edmonds.

“At some point we will need to move to something much smaller and easier to care for, or to a retirement home. The money we get from our house will be essential for that.”

8 NEWS

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

Uber acknowledges sexual assaults

By Ira Lazo

CONTRIBUTOR This March, Uber — a global smartphone-powered ridesharing business headquartered in San Francisco — became the subject of an investigation when the company’s database of sexual assault complaints was leaked to Buzzfeed News by an inside source.

Buzzfeed obtained screenshots of the email database that had been sent to the app’s feature for reporting customer issues, finding over 5,800 claims that included the word “rape” and more than 6,160 with the keywords “sexual assault,” collected over a period of three years, according to Buzzfeed News.

After sifting through the claims, Uber confirmed that there were five complaints of rape and fewer than 170 claims of sexual assault between December 2012 and August 2015, in a letter addressing Buzzfeed’s findings.

Uber’s Chief Safety Officer Joe Sullivan, VP of Communications Jill Hazelbaker and VP of Global Support Tim Collins, argued that the screenshot was deceiving because riders often misspell the word “rape” when writing the word “rate,” and the search engine had also pulled results from people whose name and email address included the letters “R-A-P-E.” They claimed that the ticket

GRAPHIC BY TAM DUONG JR./THE PIONEER

count also included miscellaneous users who were not Uber riders.

Uber was originally founded in 2008 by Travis Kalamic and Garret Camp as a solution to the transportation demand in metropolitan areas, according to Uber. The company has since expanded to 403 cities worldwide, is worth $41 billion dollars and has inspired the creation of similar ride-sharing apps.

Describing it as “A ride you can always trust,” Uber safety measures vary.

All interested candidates are screened and are required to submit their license and other documentation to Uber. Riders have the ability to share their esti-

mated time of arrival with family and friends directly through the app, which also features anonymous feedback features and access to the driver’s profile. Each profile contains the driver’s name, license plate number, a photo, rating and for a limited time, contact information, according to Uber.

However the ability to contact drivers through the information provided on their profile has proven controversial. In one incident, Marty McCall, a female Uber driver, was contacted by a rider six or seven times in one night through this feature, according to Buzzfeed.

Lyft and Sidecar, Uber’s main com-

petitors in the ridesharing business, both have customer service numbers along with non-emergency email contacts, something Uber does not.

“I wouldn’t drive Uber again, not because I ever felt nervous or scared, you just don’t know,” said Vertis Wilson, a prior driver for Uber. “You can’t trust a passenger; you don’t know what is going to happen.”

According to Wilson, the perks of crafting his own schedule and being able to work two jobs initially attracted him to Uber. These perks soon wore thin when Wilson had to deal with aggressive, intoxicated passengers.

According to a December news release authored by Uber’s Global Head of Trust and Safety, Phillip Cardenas, Uber has a 24/7 safety advisory board, a quality assurance program monitored by off-duty law enforcement officers and a detailed code of conduct outlining Uber’s safety policies and expectations for its contractors.

“Uber is a relatively young company and we’re the first to admit that we haven’t always gotten things right,” Uber told BuzzFeed News, “But we are working hard to ensure passengers everywhere can get a safe, reliable ride, as well as to provide great customer service when things go wrong.”

Resolution sought Weather spikes in Bay Area in faculty strike

By Louis LaVenture EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

By Louis LaVenture EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

To strike or not to strike, that has become the question.

On Tuesday the California Faculty Association and California State University system announced there would be a two-day “blackout period” in order to, “develop an agreement that not only settles this contract reopener but also can lead to an improved relationship between the faculty and the CSU administration,” according to CFA President and Cal State East Bay instructor Jennifer Eagan. The CFA and the CSU will not speak to the media for 48 hours in an effort to resolve the dispute and diffuse the strike.

Eagan said the talks to resolve the dispute between the two parties picked up on Monday and for the first time included CSU Chancellor Timothy White, who expressed concerns about the negative impact the strike would have on the CSU system as well as the relationship

between faculty, staff and the CSU administration.

CSU included a two percent raise across the board for faculty and staff in their 2015-2016 budget, however, the CFA has asked for a five percent raise as well as additional raises for adjunct and part-time staff members. When the CSU was unwilling to meet the five percent increase, the CFA decided to proceed with the strike process.

“At the conclusion of the 48 hours we will either have a tentative agreement or it will be full speed ahead towards the strike,” Eagan said. “For now, CFA is asking the faculty to put strike preparations on hold to give both parties breathing room while we attempt to craft an agreement.”

The strike dates are tentatively set for April 13 to 15, 18 and 19. The fact-finding report done by Bonnie Castrey and released on March 28, was the final step the CFA needed to officially go on strike.

In order to strike, a union must wait for an independent third party to review the situation, according to the CFA.

If you thought it was hotter than normal for April yesterday, you were correct.

The National Weather Service issued a warning earlier this week for the Bay Area, warning residents that the temperatures would rise mid-

Wages From Page 1 consistently raise the same amount throughout the state for all workers.

According to DeVaro, the hiked production costs of an increased minimum wage may deter other states from opening businesses in California, which will turn employment op-

week. The Bay Area temperatures remained mild for the most part through Wednesday and at 3:30 p.m. it was 83 degrees in Hayward, according to the NWS. The NWS said in the warning that several Bay Area cities were expected to set record temperatures including Oakland, Livermore and San Francisco, which were all expected to reach temperatures of greater than 90 de-

grees on Wednesday.

The temperatures are expected to drop Thursday and there is a 40 percent chance of showers on Friday.

According to the NWS, a high-pressure system over Nevada turned off the sea breeze that normally provides a cooldown this time of year.

The NWS also said that spring is a sporadic time for the weather and this is not unusual for April.

portunities away. “It tilts the balance against California,” said DeVaro.

DeVaro supports the idea of eliminating minimum wage in favor of expanding the Earned Income Tax credit program, a federal income tax-based benefit that provides refunds and tax coverage to working low-income families. He believes it is a better-targeted initiative because recipients have to meet certain criteria in order to qualify, unlike minimum wage.

According to a national survey con-

ducted in Jan. 2015 by Hart Research Associates for the National Employment Law Project, 63 percent of Americans supported raising the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2020.

“This is about economic justice, it’s about people,” said Gov. Brown at the bill signing in Los Angeles on Monday morning. “This is an important day, it’s not the end of the struggle but it’s a very important step forward.”

SPORTS 9

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

Kaepernick departure the right call for 49ers

By Erik Khan STAFF WRITER In 2013, I condemned the 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh for his decision to bench the game manager-type quarterback he had in Alex Smith, for the run-and-gun style quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Kaepernick proved my assumption to be foolish when the 49ers hosted the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round of the NFC playoffs that year, and he set the NFL single-game record for most rushing yards by a quarterback. He led the 49ers to Super Bowl 47 two weeks later, falling just five yards short of bringing the 49ers their sixth Lombardi trophy.

Fast forward to Nov. 1 of last season, when the San Francisco 49ers traveled to St. Louis to take on the Rams; the player who rushed for 181 yards in that 2013 playoff game was nowhere to be found. There were roughly five minutes left in the first quarter, and the 49ers had the ball on the Rams’ one-yard line, needing to travel 99 yards to score a touchdown. In a highly criticized move, Kaepernick handed the ball to running back Mike Davis and failed to notice unguarded wide receiver Torrey Smith, who could have scored a touchdown without being touched by the defense.

The 49ers went on to lose the game 27-6.

These two instances show the rise and fall of Kaepernick during his time as the 49ers quarterback and lead to one conclusion: by trading Kaepernick to the Denver Broncos, the 49ers made the right decision to move on from their 2011 second round draft pick.

According to sports writer Adam Schefter, the 49ers have already agreed to trade quarterback Colin Kaepernick

GRAPHIC BY LOUIS LAVENTURE & TAM DUONG JR./THE PIONEER

to the Denver Broncos under the condition that Kaepernick restructures his $11.9 million salary for the 2016 season.

The Cleveland Browns were also interested in trading for Kaepernick, but signed former Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III. After winning Super Bowl 50, the Broncos have a need for a quarterback after starting quarterback Peyton Manning’s retirement. His supposed successor, Brock Osweiler, who was Manning’s backup for four seasons, left the Broncos and signed a four-year, $72 million contract with the Houston Texans this

offseason.

Why would the Broncos or any team want to take a chance on Kaepernick?

I mean, he was benched following the Nov. 1 loss to the Rams for Blaine Gabbert, a quarterback that held a 5-22 NFL Record at the time.

The reason is that teams are confident that Kaepernick still has plenty left in the tank. They believe that given the right circumstances, Kaepernick could fulfill senior ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski's 2013 claim that his skill set could allow him to be one of the best quarterbacks ever.

In 2012, and even 2013 when Kaepernick led the 49ers to a near NFC championship game victory, Kaepernick’s play seemed to warrant Jaworski’s claim. However, in the past two seasons, his statistics have told a much different story: he threw fewer touchdowns and more interceptions.

What sticks out the most to me is the fact that in 2014, Kaepernick was sacked 52 times — the second most in the NFL. In 2015, he was sacked 28 times in just eight games. What happened to the elusive quarterback who could evade defenders and turn a po-

tential sack into a big rushing gain?

While it is true that this high sack total can be equated to a decline in play of the offensive line, it is also a result of Kaepernick not being as comfortable in his role as he was in his first two years.

This can be chalked up to the 2014 rumors that his biggest believer, Head Coach Jim Harbaugh, was going to be gone as head coach in 2015.

Harbaugh ultimately made the call to start Kaepernick over Smith back in 2012, and the knowledge of his inevitable departure severely affected Kaepernick's confidence. Other media stories, such as the flak he received for wearing a Miami Dolphins hat in the 2014 offseason and his teammate's displeasure over his “Beats” headphones proved to be a distraction as well.

These aren’t excuses for Kaepernick.

He sucked the past two years. He constantly failed to progress through his reads and overthrew open receivers when he did find them. He also didn’t run the ball nearly as effectively as he did in the past, which is what makes him so special.

This trade will prove to be the bestcase scenario for both parties. Kaepernick has the potential to thrive playing behind the league's best defense in Denver. The 49ers can now draft their quarterback of the future with the 7th overall pick and not worry about the media circus that Kaepernick brings.

There's no denying that Kaepernick was an absolute game changer for the 49ers during his time there. There’s also no denying that the NFL changes very fast, and the 49ers learned that the hard way. The 49ers made the right decision to move forward with their rebuild, and this decision will benefit both teams.

Unselfishness key for women’s basketball success Point guard vital in best season ever

By Veronica Sanchez CONTRIBUTOR Shannon Bland, a Cal State East Bay senior, fell in love with basketball at a young age.

“I remember playing on those short basketball hoops when I was in second grade,” she said. “That’s where it all started.”

Bland is shooting guard on the CSUEB women’s basketball team, which just had a phenomenal season.

They advanced to the California Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament in Stockton on March 1, where they won and advanced to the NCAA Division II West Regionals, where they lost in the first round in Azusa on March 11. No previous East Bay athletic team had ever accomplished this in the school’s history.

Sports have always played a crucial role in Bland’s life. It helped her find a competitive drive at the age of seven that has stayed with her. She and her older sister would play around one minute and fight the next because they were both so competitive.

Basketball was the one sport that stood out to her because she admired and appreciated everything it brought to the table. It takes athleticism and agility to play the sport, but it can also be rough and physical, which made it more appealing than other sports. Her older sister played the sport and Bland wanted to follow in her footsteps.

“I leaned more towards pursuing basketball because it has an element the other sports I played don’t provide,” said Bland.

What was that element? Contact. She tried other sports like track and field, but craved the aggressive atmosphere and contact that comes with basketball.

“When I say the aggression and physicality of the sport was more my style because it was the only contact sport I played in high school and I liked having that challenge added to the sport,” Bland said.

So what made the women’s basketball team so good this season? According to Bland, diversity. “We have overall great players,” said Bland. “We have girls who can shoot the ball, defend and are very intelligent when running and recognizing plays. Our team can do it all.”

Other teams who face the Pioneers don’t have to worry about one or two standout players, instead they have to worry about the whole team because they have so many players who know

"We're not selfish players and we don't care who scares or gets the glory as long as we win the game."

—Shannon Bland how to play the game at a high level.

Also, they all want to see each other succeed.

“We play for each other,” said Bland.

“We’re not selfish players and we don’t care who scores or gets the glory as long as we win the game.”

On a normal day, the team practices for about two hours, but they basically go there whenever they can get access to the gym, said Bland. They usually start off with individual work like footwork, free throws and game situation shots. From then, they move on to fouron-four defensive work. They end their practices with five-on-five games where they focus on offensive and defensive plays.

CSUEB point guard Shannon Bland drives past California State University Monterey Bay guard Victoria Dorn last month at the Pioneer Gymnasium.

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Before game-time, the team gathers in the locker room to do their cheer, which helps them get ready for the game mentally and in a winning mindset. “It pumps us up and we feel ready to play,” said Bland. “The cheer becomes a trigger for us to know its time to step on the floor and the only thing that matters is walking off the court with a win. It's difficult to explain what we do, however we just get together say our goals and then have our "cheer" then ate on the floor.”

The Pioneers’ historic season came to an end on March 11 when they lost 74-59 to UC San Diego in the first round of the regional tour-

nament. Now that Bland is done playing competitive basketball, she faces a new journey ahead of her.

Bland will graduate in the spring of with a major in biochemistry. She plans to attend dental school at the University of Washington.

Throughout her experiences and career in basketball, Bland has learned many things, but the biggest life lesson she learned from basketball is respect.

“I learned that everyone is different and that every person has their own opinion,” said Bland. “I learned that it was okay if their opinion was different than mine. I had to learn to be open to it and that was a challenge that I had to overcome.”

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THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

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SPORTS 11

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

PHOTOS BY KRISTIANA FEDERE/THE PIONEER

Left: The CSUEB waterpolo team discusses strategy at Chabot College on Sunday. Above: Twometer player Taylor Cross talks to her teammates Sunday.

Below: Tori Detloff, CSUEB waterpolo utility player attempts to block UC San Diego center Lauren Boyer at Chabot Sunday afternoon.

UC San Diego Tritons tame Pioneers at Chabot College

By Louis LaVenture EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Despite a three-game winning streak, the Cal State East Bay water polo team could not defend their home city on Sunday.

The Pioneers fell to 12-9 overall and 0-1 in Western Water Polo Association Conference play after they lost to the

UC San Diego Tritons (22-9 overall, 3-0 conference) 8-3 at Chabot College.

Chabot will also host the WWPA Championships from April 29 to May 1.

At this point in the year last season, East Bay was 11-14 overall and still managed to make it to the WWPA Conference Championship, where they lost to the Tritons, 10-8 in Geneva, Ohio.

Things got off to a rocky start for the Pioneers, who found themselves down early in the first period thanks

to 2 goals from San Diego. Junior center Lauren Boyer tallied the first goal of the game at the 4:03 mark and senior attacker Laurel Kistler made the UCSD advantage 2-0 after she found the back of the net with a minute left in the first period.

CSUEB senior utility player Tori Dettloff cut the lead in half when she scored on an assist from senior two meter Taylor Cross. Seniors Casey Rushforth and Sabrina Hatzer both added goals for

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East Bay in the second and third periods respectively, however, the Pioneers could not contain the Tritons attack.

San Diego took a 5-3 advantage into the final period and went on to score the final 3 goals for an 8-3 victory.

Boyer led the way for the Tritons with 3 goals on 4 shots. UCSD senior goalkeeper Courtney Miller secured the victory with 6 saves and a steal on the day. CSUEB junior goalkeeper Nikki Vaughan picked up the loss with 14

saves in complete games for both keepers. Tritons senior attacker Emma Sasson recorded a game-high 2 assists in the winning effort.

Next up for East Bay is a home game at Pioneer Pool in Hayward on Saturday, when the Pioneers will host Sonoma State at noon. The Seawolves are 10-13 overall and 1-1 in conference competition. San Diego’s next action will be at noon on April 16 when they host California Baptist University (19-8, 3-1).

12 SPORTS

THURSDAY APRIL 7, 2016

THE PIONEER

Oakland’s Moneyball has worn thin on me Here today, gone tomorrow for Athletics

By Erik Khan

STAFF WRITER Dear Lew Wolff, I moved to the Bay Area from the Boston suburbs when I was 7 years old.

Not long after, my mom took me to a San Francisco Giants game, but it just wasn’t for me: their brand new stadium felt too rich and pretentious for a small town kid like me.

I fell in love with your Oakland Athletics in 2008 when a good friend of mine took me to a game.

He was wealthy, so seeing his family support this low budget team and not the wealthy team across the Bay was inspirational. While I love my Boston Red Sox, I’ll never forget the first time being at an A’s game: the fans supported the team regardless of the environment.

You guys sucked at the time. The stadium was terrible, considered one of the worst in the league, but it wasn’t about that. It was about the people. The sense of comradery that never allowed the “Let’s go Oakland” chant die out.

The pungent smell of weed when you walked in. The feeling I got everytime I walked across the Coliseum BART bridge. It was all so symbolic of being an Athletics fan.

I kept the faith, hoping the team would get better.

And it did. During my sophomore year in college, 2012, the team got hot and won their division.

They played the whole season with an underdog mentality: the team had no stars and kind of sucked, but they were ruthless overachievers.

Despite finishing first in their division, that season ended with a Game 5 postseason loss in the divisional round to the Detroit Tigers.

Soon after, as the players began to leave; I was quickly reminded of the franchise’s mindset: “Moneyball.” Your tight pockets hold General Manager Billy Beane hostage and give him little funding to keep our teams together, highlighted in the movie starring Brad

Pitt.

Once again, all of our good players were either allowed to enter free agency or were traded. I didn’t care when we let Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon hit free agency back in 2002.

Or when we traded Carlos Gonzalez and Huston Street to the Rockies in 2008. I was too young.

This time around, I wasn’t as forgiving. Seeing guys that had contributed to the 2012 season like Jonny Gomes and Brandon McCarthy sign with other teams with no offers from Oakland pissed me off.

However, we were still competitive in 2013 and it seemed like our core players were here to stay. Josh Donaldson and Yoenis Cespedes were becoming superstars and brought firepower to our offense. Young pitcher Sonny Gray was blossoming into one of the best in the league. Again, we lost in the divisional round of the playoffs, but this team was trending up and fast.

In 2014, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The team was on fire during the first

half of the season and were the favorites to win the World Series.

We finally were the aggressors at the trade deadline, acquiring star pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jon Lester while trading away prospects and Cespedes.

It sucked seeing a core piece like Cespedes go, but I absolutely loved the winnow mentality we were exhibiting as it was so different from our “Moneyball” mentality.

I still don’t understand how, but we fell flat on our faces after making those trades. We barely made the playoffs and lost to the Kansas City Royals in heartbreaking fashion: Our bullpen blew an 8-7 lead in the bottom of the 12th inning, in a game that we led 7-3 in the bottom of the 8th inning.

Though the bullpen had issues, this team was still stacked and could definitely compete for a championship for years to come.

I was foolish to entertain the idea that you would pony up the funds to keep these guys together.

The fire sale began.

We let Lester and Samardzija sign with other teams without even making offers. Brandon Moss was traded to the Cleveland Indians and Derek Norris to the San Diego Padres.

Then, the straw that broke the camel’s back: We traded Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays.

I still struggle to understand why we made this trade, as Donaldson was still under contract and clearly the best player on our team.

We were the worst team in the league in 2015 while Donaldson went on to win the American League Most Valuable Player award. I couldn’t even watch his highlights, it was just too hard for me to accept that we traded away this stud in an attempt to rebuild.

We did have one bright spot last year and that was Sonny Gray, who solidified his status as one of the best pitchers in the league.

He flirted with numbers that garnered him consideration for the CY Young Award for the best pitcher in the league and he probably would have won it if the team could have scored more runs.

He’s the kind of player that teams like the New York Yankees and Red Sox would trade for in a heartbeat.

And Lou, I know you’re going to let that happen.

I know there is no way in hell that you are gonna sack up and give Gray a $200 million contract that other teams would gladly pay him.

Go ahead, let Billy trade him away for prospects, let’s stock the cupboard with prospects for the future.

Lou, I’m sick of this. What’s the endgame here? As fans, we need answers.

This isn’t right.

I’ll never stop believing in the green and gold, but why do you do this to us?

I think I’ve made it clear: True fans don’t care about the low budget stadium. We care about the product on the field.

Please, keep our team together, it’s the only way we are going to achieve this ultimate goal of winning a World Series.

Sincerely, Erik Khan P.S. Please don’t trade Sonny Gray.

Notable departures for Oakland Athletics

Yoenis Cespedes

Josh Donaldson

Jeff Samardzija

Jon Lester

Pioneers split home double header with Chico State Wildcats

By Marissa Marshall CONTRIBUTOR

The hot weather on Tuesday was a factor that forced the Cal State East Bay baseball team to battle through two close games.

Before the home double header, the Pioneers were in Los Angeles over the weekend, where they swept the California State Dominguez Hills Toros (14-16 overall, 8-12 conference) three games to none, which sparked confidence in the team leading up to Tuesday.

The Pioneers’ confidence carried over and they managed to split games with the #22 ranked Chico State (23-9 overall, 13-7 conference). CSUEB lost the first game 15-13 and won the second 10-9, which puts the Pioneers at 18-13 overall and 9-11 in California Collegiate Athletic Association Conference games.

“We knew how good they were, and that we had to step up if wanted to win,” said junior outfielder Raymond Jones.

The first game against the Wildcats was a hitting fest as both teams combined for 39 hits and 28 runs in the contest. The Pioneers eventually lost 15-13, but there were some great performances in the losing effort. Chris Porter went 3-for-4 with a homerun and Jones also had a standout game going 4-for-5, as well as adding in 3 runs.

“I’ve just been seeing the ball and making adjustments throughout the week, which have helped me out on the field,” said Jones.

The second game was also a tough

PHOTO BY KRISTIANA FEDERE/THE PIONEER

Junior infielder Michael Thomas, left, and junior outfielder Raymond Jones celebrate a score during a home victory over Chico State on Tuesday in Hayward. battle, but the Pioneers never stopped fighting. They trailed through 7 innings by as many as 5 runs. However, East Bay bounced back as Jones tripled to left center field, which allowed both senior outfielder Myles Babitt and junior infielder Zack Perugi to score, cutting the lead to only 1 run, with a score of 9-8 in

the bottom of the seventh inning. Jones then scored moments later tying the game at 9-9.

With the game extended to 8 innings, Perugi singled to the right side in the bottom of the eighth, which led to a score by senior utility player Rudy Navarro, and gave CSUEB a 10-9 win in the

second game.

“I felt comfortable, relaxed and confident when I went out to bat in the last inning,” said Perugi on his hit that put East Bay in front of Chico. “It was an all day battle, but we know how good we are and we never quit. We fell short in the first game, but made sure that did not

happen again.”

The Pioneers will look to carry over the momentum when they face Cal State Los Angeles (7-23 overall, 6-13 conference) on Saturday at Pioneer Baseball Field on the Hayward campus. The two teams play a doubleheader beginning at 11 a.m. on Saturday.