The Pitt News
The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | february 8, 2017 | Volume 107 | Issue 117
HARRIS BEGINS MAYORAL RUN
HAVING A BALL
Amanda Reed
Assistant News Editor Darlene Harris is making moves to go from city councilwoman to the Democratic nominee for mayor of Pittsburgh. Although she has not launched an official campaign, Harris notified the Allegheny County Democratic Committee that she will seek its endorsement in the primary May 16. In years past, winning the primary has decided the November election. Current Mayor Bill Peduto and Rev. John Welch, a Homewood resident and dean at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, also seek the endorsement. The person who gets the party’s endorsement will get the support of other leaders in the party as well as a slate card to hand out at polling stations. But candidates are still allowed to run without a party’s nomination and support. Harris, who’s been critical of Peduto, also faced the sitting mayor briefly for the mayoral seat in 2013 before she dropped out. The only problem Harris faces right now is a financial one — there’s a $10,000 filing fee for endorsement in the mayoral race. Although her political committee had $25,903 as of the end of 2016, city election rules state that mayoral candidates must create a separate committee when running for office. Harris can only transfer $5,000 from her current committee to the new mayoral one. Peduto’s financial reports show that he finished 2016 with $836,691.70, while Welch has not yet filed his. Party leaders will make their selections at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local No. 5 hall in the South Side March 5.
Taking advantage of the warm weather, first-year students Sheridan Feck and Kiel Hillock play soccer on Soldiers and Sailors Memorial lawn. Anna Bongardino STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
ANTI-SANCTUARY BILL UP FOR VOTE Ashwini Sivaganesh
News Editor In a Pennsylvania Senate committee meeting Monday, members passed a bill to withhold funding from municipalities and counties that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The bill passed on a party-line vote, with Republicans voting in full support, and is slated for consideration by the full Pennsylvania Senate today. If it moves on to the House of Representatives and is passed, municipalities would
be required to contact federal immigration authorities on undocumented immigrants in their custody. Pennsylvania State Sen. Guy Reschenthaler, a Republican from Jefferson Hills, proposed the bill — referred to as the Municipal Sanctuary and Federal Enforcement Act — to prevent counties and municipalities from designating themselves “sanctuary cities.” Municipalities and cities that do not enforce federal immigration orders will be ineligible for state grants and funding. According to analysis
done by the Senate Committee on Appropriations on Monday, this action could result in up to $1.3 billion being withheld from designated “sanctuary cities.” Also going through the state legislature right now is an anti-sanctuary campus bill — called HB14 — is currently in the State Government committee of the House. Rep. Jerry Knowles, a Republican representing three counties in the state, sponsored the bill in an effort to limit funding to campuses that do not intend to work with federal immigration officials.
News
UPTV RELAUNCHES WITH NEW LINEUP MarySandra Do
now serves as the head of programming and manages multi-media content and promotional In a tight dorm-room-sized space carpeted in materials for UPTV. Jesse Irwin, a senior film studies major and a red with one lime-green wall and a purple loveseat, UPTV is making big plans for the future of well-known name amongst students for his role as “Pitt Tonight’s” host and creator, wants to enPitt student media. UPTV merged with “Pitt Tonight” and Pitt in sure the work he’s done on campus continues to Hollywood to relaunch the once popular station evolve after he graduates in the spring. “Coming into this year, we kind of had the for the first time in 7 years. UPTV, which debuted with a full lineup of shows Jan. 30, will become idea of taking this last year to merge … and make an all-encompassing media network. Although UPTV broadcasts to the dorms via Channel 68, students can also watch programs on Facebook and YouTube. UPTV has sporadically posted content on its YouTube page — its last video before the relaunch was posted three months ago — but the station is now focusing primarily online, posting content almost daily. The station released promos and first episodes of a few shows in preparation for the relaunch, and debuted to an audience of about 25,000 in the first day, according to video views. Before the collaboration, “Pitt Tonight” was a late-night talk show and Pitt in Hollywood was a board of students who worked with outside orgaCOURTESY OF UPTV nizations to connect media students and profesit something bigger,” he said. sionals. He and Hayley Ulmer, a junior theater major “Our main goal is just to make all the media groups on campus more incorporated,” Lizzie and executive producer of “Pitt Tonight,” pitched Howard, a junior communication major, said. the idea to combine the three separate organiza“We’d love to see [all the] media doing the same tions into one powerhouse last spring to UPTV President Mark Conner. things, not working separately but together.” Before the merge, the station mostly focused Howard, who joined UPTV as a sophomore, on creating short, student-produced films. Pitt For The Pitt News
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On the station’s newscast — the standard broadcast format Pitt has been missing — Zack Williams, a senior communication student, and Jade Nash, a first-year communication student, sit at a table covered in a simple blue tablecloth. On the first episode, they spoke to Andrew Zentgraf, vice president of Pitt College Republicans, who discussed his time at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Joining the newscast, the station is airing a sports show, “Roc Nation,” a superhero series; “ExtraExtraOrdinary;” “The End,” an anthology series about death; a sketch show called “Stop Trying to Make Sketch Happen” and a political news show, “The Bully PulPitt.” “I think the one called ‘The End’ is the one that intrigues me the most,” Howard said. “[It’s] kind of set up as the same style as the ‘Twilight Zone,’ so every episode is kind of within its own universe, but they all deal with the transition between life and death.” Run by Noah Livingston and Quinn Huang, each episode of “The End” is written and directed by different people spread out over the course of four episodes that are each less than 10 minutes long. Weeks of producing and editing take place before viewers see the final product — and that from the separate entities that were already estab- doesn’t include the four months of script writing that took place during the fall term. lished. Before the revival, UPTV was the brainchild “We care enough about this to give up ‘Pitt Tonight’ as a student organization, give up Pitt in of John Paul Horseman in 2002 and was origiHollywood as a student organization and sacrifice nally referred to as a “creation station.” the mini communities we have in those organizaFind the full story online at tions to create this umbrella organization,” Irwin said. does not have a broadcast, print or visual journalism program, so media outlets on Pitt’s campus often serve as career training for aspiring students. “I always felt like it was creating more of a divide amongst the kids who wanted to do visual media,” Irwin said. However, he admitted that not all students in either media group were willing to merge under the umbrella of UPTV. Some students feared the new network would lack cohesion and creativity
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The Pitt news crossword 2/7/17
Opinions letter to the editor Dear Editor, Your editorial “Let Yiannopoulos speak, but don’t engage with him” is troubling. I’m puzzled that a group of journalists could think the way to beat Milo Yiannopoulos is to ignore him. Is that also how the editors recommend addressing systematic gender violence or racism in our communities? Will The Pitt News journalists continue to cover these important issues, or do they think it is a better practice to ignore them? I appreciate you calling Yiannopoulos a “downright bigot.” But he is more than that, more than hateful rhetoric. Are the editors aware that Yiannopoulos uses his speaking platform to “doxx” specific members of the communities he visits? At the University of California, Berkeley, he had planned use his speaking platform to publicly reveal the identities of minority and undocumented students — their names, locations and contact information — jeopardizing their personal and legal safety. Thankfully, the Berkeley community did not allow this to happen. Ensuring their safety came at quite a cost — the editorial cites an estimate of $100,000 in property damage to businesses in Berkeley. But only Yiannopoulos could argue that the cost of damaged property could ever outweigh the safety of our friends and neighbors. It’s worth noting that damaging property was a last resort for still a minority of demonstrators, the overwhelming majority of whom demonstrated peacefully. Yes, Yiannopoulos dropped out of college more than once, but that’s very low down on the list of reasons to reject him. Students know it’s wrong to trust or mistrust someone just because they have or lack credentials. It is objectionable that The Pitt News editors argued against Yiannopoulos on this basis. We’d resist even a very wellcredentialed person if we knew they were a fascist or a threat. Milo is a fascist and a threat. We don’t need another reason to resist him. Many students will respond by just ignoring Yiannopoulos. That is a good start. Many of us will embrace direct action to revoke his platform. This is also good. It works. Resistance is diverse. The critical difference between “solidarity” on one hand and fascist apologism on the other is the will to recognize that different people will resist in different ways. You refer to Patrick Young. Patrick speaks for himself, of course. And many of us agree with him. Maybe that is all you really wanted to say. John Kennick, Senior
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From the editorial board: 2017 Super Bowl ads see online
column
RIOTS HARM MINORITIES
Courtesy of Danilel Kim THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN
Jeremy Wang Columnist
As rubber buckshot and molotov cocktails sailed through the air, a speaking event for alt-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley, was shut down. Under the cover of a peaceful, student-led protest, a group of masked agitators — many of whom were not university students — smashed windows of university buildings and local businesses and beat students with metal rods, leaving the campus in chaos last Wednesday night. But the event sparked conversations about the legitimacy of violence and rioting as a means of protest. As a young liberal whose grandparents survived under the shadow of the brutally violent Japanese empire in World War II, the violence carried out at Berkeley in the name of anti-fascism elicited a visceral and bitter response. Rioting — destroying property and committing violence while protesting — has been shown to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations, including ethnic minorities, the impoverished and people with disabilities. What’s more, violence and property destruction doesn’t actually help move an agenda forward. I spent my high school years in southern California — a region with one of the largest Asian-American and immigrant populations in the United States. The defining point in modern Asian-American his-
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tory that thrust Asian immigrants into a national conversation about race, equality and protest was the 1992 Los Angeles Riots following the acquittal of police officers charged with beating black civilian Rodney King. The absence of a police presence during the riots and poor race relations led to Korean businesses being disproportionately targeted by looters and rioters. Koreatown was decimated. Numerous Asian immigrants sacrificed everything to come to America in the hopes of a better life and better opportunities for their children but watched as their livelihoods were ransacked or went up in flames. Some volunteers armed with a motley assortment of hunting shotguns, tactical rifles and pistols saved their families and businesses from looters. Richard Rhee, a survivor of the Korean War, patrolled the premises around his supermarket and remarked to Ashley Dunn of the Los Angeles Times, “Burn this down after 33 years? They don’t know how hard I’ve worked. This is my market and I’m going to protect it.” Damages to the city were estimated at about $1 billion, with Asian-owned businesses accounting for nearly half that amount. Over 1,600 Koreanowned businesses were completely destroyed and anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 residents were put out of work. The psychological trauma was extensive as well. The Asian-American community witnessed. See Wang on page 9
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Culture PITT ALUM TACKLES INJUSTICE
WITH AWARD-WINNING POETRY Deanna Druskat Staff Writer
There are three things in Daniel Borzutzky’s life that he keeps up with daily: taking his nineyear-old son to school, teaching classes and reading. Though a writer by trade and nature, writing is not on his daily — or sometimes, even his weekly — to-do list. Usually writing in spurts that last a couple of weeks at a time, it took Borzutzky — who is a Pitt alum and professor at Wilbur Wright College in Chicago — around three years to complete his book, “The Performance of Becoming Human.” Borzutzky, 42, received the National Book Award for Poetry from the National Book Foundation for his November 2016 book “Performance,” the third installment in a series. Borzutzky’s series focuses on “how we live with, observe and experience different types of violence at the level of our communities, at the level of our state and on an international level.” Borzutzky said winning this award was an honor but also a surprise because his book is “a pretty angry one.” The award, according to Borzutzky, validates the impact of political art driven by anger. Borzutzky’s work leaves a visceral impression, and always has, said his friend and fellow writer Amina Cain. Cain, who earned her MFA in creative writing alongside Borzutzky, wasn’t surprised by his newfound fame. “Daniel is, I would say, in a category all on his own,” Cain said. “His work is shocking in all the best ways.” In a timely fashion, “The Performance of Becoming Human,” Borzutzky shines light on the way society treats immigrants, specifically undocumented immigrants. His style is light, almost carefree, but his topics are heavy. “What do you make of this darkness that surrounds us?” Borzutzky writes. “They chopped up two dozen bodies last night and today I have to pick up my dry cleaning. / In the morning I need to assess student learning outcomes as part of an important administrative initiative to se-
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cure the nation’s future by providing degrees of economic value to the alienated, urban youth. / So for now hasta luego compadres and don’t worry too much about the bucket of murmuring sh*t that is the unitedstatesian night.” Even the chapter titles are enough to make a reader tense up: “In the blazing cities of your rotten carcass mouth,” “The gross and borderless body,” “Eat nothing.” Cain said Borzutzky’s work is gruesome because it allows the reader to feel and experience realities minorities face. “I think reading his work is like taking the blinders off,” Cain said. “There’s very little to cushion the reader from the violence of the world.” Though he looks the part of the intense writer — thick-rimmed glasses and ruffled brown hair — Borzutzky can more often be found reading than penning his own works. “I think to be a writer is to be engaged with other people’s work,” Borzutzky said. “To be participating in a conversation with the writers that you care about and admire.” Borzutzky has recently been reading poets César Vallejo and Gwendolyn Brooks. He also recently finished “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead, which, like Borzutzky’s book, received the National Book Award for Fiction. Borzutzky strives to pass on his passion for reading to his students at Wilbur Wright College. As much as Borzutzky inspires his students, he finds inspiration in them as well. One of the things he takes away from teaching classes is his students’ sense of commitment to and seriousness about their classwork. In addition to being students, many of them also have full-time jobs as well as families to take care of. “The ability to go to school is not necessarily the top thing they’re able to focus on,” Bor-
“[Borzutzky’s] work
is shocking in all the best ways.”
- Amina Cain
Daniel Borzutzky won the National Book Award for Poetry for his book “The Performance of Becoming Human.” COURTESY OF ANGEL DEAN LOPEZ, DANIEL BORZUTZKY
zutzky said. “It’s pretty graduate school with Borzutzky and Cain — inspiring to see them said the experience of reading Borzutzky’s work be committed to their work in pretty difficult can make people question their perspectives. “I think that people who encounter his work circumstances.” Although he is now quite an accomplished may see their relationship with the world around writer, Borzutzky didn’t study literature or writ- them a little differently,” Novy said. Borzutzky and Novy became friends after ing while at Pitt. Despite his desire to be a writer from an early age, he majored in philosophy and watching the 1998 World Cup together, and Novy added that Borzutzky is a great compandidn’t start writing seriously until he was 23. Because he didn’t study writing in college, ion for baseball games. More than anything, Borzutzky didn’t have much access to mentors Novy emphasized Borzutzky’s writing, which he to inspire his writing. Instead, he was mostly in- described as funny, serious and challenging. “[Borzutzky] kind of rearranges your expecfluenced by simply reading. As a college student, one of Borzutzky’s favorite authors was James tations of things. He’s the most uncompromised Baldwin, and he read all of his novels. Borzutzky writer that I know,” Novy said. “He really followed the advice of ‘just be yourself.’” recalls being changed by them. Continuing on his path of “being himself,” It’s authors like Baldwin who help inspire Borzutzky, whose parents immigrated from Borzutzky recently completed another book of Chile, to write about injustices, specifically those poetry, although he is unsure when it will be faced by minorities. He also draws insight from published or what he’ll do after that. For now, he plans to continue inspiring his students and what he sees going on in his own city. “The privatization in schools and other social reminding them that putting in the effort is the services is very intense in Chicago,” Borzutzky most important part of writing. “If you’re willing to commit to working really said. “I’ve been thinking about the juxtaposition of the economic policies and the kind of brutal hard, then I don’t think there’s any innate talent that people need to be writers,” Borzutzky said. “I and racist policing policies in Chicago.” Because of Borzutzky’s focus on divisive top- think that it’s about working really hard, reading ics and injustices, Adam Novy — who attended a ton and being dedicated to it.”
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column
DON’T EXPECT POP STARS TO BE POLITICIANS Emily Brindley Culture Editor
When Lady Gaga took the stage for the Super Bowl LI’s halftime show, viewers worldwide stared at their TV screens waiting for an overt political statement about President Donald Trump. They didn’t get it. Instead, Gaga put on a 13-minute pop performance, complete with a sequined leotard, a mid-set costume change, a host of Gaga’s top hits and an acrobatic feat. Pulling political meaning out of the show, some noted Gaga’s performance of “Born This Way,” a song heralded for LGBTQ+ pride. Gaga’s inclusion of the song in her set prompted Teen Vogue to call the halftime show “absolutely political,” because why else would Gaga perform that particular song in this political climate? Well, because that song is famous. Like the rest of the songs that Gaga performed Sunday, “Born This Way” is a hit and a crowd-pleaser. The thought of Vice President Mike Pence getting a good view from his box seats was just a bonus for some. First and foremost, Gaga is a pop star. She took the stage at Super Bowl LI to boost her record sales — and it worked. The day after the Super Bowl, Gaga had five tracks in the iTunes top songs list, including oldies “Just Dance” and “Poker Face,” which were both released in 2008. And, you guessed it, “Born This Way” made its way up top, too, with a number four spot. But Gaga did open her set with a snippet mash-up of “God Bless America” and “This Land is Your Land,” which Woody Guthrie wrote in 1940 as the sarcastic response to “God Bless America.” In recent protests against Trump’s immigration policy, protesters have taken up Guthrie’s song en masse, leading Vanity Fair to conclude that Gaga’s quick reference to the song was a “dog whistle to the protesters.” This song, unlike the others she performed, can’t be written off as a purely entertaining.
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It remains, however, little more than a “dog whistle.” NFL Senior Vice President of Programming and Production Mark Quenzel told Billboard that the NFL doesn’t restrict the halftime performers’ speech, preferring instead to leave it up to “the good judgment of the artist.” Although Gaga likely felt pressure to focus on the performance more than the politics — Quenzel also said the NFL tells each artist that the show is meant to reflect the “unifying” nature of the Super Bowl — she was also clearly under no gag order. If Gaga had wanted to go political, she could have done more than a “dog whistle,” and she’s shown in the past that she won’t shy away from taking a political stance. In November, Gaga tweeted first at Melania Trump — calling her husband “1 of the most notorious bullies we have ever witnessed.” She also tweeted a photo of herself holding a “love trumps hate” sign outside of Trump Tower in New York City. But, don’t hold Sunday’s political silence against the pop icon. Like every other musical artist, she has the right to choose whether or not she makes her performances into political statements. Gaga is known for her smash hits, her jaw-dropping on-stage presence and her shocking fashion choices — remember 2010’s meat dress? The pop music industry focuses on pumping out radio-ready rhythms and singalong songs. Political statements promote an artist’s name or reflect the artist’s personal beliefs, but politics don’t build pop superstars — top-selling albums and widespread relatability do. You wouldn’t expect to find icons of social change in Selena Gomez or Ed Sheeran, so why would you expect it from Lady Gaga? She’s not Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem or even Bob Dylan. Gaga spends her time writing music, not legislation or protest chants, and expecting anything more from most pop artists is giving mainstream music far too much credit.
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Sports
WELCOME TO THE CLUB: PITT CLUB HOOPS SUPPLANTS VARSITY SQUAD AS SCHOOL’S NATIONAL CONTENDER David Leftwich
nior point guard Matt Renzi, a finance and marketing double major. Hofmeister registered the club with the NaTwo years ago, Pitt had a perennial powertional Club Basketball Association, finding a house varsity men’s basketball team, but no corplace for the team in the North Atlantic - South responding club for students to join. Conference alongside Bryant and Stratton, CarnNow, the Panthers varsity team sits in the egie Mellon, Kent State, Robert Morris and West ACC’s cellar, while the club hoops team has esVirginia. tablished itself as one of the nation’s best in just After holding tryouts with about 30 prospecits second year. tive players, Hofmeister narrowed the roster Men’s club basketball became the 40th club down to 14 and organized weekly times to pracsport listed in Pitt’s directory last year, thanks to tice at Trees Hall. But there was still a crucial unjunior Conner Hofmeister. The business and psyfi lled position — head coach. chology double major had an urge to experience Without a coach, Hofmeister instituted an the thrill of competitive hoops that he had been inclusive method of decision-making, allowing missing since high school, but when he looked every player to submit their input on the starting for an outlet at Pitt, he couldn’t find one. lineup and preferred playing times via email, then “I think one the biggest reasons [why no one making decisions based on majority rule. created a team in the past] is that Pitt is very land“From the start of the fi rst year, I always told locked,” Hofmeister said, meaning there wasn’t myself I want this to be democratic, ” Hofmeister much space for another team to practice. “Just getting space for our first year was such an uphill said. “These are the guys who started club basketball, and we needed to find, as a unit, how we battle.” The group includes several players who were going to go about finding our identity.” Pitt’s club team experienced early success with turned down scholarship offers from Division III this makeshift group, finishing its first season teams out of high school to come to Pitt instead, with an 8-4 record in conference play. making it competitive than pickup and, this year, But disorganization plagued the team as more successful than Pitt’s varsity team. Hofmeister tried to navigate the bureaucracy of “I think about it all the time, how different it Student Aff airs and the NCBBA. Meanwhile, the would be if I went and played there [at Division 14 players needed to continue to get to know one III schools] versus coming to Pitt, but club basanother and truly learn to play as a team. ketball is a good median for going to a big school With a year of experience to their credit, Pitt and still being able to play competitively,” said juneeded a head coach to help take the next step toward winning its conference and, eventually, the national championship. Rob Bell, who met Hofmeister while helping him establish the team through his former job at the NCBBA, told the Panthers he would be happy Pitt’s men’s club basketball team practices in Trees Hall. to coach them if he David Leftwich FOR THE PITT NEWS Staff Writer
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had the opportunity. After Bell left the NCBBA for another job with the real estate company Fore Property, Hofmeister jumped on the opportunity and offered Bell the head coach position. The team could have paid Bell to join, but it would have meant raising the members’ dues, which were $135 this year. Instead, Bell refused to take a salary, joining the team strictly due to his love for the game. “We have a bunch of smart kids, which makes coaching them easy because they can pick up on things, and they’re talented,” Bell said. “It’s pretty awesome.” Bell, a former varsity basketball coach at Trinity High School in Washington, Pennsylvania, created a more organized environment and helped players break the habit of ball dominance — or ball hogging, as it’s informally called. Now there’s a different feel to the team’s practices at Trees. Unlike the makeshift pickup games on the surrounding courts, there is a clear focus and organization to what the club is doing. The team starts with drills focused on finetuning individual skills such as agility and post moves. As the practice progresses, the intensity rises, with less breaks between drills and more sequences practicing live against one another. Toward the end of the session, the practice breaks out into a full-throttle scrimmage. One of the reasons Bell enjoys this group of players is their commitment to the team. The players almost never miss any of their three practices a week or the grueling three-game weekends. The team held tryouts again this year, where about 40 people showed up to try to secure one of the 14 coveted roster spots. Pitt came away with a new lineup, including two new starters, and played a tough tournament schedule this fall. The team faced some top-notch competition,
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including one of Ohio State’s four club teams, narrowly losing by four points, but receiving valuable game experience before heading into season play in the winter. The Panthers currently sit one game ahead of Kent State in the loss column in the race for first place in the conference. Having swept their first two weekends of play against CMU and WVU, the team climbed to No. 10 in the NCBBA national rankings for the first time in program history. Pitt followed that up with two more wins against Kent State last weekend before suffering its first loss of the season on Sunday, 82-72. But the Panthers still took two out of three from the Golden Flashes to move to 8-1 on the year. At the halfway mark in the season, as Pitt’s varsity team toils at the bottom of the ACC standings with no turnaround in sight, the club team’s mindset is conference championship or bust. The team returns to action for a three-game slate Feb. 18, at Robert Morris, then wraps up the regular season at Trees Hall with three games versus Bryant and Stratton March 4-5. The conference championship is scheduled for March 25, while the National Championship, if Pitt makes it, takes place at LaRoche College April 7. To clinch a spot in the regional playoffs, the Panthers will likely need to go undefeated from this point on. “The long-term goal is to obviously win the national championship,” Renzi said. “In order to qualify for that, we need to finish first in our conference, and, for that to happen, we can’t lose in our conference.”
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Wang, pg. 4 a serious rise in those seeking counseling and more than 500 patients were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Just as rioting in Los Angeles left a lasting economic and psychological scar on the local Asian immigrant population, riots in Baltimore in 2015 saw similar effects. The looting and arson of a CVS Pharmacy prevented elderly patients from accessing medication and other residents faced difficulty acquiring affordable food and basic hygiene products. Gangs directed looters and rioters toward stores owned by Asian- and Arab-Americans, revealing serious racial divides within the city. Nearly 200 small businesses were unfit to open again in the aftermath of the riots. But the impacts don’t just end there. More importantly to those who see rioting as a legitimate form of protest, the consequences are political. Omar Wasow, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University, authored a study published just last week in which he examined voting patterns during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in relation to the occurrence of violence and rioting at protests. Physical damage and violence due to rioting
was not compensated by relatively quicker attainment of more progressive policies. Instead, it consistently elicited regressive backlash by a national audience while simultaneously endangering vulnerable populations. The countyby-county research showed a clear connection between incidences of rioting and popular support for political solutions directly at odds with the goals of the protestors. These events spurred the Nixon administration’s introduction of repressive criminal justice policies which persisted for decades and whose effects are still felt today. On the other hand, nonviolent demonstrations or acts of civil disobedience that didn’t bring harm to others brought national attention to the Civil Rights Movement and were linked to greater support for social change. Rioting does more than just harm those who can afford it the least. It entrenches the policies being protested while rapidly turning public opinion against a movement, making it less likely to achieve reform. Alt-right hatred cannot be successfully fought through violent suppression. The direct impact of violence and rioting should not be written off as a necessary price to pay for change — it should be avoided altogether.
The Pitt News SuDoku 2/7/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com
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