April 29, 2016 the Racquette Editor-in-Chief
Marcus Wolf Publisher
Marcus Wolf Adviser
Dr. Susan Novak News Editor
Kirsten Meehan Op/Ed Editor
Kirsten Meehan A&E Editor
Jay Petrequin College Life Editor
Mark Guido Comics Editor
Michelle Trumpet Sports Editor
Katie Wilson Creative Writing Editor
Grace Milusich
Community Page Editor
Marcus Wolf
Financial Advisor
Imani Snowden Public Relations
Jean-Michael Huallanca Liana Ngai Kevin Agyakwa Staff Writers
Rebecca Augustine Forest Ashley Kevin Agyakwa Jean-Michael Huallanca Ellen Ricks Katie Dalioa Alexis Donnelly Olivia Broersma Paul Halley Contributing Writers
Dan Bronson Potsdam News Dr Jennifer Mitchell Raj B. Newt Danielle Sandow Staff Photographers
Alexis Orlopp Katie Daloia Rebecca Augustine Copyeditors
Forest Ashley Kevin Agyakwa Sean Pent Fallon Comic Artists
Anthony Urda Melissa Downing
Opinion & Editorial
the Racquette
Dear Overheard at SUNY Potsdam: Stop Calling Girls “Basic” Rebecca Augustine Staff Writer
According to popular belief, someone “basic” is described as the following: She wears Uggs and a North Face and drinks Starbucks. The term “basic” is often connected to the terms “white” and/or “b****.” Finally, I come to the last characteristic: The basic girl is either ignorant and doesn’t have an opinion on important topics or has ignorant opinions that were nurtured in a privileged background. I had to apply this ideology when I had to answer a friend of mine about whether or not she was “basic.” The word “basic” generalizes a group of women based upon how they look before they ever get a chance to express themselves. Even if she did own a North Face jacket, or owned a pair of Uggs, my friend is not “basic.” My friend is smart and so many other things. I know so many female friends who call themselves “basic”’ based upon the fact that they like a couple of things in popular culture. It’s ludicrous. Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, wrote a book titled “We Are Pirates.” He dedicated the book to his sister, and, he wrote, “one of the reasons is that I watched her hit adolescence with a fury that I hadn’t seen in anyone before. I think it was a fury of wanting to do anything other than what was expected of her, which was a very narrow set of female types...I think their real selves are ignored. Certainly, that’s
how it feels in American culture. They’re fetishized and sold to but not paid much attention to, I think.” I came across this quote in my studies and it made me think back to my own experience as a female growing up. There are many different levels of growing up as female that can be very trying on a person’s morale, from refusing to wear dresses to experimenting with makeup. The worst thing to have ever came out of my own experience of balancing what it means to be a female and what it means to be feminine, is having a man try to push his opinion upon me about how a woman should portray themselves. Since the winter break, I have seen multiple different men call out women on Overheard in Potsdam by calling them “basic white girls.” One post said “Girl 1: ‘Guyyssss, I have mono…’ Girl 2: ‘How’d you get it?’ Girl 1: ‘Making out with _____’ Girl 2: ‘Yesssssssss!!’ ‘Such excite. Much disappoint. So Basic White Girl.’” This post received 36 likes. Another post said “shoutout to the basic white girl bitching for the last 25 minutes in the library.” This post received 16 likes. First, I’d like to address the men I see posting on “Overheard at SUNY Potsdam” using that term. Who are you to be using that term? Women have been pressured by this maledominated society for centuries to act a certain way and talk a certain way. In contemporary
society, it should be pretty well known that men don’t have a sliver of a right to criticize a woman based upon what a woman likes to wear, eat or drink because chances are, it was a man who gave it to her. In addition, the term “basic” doesn’t really fix the “problem” of any privileged opinion that they might have. If anything, it appropriates the idea that they can’t think for themselves and hence ignore any unique qualities that are “their real selves,” as Handler put it. In other words, it doesn’t do anything to fix the problem a person using the word “basic” might be against. If anything, it might very well be harming the goal, which is to empower individuals with the right to be who they are and the right to allow others to do the same. The way the word “basic” has been used as of late is also something to put in perspec-
tive. Many of the jokes that use this word use the word as the butt of the joke, as if a “basic girl” were a joke. Clearly, as I have just pointed out, using that term is hurtful to a female’s morale. If you are going to use that word, you might as well have a funny foundation, which is hard to do, seeing that the idea is cliché and unoriginal by now. I almost feel bad for people who use that word because you obviously have cooked up a very linear and limited bowl of inspiration. If I were you, I’d take this as a challenge to find a way to spend my time doing something more worth my while to empower my female friends and encourage them in a more fulfilling way of life. That task, I’d argue, is vastly more demanding for creative rhetoric.
Overheard at SUNY Potsdam All quotes are taken from the Overheard at SUNY Potsdam Facebook page.
Two girls outside Union talking about a bird on the roof: “Look at that bird! Make eye contact with that bird! That bird is me!!” Sitting in Tim Hortons: “Where are your babies, I wanna hold them”
Address
9039 Barrington Drive SUNY Potsdam Potsdam, NY 13676 E-mail
PAC Person 1:”When I die, use my ashes and turn them into a meme” Person 2: “when I die, turn my ashes into smokey eyeshadow”
racquette@potsdam.edu
“Jail is probably nicer than Knowles”
The office of the Racquette is located in Room 119 of the Barrington Student Union on the SUNY Potsdam campus. The Racquette is partially funded by the Student Goverment Association of SUNY Potsdam. A distribution of 1,000 copies is printed by Newspapers of Northern New York located in Massena, New York. Read the latest issue online too at issuu.com/theracquette1/stacks.
Union Guy: “Just start walking, and once you feel that it’s time to stop, stop.” Girl: “... I’m not Forrest Gump...”
Follow us: Facebook: The Racquette SUNY Potsdam Twitter: @racquette
3
Did You Know?
A glacier must be a minimum of .1 square kilometers, or almost 25 acres, to be considered a real glacier.