Trinitonian Black Student Union 15 members of BSU travel to College Station for leadership convention.
Underground Art
Back on the field
O-Rec trip leads to senior artist’s exploration of underground graffiti.
Reigning national champions return to the field for another season.
PAGE 8 PULSE
PAGE 12 A&E
Serving Trinity University Since 1902
Volume 114 Issue 17
PAGE 13 SPORTS
FEBRUARY 03, 2017
Trinity community reacts Seize the deck Trinity English professor looks to Trump’s Muslim ban
Students write letters of encouragement to members of San Antonio’s Muslim community
back on his youth and reminds us that time is a fickle thing
BY DAVID RANDO
FACULTY COLUMNIST
Assistant Professor, SIMRAN SINGH (left), speaks with students while hosting an event encouraging Trinity community member to write cards to members of San Antonio’s Muslim community. photo by DANIEL CONRAD BY ALEXANDRA URI
MANAGING EDITOR Shock, confusion and disbelief. These were the general reactions of Trinity students to President Donald Trump’s executive order halting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries including Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen. The executive order came after Trump ran a campaign charged with anti-Islam rhetoric. “I felt like it just exploded. I felt like all of the things that we’ve been talking about and all of the people that have been arguing and all of the things that have been yelled and said just came to a head in one moment,” said Adam Syed, a senior music major. Amidst the shock, students like Gabrielle Racz, an undeclared junior, expressed disbelief at the new president’s actions. “It doesn’t make any sense. The whole idea of it seems super backwards and you wouldn’t expect it to be anything that enough people would approve for it to be allowed,” Racz said. Yara Samman, a junior biology major, who immigrated from Syria, echoed Racz’s sentiments. “Honestly it was a lot of shock. When I came to this country I had a feeling of being very comfortable and very safe and all of a sudden we’re not welcome anymore. And it’s not just that we’re not welcome anymore. A lot of my family can’t leave the country now because they
wouldn’t be able to come back into the country because they’re either on student visas or [they have] asylum status. This affects us all and it’s been very hard,” Samman said. The executive order has left several students worried for their safety on campus. Samy Abdallah, a junior history major, said that his mother expressed concerns about him attending mosque, especially after the shooting of six Muslims who were worshiping in a mosque in Quebec. “I was worried because I can’t imagine that happening to anyone I know and love. An hour after it happened my mother called me and she told me she doesn’t want me to go to mosques off of campus to perform Friday prayer, the Jumu’ah, which is arguably one of the most important prayer for any Muslim to do. It’s honestly ridiculous that I’m afraid to go to my place of worship and practice my religion. I don’t imagine any of my close Christian, white friends are really afraid to go to church or Mass or anything along those lines,” Abdallah said. Syed’s mother also expressed concern about her Muslim son’s physical safety. “My mom told me to shave my beard. She told me to go clean shaven. She said it’s just too much, it’s too crazy right now,” Syed said. However, amidst the Muslim community’s fear for the future; there is some hope.
On Wednesday, Simran Singh, assistant professor of religion, hosted an event for members of the Trinity community to write cards of encouragement to members of San Antonio’s Muslim community to show them that they are not alone. “I have two points and they’re basically at tension with one another. One is that there is real animosity against Muslims in this country right now and people are acting on those feelings and they should take them very seriously and they should be very careful. The second is that there is incredible empathy for those who are most vulnerable right now. There is a lot of support on campus for Muslim communities and [the cards] shows this,” professor Singh said. Syed said that the card-signing event was indicative of the Trinity community’s spirit. “I think this is amazing, the cards of encouragement that Trinity students, random Trinity students, came up and wrote and they’re going to be sent to mosques all around San Antonio. I am continuously astonished and thankful and amazed and inspired by all of the support that Muslim students and Muslims in general have been getting here at Trinity’s campus. There are occasional people that you run into that may feel differently, but overall it’s been an overwhelmingly positive atmosphere of acceptance that I’ve felt,” Syed said.
My astronomy professor once turned our classroom lights off and slowly moved a laser pointer (a technological novelty in those horse-drawn carriage days) from left to right across the dark wall. The red dot represented the present as it advances into the future. The idea, I think, was like a cosmic Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour: everyone alive right now just happens to be together on board that little floating dot. Behind and ahead is vast darkness. We are cosmic eyeblinks. I recognized this idea again a few years later, when The Flaming Lips sang, “Do you realize we’re floating in space?” and “Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?” proving, I guess, that I pretty much could have skipped astronomy class (I kid! I kid!). These things struck a nerve in me. When I was younger, I used to wonder whether more time in the universe had elapsed before I was born, or whether more time would elapse after I died. I was a weird kid. But mostly when I was
young, I burned with romantic ambitions to do and to make things. Mostly these things had to do with making art, but I suppose it is much the same for young people fascinated by science, politics, computers, business, sports and so on. I was so filled with these desires that sometimes it amazed me that people next to me on the bus couldn’t feel it radiating from me or that I wasn’t arrested for the fearful insurgency that my body felt barely able to contain. Perhaps that’s another way of saying that I felt guilty about these feelings. Because the funny thing was that for all this ambition, rarely did I do anything to realize my dreams. Years later, I had another moment of recognition when I read the philosopher Bloch, who observes how easy it is for the young to talk about creating, but how hard it is for the young to create. And that’s the question I really want to address: why is it so difficult for some of us to do the things we want to do when we are young, even when we seem to have world enough and time to do them? Continued on page 6
David Cameron visits Trinity campus Politics and public affair lecture series brings former British Prime Minister to speak to community
BY JEFFREY SULLIVAN
NEWS EDITOR Former British Prime Minister David Cameron addressed a crowded Laurie Auditorium on Tuesday as a part of the Flora Cameron Lecture on Politics and Public Affairs. Hours before, Cameron held a Q&A session in Northrup Hall attended by select political science, history and international studies students. Cameron won two elections to serve as Prime Minister between the years 2010 to 2016. Last year he called a referendum on whether or not the United Kingdom would remain in the European Union, and Cameron resigned after the results showed Britain would
leave the Union. “As a believer in democracy, I will never regret asking the British people to take the sovereign decision about one of the biggest questions we face as a county,” Cameron said during the lecture in Laurie Auditorium. As a part of the lecture series, visitors field questions asked by students on pertinent issues and experiences they may have had while in office. “These leaders meet with groups of students providing them with the opportunity to ask direct questions of individuals who’ve experienced first hand, and often wrestled with, some of the modern world’s most challenging questions,” said Trinity University President Danny Anderson. Continued on page 2