Category: Opinion

  • If You Want to Talk, Come Find Me

    If You Want to Talk, Come Find Me

    Look around at any given moment and you will most likely see people attached to their phones, eyes fixated on screens, drool possibly spilling from their mouths.

    Though it probably seems like everyone has had a touchscreen baby since the prehistoric era, the birth of the smartphone we know and obsess over today only occurred about eight years ago. Revolutionizing the way we communicate, portable technological devices have taken over the lives of an estimated seventy-three percent of people in the U.S. alone. This all seems dandy, but with technology comes the rise of social media, also known as the reason eye-contact and genuine conversations freak you out.

    Social media is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “forms of electronic communication in which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content.” In reality, social media has become a platform for superficial ideals, obnoxious thoughts, and unrealistic expectations, creating competitive undertones amongst youth with a quick double tap.

    If you didn’t post it, did it actually happen? People are eager to document everything now, from a tornado coming straight towards them to a deadly fight.  Obsessed with capturing every single moment, we fail to live in them.

    People underestimate how much influence social media has on them. Likes and followers are closely associated with popularity, commonly thought to be the same thing. Women’s self-esteem is often dependent on the amount of likes, followers, and retweets they receive, comparing themselves to ‘Insta-famous’ sex symbols that attract millions of followers. The concept of followers and likes has morphed into the determining factors of self-worth, making people desperate to reach the unrealistic goals of perfection that social media community enforces.

    The way we interact and develop relationships with each other has been permanently altered by social media. We live in an age where before you even meet someone you can know an outrageous amount of information about them. Privacy is a thing of the past; nowadays, our closest friends and family, phone numbers, and even our addresses are available to anyone who can click search. Gone are the days of meeting your true love by chance; we now scroll through snapshots of potential partners as if flipping through a magazine. Bold comments of heart-eye emojis on your crush’s latest post translate into awkward exchanges passing one another in the hall.

    Where do we stand as a society by allowing social media to determine our self – worth and moral values? One might say social media is a creative outlet that allows people to network and make “friends”, but I strongly disagree. Some recognize social networks as nothing more than a tool to enhance their social status and express themselves. Others rely on the volume of positive responses they receive from friends and foes alike as a barometer of their beauty and value amongst their network of peers. If this is only the beginning of the “feeding-frenzy,” imagine what the future holds. If this world is going to be one of faux online personas and Twitter fights, I’m not interested.  If you want to talk, come find me below the rock I live under.

  • Free West Papua Campaign

    Free West Papua Campaign

    West Papua is part of an island above Australia, and I’m guessing most people reading this have never heard of it.

    European interest in West Papua and its vast natural resources has existed since the 1500s. In the 1600s, the Dutch claimed sovereignty over West Papua and remained there until the mid-twentieth century. The Dutch formally withdrew from the country with the intention to grant West Papua their independence in 1962.

    The people of West Papua have no geographical, ethnic, or cultural ties to Indonesia, but despite that, the country began asserting authority over West Papua  immediately  after the Dutch withdrawal. Through U.S.-led negotiations, Holland and Indonesia signed The New York Agreement, which included the
    infrastructure for a voting process known as the Act of Free Choice. What should have been a vote under U.N. supervision of  800,000
    became 1,025 Papuans who voted for Indonesian rule at gunpoint under the threat of great harm to themselves and their families.

    The campaign to win West Papuan independence is called “Free West Papua,” and the campaign website claims it strives to “educate and engage the American public and government around the history, issues, and challenges of the indigenous Melanesian citizens of West Papua, as well as the diaspora of exiled West Papuans currently being impacted by Indonesia’s oppressive rule.”

    Since 2007, the campaign has been directed by independence leader and two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Benny Wenda.

    After being arrested, beaten, and tortured for organizing a peaceful protest to promote West Papuan independence, Wenda escaped imprisonment and was granted political asylum by the English government.

    “The people of West Papua have been suffering under Indonesian occupation since 1963. Over 700,000 civilians have been killed, and thousands more have been raped, tortured, and imprisoned,” said United States campaign representative Jewell Fa’amaligi.

    “Foreign media and human rights groups are banned from operating in West Papua, so people rarely hear about the situation there. The Free West Papua Campaign is bringing the story of West Papua to the world and campaigning for freedom and justice in West Papua.”

    To support West Papuan independence, we must educate others about the growing deaths of the islanders. Those who are fortunate enough to raise their own flags outside their homes need to help the West Papuans, who will be killed for raising theirs. Without their oppression being common knowledge, there is little hope for them to better their situation. More information about the genocide can be found on the campaign website at freewestpapua.org.

  • My Life, My Death, My Choice

    My Life, My Death, My Choice

    When I was five, my grandpa was in the hospital with diabetes and many other illnesses.

    His last few months were torture. I remember my mother saying that if he could speak, he would want the plug pulled to end his agony.

    I believe my mother hurt more watching him go through that pain than she did the day he was  gone. This is why the Death with Dignity Act in California was made, so that people and their families will not have to suffer like mine did. The act was passed on Monday, October 6, 2015.

    It is a controversial bill that allows self-euthanasia for terminally ill patients with six months to live.

    Patients can only do this if they are sure they want to end their lives. It requires patients to take the medication themselves; under the law, other people cannot administer the medicine.

    The patient must sign papers and have two doctors sign off on the decision with two witnesses present, one of whom must be not be related to the patient.

    I am not against this act, but I would honestly never use this act on myself, no matter the circumstances.

    Most who oppose this are religious and see assisted suicide as an intervention in God’s plan.

    The ones who side with me are typically nonreligious, and support the right to die. At the end of the day, it is the patient’s choice to live through the pain or end it.

  • Alabama Falls Behind California in Voting Rights

    California

    On Saturday, October 10, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law The Motor Voter Act, a bill that automatically registers to vote any person on the day he receives or renews his driver’s license.

    The Motor Voter Act, sponsored by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, will hopefully reverse the record-low voter turnout from last November, which was a shocking forty-two percent.

    Before this act, only fifty-two percent of eligible voters ages 18 to 24 were registered to vote, an embarrassing statistic in a country where people died for the right to vote only fifty years ago.

    California is still behind Oregon, who now registers every person to vote on his/her eighteenth birthday.

    Padilla says about his measure, “Citizens should not be required to opt into their fundamental right to vote. We do not have to opt into other rights such as free speech or due process.”

    Alabama

    Alabama, on the other hand, is slipping back into the 1950s, a time when many were often barred from the polls by unjust, discriminatory laws.

    Alabama has closed 31 driver’s license offices, almost all in areas with large minority and poor populations.

    In Alabama, one is required to provide a federal- or state-issued ID when voting, and a driver’s license is the most common form used by voters.

    Residents will experience difficulty obtaining and renewing driver’s licenses, meaning these people will be unable to provide a valid ID when voting.

    Presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about the law, “50 years after Rosa Parks sat and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched and John Lewis bled, it is hard to believe we are back having this same debate about whether or not every American gets a chance to vote and exercise his rights.”

  • Cultural Appropriation: What’s the Big Deal?

    Cultural Appropriation: What’s the Big Deal?

    Now that Halloween is around the corner your local party supply store is stocking their shelves with your typical sexy nurse or hunky firefighter costumes. However, among these costumes you’re bound to find some that are accused of “cultural appropriation”.

    First off – What is cultural appropriation? Its become topic of controversy nowadays, especially with these “young internet activists” who are educated via tumblr.  Wikipedia defines cultural appropriation as, “a sociological concept, which views the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture as a largely negative phenomenon.” In simpler terms, it is the mockery of people and their culture through the adoption of ideas associated with a culture outside their own. So your cute Tribal Spirit Tween costume, that can be seen as the appropriation of the Native American race and culture.

    I can only speak for myself, and the appropriation my own culture, but when I see these Mexican *Sombrero Included* costumes on the racks, I am not offended at all. I am 100% Mexican, and the Mexican culture is deeply embedded in my everyday life – so when I see these costumes all I see is ignorance in plastic bag. My culture is the holidays we celebrate, the music we listen to, the food we enjoy – it is not someone in a multi colored poncho, wearing a plastic sombrero.  I don’t see the point of being bothered by the ignorance of our extremely insensitive society. They are taking a complex culture and turning it into a stereotypical caricature. You are not dressing as a Mexican if you walk around with a sombrero and a mustache – you’re dressed in classical American Ignorance, head to toe.

    However, as I researched the topic for this article, I came across some valid points that offered a new light to the situation. Even though I still hold my previous beliefs, I still have some food for thought for you guys that enjoy “exotic” dressing.

    Many of these ethically-cultural-and racially based costumes are merely intended to be one of two things – exotic or funny. But the question I am asking is – what about these groups make them exotic or humorous?

    Our society associates normalcy with “Whiteness” and therefore everyone outside is foreign, weird, or funny. Some readers might think dressing up as a person of certain culture is justified on the grounds that it is all done, “as a joke” and “should not be taken seriously.” I am not insinuating that you are racist if you choose to wear these, or that you are doing it with an intention to directly hurt or discriminate against another race, (If you are, you are a horrible person). However, keep in mind – you can’t just “borrow” someone else’s identity for a day. Because guess what, perhaps unlike yourself you don’t have to live with the stigmas associated with that costume.

    This is why it is so dangerous to “dress up” as another race because once you take off your sombrero and poncho you don’t have to worry about anyone asking you about your citizenship, like they do to me.

  • Straight Outta Compton

    Straight Outta Compton

    I’m always hesitant to see films dealing with racial oppression and subjugation because they always remind me of the stratification and prejudice that is my people’s reality. But what I experienced in theater number nine at the Pike Cinemark was something close to spiritual.

    Straight Outta Compton gives people a glimpse at what it is like to be a Black male trying to survive in a white man’s world in the 1980-90’s, today, and possibly forever.

    Those who deny police brutality, especially against minorities, need to watch the multiple times N.W.A. was harassed by the police—in front of their workplace, outside their own homes, and even at their own concert. All of these incidents were acts of white, male police officers asserting their power, and not the members of N.W.A. doing something illegal.

    The movie also deals with the case of Rodney King, a Black male who was brutally beaten by four L.A.P.D. officers in 1991. When all but one of the officers was acquitted despite video evidence, the oppressed minorities rioted in the streets of L.A., causing an estimated 1 billion dollars in property damage.

    The movie is still relevant today, twenty-five years later, because of the tendency history has to repeat itself. The Ferguson Riots of 2014-2015 started when officer Darren Wilson shot and killed the unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown. The riots escalated after the grand jury failed to charge Wilson with murder. Similar situations have popped up throughout the United States in recent years.

    The issues then and now are indistinguishable simply because we live in a Eurocentric world. “A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect,” stated W.E.B. DuBois, the late Black activist. So to those who speak of victimization and racism being over and “not a prevalent issue today,” I say this: hell na.

  • Land of the Free, Home of the Christians

    L’shanah tovah! Or to all that do not speak Hebrew, “to a good year,” because it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, once again.

    This two-day Jewish holiday is known as the Day of Judgment, and is celebrated all over the world for people to reflect on what they need to change to become better human beings. It has been questioned whether Rosh Hashanah, along with the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, should be school holidays.

    In Jewish tradition, it is prohibited to work during the two days of Rosh Hashanah, yet in the U.S., teachers and students are expected to be in attendance during those days of celebration and worship. In the nation of religious freedom, it is ridiculous that our school district doesn’t give the two days off to respect our teachers, staff, and students of the Jewish faith.

    Others might say that religion isn’t important in school. But in a country where children too young to understand what they’re saying are forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which includes the line “one nation under God,” we are lying to ourselves if we think school and religion are separated.

    Every year, we receive one week off for the religious holiday Christmas, a week for the nonreligious New Year, and another week for the religious holiday Easter.

    It shouldn’t matter how many people identify with Judaism, Jewish students and teachers should be allowed to have the two days off to celebrate their new beginnings.

  • Dying to Fit In

    Hazing is an endemic in our colleges and high schools today that has taken the lives of countless students who only wanted to be like everyone else.

    Whether it be a college fraternity or a high school water polo team, hazing can be detrimental to a student’s mental and physical health and can bring on extreme humiliation.

    Gary DeVercelly Jr., son of former Long Beach Poly teacher Julie DeVercelly, died in 2007 during Rider University’s Phi Kappa Taus’s “initiation ritual,” a yearly induction into the fraternity through forced alcohol consumption. His parents have since then undertook a project with the Clery Center, a group that works toward safer campuses, to put together a just-finished documentary called We Don’t Haze.

    We Don’t Haze includes interviews with the DeVercelly family and the parents of Robert Champion Jr. and George B. Desdunes, innocent victims of an unjustifiable tradition—a tradition that should be eradicated in every school in the United States.

    Fifty-five percent of college students involved in some school activity have experienced hazing in their lifetime, and that is a statistic that has to change.

    Despite efforts by colleges and high schools to eliminate hazing, there is still a lot of progress to be made. Teachers and students should attend mandatory hazing-awareness meetings and assemblies, and all sports teams, clubs, and musical groups should be informed of the consequences of hazing. Only this way can we keep our studentry safe.