Opinion - page 10

The Peace House has been my home for three semesters; which may not seem like a lot, but it is. Living in the Peace House is the longest I’ve lived anywhere outside of the home I had as a kid. Each year, students move from building to building, but the Peace House has managed to draw me back for another year. In the fall, it is humid and the lack of air conditioning coupled with the four flights of stairs is the worst. But as winter comes and one is able to look out of the frosted windows at the quad, sunshine or overcast, its beauty still shines. Even in the spring, living on the fourth floor holds its magic because the trees come into bloom right in front of your eyes and the squirrels dash from branch to branch, making them audibly rustle.
The Peace House sits on the very top floor of Dulaney, located inside of Mary Fisher. It overlooks the quad on one side and the ongoing construction on the other. There are three singles and three doubles, one of which is really just two singles connected by a door; housing a grand total of nine students. The closets are known for their spacious size. The bathroom is divided into two halves, one half having three toilet stalls, and the other having three sinks, one shower, one tub shower, and a plethora of cubbies for people to store their bathing equipment. There are two stairwells that lead up to the Peace House, one of which has a sort of bedazzled, colorful tapestry hung above the archway. At the end of the hall, room 406, a dorm room has been transformed into a common area, at least in name; the furniture has yet to come. When the furniture does arrive, this room will house a futon, a rug, two inflatable chairs, a coffee table, maybe some cacti or flowers, two desks, two desk chairs, a yoga mat or two, and several posters and pictures. The room will be a common area for weekly Peace House activities, such as art projects, movie nights, or support groups. The room will also work as a study room and even a recreational space that can be used for performance art, such as slam poetry or small musical gatherings.
To be the Head of the Peace House is something I do with pride. While I feel it is a position with no weight because the house works as a collective as opposed to a hierarchical structure, planning out events and seeing students come together as a community is something that touches my heart. The purpose of the Peace House changes every year and is decided by those who live in it. As of this semester, the focus has been on community engagement thus far. Future activities will aim to promote self-love and protection.
The following is our blue-print for the Peace House. Each week, members of the Peace House will meet once or twice in our new recreational space to work on small projects; each month the Peace House will do excursions or large activities that will tie into specific themes or upcoming holidays. The weekly meetings have yet to occur, due to the common area not being finished just yet. However, the monthly excursions are up and running. In September, Peace House members went to a nearby farm to kick off the school year with a fun day aimed at bonding activities. For the month of October, members have expressed interest in showcasing a documentary about Trans rights or meeting with David Heffer for a day to learn basic self-defense moves.
When I think about being old and reflecting on my college years, I think I will appreciate this snippet of my life, living in the Peace House. College never felt real until my sophomore year; until I lived here. Residents will come and go, myself included when I study abroad next semester, but the connections students build in this single hallway are tangible and lasting. My roommate, who I had to talk into living here and who considered this his last option in case he couldn’t live in Welsh, has since solidified his membership when he helped another resident clean up after they got sick in the bathroom. The Peace House is not just a set of dorms, it’s a community, and it will always welcome new members with open arms.

Sarah Hochberg, Opinion Editor

March 5th, 2017

A few days ago, I put on a dress and sandals, and read Harry Potter on the Great Lawn. Fellow gophers were playing Frisbee, catch, and generally enjoying the nice weather. The high temperature was 75 degrees, and the flowers outside my window have started blooming. However, it’s February.

Admittedly, I enjoyed the fresh air and not being confined to my dorm room because it’s too cold to go outside. I hate the winter, with its chapped lips and freezing winds – I would willingly have a year-round summer if I could. Everything I enjoy doing is better if it’s nice outside. Having said that, it wracks me with guilt that I’m enjoying this clear display of climate change. It’s frightening that the flowers are blooming, and will make harvesting schedules more difficult to foresee. Animals will suffer, and freak storms are right around the corner.

To try and put myself at ease, I focus on a few key statements. First, I can’t personally stop climate change. I will contribute in any way I can to the growing pro-environmentalist movement, but my singular actions will only matter in the sense that they are a piece of a puzzle. Second, whatever happens will not affect this one day of warmth and sunshine. If I stay inside frazzled or go outside and enjoy it, the world will keep on turning. Finally, just as a day of snow doesn’t disprove the warming of the globe, a day of sun needs to also be taken in context. The really scary numbers are the overall stats, that this year was hotter than 2016 which was hotter than 2015, so on and so forth.

So go out and enjoy the random nice day. Visit the horses and play frisbee on the lawn because self-care is important too. It’s okay to enjoy the weather. Use this as a concrete reason to get more involved in environmental groups and causes. Freak out in the back of your mind, and let that anxiety turn into action.

Drew Phillips, Staff Writer

March 5th, 2017

This past general election highlighted a disregard of rules, laws, and norms from both major party candidates. The greatest violation however, was that of an institutional electoral principle: the moderating effect of the general election.

Pundits and politicos speculated, that following the primaries, both candidates would move from their fringier primary positions on issues and realign to centrist positions that tend to attract more moderate voters—as they usually do. Perhaps this did not occur because Americans are too disillusioned by our political system to make the candidates pay for their polarized positions. Or, maybe this principle didn’t kick in because of the cannibalistic nature of both parties these days. Mrs. Clinton was perceived to be forced left on her platform to pick up Sanders voters necessary for a general election win. At the same time, Mr. Trump was forced to stick to some particularly unsavory and unorthodox policy prescriptions he laid out during the Republican primaries to re-energize a majority white, male coalition, which needed to turn out in full force for him to have a chance at winning. It could be that this principle didn’t kick in simply because this was an oddity of an election year, which was highly unpredictable on multiple fronts—a notion which is certainly possible, but one I don’t find probable; this year’s anomalies seem to be indicative of a larger trend away from moderation.

To consider what moderation truly is, I looked back to a New York Times opinion piece written by David Brooks leading up to the 2012 re-election of Barack Obama. In the piece, Brooks notes that a moderate does not commit herself to “an abstract idea,” but instead holds dear her country’s way of living “and the animating principle behind that way of life.” In America, Brooks suggests, this animating principle is that “we are a nation of immigrants dedicated to the American dream—committed to the idea that each person should be able to work hard and rise.”

I cannot think of a more relevant quote for the way our current political dialogue operates. The two ideas within this sentence should be read in concert, but in our newly anointed tradition of cherry-picking points to fit our current political narrative, it seems all too easy to envision a liberal using the “nation of immigrants” section to oppose President Trump’s policies, and equally simple to picture a conservative backing the “work hard and rise” portion to oppose some social justice initiative. This is problematic because we are creating an environment in political dialogue where one must pick sides; something that looks a lot like how a conversation would go between two followers of different religions trying to convince each other of their view’s legitimacy. In the simplest sense, this environment is tribal, it creates false choices and politicizes otherwise apolitical topics.

Our representatives then come to embody these tribal allegiances. As we saw in the general election, when we stick to our tribes, regardless of circumstance—which Brooks warns against—a slippery slope can develop. You may then encounter situations where even though Mr. Trump is the personal antithesis of nearly everything you stand for, he’s allegedly a Republican, your party picked him as their nominee, and it would be political suicide for you as a representative to disavow him. Or on the other side of the spectrum, Mr. Trump ends up winning on a platform of nothing less than the equivalent to a slap in the face for progressives everywhere, and you, the good Democrat you are, decide to oppose everything he puts his name on over the course of the next four years. Neither of these scenarios, both of which have occurred over the last few months, reveal a healthy political climate.

Perhaps instead, as a principled Democrat or Republican, but most of all, a principled American, you would realize that there is a more productive middle ground. As Brooks puts it: “There are no ultimate solutions. The moderate tries to preserve the tradition of conflict, keeping the opposing sides balanced. She understands that most public issues involve trade-offs. In most great arguments, there are two partially true points of view, which sit in tension. The moderate tries to maintain a rough proportion between them, to keep her country along its historic trajectory.”

The way to foster moderation is to reward it in Congress and statehouses everywhere. Moderates need to organize and become a political bloc, and then most importantly, turn out in primaries and general elections — just like so many other interest groups have done throughout electoral history. As it stands now, moderates are the most underrepresented group of people in American politics.

The best solutions our society has found to problems over time have usually been those that form under the pressure of opposing interests. They have checks and balances built into them and they are connected to our country’s “animating principles,” rather than whatever flavor of the month ideology happens to be in charge in D.C. These are the solutions that keep the most citizens satisfied and they come from the citizens themselves, exercising moderation. Solutions that advertise deviations away from our American foundations tend to not be fixes at all, but instead, increases in arbitrary power–part of what got us in this mess in the first place.

Michael Layer, Sports Editor

March 5th, 2017

Last Monday, February 20th, the Peace Studies department held an interdisciplinary lecture conceptualizing how Donald Trump won the most recent election and a prediction of what the future will look like in his time in office. Speakers included Martin Shuster from Judaic Studies, Lana Oweidat from English, Danny Kimball from Communications, and Yousuf Al-Bulushi from the Peace Studies Department. The nearly two hour lecture was livestreamed by The Quidecim and posted on its Facebook page.

The lecture was attended by roughly 45 students and had many viewers online.  Though many professors gave different takes on the reasons why Trump won the election, all four professors spoke about one common theme: white liberal opposition.

Martin Shuster criticized the way white liberals try to make Donald Trump seem unrepresentative of American politics. He cites examples of Trump’s administration’s policies being contrary to American ideals of liberty, equality, and justice. Shuster finds that white liberals hold Trump up to be diametrically opposed to American values. They glamorize former President Obama, unaware that he deported nearly three milllion people, the most of any American president in history. Shuster mentioned when white liberals are quick to criticize Trump for his proposed marginalization of Muslim, Latina/o/x, and LGBTQA+ citizens, they are often silent and therefore complicit the current ostracism of African Americans, white supremacy, and unjust deportation of people in the United States. It appears that white liberals fight against injustice only when it applies to their agenda.

Lana Oweidat provided an interesting critique of white liberalism. She compared the conscious way Trump supporters seek to marginalize Muslim people mirrors the unintentional way white liberals marginalize Muslim people through messages of solidarity. She brought up political scientific studies that show that anti-Muslim sentiments peak, not after terrorist attacks, but during election cycles. To her, Islamophobia “can be used as a tool of public manipulation.” Oweidat first considers the way Trump supporters “consume” an unfounded fear of the Islamic faith and reveals that because of their anxiety, they are more open to promises of “totality, conformity, and prejudice.” This conscious Islamophobia contrasts with unwise white liberal attempts to promote unity, but ends up as cultural appropriation and stereotypical misrepresentation. Oweidat says that these attempts, though well intentioned, can be just as harmful as the prejudice white liberals who want to overturn by imposing their white, western, American values. Oweidat urges white liberals to be conscious that their culture is not the only one and not more important than any other.

Danny Kimball, a Communications professor, discussed the media’s coverage of the most recent election, specifically social media’s role of disseminating ‘fake news.’ He talks about how news media covers political campaigns as a ‘horserace,’ encouraging a commercial, sensationalist, ratings driven coverage of American politics. Political coverage in this way gives rise to information more focused on entertainment, rather than a commitment to the truth. Social media played an important role in the election, specifically fragmenting, polarizing, and radicalizing the population: “The algorithms of social media platforms are designed to show us more of what we already think… and that further acts to polarize a segregated society ever more apart from each other.” Kimball claims that social media platforms acted as echo chambers (silos or bubbles) where people only engaged with information that agreed with their bias. On Election Day, he felt that white liberals weren’t compelled to campaign or simply vote because they felt comfortable reading sources that predicted Clinton winning.

Peace Studies professor, Yousuf Al-Bulushi, spoke about the concept of Liberalism and how global politics became polarized. Al-Bulushi began his remarks by comparing Trump’s candidacy to other populist movements in American history. He also gave a brief history of how American liberalism focused on white, straight, Christian, property owning men. White centrists felt comfortable with their dominant place in American political culture until several civil rights movements and the economic crash of 2008 threatened white supremacy. A right-wing backlash was created in response to a perceived lack of social status among white centrists that were focused on the prominence of Barack Obama and #BlackLivesMatter. In the 2016 campaign, when Clinton appealed to white centrism, many white centrists had already become Trump supporters, who were promised a return to the white supremacy of the eighties.

The Trump: Teach In was focused on ways to analyze the manner in which Trump won the 2016 election. The lecture was thoughtful, insightful, and critical of both Donald Trump and white liberals whose shortsightedness failed to thwart him.

Drew Phillips, Staff Writer

February 25th, 2017

The phenomenon we have been witnessing over the course of the last several months surrounding the U.S. Department of Education and newly appointed Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has been an enlightening microcosm of what’s been happening on the political left of late. The ordeal has been a controversy since the beginning, when President Trump chose DeVos as his selection for the position, and came to a peak Tuesday, February 7th when she was confirmed by the Senate with Vice President Pence’s tie breaking vote. These last few months have illuminated several things.

First, Mrs. DeVos’ fierce opposition in the Senate showed that Democratic politicians appear to be more beholden to the wishes of the teacher’s unions—generally one of their largest benefactors—than any other interest group in the country (it turns out money talks for Democrats too). Second, this opposition unsurprisingly showed what the Democrat’s political tactics will be like during the Trump presidency, and that much of the left has not learned their lesson following Trump’s election. Many continue to see their way of conceptualizing and solving issues—in this case the education system—as the only way to look at things; anyone who deviates from their perspective is on the other team and is subject to ridicule. Lastly, and most importantly, the outcry against Mrs. DeVos shows how little people at Goucher and across the country know about school choice. Mrs. DeVos and school choice should be exactly what members of the Goucher community were looking for in this fresh Department of Education if they are as committed to the task of social justice as they say they are.

School choice is in many circles a dirty term and Goucher College seems to be one of those circles. What is interesting about that, is the level of “school choice” a sizeable chunk of those who attend this school were likely afforded in their education before Goucher. This in part has to do with the relative socioeconomic status of many Goucher students, but generally speaking, school choice is exercised more than people think. 43 percent of American children (23.8 million K-12 students) already exercise school choice in several ways. According to the74million.org, 8.2 million moved their homes to attend a more desired school, 5.9 million chose a traditional district school other than their assigned school, 5.3 million enrolled in a private school, 2.7 million enrolled in a public charter school, and 1.8 million were homeschooled The only free school choice options here are public charter schools and traditional district options—not a large piece of the pie. While yes, anyone is free to move where they live, nobody should have to in order to obtain a decent education, and aside from that, moving to a better school district is a luxury that more well off families may have, but poorer families often do not. Countless studies and experiments have shown time and time again that charter schools improve educational outcomes for poor children, and yet there is such an odd amount of negative press surrounding them, particularly in liberal dialogue. Expanded school choice does not mean the privatization of American schools. It means offering more options to those who need them, so their future is not bleak just because of their socioeconomic status.

The proponents of expanded school choice understand that many children have adequate existing public school options available to them, and they celebrate this, because the idea that drives school choice is providing the best educational options to kids, regardless of the type. Nobody knows the dynamics of specific school districts better than the local school boards looking over them and the states that these school districts exist in. This is why Mrs. DeVos is so adamant in her plans to shrink the Federal government’s role in America’s school system. She has voiced a desire to give power back to the parents, educators, and administrators in their districts, power which has been flowing in the direction of the Federal government since the Bush administration, a trend which has only increased in the past eight years.

Additionally, there are two very common complaints about Mrs. DeVos, particularly with teachers and at Goucher. The first is that she has no experience as an employee of the public education system and is, therefore, unfit for the job. Suggesting that she must know all the ins and outs of education specifics like designing curriculums or writing lesson plans for this position is ludicrous. What Betsy DeVos has experience in is politics, and the job which she has been selected for is inherently a political one. The second claim goes along the lines of the idea that her spending millions of dollars to exert influence over school systems during her lifetime somehow disqualifies her for the job. To address this, I would like to direct attention to the massive national teachers unions which annually spend over $30 million on political causes. They can do this because of the dues most teachers have to pay them and watch them spend with little to no input from the actual teachers themselves.

I got the chance to meet Secretary DeVos last Friday in Washington D.C. and she was nice enough to talk to me for a few minutes. Our conversation was certainly not consequential, however it did highlight a few things about her. She is clearly a strong, powerful woman, who despite her vast fortune and life accomplishments, does not consider herself above taking a salary of one dollar to serve the public. She is someone who would spend four hours on a Friday afternoon meeting people she doesn’t have to, after spending a second straight week getting attacked (worse than usual) by people on the right and left who do not share her views on education reform. These characteristics suggest to me that perhaps instead of selling Mrs. DeVos and her ideas short, we should give them a chance. She is one of the few people in the Trump administration who has a truly clear, positive view for the future; the left should give her the same benefit of the doubt they often afforded the Obama administration.