Despite the title of Robin Thicke’s new song, when a friend of mine first mentioned the “rapey” undertones of “Blurred Lines,” I was taken aback. The fact that the song’s music video is grotesque and objectifying wasn’t new to me, but I had failed to recognize these more problematic undertones as I heard the catchy tune around Berkeley.

However, after taking a closer look at the lyrics and reading Tricia Romano’s take of the song in The Daily Beast, I have come to understand its impact more fully. Sure enough, the song is suggesting that the line between rape and consensual sex is “blurred.” This is blatantly portrayed when a model is carrying a stop sign on her back only to have Thicke sing “I know you want it.”

Lyrics aside, the footage alone is objectifying. Three women are orbiting around the three singers in nude thongs and heels, shaking their asses and licking their fingers as the men move around in full-body suits and sunglasses. The women are exposed, sometimes on their knees, playful and vapid. The men stand tall and assured, promising, “Just let me liberate you,” and referring to their physical proportions in a way that asserts their masculine dominance. It’s fair to say the balance of power isn’t exactly in the women’s favor.

But what’s that line about liberation all about?

In an interview with GQ, Thicke said of his song, “We just wanted to turn (everything that was taboo) over on its head and make people go, ‘Women and their bodies are beautiful. Men are always gonna want to follow them around.’” He added, “Right now, with terrorism and poverty and Wall Street and Social Security having problems, nudity should not be the issue.”

First of all, the issue with the video is not the nudity per se but the context surrounding the nudity — how the nudity creates an imbalance of power. If the purpose of nudity was to point out the beauty of the human body like Thicke claims, then why were the men fully clothed? Why not expose their beauty as well? And why were the screenshots moving so fast between one beautiful nude body to the other without sufficient time to actually reflect on it the way you would below Michelangelo’s David or the Sistine Chapel ceiling? Thicke speaks of his song as if it were revolutionary, “blurring the lines between men and women,” when it really adheres to longstanding patriarchal standards.

I can see why Thicke would think his song is empowering. The song’s about a “bad girl,” one who’s challenging the social norm by practicing sexual freedom — even though this sexual freedom is being offered to her by a man — in a society that expects her to remain monogamous at the least and otherwise dubs her a “slut.”

Sounds like a misguided attempt at empowerment, right? But Thicke isn’t the first to consider sexuality when trying to “empower women.”

The idea of empowerment through sexual acts is endorsed on a daily basis by some of the most iconically “feminist” female artists. Take Beyonce Knowles, for example. Yes, I said it: Beyonce, the “symbol” of female empowerment. Looking at her “Single Ladies” music video, I found nothing empowering about three women in leotards and high heels shaking their asses yet again. Granted, this video had no men in it at all, but who was the sensual choreography targeting? What was it meant to achieve? And what messages does Beyonce’s video send to young women who use such an influential figure as a role model?

When you listen to songs like “Run the World (Girls)” you immediately think of female empowerment. The lyrics seem to be giving and not taking away agency from women. But the music video says a completely different story — starting with the woman in her underwear trapped in a cage to the army of women dancing in strapped leggings and skintight dresses. The message? Yes, girls run the world, but only using their sex appeal. And listeners go on to use this message as a model for empowerment!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with practicing sexual freedom — at least what Beyonce is modeling doesn’t undermine consent. What I find problematic is when sexual acts are marketed as the only means of practicing freedom and equality — entirely ignoring education or self-sufficiency. Perhaps women aren’t represented as sexual objects in Beyonce’s songs, but sexuality is still used as the primary tool for women to yield any type of power, which isn’t much better, in my opinion.

So yes, Robin Thicke’s song — as well as half the hip-hop and rap industry — is extremely problematic. It perpetuates the objectification of women and rape culture. That is clear enough. What is more perturbing are songs that are not identifiably objectifying, songs that are seen as empowering even though they perpetuate the same problematic norms.There is much more to empowerment than the body, be it female, male or transgender empowerment. And as far as I’m concerned, the truly blurred lines are the messages we choose to admit into our lives in the name of empowerment.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

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When I think of all the untold stories stagnating in the suburbs of Southern California, where I attended high school — in Santa Ana and Garden Grove — it saddens me that popular TV Shows like “The O.C.” and the “The Real Housewives of Orange County” have overshadowed the true face and voice of such a diverse place. I wonder what a strong spoken word community can achieve there, what stories it would bring to life and what cultural pride it would instill.

One of my first encounters with spoken word was a video of a poem by Jasmine Mans at the 2008 Urban Word Slam Finals. By the time I could find the words to describe my reaction to that performance, the only words I could use were “raw” and “powerful.” I knew this was something I had to be personally involved in. To be able to inspire someone in this way, to create a visceral, visual world using mere words — that is powerful. And that is the least of what spoken word achieves in the three minutes or so it takes a poet to perform.

Imagine a magical community where poetry is actually cool, where people express themselves through words, and do it well, and tell “untold stories” as CalSLAM poet Natasha Huey puts it. Narratives that make you gain a greater understanding of just how complex this human life is, and how connected we are through countless similarities in our intricate life reel — not to mention stories that entertain. That is exactly what I found within the spoken word community on campus.

CalSLAM, the university’s spoken word team that competed nationally this past year at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, has managed to grow by providing a space for writers to expand their creativity, be it in the form of an open mic, a slam (competitive spoken word) or a writing workshop.

That is spoken word to you: a group of people coming together to share their truths, using rhythm, using body language, using an ancient oral tradition and sharing it in the most original way they know how. These “identity stories,” as CalSLAM poet Gabriel Cortez referred to them, combine to form one of the most sincere multicultural platforms I have participated in on campus.

At such a diverse place as UC Berkeley, where each ethnic or religious group has its own organization, there’s little chance for integration other than through collaboration. Yet the spoken word community has managed to synthesize that multiculturalism, giving voice to stories that were previously either too controversial or too personal to be shared in public spaces. As CalSLAM poet and recent alumna Isabella Borgeson put it, this scene allows individuals to “write their own narratives in a society where their voices are often marginalized or completely absent.”

What’s unique to spoken word is its ability to empower the audience, to “take the poetry back to the people” so to speak. Listeners can voice their affirmation by snapping hooting, and even stomping their feet when they’re feeling the words. In this way, a performance is not only a performance but a conversation between the poet and the audience.

That’s not to say that spoken word is perfect. As a microcosm of a bigger world, the spoken word community reflects some of the biases observable on a grander scale. Like with hip hop or academic papers, there are certain voices that gain wider approval than others. That’s referred to as “the slam voice” — those particular vocal intonations signaling when a line is important,  humorous or tragic, as CalSLAM poet Ariana Weckstein describes. On one hand, the voice manipulates the audience in the same way word choice manipulates the reader. On the other hand, the “slam voice” is extremely formulaic, and it can discourage poets from sharing their work because they don’t believe it’s quite “spoken word.”

Yet the campus spoken word community has done its best to counter this misconception. This is evident from the successful work of poets like Weckstein as well as Noor Al-Samarrai and Brandon Young, also CalSLAM poets, whose slam voice ranges from rapid and whimsical to paced and aloof — neither of which is standard “slam voice.”

“People take risks, shed heavy layers off themselves, hands or voice shaking and all, present and transparently sharing their truths, their reality,” explained UC Berkeley student Paula Kahn when asked about her involvement in spoken word. “We are able to learn so much from each other in these sacred healing spaces where our potential for understanding and changing our behaviors are activated.”

When I think of spoken word, I think of how lucky we are that we can boast such an empowering forum for cross-cultural engagement through art. If the same could exist in Orange County, perhaps the world could know of the overshadowed places there as well — of Centennial Park and the Santa Ana River bed, of the pho restaurants in every neighborhood and the boba on every block, and just how big of a deal a 7-Eleven slurpee is. These and a thousand other untold stories people can claim as their own.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

The post Breaking the single story appeared first on The Daily Californian.

I remember studying in the main lounge of my residence hall last fall when a custodian came in to vacuum, apologizing for the noise in the process. This gesture surprised me because 1) I had been worried I was an inconvenience to him throughout the ordeal, 2) he was only doing his job, and 3) as a child, I was taught to respect my elders, so for someone older to humble himself before me enough to apologize was new to me.

It didn’t take long to realize where this attitude may have stemmed from, however. The custodial staff has been slipping in and out of the residence and campus halls in the early mornings since my freshman year, ungreeted by most students and made to feel like an inconvenience at best by those who acknowledged them. Those are usually the few students who wake up early enough to have their morning routines “disrupted” by such work.

Aside from the occasional reminder from our resident assistant to keep the bathrooms cleaner or sign a “thank you” poster, the UC workers who took care of our most basic needs — who provided us with a clean environment in which to study and function on a daily basis — remained invisible throughout my stay in the residence halls.  They did not partake in our hall association meetings, in our socials, or share our holidays. And at the beginning of the year, when we were introduced to every resident assistant and resident director in the halls, the custodial staff remained unmentioned for the most part, the particular worker assigned to our floor unnamed until the very end of the year. It was clear there was a division between the students and hall staff and the custodial staff, a lack of acknowledgement that was unnecessary and impolite.

This veil was held back Monday, however, as members of the community’s custodians, food-service workers, drivers, groundskeepers and other UC employees who keep our campus up and running protested on Upper Sproul Plaza regarding a new pension plan. Though sparked by events that occurred in January, Monday’s protest came as a complete surprise to many UC Berkeley students, myself included, and was reportedly fueled by Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ unresponsiveness to meeting requests made by AFSCME Local 3299. Members of the union had made this request to negotiate a pension plan other than the new two-tier one that was implemented July 1.

This jolt was needed for a student like myself to open my eyes and delve deeper into issues I had noticed but chosen only to mildly discourage. Well, I greet the custodial staff with respect, I had thought, pleased with myself. I encourage other residents to do the same when the topic is brought up. What I didn’t acknowledge was my failure to develop past that point, no matter how unintentionally. I was still at a loss of what to discuss in a conversation or how much or how little to ask about without being offensive or outright annoying as UC employees went about their work. What I did know was that the UC workers I spoke to took immense pride in their work.

Maricruz Manzanarez, a senior custodian on campus, said AFSCME workers are simply trying to ensure that the quality they take pride in is consistently upheld. But in the face of increased deductibles and worker layoffs without an equal reduction in the workload, this quality is jeopardized.

According to Constancio Gonzalez, who has been a UC Berkeley food-service worker for the past 20 years, even work relationships would be jeopardized by these measures. The new contracts will create an unnecessary division between older workers and new workers (those hired within the past five years or less). New workers will be receiving a lower annual pension after retirement due to the contracts agreed on by current workers. While their predecessors fought for the eight-hour workday and days off, Gonzalez was concerned that current workers’ legacies would be nothing but a less dignified retirement.

And these recent fiscal changes affect UC workers in more implicit ways. For example, Luis Rodriguez, a UC employee working with the Disabled Students’ Program, remarked that budget cuts have already forced him to discontinue his education for the second time around. Rodriguez had returned to college in 2008 to get his bachelor’s degree in European history, a subject he is extremely passionate about, but was forced to withdraw due to the rising tuition and costs of living.  The inaccessibility of this public institute also extends to many workers’ children and is only bound to increase with the division this looming “second-class shadow workforce” will create, according to AFSCME.

With many UC workers already having to take on second jobs to support their families, their fears of the impending changes are justifiable.  There is no telling whether older workers will be laid off in favor of newer and less expensive employees once the new pension plan is put in place.

Though I’ve gained a greater understanding of the impact of these fiscal changes on UC workers, it remains unclear to me whether Dirks has the power to negotiate a new pension plan for them or is bound by predetermined budgets. I do know that as a member of the UC community, Dirks should take the time to acknowledge and appreciate the workers who keep our campus on point and do this with an intense pride.

As students, we should do the same. We can learn what issues affect UC workers and how we can support them as they incrementally support us in our success. With greater awareness, the next time such a protest takes place, it will not come as a surprise but will display students and faculty members standing in their rightful place alongside their fellow community members.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

The post The hidden backbone appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The first time I learned to identify myself as “white” on official government papers, I thought it was rather funny. To 12- year-old me, the term “white” did not extend beyond skin color, and the thought of me being identified in this way was so blatantly wrong that I didn’t know what to make of it other than a joke. By the time I was checking off “white” in the UC application as a high school student, however, it had stopped being funny. Instead, having to identify as “white” after reading through the entire list a few times felt constricting. This institute that prides itself on higher education, activism and diversity was clearly not wide enough for my cultural background.

This is the part where I tell you that with so-and-so percentage of Arab-Americans on campus, I’m surprised that the Arab-American community was not represented among the ethnic categories listed at the time.

Unfortunately, due to this lack of ethnic representation, this data is currently unavailable on the UC Berkeley enrollment website.

Since 1977, students identifying as Middle Eastern have been instructed to mark “white” in all federal and UC forms — with students marking “other” automatically reclassified as “white” in the U.S. census. Consistent efforts have been made to rectify this situation on both the federal and UC levels, among which was the “Invisible Minority in Campaign” initiative launched at UCLA in 2009 following the success of the Count Me In! Campaign. Unfortunately, the campaign did not gain enough momentum until it was rebooted at UC Berkeley in 2010 in collaboration with other UC campuses.

A real breakthrough occurred this past spring, however, with the passage of a new UC bill addressing the situation. Commonly known as SWANA, this new measure will expand the racial categories on the UC application to encompass a new category for Middle Eastern students, titled SWANA (South West Asian/ North African) starting in the 2013-2014 application cycle. SWANA students can now mark a separate box altogether, with 32 subcategories based on national identification.

But why is a simple check mark such a milestone in the history of the Arab-American community? The fact that this question was posed by many UC Berkeley students exemplifies the prior invisibility of the Arab community on campus better than my words ever could. Some students admitted they had not realized it was an issue at all.

The importance of SWANA has to do with why race is requested on the UC application to begin with. Contrary to common belief, racial categorization does not factor into UC admissions decisions at all, but is used to measure retention rates and to monitor campus diversity following admission. This data collection is vital for understanding educational accessibility within marginalized communities. Consequently, exclusion from these statistics has cost years of understanding the Arab-American community’s socio-economic conditions and learning how to advance them.

This checkbox doesn’t simply recognize the presence of a Middle Eastern student population on campus — a population previously made invisible by the insistence on classifying it as “white” — but it serves as a pathway for recruitment and retention services to better integrate this community. Having raw data to back up requests like the creation of an Arab American Studies program, for example, or the inclusion of Arab Americans in scholarship opportunities like the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (which lists African Americans, Chicanos/Latinos and Native Americans as its target minority groups) would give them credibility and power.

Yet some students are concerned this measure would “unfairly benefit” non-disadvantaged students at the expense of “programs aimed at the socially and economically disadvantaged” in the words of the ASUC senate bill. I understand where this concern is coming from, but the follow-up question on the UC application regarding parents’ income should take care of this issue. It is unfair to assume that all households within a minority group fall within the same income range.

Financial resources aside, the SWANA senate bill has been a struggle for recognition more than anything else. “I’m glad this checkbox will be there when I apply to graduate school,” an Armenian friend of mine said. “If you’re going to ask for my ethnicity, at least give me the right options to answer you.”
And I agree. But recognition goes far beyond an educational institute brimming with open-minded individuals to begin with. As much as I rejoice at this victory for the Arab-American community, I’d like to be able to mark “SWANA” next time I’m applying for a job or filling out a government form. That is the next milestone in sight.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

The post No longer an invisible minority appeared first on The Daily Californian.

“My cousin came to me crying,” related Sudha Patel, owner and manager of the Downtown Berkeley Inn, as she attended to some reservations during my first encounter with her. “I think her son wanted to study film instead of medicine or engineering, and she was upset. But I told her, ‘Let him do what he wants — this isn’t our dream.’”

Growing up in an immigrant family myself — a family in which such a response would seem impractical — I was refreshed by Patel’s unique perspective.

After immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1979, Patel soon found herself a single mother of two daughters with a motel to manage on her own after her husband’s passage in 1985. Juggling a business and a family was not the only challenging part in Patel’s life. As a child, Patel grew up in a racially segregated South Africa with her parents before relocating to India and then Canada. Years later — despite relatives’ reservations regarding her business — Patel would follow through with a ground-up renovation of her hotel. All in all, Patel was no stranger to the hardships of immigration.

Yet these experiences did not stop Patel from expressing firm opinions regarding her nephew’s future when I first encountered her.

“I think (parents) have it in their minds that money is very important — and which career brings money for their children to survive without struggling,” Patel explained. “We came here into America with nothing, and we struggled to be where we are, so I think that’s why the parents have more caution about their children. And being the first generation, we are the first here, and it is important that our children have a good education and a good career to carry on (our legacy).”

The notion of this debt we owe our parents is not new, and it appears again and again across various immigrant cultures in the United States. Mexican-American author Jose Antonio Villarreal sums up this attitude in his novel “Pocho” through a mother’s entreaty to her son. The logic goes as follows:

“If you could go to the university, it would be to learn how you could make more money … So you can change our way of living somewhat, and people could see what a good son we had, and it would make us all something to respect. Then, when you married and began your family, you would have a nice home and could be assured that you would be able to afford an education for your children.”

Though the previous statement comes from a fictional novel, it echoes the values of the all-too-real American Dream embedded in many students who came from immigrant families long before their college careers began.

Coming to UC Berkeley in the fall of 2011, I was set on majoring in English literature. English has been my passion since middle school, and to me, this major was an instinctive calling. As the year went on, however, I began to feel there was something idealistic about my major. Here’s how a typical exchange would go:

Peer: “What major are you?”

Me: “I’m an English major.”

Peer: “That’s so chill! So you basically just read. What are you going to do with that?”

Thinking back to my mother putting away an unrecognized doctoral certificate and instead putting on her apron for a minimum-wage job just to provide me with a secure life, I felt that I was letting her down by pursuing my passion. I began to think I was wasting a great opportunity to make huge amounts of money by majoring in something less risky — like biology or engineering, perhaps. I couldn’t shake off the guilt that I may not be self-sufficient following my graduation and saw my pursuit of this passion as selfish and ungrateful.

Most of my friends majoring in pre-med agreed with me about this feeling and exclaimed that their parents, who also happen to be first-generation immigrants, have the same mentality as mine. They just want their kids to be guaranteed a better future, to take as little risk as possible, to only survive.

That is often the immigrant priority: survival and not self-exploration.

At least, that is what I believed until I encountered Patel, who, with a few words, distilled my notion of parents’ inflexible expectations in pursuit of an ever-receding American Dream.

Yet, as noble as this cycle of sacrifice is, it’s time that we perpetuate a new American Dream: one based on the notion of fulfillment instead of vicariously living through our hypothetical children and on the ability to consistently apply our skills toward a field that intellectually challenges us — not the one that best commodifies our health and labor.

My dilemma persists, but I take comfort in the fact that parents are not infallible and that what truly lies at the root of their fixations is a desire to see us safe and happy — not as engineers or doctors.

Amy Mostafa writes a Thursday column on cultural issues. Contact Amy Mostafa at amostafa@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this column incorrectly misspelled Sudha Patel’s first name.

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