The Daily Californian » Opinion

Off the beat: Under construction

Kimberly Veklerov — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:00:06 +0000

This summer in Berkeley — like any summer in Berkeley — a slew of campus buildings will undergo renovation, retrofitting and construction. With fewer students on campus, these three months are an opportune time for Capital Projects, UC Berkeley’s construction management team, to complete many tasks that would otherwise impede the daily flow of activities during the academic year. Almost all of Lower Sproul will be inaccessible in just a few weeks. Pedestrian pathways will be erected to circumvent construction sites. Ugly equipment all over campus will obstruct views that would have otherwise been bathed in beautiful, golden sunlight. Nonetheless, temporary unsightliness and inconvenience are necessary for the ultimate goal: campus improvement.

But this column is not about the pros and cons of infrastructural projects. It’s about personal construction — self-improvement. In the tradition of German philosophy, there is an idea of soul-searching and maturation that is referred to as Bildung. Inherent to Bildung is personal transformation. On an abstract level, this means cultivating selfhood — unfolding the manifold possibilities of identity.

You see, there is no better time than summertime to revamp your personality, mental outlook and skills. Forget spring. Renewal and growth are best suited for the long days of summer. The months between May and August are always slightly off-kilter from the rest of the year. Friends you might normally see every day are absent. Maybe living back at home feels strange. Maybe staying on campus feels even stranger. The heat in the air slows every moment, making you move sluggishly throughout the day. There are fewer obligations, fewer stresses, more tan lines. These mellow few months are thus the perfect time for some metaphoric construction.

Self-development is a never-ending process because no one is ever completely happy with who they are. The school year inhibits this process, sometimes delaying it for months. Academics hinder self-cultivation with projects and assignments and midterms, which force the process to go in a specific, predetermined direction.

Here is where self-construction comes into play. Those aspects of your personality that you find distasteful? Bulldoze them. Schedule the demolition for today. The passions that lie deep inside you? Lift them to the surface with a crane. Add layers. Add levels. Strip away the parts that no longer serve you. Become the edifice you have always wanted to be. And because this is a personal project, obviously, no trespassers are allowed. Spend some time alone each day to analyze what requires development. Work sites are never pretty, but the displeasing sight will be worth it in the end.

Construction must be done authentically. It is not enough to simply give the illusion of renovation for others to see. Poor workmanship will inevitably crumble as soon as you are shaken. And just as upgrading a building requires digging deep into its electric circuitry, delving into yourself requires a careful examination of your own mental wiring.

This self-examination process was one that I experienced myself a few summers ago as a high school student taking classes at UC Berkeley. It was a weird summer. Between not knowing anyone and being in strange Berkeleyland, I had a lot of time on my hands to explore the area and explore myself. At some point during those few months, I started understanding more about my identity. There is almost nothing more confusing than figuring out you are not the person you think you are. For the longest time, I had identified as straight. With a bit of introspection, I realized that my sexuality was far from hetero. This conclusion was not a result of me staring up at a majestic construction site. Neither was it one realized without denial, sadness and frustration. I didn’t figure out my whole identity that summer. I didn’t come close and probably never will. What I did gain, however, was the smallest semblance of self-awareness.

German philosophers thought that Bildung was all about self-education — reading books and engaging in intellectual conversations. I love those things. But cultivating selfhood contains another angle altogether: removal, relaxation and reflection. Discoveries about yourself are not usually made in the midst of activities or socializing but on a tranquil summer walk or just as you fall asleep for a midday nap. There’s no guarantee that you will realize your true sexuality like I did, but there’s a good chance you might learn more about yourself along the way.

Forgive my countless construction metaphors, but the parallels between humans and buildings are too great to ignore. Take façades, for example. A building’s pretty exterior indicates nothing about its interior strength, just as a person’s façade is irrelevant to her character. Like buildings, we require periodic reconstruction and re-examination. In the same way that a building quivers during an earthquake, we are prone to tremble under life-shaking circumstances. The key to not collapsing from it all is by building up your Bildung. With a steady internal structure, you can withstand anything.

Contact Kimberly Veklerov at kveklerov@dailycal.org.

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Off the beat: The feminist conundrum

Claire Chiara — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:46 +0000

While walking on Sproul last week, I was met with one of Cal’s famously spirited protests. The men circled in front of the student store chanting their overwhelming distaste for the brutal “War on Women,” and though I didn’t have time to stop and speak with them about their ideologies, the encounter did remind me of one of the glaring hypocrisies of our day: new-age feminism.

For the sake of conciseness, I’ll summarize feminism’s roots in one brief sentence: Feminism began as a means to an end of women receiving equal status in the eyes of the law and, consequently, equal status in the eyes of society as a whole. It stemmed from the denial of women’s rights to vote and work for equal pay, and, from an unbiased standpoint on humanity, it made perfect sense and was a long time coming. Today’s so-called “feminism,” though, is another beast entirely.

Women today march around kicking and screaming in a stubborn refusal to be “subjected to men’s will” any longer. They demand insurance-covered contraceptives, cite statistics of inequality in wages of the genders and claim that putting on heels and earrings for a night out is giving in to our subjugation by men.

Quite frankly, this is all a load of crap. Instead of reflecting our feminist foremothers’ passion around being seen as humans rather than being defined by gender, these displays of animosity toward males do nothing more than destroy the credibility of the equality argument altogether. Feminism has become a clever disguise for the idea that we women, not men, “run this shit.”

Take, for instance, the outrage over the wage gap. My feminist friends will not relent when it comes to the fact that women’s salaries — depending on their age groups — are between 75 and 85 percent of men’s. This statistic, however, is sadly misleading. First of all, women comprise almost 60 percent of the population in both undergraduate tracks and graduate schools. And though I typically hear the argument that this should lead to higher women’s salaries, my fine-feathered friends neglect that the more time spent in school, the less time spent slaving year after year for the same company (and slowly climbing the payscale ladder). Education is definitely a wise investment, but every extra year of school can delay the job search. And though having more degrees may lead to faster, more lucrative promotions, you’ll initially earn less than colleagues of the same age who began working at the company sooner.

Secondly, we women possess the miraculous gift of giving birth to our world’s future generations. It’s somewhat difficult for a company to continually promote an employee who can take three- to four-month (and typically longer, by choice) lapses from the job at really any time. Women can’t expect to take up to 10 years off from their careers and still come back and earn as much as male counterparts of similar ages.

Those who cry complete unfairness in the wage gap seem to forget that men and women lead completely different lives. The natural deviation between the genders’ lives is bound to lead to discrepancies between salaries, which don’t necessarily point to inequality. Though yes, the world isn’t perfect, and yes, various forms of inequality do exist almost everywhere we look, we need to stop placing every issue into gender-versus-gender terms and see that we can be equal without being exactly the same.

The only true feminist in mainstream media anymore is Nicki Minaj. Yes, I said it. Nicki, in all her wig-clad glory, is the prime example of seeing oneself not as a man or woman but as a person. She herself has said, “I’m trying to entertain, and entertaining is more than exuding sex appeal … I’m trying to just show my true personality, and I think that means more than anything else. I think when personality is at the forefront, it’s not about male or female.” Nicki — who also refers to herself as a king and runs in the heavily male-dominated rap industry — is solely out to prove her own worth, not her worth in comparison to a man’s. She represents everything genuine about traditional feminism — in a nontraditional way, that is. We ladies could learn something from her.

So, the next time you’re looking to rail against the “War on Women” and complain about how oppressed we’ve been for far too long, ask yourself: “Am I a real feminist?” Because if you are, you’ll feel no need to worry and whine about everything you’re missing out on that men might have. You’ll simply pursue whatever it is you want to do, expect nothing to be handed to you freely and avoid constantly comparing your situation to someone else’s. You are powerful, and you are equal. And so am I. And so are men.

Contact Claire Chiara at cchiara@dailycal.org.

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Letters: May 13 – May 20

Letters to the editor — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:00:02 +0000

Challenge commonly held assumptions

As a former member of the People’s Park Community Advisory Board and current university staff, I write in response to Lynn Yu’s piece “Peoples Park Problems” and the general low opinion of these pages for Cal students who serve off-campus communities.

If the staff writers and editorial board respected their peers, who devote thousands of service hours annually, they would seek the opinion of at least one of the more than the 10,600 UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students who engage in public service each year when covering matters such as off-campus poverty, homelessness, education inequity, mass incarceration and other issues of oppression and exploitation.

Instead, we get pieces like that of Yu. She states the park is one of the “biggest headaches for the city” and that she has arrived at this conclusion not by speaking with people in the park but through speaking with students. She then blames the stagnant situation on loud “dissenters” who “cry back.” She proposes “relocating Cal Corps to a new facility there” because “the university continues to expand every year.” She ends by stating she would like a park — but one “that’s actually for the students.”

Several longtime Berkeley residents have made incisive comments on Yu’s opinion piece. Instead of adding to their critique, I would like to distance Cal Corps Public Service Center from her remarks, and share my disappointment in Yu’s and this paper’s general approach to reinforcing rather than challenging commonly held assumptions about those on the wrong side of power and privilege.

When we do get stories of poverty and homelessness among your pages, we find not one interview with a student who is actively confronting this issue in the community. Not one student who is tutoring local youth is cited as a source in stories of the achievement gap in the city of Berkeley. Essays on mass incarceration go without citing one formerly incarcerated Cal student.

These are uninformed opinions with no effort to cover a cocurricular activity that enriches learning and that just about one third of the entire student body participates in. They include minimal to zero interviews with student leaders engaged in public service — as compared with the level of coverage of Cal sports, in which around 1,000 students participate. The exception to this — a piece highlighting Minh Dang’s accomplishments — demonstrates the rule.

As Cal Corps’ assistant director, I encourage Cal students to provide direct material assistance to under-resourced communities. Students find many avenues for providing philanthropy or hands-on direct service. Yet simple volunteerism does nothing to change the system that produces such inequity and is as to social change as memorizing dates in high school is to original scholarship in college.

The Daily Cal’s fellow student leaders excel in their public service pursuits when they facilitate reflective dialogue with their peers — dialogue that questions and problematizes the status quo — in the process often speaking directly with community members to hear their stories. The personal transformations that your peers undergo through this process often leads them to center their social change efforts on the voices and leadership of those most impacted by the injustices cited above.

So why not speak with these students instead of floating (even as “fun” filler) the notion that People’s Park would be a suitable site for the public service center? Your decision to run Yu’s piece demonstrates how far removed you are from the topic about which she writes and is an insult to the UC Berkeley students who live the public service mission of the University of California.

Thousands of students commit large portions of their Cal days seeking to transform power and engage in authentic relationships across differences. These students challenge themselves and their assumptions and have genuine dialogue with the nontraditional, localized working class and working poor leadership of color.

Rather than acknowledge her assumptions about the people who inhabit the park, Yu jumps to a farcical conclusion and one that seeks to cut off at the knees any counter argument by painting those who engage in such arguments as unreasonable. Unfortunately, your writers routinely fail to interrogate their assumptions in the writing process, a failure that reflects poorly on your paper.

From my own practice of coaching students to confront material needs in the short term, while exploring the structural dimensions of their service, I have seen them develop a deeper understanding of the social, political and economic issues that surround us. What will it take for the Daily Cal to take even the first step: to care to pursue these same stories with weight and depth?

— Mike Bishop,
Cal Corps assistant director

A misunderstanding of a clear assertion

In his response to my recent article on the proposed Aquatics Center, Vice Chancellor Wilton alleges that I made “erroneous assertions” about financing for the project. Yet I never claimed (nor presumed) that the proposed Aquatics Center would be financed by the same model as the $153 million Student-Athlete High Performance Center. What I asserted, and continue to assert, is that administrators in Intercollegiate Athletics made false statements to the press and to the university about the level of private donations, with the result that UC Berkeley has had to take on significant debt for IA projects.

In claiming that the Aquatics Center is parallel “in concept” to the Student-Athlete High Performance Center, I referenced their being designed for the exclusive use of Intercollegiate Athletics. In none of the documents I have read has a reason been given that the Aquatics Center should be reserved exclusively for Intercollegiate Athletics.

Vice Chancellor Wilton claims that the project “will serve every member of the campus and neighboring community who use university pools.” He suggests that I am misinformed to think otherwise, but M. Kathryn Scott, the director of UC Berkeley’s physical education department, raises a similar objection: “The details of usage … do not show any benefit of increased or enriched water time to any program other than the Intercollegiate Athletics Water Polo and Swimming and Diving Teams.”

The projects the vice chancellor cites as evidence that capital projects can be and have been devoted to particular campus populations that all “support the academic interests of some of our students and faculty.” The problem here is that a significant piece of Berkeley’s precious real estate would be devoted exclusively to an “auxiliary enterprise” of the university — Intercollegiate Athletics — and therefore, the project does not conform to the principle stated in the 2020 Long Range Development Plan — namely, to “provide the space, technology and infrastructure we require to excel in education, research, and public service.” Nor does it conform to the Southside Plan, designed to meet another of the objectives articulated in the 2020 LRDP: to “provide the housing, access, and services we require to support a vital intellectual community and promote full engagement in campus life.” Indeed, as some have pointed out, by eliminating yet another parking lot, the proposed Aquatics Center makes “full engagement” with campus life more difficult for a great many.
I note the vice chancellor does not discuss at all the rejected possibility that the Aquatics Center be located at Strawberry Canyon, where swimming facilities (in need of upgrade and repair) already exist. The Environmental Impact Report acknowledges that this site “would be the environmentally preferred alternative.”

Vice Chancellor Wilton misunderstands my remarks about Berkeley’s crumbling bricks and mortar. These remarks were an attempt to alert the Berkeley community to the deleterious effects of declining state investment in public education. I do not dispute that the administration has worked hard — even heroically — to minimize these effects. What I wished to point out is that the decline in state support for public education makes it a target for venture capitalists. Just as impoverished neighborhoods become investment magnets for developers (without benefiting the residents, often displaced by gentrification), I am suggesting, the land granted by the state for the education of its citizens is increasingly vulnerable for exploitation. In this case, it seems to me that the will of private donors is sufficient to subvert the expressed will of UC Berkeley with regard to the development of available space.

— Celeste Langan,
UC Berkeley associate professor of English

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A deplorable delay

Stephanie Baer — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:40 +0000

Berkeley Police Department made a serious mistake in delaying the release of the autopsy report from the death of Kayla Moore — one which reflects poorly upon the department’s communication tactics.

Moore, a 41-year-old transgender Berkeley resident, died of an accidental drug overdose while in police custody in February, but the details of her death did not come to light until the release of the report on May 3 — nearly 3 months after her death.

A death in police custody is inherently an extremely sensitive situation — one which the department needed to communicate with the public about quickly and extensively.

Instead, not only was an autopsy report not released in a timely manner, but the police failed to provide a meaningful reason for the delay to the public.

Furthermore, before the death occurred in police custody, the autopsy should have been done by an outside agency other than the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Coroner’s Bureau to ensure its validity and rid the police department of unnecessary suspicion.

Employing an outside organization to complete an internal investigation is not unheard of. Following the events of Occupy Cal in November 2011, an independent review of police actions were ordered to make certain that no bias was involved.

Although department spokesperson Jennifer Coats apologized for the lengthy delay and noted that the department wanted to ensure a “proper and thorough investigation for Moore,” an apology is not enough.

If Berkeley Police Department expects to be valued and trusted by the people it aims to protect and serve, it needs to be prompt and accountable regarding its own conduct.

The department should learn from this incident and create a better procedure for the future — one in which it moves forward with transparency as a fundamental value.

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Water rights

Rebecca Peters — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:26 +0000

The lack of access to water in unstable developing countries is an international security threat. Although the United Nations declared 2013 as the “International Year of Water Cooperation,” solutions to international water issues will not be met unless the global north directs foreign aid dollars to improve reliable access water, sanitation, and hygiene. Contrary to persistent beliefs, such aid has substantial international security bases.

Aid systems and development policy must support a system that is responsive to complex community-level needs because the labyrinth of water, sanitation and hygiene issues exists at the confluence of health, education and equity problems. Root causes of global economic and political instability are linked to poverty, inequality and unemployment. The rapid rise in global poverty has accompanied the rise of international security threats since the Cold War, according to anthropologist of development professor Akhil Gupta of the University of California, Los Angeles. Achieving human security in developing countries is paramount for reducing international security threats and goes beyond simply the absence of violent conflict — it means establishing basic access to essential services like water, sanitation and hygiene. The many competing human uses for water — personal consumption, agriculture, industry, and sanitation systems — combined with the lack of sufficient infrastructure in developing countries means that natural water systems (rivers, aquifers, streams and rainfall) cannot be abstracted from discussions of human and international security.

The 2006 United Nations Human Development Report found that people suffering from waterborne illnesses occupy over half of all hospital beds globally. Pathogens from dirty water result in diarrhea which still remains the leading killer of children younger than 5 years old — 1.8 million a year, or about 4,900 per day. Water-related illness alone causes 443 million missed school days per year. This means that for other development improvements to be met — including improving universal achievement of primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and eradicating extreme poverty and hunger – water, sanitation, and hygiene must be prioritized in the global policy and aid agenda.

While empirical data regarding the impact of aid on economic growth is mixed, the overall positive effects of aid specifically directed to the water sector are clear. A 2010 article in the Journal of Global Health used a country-level analysis to determine the relationship between official development assistance and improvements in access to water and sanitation. The results of this inquiry into aid effectiveness since the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 shows that countries receiving official assistance are 4 to 18 times more likely to have access to improved water supply than countries without assistance. Furthermore, countries with the greatest gains in sanitation were up to nine times as likely to have greater reductions in infant and child mortality.

Although aid is not a panacea for the many complex problems plaguing developing countries, cutting aid for water and sanitation programs would cause significant harm. As the United Nations Security Council suggests, water security takes on a double meaning: It describes both sustainable access to the resource, and the absence of water as a contributor to conflict. Although the global community met the Millennium Development Goal target for safe drinking water, the World Health Organization found that 800 million people are still without clean water and 2 billion without basic sanitation. The momentum to increase access to safe drinking water and improve sanitation in water stressed countries cannot be lost now.

According to Stratfor, a global intelligence agency, Egypt has renewed threats to militarily engage in the event that Ethiopia continues plans to build a dam on the Nile. This example is an indicator for a larger looming security crisis according to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who conveyed the findings of a Defense Intelligence Agency report this September at the United Nations roundtable on water security. Clinton warned that “demand for water will go up, but our fresh water supplies will not keep pace,” increasing the threat of instability within and between states.

Criticism about the infusion of aid to the transitional governments in the unstable regions is not unfounded, but reducing or blocking aid to water stressed countries could heighten tensions rooted in anxiety over reliable access to water. Middle Eastern and North African countries continue to be the worst off in terms of human and economic development indicators, including access to water and sanitation. USAID recently reported that only 27 percent of Afghanis have access to safe drinking water, and 12 percent to adequate sanitation, while two-thirds of water is lost through decrepit infrastructure. Aid directed at improving infrastructure in neglected areas for water and sanitation could significantly improve health, education and human security in such regions.

The BBC estimates that for developed countries and Brazil, Russia, India and China alone, “$800 billion per year will be required by 2015 to cover investments in water infrastructure, a target likely to go unmet.” According to a recent Guardian Global Development article, the developing world will be home to 29 megacities with more than 10 million residents by 2025; therefore, improving infrastructure in these areas to meet the growing demand for water will be crucial. As rainfall becomes more unpredictable and devastating floods continue as a consequence of global climate change, directed aid could reduce conflict in water-stressed countries that are politically and economically volatile.

There are many ways that Cal students can engage with critical water issues. UC Berkeley is transforming into a hub for water-based community engaged research, advocacy, and activism. A number of DeCals all offer opportunities for students. The Berkeley Water Group is a student-driven think tank and research collaborative aiming to nurture ideas and innovation. Many research opportunities, particularly though the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship program, are beginning to focus more water, health and environmental issues.

Whether students work domestically or abroad on water issues, any solutions must be tied to the environmental, economic, social and cultural realities.

In a world with more cell-phones than toilets, improving access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene is both a strategic investment and a moral imperative. The post-9/11 world forces a re-examination of the relationship between human security and global poverty. Development policy changes in the global north, rather than charity, that prioritize water, sanitation and hygiene will contribute to healthy people, thriving ecosystems and sustainable economies in the future. International security necessitates meeting the basic needs of those in developing countries, especially the most basic resource to sustain life: water.
Rebecca Peters is a junior at UC Berkeley and a 2013 Truman and Udall Scholar.

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Education democratization

Stephanie Baer — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:00:02 +0000

The University of California has done the right thing in joining the nationwide open access movement by officially coming out April 26 in support of California state assembly bill AB 609.

AB 609, which was introduced to the state assembly in February, aims to make results of government-funded research freely available to the public online. The bill follows a February mandate by the Obama administration requiring similar accessibility for federally funded research papers.

Open access to research is an important part of making education increasingly democratized and ensuring equal access to knowledge — regardless of socioeconomic status.

This cause is particularly relevant to the university. The university is renowned for its scientific and humanities research worldwide and, as a public institution, making this knowledge as widely available as possible is integral to fulfilling its mission. Considering that UC Berkeley will spend an estimated $30 million on access to 7,500 academic journals this year alone, open access could make knowledge sharing between institutions far more affordable.

Though supporting AB 609 is a step in the right direction, the bill also has its flaws.
For one thing, though the bill has not yet passed, its current language seems to indicate that the university is not considered a state agency held to the same standards of open sharing.

The university should not be exempt from making its research public if it intends to benefit from other state institutions’ public research.

AB 609 was recently amended to allow for a 12-month embargo period, during which research will be published in a peer-review journal before it is shared, but this is too long to be kept behind paywalls.

Support of the bill is also not all the university can and should do to make itself a strong advocate for open access.

The university should also support programs like the Open Access Initiative, which was co-founded by two campus undergraduates and suggests awarding less profit to publishers, who have less of a role in the research process.

Critics worry that open access to research could come at the cost of quality. That must not be the case for open access to be meaningful. There is a reason research must be peer-reviewed and vetted thoroughly before it is published, a process that must continue regardless of whether research papers are available for free.

As the open access movement gains momentum, it raises a few questions regarding different types of academic research. For instance, how should we provide the same type of access to humanities research, which is often published in a different format than science journals?

We need to be certain that this difference in format does not result in hard science becoming more available while humanities research remains under wraps, which could in turn lead to a greater divide between the disciplines.

The movement for open access to research parallels the one we are currently seeing in online education. Universities like MIT, Harvard and even UC Berkeley are joining programs that allow for affordable ways to access lectures and classes online — why shouldn’t research journals be made available in the same way?

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Off the beat: The Heem Team says goodbye

Annie Gerlach — Thu, 09 May 2013 07:00:54 +0000

In a little less than two weeks, I will turn 21. I guess it is a milestone insofar as I’ve actually survived 21 years of bumbling through life. And I’ve pretty much abandoned the hope that maturity and worldliness will be magically bequeathed unto me at 12:01 a.m. Nobody, it appears, has it together at 21. Bravo, world, for keeping me and everyone I know in the dark.

Two years ago, I had a plan for exactly how I would spend my 21st birthday. Suffice to say it involved a lot of booze I no longer drink and friends I no longer keep in touch with — which is both humbling and scary when I stop and think about it. So many things have changed in the span of two years — I’m basically an entirely different person.

The new plan is simple: I just want to share a few legal drinks with the people I love most. Two or three craft beers will be pomp enough for me. Because what I’ve come to value is the company of tried-and-true friends — those people who not only saw me at my worst but also chose to stick around.

Lucky is the person who finds his or her best friend during their first week of college. I envy you, truly. My first few years involved a lot of jumping between hazy friend groups and feeling out of place (which only made me cling to those quasi-friends more). It took me most of college, but I’ve finally found some keepers. I guess it makes sense that they’re my friends, because they’ve experienced the same stressful shit as I have. No deeper bond exists than that between people who survive something together.

Yet the scary thing is that some of those people will graduate in the next few weeks. The people I rely on most won’t be around next fall.

It’s stupid to be strategic about something like friendship. Friends are not something you plan out like moves on a chessboard. Yet sometimes, I can’t help but think: Should I have played my cards differently, rather than jumping into friendships with people older than myself? Now that leaves me on the brink of a weirdly bereft senior year. It’s not that hard to start over. I’ve done it more than once. But no matter how many times I do, I never shake the feeling of regret and nostalgia.

Last summer, while holding down my usual spot on the outdoor patio of the Free Speech Movement Cafe, I overheard two people talking about a study-abroad experience. One phrase stuck out: “A lot of the social events,” one girl said, “are going-away parties.”

Cue the next few weeks of my life.

It’s not like I’ll never see these people again. But there’s a bittersweetness to the fact that their places in my daily life will vanish. I won’t watch Jonathan’s entire face burst out in laughter when I say something funny — the highest reward for my humor. I won’t listen to Derek and Anya practically speak another language whenever they see each other. I won’t sit through another excruciating English lecture with Justin and laugh about it afterward. I won’t zoom through HBO series with Derek while we eat takeout in bed. I won’t see Derek every day.

One thing I just realized is how much of the last year has been enveloped in laughter — in each of us trying to one-up the other in jokes and sarcasm. Even the name we gave ourselves, the Heem Team, is an inside joke. We take up a very small corner of the world, but it means the world to me. Maybe the horrible shit brings people together, but the jokes keep us coming back.

I used to tread very lightly on the lives of my friends. I never asked too much for fear of losing them. But these people all demand things of me. And the thing is, I value the give-and-take. I’m happiest when I’m supporting them. It scares me to think that Derek and Jonathan will be moving on. The selfish part of my heart wants them to stay right here at my disposal. But that’s not how life works. That’s not how love and friendship work.

Each day, I become more afraid of what will happen next year — even of what will happen this summer. It’s scary to watch a deadline creep up, knowing that it will change everything. My best friend won’t even be around for my birthday, which isn’t scary so much as plaid old sad. My birthday will essentially be a going-away party — it’s one last hurrah for the Heem Team.

But allow me to impart some newfound wisdom that I’ve inherited from another year of life. We’re at that volatile point in our lives where things will change every single day. An entire lifetime will separate you from the person you were two years ago. Things change. Shit happens. People leave. The world doesn’t owe you or me or any of us anything.

So when you do find something or someone you value, don’t forget to drink to that.
Contact Annie at agerlach@dailycal.org.

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Dee-dah-do Dee-dah-do

Maura Chen — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:22:49 +0000

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Off the beat: Confessions of a humanities major

Matthew Kirschenbaum — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:43 +0000

When I first told my family that I would be double majoring in rhetoric and French, I faced confused and baffled responses. My parents expected me to follow my childhood passion for mathematics while in college, but sometimes, things just don’t work out. Throughout my academic career, I have been constantly told to consider my future as if humanities majors like me slip off the face of Earth after graduation. So what exactly is a humanities major, and why do they exist if there is such a constant fear of failure?

Many majors are put into classification schemes that limit the options of academic interest. There is often a dichotomy between the average humanities major and the average science major. Yes, clear distinctions tend to help with categorization, but defining majors by either being in the humanities or sciences is fallacious.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “humanity,” in reference to the academic field, to be “the branch of learning concerned with human culture.” But shouldn’t this definition apply to all majors, then? In chemistry and physics, aren’t we simply studying the effects of humanity and how to better our species and interact with other species? I think that the distinction between humanities and sciences is a bit misleading because it assumes the field of science does not deal with humanity, when in reality science and certain fields of study are all about humanity.

The deciding factor in the debate of whether or not to major in humanities is money. People are generally steered away from majoring in the nonsciences with the justification being that humanities majors do not make as much money as science majors do. But is money really the true matter at hand? I think that worrying about a future salary while still in college is stressful, not to mention extremely petty. Money talk simply fuels the capitalist society in which we live. Before prematurely taking money into account, I find it valuable to reexamine why one pursues an academic career.

Do we go to school to get a better salary or to gain insight as to how we fit into society? Although the former is true, the latter exemplifies the bottom line: Society has normalized higher education. In high school, it feels like the next logical step to reaching adulthood is to enroll in a college of some sort. If we are expected to attain higher education, then we should have the freedom and support to explore different academic fields and focus on whichever pertains to us most. And I also think that it is healthy to leave the postcollege worrying until postcollege, regardless of finances and jobs.

In comparison to a science major, the average humanities major is faced with high unemployment rates and lower average wages. Although this is definitely something to take into account, having motivation will play a stronger role in changing such statistics. Our generation is typically pressured to go into supposedly successful fields such as medicine, law and scientific research — perhaps this will change in five to 10 years, because there might be an abundance of doctors and lawyers vying for the same jobs. Be motivated, and have a passion for what you study and enjoy doing, for young passion and eagerness will help you in the future.

So do all humanities majors go on to become professors in their fields? Definitely not. But many undergraduates in the nonsciences tend to enjoy their field so much that they seek a doctorate in the subject. People have admitted to me their fear of an overpopulation of people with doctorates in the humanities and not enough demand for them. While graduate school is a viable option for students in the humanities, don’t feel limited to a postsecondary education. But if you do find yourself seeking to continue onto a graduate program, the investment can be justified if you have an immense passion for the subject. If you want to go to graduate school for the humanities, do so if the fiery passion is there.

Am I worried about my future? Yes, but who isn’t? Before worrying about post-college, worry about college. I am trying to make the most of my time here at UC Berkeley and enjoy the humanities path. By exploring my academic interests in interdisciplinary fields, I have had the opportunity to further my knowledge of how society functions, and that is something I find invaluable to all “humanities” majors.

We, as college students, have the privilege to explore and choose our futures. Don’t feel obligated to classify yourself in the humanities or sciences binary. Challenge normative and capitalist ideals of the future — your future.
Contact Matthew Kirschenbaum at mkirschenbaum@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @mpkirschenbaum.

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Keeping prejudice under control

Aryella Moreh — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:36 +0000

I come from a family of refugees. My mother was younger than I am now when she was forced to flee for her life from the Islamic Revolution of Iran. My mother recalls being forced to sit in the back of her classroom along with a group of young Jewish children during her school years.

When my mother went to buy groceries in the market, she was not allowed to touch the produce because she was considered a “dirty Jew.” These are only a few indicators of the systematic oppression of the Iranian Jews, some of the oldest inhabitants of Persia. At the age of 20, she was forced to abandon her life in Iran as her family was scattered across the world. My grandmother, Mamanjani, was never allowed to return home because of her active involvement in Jewish organizations. Though she had no ties to any other government, she was warned not to go home for fear of execution without trial. Despite calling Persia home for 2,500 years, in 1979, my family and many Jewish families like my own were forced to forced to flee their homes. My family’s home, business and property was confiscated. We were torn from our homes, forced to flee to whichever country would take us in.

Though these experiences define me, some students on our campus seem to think my history does not count. During the “divestment” meeting two weeks ago, Students for Justice in Palestine tweeted about those opposed to divestment: “the Zizis are literally white people crying about their privilege, lol.” Apparently, Zizi is SJP shorthand for Zionist. And later, Daily Cal Blogger Noah Kulwin discussed a clear division he seems to see between “students of color” and “Jewish students,” implying that Jewish students like me cannot be considered students of color. I am here to address ignorance about what truly defines the Jewish people. Amid claims — or rather accusations — of “privilege” or the inability of Jews to understand the plight of “colored people,” I realized many people on this campus are unaware of who the Jewish people actually are.

My story is not unique among those who stood against divestment. Many of my peers who spoke against divestment come from families that experienced similar persecution before making it to America. For some, it was the Iraqi Farhud, where hundreds of Jews were killed and injured as Baghdad’s Jewish community was destroyed. For others, it was the oppression Jews faced under Soviet rule in Russia. And for others still, it was the Holocaust of Eastern Europe. But although they come from different corners of the globe, these Jewish students are here for a single reason: because making it to America was the difference between a new life and death in the countries they used to call home.

In the second half of the 20th century, millennia-old Jewish communities throughout the Middle East and North Africa were completely destroyed. The number of Middle Eastern Jewish refugees like my parents is on par with the number of Palestinian refugees following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.

Not every Iranian Jew achieved asylum in America. For those who were not fortunate enough to make it here, Israel was the only country to which refugees could go. That’s what it means to have a Jewish State. It is a place — the only place — Jews like my family are guaranteed security. For our senate to refuse to recognize Israel as the Jewish State means that they are refusing to acknowledge my right to a place where my family, and others like me, are safe.

The pro-divestment movement wants you to believe that its cause is a struggle between the ethnic minority Palestinians and the “white” and “privileged” Jews and Israelis. By pretending that Jews are white Europeans, they argue that Israelis are foreign occupiers. But Jews are not a homogenous group of white people; we are an ethnically Middle Eastern people, comprising many unique communities from across the globe. After centuries of persecution, we have found security in this country and in our nation’s first home, Israel. And although we have achieved the privilege of statehood, our personal histories are defined by our recent struggles.

If there is one thing we can accomplish at a university, it is to educate ourselves. It shames me to see students at one of the most prestigious universities in the world denying the oppression of my people. True justice comes from recognizing the struggles and stories of every student. It is both offensive and counterproductive to define the ethnicity and history of another student group for political gain. Each student, regardless of race, ethnicity, color or creed, faces unique circumstances. To alter a commonly used sentiment on this campus, we all must check our prejudices.
Aryella Moreh is a student at UC Berkeley.

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