October 9, 2018 - Volume 16 - Issue 3- Santa Monica College - Every Copy of The Corsair is free, each copy after is 25 cents
SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD
Measure W: Managing Water P.3
October in Santa Monica P.6
Derailing Rape Culture P.7
Santa Monica Colleges, Student Run Newspaper since 1929
Pirouettes to Pantages P.8
2 CONTENT
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
Editorial Staff Editor in Chief………….Reed Curtis Managing Editor………..Pyper Witt Design Editor………….Casey Contreras News Editor………………Dakota Castets-Didier Culture Editor………….Casey Contreras Sports Editor…………….Dylan Cortez Opinion Editor…………Lauri Helin Photo Editor……………..Pyper Witt Digital Editor……………Nicole Washington MultiMedia Editor…….Blake Atwell
Corsair Staff Cristian Vasquez, Will Dicke, Adriel Navarro, Victor Ronderos,Chrissy Clark, Irving Santiago, Yasser Marte, Ricardo Herrera , Jazz Boothby, Oskar Zinnemann, Muhammad Khokar, Bradley Elyghanian, Ana Duraes, Hugh Garbarini, Evan Minniti, Shayn Almeida, Melanie Delgado,
Aaron Sheperd singing and being carried by actors Nehemiah Harvey (left) Ellis Allen (center) Deonte Allen (right).Smokey Joe's Cafe Musical. Santa Monica College (SMC) Theater Arts Main Stage. Oct. 2, 2018. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Reed Curtis
Michelle Ayala, Earl Agustines,Austin Sebesta,Brenna
Editor-in-Chief
Spalding,Jacob Victoria, Ryanne Mena.
Faculty Advisors Journalism Advisor ……. Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins
Photo Advisor……………. Gerard Burkhart
FRONT COVER A plate of baja kanpachi from the Fairmont MIramar Hotel at Off the Hook Seafood Festival on October 6, 2018, in Santa Monica, California. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
(Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
Dear reader, The past few weeks have been an interesting time for our nation. Set to the backdrop of the midterms, the attention span of the American citizenry has been firmly focused upon Capitol Hill yet again. In spite of large scale protest and the determined efforts of congressional Democrats, Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault, is now a sitting justice on the supreme court. We at the Corsair have been watching the hearings with the same rapt interest shown by the rest of our country, but in these last few weeks I’ve been noticing a different, and equally alarming trend demonstrating itself on my news feed. In China, an ongoing “anti-corruption” campaign has led to the arrests of uncounted numbers of that nation’s prominent citizens. The campaign, started six years ago by Chinese President Xi Jinping, has already reportedly led to the arrest or disappearance of over one million Chinese officials, generals, and regular citizens. The fact that one of China’s most recognizable actresses, Fan Bingbing, was caught up in this struggle indicates that no level of social notoriety is enough to shield Chinese citizens from the grasp of their government. Taken alongside the disappearance and subsequent announcement of the arrest of Chinese Interpol Chief Meng Hongwei starkly demonstrates the recent swing in Chinese politics towards authoritarianism and the absolute power of President Xi. The statement released by the Chinese govern-
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ment confirming Meng’s arrest heavily emphasized the importance of loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, and Xi Jinping in particular. The fact that the Chinese government feels bold enough to act so openly, and to arrest the head of an international organization, might represent a dangerous trend in that nation’s already strenuous relationship with the international community. The trend of extrajudicial killings and illegitimate detainment isn’t restricted to China. People who differ ideologically, or work to expose authoritarian regimes are being targeted. In Myanmar, two journalists working to document the horrific massacres of Rohingya Muslims for Reuters were jailed by their government after being set up by police. The Myanmar government used a “State Secrets Act” from 1923 to jail the reporters after setting up a phony meeting with them and pressing classified documents into their hands. The fact that the government of a country like Myanmar is acting in such an authoritarian manner is surprising given that the nation was operating under a dictatorship as recently as 2011, and has made significant efforts to distance themselves from that legacy. Perhaps most worrying of all, or at least most horrifying to me as a journalist,
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was the recent disappearance and possible killing of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A prominent critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday to get papers that would allow him to marry his fiance. He never came back out. An unnamed Turkish official is reported to have speculated that the Saudi government took this opportunity to silence an influential critic of Salman’s new regime. Part of a larger campaign being waged by Prince Salman to stamp out dissent in Saudi Arabia, this killing further reinforces a message that is being sent to press all over the world: you are not safe, you are not a valued part of society, you are an enemy of the state. Truth truly is under siege right now, those who spread truth are being targeted, and ideological homogeneity is the watchword for authoritarian regimes the world over. With this context, the naked hostility the Trump administration shows towards the press is particularly alarming. Though most Americans would still find the idea of the US government killing and disappearing journalists to be closer to conspiracy theory than to reality, given the fact that these things are actually happening all over the world should at least give us some pause.
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VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
Modernizing Stormwater Management
Ryanne Mena (Staff Writer)
“Roughly two thirds of our water that we use here in LA County comes from outside sources,” said Edel Vizcarra, of LADPW. The amount of imported water can then be cut back if a drought strikes the region.
As the storm season approaches the southland yet again, LA County's use of storm water is being taken into account, especially since Measure W could affect that outcome. The Oxford Basin in Marina Del Rey is an example of what projects could come out of Measure W, a parcel tax initiative that will be on the November ballot. This year’s storm season was the beginning focus of a briefing held by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (LADPW) on Thursday, October 4, in Marina Del Rey, California. Jolene Guererro, of LADPW, stood in front of the Oxford Basin as she spoke of the land’s history. “Before it was just a lake basically. It was developed in 1959 to capture stormwater, the runoff that comes from the streets, to prevent the houseless from being flooded,” said Guererro. The body of water held in the space prior to the renovation allegedly had quality issues, along with sediment that collected over the years. The 2015 finished project not only brought along a revitalized body of water, but also other enhancements to the native ecosystem and local community. “So for this project, they cleaned up the sediment, they added native plants around the edges, native plants
NEWS 3
(From left to right) Kerjon Lee, Edel Viscarra, and Eric Batman, all of LADPW, speaking on the Oxford Basin water recycling system in Marina Del Rey on Thursday, October 4, 2018. (Ryanne Mena/ Corsair Staff)
that could help capture some of the pollutants that flow in our rain water,” said Guererro. He went on to add, “A really important thing they did with this project though is not just worry about the water quality, but how can they improve the community, and that’s why walking trails were added.”
“A really important thing they did with this project though is not just worry
about the water quality, but how can they improve the community, and that’s why walking trails were added.” Projects such as the Oxford Basin could continue to be built in various cities in Los Angeles if Measure W is voted through the ballot. The measure would in part focus on increasing the County’s local water supply.
Measure W would create a system of sustainability through a parcel tax. “It’s a two and a half cent per square foot of impermeable area parcel tax for private property in LA County,” said Vizcarra. The measure is predicted to generate approximately 300 million dollars a year that would go towards building other systems similar to the Oxford Basin. Fifty percent of that money would go towards building large watershed-based projects, purposed to capture and clean storm water, across cities within southern Los Angeles County. Forty percent of the program funds would go directly back to the cities in the form of local return. “For every dollar that’s generated on a parcel in a disadvantaged community, they get a dollar and ten cents,” according to Vizcarra. The remaining ten percent of the revenue would go towards development of programs involving programming and curriculums in schools, workforce education job training, and other programs focused on educating the public.
A.S. Focuses on Sustainability Evan Minniti (Staff Writer) The Associated Students meeting held Monday, October 8, tackled some of the Board’s core values that they decided to focus on this semester, such as homelessness and sustainability. With plenty of innovative ideas, the board is planning a variety of events for Sustainability Week, and discussed new initiatives to bring more to homeless students at SMC. Kimberly Hernandez, Director of Student Assistance, spoke at the meeting about an idea that she’s working on to bring to SMC, called Safe Parking. The idea behind the Safe Parking program is that students attending SMC who are living in their cars would have a parking spot available to them at SMC after hours. Hernandez explained, “It’s basically night parking that allows people who are currently living in their cars to park there and to basically have a safe place and not be scared of getting tickets or trying to hide, because it’s illegal.” Hernandez continued, “The A.S. Board wanted to make it our mission to really tackle down the homeless situation in our school,” and they’re certainly on their way to do so, but because the Board is still in the logistics stage of this program, they’ve been in conversation with faculty and officials from similar programs already in place in Los Angeles to optimize their ideas. Addressing issues of exclusivity in
program participation, Hernandez said, “We want to help the students that are more in need. They would also need to have a certain amount of units, so not just anyone can park here, as well as speak with the counselors, because we also want to help them get back on their feet, not just give them the spot and let them stay.” Hernandez went on to state that, “These questions and these concerns, the A.S. Board, they see it as only small barriers that we can easily get through. So we think it’s very possible.” Efforts from Hernandez have been reflected in all areas of the Board, especially from Brooke Harrington, Director of Sustainability. Despite being elected to the Associated Students Board only three weeks ago, Harrington has already spearheaded efforts to promote environmentally sustainable practices. A clear example of this is her involvement in organizing this year’s Sustainability Week, starting on October 22. The main goals of the A.S. board center around combating food insecurity and homelessness among students, and getting students more civically engaged. Harrington wants to also push for more focus on promoting environmentalism. “The board’s goals are [addressing] homelessness, food insecurity and student [engagement] - I have been working with that and I also want to implement campus wide composting. I think it’s kind of ri-
diculous that as a school we have compostable utensils and takeout wear and food that just goes in landfills. Most people don’t realize how big of a problem food waste is in our landfill system,” said Harrington. During Sustainability Week, SMC will host a plethora of games, activities, and even public speakers, with the aim of promoting environmentally sustainable practices among the student population. “That monday, we are gonna be having a DIY-themed day, we are trying to have non-gendered personal care products, like toothpaste, deodorant, lip balm, chapstick and air freshener. You can use it in your bathroom, or you can use it as a perfume.” said Harrington. On Tuesday, SMC students can play oversized three-dimensional games of tictac-toe and cornhole, with the aim of also incorporating information about the environment. The next day, Club Rose, a club that promotes gardening on campus, is inviting a speaker to talk about urban foraging. Harrington plans on delivering a presentation on the benefits of composting food. Harrington’s outlook on sustainability heavily influenced the Board’s finances in relation to this event. “As you’ll see in the proposal,” Harrington explains during the meeting, “the cost of Sustainability Week this year is far less than previous years.” With a notable difference of $3,500 in this year’s costs, Harrington impressed her fellow Board members with her mindful organiza-
tion, who praised her work openly.
“I think the definition of sustainability is providing the means to live for the present generations, while sustaining the planet for generations to come,” “I think the definition of sustainability is providing the means to live for the present generations, while sustaining the planet for generations to come,” Harrington adds, “So for me, sustainability is living consciously and trying to reduce your carbon footprint in anyway that you can, whether it’s transportation or not eating meat or reducing your dairy intake or composting or gardening or doing activities that raise your awareness of all these different problems.” By dramatically decreasing the expected financial cost of this year’s Sustainability Week events, and remaining open to new ideas and programs, the A.S. will continue to work on the issues at SMC in the months to come.
4 PHOTOSTORY
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
Competitors shucking oysters in under two minutes at Off the Hook Seafood Festival in Santa Monica, California. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
Off The
Hook Seafood at the Pier By: Yasser Marte Staff Writer and Photographer
Above: Jennifer Rush hands ahi tuna tacos. At Off the Hook Seafood Festival in Santa Monica, California. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
Right: Heal the Bay Aquarium Director Marslaidh Ryan (left) and Ryan Hunter (right) show off a great whale baleen. At Off the Hook Seafood Festival in Santa Monica, California. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
Sushi Roku chef, Jason Yamasaki, prepares a sushi roll for guest at Off the Hook Seafood Festival on October 6, 2018, in Santa Monica, California. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
PHOTOSTORY 5
Oysters served on ice at Off the Hook Seafood Festival on October 6, 2018, in Santa Monica, California. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
Local Santa Monica restaurants and residents gathered at the Santa Monica Pier for the 4th annual Off the Hook Seafood Festival on Saturday, October 6. The event is a fundraiser to raise money and environmental awareness for Heal the Bay, a non-profit organization that advocates to clean coastal waters and rivers in the Greater Los Angeles Area. For a ticket price of $50, attendees could choose from over 30 tents from local restaurants, wineries, breweries and other organizations gathered under the sun to serve fresh local seafood and drinks to the hungry crowd. The event also featured a beer garden that served beer, wine and Japanese whiskey. Attendees had a chance to play games like giant cornhole, and larger than life sized connect four while a local Venice band, Brightside, played soft funky reggae beach rhythms at the corner stage of the pier. “I think it’s a really good event and it’s bringing the community together. There’s a lot of local representation and it’s nice to feel one with our community,” said Jennifer Bennett, manager at Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica. Most of the seafood provided at the event was caught locally off the California coast. Environmentally conscious vendors spoke about the importance of purchasing local seafood and eating sustainably. “We buy seafood directly from fishermen all over California. Our focus is on bait fish and by catch. Bait fish would be seafood that is abundant in California, but typically shipped and used outside the state as bait to get other fish,” said Trash Fish founder Ren Ostrey.
The concept to buy local is no stranger to Santa Monica. According to the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce (SMCC) website, SMCC provides a list of Top 8 Reasons to Buy Local. This includes helping the Santa Monica economy, the environment and creating local jobs. Ostrey continues, “So if we can elevate it and keep it local, we’re cutting food miles, and we’re celebrating our local bounty.” The event that drew the largest crowds was the oyster shucking contest. Each contestant was tasked with prying open as many oysters as possible in under two minutes. Eight competitors, mostly restaurant cooks, took to the stage to show off their shucking skills. The crowd closed in on the stage cheering and inspiriting the competitors. Tony Aguillar, from Chaya restaurant, came out victorious, shucking over 12 oysters. “It’s great to have all these restaurants who compete with one another at one place enjoying themselves and coming together for the community,” said Off The Hook organizer Kim Koury. The sun set slowly as the lights from the carnival rides grew brighter and as DJ Cool Whip spun to the end of the festival. The festival reached its end in hopes that they’ve brought environmental awareness and sustainability to the conscious hearts and minds of the Santa Monica people. Heal the Bay aquarium director Marslaidh Ryan explained: “This is the fourth time this event has gone on. This year all the proceeds go to Heal The Bay which is a first for us and were really excited to be a part of this organization and to have all the benefits coming to us. We're right here at the Pier and the Aquarium.”
6 CULTURE
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
Smokey's Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller Yasser Marte (Staff Writer) Theater Arts main stage will be showing Smokey Joe’s Cafe, a rock-and-roll musical at Santa Monica College’s main campus, commemorating songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller Friday, October 12 through Sunday October 14. Both have written and produced with legendary musicians such as Elvis Presley, The Drifters, and Ben E. King. “Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were legends and basically created the genre of Rock-and-Roll and R&B. This is the genesis of newer pop and rock stars, basically paying them tribute,” said director Perviz Sawoski. This whimsical production illuminates the main stage with a harmonious group of actors, singers, and dancers gyrating to hits like “Hound Dog," “There Goes My Baby,” and “Stand By Me.” A large variation of alternating costumes ranging from zoot suits, sock hop dresses, and jailhouse wear were wonderfully arranged as performers danced with big swirls, whirls, kicks and twists. “At one level it is a celebration of their music. At another level it is a journey for the audience, from naivete or youth or innocence to something more mature, something wiser, and more experienced,” said Sawoski. Leiber, born in 1933, was the son of two
Elizabeth Orellana (left), Kent Navarrette (center), and Serenity Robb (right) performing on the main stage theater at Santa Monica College in Santa Monica. (Yasser Marte/Corsair Staff)
Jewish immigrants from Poland. He was raised on the outskirts of Baltimore’s black ghetto. Stoller, also born in 1933, was raised in Queens, N.Y. and learned the sound and rhythm of blues from his days at summer camp. The two ended up meeting in Los Angeles, in 1950, and began composing songs. “They were very young and Elvis’s manager booked them to write songs. Elvis liked their
material and they ended up writing a lot of songs for Elvis like ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Treat Me Nice,’” said Sawoski. The production has already hit the stage, starting on Thursday, October 4. It’s a fun, delightful, and entertaining musical. “I grew up listening to this music. The concept of it being a stage concert was
Indiecade: Sundance of Gaming Industry come to CMD Andrew Narvaez (Staff Writer) Santa Monica College’s Center for Media and Design (CMD) takes pride in providing an environment where imagination and ingenuity take precedence. Whether the ends are to affect global perspective or simply to entertain, CMD acts as a platform for unique thinkers. This sentiment also holds true with the newest large-scale three-day event that will use CMD’s facilities, the International Festival of Independent Games, better known as Indiecade. This event hosts some of the world’s most ingenious and thought-provoking game designers and developers across all platforms. They are true masters of escapism. Indiecade will unfold over three days. Thursday, October 11 hosts IndieXchange which acts as a networking day. Friday, October 12 and Saturday, October 13 are when the festival is in full force. All three days engage the festival goer with a variety of events from lectures to game testing and even SMC’s own student showcase. Indiecade holds several “Conference Sessions” which encompass lectures, demonstrations and workshops that capture the gaming industry’s forward-thinking voice. Diving deeper in the lecture, “The Neuroscience of Games: One Weird Truth About Learning Styles That Will Change Everything You Know About Play” breaks down player's stereotypic behavior. The Independent game development team of fiction writer
PHOTO COURTESY OF INDIECADE
Natalie Mesnard and neuroscientist Patrick Watson explore how gamers are given an opportunity to reevaluate personal identities with games. A collaborative environment is a productive environment for this industry. Indiecade nominees, husband and wife team, writer Jeff Crocker and director Andy Crocker take you down an existential rabbit hole creating a play with escape room elements, “Escape from Godot.” Both wanted to re-imagine Samuel Beckett’s classic game "Waiting for Godot" by creating an interactive experience filled with puzzles. Jeff Crocker suggests that Beckett’s classic game, while profound, can also be profoundly boring, “We came up with the concept of what if you have the ability as the audience to be able to escape from that production.”
He explains how both his and Andy’s background complimented each other and aided in their production, “On my side that sort of theme park experiential entertainment world, and her side, it was taking a classic piece of theater and making it much more playful which is really sort of Andy’s ethos.” They want to immerse the audience in a postmodern understanding of the classics, “We are starting to use new tools to invite the audience to experience these themes. If you’re a video game player and you don’t go to the theater that much maybe this is the perfect center of the Venn diagram for you to experience it.” Nominee Pornsima Duangratana’s board game, Stress Express, paints a humorous version of 21st century stress. She creates chaos through multiple timed tasks. Duangratana uses competition between players to mimic real life anxieties, “to compete with each other is much more stronger in board games and actually brings out stress that is actually very humorous.” She said the goal of her game is to make the audience to reevaluate their everyday stresses and how they deal with them. Festival passes are available with a variety of access such all access or IndieU for students. SMC students and alums receive an exclusive 50% discount. To see a full schedule of events and tickets prices visit www.indiecade.com and immerse yourself in the innovative future of gaming.
really cool. Elvis, The Drifters, and Etta James, gives us a sense of going back in time with that generation,” said actor Elizabeth Orellana. All aspects of the performance work together as a whole. The background images emotionally travel across scene to scene captivating the tone and rhythm of each melody. The lighting colors decorate the stage in congruence to the performer’s choreography, costumes, and sound. A live quartet plays 40 composition pieces throughout the night with tremendous gusto and spirit. “This is 40 songs and every song is choreographed and has to perfect. What looks effortless on stage takes rehearsals over and over again to get to this point,” said Sawoski. On Friday, Smokey Joe’s Cafe will have a guest appearance by Stroller himself. “He lives in LA and so we invited him. He’s coming the 13th, the second weekend and we’ll introduce him to the audience,” said Sawoski. General admission cost is $20 but students and seniors receive a discounted price of $17.
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
Derailing Rape Culture
OPINION 7
By: Julie Dole
(Staff Writer) per hand over his opponent and taunts them. As the site "Know Your Meme” describes it, it means you have your opponent cornered, they can't fight back, and they are about to be overwhelmed, "owned,” overpowered in a humiliating way - raped. So here’s a sexual assault term serving double duty - but it’s not just about overpowering the opponent, it includes humiliating them. This reminds me of Kavanaugh’s alleged victim Dr. Blasey-Ford’s testimony that it was Kavanaugh and his friends’ laughter at her terror during their attempted rape and suffocation that seared itself into her memory, giving her PTSD.
B
efore my career as an SMC student, I got my BA in the 1980s, around the same time as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his alleged victims. Attending a women's college - Mt. Holyoke, a school that recruits SMC students every semester - helped insulate my friends and me from the dangerous behavior Kavanaugh’s victims described - but not completely. One friendsgiving at Mt. Holyoke, a classmate revealed her PTSD to me; she told me it resulted from a local candidate's son raping her while driving her home from volunteering - for his mom. Five months later, guys from Dartmouth College visited our campus; they spent their Saturday night destroying Mt. Holyoke’s “Winged Victory,” a statue depicting an ancient Greek goddess. That beautiful old statue had weathered a hundred New England winters, but she proved no match for a handful of disrespecting, destructive college men. The next morning, the same guys recruited girls on campus to play an outdoor game on our school quad but it turned out the "game" involved
simulating sexual assault. They were going to simulate raping us on our own school quad - at a women’s college. As Dr. Blasey-Ford alleged of Kavanaugh in front of the US Senate last week, the Dartmouth men were having fun at our expense, simulating rape as entertainment, humiliating us as females as part of their game. College administrators never told us whether the Dartmouth students were ever reprimanded. Word came back that the damage done was second to preserving the relationship between the schools’ administrations. It all was swept under the rug. We were thrown under the rape train. I never heard the term “rape train” until Kavanaugh’s alleged teenage and college assaults appeared in the news. The incidents described included parties where an incapacitated girl would be trapped in an upstairs room, and then boys lined up outside, each waiting for his “turn” with her. A rape train. When I looked up "rape train” online, I expected something from the 1980’s party scene. Instead I found a cartoon meme of Thomas the Train, with the text “There Are no Brakes on the Rape Train” plastered across it. A popular meme in online gaming, the phrase describes when a gamer has the up-
I never really accepted that females were constantly under threat of sexual attack until well after my college years. Right after college, I was stalked by a serial rapist who'd followed me home from a ballet class. He gave up on me when he realized the police knew, but I knew of other women he stalked and they never found him. Then a few years later, a friend here in LA told me about the time she was jumped walking home one night - her assailant had a rope lashed around her throat from behind. She was able to fight him off and flee, which amazed me. Those stories finally taught me that I wasn’t safe to walk where I wanted at night.
"...I wasn’t safe to walk where I wanted at night." In fact, last week on Twitter, a hashtag went viral, asking what women would do if men had a curfew of 9:00 p.m. Womens’ answers ranged from practical to fanciful, but all were heartbreaking. Tweets about partying without fear of being drugged, or just walking freely at night abounded in reply, which shocked and saddened sympathetic men online, many saying they’d had no idea that women lived such circumscribed lives, threatened by sexual
violence daily. In fact, weaponizing sex is so widespread, this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace went to Denis Mukwege, a Congolese doctor who helps women gangraped during war, and Nadia Murad, an Iraqi woman who escaped sex slavery. They shared this year’s Peace Prize for working to end sexual assault as a weapon of war. Even catcalls on the street can be argued as part of a spectrum of abuse that some scholars identify as part of “rape culture.” An idea dating from the 1970’s, the theory of rape culture holds that we as a culture see sexual assault as inevitable, and that women fearing it is acceptable, even entertaining or useful. Research and books about rape culture often describe the situation this way: “In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm. In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable. - However - much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.” - Emilie Buchwald, author, Transforming a Rape Culture Simple changes can happen to help this change start. For example, put women in charge of their own college parties. At Mt. Holyoke, we were always in charge at our parties - the men attended events in our dormitory cafeterias, we had paid chaperones, and we were surrounded by friends who had our backs. However, college sororities are often banned from hosting with alcohol, while the male fraternities are built around hosting alcohol-laden events, leaving women vulnerable by forcing them to socialize on men’s turf and terms. The bottom line is: everyone’s bodies are sovereign - they belong to their owner, and require permission to interact. Adding simple respect to socializing is part of recognizing and respecting everyone’s humanity. I for one would love to live in a world free of weaponized sex and assault, where the vulnerable are protected instead of exploited. Be the solution.
8 SPORTS
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 03 •OCTOBER 09, 2018 • SANTA MONICA COLLEGE Long Beach City College dance Professor Stephanie Powell teaches a special guest master ballet class at Santa Monica College. She inspires her students by speaking through her personal experiences, techniques, and philosophy in Santa Monica, California, on September 26, 2018. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
Letter from the Editor Dylan Cortez (Sports editor)
It is unfortunate some people have been conditioned to believe dance is not a sport. Dance is more than just a sport, dance is a beautiful form of art respected widely in the athlete world. Ballet in particular is one of the most challenging, and demanding forms of dance that there is. Athletes such as NFL defensive lineman Steve McLendon, told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in 2013, “It’s harder than anything else I do [ballet].” This is an extremely bold statement from someone who is now playing their ninth season in the NFL but is not far fetched. Ballet deserves the same amount of respect as any other sport where athletes use their bodies to express.
Stephanie Powell: A Master of Dancer
Stephanie Powell (right )teaching a master ballet class at Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, on September 26, 2018. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)
It is unfortunate some people have been conditioned to believe dance is not a sport. Dance is more than just a sport, dance is a beautiful form of art respected widely in the athlete world. Ballet in particular is one of the most challenging, and demanding forms of dance that there is. Athletes such as NFL defensive lineman Steve McLendon, told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in 2013, “It’s harder than anything else I do [ballet].” This is an extremely bold statement from someone who is now playing their ninth season in the NFL but is not far fetched. Ballet deserves the same amount of respect as any other sport where athletes use their bodies to express. -Dylan Cortez Inside the Core Performance Center dance studio on Santa Monica College's (SMC) main campus on September 26, Professor Stephanie Powell stood tall, dignified and true among a sea of ballet dancers. “I started dancing because my cousin Karen Johnson was my babysitter. She brought me to her dance class at the age of two," said Powell. A live classical pianist sat in front of a grand piano at the corner of the room. The sun spilled into the studio, placing a shine on the black open top and strings. Powell instructed pianist Alla Plotkin to play a piece with brightness and the dancers began to sway lightly upon their feet. Her poised voice was strong, exuding elegance and passion. Powell continued to say, "back then we didn’t have a dance studio. My ballet teacher pulled her cars out her garage and we took classes there. She took me at three. Most kids start at four but she took me three. I started in a garage, then she got a studio, and I’ve been with her ever since." She glided through the throng as each dancer stretched and pirouette along thick black barres. Some dancers were young women wearing pink and black leggings, others were young men wearing all black. Powell tentatively examined each person and lent them a hand when they appeared to stumble into trouble with technique. She taught them to “know the floor", “defy gravity” and “love." Powell is a Professor and Director of Dance at Long Beach City College. She was invited to teach a master class of ballet at SMC for a day. She has worked with the Oakland Ballet Company, San Francisco Opera, and Dance Theater of Harlem in New York. Powell was
a dancer in the Los Angeles Pantages Theater production of the Lion King and has also danced commercially for Janet Jackson and Beyonce. When asked what the key to being a good student of ballet was, Powell said, "students have to get that form under their belt before they start oozing out and being a noodle and adding all this funky stuff, otherwise they fall over. They have to have the core, the discipline, and the placement." Throughout the course, she often told stories of her personal experience, including past insecurities, triumphs, and perseverance. She opened her heart and spilled out her life with raw integrity, “the beautiful thing about ballet is when you're on and it’s suspended and its just there - it’s magical. Sometimes a dancer’s stillness, that control, and that placement of their body is beautiful because when they do start to move it’s like a surprise.” said Powell. When the class was finished, she talked with students and they openly discussed what they had learned technically, philosophically and spiritually. When she asked what they learned, the class responded with, “feel the floor”, “defy gravity” and always “love, love, love.” “I work like an athlete but my heart is in this like I’m creating a painting or creating tapestry. The rigor is athletic. It’s sport like but when that performance comes on and those lights come out and the orchestra is playing – I don’t feel like an athlete. I feel like an artist. That’s me.”
Ballet dancer fixing her hair before her next move at Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, on September 26, 2018. (Yasser Marte/ Corsair Staff)