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I, too, am Penn
THE VISION | After visiting Harvard’s first Blacktivism Conference, how do we carry conversations about race from communities of color to WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2014 VOL. CXXX, NO. 95 130th Year of Publication
TAYLOR CULLIVER, Executive Editor AMANDA SUAREZ, Managing Editor JENNIFER YU, Opinion Editor LOIS LEE, Director of Online Projects HARRY COOPERMAN, City News Editor JODY FREINKEL, Campus News Editor WILLIAM MARBLE, Enterprise Editor GENESIS NUNEZ, Copy Editor MATT MANTICA, Copy Editor YOLANDA CHEN, News Photo Editor
white people?
“D
ear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man, Tyrone, does not count.” So begins Justin Simien’s satirical film and winner of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent, “Dear White People.” A film screening of the movie and a talkback with the director took place this past weekend at Harvard, where hundreds of students of color from all over the country populated the Cambridge campus in order to attend the “I, Too, Am Harvard” Conference. The mission of the ITAH Blacktivism Conference was succinct and revolutionary: “To equip and empower Black collegiate students with the tools needed to fight social injustice
on their campus and beyond so that we may finally and faithfully know that: We, too, are America.” Yet, as many people of color fluently know, the mantra is not one easily sung in this country and on our own campuses. While the discourse from the conference brought many insights, what became clear is that we must let go of our aversion to discomfort. Whether in the bold declarations of humanity as displayed in the ITAH play or the solemn memorial of the black lives lost to statesanctioned lynchings, it is an inconvenient fact that racism is America’s silent curse. If we are to ever move past this nation’s traumatic youth, we must be willing to endure the growing pains that shatter our complacency with our current state of affairs. The fantasy of a “postracial” society is nothing more than a delusional disconnect from reality.
During the tensions following the murder of Ferguson teen Michael Brown, there was a gap in the opinions on whether this case reflected the state of race relations within the country. According to the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of blacks believed that the Brown shooting raised racial issues compared to 37 percent of whites. Even on our campus, last spring’s “Gangsta Party” mixer held by members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity and Chi Omega sorority spurred debates about whether or not it was a racial issue. “We are working with the University and our national organization to address the situation and make amends to the Penn community,” stated Daniel Zuvia, Beta president, in an interview. But what were these amends? Where are they and for whom are they working? Perhaps it’s easy to have amnesia about past sins when accountability for those ac-
tions is made to seem soft, like a written apology to an entire body of people. Truth of the matter is, Penn’s campus must realize that efforts to address the issue of racial tensions on campus must happen daily, by every single member of Penn’s community.
The fantasy of a ‘post-racial’ society is nothing mo re than a delusional disco n ne c t fro m reality.” As it stands now, our nation lives under a politically correct anesthesia, incapable of dealing with the visceral pain of racial inequality. For minorities, these discussions are held openly such as those held during the ITAH Conference where stu-
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HANNAH ROSENFELD is a College sophomore from Tokyo. Her email address is hannahro@sas.upenn.edu.
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The price of selling sex
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This will, as our country’s ugly history proves, require us to become uncomfortable. The fact of the matter is that racism is uncomfortable. It is not a blanket. It is not a couch. And in the words of the divine comedian and philosopher Dave Chappelle, “Fuck yo’ couch.”
VICTORIA FORD and NIKKI HARDISON are a College and a Wharton senior, respectively. Their email addresses are vicford@sas.upenn.edu and chardi@wharton.upenn.edu. “The Vision” is a column for black voices that appears every Wednesday.
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dents reflected on their lived experiences, many that go unnoticed by their peers. These issues have been beautifully reflected in James Baldwin’s piece, “A Letter to My Nephew”: “In this case the danger in the minds and hearts of most white Americans is the loss of their identity. Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shivering and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one’s sense of one’s own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man’s world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar, and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.” To truly make amends on this campus we must engage in these daily conversations.
KEEN ON THE TRUTH | While Jara Krys tells the tale of a ‘successful’ prostitute, the average
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story — even where prostitution is legal — sounds different
magine, for a moment, if Jara Krys were a “straight” woman instead of transgender. She lost her virginity at 13, learned the sex trade from a pimp in high school and started selling her services to cover costs. She came to UPenn on a full scholarship, but after a few years she decided she’d like to work as a prostitute full time. Her price is $300 an hour; it’ll cost you $1,200 if you want her for the entire night. Thanks to business savvy and hard work, the future looks bright for this woman — she has a porn business and some amount of capital. While she’s thinking about racking in some more bucks as the personal attendant (kept woman) of some wealthy businessman, she is also strongly drawn towards lobbying for prostitutes’ rights in the sex trade. Prostitution should be legal, she argues, and cites the fact that in her various illegal exploits she has lacked police protection. This is not a life that any of us can condemn. You just don’t condemn a woman for becoming a prostitute when she was seduced by a pedophile at 14. Growing up in poverty, suicidal in middle school, beaten by her father, orphaned by 16, doing the rounds of a number of adult men before she got out of high school — it’s not a background anyone would want.
But are the conclusions which Jara drew from her background — and her adult experience as a full-time prostitute — representative of the trade? Should prostitution — as Jara would suggest — be legalized?
it’s false. Consider human trafficking — arguably the severest form of abuse in the underground sex trade. Theoretically, human trafficking would decrease when prostitution is legalized because victims forced to work as
One multi-national study found an incredible 68 percent of those engaged in prostitution — legal or illegal — suffered from PTSD. Sure, a few ambitious, business-savvy entrepreneurs … will make a load of money and claim no emotional harm. But they are exceptions — not the norm.” Arguments for prostitution legalization have thrived for centuries. In 1413, the pious council of Amsterdam declared that “whores” were a necessary (if regrettable) part of city life allowed by the “holy” church “on good grounds.” Russian aristocracy of the 19th century explained that it was necessary to sacrifice “a certain percentage” of lower-class women in order to keep their daughters virgin-pure. The modern argument makes a novel contribution to its predecessors by claiming that women have a positive right to rent their bodies — and if they do so in a free market, it necessarily implies they want to! This argument sounds nice when it’s coming from a Nevada porn star wearing a pink dress, but statistically
prostitutes should no longer be afraid of the police. A detailed 2012 study, however, came to the opposite conclusion. Countries with legal prostitution are a prime destination for victims from all over the world. The ease with which kidnappers can market the services of their slaves outweigh any difficulties with registration. Human trafficking — bad enough in itself to discredit legalization — is not the only problem. One multi-national study found an incredible 68 percent of those engaged in prostitution — legal or illegal — suffered from PTSD. Sure, a few ambitious, businesssavvy entrepreneurs (pimps and non-pimps) will make a load of money and claim no emotional harm. But they are exceptions — not the norm.
JEREMIAH KEENAN Melissa Farley, after 15 years of work with trafficked women, aligns with radical Swedish feminists in the claim that prostitution — legal or not — is fundamentally dehumanizing to women. She states that women are turned into “living, breathing masturbation fantasies” — bodies designed to gratify the male sex drive. Dr. Farley backs up her ideas with statistics and endless nauseating quotes from sex market reviews about fisting, the cum shot and the like, that leave little doubt about how dedicated johns view the “services” they are buying. While some prostitutes may claim to be acclimated — or even enjoy the sex routine — those that suffer no harm from their work are invariably in the minority.
JEREMIAH KEENAN is a College sophomore from China studying mathematics. His email address is jkeenan@ sas.upenn.edu. “Keen on the Truth” appears every Wednesday.
t a last-minute, barely publicized meeting last Monday morning, the School District of Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission ended 21 months of negotiations and canceled its contract with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Ending this contract means that PFT members, who currently pay nothing for health care benefits, will now be required to pay 10 to 13 percent of the cost of their medical plan premiums. The SRC and supporters of this decision — including Mayor Michael Nutter, Governor Tom Corbett and Superintendent William Hite — argue that this decision was made to address the School District’s fiscal crisis. The District estimates this action will funnel approximately $44 million back into schools and by the end of the next four years it will amass to more than $200 million. Hite argues the central office could not be further reduced and schools’ budgets must continue to function. The SRC also chose not to touch job security, work rules, teacher salaries or pensions. Hite and Corbett also say that these changes will bring PFT members benefit contributions more in line with those of other teachers unions across the state. Citing sacrifices made across the city and state, supporters believe that the teachers too must do their part in such difficult times. Among opponents of the SRC’s decision are parents, students, previously unionized teachers and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers who see this move as a “war on teachers.” They fear that as a result of ending the contract, good teachers will decide to leave the school district. Teachers are being demanded to work with less and still expected to do the same. Furthermore, Philadelphia educators tend to be paid less than their suburban counterparts and spend a lot for their own money on classroom supplies. On some level, the SRC’s decision should not be shocking at all. Top-down decision making with limited community input has been the norm in Philadelphia educational policy-making for some time now. This move is also consistent with the tendency of politicians and the general public alike to simultaneously exalt and vilify public school teachers. Teachers are seen as the in-school factor that most affect student learning, and the past decade has seen an expansion of efforts to provide every child with a highly effective teacher. At the same time, teachers are portrayed as incompetent,
unintelligent, underworked and overpaid. In recent years, public school teachers have been the targets of numerous political attacks — in Wisconsin, Scott Walker significantly limited collective bargaining rights while increasing pension contributions in 2010, and across the river in New Jersey, Chris Christie referred to teachers as “political thugs,” only to be elected twice in a blue state. Nearly all private sector workers and most public sector employees pay into their own health care, so many remain unsympathetic. Moreover, teachers unions are often accused of only representing their own interests, at the expense of those of their students. This difficult decision could have the potential to allow the SDP to improve the quality of education being provided in the city’s school. Hite promises that the millions of dollars these forced concessions will save will be funneled directly to classrooms. This could allow Hite to turn his attention to actually leading the district — by developing and implementing his visions for the schools — rather than just reacting to the latest crisis. The money could be used to reduce class sizes, hire back more counselors, nurses and assistant principals and allow the district to no longer provide its students with what many leaders have labeled a “bare-bones” education. The district’s historic inclination towards ineffective spending — or outright misuse of funds — to haphazardly enact fad reforms in the absence of a guiding vision or strong and consistent leadership would have to be overcome. If not, it is unlikely that the money extracted from PFT members will significantly enhance the quality of teaching and learning in Philadelphia’s schools. However, it is also unclear how the district could offer this sort of high quality education if teachers are not trusted and are considered part of the problem — or if they are excluded from the decisionmaking process altogether. While we find the way this decision was reached problematic, Penn Education Society understands the necessity of the action. We believe teachers are our most valuable asset, but we also support district and city leaders in their efforts to provide Philadelphia students with a quality education. We hope this decision will help us reach that goal.
PENN EDUCATION SOCIETY is a student-run organization dedicated to building lifelong investors in K-12 education for all children. They can be reached at pennedsociety@gmail.com.