Opinion
Thursday December 7, 2017
page 6
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USG Election Special: Vote Yee for USG President Ryan Born
I
senior columnist
t can be hard to evaluate candidates. Luckily, all undergraduates have access to the USG Winter 2017 Candidate Biographies document online. I will be pulling from this document extensively in the following election special. I will discuss each candidate in turn, starting with my endorsement of Yee, a discussion of Ryan Ozminkowski ’19, and my second choice in Matthew Miller ’19. Last year, Jan Domingo Alsina ’20 wrote a scathing opinion piece on the politicalization of USG campaigns. My favorite part and something we all ought to get behind is the following sentiment: “But there’s just no need to politicize something that is inherently apolitical. What do I mean by this? Despite having the title ‘president,’ despite having the word ‘government,’ this position has absolutely nothing to do with national politics. USG candidates are glorified social event organizers who connect our class to the administration, and that’s it. The only government aspect of it all is that these candidates are elected — but please, enough with the ‘diverse and inclusive community’ narrative. Enough with this illusion of ‘building more class unity.’ This may come as a huge surprise, but hosting ice cream social events and giving away free gear will not change our campus culture to a large extent.” Now, I understand that Alsina is saying that USG members are nothing more than social event organizers, which is a fair point.
So we ought to be looking for candidates that do more than just organize events, which I think we have in Yee. When I endorse Rachel Yee ’19 for USG president, therefore, I submit she passes the “Alsina Test (™)”; she will do more than merely be a “glorified social event organizer.” Rachel Yee ’19: The most important aspect of Rachel Yee’s candidacy is her staunch commitment to mental health reform at Princeton. The importance of mental health at Princeton is widely underrated given how dire the consequences of ignoring it can be. Princeton is not immune to suicides, as the tragic case of Wonshik Shin ’19 last year demonstrates. According to USA Today, 1 out of 12 college students makes a suicide plan, and suicide is the No. 2 leading cause of death for those 15 to 32 years old. Given the crucible-like pressures of our ultra-competitive campus, mental health is a serious problem. Waiting periods for CPS can be several weeks long, and only recently was scheduling online an option for people going to CPS for the first time. While CPS reforms do not affect everyone, they do affect Princeton’s most vulnerable, and all of us when we are down on our luck. This, more than anything, wins Yee’s endorsement from me. At the same time, I like Rachel’s insistence that she can show USG does more than just Lawnparties through metrics. As a writer and a student, I would love metrics to show me what the student government does for me besides being a “glorified social event organizer.” Yee also suggests she can improve freshman advising. I was not aware that Princeton does an especially
bad job matching freshmen with advisers in their major: I entered Princeton as an economics major, and I got an economics professor as an adviser. I certainly would contend that Princeton might benefit from allowing us to switch our advisers to those in different prospective majors as our preferences change. Ryan Ozminkowski ’19: At first glance, I made the mistake in thinking that his pledges to essentially “Make America Great Again” on the Candidate Biographies document were serious. Then I realized it was a joke, so make of that what you will. I have three opinions on this. One, he’s not really giving me any reasons to vote for him. Second, I’m not sure someone who makes a joke during an election is exactly who I want dealing with people like Eisgruber and the deans. They say Trump used humor during the election in 2016, and I certainly don’t want him talking to anyone important. On the other hand, you know, I get it. I really do. Maybe we do take ourselves too seriously, and this is a powerful statement against our competitive stress culture. Still, maybe that’s a good guest opinion article and a bad personal statement for an election. Besides the pragmatic aspect of whether he’s a good fit for the job, I’m also pretty skeptical about him morally, too. There’s the matter of Ryan’s rather underhanded campaign tactics; for example, buying out both Matt Miller’s and Rachel Yee’s campaign website domains. If he’s really the humorous, fun-loving guy I discussed above, it’s weird that he seems to be taking this campaign so seriously to fight so dirty. Also, is this
the kind of person you want to represent you? I think not. I advise we stay away from Ozminkowski this cycle. Matthew Miller ’19: Everything I know about Matt Miller is that he’s a terrific guy, and I like a lot in his platform, too. I appreciate his ambition, trying to bring back seriously good acts for Lawnparties. Princetonians deserve something to look forward to before we jump into the year and after we’ve suffered through one. At the same time, it doesn’t seem to pass the Alsina Test; does USG really only do Lawnparties? If so, can’t I trust anyone to try and bring me the best Lawnparties acts they can? The second major plank in Matt’s platform is a better appreciation of studentathletes, something I can get behind wholeheartedly. It’s tough being an athlete at Princeton, and during my time on the men’s lightweight rowing team, I certainly wished that there were points where events were scheduled around my practices instead of during them. I definitely think a better awareness of athletes on campus could do good for student-athletes, which would be a big plus given that they are 20 percent of the student population. In evaluating Miller and Yee, I endorse Yee because while 20 percent of the student population is a lot, mental health affects all of us. Final Endorsement: Vote Yee for USG. And would you look at that, it even rhymes. Ryan Born is a junior philosophy concentrator from Washington, MI. He can be reached at rcborn@princeton.edu. The endorsement for Rachel Yee is given independently of her campaign and does not represent the opinion of the ‘Prince’.
vol. cxli
Sarah Sakha ’18
editor-in-chief
Matthew McKinlay ’18 business manager
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73
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On the outskirts of reality Lourdes Santiago
contributing columnist
E
ach day, we immerse ourselves in the same world. But this world presents itself differently to each one of us. In other words, my world is different from yours — as close as we are to our best friends and as well versed as we may be in the lives of our parents, we can never fathom someone else’s experience the same way that person can. Even if, theoretically, we were to spend our entire lives alongside another person, each of us engaging in the same experiences, these occurrences would still have different meanings, yield different emotions, conjure different reactions for each person. Truly, experience shapes our reality. Instances of joy and sadness, triumph and travail, all contribute to our overall understanding of the world. Possibly more importantly, instances of discrimination, financial struggle, or recovery from disaster and sickness affect and shape us in ways that seem inexplicable to others. Entire groups and cultures must endure and share in these realities — we learn about racism in U.S. history, the impact of finan-
cial crises in the world, how wars and colonization ravaged families, and how epidemics devastated communities. Recently, I began to question how one can earn ethos on a particular topic — does a person need to experience something in order to warrant authority over it? Can learning about history and another person’s reality be equated with experience? Are we warranted the same command over a topic in reading or studying about it, as one who has first-handedly experienced it? If so, what is the merit in learning about different people’s experiences? Living through specific experiences and studying provide two different approaches to a conversation on a phenomenon, each with its own merit — experience provides confirmed accounts of what has happened in the past, while learning about a topic secondhand from a textbook can raise awareness about an otherwise hidden reality. For instance, people that are victims of natural disasters, racism, or any other hardship can provide useful, insightful, and subjective accounts. They can attest to the reality that those sitting in a classroom may not personally experience. They are the most
qualified on their specific experiences, for they bear an emotional connection that cannot be replicated in an article or study. For instance, within the heated debate on identity politics, we cannot negate the value of lived experience — at the core of identity politics is the recognition that demographic categories inherently shape one’s daily experiences and personal reality. Overall, the people that are within a certain demographic group have the most powerful, unbiased voices when they describe the effects of their belonging to that group. Clearly, an outsider studying the effects of these hardships cannot provide the same fuel to a conversation as one who is immersed in the struggle. Nonetheless, this person may be in a position that would render him or her useful to a cause. For instance, he or she may have the resources to draw attention to an underrepresented issue, resources to which those struggling financially, for instance, may not have access. Anthropologists, sociologists, and others who study cultural realities are able to tell stories that would otherwise go untold, provide their own input, and push a conversation forward to an oblivious audience. True, it
could be argued that such scholars view the world from a different perspective than their subjects. But in citing stories, there is little one can do that would alter the fundamental facts of how subjects explain themselves. Though there is room for interpretation on the part of the scholar, readers of this scholar’s work must recognize an interpretation of a story for what it is — a rendition. But more importantly, these scholars are able to catch trends and statistics between different families and cultures and extend these to form useful, broad generalizations on the common threads between different accounts. However, in studying these different cases and finding noteworthy trends, we can bring more awareness to an issue in society that would else go unnoticed. In class, when we read about the current ramifications of disaster or war, we may become academic “experts” in the field, but the greater value in this is that we can begin to draw greater attention to this problem, mobilize others around us, and get involved in remedying issues ourselves. We can provide context and cultural awareness for those that have not yet learned about these realities so that they can then
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earn greater command over a topic and nurture innovative ways to approach an extensive problem. Therefore, the merit of personal accounts is irreplaceable — the power of a unique voice speaking from personal experience cannot be forsaken. However, people who study these accounts or create statistics prove to be useful to the conversation because they can help unify and bridge the gaps between all of our realities. Though lives cannot simply be generalized, there are trends in tragedy that speak loudly enough for those detached from the tragedy to hear. Sabrina Sequeira is a firstyear from Springfield, N.J. She can be reached at sgs4@ princeton.edu.