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Friday March 3, 2017 vol. CXLI no. 20
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } ON CAMPUS
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Richard ’69 Crenshaw discusses neglect of intersectional identities champions green energy Nouran Ibrahim contributor
Graham Richard ’69, CEO of Advanced Energy Economy, “the business voice of advanced energy,” seeks to change the nature of laws regulating energy use to create stabler, cleaner energy sources in the United States. AEE, a trade association, brings together a number of advanced energy businesses to inf luence state and federal governments to modify rules and regulations so that markets for advanced energy can be opened. Richard said that he believes that the failure of laws to change with the rapidly growing energy services field has slowed the use of sustainable energy. The power of advanced energy production stems not only from its sustainability, but also from its resilience, he explained. According to PRNewswire, advanced energy systems are now employing over 3 million Americans, a sizeable sector of the workforce. “We take energy for granted,” Richard said, recalling the devastating Hurricane Sandy, which left thousands of individuals across the East Coast without electricity for days in October 2012. Richard said that he believes a realignment of
energy sourcing can be the answer to problems, such as those that arise after natural disasters, when only traditional energy sources are available. Richard explained that in order for the power grid to operate more like “the internet, with lots of information f lowing all at one time at the same time,” institutions must be able to have their own power sources and operate on their own, remaining unaffected when disaster strikes. It is clear that the creation of technology to produce and harness power is no longer the problem facing advanced energy expansion, Richard explained, but rather the growth of the market to allow for greater integration of advanced energy companies. He noted that the monopoly on the electric system by larger incumbent groups has been a major barrier to some energy companies’ growth today. “When we have a choice, as we do today, of having more secure, cleaner, and more affordable energy opportunities, it is really important that we get society to notice,” Richard said. He said it is this goal and vision that drives AEE’s efforts, which range from engaging with state legislaSee ENERGY page 2
COURTESY OF FLICKR
Crenshaw, a professor and activist, is well known in gender studies for devising the concept of intersectionality.
Claire Thornton contributor
All too often, the forces of justice in America fail to disrupt the status quo, explained Kimberlé Crenshaw in a lecture on Thursday. The thick controversy surrounding affirmative action in college admissions and hiring, the lack of equal coverage of black women shot and killed by police, and 20th century suffragist arguments based on white supremacy are just a few examples that Crenshaw provided of how when you scratch the surface, arguments on both sides of the political spectrum fail to acknowledge America’s racist and patriarchal legacy. Crenshaw is a professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law
ON CAMPUS
School and is known for her work in critical race theory, particularly for developing the term “intersectionality.” In a talk at the University on March 2, she urged audience members to directly address the American legacy that has allowed for the election of Donald Trump. She admitted that for days following Nov. 8 — the day election results were released — she couldn’t sleep because she knew the act of waking would be similar to finding herself in an alternate reality. “I have to be honest with you, I’m standing here in post-traumatic Trump syndrome,” Crenshaw said to an auditorium so packed that audience members also sat in the aisles and on the stage.
While studying anti-discrimination law in law school, Crenshaw realized that law did not account for the complex identities defined by both race and gender. She studied how black women in manufacturing faced discrimination because of their gender and how black women in clerical work faced discrimination because of their race. Crenshaw said that she realized that the U.S. Constitution deals with race and gender as two separate aspects of a person’s identity, and that this means individuals with intersectional identities received less protection under the law. Larry Miller, who gave an introductory speech at the event, chose to begin by directly addressing the privileges he has as a straight white male. “I am playing the video game of life on the easiest difficulty level,” said Miller. Miller’s sister Meredith Miller ’93 was killed during a car robbery in Virginia one year after graduating from the University. Miller’s family sponsors the Meredith Miller Lecture Series, which included Crenshaw’s talk, and serves to remember Miller’s work on matters of gender justice. “It doesn’t mean life will always be easy for me, it doesn’t even mean it won’t ever be hard, but it won’t be hard because I am straight, or because I am white, or because I am male,” said Miller. Crenshaw, too, argued that we must acknowledge painful truths in order to achieve equality. She said we must acknowledge that constitutional See CRENSHAW page 3
NEWS AND NOTES
Greitens discusses increases in Chinese security spending
Snider ’17 receives $246K in poker tournament win
contributor
associate news editor
In a public lecture on March 2, Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri and First Lady of Missouri, spoke about increases in security spending in the People’s Republic of China from the late 20th century to present. Greitens is a leading scholar in comparative politics and international relations in East Asia. In a small, densely packed room of professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students, Greitens challenged
listeners to look beyond Western media projections of Chinese security spending and truly analyze released statistics. She emphasized the need to depart from media preconceptions about Chinese security spending, as well as the need to carefully analyze what few numerical sources the Chinese government releases to the international community. “The lecture that I am presenting today is focused on China,” Greitens explained, “but is also focused on trying to put some numbers that we often hear from China that we often hear in the media and the press and in the
IMAGE BY SAMUEL OH
Greitens spoke Thursday on media preconceptions regarding China.
policy world in the cross national perspective and see what this means for China.” Greitens began by rebutting the media-created gloom that appears to surround the rise of China’s security spending. “The main interpretation is that these spending increases are evidence of strong and growing coercive capacity and repressiveness on the part of the Chinese party in the post-Tiananmen era,” Greitens said. Greitens, however, argued that such evidence does not take into account China’s internal and external challenges, as well as the way that money is divided into Chinese coercive apparatus. “To make quantifiable inferences about coercive capacity, what can you look at?” Greitens asked. “And I agree that we must look at what a country spends in an appropriate degree of context: what that money gets spent on, and what that money is spent against, or what is the magnitude of the challenge that money has to address and how is that shifting in the period we are talking about in changes in spending.” Furthermore, Greitens prompted her audience to question if China is really different in spending levels, compared to other developed countries. “You immediately run into the question, ‘Well, China is really different and it’s got a lot of See GREITENS page 2
By Abhiram Karuppur Bradley Snider ’17, who formerly served as the president of the Princeton Poker Club, received $246,000 in prize money for winning the Freeze-Out event at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in August 2016. He plans to attend the World Series of Poker tournament in Las Vegas, Nev. this summer. Snider defeated 529 other players at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open to win the Freeze-Out event, in which he had to place an initial bet of $2,650 in order to participate. Snider explained that his interest in poker comes from watching his dad play casual games, and that he really became fascinated with the game once the streaming service Twitch started to show online poker games. “I was also really fascinated by the idea that in poker it was possible to make money in the long run by playing well,” he added. “I also like that underlying the game there is a deep mathematical structure.” In fact, Snider pointed to two University classes which covered content that directly related to elements of poker strategy. According to Snider, ORF 309 and MAT 378,
In Opinion
Today on Campus
The Board argues that the University should not collectively punish athletics teams, while Luke Gamble blasts a recent Yale column about athletics.
4:30-6 p.m.: Seeking Refuge: Faith-Based Approaches to Forced Migration. Opening panel “Who is a Refugee and Therefore Who Am I?” in McCosh 50
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which cover probability and game theory respectively, form some of the core fundamentals behind poker. Because poker has a foundation in math and probability, Snider noted that students pursuing STEM majors tend to be the most adept poker players. However, he added that non-STEM majors can also excel at poker if they possess certain skills. “I think that those who enjoy strategy games and have good problem-solving skills could become great poker players,” he said. During the fall semester break of 2016, Snider attended the PokerStars Tournament in Atlantic City, N.J., which featured 40 tournaments over the course of that week. He won some cash during the side events, and he also participated in a PokerStars Tournament in the Bahamas in January. Snider also plans to attend the World Series of Poker Tournament, which is a six-week long tournament. With regard to the prize money that Snider has won over the years, he explained that he plans to save a portion of it and also use some of it to place bets in future poker tournaments.
WEATHER
Samuel Oh
HIGH
39˚
LOW
17˚
Sunny with clouds. chance of rain:
5 percent