The Georgetown Voice, November 18, 2016

VOICE The Georgetown

November 18, 2016

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NOVEMBER 18, 2016

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE Volume 49 • Issue 7

staff editor-in-chief Kevin Huggard Managing editor Graham piro news

executive editor Ryan miller Features editor Caitlyn cobb news editor lilah burke assistant news editors margaret gach, cassidy jensen, isaiah seibert

culture

executive editor Brian Mcmahon Leisure editor michael bergin assistant leisure editors Amy guay, caitlin mannering, Devon O’Dwyer Sports editor robert ponce Assistant sports editors Tyler pearre, phillip steuber

opinion

Executive editor kenneth lee voices editor Lara Fishbane Editorial Board Chair Daniel Varghese Editorial Board Jon Block, Chris dunn, Kevin Huggard, kenneth lee, ryan miller, GRAHAM PIRO, PHillip Steuber

“out in the cold” by Max thomas

contents Editorials

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Carrying On: Finding Empowerment Outside of the Boys’ Club Alli Kaufman

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Open Access: A Collective Culture of Trauma Rebecca Zaritsky

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The Hateful Forces That Trump Unleashed Kaei Lee

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halftime

Leisure editor Danielle hewitt assistant leisure editors Dan sheehan, claire smith Sports editors Jonny Amon, Chris Dunn

design

Executive editor Emma Francois Spread editor Alli Kaufman Photo editor sarah jane kim assistant design editors Megan Howell, Lindsay Reilly, Abbey Roberts Staff Designers Jake Glass, Cecilia li, Sam Lee, Aicha Nzie, cate o’leary, elizabeth pankova, rachel corbally, jack townsend, Rachel zeide

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Encourage Camaraderie in Election’s Wake Emma Francois

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copy chief Anna Gloor editors Audrey Bischoff, Jack Cashmere, Clara Cecil, Claire Goldberg, Isabel Lord, Isabel Paret, Julia Pinney, Jack Townsend, Gabriella Wan

White People Need to Take Responsibility Cassidy Jensen

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podcast editor Jon block

Students Share Thoughts on Post-Election Political Climate Caitlyn Cobb

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Out in the Cold: Homelessness in Georgetown Chris Dunn

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H*ya Saxa: Twenty-Five Years of Choice Lilah Burke, Margaret Gach, and Jake Maher

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Suitcase Paintings: Unpacking Nature on Canvas Emily Jaster

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Nocturnal Animals Weaves a Tangled, Stunning Web Amy Guay

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Critical Voices: DNCE, DNCE and OG Maco, For Scott Emily Jaster and Gustav Honl-Stuenkel

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online

business

general manager Naiara parker senior associate, finance and alumni outreach Jessica ho

Staff writers michael coyne, Jake Maher, Noah Telerski, Rebecca Zaritsky The opinions expressed in The Georgetown Voice do not necessarily represent the views of the administration, faculty or students of Georgetown University, unless specifically stated. Columns, advertisements, cartoons and opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or the General Board of The Georgetown Voice. The university subscribes to the principle of responsible freedom of expression of its student editors. All materials copyright The Georgeton Voice, unless otherwise indicated.

editor@georgetownvoice.com Leavey 424 Box 571066 Georgetown University Washington, DC 20057

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NOVEMBER 18, 2016

EDITORIALS

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Organize. Agitate. Unite.

We had gathered in the Voice office on Tuesday night to watch the election results come in, and as we left we found the above words scrawled across a brick wall in Red Square. They should guide the actions of young liberals as we continue to grapple with the reality of the coming presidency of Donald Trump.

Many have spent the past few days alternating between numbness and confusion. It’s understandable, and some will need more time to recover, but soon we must wake from the post-election despondence. When the President-elect becomes president, we must be ready.

As liberals, we believe that we now must seek to pursue two wider, significant ends: to limit the damage of a Trump administration, and to create a more effective, appealing form of liberalism.

Trump, and the ideas he has empowered, represent a danger to many among us. It is not worth listing, yet again, all of the sins of his movement. It is enough for now to say that bigotry played a large role, and this cannot be ignored. As easy as it would be to remain frozen in existential dread, those of us who have not been directly targeted by Trump’s rhetoric must support those who have. We need to take care of each other.

Then, when a Trump administration puts forward any of the numerous policies which we feel would cut viciously into the social fabric of this country, we must protest. We march, and make noise. We must call the D.C. and state offices for our representatives and leave no doubt as to what we will think and how we will vote, should they not stand in opposition to whatever bit of brutality comes out of the Oval Office. We will be peaceful, and we will be heard.

And, it must be said, if the President-elect veers any further in the direction of fascism, we must do all that we can to stand in his way. There are policies, some of which he has already floated, that cannot be tolerated.

Among numerous such examples, the idea of a registry

for Muslims or immigrants from Muslim-majority countries has seen renewed discussion in recent days. We can hope that a President Trump will make a turn in the direction of unity and that what came before was simply “campaign talk,” but we must be prepared for far worse outcomes.

As students, and especially students in D.C., we face a difficult set of questions as the new administration transitions into power. Our location gives our decisions greater visibility—if we protest, we may very well do so at the gates of the White House. Beyond this, Georgetown has long served as a pipeline into government service.

We cannot presume to know the specific factors that will inform the decisions of each member of our community as they move through their careers.

If some feel that they can work within a Trump administration and guide it in a less dangerous direction from the inside, then we cannot condemn such a decision. The same goes for those who cannot imagine working within a bureaucracy that takes orders from Trump’s White House.

In either case, we ask that Hoyas keep always in mind the consequences of their career choices on those who could be marginalized by a Trump presidency. For those who decide that they can do good from the inside, we believe that they must be ready for the prospect of resigning in the face of an intolerable order. Above all, at this time, careerism alone cannot inform our job choices.

Republicans now have control of the presidency, both houses of Congress, and a majority of governorships and state legislatures. Liberals find themselves almost universally in the opposition. And yet, as discouraging as this may be, it also presents an opportunity. This country is experiencing a profound degree of anger toward its powerful institutions, and this can now be directed back against the voices who have for so long stirred it. It is

not an opportunity we would have asked for, but it is one that we must take.

We must begin by retooling the message of the Democratic Party.

“Globalism,” which we take to mean the increasinglyfree movement of goods and people, has become a bogeyman of the Trump campaign. As we’ve written before, segments of this country have seen negative consequences from the rise of globalism. The first step for liberalism is to acknowledge that, while globalism has produced numerous successes, it has also left many in our country behind. A new, compassionate globalism must take shape within liberalism, one that can both seize the benefits of our increasingly-connected world and provide for those who see their livelihoods threatened by this prospect, all while fighting on behalf of immigrants and refugees.

This type of globalism does not stand in opposition to our cosmopolitan values.

It is too early to determine the balance of factors fueling Trump’s support. Some were cultural, others economic. Others cannot be described as anything other than bigotry. Regardless of what the calculations eventually produce, it seems safe to say that intolerance will find a diminished audience should more communities feel that their livelihoods are being considered when powerful institutions plan for the future. Liberalism must protect those marginalized by Trump’s government, and in the long term this includes addressing the sources that fed his success.

There is a great deal of work ahead of liberal young people in this country. In the wake of the election, the reaction on the left has varied from a wallowing selfcritique to a lashing out at the electorate which chose Trump. Neither extreme will solve the problem of the looming Trump administration. For now, we must be ready to fix what we can and to fight what we must.

Organize. Agitate. Unite.

SAM lee

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Finding Empowerment Outside of the Boys’ Club I cursed for the first time in second grade.

I was the only girl playing soccer at recess—as usual— when I said “crap.” I don’t remember in what context I said it—it could have been because I missed a shot, or because I lost the ball—it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I cursed (knowing very well that my mother would have been very disappointed in me) because I wanted to be “one of the boys.” I wanted to be a girl who could hang out with the boys and who was accepted and respected by the boys. In second grade, I thought all that would take was the word “crap.”

The phrase “boys’ club” is often used to refer to maledominated workplaces. In these spaces, the voices of women are rarely heard, and even more rarely acknowledged. It is the opinions and the attitudes of men that create the cultures of these “boys’ clubs.”

Since the second grade, since the fateful day I said the word “crap” on the playground, I have tried to access, and become a member of, many different boys’ clubs. In the classroom, in the workplace, in extracurricular activities, I have tried to be “one of the boys.” I felt that my beliefs, my opinions, my jokes were only validated when boys respected them, listened to them, agreed with them. If I could access the various boys’ clubs in my life, then I had achieved something—I could be successful. But this meant that to be “one of the boys” I had to stop being “sensitive,” I had to take jokes, and I had to fight tooth and nail to be heard among their voices. I had to be tough, clever, and witty, and yet never forget that my place among the boys was still the girl.

It wasn’t until recently that I asked myself why. Why I

wanted so badly to be respected and accepted by the boys.

Why most of my life had been defined by the boys I was friends with or tried to befriend. Why I had thought that to be successful and be validated, I needed the approval of boys.

And most importantly, why it had taken me 19 years to realize that this is what I was doing and that it was problematic.

It wasn’t until the presidential race, and ultimately the election, that I got my answer.

My religious leaders have been men. My school presidents and principals have been men. My congressmen have been men. My presidents have been men. The powerful people in my world, who make decisions, call the shots, and are revered have primarily been men. The women I’ve looked up to have always been “firsts:” the first woman Secretary of State, the first woman Supreme Court Justice, the first woman nominated for President by a major party. It is 2016, and when a woman gets elected to public office it is still a big deal to us, because the people in power have always been men.

It’s fair to say that I, along with the current generation of women, and the generations of women before us, have grown accustomed to the idea of men in power. No one explicitly told us that because we were women, we couldn’t be important, or powerful, or presidents. It was the opposite, actually. I was raised to believe I could do anything and be anything as long as I set my mind to it. My parents encouraged me endlessly. They taught me that there were no limits, nothing was impossible, and I was capable of almost anything. But these were just words. I was still living in a male-dominated world and it was this view of the world that drove me, and probably many other

Carrying On: Voice Staffers Speak

women, to look for this power and respect in the boys’ clubs of our society.

In July, Ezra Klein wrote an article in Vox examining why Hillary Clinton was viewed as “cold and calculating” by Americans but admired and described as “brilliant, funny, loyal” by the people who worked with her. The answer to this, Klein says, is that Clinton’s strengths are strengths valued less by a country dominated and run by men. Clinton’s strength is listening. Unfortunately, the strength of the boys’ club is talking.

Klein’s article allowed me to finally articulate what I had been feeling my whole life. As a woman, I believed that in order to be powerful, I had to behave like a man, because stereotypically-male traits were what this country valued.

The value of male traits goes deeper than politics and power. The idea of the boys’ club goes back to the second grade. It’s in the classrooms, where male voices dominate conversation and debate, on the playgrounds where the boys’ jokes are always funnier, and in the school clubs, where men dominate leadership roles. In second grade, I thought the only way to be valued as an individual was to reject the fact that I was a girl. So I played with the boys at recess, I sat with with the boys at lunch, and I continued to do this as I got older. I made sure my social groups were predominantly boys, because I wanted to be respected in the same way they were.

Hillary Clinton didn’t play into the games of the boys’ club that is American politics. She didn’t yell over her opponents to be heard. She listened, and she lost. I thought that Hillary Clinton would be elected president and prove what I had believed my entire life, and what I had strived for my entire life, wrong. I wanted to be proven wrong. But maybe our country, and our world, aren’t ready to let go of the boys’ clubs yet. Maybe our country is still valuing men more than women.

In her concession speech, Hillary Clinton said, “To all the little girls watching … never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world.” I want these little girls to know that these chances and these opportunities won’t come from the approval or acceptance of men. These little girls might not get to grow up with a woman as their president, but they can be the change, and they can make sure a woman does get elected president.

They can’t waste their time trying to access the boys’ clubs in our world. They have to make their own clubs.

As women, we need to be able to find our own strength and power and respect among ourselves. We need to show the little girls watching us that we are just as valuable as men—that our beliefs don’t need to be validated by men to matter, our opinions don’t need to be validated by men to be important, our jokes don’t need to be validated by men to be funny, and we don’t have to reject that we are women in order to be valuable.

by Alli Kaufman She is a sophomore in the SFS.

AICHA NZIE

VOICES

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NOVEMBER 18, 2016

Open Access

A Collective Culture of Trauma

Elizabeth Pankova

A friend of mine is making out with a guy on her hall when she asks him to keep his hands above her clothes. He doesn’t listen, so she moves his hands and tells him to stop. He apologizes, and they continue. The next morning, she texts me gushing about how great her night was.

Months later, she tells the story again to a friend. The friend tells her that she may have been sexually assaulted, and my friend starts to think about what happened in a different light. She begins to have panic attacks; she has trouble letting her boyfriend touch her. She cries whenever sexual assault is brought up in conversation.

How did this happen? How did a woman who had been fine, laughing and joking, become traumatized?

Was it the action—being touched without consent—or was it the label attached to it?

Let’s take another scenario. My friends and I are at a club. A guy grabs a friend of mine and she tells him to stop. He continues to leer at her, and when she goes to the bathroom, he follows her.

She tells him again to leave her alone, more forcefully, at which point he does. Later, I compliment her on how well she handled it, but she shrugs it off. She says that she had almost forgotten that it happened.

Could it be that our society has created a collective trauma culture—one where the expectation of trauma is, in itself, traumatizing?

To put it simply, absolutely.

Social justice discussions have come to a point where it’s expected to be traumatized after certain encounters that were once commonplace, and that expectation creates the symptoms of

trauma. Have you ever gotten a diagnosis, googled the symptoms, and magically developed the ones you didn’t have before?

This is most prevalent on college campuses. When a controversial speaker came to campus, Brown University set up a room with stuffed animals and coloring books for its students who felt triggered. Coloring books. For 22-year-olds. Actions like these create an expectation that enough students are so severely traumatized that they need to be in a room with bubbles and calming music.

Here’s a reality check: Panic attacks should not be accepted as the status quo—as something that just happens to everybody after everyday events. They are not “normal.” Trauma may be a natural response to suffering, but it shouldn’t be accepted as the status quo.

People experience things differently, and what I think of as a minor inconvenience may be a life-changing trauma for somebody else. But when my friend is excited about staying up until 6 a.m. kissing this guy, doesn’t think another thing about it for months, and then is suddenly having panic attacks, I can’t help but think it isn’t an organic response to what she experienced that night.

What happened isn’t good—she was sexually assaulted, by the colloquial definition, not the legal one—but her reaction is not proportionate to what happened, and it shouldn’t be considered “normal.”

I’m not suggesting that trauma isn’t valid. Even if all trauma is caused by the society and not the experience, it’s still a legitimate trauma and deserves to be recognized as such. A panic attack is a panic attack, whether it’s brought on by society or chemistry or an experience, and survivors should be treated with empathy. Both men

in the above stories need to learn that non-consensual grabbing is not acceptable, and there need to be stricter consequences in place for those who do not listen.

But the societal repercussions we have in place for perpetrators create the expectation that their crimes are so heinous that their victims must be traumatized, and so the victims are coddled and taken care of until they become traumatized simply because of the focus on trauma in their lives.

Saying that those traumatized after being grabbed in a club are a minority is unacceptable, because it makes the traumatized people feel alone. What many have suggested as a remedy is a culture that emphasizes picking yourself up by your bootstraps and trudging onward. This sentiment suggests that trauma can be overcome by the sheer force of will. It is a 180-degree turn from our current reality.

I propose a middle ground. Here, we do not emphasize trauma; we do not create it where it does not exist. We acknowledge without celebrating. We create a culture where victims are comfortable coming forward but we do not push them into identifying with the trauma label when they would not otherwise do so.

We support without coddling. We accept that not everyone needs a coloring book. We help without pushing. We move on; we heal.

By Rebecca Zaritsky She is a freshman in the College.

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THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

I was going to write a lofty piece analyzing the political rhetoric and its contribution to the ideologically segregated country. I was going to write about how the premium TV news media placed on the entertainment value of Donald Trump over reporting newsworthy stories—stories that provide the public with the knowledge required to make an informed decision— aided his victory. I was going to ask the individuals occupying the highest public offices in this country to restrict their politics of insults, innuendos, and backhanded comments to the policies that are being debated rather than the half of the electorate that doesn’t agree with them.

That was my plan until I saw a picture of the KKK parading down a street in N. C. Countless photographs of spray painted swastikas with the word “Trump” in the center. Thousands of tweets about being told to “go back to China,” “take off the hijab,” “sit in the back of the bus.” A video of middle schoolers chanting “build that wall” in front of their minority classmates in a city not 20 miles from where I grew up.

I am waiting for the President-elect to say something.

On Sept. 17, 2001, President Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington and condemned the innumerable

hate crimes against Muslim-Americans committed in the six days since 9/11. He pledged to work with the Muslim community to rebuild the America based in a mutual respect among its citizens that was shattered that day.

I am waiting for the President-elect to denounce the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic attacks against his fellow Americans.

These are not a laundry list of beliefs designed to degrade his image. These are actions. These are actions when they include the coming out of neo-Nazi white supremacists, the fear of admitting one’s religion or sexuality, and the inability of a woman to walk alone lest someone thinks it’s his prerogative to grab her pussy.

This election was not about a man versus a woman, or even liberal versus conservative. It was about preserving the norm of respect for the plurality of identities that exist in this country. It was about whether or not we wanted to elect a president who had even a fraction of the capacity to empathize and some semblance of genuine human emotions. The very election of Donald Trump was a license to terrorize minorities and a validation of hate-filled beliefs.

I am waiting for the President-elect to unite the country, to say that those beliefs are dehumanizing and

not okay. I am waiting for him to be “the president for all Americans,” as conservative pundits like to say. The ability to simply get over it and move on speaks to a certain level of privilege. Tomi Lahren calls the antiTrump protests a “tantrum.” I call them a fight for human dignity.

VOICES

The Hateful Forces That Trump Unleashed

ELIZABETH PANKOVA

By Kaei Lee She is a sophomore in the SFS.

Encourage Camaraderie in Election’s Wake Is it just me, or is everyone wearing black?

I asked my roommate this question as we began the actual walk of shame to our first class the morning after the election.

We didn’t speak when we were getting ready. I put on black skinny jeans, black rain boots, and my favorite red sweater. It was important to me that I wore an outfit that looked as safe, powerful, determined, and womanly as I was trying to feel.

We walked outside the McCarthy doors, looked at each other, and cried. The few people on the streets at 9 a.m. looked equally bleary-eyed, stunned, saddened, and disappointed. The campus was in mourning.

The night before, the campus was in shock.

I walked with a group of friends to the White House early in the morning, mostly because I wasn’t sure what else to do.

I think we all needed people to listen to our repetitions of “I just can’t believe…” We walked past a bar on Pennsylvania Ave. Three men were standing on the sidewalk a few yards away from us. They weren’t laughing. They weren’t cast in shadows.

Weirdly, I knew what they were yelling before I heard the words repeated confidently and loudly: “Grab them by their pussies.”

It wasn’t even said jeeringly. It was stated.

And I wasn’t alone. I was with two other women and seven men. And that’s the worst part. The horror, and panic, of what this means for our future—if this happens when I’m walking in a group, what will happen when I’m alone? And then the terrifying realization that this is the rhetoric that won the election. We just taught America that this is okay.

As my roommate and I walked past Village A down Prospect St., a 9 a.m. walk we’ve made countless times before, I noticed people were registering each other differently. Quick glances searched for reddened eyes, sorrowful expressions, fatigued eyelids. When I could see someone was hurting, I’d

nod or smile gently or say something like, “Hey, I’m sorry.” And they’d do the same back.

We walked past one of the Prospect St. row houses under construction. A few days prior, my roommate and I were spending our 9 a.m. walk discussing, almost self-consciously, what would happen if the election didn’t turn out like we’d hoped. We weren’t sure. It was too horrible a thought to even articulate. A construction worker overheard us.

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to keep on living.”

We neared Walsh exactly three minutes before class started as usual. We all smiled wearily, and tried to reach out to each other in small, silent ways. Many of us were ceaselessly fighting back tears.

The lady who swiped my card at the dining hall asked how I was doing. “Okay, I guess,” I said. She patted my arm, “Every 24 hours gets better.” She asked every person behind me the same thing.

Dialogue is important. Rhetoric is important. Talking to one another is crucial. Talk to ­everyone. Every opinion you get, every anecdote you collect will add nuance and depth to your own ideas. And my promise to you—what I urge everyone to do—is to listen. Listen, stay open-minded, gather your ideas.

Then call bullshit when you see it.

I’m not sure how to handle those three men on Pennsylvania Ave. except to keep walking, keep your head up, and keep telling yourself you’re intelligent, complete, and powerful.

Stop searching for an explanation for their behavior and stop listening to others’ justifications. Let’s delete the “boys will be boys” excuse from our vocabulary and never make excuses for men like these again. Let’s fight this horrible dialogue with an influx of positive rhetoric. Tell everyone they’re valuable, tell children they’re capable, tell women they’re resilient.

Let’s not stop asking each other how we’re doing. Let’s keep telling our friends, our classmates, the people we connect with in the dining hall or on Prospect St. that we’re here for each other. We need to listen to each other and we can’t let voices go unheard. And we need to keep on living.

ELIZABTH PANKOVA

By Emma Francois She is a sophomore in the College.

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NOVEMBER 18, 2016

White People Need to Take Responsibility Today, I am ashamed to be a white woman. The majority of people in the United States who look like me voted for a man who plans to implement xenophobic and racist policies.

This man has a virulently homophobic running mate, has no respect for the agency of women, and denies climate change, the single greatest threat to human existence. Many had hoped that women would carry Clinton to victory, but upper-class white feminism produced no solidarity. This fact makes me feel sad, angry, and helpless, and it’s this last emotion that I most want to address.

This is for the people who are ashamed that 53 percent of white women and 63 percent of white men voted for Trump­—for the members of our community who are embarrassed to be American today. It’s long past time to talk about that shame, and to reflect on our whiteness and what that means.

I want to make clear that I know the outcome of this election is complex. A variety of factors from globalization to the silo-ization of media contributed to the election of a barefaced bigot. Knowing all this, it is undeniable that so many white people felt comfortable looking past overt racism and xenophobia when they cast their votes because they knew their friends and their families would remain safe. This may not mean they held animus towards Muslims, black people, and Latinx people, but it does mean that they have the privilege to ignore the consequences their vote had for these people. This is what a racist system looks like.

We do not think of whiteness as an identity nor as a community. Whiteness is the default: the color of characters in books, make-up shades, and nude bandaids. I exist in

many all-white Georgetown spaces where that whiteness is seldom named. And yet, our white siblings made this possible, and we must resist the urge to separate ourselves from them with self-righteous posturing that affirms our goodness at the cost of their humanity.

It would be so easy to convince ourselves that they have nothing to do with us, and that out here on the coasts and in the cities of this country, we are more enlightened, but this is false. We are complicit in this crime. They are us, and this is an opportunity to get our people in line.

This is a time for empathy and for bravery. It will be terrifying to look in the mirror and face the implicitly racist parts of myself. It will be difficult to sit still and listen to people whose worldviews I find abhorrent, even violent. However, our friends of color will be fighting for their lives, and we cannot ignore our responsibility to organize our own people.

This means having conversations rooted not in politics or theory, as Georgetown students are wont to do, but in emotion and experience. This election was not won on the merits of policies but on the stories people believe about their world. We will not win by bashing people over the head with our superior debating skills, and we will certainly not win with smug Facebook memes.

Many of us are still reeling and still processing what this election means. Some of us, such as queer people, will continue to be targeted regardless of our whiteness. There will come a time when we must accept that the Trump voters many of us want to condemn are redeemable, that they are human and therefore possess the ability to change and to grow.

I do not have a script, but I know I need to do soul-searching to begin. Acknowledging who we are and how we have been shaped by our birth is the first step, along with abandoning our perfectionist need to be “good white people” who won’t risk disturbing our veneer of racial progress with honesty. I am a product of white supremacy, and as a result, I will screw up. This fact gives me power, because acknowledging my flaws will allow me to connect, to access the vulnerability that is so essential to understanding one another.

Having a conversation does not sound radical, and I know I’d rather take to the streets right now than search my friends list for a Trump supporter. However, I firmly believe that things will not change unless we come out from behind our ideological walls and learn to move each other, on a human level. Unless we learn to confront ourselves as well as our parents, our significant others, our neighbors, our professors, and our teammates with difficult truths, we will continue to talk past each other, screaming increasingly loudly into a void.

Many Georgetown students, faculty, and staff are not safe in Trump’s America. My white skin has not protected me from shouts of “grab them by the pussy” between Tuesday and today; LGBT people everywhere are under threat regardless of their race. However, we have a security in this country that people of color do not. We can put our bodies on the line. We can join existing movements and organizations, led by experienced organizers who know how to best make progress for their communities. We can use our privilege to protect others, and to speak up and be heard in spaces where they cannot.

These conversations will not be easy. The next four years will not be easy. But although my community is in a world of hurt, and my heart is breaking for this country we have made, I am far from powerless. I hope that we as white Americans who reject this presidency and what it represents will overcome our shock and our sadness. The time for mourning will pass soon enough. We have a lot of organizing to do.

By Cassidy Jensen She is a junior in the College.

Elizabeth pankova

9

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Students Share Thoughts on Post-Election Political Climate Before last Tuesday’s election, the Voice reached out to Georgetown students to hear their opinions on the presidential candidates, the country’s political climate, and political discussion on campus. Then, on Tuesday, voters chose Republican nominee Donald Trump in a surprise to many. Trump’s victory has been cited as a stunning indictment of the national media’s failure to capture the reality of half of America.

In the time since the election results were called in the early hours of Wednesday morning last week, millennials in particular have protested President-elect Donald Trump with cries of “not my president”.

In this context, the Voice reached out to the same set of students interviewed before the election to hear their reactions in its aftermath. These students supported a range of candidates in the general election, including Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Evan McMullin. Only Clinton supporters provided comments post-election, and all of those who responded are featured here. While they may not reflect the full range of political opinions on campus, the students interviewed here provide insights into today’s national political climate as well as their own personal perspectives.

The following interviews have been edited for clarity.

By Caitlyn Cobb Jawad Pullin (COL ’18)

“I will always be a cheerleader for consensus, but it’s going to be much harder to do that in a Trump America. It’s not just that Donald Trump ran a campaign of hostility and division, it’s that he also demonstrates no knowledge of the duties and responsibilities of the office in which he is about to enter. He’s a bully and a megalomaniac and a pervert and a race-baiter. He defeated a candidate who otherwise exemplified a lot of what I think is good about America. He did so with the support of Neo-Nazis and sexual assaulters and Klansmen and anti-semites. He manipulated a lot of gullible people in this country, many of whom cared not about what their black or gay or Latino or Muslim friends thought of Trump. There aren’t a lot of people on this campus willing to overlook that. But there definitely are some, and the election of Trump has brought a lot of these deplorables out of hiding. In a way, it’s cathartic to see who really cares about the least fortunate and who simply cares about themselves. But it doesn’t bode well for the country that so much division has been laid bare, and that we had an opportunity to elect a unifying candidate and instead chose a divisive one.”

Jawad identifies as a Democrat, and said in a previous interview that he would vote for Hillary Clinton. He is a member of Georgetown College Democrats.

Ari Goldstein (COL ’18)

“This is a pretty dismal time to be a political moderate. The far right has taken over the entire federal government and continues to display a deep disrespect for the basic principle of compromise. And, especially in the wake of this election, the left is becoming increasingly insular and activist, too. With deep wells of antagonism and intellectual echo chambers on both sides of the political aisle, there seems to be very little room for rational bipartisan dialogue or compromise.

I’m not feeling particularly optimistic right now, but have no choice besides hoping that eventually the American people will come around. We need a revolution of the reasonable.”

Ari identifies as an independent, and said in a previous interview that he would vote for Hillary Clinton. He is the Chief of Staff of the Georgetown University Student Association.

Jasmin Ouseph (SFS ’19)

“I am afraid. For many people of color, these results weren’t necessarily surprising—racism has long been a present factor in many of our lives. But now, I fear much more beyond being told to go back to my country, being told I smell like curry, being microaggressed in some other way.

Now, I fear full-on aggression. I fear for my undocumented friends and their families. I fear for black Americans. I fear for the queer folks, the trans folks. I fear for women. I fear for Muslim, Sikh, Arab, and South Asian Americans. I fear especially for those at the intersection of many of these identities. I fear for our environment, our institutions, and our democracy.

It has been less than a week since Americans elected misogynistic, hateful, science-denying, xenophobic white supremacy into the highest office in the land. To be asked to come together, to sing kumbaya and hold hands, and to move on this early is insensitive, hypocritical, and irresponsible.

“Democrats, moderate Republicans, and millennial conservatives have been telling us for so long that Donald Trump is a bad man. The rhetoric this election season went beyond politics; Trump wasn’t just attacked for his reckless, uninformed, and foolish policies—he was painted as

immoral—a fascist, a dictator, emotionally unstable, a white nationalist, ableist, a sexual predator, unfit to lead our country. He was compared to Hitler. But now we are being told to unite, to wish for his success, to accept the institutional outcome. How do we go from comparing a man to Hitler one week and then wishing for “his success because it’s our success” the next week?

“Another response has been incredibly irritating to me, and that is the narrative of the poor angry white. I am in no place to sympathize with angry, working class white people who feel that the establishment has let them down or left them behind. It’s true, the two-party establishment doesn’t care about poor people. But all this talk of how Democrats lost this election because they didn’t listen to poor white people needs to stop. This kind of rhetoric borders on justifying Trump’s victory. Poor white people are still capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, morality and immorality, science and myth. And to give Trump’s voter base an excuse for being poor is invalidating and disrespectful to working class people of color. No people of color, especially working class and low income people of color, have ever been prioritized by the establishment. They have been demonized by Trump this entire election. But they didn’t go running in droves to vote for the “anti-establishment” candidate.

“This argument of the silenced, ignored working-class white voter is being used to weaken the argument that racism is what determined the outcome of this election. Even though Trump won the white demographic every way you flip it. The sole exception was for college-educated white women (even with them, though, Hillary only won with an incredibly narrow margin at 51%). Not all of Trump’s voters are racist, sexist, xenophobic, hateful monsters like many people have painted them out to be. But ultimately, if they weren’t all those horrible things (and let it be clear, many of his supporters were), they still heard all the horrible things Trump and his supporters said and promised, and they still thought it was okay.

Jasmin supported Bernie Sanders during the primaries, and said in a previous interview that she would vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election. She is a member of H*yas for Choice and the GUSA Senate.

Maximilian Fiege (SFS ’18)

“My response to Trump’s election was a callous one, as I consider myself a cynic who never underestimates America’s capacity for stupidity. Was I surprised that half of America spurned a candidate whose comprehensive policies on rural broadband, worker retraining, and cheaper, greener energies would have bettered their lives? Was I surprised that half of America allowed themselves to be told that a 5th Avenue mogul was actually an outsider to either Wall Street or the Beltway, only to see him tap both institutions for his cabinet? Sadly, no. While there will be countless pieces on just how senseless, dangerous, and self-harming the Trump administration’s policies will be, I’d like to suggest the following: “When 100 people in a room agree on what the issues are, but 51 of them agree on a different solution than the other 49, that is democratic. When 100 people in a room agree on what the issues are, but 51 of them blame the other 49 and call for their persecution, that is unethical. Those who protest in the wake of this election feel very real existential threats, and to call them “sore losers,” “crybabies” is to actively affirm their irrelevance to Trump’s America. It is imperative for those of us who champion diversity, equality, and cosmopolitanism to not let up over the course of the next four years, to ensure that the Trump administration is duly held accountable.”

Maximilian identifies as a progressive and said in a previous interview that he would vote for Hillary Clinton.

10

Out Out Out Out Out

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

in in in in in

the the the the the

Cold: Cold: Cold: Cold: Cold:

Homelessness Homelessness Homelessness Homelessness Homelessness

in in in in in

Georgetown Georgetown Georgetown Georgetown Georgetown

By Chris Dunn Every Saturday afternoon, Grace Episcopal Church on Wisconsin Avenue hosts a program called Grace’s Table, opening its doors to the neighborhood’s homeless population for a meal and fellowship. On Nov. 12, around 30 individuals, mostly men, crowded into one of the church’s main halls for lunch, fellowship, and an optional Bible study.

Among the men was Roberto, an immigrant from El Salvador experiencing homelessness in the Georgetown area. Roberto came to the United States in 2001, in search of a better life, but now finds himself on the streets. Roberto, like the rest of those at the lunch, was beginning to worry about the imminent drop in temperatures that marks the beginning of the long D.C. winter.

Situations like Roberto’s are all too common in Washington, D.C., a city with a homeless population of around 7,000, according to the American Council on Science and Health. In the same report, the council published that D.C.’s rate ranks as the sixth-highest city in the United States when adjusted for overall population. A number of factors, including rising housing prices, mental health issues and addiction, have left the city with an ongoing crisis in which thousands of people are left without a roof over their heads.

The Georgetown neighborhood, although somewhat geographically isolated from the rest of the city, is in no way immune to this issue. Among the million-dollar homes and lines of expensive boutique stores, there is a population of people who find themselves stuck in a cycle of poverty and often mental illness that seemingly leaves them with nowhere to go.

As temperatures begin to drop, the homeless population is faced with a new challenge: staying warm and avoiding hypothermia. Members of the Georgetown

community, though, continue to work together to battle this seasonal challenge.

On campus, the HOME program, a part of the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), is a sponsor of the HOT (Hypothermia Outreach Team) team, a group of students that spends evenings monitoring the homeless for signs of hypothermia on nights with especially severe weather conditions.

Teams of four students spend about two hours walking through the neighborhood checking up on residents preparing to sleep in the streets and offering blankets and other cold-weather gear. The CSJ helps train these groups by preparing students to recognize signs of hypothermia and walking them through a variety of situations that they may face.

Their work is not without precedent. There have been multiple cases of people dying in the streets in especially harsh overnight conditions, with the most recent incident occurring in 2012, when Clark Carvelli, 25, froze to death on Canal Road right next to Georgetown’s campus. Since Carvelli’s death, multiple people have also been found in the area and hospitalized with hypothermia.

D.C. law states that, between the beginning of November and the end of March, when the temperature drops below 32 degrees, “all people who are homeless must be housed.” This means that no city shelter can turn anyone away, and police are active in searching for people who plan to stay out on the street. The city takes this very seriously, and in some cases will resort to moving those who don’t wish to stay in shelters into them, according to Pietro Bartoli (COL ’19). Bartoli is a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Catholic lay organization that focuses on living out Catholic social teaching. Through the community’s Street Greetings program, he

helps deliver meals and interacts with the homeless population of Northwest D.C. Sarah Hartley is the communications director for the Georgetown Ministry Center (GMC), a homeless outreach center in Georgetown.

“Most of the people we work with have untreated mental illness,” she said. “That could mean that they’re a little bit paranoid, or that they don’t like being inside very much and feeling that they’re sort of claustrophobic. They can be overwhelmed by being indoors since they spend a lot of time outside.”

In Georgetown, which doesn’t have a traditional shelter, local religious groups improvise to create winter housing for homeless people. In a program coordinated by the GMC, ten congregations in the Georgetown community each spend one week hosting ten homeless residents of the area. Under the program, which runs from November to March each year, guests are provided breakfast and dinner and are given a bed for the night.

The GMC uses a filtering process to select the group that will make the best fit for these shelters. The center’s executive director Gunther Stern and his staff of case managers lead the process, and look to find people who will be cooperative with the hosting group as well as those who are most vulnerable. The program, quite popular among the homeless, has a waiting list.

Affluent areas like Georgetown provide a unique struggle for homeless people, since it can seem as if they are forgotten around such displays of wealth. Bartoli described how, for many of the area’s homeless residents, a lack of human interaction is as much as a struggle as finding food.

“You hear over and over again, ‘Thank you for being here.

Thank you for talking. Thank you for listening to my story,’”

11

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

Bartoli said. “I think in a lot of affluent neighborhoods, you can think that just charity is enough.”

At the same time, the neighborhood is not without its benefits, which leads to the high number of homeless residents in Georgetown, according to Hartley. The primary one is safety.

Unlike many other sections of the city, Georgetown’s streets provide a relative level of quiet and security for those not within the townhouses and dorms that make up the residences for the majority of the neighborhood’s residents.

“The reason why there are so many homeless people in Georgetown is the same reason that people from totally different walks of life want to spend time in Georgetown. That’s because it feels a lot safer, a lot nicer, more beautiful, and more quaint than a number of other areas in the city. It’s just a nice place to be,” Hartley said.

Sarah Stiles, a sociology professor at Georgetown active in homeless outreach in D.C., describes a separation between the the work of meeting the immediate needs of homeless people and the more long-term advocacy work that can be done to help them.

These immediate needs—food, warmth, sometimes medical attention—are somewhat obvious, although quite challenging to fulfill. The longer-term needs vary as well. Some of these can be as simple as finding identification. Stiles is involved with an ID ministry program at her church, helping the homeless to acquire essential documentation for job and housing applications.

There is also the issue of mental health. The GMC considers mental illness to be among the most significant factors leading to homelessness in Georgetown, and has two psychiatrists on staff to diagnose and offer treatment to guests.

A number of organizations within the community are willing to step in when it comes to hunger. The HOME program sponsors the Interfaith Sandwich Making Coalition on Tuesday nights. True to its name, the group helps feed those who are homeless in the area.

Members of the campus co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega are active in the Grace’s Table program. A small group of students help set up Saturday mornings at the church, engage with the homeless members of the programs, and clean the room after.

Within the Georgetown community, the GMC plays a large role in aiding those who find themselves without permanent housing. The center was originally opened in 1987 in response to a homeless man who froze to death in 1985, and has been a central part of the neighborhood’s outreach since. The center now serves around 900 people per year, and between 40 and 60 per day. The GMC runs a wide array of operations today, including a space for homeless people during the day to use showers, washing machines, and computers.

GMC is also involved in a street outreach program, in which executive director Gunther Stern, one of the center’s psychiatrists, and a general practitioner take to the streets to

check on the neighborhood’s homeless residents. This program focuses on those people that do not usually seek shelter or medical care.

“It’s a way for us to check in on people and provide medical and psychiatric care for people who are usually pretty resistant to help, and who are often ignored by most people who pass by. We work to build trusting relationships with them and help to address the reasons why they are homeless,” Hartley said of the program.

While the center now enjoys a generally favorable standing with the various businesses and citizens of Georgetown, this was not always the case. Many were opposed to the center’s founding, Hartley noted, and they feared that the location would become an attraction and lead to more homeless people entering the neighborhood. This sentiment, while smaller, still exists in the community.

“There is some resistance to GMC existing,” Hartley said.

“Neighbors sometimes complain. Business don’t like when there are homeless people panhandling outside of their building.”

With the constant focus on the immediate needs that the homeless community faces, it can be hard to look at the larger, more structural reasons for the crisis, which include mental illness and a lack of affordable housing. But efforts are being made to tackle these issues.

The Housing First approach has gained nationwide recognition as an effective method and is now being used in D.C., by both government and private operations. The approach moves chronically homeless residents—those who have been homeless for six months or longer—into housing as quickly as possible. Caseworkers can then address issues like mental illness and addiction among the newly housed.

Stiles notes that this method was not always the norm.

“What we’ve said to people is ‘Hey! Straighten up your act, and once you’re straightened out, once you’re sober, then we’ll make sure you get housing.’ Well that’s very difficult to do when you don’t have a stable place,” she said.

Stiles explained that these sort of ideas have been proven effective across the United States when it comes to ending chronic homeless. They are also usually cost-effective because they lead to a decrease in the use of emergency social services, like emergency rooms, by the homeless.

The GMC has also been involved with these sorts of programs. This year, the center has helped around 50 people obtain housing vouchers, and many of them have already been placed into homes. Projects like these have allowed GMC to make huge strides in ending chronic homelessness in the neighborhood. The center noted that these kind of programs have significantly increased the amount of people that they can put in homes, rising from just three to five per year in the past.

In another attempt to fight homelessness in D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser plans to shut down the large homeless shelter at the former D.C. General Hospital, located in Southeast D.C.,

and replace it with smaller shelters in each of the city’s eight wards. Christopher Weaver, former head of D.C.’s Department of General Services, told DCist that the shelter is planned to be shut down by 2019.

D.C. General, a family-only shelter, can hold up to 288 families or around 1,000 people. The shelter is currently at maximum capacity, and Bowser’s administration claims that it is unclean, unsafe, and expensive to run, prompting the push to shut it down. Bowser’s plan for Ward 2, in which Georgetown is located, is the only one that doesn’t involve creating a new shelter. Instead, the city will count the new Patricia Handy Center, a shelter for women built at 810 5th St. N.W., as the ward’s shelter.

Early in her administration, Bowser met with the Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Council (ANC) with the intent of getting support for her various anti-homelessness efforts in the city.

“During our meeting with Mayor Bowser in the weeks immediately after she took office, she made it clear that her priority was addressing homelessness across the city,” said Kendyl Clausen (SFS ’16) a former ANC commissioner.

Clausen emphasised the mayor’s call for help in the Georgetown area specifically.

In the months following this meeting, the ANC has not been involved in any specific actions regarding homelessness in Georgetown, per Clausen. However, all commissioners stressed the seriousness with which they take the issue.

The ANC cannot write policy, though; its function is to simply advise the city council. “D.C. government has to take us in great weight and our opinions in great weight,” said Mara Goldman (SFS ’19).

Goldman, ANC commissioner for single member district 4, noted that, in recent months, the ANC has dedicated time to discussing the issue of homelessness and analyzing their potential response to whichever policies might one day be considered by D.C. government.

While no concrete steps have been taken by D.C. government or the ANC to specifically tackle the issue of homelessness in Georgetown, those involved are aware of the need to address the situation.

Lisa Palmer, the newly elected commissioner for SMD 5, stressed during her campaign the need to view homeless people with dignity and respect. Palmer is now reaching out to the various parties involved: GMC, the Business Improvement District, and the Metro Police Department, all with the intent of making the ANC play a proactive role in providing services to Georgetown’s homeless population.

Neither Goldman nor Palmer had any specific policies to endorse regarding the issue, instead stressing the amount of work being done to better understand it.

“Especially as it gets colder, I want to make sure that we’re serving the people without homes as best as we can,” Palmer said.

Aicha Nzie

12

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

By Lilah Burke, Margaret Gach, and Jake Maher This year, unrecognized student group H*yas for Choice celebrates its 25th anniversary. In an environment historically rife with opposition, H*yas for Choice has managed to make a name for themselves as unwavering advocates for reproductive rights. The story of their founding and growth underscores some of the unique actors and themes at play on a campus like Georgetown’s. Pulling in each direction are the responsibilities to critical discourse, compassion, and Catholicism.

Although H*yas for Choice traces their anniversary back to 1991, the group first started as an unofficial club in 1989.

Founded by Kelli McTaggart (COL ’92) and Julie McKenna (COL ’92), the group quickly gained a following, especially after inviting Molly Yard, president of the National Organization for Women, to speak on campus.

After applying for recognition in 1990 and changing their name to GU Choice—the university prohibited the word “for” in their name—the organization gained access to funds in February 1991. The club was given $135 per semester. John DeGioia, then Dean of Students, granted the benefits with the condition that “there can be no cooperation of the club in the advocacy and practice of abortion,” as he wrote in a 1991 open letter. He hoped the club would provide a setting for the free exchange of ideas and critical inquiry. In a statement in 1992, he expressed that the group’s having access to benefits did not imply the university’s endorsement of their views, but merely followed the university’s free speech policies.

Abortion had only been legal in America for 18 years at that point, and its future remained in doubt. Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court that July prompted fear among reproductive rights advocates. “The reality then is not what will happen if Roe v. Wade is overturned,” McTaggart wrote in The Hoya that September, “but when.”

GU Choice itself experienced intense opposition throughout the year after its founding. On campus, pro-life student groups and individuals contested DeGioia’s decision, calling for GU Choice’s immediate defunding.

“Even if students decided by a majority to accept GU Choice, Georgetown Life Advocates would still try to get them off campus,” Liz Crnkovich (COL ’89), a spokesperson for the group, told the Voice in 1990. “The Catholic Church is

not a democracy. It teaches an absolute truth that Jesus Christ brought us.” In October 1991, however, GUSA reaffirmed its support of GU Choice’s recognition on the condition that an open student forum be held to discuss the group’s status. In November 1991, DeGioia prevented GU Choice from distributing birth control pamphlets during their Reproductive Health Week.

In the broader community, a coalition of alumni, students, and other Catholics decided to bring a canon lawsuit against the university asking D.C.’s Cardinal James Hickey to revoke Georgetown’s Catholic status in response to GU Choice’s funding. William Blatty, author of The Exorcist, and Patrick Buchanan (COL ’60), a former Republican presidential candidate, were two of the more than 1,500 signatories of the petition. “What Georgetown, the flagship of the Society of Jesus, is saying, by granting equal rights to GU Choice,” Buchanan wrote, “is that abortion is not a closed question; it is a debatable one.”

GU Choice spoke out about the lawsuit, claiming that it portrayed their influence as much more powerful than it was in reality. “This [lawsuit] is more destructive to the university and its Catholic identity [than GU Choice],” said McKenna (COL ’92). “If we are the thing that motivated [this opposition], then they’re giving us way too much credit as an organization.”

Cardinal Hickey refused to pass judgement on the lawsuit, and instead told the plaintiffs that only the Pope had the power to revoke Georgetown’s Catholic status. The coalition then sent a copy of their petition and statement to Rome, translated into Polish for Pope John Paul II. Although the letter never received a response, by then, the debate over DeGioia’s decision had reached far beyond the campus gates.

On April 24, 1992, just 14 months after the benefits were first granted, DeGioia officially announced the end of university funding for GU Choice. He had determined that the group’s actions could be defined as pro-choice advocacy, rather than pure discussion. DeGioia cited their distribution of prochoice postcards for students to send to legislators, abortion support from the chairs of the group in an opinion piece for The Hoya, and members’ organization of pro-choice political action after official meetings had ended as examples of that

advocacy. He and President O’Donovan did not mention any influence from the Vatican in their decision. “[GU Choice] demonstrated a failure of the group to educate its members adequately on the nature and purpose of the club and the terms under which it received access to student club benefits,” DeGioia wrote in an open letter to students and faculty. “Because the group has operated in a manner inconsistent with the spirit and intent of our original agreement, I judge it no longer appropriate to continue to provide access to benefits for the club.”

GU Choice members attempted to argue the point with DeGioia, but with President Leo O’Donovan’s agreement that the group was to be defunded, their case to remain a recognized student group was ultimately unsuccessful.

––––– The group reverted back to H*yas for Choice, now with an asterisk in their name to avoid a trademark conflict with Athletics. They began to use protest tactics to campaign for reproductive rights on campus. In April 1992, the group distributed 1,000 condoms and a petition in protest to the ban on condom sales on campus. The Hoya that year declared HIV/ AIDS a growing danger to the student body.

Since 1992, H*yas for Choice has continued to be at the center of debate on campus surrounding reproductive rights and birth control. In 2009, Alex Miller (COL ’11), former president of H*yas for Choice, co-founded Plan A: Hoyas for Reproductive Justice, a group which became widely known on campus for its divisive tactics. Plan A attracted attention in spring 2010 especially, when three of its members chained themselves to the John Carroll statue to demand that the university address its petition to make birth control and sexual health materials available. Then, on Saint Patrick’s Day that year, a student calling himself “Jack O’Gioia” dressed as a leprechaun and threw condoms at students passing through Red Square.

H*yas for Choice again sparked opposition in spring 2016 when it co-sponsored an event hosted by Georgetown University Lecture Fund at which Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, spoke. The event drew the attention of pro-life groups, such as Georgetown Right to Life, and was met with protests at the front gates.

Today, H*yas for Choice is most visible for their condom distribution. Free condoms are given away from their Red Square tables and from “condom reps,” who tape envelopes of the contraceptive on their doors. University policy forbids the sale of condoms on Georgetown’s campus.

The organization currently prioritizes a variety of other challenges, including increasing access to STI testing for students. “We’re working towards free, anonymous STI screening once a semester,” said Emily Stephens (SFS ’17), co-president.

“That would be a major success for us.”

Beyond changing university policy towards birth control and contraception, a recent goal of H*yas for Choice is to use its influence to protect free speech on campus. “Because HFC is such a large organization and a powerful political force, we have a lot of space to advocate for additional free speech liberties on campus, and I think that’s something I’d like to see us continue to push for,” said Stephens.

The university’s stance on abortion has never been up in the air. As Leo J. O’Donovan wrote in 1991, Georgetown’s identity as a Catholic university requires commitment to the “defense and promotion of human life from the moment of conception until natural death.” At a university which stands in opposition to the core message of H*yas for Choice, the group’s future remains to be seen. Now, with the election of President-elect Donald Trump, and the prospect of new appointments to the Supreme Court in the near future, the path forward for H*yas for Choice looks even more uncertain.

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

13

Unpacking Nature on Canvas

LEISURE

Suitcase Paintings:

By Emily Jaster

High Head Vista Provincetown Kate McConnell Suitcase Paintings, a collection by artist Kate McConnell on display at the Touchstone Gallery, is a vibrant, dreamlike expression of nature and travel, consisting of works that McConnell painted outdoors and carried with her in her suitcase.

The paintings emphasize emotion and experience, foregoing detail for bold colors applied with visible brush strokes.

McConnell makes a routine sacrifice of visual realism to attain greater accuracy of emotional value. To showcase the warmth and comfort of the woodland in “Forest Light”, McConnell restricts earthy greens to the edges of the image and fills the center with brilliant orange and gold, a stylistic exaggeration of the warm sunlight that shines between tree branches and blankets the forest air. An uncanny smudge of pale purple appears in the immediate center of the warmer colors, acting as a complement to make the gold appear bolder, simultaneously implying the diversity of color and light within the forest. The gold fills the scene with energy while the periwinkle reminds that the forest is also a calm, somber place. The foreground, consisting of trees and groundcover, is the most detailed aspect of the painting. It is formed entirely by rugged and organic lines, keeping the painting true to nature by reflecting the elemental origins of the scene.

Touchstone Galleries

Forest Trees Kate McConnell

Occasionally, man-made objects make an appearance in McConnell’s work but stand only as they relate to nature.

“Wharf, Morning Light” is overwhelmingly pale blue sky and sea. The pier and buildings serve as a mere dividing line to mark the location and provide contrast. The buildings are simple, linear, and nondescript, so that they create a sharp contrast from the dynamic natural surroundings. The pier beneath them blends abstractly into the sea. The detail here is not nearly as important as the greater image, especially as the waves crash against the wharf, shifting the dividing line. Just above the sun’s early, yellow rays burst from the horizon, blending with and dispersing into the pale blue sky, contrasting the dark, purple in the sea. Even the direction of the brush strokes resembles the motion of the moment: the strokes in the sky tend upward, like the sun, while the strokes in the sea are horizontal undulations.

McConnell plays with perspective in “Garden Spirits I” and “Garden Spirits II”, each of which looks upward into a tree, along the twisted trunk and amid the yellow-orange blanket of leaves. The first features a distinct bluebird, but this clearly visible creature is not the only life that persists amongst the branches. Subtle variations in color form ethereal silhouettes of other birds, symbolic of the soul of nature.

Touchstone Galleries

For all the focus on nature, McConnell does not neglect the warm emotions of humanity in her collection. “Conversation I” and “Conversation II” depict highly abstracted human figures, shrouded in hot red and orange, outlined in black, highlighted in blue and white. Superficially, the images are almost the same, yet they capture distinctly different conversations. In “Conversation I,” the figures lean together and face one another with the line between their bodies blurred. The conversation is bringing the figures closer; they care for one another and are connected by their exchange. In “Conversation II,” the figures face away from each other, and there is a clear gap between them. The colors of the background are hotter and bolder than “Conversation I,” as though some other emotion has ignited in “Conversation II,” firing up a tension not present in the first image.

McConnell’s work is as expressive as it is beautiful, capturing honest, realistic, and authentic emotions through abstraction of natural scenes. Suitcase Paintings is a journey through nature, an exploration of light and color, and a spiritual interpretation of place. Each painting is a translation, revealing how images are converted into invigorating experience and emotion. The collection reminds viewers of the life and soul present in all aspects of our world through the simplest of techniques: line, color, and a love for exploration.

LEISURE

14

NOVEMBER 18, 2016

Nocturnal Animals Weaves a Tangled, Stunning Web

By Amy Guay

The women—corpulent, naked, and defiantly at ease—gyrate in slow-motion to haunting strings from composer Abel Korzeniowski, waving sparklers as the opening credits for Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals roll. The scene functions as both a meditative microcosm and an eye-catching hook: a promise of more things beautiful and strangely evocative to come.

The film, fashion designer Ford’s second foray as a director, producer, and screenwriter after his 2009 Oscar-nominated film A Single Man, follows three narratives detailing present, past, and fiction set in Los Angeles, New York, and West Texas, respectively.

Simultaneously gorgeous and brutal, structurally intricate and artistically composed, Ford’s signature aesthetics-driven vision along with an impressive collection of well-cast A-listers elevate Animals from dispassionate sophistication to sleek, atmospheric thrills.

In the film’s first minutes, we discover that the women from the opening montage are part of an art installation curated by Susan, a successful yet restless L.A. gallerist played by Amy Adams. Her well-tanned husband (Armie Hammer) is perpetually off on business and her daughter is grown, leaving Susan alone in her expansive mahogany house to brood out her floor-to-ceiling windows and stew in her outdoor hot tub.

Though they have not spoken in 19 years, Susan’s writer ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal) sends her a manuscript for his dark new novel called Nocturnal Animals, a term he used to describe her when they were a young couple in New York. The book chronicles the horrific consequences of the fictional Hasting family’s nighttime road trip through West Texas, an effectively jarring answer to the controlled emotion of the film’s reality. Ford reveals the novel’s plot in excruciating phases, mirroring Susan’s reading of it in the film’s present as she reflects back on her relationship with Edward.

In tandem with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and editor Joan Sobel, Ford differentiates storylines through color—cool blues for Susan’s present and yellowed tints for the revenge plot—and splices similarly-framed shots to further unite reality and invention, sustaining a tone of simmering dread. Fittingly, each frame of the film would not be out of place as an art gallery display. Whether it is L.A.’s snake-like freeways or two naked corpses on a red couch, Ford’s meticulous attention to composition imbues every shot with majesty and intent.

Draped in opulent jewel tones and chunky earrings, Adams smolders as a woman whose seemingly-flawless life belies a painful past. Ford need only cut to a close up of her grave, pensive eyes—and he does so often—to convey a lifetime of regret. There are no exaggerated gasps or sudden bursts of tears; as Susan, Adams gives a masterclass in repressed guilt and fear. Her eyes flicker; her mouth quivers; she presses her hands to her face. Adams’ performance as young Susan—an ambitious twenty-something getting her master’s at Columbia—is just as nuanced. She gets only a few scenes to act out Susan’s journey from idealistic young lover to disillusioned wife to cruel betrayer, and makes the transition deftly, emanating a quiet melancholy throughout. Laura Linney (and her outrageously sculpted hair) makes a brief appearance and crackles with haughty condescension as Susan’s icy mother. With only a watery glance, however, Adams steals the scene right back.

With a Texas twang and hollowed cheekbones, Gyllenhaal does double-duty as Edward and Tony Hastings, the fictional father in Edward’s book. Edward is the romantic to Susan’s pragmatist, the emotion to her realism and, while Gyllenhaal acts with intense humanity, Adams benefits from a more multi-faceted and engaging character.

Fortunately for us, Edward’s book exposes his inner machinations and Gyllenhaal gets a storyline all to himself in the form of Tony. As the tortured man on an interminable hunt for the men who brutalized his wife (Isla Fisher) and daughter (Ellie Bamber), he delivers a desperate and provocative performance. His grief and compulsive

rage are palpable as he teams up with a reticent cop (Michael Shannon) and faces off against a terrifyingly unhinged ringleader (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Although his is a story within a story, Tony’s tragic arc shocks and captivates despite its roots in fiction.

Animals is a mood. It is Adams’ protective sheath of red hair, Gyllenhaal’s white-knuckles, and Taylor-Johnson’s greasy split-ends. It is Korzeniowski’s pulsing score, a well-placed fadein, and the oppressive darkness that colors a majority of the film. The film speaks through its tone and visuals and ends like it begins: with a sudden, emotive cut. There is no resolution, no closure, and certainly no happy ending. Just like that, we are left alone to ponder the cruelty that lurks beneath the stylish and the glamorous, the horror and the beauty of our world.

IMDB

15

THE GEORGETOWN VOICE

LEISURE

Critical Voices: DNCE, DNCE

By Emily Jaster

DNCE’s self-titled debut album, set to be released on Nov. 18, is an upbeat expression of shameless individuality and optimism, fitting for the emergence of a band comprised of Joe Jonas, JinJoo Lee, Cole Whittle, and Jack Lawless, all of whom already have accomplished musical careers. Each member has experienced both success and let-down in the form of a band break-up or a lack of independent performance apart from the backgrounds of other artists’ tours. DNCE reveals a new wave of inspiration, with dance music that departs from today’s standard styles.

The new album features tracks from DNCE’s first EP, SWAAY (2015), including “Toothbrush” and the double-platinum “Cake by the Ocean.” The latter is an embodiment of DNCE’s exterior identity: quirky, fun-loving, and forward-focused. While the literal lyrics describe the feeling of meeting a new love interest, the inspiration for the tone is the drive towards new beginnings as DNCE dives full-force into the next chapter of each member’s music career. The song isn’t just foreshadowing. It’s a promise to the world: DNCE is ambitiously striving to take the center stage of modern dance music.

As is common in the dance music genre, “Body Moves” focuses on present desire, but it departs from the “carpe diem” philosophy with a suggestion of future promise: “when the morning comes, I’ll always stay.” From the title to the chorus, the song clearly focuses on physicality, but there is insistence on emotional backing and authenticity. The instrumental retains nearly the same pattern for the duration of the song, concentrating on the beat with short breaks in between the verse, pre-chorus, and chorus, increasing in intensity with each step.

DNCE opens their song “Blown” with a ’90s pop-rock beat, a mix of popping electric keys and bass guitar. The opening lyrics are as bluntly honest as the instrumental is simple and choppy. The verse transitions with rising energy and intensifying guitar into a smooth, catchy chorus. The song features a rap interlude by Kent Jones, and although the rap corresponds to the song’s overall tone, the transitions to and from the interlude are sloppy and compromise the song’s flow, which might otherwise have been the strength of this track.

One song, “Good Day,” stands out from the electronic, sex-driven tracks that dominate the album as a more conversational and personal piece. The divergent track opens with an acoustic sound as DNCE plainly asserts, “Today is gonna be a good day,” in spite of the problems and negativity that Joe Jonas describes immediately after. The lyrics make extensive use of internal rhyme as opposed to end rhyme, successfully unifying phrases without compromising the natural, conversational effect.

The funky, continuous bass rhythm harmonizes with the monotonous verses and unifies the more dynamic portions of the song, changing only in volume to reflect the same energy as the vocals.

The album features DNCE’s own take on the love-theway-you-hurt-me song motif. “Be Mean” fulfills this with the twist of using the “torture” concept as an ironic metaphor for strenuous intrigue rather than as an expression of emotional distress. Long, sweeping vocal and instrumental notes unify the dynamic melody, mirroring an internal conflict of desire so long-drawn, stagnant, and continuous that it feeds dynamic restlessness and suspense. The speaker further

Republic Records

seeks to satisfy his desire at all costs, “Gladly I’d take poison from your lips / Touch you when I burn my fingertips.”

The album DNCE defines the band’s intended character.

The self-title fits, as the band expresses who they intend to become: positive, sexy, and quirky. Joe Jonas and his new bandmates are on a path to discover their style, as they experiment mixing steady vocals and electronic rhythms. If DNCE continues in this divergent trend, they have the potential to emerge from their trial period with their own, distinct style of dance music.

Critical Voices: OG Maco, For Scott

By Gustav Honl-Stuenkel OG Maco, a prolific underground MC who shot to the spotlight with his 2014 track, “U Guessed It,” has an unexpected pair of role models: Black Sabbath and Kid Cudi. In the past, rappers have relied heavily on jazz influences, from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz” (1991) to Kendrick Lamar’s work with Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and Flying Lotus on To Pimp a Butterfly (2015).

With the proliferation of mixtape culture and greater accessibility of the rap industry, increasingly diverse styles are being fused with hip-hop with varying degrees of success.

OG Maco’s recent twenty-minute mixtape, For Scott, puts these hard-rock inspirations front and center, successfully recreating the more textured, unfinished feel of garage rock.

The album is dedicated to Scott Mescudi, also known as Kid Cudi, who recently made headlines when he publicly entered treatment for depression. For many, Cudi became a symbol, a rallying point for all people who suffer from mental illness but do not feel comfortable discussing their experience. In light of Kid Cudi’s recent revelations, OG Maco has created a pensive, experimental, and unexpected tape.

For Scott opens slowly, with the dreamlike title track. Maco refers directly to Cudi, discussing Cudi’s impact on the rap industry and on Maco himself. Like most of the tape, the song is a stark departure from “U Guessed It,” and his most recent project, Lord of Rage (2016). It layers heavily autotuned vocals over a toned-down but powerful beat, creating a haunting tribute that forces the listener to reassess their expectations for Maco.

He does not hesitate to replace his choruses with unabashed wailing, expressing the profound anger, desperation, and hopelessness that dominate the work. As the tape progresses, he builds intensity, piecing together Cudi-inspired moaning, intense and dark beats, and unabating autotune into a consistent sound.

Maco does a good job of tapping new and upcoming producers for the project, but their inexperience shows at times through unimaginative and repetitive beats. Despite collaborating with a different producer on every track, Maco takes the clear creative lead to create a worthy tribute to one of his idols.

Vocal effects feature heavily in the album, but sometimes struggle to match the production and mood of each song. “At Night” and “Restless” feel weighed down by their autotune, as if it were sonic molasses that the instrumentals had to struggle to escape. Immediately after, “Remember,” produced by indie beatmaker Humbeats, has a much more airy quality, lacing soft synths and a mellow bassline to accompany Maco’s reflective flow. Maco works through the rigors fame exerts on his friendships, constantly questioning if those around him are just there to build their social media profiles or promote their own careers. His Black Sabbath influences come into full play in “Courage,” which sounds remarkably more like rock than hip-hop, reminiscent of Cudi’s most recent full album, Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven. The song sounds like it belongs among Cudi’s discography, with remorseful vocals backing angry and simple verses. “Courage” is by far the longest song on the project, but feels repetitive by the second half despite its adventurous

sound and experimentalism. Throughout the mixtape, Maco’s bars feel murky and unfinished, and the chorus lines are hummed or mumbled too many times to be fully impactful.

For Scott is a short but heartfelt tribute to Kid Cudi, who plays a prominent role in the sound of the tape. Because of his reliance on autotune, Maco doesn’t break new ground for rap as a whole, and the autotune ends up drawing attention from his unpredictable and energetic verses. Though the sounds that Maco creates are a massive departure from his usual style, he finds considerable success attempting to replicate the melancholic and spacey sounds of his idol.

OG Maco