Spring 2020 Issue 6

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uesday, MARCH. 3, 2020

SF STATE’S STUDENT-RUN PUBLICATION SINCE 1927

VOLUME 111, ISSUE 6

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Dancing while death addresses disability issues RIP TO THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES

Xpress honors fallen presidential candidates BY: shaylyn martos SMARTOS@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

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Antoine Hunter at the Longmore Lecture in Disability Studies, Dancing While Deaf presentation. ( Dyanna Calvario / Golden gate Xpress )

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e moved his hands mostly, speaking and dancing without words or music. Deaf dancer and American Sign Language teacher Antoine Hunter shared his experiences and passions with an audience of SF State students and faculty.

Longmore Lecture in Disability Studies hosted the Dancing While Deaf lecture, which included Hunter, in the J. Paul Leonard Library. Hunter shared his journey of being deaf and finding and loving

himself through his disabilities.

The event was also streamed through Zoom live chat where the audience was able to join in on the lecture.

The lecture started off with Hunter, who was born and raised in Oakland, introducing himself to the crowd of students. Hunter also had two interpreters for him to sign people’s questions to him, and to also say what Hunter was signing to the audience.

Hunter described himself by saying he is 6-foot-2-inch and wearing a black dashiki and black pants. He also describes

himself as an African Indigenous, deaf, two-spirited person who is brilliant and beautiful.

In the presentation, Hunter goes over his contributions towards the deaf community, such as being the founder of his Urban Jazz Dance Company and becoming the director. Which is a dance company he created for anyone and everyone to join. He is the former president of the Bay Area Deaf Advocator, and also creator of the Bay Area Deaf Dance Festival. The rest of his bio also includes

School budget cuts put the arts at risk

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he Trump administration has decreased the Department of Education funding by $5.6 billion or 7.8% in the fiscal year 2021 budget. As the shortage in budget trickles down schools will begin to make department and program cuts.

With a shortage to the budget, question who and what departments need to be cut ring louder than the quality of education students will receive. As departments make their way onto the cutting board it is crucial that art within the classroom and curriculum stay intact.

The 2018-2019 academic year ended

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OPIN ION

BY: PAMELA ESTRADA & CIERRA QUINTANA CESTRADA3@MAIL.SFSU.EDU CQUINTANA@SFSU.EDU

with a total of four students with the diploma of Art, nine with Art Education, nineteen with Art History and 57 with a degree in Studio Art. “Growing up in Wilmington, CA that [museums/art] wasn’t talked about. The first museums that I would go to were on field trips because that is all you could afford,” said Kayla Hernandez, a transfer student from Los Angeles Harbor College majoring in Art History at SF State.

“Through education and through school giving me that opportunity is how I fell in love with it [museums/art]...why I’ve always wanted to do it since I was in high school.”

A reputation or criticism of this field is evident through comments and the constant need to see if it adds value within other fields of education. We have all

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OPINION

heard the snarkiness, “but a child could do that” or “does it stimulate the thought process in order to accelerate in math,” as mentioned in a feature article by American Psychological Association attempting to shed light on the myth of it all.

According to the experiments conducted for the American Psychological Association article it has found that people can actually tell the difference between a child’s art piece and a professional artist piece. There is clear intentional movement between a professional artistic piece that won’t show in a child’s piece.

Art is often used to accelerate other fields of education, but does it have to?

According to American Psychological Association, art is proven to not boost any

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A&E

BY: JAZZMENE LIZARDO JLIZARD1@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

flyer flitters past me, twirling in the wind as I walk to my favorite cafe on Ocean Avenue. As it tumbles I see the face of Andrew Yang, former presidential candidate and favorite of the Chinese community in Ingleside.

I stepped on it as I passed.

On this Super Tuesday we honor the fallen Democratic runners. Yesterday Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota, announced she was dropping out; Mayor Pete Buttigieg bowed out the day before. I hadn’t even locked down how to say his name yet.

Yang, Williamson, Harris and Booker, Gillibrand, O’Rourke, Castro and Steyer. We will likely never think about you all again. So we, the Xpress, wish you all the best.

From billionaires and tech executives, to bureaucrats and new-age lecturers, one by one these candidates quit campaigning and resolved to whatever they were doing before.

All of these businesses and homes are covered in Yang’s posters, where will these people turn? Between Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, and Michael Bloomberg, who out of these five white(ish, I see you Gabbard) democratic candidates can make communities like that of Ingleside feel seen and supported?

According to the Guardian, both Klobuchar and Buttigieg are endorsing Biden for president. While I’m not surprised, I beg for those of us who can vote to think deeper than tacitly following endorsements.

Look to the San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters, who publish a handy print-out guide each election season. Look to publications that you trust, like the SF Chronicle or the SF Bay View.

And please, for the love of god, don’t miss the polls tomorrow.■

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Bernie supporters march through campus

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Karamel Nunez-Martinez knunezmartinez@mail.sfsu.edu PRINT MANAGER Andrew R. Leal aleal@mail.sfsu.edu ONLINE MANAGING EDITOR Alondra Gallardo agallardo2@mail.sfsu.edu ART DIRECTORS Briana Battle bbattle@mail.sfsu.edu Alexis Joseph ajoseph3@mail.sfsu.edu CITY NEWS Catherine Stites, editor cstites@mail.sfsu.edu CAMPUS NEWS Juan Carlos Lara, editor jlara9@mail.sfsu.edu SOCIAL MEDIA Kameron Hall, editor khall6@mail.sfsu.edu SPORTS Grady Duggan, editor gduggan@mail.sfsu.edu OPINION Kerasa Dimitrios Tsokas, editor ktsokas@mail.sfsu.edu ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Felicia Hyde, editor fhyde@mail.sfsu.edu PHOTO Shandana Qazi, editor sqazi@mail.sfsu.edu

PRINT ADVISER Laura Moorhead PHOTO ADVISOR Kim Komenich komenich@sfsu.edu

@ggxnews @ggxnews

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Students and organizers of the Bernie Sanders rally march through campus. (Saylor Nedelman / Golden Gate Xpress)

BY: JUAN CARLOS LARA JLARA9@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

Supporters of Bernie Sanders marched through campus yesterday to encourage others to vote for the Vermont senator.

The group of approximately 25 met at Malcolm X Plaza where several students spoke on their reasons for supporting Sanders, including the co-chairs of SF State’s Young Democratic Socialists of America, who have endorsed him.

“It was him or Warren,” said Cade Crowell, one of the co-chairs. “Warren calls herself a capitalist… Bernie describes himself as a socialist. His policies are more universal, he wants to cancel all student debt when Warren only wants to cancel some student debt.”

Sanders has called for a complete cancellation of all student loan debt, totaling $1.6 trillion, according to The Institute for College Access and Success. Warren’s plan would cancel up to $50,000 of debt for every individual with a household income under $100,000, per her campaign website.

Attendees held signs reading Tribal nations for Bernie, Unidos con Bernie (Spanish for United with Bernie) and Eat the Rich.

With signs in hand and a large Bernie 2020 banner across the front, the crowd walked to the Towers Conference Center, which has been operating as a voting center

since early voting began on Feb. 29. French major, Jake Hoiseth led them in chants.

Hoiseth’s voice boomed “college,” “medicare” and “jobs,” and the crowd responded, “for all” to each.

Sanders currently leads the Democratic primary race in delegates, and most polls predict that Sanders will win California by a significant margin. As of Mar. 1, FiveThirtyEight had Sanders in first with 34% and Biden in second with 20%.

Joe Biden, currently close behind Sanders

in several national polls, won the South Carolina contest in a landslide, due in large part to his popularity among people of color. However, this support does not seem to carry over to the SF State employees. Biden received only $300 from campus employees, all coming from only one donor.

While Warren raised the most funds from SF State employees, Sanders has almost twice as many individual donors and more than twice as many individual donations. ■

Antione Hunter dances from a deaf perspective CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 poet, mentor, model, actor speaker.

He went back into his memories and described that he discovered dance was his passion at an early age during grade school. Hunter said that in elementary school, he performed a dance number by himself because no one wanted to be in his group, which led him to continue dancing.

The presentation also included classroom issues towards students with disabilities, and what the root of them can be. Some of the issues Hunter stated were, “groups with disabilities get left out, teachers do not understand or accommodate,” and, “research before you assume/ wealth of information at our fingertips.”

Part of Hunter’s presentation, was teaching everyone sign language, such as

signing the word yes, where you make your hand into a letter A in sign language and move it up and down, and signing the word no, where you put your in index and middle finger together and hit it against your thumb in up and down motions.

Henry Ho, who decided to attend the presentation last minute explained that he has always been interested in sign language.

“I came to this event to learn some signs and to also see how someone can sign and dance at the same time, with or without music,” said Ho. Other signs that were taught were fear, where you take both hands and open your palms and spread your fingers, place them at your chest and shake them, and understand, where you take your index finger place it next to the top of your head, and

move your finger up and down.

Sign language, which takes a huge part of Hunter’s life, has also become incorporated into his dances. Hunter proceeded to perform a dance number, with no music, just his body and hands. Incorporating many body roll movements and jumps in the air, he also signs while dancing.

SF State transfer student Vu Tran, came to the event so she could see how someone is able to dance while being deaf, she said, “I was super curious on how someone who is deaf can also dance because they can’t hear music, or how can someone who is deaf teach others how to dance.”

Antoine Hunter’s presentation ended with questions from the audience, and his goodbyes to the disability program and students in attendance. ■

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CSU works to raise graduation rates BY: BRIANA BATTLE BBATTLE@MAIL.SFSU.EDU As graduation approaches in May, it’s important to note that only 24.1% of 2019 graduates that started at SF State as freshmen finished in four years. These low graduation rates are consistent across the entire CSU system, and the school created a six step student success plan as a means of getting more people to graduate within four years.

The CSU system launched Graduation Initiative 2025 back in 2016 as an effort to try to raise these rates across all 23 of its universities. Since then, SF State’s four year graduation rate for first time freshmen has gone up 2.5% and the two year rate for transfer students has gone up 7.5%.

The two year graduation rate among transfer students was 46.6% in 2019, almost reaching the 2025 goal of 49%. The 2019 rate for first time freshmen dropped .8% from 2018, straying further from the 2025 goal of 33%.

According to the student success plan, 41% of students that took the senior exit survey in 2016 said they were not graduating in the time they expected. 46% of those students said that the reason for the delay was inability to enroll in classes they needed.

Brian Mineart, a mechanical engineering senior, says that he’s had to take 16 or more units for four semesters, including his final semester, in order to graduate in four years. He says he is currently taking an engineering class meant for second year students because he was unable to add it before due to conflicts with other engineering classes and not having priority enrollment.

In the same exit survey, lack of good advising was the second most frequent answer when asked what was the one change they would make to improve their overall experience at the school.

In order to address the issues with advising, the school is hiring new advisors in the

Undergraduate Advising Center, as well as the college resource centers.

The advising center has received funding to hire 10 new advisors next year, on top of the 20 that have been hired in recent years, according to Kim Altura, the associate dean of undergraduate education. The plan is to assign an advisor to all incoming freshmen in order to increase the school’s retention rates among first year students and start them on a direct path to graduation.

“Advising is great, but the advisor can’t materialize a class if it doesn’t exist,” said Altura. “So there’s a big push to make sure

that we have enough classes.”

The student success plan also notes that 34% of first time freshmen leave the school before their junior year, which the university says is primarily caused by lack of engagement, both socially and academically. In order to fix this, they plan to hire faculty to increase student involvement, mentor students, improve mental health among students, and teach classes targeted towards freshmen.

Samantha Covington, a freshman criminal justice major, said that she had difficulty getting classes alone, but when she went to the advising center for help, she was

able to find the classes she needed.

“For my minor, I had difficulty getting one of the last classes that I needed for graduation,” said Jalen Coleman, a senior majoring in sociology. “There were already limited classes that were available to take for the spring semester, but for some reason none of those limited classes were being taught this semester, and it was very frustrating because this is my last semester.”

Coleman said that he didn’t utilize his advisor until the end of his junior year, but he found the roadmap on SF State’s website to be more useful than his advisor.■

(infographic by Briana Battle; information courtesy of San Francisco State University)

Mashouf Wellness Center hosts Wellness In Color event BY: WHITNEY PAPALII WPAPALII@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

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ashouf Wellness Center held a Wellness in Color presentation featuring the center’s very own fitness and wellness coordinator, Brittney Holloman.

Holloman has been working at Mashouf Wellness Center since May of last year.

The presentation addressed issues on the lack of representation and access for black people within the realm of fitness and health.

“It’s a structured area where you feel open and safe,” said Holloman. “These presentations allow for safety and feeling as though we can express what we truly want to.”

As a child, Holloman was very inspired by watching her mother compete as a bodybuilder which heavily influenced her interest in health and weight lifting. As a college student, Holloman then got more involved with health by going to the rec center and eventually pursuing her masters and becoming a trainer.

“Bodybuilding is very much a small community,” said Holloman. “But when you’re little and you see your mom on stage it’s like ‘Oh my God, that’s my mom!”

Ciara Whitefell, a kinesiology major at

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SF State and part-time front desk receptionist at a gym, said she has noticed the lack of representation of black people at her job and within sports.

“I would say that there is very little representation,” said Whitefell when speaking about her own experiences as an athlete.

“I’ve played sports my whole life. I played softball and probably the entire time I played, over 15 years, there were maybe three black people on my team.”

In her master’s program, Holloman said she researched and discovered that her own personal experiences were valid on the prevalence of the lack of inclusivity within weightlifting towards both women and the black community.

Hollomon’s master’s program research only further validated her own personal experiences on the lack of inclusivity toward both women and the black community within weightlifting.

“It did show me a lot about the reasons as to why I felt the way that I did,” Holloman said. “That I wasn’t crazy and that this is actually a thing. So my goal is to show people that I am passionate about being well, but this is how you are able to do it as well.”

Holloman previously worked at Ohio University and said that she realized she

wanted to move back home on the West Coast to make more of an impact in California.

“I’m very much into social justice and advocating for people that have less of a voice,” said Holloman. “And it was really hard to do that in Ohio. It’s very intimidating to do, and I think I was very eager to come back to a place where my own voice was received differently.”

In addition to the various presentations and workshops offered, Holloman provides fitness programming at Mashouf to help students and faculty reach their personal health and wellness goals.

“I need to stay educated,” said Holloman when explaining her process of training various people. “It’s important that I am always reading and it’s important that I’m constantly a student.” ◆

Brittney Holloman, Fitness and Wellness Coordinator at Mashouf Wellness Center, explaining more into depth about her presentation on “Black Wellness” (Tahjai Chan / Golden Gate Xpress)

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SF State Black Community Appreciation of their Black Men

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week after celebrating Black Women’s Appreciation, the Black Student Union and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated hosted the annual Black Men’s Appreciation event Thursday night at SF State’s Annex I. Women of the Black Student Union fulfilled similar roles stepping into the men’s shoes by escorting the attendees as they arrived to enjoy the night. Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity member and fourth year student, Timothy Walker, commented on the “Stepping into a Black Men’s shoes”, “It really means community,” said Walker. “Often times you might go for a whole week without seeing a black person and to have a whole event dedicated affirming you and building your confidence and to show you off as a Black man, it really means alot to our community.” For those who attended this event, the evening was carried out by SF State’s Majorette Dance and Drill team, a spoken word piece by SF State student Amira Redeaux, food, dancing, and awards were given to highlight leadership roles and appreciation within the Black community. Ladies of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated gave out awards to the African Student Association, Black Business Association, Eritrean Ethiopian Student Association and National Society of Black Engineers. For Rimon Sium, the student recipient for the Eritrean Ehtiopian Student Association, the event symbolized unity and appreciation for one another, “it means embracing our blackness in a safe environment,” said Sium. ■ All photos by Maddison October / Golden Gate Xpress

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De Young Museum features black artists BY: SMIT PAREKH SPAREKH@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

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n art exhibit about African-American history from the rise of the Third World Liberation Front, is in it’s last two weeks of standing at the De Young museum.

The Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983, traveled from its origin in Tate Modern, London to Golden Gate Park to spread the voice of Black artists from the two decades, especially Black Bay Area artists.

The exhibit is divided into different sections, displaying pieces in a chronological order. Walking through the photographs and prints from the ‘60s, which are created using different materials including fiberboard and gelatin, the room opens to show larger paintings and sculptures.

“The Door (Admissions Office)” by David Hammons in the center of a room, is an old-school office door, with a body impression in black ink on its glass panel, which represented institutional racism and inequality.

Lajon Janvier, an Africana Studies major at SF State, attended the exhibition twice since it’s opening in November, 2019. She says there were different aspects of observing the art while they were all projecting the same message.

Janvier said Phillip Lindsay Mason’s 1939 acrylic on canvas painting, The Manchild in the Promised Land, which shows an African-American boy with a Target logo on his t-shirt, “touched her heart” among many others. According to Janvier, the painting represents targeting of a young African-American child for racial profiling by the police and inequality in the education system.

Along with 128 days of celebrating African-American art through this exhibit, the museum also welcomed six Bay Area based African-American poets for a reading series called The Fire Thieves, on the

last day of Black History Month.

SF State alumna and current San Francisco Poet Laureate, Kim Schuck introduced and hosted the event. Poets presenting at the reading included youth from high schools, college professors, authors and activists, all representing different backgrounds within African-American culture from the Bay Area.

“The Oakland Youth Poet Laureate program invited me here and I have heard great things about the exhibition at de

‘What’s Going On’ by Barkley L. Hendricks on display at de Young (Briana Battle / Golden Gate Xpress)

Young so I was happy to have an opportunity to perform here,” said Samuel Getachew, a senior from Oakland Technical High School.

The Soul of the Nation exhibit was described as “phenomenal” by poet and professor of education at St. Mary’s College of California, Raina León. León was not aware of a few events from during the

Black Power movements presented in the exhibition before her attendance, thus she admired the educational part of it.

The exhibit ends on Mar. 15, and the museum continues to host events, allowing African-American poets and musicians to perform their thoughts . Their dates and timings can be found on the museum’s website.◆

Black Laughs Matter BY: JEREMY JULIAN JJULIAN1@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

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lack History Month has come to a close and with it came many celebrations and performances honoring black people and culture as a whole. These celebrations come in the form of music, dance, film, art and other aspects of entertainment and fine art.

One aspect of black culture that has had its hand in overall pop culture is comedy. Comedians like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Cedric the Entertainer and more have been known worldwide for bringing their comedic skills to film but even more so to the stage.

The “Hella Funny” comedy group is a Bay Area based collective of comedians who perform standup comedy in venues primarily throughout the Bay Area. Cobb’s Comedy Club is a widely known San Francisco venue for stand up comedy located in the North Beach neighborhood. This club is where the Hella Funny group puts on many of their showcases.

The nights of February 26 and 27th at Cobbs brought a free event from this comedy troupe for Black History Month.

The name of the event was “Black Laughs Matter” and was hosted by Oakland-based comedianBryant Hicks, a member of the group The free Black Laughs Matter show generated a packed house at the comedy

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club. Bryant Hicks was the first one out as he delivered a short set before he played host throughout the night, introducing the five other comedians who had ten minute sets each.

“I like y’all, you’re not as black as I thought you would be,” said Hicks in response to seeing the racial diversity of the crowd in the venue. The other comedians who had sets at the event were Alexandria Love, Stroy Moyo, James Mwaura, Jalisa Robinson and SF State alum Ahmed Abelrahman.

Each comedian had their own unique style but one aspect that was similar between them is how they were all able to use their stories of the black experience in their comedy. Abelrahman was a stand out in the show as he is one of few Sudanese comedians out there.

“I didn’t want to just work so I went and I tried out at an open mic and I’ve just been doing it ever since.” said Abelrahman.

Abelrahman has been doing comedy for six years and he recently graduated from SF State.

“Nobody’s really the same, in terms of black comedy versus white comedy, there is a huge difference,” he said. This has been a notable aspect of black comedians as compared to their white counterparts. Comedy from different cultures, just like most other things, will have a distinct flavor to it and it may come off differently depending on who the audience is. ■

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AB 5 causes problems for freelancers

BY: CATHERINE STITES CSTITES@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

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he beginning of this year came with a flurry of new laws - Assembly Bill No. 5 included. This law, shortened to AB 5 or the ‘freelancer law’ affects a myriad of people from rideshare drivers, musicians, writers, editors and photographers. The workers are limited to “35 content submissions” per employer.

Local papers have had to roll with the punches as this law has come into effect this year. Michael Stoll, the executive editor of the San Francisco Public Press said that one or two people who were freelancing as editors for their publication were converted to staff positions as a result of AB 5.

The problem for local publications is that the budget just doesn’t exist sometimes to hire freelancers as part of their staff.

“We hire freelancers because we cannot afford people on staff,” said Marvin Ramierez

“We hire freelancers because we cannot afford people on staff,” said Marvin Ramierez, the publisher of El Reportero. “A company would prefer to change freelancers during the year then stick with one who will accumulate 35 or more [content submissions].”

In light of AB5 coming into play at the beginning of 2020, SB Nation owned

by Vox media announced in December of 2019 that their over 200 independent contractors would no longer be writing for their California team blogs but instead they were changing to “a new one run by a team of new SB Nation employees.” Independent contractors were urged to apply for the newly formed parttime or fulltime positions they were creating because of the limits AB 5 sets.

Berkeleyside, an independent news site based out of Berkeley, uses “quite a few freelancers” as Lance Knobel, publisher and co-founder Berkleyside puts it. Berkeleyside found that they’re freelancers didn’t meet the 35 article limit that AB5 has, but Knobel said, “It was incredibly misguided and sort of done without awareness of the people that it would affect negatively.”

Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft are usually the ones that come to mind with AB 5 because of the Google ad that tops the search list stating that AB 5 “jeopardizes driver flexibility.” are fighting against AB 5. “Because we continue to believe drivers are properly classified as independent, and because we’ll continue to be responsive to what the vast majority of drivers tell us they want most—flexibility—drivers will not be automatically reclassified as employees, even after January of next year,” said Tony West, the Chief Legal Officer of Uber in a press release.

“I support the idea behind AB 5 which is an awful lot of operations, particularly Uber, Lyft, Doordash,” said Tim Redmond, the founder of 48 Hills. “Uber drivers should be employees and they should have to the rights of employees.”

[If I wrote AB5] I would have exempted little small organizations like us.”

The limit of 35 seemed arbitrary to many. The idea of a weekly columnist would be someone who submits 52 times a year, and even though they only write once a week for that publication, they cannot do that under AB5.

“The 35 pieces of work rule, I think really didn’t take into account the reality of freelance work for a lot of people,” said Redmond.

California assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez sponsored AB5. Gonzalez took to Twitter on February 27 to announce the changes that would be in store for AB5.

“The amendments remove the cap on the number of submissions a freelancer writer, photographer or editor can provide a single entity before they must classify the individual as an employee,” tweeted Gonzalez. “To strike a balance and protect employment opportunities in these professions, the amendments specify that a contractor cannot replace an employee position.”

It is not clear how long it will take for these changes that Gonzalez talks about will come into effect. ■

COVID-19 by the data As of March 2nd, The World Health Organization has reported 88,948 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally.

In China, there are 80,174 confirmed cases cumulatively. The United States is still not in the top five places as far as number of confirmed cases. The San Francisco Chronicle cited 43 confirmed cases in California with 26 of those cases in the Bay Area as of March 2nd.■

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Algorithms ruin astrology, stick to tarot for spiritually BY: JOCELYN HERNANDEZ GOMEZ JHERNANDEZGOMEZ@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

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ales of suns and moons determining how you love, hate and live sound like something that comes from fairytales and myths. But it seems nowadays you can’t enter a room without hearing the question, “What’s your

sign?”

Astrology is a system of beliefs that the positions of the sun, moon and planets at the time of someone’s birth has a direct influence on their character.

Although I was raised in a Catholic household, we never went to church or did anything religious or spiritual. Because of that, I find myself disinterested in the topics.

I’m a Virgo. According to astrology this means I’m methodical, tender and hardworking. No one wants to say the readings are false, no one wants to say they’re lazy instead of hardworking, to say they are disorganized or chaotic instead of methodical. The natal chart that Co-Star, an app that produces personalized astrological readings, felt like it was almost a one-sizefits-all explanation.

I decided to take another spiritual approach and had my tarot cards read by Alisson Sanchez Mena, a former SF State student, who developed a passion for tarot while searching for a spiritual awakening when she was in search for guidance.

“I always felt the most grounded when I was meditating or doing something spiritual,” said Sanchez. “At first I started seeing numbers, I guess synchronicities.”

Synchronicities are meaningful coincidences such as double or triple numbers, almost like the universe is trying

to communicate with you. Sanchez also explained that it is believed that numbers are the easiest way to communicate in this realm.

Sanchez found that tarot was a way to get a clearer message and a better understanding of these synchronicities she was experiencing. It’s very clear to a reader when certain cards keep coming up, or some cards fall out of the deck.

The reading started by purifying the room and ourselves with sage, then we used a Tibetan singing bowl to clear the energy field through sound. Sanchez used a clear quartz to cleanse her energy from the tarot cards.

Spirituality such as astrology and tarot are meant for people to tune more into themselves. It doesn’t have to be something like tarot or meditating; it can be just hanging with your friends and being part of a community said Sanchez.

“Being tuned into love, that’s all it is and feeling safe and grounded. That’s spirituality,” said Sanchez.

I was directed to draw three cards, each associated with a number. The first card I pulled was the seven wands, a card associated with the air element. The second card, the seven of pentacles, a card associated with fire. The last card was the chariot, another card associated with the number seven.

Sanchez read the meaning of each card intuitively and its definition from “The Wild Unknown Tarot Guidebook” by Kim Krans.

The chances that I pulled all sevens, the number associated with luck and spirituality,

Crystal Chamber, Tarot Card reader at The Sword and Rose, takes a call on Thursday, February 27, 2020. (Saylor Nedelman / Golden Gate Xpress)

baffled me.

“There are people out there that are just looking for money and to scam…but if something really connects with you, and you feel it inside of you, and you say like this makes sense. Like this is for me, like why second guess it?” said Sanchez.

Ysabelle Deleon works at her grandmother’s store Botanica Yoruba, a storefront for spiritual products used in Santería, an Afro-Cuban religion.

Although Deleon does not practice the religion herself due to the large amount of dedication it requires, she has been surrounded by the religion since the age of seven and has worked at Botanica Yoruba for six years.

“Santería is a religion that is like no other,” said Deleon. “There’s candles for school, there’s candles for open doors, there’s candles for everything.” Like

many spiritual practices, including tarot, Santería is fully faith based.

“You can’t come into a store like this, lighting a candle and expecting it to magically work right away,” said Deleon.

“You have to have faith in it and light it multiple times.”

Similar to Sanchez tarot practices, Santería practitioners see it as a way to grow and better themselves.

“People come in here because it’s part of their healing...this is how they cope,” said Deleon.

After experiencing different forms of spiritual practices, astrology readings through an algorithm doesn’t feel spiritual to me. I now understand how more personal and direct practices such as tarot and Santería can help people to feel more spiritually connected with oneself and the universe around them. ■

Trump puts school programs at risk with $5.6 billion in budget cuts CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 educational fields but that should be no reason to discredit it. Art is much more important on its own. It is its own entity, so it should be seen as so.

Art can range from drawing cartoons, digital art, painting, printmaking, sculpting, risography, music, dance, and the list goes on. Each one is different from one another but they are all used to create conversations and impact the way we see things.

There is a direct line for students who are achieving so much in the studies of arts.

As a student who is not in the direct line of art but rather is currently majoring in the field of sociology with a minor in urban studies, transfer student Tariq Jacobs has decided to work on campus at the Associated Students Art Gallery because he believes it coincides with his major.

“Immersing myself in art galleries and seeing people expression through their perspective and their cultural views, it allows me to gain more knowledge about the world and societies inside of them, which coincides with my major,” said Jacobs.

Art can be something we choose to follow or create in order to make a statement.

Then these statements that were intentional or an outline of history make their way into the classroom because the art is a visual addition to lectures. Students like Ada Reyes, a Latinx Studies major with a minor in Race and Resistance find the conversation of art within the classroom at SF State a teaching method that goes hand in hand.

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“For Latinx studies and Race and Resistance studies I feel like when we look at art it’s always documenting our experience and I feel like that is already resistance,” said Reyes, a poet and student.

“So, my art is resistance and the reason why I am in my studies is to continue documenting everyone’s experiences and showing the true representation of ourselves.”

There’s a chance you’ll be struggling for the rest of your life so she “played” it safe and became an accounting major and worked in the government. Patel’s parents were happy with her being on the “right path”.

However she found herself miserable and it was affecting other areas in her life. She started staying in more, keeping things to herself, even looking for excuses

Character Designs, Digital Illustration and Concept artist Priya Thaker enjoys creating vivid visual pieces outside the classroom during her time at SF State as a MA, Graphic Design student.

Struggling artist Tirajini Patel had a more complicated route than most students.

“My parents are immigrants who’ve moved here to create a better life for me.

I grew up on survival, in a two bedroom apartment with nine people so my family didn’t see art as a career and for a long time I didn’t either,” said Patel.

She was unaware of the whole art world.

Art wasn’t something Patel’s parents understood initially, and there is a lot of pressure for her to be successful. She put pressure on herself. Art is risky and it’s a gamble.

to skip work or school.

“I said to myself ‘This is going to be the rest of my life. Can I even do this?’

So one day I researched the type of jobs you can get in the arts and pay, it gave me confidence that I can make it without going the standard American dream path I was headed,” said Patel.

They say that families come around when they see the heart of the child working together and that’s definitely what happened for Patel. She was a student of accounting, math, “hard-working”. Seeing

her art made her proud and therefore it made her parents proud way later on after she had to define the difficulty with them.

“I left my university[Sacramento State] and took art classes at the community college. I know my parents weren’t too keen on that,” said Patel. “Their dream for me is to graduate and definitely not in the arts.

I decided to stay at my job to keep them satisfied for now. But while taking those classes a fire sparked and I knew I had to work to cover up for lost time.”

Not only does art let you expand your mind, but it allows students to express what is lingering within. Visual art represents a powerful resource for one’s mental and physical well-being. However, little is known about the underlying effects at the neural level.

In Germany they conducted a study that allows the brain to react in a different way when sculpting a piece. The study showed that the functional connectivity in the group was related to psychological resilience (i.e., stress resistance). Their findings were the first to demonstrate the neural effects of visual art production on psychological resilience in adulthood.

At the University College London, profes sor Semir Zeki, chair in Neuroaesthetics, conducted experiments that showed an increase of blood flow in certain parts of the brain while viewing beautiful pieces of art.

The approximately 10 percent increase of blood flow in this art experiment compares to the equivalent to gazing at a loved one.

While it has been shown that art doesn’t help students get better in other educational fields, the positive effects it has on our brains shouldn’t be ignored.■

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8

SPORTS

Tuesday, mar 3, 2020

GOLDENGATEEXPRESS.ORG

Q: How do you prepare these higher ranked athletes to achieve the next level?

A: “The biggest thing were doing right now is [practicing] really well, whether it’s those top 3 guys who are top in country or the other 7 guys who go to regionals to make some noise, were just really tapering and cutting back on our practice time right now, so rather than being in the room for two and a half hours, were only in there for one hour and the quality of the work is really high, the focus is high. You do a really big workload during the year, so you start [lowering] the workload little by little, making sure their weight is good, they’re happy”

Q: How do you feel about the team’s overall season?

A: “I feel really good about the season, I feel like we made steady improvements to not just the performance but also to the culture of the team … In my first season we had two NCAA qualifiers, who almost placed and we were in the top 40 or 50 in the country…Last Year we had two qualifiers go to both All-American place in the top 20 of the country and this year were looking to up on that”

Q & A with

Jason Welch Wresting Head Coach

BY ALONSO FRIAS

Q: What is focused on by some individuals?

A: “Every guy is going to be a little bit different, just making sure we really truly sincerely know our athletes now and what they need in those last weeks leading up to the tournaments…One guy may need extra encouragement, extra sprints, less sprints, you just make sure you know what those individuals needs are”

Q: How’s it looking for this year?

A: “Hopefully get those [3 qualifiers that are ranked] through, and a dark horse or two” “The goal is to get at least 3 qualifiers and 3 All-Americans and keep building steadily”

Head Coach Jason Welch. Courtesy of SF State Wrestling team.

(Courtesy of SF State Athletic Department)

10 out of 28 wrestlers for the SF State wrestling team qualified for the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II Super Regionals in Kearney, Nebraska.

Three wrestlers ranked in the top 10 for their respective weight class within the NCAA. Justin Pichedwatana, a Junior Sociology major, qualified for Nationals as he became the 184 pound champion in Regionals. Nationals will take place on March 13-14. ■

Q: Does practice vary?

A: “We have a vast array of practice plans, and we always try to switch it up to keep guys interested and stimulated to make sure its not getting into the same bland routine” “Some days we do a lot of sparring, working on technique, conditioning, mental work, it can depend on what day of week it is, if were in season or off season, days before a tournament, or just to cut weight.

Q: So what’s next?

A: So even next week when there’s fewer guys left who are going on to Nationals, we still have group practice. For the individual work, it’s always extra. We have our base, our practices that we always do, where everyone’s to that standard. If guys need or don’t need to put in more work then they have to come in on their own and do that with us.”

afrias2@mail.sfsu.edu

High hopes for Women’s Basketball

BY GRADY DUGGAN GDUGGAN@MAIL.SFSU.EDU

T

he future of the Sf State’s women’s basketball team dominated a week meant to recognize departing seniors. After coming off of one of the more successful seasons in 2018, the 2019 team had a tough time sustaining success - finishing with a 1-24 record. The Gators ended the season by dropping their final two home games.

First, losing to Cal State Dominguez Hills on Thursday, Feb. 27 85-78 and then being defeated on Saturday, Feb. 29 99-46.

Despite a disheartening season, there is reason to believe brighter days may be on the horizon for the women’s basketball program. On a 12 person roster, there are only two players who won’t be on the team next year due to graduation. An even bigger reason for optimism is that the teams top three performers were all underclassmen.

Muirae Gomez, a freshman from Sacramento, Calif., was impressively the top performer for the SF State women’s

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basketball team this season. Gomez, who played in all 25 games this year, averaged 11.6 points per game while also tallying an average of five rebounds a game.

Sophomore Taimane Lesa-Hardee was a key contributor this season. The only player to start all 25 games, Lesa-Hardee put up an average of 11.5 points, 2.3 assists and almost two steals a game. She wasn’t the only sophomore to help carry the Gators this season.

In her second year at SF State, Madison Corder was another key part of the trio for the Gators. Corder also averaged 11 points per game but was one of the more effective players rebounding, averaging 6.9 throughout the entirety of the season. Corder also recorded back-to-back double-doubles in two games earlier this season.

SF State saw their first and only win come on January 2 in a home game against Cal State San Bernardino. A 25 game season where you only come out

on top once can be demoralizing, but the three underclassmen that lead the Gators give reason to believe that a season like the 2019-2020 one won’t be reoccuring anytime in the near future.

Following her second season at the helm, head coach Natasha Smith will hope these three youngsters can turn their fortunes around soon. During Smith’s first season, she led the Gators to the most wins the program had seen since the 2015-2016 season and even got their first playoff appearance since the 2013 campaign.

Though the underclassmen often carried the load this season, that wasn’t always necessarily the case. Bay Area native standing 6 feet 2 inches - junior Kelea Pickeral-Dennis dominated the board when she saw action. Averaging 7.5 rebounds, Pickeral-Dennis will be looked to do the same next year during her senior season.

It can’t always be a playoff worthy season, and the women’s basketball team learned that this year. But with a young

core and the same coaching staff, the program will look to build off continuity and bounce back next year. ■

3/2/20 9:48 PM