Arts & Life, B1
Sports, B4
Exhibit casts spell on UT
Rockets open 2012 season with MAC title on the mind
Independent Collegian IC The
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Serving the University of Toledo since 1919
www.IndependentCollegian.com 92nd year Issue 37
Students petition for eco-friendly grant fund By Danielle Gamble News Editor
A student-driven campaign is seeking support for a UT grant program to make funds available to students with ideas on how to make campus more
eco-friendly. Tony Bova, a junior majoring in chemistry, said the UT model plans to accept grant applications from any registered student or organization at the university. He said the criteria for acceptance will include “green”
ideas with a well developed plan, budget and timeline. The group’s goal is to “break the status quo, and empower students to increase the sustainability of our university without having to overcome a series of endless administrative
hurdles,” according to promotional flyer. Bova, who is one of about 10 members of the initiative, said this idea was inspired by a similar program at Bowling Green State University, as well as other universities around the
country. Student Government President Matt Rubin said he spoke with Bova and Braeden Gilchrist, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, about this idea over the course of the semester. Rubin invited Bova
and Nathan Weaver, a first-year graduate student in bioengineering, to speak at the Student Senate meeting before Spring Break. There, Bova and Weaver — Green, Page A5
‘One Million Bones’ of genocide Sex, lies and feminism topic of UT students to participate in One Million Bones project to help bring attention to genocide in Africa By Megan Vollmer IC Staff Writer
onemillionbones.org
Students at the Center for Creative Studies Studies in Detroit, Mich. also made clay bones for the One Million Bones project. UT students will be hosting a bone-making session for the project tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Ottawa East multi-purpose room.
Bones — they are not an everyday sight in our country and they are generally considered a symbol of death. But the UT community is taking part in a nationwide effort to use these morbid objects to help potentially save the lives of Africans. Students of the Arts and Living Learning Community have created clay bones to add to the One Million Bones Project collection. Katherine Abu-Absi, director of the ALLC, said they are making bones to to be viewed in a Washington D.C. art display in April. She said each bone represents the life of a victim of displacement or genocide. This is UT’s first year of involvment with the project. ALLC members have already created around 700 clay bones and are aiming to create one thousand bones with the help of the UT community. Today from 7:30 to 10 p.m., — Bones, Page A5
Black-Jew Dialogue encourages acceptance By Danielle Gamble and Boyce Swift News Editor / For the IC
Editors Note: Story includes vulgarity. Students were told to turn off their preconceived notions, hatred and bigotry and turn on the love for Blacks, Jews and humanity Monday night. Ron Jones and Larry Jay Tish took the stage in Doermann Theater and performed “The Black-Jew Dialogues” to show UT students that even different cultures are alike in some ways. To an audience of about 20 students and community members, Jones and Tish used a combination of video clips, puppets, reenactments, edge and comedy to educate about the similarities and differences in African-American and Jewish cultures. One skit featured Jones impersonating a rapper to address Caucasian families who are uncomfortable with the popularity of rap music. During the skit his character said, “If you don’t like who I am to your children, then f-ck you. Welcome to the new exploitation.” Jones said this skit is meant to highlight a shift in the status quo in America because the majority of successful rappers are supported by a mostly white
audience. “It seems ironic to me that the very thing your parents ran from in the ‘50s and ‘60s, that you ran from, now your kids are embracing in the ‘90s and ‘00s,” Jones said. “That to me is the new exploitation, the new hypocrisy, and the only reason it happened was because of this generic, unspoken belief that black people live in the corners of American society.” Jones and Tish explained to the audience that they used “racially insensitive” language and controversial ideas in the show to break down barriers. “Do I honestly believe Mexicans are trying to take over the country by overpopulating? No,” Jones said. “It’s not that we believe everything we say up there but we believe it needs to be aired out so that we can get past it.” The show included a serious video clip depicting atrocities that minorities have faced around the world and skits highlighting the topics at hand. “The Black-Jew Dialogues” provided the audience with facts regarding civil rights, slave trade and current social topics, but the show was not meant to be education-centered. “This show was not a social justice comedy; we wrote a comedy,” Tish said. Jones added, “And what
came out of that was people really liking the idea that we were talking about these attitudes, behaviors and the fact that people treat each other crappy, and it’s all based on fear.” Maxwell Gold, a senior majoring in philosophy, said he and others worked hard to bring the BlackJew Dialogues to UT. This event was emceed by Gold, of Jewish descent and Kenneth Harbin, of African-American descent. “[The show] highlights not just what Black and Jewish people have in common, but people of all ethnicities. The university has diversity, we have many people from different backgrounds and different cultures, but we should be working on bringing them together,” Gold said. After the main performance, both actors spoke briefly and then opened the floor to the audience where attendees, including an interracial couple and a student of mixed heritage, spoke of their experiences with deep-seated racism. Jones said the discussion at UT was unique in the amount of pain revealed, especially when a mixed student recalled how his extended family referred to him as both a “useless [N-word]” and a “sp-c.” Jones said he could tell that the more the audience member talked, the more the pain was coming back from member’s experience. “Everybody’s got hurt, a
Women’s History Month lecture By Samantha Watson For the IC
UT’s College of Law hosted the Stranahan lecture titled “Sex, Lies, and Feminism” yesterday in the Law Center Auditorium. Christina Hoff Sommers, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was the guest speaker. Sommers said for the past two decades she has studied feminism in America and believes that it has become increasingly marginalized. She said less than 30 percent of women identify as feminists. “Contemporary feminism has taken a wrong turn,” she said. Sommers, author of “Who Stole Feminism?” and “The War Against Boys,” said there are two basic types of feminists: gender feminists and equity feminists. The foremothers who fought for women’s suffrage and equal employment opportunities are what she calls equity feminists. Sommers said they simply wish for everyone to have the same opportunities, including marriages between partners of equal power. Sommers identified herself as an equity feminist
Ryan Clair/ IC
Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, spoke about the difference between equity feminism and gender feminism yesterday. and said in America, “the major battles have been fought and won.” She added that women in other parts of the world, however, have not had so much as a ripple of freedom, let alone two major waves of it. Sommers described gender feminists as women who believe they are still being blatantly oppressed by society and must fight to become socially equal to men. Sommers rejected the idea that women in America are as oppressed as gender feminists believe.
She did not agree with gender feminism for three reasons: she said those who practice it are reckless with statistics; they see the two sexes as being capable of total equality; and they have too little focus on genuine oppression. She also said these feminists often resort to “male-mashing.” Sommers’ ideology on feminism was poorly received by some of the audience. Anna Brogan-Knight, a — Feminism, Page A2
Nick Kneer/ IC
Ron Jones and Larry Jay Tish performed the Black-Jew Dialogues at UT on Monday. The presentation “uses racially insensitive” language and controversial ideas to break down barriers. significant and profound hurt that if you knew about it, you would look at them very differently and treat them differently,” Jones said. “But we get so caught up in our ‘moving
through the world problems that we start viewing people as obstacles rather than opportunities.” “The Black-Jew Dialogues, which debuted in Boston in
2006 and premiered worldwide in Scotland, is now performed at colleges, high schools, religious centers and theatrical venues across the — Dialogue, Page A5