Memory

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

POLITICAL

REVIEW

29.4| December 2018 | wupr.org

FEATURING:

Surveying Admittance to WashU Past in Present A Photographic Recollection

Table of Contents Memory

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Suicide, Overlooked Kyle Fry

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Acceptance to WashU Liza Sivriver

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National 11

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What I Have Learned About Memory From WILD Merry May Ma

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Monumental Disunity Rohan Palacios

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Alzheimer's, Diabetes, and the Politics of Scientific Research Sabrina Wang

Taking a Gigabyte Out of Your Brain Christian Fogerty

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The Conspirator-in-Chief Garrett Cunningham

Our Backflipping Leaders Sophie Attie

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Splitting the Ticket Michael Fogarty

Digital Drift: The Slow Loss of Culture Akshay Thontakudi

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Hypocrite-In-Chief Michael Avery

Past in Present Max Lichtenstein & Ishaan Shah

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Is There a Free Speech Crisis at Colleges?

Conor Smyth

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The Tragedy of the Sexual Assault Discussion at American Universities Johnathan Romero

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When the Other Side Makes No Sense Jack Goldberg

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Bring Back the Trains Matthew Friedman

Collective Memory and Trumpian Politics Josh Leopold

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Moving Forward and Looking Back Caron Song

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What We Keep and What We Leave Behind Megan Orlanski

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Wars, Walls, Memorials, and Memories Adyant Kanakamedala

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A Photographic Recollection Daria Locher

Editors' Note Executive Director: Sabrina Wang Editors-in-Chief: Michael Fogarty Dan Sicorsky Staff Editors: Sophie Attie Ryan Mendelson Jon Niewijk Daniel Smits Features Editors: Max Lichtenstein Ishaan Shah Treasurer: Dani Figueiras Director of Design: Maggie Chuang Web Editor: Conor Smyth Programming Director: Liza Sivriver Front Cover: Maggie Chuang Theme Spread: Thomas Fruhauf Feature Designs: Maggie Chuang Catherine Ju Leslie Liu

Dear Reader, We all know stories that never fade. Experiences that are chronicled in history books, fixed in the collective memories of communities, and rooted deeply in our own heads. We all know, too, of memories that are quickly forgotten—whether by choice or force.

Memory is a crucial marker of the human experience. It is a psychological phenomenon with deep political, social, and personal repercussions. In the United States, memory plays a role in a wide range of political conversations, from the #MeToo era to the Movement for Black Lives. Each of us, personally, remembers old friends and enemies, past homes and impactful conversations. Institutions—businesses, or universities like our own—also keep memories. Through religion, literature, and philosophy, the world “remembers” stories from long ago that nevertheless unite us today.

With Maggie Chuang’s nostalgic cover as an emotive backdrop, this issue’s articles about Memory run the gamut. Josh Leopold relates collective memory and nostalgia to the politics of Make America Great Again, Caron Song reflects on how her journey from pre-med to pre-law relates to her Asian identity, and Megan Orlanski considers the tension between events as they are remembered across generations, versus how they are recorded in history books.

You will once again come across stunning features, such as Liza Sivriver’s impactful display of students’ memories of their acceptance into Wash U, and Daria Locher’s look into how photographs serve as record-keepers. Also look out for a feature authored by the creative power duo of Features Editors themselves, who refresh our memories about pressing world issues such as AIDS and modern slavery.

Articles in the National section include Garrett Cunningham’s timely analysis of the impact of President Trump’s acceptance and amplification of conspiracy theories, and Matthew Friedman’s argument for a reinvigoration of our cities’ public transportation infrastructure.

We hope you enjoy reading this edition as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together. During the break in classes, we’ll be putting together the Family issue, and we invite you to get involved. Write to us at editor@wupr.org to learn more.

With best wishes for the last stretch, we at WUPR hope you enjoy the holiday season.

With (much-needed) warmth, Michael Fogarty & Dan Sicorsky Editors-in-Chief

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

SUICIDE, OVERLOOKED Kyle Fry | Artwork by rawpixel from Unsplash

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hat do you do when your teacher tells you that gay kids don’t commit suicide “like on TV?” How could a teacher tell his class something so reckless? It seems like a teacher should be committed to the welfare of their students, a religion teacher doubly so. They should not try to convince their students that gay people are just playing up their problems for attention, especially when there are gay kids in that very class. Dismissing hundreds, if not thousands of suicides so that my teacher could remain guilt-free as he treats gays as sinful “others” was almost too hard to believe.

Why was it “almost” hard to believe? Perhaps it was because I went through six years of Catholic schooling (and another seven of Baptist schooling), which numbed me to mostly everything a moderately conservative religious school could offer. Perhaps I was simply more concerned about getting out of class, or perhaps I was desensitized by things I had heard before. After all, this was the same school where an earth sciences teacher told us that anthropocentric climate change was a lie, even though, for the record, the Catholic Church has accepted human-caused climate change for decades.

Nevertheless, at one point or another I realized how profoundly wrong that statement was.

That statement was unfortunately not quite the end of my teacher’s thoughts on the matter. He reiterated that the suicides depicted on television of LGBT kids just don’t happen. These statements raise questions about how and why he came to think this way. Denying gay people equal consideration is terrible enough, but to deny the existence of LGBT-related suicides?

Unlike some other Christian denominations, the Catholic Church acknowledges the existence of gay people and of suicides within the community. To deny that these suicides exist seems like an attempt to ignore the damage that Catholic teaching can do to one’s psyche if one is a part of the LGBT community.

The official Catholic position on homosexuality is that it does not support an intimate bond between partners. Gay love is a false love, built on a sin regarded as equal to murder and rape.

LGBT youth are already at risk for a great deal of

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You don’t need statistics to tell you that gay kids are committing suicide. emotional and physical harm. They might be disowned and thrown out of their homes; gay youth are 120 percent more likely to be homeless. They could be kicked out of their Church; the Church of Latter Day Saints, for instance, excommunicates those who act on their homosexuality.

Frequently they feel isolated from both students and teachers at school, as most LGBT youth suicides result from in-school bullying. As we have seen in many cases, they can be discriminated against in applying for jobs and denied service as a consumer, as both are legal in states where sexuality is not a protected class. Therefore, the idea that your Church could condemn your identity and potentially excommunicate you can lead to terrible consequences.

As a result of these pressures, and apparently unbeknownst to my former religion teacher, the CDC has found that LGBT kids are five times as likely to attempt suicide as heterosexual kids.

Considering that suicide is also the second-most likely cause of death for those aged 10-24, it seems unlikely that wherever my teacher heard

about suicides could have been “overdramatizing” them, as he put it.

Of course, you don’t need statistics alone to tell you that gay kids are committing suicide. It’s plentiful in the news as well. Seth Walsh, 13, of Tehachapi, California, committed suicide in 2010, and the story made the LA Times. Jacob Rogers, 18, took his life in 2011 and appeared in a CBS article on the dangers of bullying. Josh Alcorn, who was transgender and left a suicide note signed “Leelah,” died in 2014, catching the attention of CNN. Tyrone Unsworth, a 13-year-old Australian, died in 2016, the New York Post reported. How all these cases and many more managed to slip past my teacher will remain a mystery.

Luckily, my teacher seems to hold a minority viewpoint, and there are sure signs of progress for LGBT rights. There are 20 states with laws that protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. The President’s attempted ban on transgender military personal was nullified by his own appointees, and just a few weeks ago, Colorado elected the first openly gay governor in the country. While we are on our way to a better future, it is still imperative to remain aware of these tragedies, continue supporting equal rights and better mental health treatment, and most importantly, vote. In today’s world, despite the progress being made, resistance remains ever present.

Kyle Fry ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences.

He can be reached at k.fry@wustl.edu.

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COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND TRUMPIAN POLITICS Joshua Leopold

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ollective memory—the shared memory of a group, often constructed and reconstructed over generations—was crucial to President Trump’s 2016 victory and is currently being used to mobilize his loyal base. His pervasive “Make America Great Again” tagline comes with the implicit assumption that America was once great and is no longer so. The power of this assumption, which captivated millions of loyal, red hat-wearing supporters, is rooted in collective memory.

Collective memory, triggered by Trumpian politics, provides a lens for largely conservative, white, Christian, over-30s to view past America as a sort of undefined, amorphous golden age of pride, prosperity, freedom, national security, and justice. Trump supporters often do not express precisely what was great about America, nor do they agree on the years during which America was so great; but for many, the important point is that the country was, at one time or another, greater than it is now.

This collective embrace of America’s past by Trump supporters and the president himself has been disseminated through many mediums: the dinner table, talk radio, news outlets, public demonstrations, and of course Trump rallies themselves. But in the last several years no medium has inserted itself into the formation of collective memory about America’s past greatness as much as social media. Through websites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit, adherents to Trump’s worldview have spread the romantic view of American history even to constituents who were not alive to see it themselves. Moreover, the interactive experience of social media allows users to surround themselves with those who have a similar romanticized view of America. This self-selecting experience helps insulate people who agree that America needs to return to its past greatness. The user is encouraged to ignore realities about the past,and become so deeply committed to “Make America Great Again.”

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When we remove emotion from the equation, it is difficult to see exactly how America was so much greater than it is today.

It turns out that collective memory has a tenuous relationship with the truth. During the construction and reconstruction of memory across a group of people, we tend to forget or simply redefine the truth. Groups of people glorify the past; they often remember what they want to remember and forget what they do not.

This is certainly true for the hazy ideal of a past American golden age. Indeed, it may be the case that many truly do remember past America as a thriving nation; that is the power of nostalgia.

But when we remove emotion from the equation, it is difficult to see exactly how America was so much greater than it is today. We have seen progress on various measures of wellbeing — GDP per capita, infant mortality rates, and life expectancy. Today, we have technology and innovation that we could not have imagined many decades ago. But more importantly, we ought to remember what the so-called great America of the past stood for. The country embraced slavery, was embroiled in world wars, and deprived human rights from millions of its citizens and non-citizens through segregation, deeply entrenched racism, forced migration, and even internment camps.

These historical truths disproportionately benefitted white men and negatively affected women, LGBTQ individuals, and non-whites—including African-Americans, Native Americans, and Japanese-Americans. White security was the reality of past America. Then, perhaps it becomes clear why Trump supporters are predominately white and male: this group is able, willing, and sometimes eager to collectively embrace this reality. There is surely a group of Trump supporters who remember precisely

what America entailed, and they truly do want to see it return to the past.

It becomes clear that Trump’s activation of collective memory about America’s former greatness has brought to the surface anxieties about the loss of racial dominance for white individuals. Trump’s use of racist rhetoric that focuses on issues like immigration—the so-called Muslim ban and the wall—signals to his base that we ought to be concerned about moving away from past America.

The perfect country that so many remember is becoming harder and harder to reclaim.

I suspect that, looking forward to Trump’s 2020 run, we will see a departure from the deployment of “Make America Great Again” rhetoric.

Collective memory will continue to be relevant, but Trump will surely want to focus less on the past and more on the present; he will show voters what he has done to bring America back to the perceived golden age that they all remember.

We have seen evidence of this already. Trump has recently touted talking points about the country’s lack of unemployment and unprecedented level of prosperity. His new slogan “Keep America Great” focuses on the present. The slogan drops the reference to collective memory; it no longer uses the past as a frame for what Trump represents as a politician. Now, as president, Trump will sell the status quo. He will aim to present himself as the great transformer, the one who Made America Great.

Joshua Leopold ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at jjleopold@wustl.edu.

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TAKING A GIGABYTE OUT OF YOUR BRAIN Christian Fogerty, staff writer

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ver since Plato declared that writing will make people “cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written,” humans have had a tendency to criticize the newest methods of disseminating, recording, and representing ideas. The accusations are always similar to Plato’s: the precious internal memory is supplanted by external memory, making retention of knowledge obsolete. However, as valid as these criticisms may be, it’s foolish to argue that writing is inherently detrimental as — especially for the few centuries after the invention of the printing press in 15th century — it spurred massive intellectual movements and democratized knowledge. But in the past century, different methods of disseminating ideas have sprung up, giving us an unprecedented amount of ways to store and communicate information. The digital age we currently inhabit took the human mind by storm.

As it continues to swirl around us at blinding speeds we should take a moment to zen out and harken back to Plato. I mean, they do say he was a pretty smart dude.

Plato’s beef started with two soul-like entities— internal and external memory. He claims that true knowledge can only come from the former, so as we store more and more information into the latter we weaken our minds by focusing less on the knowledge and more on how to access it. This is a phenomenon called transactive memory. It’s common among couples, families, teams, and any other mutually cooperative group of people. It extends to other group psychology phenomena in evolutionarily beneficial ways—except when manifested as groupthink in large, threatening groups of people.

However, nowadays we share memory not just with human beings, but with devices with which we share information at increasing rates. In addition, the ubiquity of tools for research allows us to access pretty much anything we would want to know at the tap of a finger. This ease of access means we don’t really need to remember things to get by, so our brains pay less attention to

Maybe we are truly becoming more like computers and less like human beings. details we would otherwise put effort in to retain.

This retention isn’t only for fun facts like “how long do our blood vessels stretch in a line,” but also for significant memories such as those intimate, personal moments we may post on social media. A 2018 study led by Princeton psychologist Diana Tamir concluded that media use such as taking photographs and posting on social media during an event impairs one’s subsequent memory of that event. Not only is this because of distraction, but it is also because the event is externalized. It is placed somewhere else to be stored for future recollection while impairing the quality of that recollection at the same time.

computer networks have been around as long as computers have. To say humans are “hardwired” or “programmed” to do something seems perfectly valid. But it may be that these metaphors aren’t as abstract as one may think. Maybe we are truly becoming more like computers and less like human beings. Our relationships with our phones and computers have become just as complex as our relationships with other human beings. Storing memories in our phones, confiding in Google for personal questions, and posting about our lives online has replaced the normal interpersonal ways of sharing these things. Somebody from ten years ago would most likely be appalled at how we interact with each other during special life events. If there is one thing we must not forget, it is that nothing can replace those transient, special moments in life that fill us with pleasure once they happen.

Luckily, we know that even without Google.

But what’s the difference here between scrapbooks or any other photo album? The key difference is the ease with which social media and technology can be used compared to these more tactile items. Nowadays, we are so accustomed to the order in which we tap buttons on our phones that we put much less care into how we document our memories. Sure, we may tailor our photos or posts to perfection but even this process is less about the memory than it is about how the final product appears. All of these little routines surrounding the memory end up dominating our attention. Betsy Sparrow and a couple other leading memory psychologists confirmed this back in 2011 in a landmark study by suggesting “we are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools,” detaching from our present experiences and becoming wired into a technological network that stores memories in a brand new dystopian, impersonal way.

The metaphors comparing human interaction to

Christian Fogerty ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at c.fogerty@wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

OUR BACKFLIPPING LEADERS Sophie Attie, staff editor | Artwork (right) by Michael Avery

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t has recently come to my attention how weak the long-term memories of our country’s Representatives are. Long-term observation of our leaders reveals just how often they reverse their stances on issues. Yes, it is only natural for people to change their minds. Kanye West has recently proved to us that it is never too late to switch gears on something that, in the past, one has passionately advocated for, declaring through tweets his withdrawal from politics (and, most notably, the implicit loss of his support for Donald Trump). Although Kanye likely will get involved in politics again, this was the best thing to do for the moment, considering the criticism he received prior to this surrender. Blatant changes of opinions like this can be harmful, however. Often, the shifting opinions of our leaders deceive citizens, especially when political campaigns and platforms depend on consistent stances on issues.

Often, the shifting opinions of our leaders deceive citizens, especially when political campaigns and platforms depend on consistent stances on issues.

Take Donald Trump. Our President has often flip-flopped between stances on significant issues. Regarding LGBTQ legislation, for example, Trump has shown wavering support for both sides of the matter. In the last two years, Trump’s administration announced its support for a ban on transgender people in the military, did not express support for the LGBTQ community during LGBTQ pride month, and, in a 2016

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interview with Fox News, Trump declared he would “strongly consider” appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn decrees that legalize same-sex marriage. This is all in contrast with the LGBTQ-friendly side of Trump, who, in February 2000, declared he wanted a more “tolerant society,” and who, in June 2016, directed a tweet at the LGBTQ community exclaiming, “I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs,”—A bold statement to make, considering Clinton has been a much more consistent supporter of LGBTQ movements. These conflicting opinions are confusing—­if not deceiving—to voters, creating uncertainty regarding Trump’s views on LGBTQ rights.

Donald Trump is not the first politician to play this game of backflips. There have been many cases in the history of the United States where politicians have been questioned over their flip-flopping on issues. A well-known example of this is when Richard Gephardt’s various switches of opinion during the 1988 election led his opponent, Michael Dukakis, to release a campaign video displaying his opponent’s gymnastic bouncing back and forth, to illustrate and criticize Gephardt’s uncertainty. In 2004, John Kerry was caught blatantly admitting his switch on an issue; regarding a bill that would fund war efforts in Iraq, Kerry admitted, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” More recently, politicians have attempted to mask their changing opinions on issues, most likely to avoid criticism, using terms like “evolve” to smooth their changing stances. In 2015, for example, Tim Ryan published an essay in the Akron Beacon Journal, explaining why he was moving away from anti-abortion legislation since his “position has evolved.”

This is not to say that good can’t come from somebody’s change in opinion. Progressive citizens are often pleased with flip-flops, as many relate to matters such as same-sex marriage and abortion, which have become more accepted over time. Bob Inglis is an exemplary model for this with regards to his stance on climate change.

Inglis is a former House Representative who served from 1993 to 1999 and again from 2005 to 2011. In his first term, Inglis held conservative

views held by most Republicans at the time, including a strong denial of climate change. By his second term, however, his views had done a complete 180. In between terms, Inglis educated himself on climate change and found the data was too concrete to deny, becoming a strong advocate for the cause he once opposed. In this case, it cost Inglis his re-election, but some might argue his acceptance of such crucial facts creates hope for progress in some political spheres.

This is not a criticism of people who change their minds. Changing one’s opinion on a matter is often not harmful, and in many cases can be progressive. I only raise an eyebrow at politicians who jump back and forth on issues that their constituents depend upon when voting, as if they simply say what will please their current audience. I question those who say what will get them more support as opposed to what they actually believe in. To do your research and change your mind on an issue is perfectly fine, if not admirable; but to keep your followers constantly on their toes as you limbo between sides of a crucial matter is unkind. So, for the sake of many confused and concerned citizens, if you chose to change your mind on an issue do so with conviction, not for the sake of convenience.

Sophie Attie ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at sattie@wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

DIGITAL DRIFT: THE SLOW LOSS OF CULTURE Akshay Thontakudi, staff writer

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he definitions of culture and what it encompasses have changed over the years to be more precise and inclusive.

All cultures have intangible elements of heritage, including a variety of oral traditions, folk songs, dances, and specific sacraments, and minority cultures are no exception. Due to their small size, however, smaller cultural groups are at risk of losing their heritage. When memories from elders fade and are not passed down to descendants, valuable information is lost permanently. One of the strongest cases for this comes from the indigenous tribes of Manitoba, Canada. According to the BBC, the Squamish tribe has only seven members who are fluent in the Squamish language in the world. As these numbers dwindle, the Squamish people face a very real possibility of losing their language permanently to the sands of memory and time.

With the advent of the internet and increased globalization, the exchange of information is more prevalent than ever. Both of these factors could play a role in preserving cultures that are at risk, hence preserving cultural diversity.

Khelsilem, a member of the Squamish tribe, has committed to teaching the Squamish language to others at Simon Fraser University as a part of an adult immersion program. Initiatives like this program could bolster declining traditions outside of language as well, leading to a permanent record of traditions and heritage. This seeming advantage is a double-edged sword: if technology is used to simply make a record of culture and preserve it in a "glass case," isn't that just history? Part of culture includes practicing rituals, languages, and traditions, and in some cases using memory of these observances to pass them on to younger generations. A strong argument could be made that documenting culture hastens its demise.

It seems counterintuitive that advances in technology and global interconnectedness can lead to a loss of diversity. The reason for technologically-induced decay was explored previously, but globalization may also play a part in the erasure

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of smaller cultures. As more groups become integrated, the larger or majority groups tend to dominate in setting cultural norms, expectations, and in some cases, aspects of daily life. In the face of such a domineering presence, people may be more inclined to assimilate rather than carry on their heritage, in some cases outright refusing to maintain ties to their culture.

If technology is used to simply make a record of culture and preserve it in a "glass case," isn't that just history?

My experience as a second-generation immigrant reflects some of these sentiments. My parents grew up as devout Hindus, taking part in many religious festivals, pujas (religious venerations), learning mythology, and other traditions.

When they immigrated to America, they continued their practice while I was growing up. Every year on January 1, our family would wake up early to visit mandir, a temple, to pray for a good year filled with success. I would tie a rakhi for my sister in August, a promise to protect her from harm and to support each other, usually before school started in the fall. I remember placing oil lamps scattered across our front and backyard, placing two on each side of the doorway leading into our house for Diwali. Although I remember participating in these traditions, the specific dates, pujas, and mantra associated with each of these holidays has either slipped from my recollection or was never etched in the first place.

Instead, my experience has been a blend of my Indian heritage with new cultural experiences growing up in America, and sometimes the loss

of memories associated with my roots has led to a confusion in identity.

In my case, Hinduism is a large religion that is not only practiced heavily in India but also in other places such as Nepal, Mauritius, and the United States. While I may have forgotten my roots to some degree, my non-remembrance is not as significant on a larger cultural scale because of the swathes of people who do actively practice and remember the multitude of Hindu holidays and customs. For smaller cultures, however, this type of loss is detrimental because it slowly leads to a permanent death of traditions if descendants are not invested or interested in learning.

Memory plays a large role in the transmission and practice of all types of cultures. While the Internet can crystallize this information for future generations to come, the ultimate art of practicing culture dies out when people are no longer invested in its propagation. Organizations like UNESCO are aware of the magnitude of this problem and are taking steps to remedy the situation. Through programs like Simon Fraser's that support local populations and improve public awareness, smaller cultures can flourish even in the adversity present in this digital age.

Ultimately, a diversity of traditions and customs brings an array of perspectives and values that everyone can learn about, appreciate, and even adopt into their daily lives.

Akshay Thontakudi ‘19 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. He can be reached at a.m.thontakudi@wustl.edu.

ISHAAN SHAH FEATURES EDITOR

MAX LICHTENSTEIN FEATURES EDITOR

Staying informed can be a daunting task.

ARTWORK BY CATHERINE JU

Even with the unlimited sources provided by the internet, keeping tabs on all the world’s happenings seems not only impossible but emotionally draining. It is no secret that through this constant barrage of news and information, things tend to slip through the cracks; tragedies, decisions, and statements may make headlines one day and become lost in time the next. But what happens when those memories begin to fail—to the point where the general population not only forgets about their existence, but considers these crucial issues solved? This problem goes beyond the pitfalls of how we receive news and our collectively declining attention span, as it provides a major roadblock to effective activism and creates a dangerous mindset that conflates silence in media with solution. This phenomenon also plays out on a more historical scale, in which we conceive horrible trends as a part of history, irrelevant to the world today.

People see their lives as insular, and a lack of direct exposure to such pressing problems allows them to become nonexistent.

In this feature, we address the following contemporary issues that many see as issues “of the past,” shedding some light on issues that desperately need attention.

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AIDS

Fear and misinformation about the disease spread rapidly.

By the end of 1981, there were a total of 270 reports of severe immune deficiency among gay men; 121 of those individuals have died. In 1982, a group of gay men in Southern California displayed a set of similar immune deficiencies, leading experts to call the condition GayRelated Immune Deficiency Syndrome (GRID).

It was not until September of 1982 when the CDC would coin the term AIDs (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome). Fear and misinformation about the disease spread rapidly.

Near the beginning of the epidemic, gay men were often blamed for the spread of HIV, and there are still varying worldwide bans/deferrals on blood donation by men who have sex with men (MSM). The U.S. FDA still maintains a one-year deferral window on MSM blood donation acceptance which means that if after a year a donation tests negative, it will be accepted by a blood bank.

Early in the 1980s, it was unclear what modes of transmission HIV could be acquired through. By 1983, the CDC had ruled out all major modes of transmission (air, food, surface, etc.). At the same time, there was broad misinformation among the American public concerning HIV transmission routes. When Ryan White, a middle-schooler, was diagnosed with AIDS, he was not allowed to return to school by the district superintendent. When he returned to school for one day in February 1986, 151 of the 360 students at the school chose to stay home. When he eventually re-enrolled in school that April after a NEJM paper showed that transmission risk was minimal due to regular contact, he was forced to use separate bathrooms, disposable utensils, and often called homophobic slurs.

In the past two decades, the world has seen dramatic progress away from the landscape of misinformation into an age of effective patient management, innovative retroviral therapy, and unique preventative treatments. Average life expectancy for HIV patients has increased by ten years from what it was a decade ago.

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In 2012, the FDA approved PrEP, a threedrug combination therapy which decreases risk of HIV infection by 92 percent, which is aggressively used to limit transmission.

Furthermore, there are three new classes of antiretroviral therapies and better-formulated standard combination therapies (HAART) which make the HIV patient pill regimen much more manageable for patients. These new treatments are changing HIV from a terminal condition to a chronic disease. As HIV patient management improves and more undiagnosed patients are treated, the burden of HIV in America will dramatically decrease.

Despite this progress, HIV still deserves our attention and concern. We need to address discriminatory immigration and blood donation policy, work to expand international prevention efforts, and continue to address socioeconomic and educational barriers to HIV treatment.

Between 1877 and 1950, there were at least 4084 racial terror lynchings in twelve of the Southern States which were members of the Confederacy. The rise in racially motivated lynchings is primarily due to the Southern states’ reaction to Republican politics during Reconstruction. After the Union won the Civil War, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to free slaves in ten Southern states.

However, these freed slaves were unable to exercise the rights granted to them because of oppressive state and local legislature and organized terror designed to suppress voting, property ownership, and legal recognition of citizenship. The Republican Congress recognized that the emancipation did not go far enough and pushed for more aggressive Reconstruction policy in the form of the 1867 Reconstruction Acts. The Reconstruction Acts granted universal male suffrage and forced states to ratify the 14th amendment to be readmitted into the Union. In the years following the Reconstruction Acts, many African Americans were elected to state and local legislature in Southern states. This, however, would not last long. This increase in representation was answered by statewide efforts to disenfranchise African American voters with organized political violence and Jim Crow laws. Racial terror lynchings were used to sustain the power of white supremacy. The Equal Justice Initiative writes:

lynch:

“In 1927, John Carter was accused of striking two white women in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was seized by a mob, forced to jump from an automobile with a noose around his neck, and shot 200 times. The mob then threw Mr. Carter’s mangled body across an automobile and led a twenty-six-block procession past city hall, through Little Rock’s black neighborhoods, and toward Ninth Street, which was the black community’s downtown center.”

The accused killer was lynched by an angry mob.

LYNCHING

(verb) to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal approval or permission

Example:

Lynchings did not end after the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. In 1998, in Jasper, Texas, James Byrd Jr. was dragged two miles on the road while chained to the back of a pick-up truck by a group of three white supremacists. One of the men, John King, had a tattoo of a black man hanging from his neck on his shoulder. In 2008, a police affidavit wrote that Brandon McClelland was dragged seventy feet underneath a pickup truck driven by two individuals with previous criminal records and one who had white supremacist ties. The prosecutors dropped murder charges because they could not find enough evidence; however, it was not adequately investigated whether the killing was racially motivated. In late October, the son of a Ferguson activist, Danye Jones, was found hanging from a tree in his backyard in St. Louis County. His shorts were by his ankles and his fists were balled up. The prosecution is currently investigating the case as a suicide as they await commentary from the medical examiner.

As more information about this case comes to light, it is important to consider America’s own history with lynching to concentrate and maintain white supremacist power. We must demonstrate solidarity with black men and women in the face of racially-motivated violence. Say his name. Say her name.

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SLAVERY Most Americans’ conception of the rise and fall of slavery comes from their high school history courses. It tells a simple narrative of Africans’ arrival to the American continent via the Middle Passage and a gradually growing debate between North and South over their moral standing, culminating in the Missouri Compromise. Depending on one’s education, this narrative then frames the Civil War around this issue of slavery, or that of states’ rights. Such simplified histories tie a nice bow around this issue of slavery, describing its abolition through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.

The reality of slavery is far more complex. The collective memory of slavery for Americans is, understandably, Americentric; a full understanding of slavery requires a more global perspective. Americans were by no means the pioneers of abolition—Denmark, Great Britain, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, and Brazil all preceded the United States in making slavery illegal—despite the fact that many other nations would fall in line after the Emancipation Proclamation (including countries like Saudi Arabia and Niger, which would not formally abolish slavery until the 20th century). Nevertheless, slavery continues to exist behind closed doors and in many forms all around the world, in both the Global South and the world’s most developed countries. The United States itself still has 57,700 people in slavery, according to the Walk Free Foundation.

Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights organization, defines six forms of modern slavery: forced labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, descent-based slavery, child slavery (which is distinct from child labor, and can include child trafficking, child soldiers, and child

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domestic slavery), and forced and early marriage. Following this metric, they estimate that 40.3 million people are subject to slavery worldwide today.

The use of language contributes a great deal to the widespread cognitive dissonance regarding the existence of slavery. Terms like “human trafficking” or “sex trafficking” often saturate headlines and thus harbor apathy, but news outlets could garner more international attention on the issue by addressing it for what it is: slavery. As with all cases of slavery, the victims of such crimes are coerced into labor through force or threats of force and are confined to the workplace. The pay is either insignificant or nonexistent, and traffickers often purport that these workers must pay off the illegitimate debt incurred through the trafficking itself.

Other forms of human trafficking and modern slavery resemble the historical perception of slavery even more closely. Victims of forced labor or involuntary servitude often fall into this tragic situation through fraud.

“Recruiters” will offer poor and vulnerable individuals (such as children and migrants) a well-paying job, only to hold them in confinement and confiscate their documents upon arrival. In some cases, traffickers will have these individuals hand over a huge “recruitment fee” before signing a contract, thus making them slaves of debt as well. This phenomenon plays out in sweatshop settings around the globe, as well as in well-established industries, such as the Marsa Malaz Kempinski luxury hotel in Qatar. In the Sahel Belt of Africa, those who inherit a generational slave status, born into a family that “belongs” to slave owners, experience a life nearly identical to the chattel slaves of the 19th century. They live under constant exploitation, receive no pay, and are entirely treated as property that can be bought and sold. Escape for these slaves is almost impossible, especially due to their lack of documentation.

These modern forms of slavery are too often met with complacency, while the general conception of “slavery” and its limited definition inspires disgust. There is no reason to not conflate these phenomena.

This more contemporary and specific example illustrates the poor quality of collective shortterm memory. After Flint, Michigan switched its drinking water source to the Flint River to cut costs, most residentswere exposed to lead that had leached through pipes. In early 2016, the crisis we understand today began to unfold, as a federal state of emergency forced the city to rely on bottled water as its only water source. This metric of 2016 undersells the crisis, however, as the water has been contaminated since 2014—as of November 13, 2018, Flint has been without clean water for four years, six months, and twenty days.

Once the topic had fulfilled its quota for sound bites and controversies, the rest of the nation could move on to the next headline.

Flint, MI could not.

THE FLINT WATER CRISIS Over the course of this period, national news coverage has only occasionally highlighted the crisis in Flint, usually in response to major political decisions concerning the problem. Much of the political discourse has centered around accountability, citing the investigations into Governor Rick Snyder’s withholding of crucial information. The insurmountable infrastructure costs that the crisis necessitates is also a common point of discussion. These conversations became especially prevalent during the 2016 presidential election, underscoring the problematic nature of the nation’s collective memory of the crisis. Elections are perhaps the most ubiquitous and closely followed events in politics and current events, so for many people, their exposure to the water situation in Flint lived and died by the discourse of the election. This presents two major problems. For one, the ending of the election cycle meant a general decline in interest and outrage over the issue. Once the topic had fulfilled its quota for soundbites and controversies, the rest of the nation could move on to the next headline. Flint, Michigan could not. Secondly, the way these politicians establish the stakes of the lack of clean water loses touch with the lives of the people on the ground. While accountability and budgetary concerns are of course important, such an intense focus on these concerns dehumanizes the problem and allows the general public to lose touch with the sentimental and tragic aspects of an entire city without access to clean water.

The circumstances in Flint have stagnated and continue to embody oft-neglected phenomena of environmental injustice and pillars of systematic racism. Flint is a poor city with a largely black population and voted overwhelmingly against Republican Governor Snyder. Like many other rust belt cities, Flint is intensely segregated due to racist housing policies and widespread suburbanization.

Such a segregated, deindustrialized town is thus especially vulnerable, as it does not hold much political weight in Michigan. The racist framework at play allowed Snyder to continually ignore warnings over contamination in the Flint River both before and after the switch, shrugged off as “not a top health concern;” a compromise Snyder was willing to make to save the city millions of dollars and make political gains. Today, the vulnerability of Flint’s poor population leaves them trapped, as the value of their homes has been essentially reduced to zero. Both the causes and the magnitude of consequences are rooted in such structural racism.

The question of how to approach a problem on such an immense scale has continued to offer a substantial obstacle to improving the situation in Flint. We can start by giving it our attention.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

MOVING FORWARD AND LOOKING BACK Caron Song, staff writer | Artwork from Wikimedia Commons

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’m finally ready to say goodbye to the memory of my former self. I thought you were perfect. I thought you had everything. I thought you were me. In reality, I had fabricated an intricate web of lies to fool myself into thinking that I could and would become a doctor.

You’re probably thinking, “another premed dropout at WashU. What else is new?” Absolutely nothing. But I want to share my story because it’s time for me to start creating new memories.

It’s hard to make a difficult decision, but it’s easy to say that you made it. We focus on moving forward and looking towards the future, which is great and healthy and I definitely

encourage you to do that. However, it’s impossible to forget the memories, especially the ones that make you feel tremendous amounts of regret. As I focus on applying to law school now, all the melancholic memories come back to haunt me because I keep asking myself the same two-word question: what if. The uncertainty, hesitation, and stress make me question my sanity, but I’m no longer my former self so I’ve decided to make use of my bittersweet memories rather than hide behind them. Too many of my memories from the past are related to premed, so I want to make this my first memory about what I’m truly passionate about: law school.

To those who think I can’t, I say to them, “I will become a lawyer.”

You tried to kick us out in 1882 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. We stood our ground. You labeled us the “model minority” when that didn’t work out. We refuse your harmful branding. You continue to shamelessly pit us against other minorities while whispering about an Asian invasion behind our backs.

We hear you, and yet many of us remain silent. Say something! Anything! I spread my hands imploringly, hoping that the rest of me will follow suit. But, I’m not an expert. I’ve never done this before. I’m scared of using my voice.

When I was little, my parents disciplined me to be studious, obedient and, most importantly, unobtrusive because there was no room for error in the American Dream nor in American society. I was far too young to understand the more convoluted implications of that mentality, so when other

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children gawked at my lunch and asked, “Is that dog?” I remained silent even though I wanted to cry because I hated being Asian. When I didn’t get an A on an assignment and the other children looked at me with pity, I remained silent even though I felt humiliated for earning anything less than perfect as an Asian. When the receptionist contemptuously said to my mom, “You need to work on your English because I can’t understand you,” I remained silent even though I felt rage course through my veins and then proceeded to feel guilty for feeling such anger.

Because I’m Asian (and I need to be quiet, so people don’t think I’m an ungrateful immigrant complaining when America has treated us so kindly and magnanimously). It’s time to reclaim my voice.

I feel confused and disillusioned because one moment we’re being praised for integrating so well with society (I didn’t realize integration was a reward system with winners and losers), and the next moment we’re treated like outsiders because, even though I was born in Atlanta, that’s not where I’m truly from. Becoming a lawyer won’t instantly solve the many issues that systemic racism presents, but going down this path will bring me a step closer to helping those who are chained down by the weights of discrimination and inequity. I will become a lawyer so I can help those who struggle to have their voices heard as I have.

The process of becoming a doctor is oftentimes a conditioning ritual that a vast number of Asian children have to partake in before they realize that society doesn’t only accept those wearing white coats and stethoscopes. Looking back at high school, my unwavering, almost robotic response to all the probing adults asking, “What do you want to do after college?” was only genuine in the sense that I truly did want to help people. After college started, I faithfully stuck to the premed track for two years before I turned to the “dark side” that many Asian parents have nightmares about: I no longer wanted to pursue medical school. It wasn’t an easy decision by any

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

means; it left me crying, hurting, and questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

Funnily enough, even though this was a decision for my life and future, I couldn’t stop thinking about my parents. My parents who immigrated to America to give their children opportunities they could never even dream of. My parents who left behind so much to move to a strange, foreign land where they started anew with their broken English. My parents who worked hard to make sure that America accepted me and my brother for who we are rather than where we come from. There is nothing in the world that can change the gratitude I have for their sacrifices, but there are also cruel moments when blind anger seeps into our arguments, and they use their heartrending stories as ammunition to pierce my heart. It frustrates me to no end that parents use this approach to discipline their children and although the waves of pain come and go, I feel no resentment towards them; there is only empathy.

I used to wish I could become a doctor. I really, truly did because their disappointment hurts more than their anger. And after all their sacrifices, too. The period of time when I constantly questioned my self-worth was the worst for me.

The frustration made me wish that I could simply loathe the burden that my parents placed upon my shoulders since hating something is much easier than being suffocated by my own misery.

I wasn’t able to. I believe that empathy is what kept me rooted in the present and helped me overcome the anger. By no means was I trying to justify to myself that because my parents went through so many hardships that they deserve everything from me. Rather, the empathy that I felt was warmer, kinder, and more bittersweet because I understood my parents. Their sacrifices aren’t necessarily my sacrifices, but their vision is my vision: I just want the best for you.

I want to become a lawyer because there are so, so many immigrants who need help, who want what’s best for their children just as my

The process of becoming a doctor is often times a conditioning ritual that a vast number of Asian children have to partake in before they realize that society doesn’t only accept those wearing white coats and stethoscopes. immigrant parents do for me, and I can’t ignore that. To see these immigrants fight tooth and nail for a way to come to America only to be turned away, separated from their children, or put behind bars crushes my soul. What if they were my parents 30 years ago? They would have never gotten a chance. I would have never gotten a chance. To be the daughter or son of immigrants is a difficult thing because there are always sad stories and heavy burdens to carry, which is why I am determined to help lessen the weight of those sad stories and heavy burdens in any way I can; no one should ever have to carry such a load on their own.

To those who ask, “What do you want to do after college?”

I struggled to come to terms with my personal goals and desires because I had spent half my life working towards an objective that wasn’t completely my own. When I settled on majoring in Computer Science, I felt happy because I was enthusiastic about technology and interested in the career opportunities that CS offers. This is it, I told myself shakily. I was ready to be in the spotlight, to shine the light on myself and take over as lead actor of my life, or so I thought. Something was off and no matter how hard I tried to shrug that feeling off, I wasn’t able to. I thought I was just becoming a typical opinionated college student who felt strongly about every controversial subject matter, but as time passed and more and more issues caught my attention, I just couldn’t detach myself from the idea that I could make

a difference. I want to help people and improve society using the same empathy that I feel for my parents. With each day that passes, my determination to become a lawyer strengthens; I can’t even imagine myself becoming a doctor or software engineer when there are so many other pressing matters at hand. Attending law school is a step in the right direction on my journey to not only better society for my family, my friends, and people who are in need, but to also accept myself as an individual with personal ambitions.

I want to learn more about law in order to understand the politics behind various diplomatic conflicts to offer help and support based on my knowledge, morals, and beliefs. I can no longer ignore how passionately I feel about the state of our current affairs or the worry I feel for our future generations.

Caron Song ‘19 studies in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. She can be reached at songcaron@wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

WHAT WE TAKE AND WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND Megan Orlanski

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s I sat against the rigid wall of my dorm the other night and read “Peron: A New Cultural History” for a Latin American history course, I read the phrase “Las penas son de nosotros, las vaquitas son ajenas.” “The sorrows are ours, the little cows our strangers’”.

The Peronist regime of Argentina was a movement that began when Col. Juan Peron rose to power through a military coup in 1943 as the Secretary of Labor. In 1946, Peron was elected President through the support of the lower classes, especially industrial workers and unions.

This violent period of Argentine history that followed has become known as Peronismo.

Before reading the book, I did not know all of the components behind Peronism, but the quote seemed familiar. I searched the quote about “las vaquitas” on YouTube and found that it was the lyrics of an infamous Gaucho song called El Arriero. The Gauchos are the ranchers native to Argentina’s countryside, and El Arriero was a song my mom played in the car when I was young.

As I continued to read about Peronism, which my grandmother lived through, and later learned more about the military dictatorships that defined my mother’s childhood, I began to understand the realities of life for my family.

Memory is often owned, history interpreted.

Memory is passed down through generations; history is revised.

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I realized that it is one thing to hear the personal narrative of my relatives and the experiences they lived through, and another to read about how they affected Argentina and its population as a whole.

Growing up, I heard about the “pendulum” of political changes that Argentina wrestled with and continues to struggle with throughout its tumultuous history, but my knowledge was punctuated with gaps from my limited understanding of the experiences of only a small group that was part of a much larger collective.

The point I’m trying to make is not confined to the Gauchos, my family, or even Argentina. It is about the role of history and memory which form our notions of the past, present, and future.

Historian David Blight once said, "Memory is often owned, history interpreted. Memory is passed down through generations; history is revised." In other words, history is what is taught to then be analyzed, debated and contested, while memory makes up the mental scrapbook of families, it takes a space in one’s mind and is multilayered.

David Blight, however, is a renowned historian, and I am just a college freshman trying to understand how we determine what parts of memory and history affect our daily lives. We see memory as determined by those who came before us—we are simply adding to it—and history as determined by experts. Why do we remove ourselves so dramatically from a process that gives us our understanding of how our past and present intersect?

It is my belief that we are key players in the physical manifestation of both memory and how it relates to our own history. We often get so caught up in the collective that we forget about the individual. Most of the time, we are certain in the narrative of our families, but we are uncertain of our own role in that narrative. I think that uncertainty is good; it leaves room for us to make decisions about our fate that aren’t

entirely bound by the past. Yet, we often think of this ‘room’ as the legacy we leave behind, what our grandchildren will tell their children about us.

When we focus on our legacy, we tend to forget about the present. I ask each of you to think about how your memory and history intersect and forms the experiences of your unique lives, whether it be in your beliefs, motivations, identifications or even political beliefs today. As the memories I was raised with and the history I learn in college begin to intersect, I have begun to question this dichotomy that will constantly be challenged by experiences and relationships with my surroundings.

I am still unsure what to make of this dichotomy, but evaluating these big questions is part of defining our own identities. Though I often find myself wondering what defines me, it is reassuring to know that there is always room for change.

We are not simply adding on to the past; we are highlighting events and traditions that we see play out in scenarios both distinct and similar from those who have come before us and those that will follow.

The sorrows may be ours, but so are las vaquitas, those little cows, with which we follow and break away with our memories and histories.

The way in which we each decide what parts of our memory and our history give meaning to our lives deserves some more thought than what we are often willing to admit.

Megan Orlanski studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at morlanski@wustl.edu

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

WARS, WALLS, MEMORIALS, AND MEMORIES Adyant Kanakamedala

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ost monuments and memorials in Washington are symbols of power; the Washington Monument is an obelisk, a monolithic testament to George Washington’s power and greatness. On the other hand, The Lincoln Memorial seeks to establish Lincoln’s legacy, and reminds us of not simply his stature, but of his untimely death. The memorial is a not a completely glorifying form in the way a monument is: to borrow from Arthur Danto, “we erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget.”

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is unlike most of Washington’s memorials. It is often described as a “cut” or a “gash” in the earth, due in part to the fact that it is a V-shaped scoop out of the ground, and in part because it brings to mind the pains of soldiers at war. Two black granite walls hold back the earth, converging at a 125° angle. On these walls, the name of every one of the 58,196 soldiers who died or went missing in Vietnam. One end of the wall is marked “1959;” the other end is marked “1975.” Between these years, the death of every soldier is written chronologically. At the center, where the two walls meet, visitors stand ten feet below streetlevel, consumed by the names of the missing and the dead.

Maya Lin, the Wall’s designer, captured a spirit of memory. The wall is polished so that visitors can see themselves reflected behind the names.

The individual also can actively participate in the memorialization; not only is their visage reflected in the stone, but many visitors take pencil and paper rubbings of loved ones’ names by holding a sheet of paper against a name and shading it with a pencil.

According to Professor Marita Sturken, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU, people leave “photographs, letters, poems, teddy bears, dog tags, combat boots and helmets, MIA/POW bracelets, clothes, medals of honor, headbands, beer cans, plaques, crosses

playing cards” at the Wall. When the memorial first opened, these were discarded as trash, but the National Park Service has since started collected them in an archive of cultural artifacts, fragments of individual memories of the war.

The Wall’s sobering design makes some visitors feel close enough to reach out to the fallen.

Many visitors leave letters addressed to soldiers whose names are on the wall—artifacts left by the living, hoping to build on memories with their loved ones. One letter reads: “Dear Michael: Your name is here but you are not. I made a rubbing of it, thinking that if I rubbed hard enough I would rub your name off the wall and you would come back to me." Others leave notes to those whose names aren’t on the wall: a veteran left the wedding ring of a Viet Cong soldier he killed, with a note that said, “I have carried this ring for 18 years and it's time for me to lay it down. This boy is not my enemy any longer.” By leaving these items at the Memorial to be collected and archived, mourners build a public history from their personal memories.

The manager of the archive says that “these are objects that are common and expendable. At the Wall, they have become unique and irreplaceable.” The Wall gives individuals’ personal memories a path to becoming a piece of history.

The Vietnam War was part of a massive shift in America’s psyche and was one of the major issues that caused the nation’s fragmentation. Even following the war, the design of the memorial was controversial; Lin was criticized for proposing a work that many saw as abstract, flat, Modernist, feminine, black, and shameful.

Artists and federal officials alike raised concerns that people wouldn’t understand the memorial and wouldn’t be able to connect with it. It was derided as an art-student reverie, lacking the figurative statuary necessary to honor the veterans and make the war publicly understood.

From the present perch from which we view the past, it seems fair to say that these critics were wrong. The memorial these critics wanted—a

Your name is here but you are not. I made of a rubbing of it, thinking that if I rubbed hard enough I would rub your name off the wall and you would come back to me. figurative, straightforward piece that would impress honor and glory on its visitors—would not have properly reflected the nation’s divided attitude towards the war as whole. For the first time, American soldiers returning from war abroad were not celebrated, but spat on and shunned. The memory of the war, both what it was and what people wanted it to be, was unclear. A figurative memorial would not capture this uncertainty, but ignore it altogether.

Lin not only memorialized and honored the veterans, but built a function of memory, allowing both soldier and civilian to influence history with their individual memories.

Adyant Kanakamedala ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at adyant.k@wustl.edu.

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Daria Locher, staff writer | Artwork by Leslie Liu

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f you opened my Photos application on my computer right now, you would see that I have 28,359 photos. And I promise you—I’ve gone through and deleted hundreds (if not thousands) of photos and these are simply the ones remaining. Going through these photos and deleting them is mostly easy—I wonder why I took most of them in the first place.

But for others, I experience a range of emotions as the photo takes me back to that moment that I decided to freeze in time. Recently, however, I began to wonder what the effect of my constant photographing is on my memory of my experiences. Making the conscious decision to not take a photo I know I’ll later delete has made me consider whether my memory of the event will be ameliorated or diminished by that action.

To consider this question, let us first delve into what important prerequisites are needed to form a memory. At the fundamental (and hopefully logical) level, a memory can be created only by initially paying attention to the stimuli around us. These stimuli include the visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory sensations in our environment as we experience them.

Studies show that long-term memories are stored by a linkage of neurons that become stronger based on the quality and quantity of these linkages—based on how deeply we experience an event, and with how many senses. However, when we introduce the camera as a facet of this memory process, the fundamental stimuli-to-memory process changes—and deteriorates.

There are two processes at play here: one, the camera on our phones serves as a distraction, impeding our ability to take in the world around us; and two, we have begun to utilize cameras as a sort of cognitive offloading.

When you see something that you want to remember and decide to use your camera, your brain’s memory process is derailed. You outsource your brain’s capacity for memory to the computerized technology within a camera—what is called “cognitive offloading.”

Instead of taking in the moment with all five senses, imbibing the moment in its overwhelming novelty to commit it to your memory, you reach for your camera. You feel your hand grabbing the phone from its position in your back pocket; as the phone approaches your face, you take our eyes off the scene in front of you and begin to swipe on your phone’s camera: which settings do you want? As you focus on the scene in front of you, you center on what you think is the most important visual component of the view, and capture with a click a small section of the wide expanse of the world in front of you. Not only does that photo not capture the physical feeling of being in that space, but it doesn’t even capture the entirety of the visual component of the moment. By not paying attention to the moment and trusting your camera to do the work, the square image captured on the camera is remembered, but the experience is not.

This dynamic nature of a human’s memory, as compared to the static memory of a camera, defines a person’s experience looking back at that memory. Psychologists Chan and LaPaglia conducted an experiment from which they determined that memories are malleable each time

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Daria Locher ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences.

She can be reached at daria.locher@wustl.edu.

we remember them. Their results showed that bringing to mind specifics of an experience after it occurred created a vulnerability in the memory process, allowing the researchers to convince the subjects of falsehoods within that memory. In other words, each time you remember an event, you open the door to the possibility of changing that memory due to current stimuli. By relying on photos for our memory, we simultaneously reduce our brain recoding the visual memory but create the opportunity to make inferences about the context surrounding the photo to fill in the gaps of actual memory. Dr. Paul Latimer, a columnist with Troy Media, posits that memory both changes and decays over time, becoming “contaminated by related bits of information as time passes.” Every time a photograph is looked at, the context of that experience bleeds into the original memory and changes it. Therefore, while we trust cameras in their seemingly accurate depiction of an event, we might be led to trust them too much, and not realize that our memory is still fallible despite this memory cue.

This effect of relooking at photos is highlighted in the context of social media. In recording an experience for other people, the experience itself is changed and worsened. A study by Barasch, Zauberman, and Diehl published in the Journal of Consumer Research demonstrated that the experience of “taking photos to share with others increases feelings of anxiety to present oneself in a positive light, which in turn reduces enjoyment during the experience.” While that result seemed logical enough to me, I was surprised to read that photos taken to share rather than for one’s own memory created a third-person perspective of the event. The researchers postulated that this perspective is created by their thinking of how another person looking at the photo later will view it. So—taking photos to immortalize an experience for social media actually removes yourself from the situation enough to not even feel like you experienced it at all. How illogical!

that shattered when I deleted Snapchat. I deleted Snapchat because people like this friend weren’t even responding to what I was sending them; it felt like people screaming into the void to be heard and remembered when I would have preferred for them to tell me the long version in person. I stopped caring about these minute updates on people’s lives—and finally deleted the app. The photographic recording of their lives still is impacting their memories of their everyday life, but I am no longer receiving them.

I’ve definitely felt the loss of snap because I don’t see my friends’ faces every day. But now I actually feel my friends’ absence in my life, and I’m not tempered by their updates on Snapchat. I reach out to them in person to hear their updates every day.

I’m definitely still a work in progress—I have a finsta upon which I post updates for my followers, and I definitely take photos just for Instagram.

But I value the memories that create who I am more than offloading visual memories to look at later. This means making a conscious effort to put my phone down, look at my surroundings, take note of the smell of the wind, feel the biting wind on my face, and hear the chatter of people around me. If I see something I want to capture on my camera to save for later, I pay attention to how the experience surrounding that action feels. My resulting picture helps me remember that moment, by storing the visual field that I specified in the moment; it serves as a memory cue that I can share with people afterwards. But now, I hope, I have a story to tell when I share that photo.

I get it, if you take a picture and save it, you can now share that experience with others, while your memory is isolated to yourself. But I fight against this point—there is such a value in the experience of sharing your experience with a good friend. You choose the aspects of the story to share, and you create this new enjoyable memory of sitting and talking about it, which will be immortalized in your memory of the original occurrence. I’m definitely guilty of the prior: I have taken 3531 photos in the past calendar year and 4975 photos in the year before that (mostly screenshots). But last month, I deleted Snapchat off my phone. I’ve read the memory research and decided to make a conscious decision to increase mindfulness in my life. I value the memories in my head that make me who I am more than an off-loading of emotionally-removed photographic recollections. I am guilty in that a lot of the photos taken this year have been for Instagram, rather than as memories. But I have a friend who chronicled his entire life on snap to his snap streaks, and I think both of us felt closer than we actually were because of this. His constant updates going straight to my phone created a false feeling of our close relationship

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED ABOUT MEMORY FROM WILD Merry May Ma

O

ne month before WILD, a Wash U music event, my friend texted me, "Do you want to go to WILD with me?" It was a very popular event, but I only heard about it from my friend.

"What is WILD?" Curiously, I asked my friend.

It sounded wild, didn't it? After being informed that Carly Rae Jepsen would sing there, I couldn't help but feel excited about WILD. While knowing the location was at Brookings Hall, I put the event location in my reminder as "Brookings W".

After one month, however, when I checked my reminder again, a weird thing happened—I did not remember what "Brookings W" meant.

Why? For one thing, I believe it is due to Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve, where even if I knew exactly where Brookings Hall was and what W meant one month ago, I would suffer from transience and recall nothing about "Brookings W" one month later. As suggested in the book, Seven Sins of Memory by Daniel Schacter, “Vividness declined rapidly over the first three months, followed by a more gradual decline for the remaining three months.”

For another, after reading about the function of the working memory, I learned that there is a biological cause for this as well—my reminder was stored in my working memory, aided to help me put related information together, which made the reminder self-evident one month ago. However, working memory only holds a small amount of information for a brief period of time, leading to rapid loss of information as time passes.

In a memory study from the 1950s, Daniel Schacter notes that “Immediately after presentation of a nonsense syllable for study, people were required to count backward from one hundred by threes. Unable to rehearse the nonsense syllables and thus keep them in mind, the participants were victimized by rapid loss of information from working memory.”

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To help me recall an event more accurately and effectively, I need to specify an event as detailedly as possible to prevent potential informational losses of working memory. Daniel Schacter also suggests that “generating elaboration that relate information you wish to remember to what you already know… ask questions about what you wish to remember which force you to elaborate.”

information. Again, I found nothing. It confused me again: Hadn't I added her on Facebook? Why did I think I had? Was the action of adding her imaginary? This is clearly what psychologists refer to as "memory binding"—the misattribution of wrong behaviors glued together. I pictured myself adding her on Facebook but later could not tell that illusion apart from the reality that I didn't add her.

Fortunately, my friend reminded me of the event that day, so my joy outweighed my frustratingly bad memory. When we were dancing to the music, I saw a familiar face. She looked gorgeous in that fancy dress and I wanted to greet her. "Hi," and I stopped, awkwardly. I forgot her name. What was it? I should have remembered, but I couldn't. The only thing I remembered was that I met her at an a capella showcase and she was one of the singers. I could clearly remember she wore a red dress and we talked about school afterwards... So how could I forget her name?

Solutions to the sin of misattribution are not offered adequately in the book, but I assume that I can try to recall background information to help me distinguish between imagination and reality. For instance, I can think of dialogues we had before I "added" her on Facebook and people around us. If I cannot describe clearly what happened just before adding her, I will know that I probably didn’t add her on Facebook.

When I read one chapter, The Sin of Blocking, in Schacter’s book, I noticed that one accountable reason is that people's names are less connotative than their look, personality, job, and other characteristics. As Daniel writes, “The occupation name ‘baker’ calls up a wealth of associations and knowledge based on prior experience with bakers; the proper name ‘Baker’ pretty much stands on its own.”

WILD turned out to be enjoyable, but the most pleasant thing that came out of it was understanding these memory fallacies associated with WILD, so as to avoid making these mistakes again.

I remember that girl as a singer because I can associate the word "singer" with lots of other relevant things which reinforced my memory.

Because I retrieve conceptual and visual information about her before recalling her less-representative name, it is less likely for me to remember her name. Therefore, I can remember her as a singer and many other aspects, except her name.

To relieve my embarrassment, I checked Facebook to find her name. I must have added her on Facebook because we talked so much that night and exchanged our contact

Merry May Ma ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at liangboma@ wustl.edu.

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | Memory

MONUMENTAL DISUNITY:

WHAT THE WORLD’S LARGEST STATUE TELLS US ABOUT THE POWER OF MEMORY Rohan Palacios, staff writer

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ndia is now home to the world’s largest statue. On November 1, workers completed construction on the 50 story tall “Statue of Unity” that overlooks the Narmada River in Gujarat. The new project stands 40 percent taller than the previous record holder, China’s Spring Temple Buddha, and is intended to attract tourists to the state and anchor a massive new resort town. Construction on the “Statue of Unity,” which depicts Gujarati-born independence fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, began in 2014 and was the product of an initiative undertaken during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

Within a week of its completion, tens of thousands of tourists have flocked to the statue; the government recorded 27,000 visitors on November 11 alone. While the statue is expected to generate significant revenue for the state of Gujarat, critics have pointed out that its publicly funded 400 million dollar price tag could have been put to better use elsewhere, such as paving India’s deadly roads, irrigating tens of thousands of acres of arid farmland, or even investing in skills training. Others decry the displacement of indigenous peoples, thousands of whom have organized mass demonstrations to protest the government’s failure to follow through on promised compensation. Though these concerns have been largely ignored in the triumphal coverage of the statue’s opening, another important narrative is being overlooked: how the monument fits into Prime Minister Modi’s vision of India.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, nicknamed the “Ironman of India,” was crucial to the formation of post-colonial India. He helped negotiate the incorporation of hundreds of autonomous Hindu states into the union and is remembered as one of the independence leaders willing to use force to wrest independence from the British Crown. The choice of Patel as a subject fits the Modi government’s broader policy of moving away from independence leaders known for their secular and pluralistic approach to nation building, such as Jawaharlal Nehru (India’s first prime minister) and even Mahatma Gandhi. The “Statue of Unity” is designed to reinforce a sense

The nearly two hundred million Muslims in India, unfortunately, are not included in the narrative of national unity which pedaled by the current administration. of collective identity among Indians based on a more nationalistic vision.

All nations, to some extent, rely on shared mythologies to support a collective identity that transcends class, ethnic, and religious divides.

Stories promoted by xenophobes, nationalists, and religious partisans can have the opposite effect. The nearly two hundred million Muslims in India, unfortunately, are not included in the narrative of national unity which is pedaled by the current administration. Modi’s BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) government is presiding over a sharp increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes and is led by virulent Hindu nationalists. Local activists and the Reuters news agency have reported on government efforts to erase Muslim contributions to Indian history from textbooks, and recent controversies over government censorship of films depicting histories that don’t conform to the BJP’s version underscore that this battle is being waged in every facet of public life.

Aside from driving a Hindu nationalist revision of Indian history, the Modi government is also keen to fulfill its promises to business interests.

The “Statue of Unity” was completed in just 33 months, a staggering feat of engineering at

odds with the government’s well-documented failures to provide basic services to citizens on a consistent basis. The roads leading to the monument will be renovated, and more government funds are expected to pour into developing tourism in the region. It is unclear who, if anyone, will benefit from the project. The statue itself was largely built by Chinese laborers brought in by private contractors, and investment in future development has been sought aggressively from foreign firms. This jobless economic growth and kowtowing to foreign investment interests is emblematic of Modi’s economic philosophy throughout his time in government.

This will not be the world’s tallest statue for long. In fact, it will soon be surpassed by another Indian project: a nearly 700 foot statue of Shivaji Bhonsle is expected to be completed off the coast of Mumbai by 2020. Shivaji was a 17th century Hindu king, famous for fighting the Islamic Mughal empire. Given the nation’s current state of religious polarization, the symbolism is hard to miss. The statue will also be accompanied by development aimed at attracting tourists and foreign investment. These projects are physical manifestations of the Modi agenda: reshaping India into a Hindu nation while creating an economic environment that is friendlier to his capitalistic backers in the international business community. Using displays of grandeur to influence national identity is not a tactic unique to Modi; it is a common way for regimes to divert attention and influence thought. It is crucial to think critically about the motives behind projects and rhetoric that impose certain interpretations of history in the name of remembrance.

With hundreds of millions of Indians suffering from the effects of overwhelmed infrastructure and underfunded institutions, it is clear that the government’s priorities lie elsewhere.

Rohan Palacios ’21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reach at rpalacios@wustl.edu.

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National

ALZHEIMER’S, DIABETES, AND THE POLITICS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Sabrina Wang, executive director

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arvard neurologist Dr. Rudolph Tanzi recently named Alzheimer’s Disease the “biggest epidemic in medical history.” And, indeed, it seems like the condition is ever-present in public life, whether as a plot device for countless TV dramas, or a rallying cry for your senator or favorite comedian (both Susan Collins and Seth Rogen are outspoken Alzheimer’s advocates). In line with this public support, Congress has tripled the National Institutes of Health’s annual funding for Alzheimer’s and dementia research over the past three years—an increase more rapid and dramatic than even the explosion of AIDS funding in the late ‘80s.

The intensity of attention given to Alzheimer’s is not wholly undeserved. I have seen firsthand, through observing the disease in the clinic and in my own late grandmother, how profoundly and uniquely tragic the condition can be. But while the devastation of Alzheimer’s is undeniable, it is faulty to assume that health funding is based on devastation alone. The role of lobbying and self-interest is widely recognized for most areas of policy, but health stands a bit apart, perhaps due to the ethics of healthcare or the goal of objectivity in scientific research. In truth, science and medicine are as intertwined with society as any other part of public life—and the sooner we dispel any illusion otherwise, the more effective our public health schemes will be.

not be immediately obvious. Alzheimer’s and adult-onset diabetes are both chronic diseases that predominantly affect older adults—so, with the aging baby boomer generation, both con-

diabetes are influenced by an intersection of lifestyle and genetic factors, only diabetes is painted as a matter of personal responsibility—a disease that you acquire, and thus maybe

Recognizing the influence of advocacy is crucial for the health community. tribute to the fear of skyrocketing healthcare costs. Further, both are caused by the interaction of lifestyle and genetic factors, and neither currently has a cure: each disease concerns a complex body system where much scientific progress must still be made. However, despite these similarities, only one of the two diseases has captured the national interest—and garnered such extensive research funding. This difference in response surrounding these two diseases reveals just how intimately our health and science policies are impacted by social considerations.

At the end of the day, despite the profusion in research spending, the fierce political advocacy, and the doomsday prophecies, Alzheimer’s affects only 5.7 million Americans. In contrast, diabetes affects 30.3 million—and though it afflicts more than five times more people, diabetes receives only around twice the amount of NIH money than Alzheimer’s does.

As with any other social issue, narrative frames are crucial in creating the political will to tackle a disease. In other words, the ways in which diseases are represented are important in shifting public opinion—and, as a consequence, public dollars. In this, the unique and destructive nature of Alzheimer’s is an advantage of sorts.

It is devastating to see a loved one lose their memories and sense of self, to watch the creeping progress of the disease knowing that there is little you or anyone can do. Diabetes patients are thankfully not faced with the same, creeping onset, but the long-term fatigue that comes with constantly monitoring your blood sugar is its own difficulty—one that is rarely recognized by the public at large.

The reason for this funding difference may

Further, though both Alzheimer’s and adult-onset

even deserve, through eating unhealthy food or not exercising enough. Such narratives disregard not just the genetic component behind diabetes, but the contributing socioeconomic factors as well. The link between diabetes and poverty is well-established—with some studies reporting that disease risk is 60 percent higher for low-income individuals when compared to their middle-class counterparts.

As the cases of Alzheimer’s and diabetes illustrate, health and science policy is not determined merely by need, but by the strength of health advocacy. The number of disease lobbying groups, including those dedicated to Alzheimer’s and diabetes, has grown substantially in recent years, from about 400 large nonprofits in the early 1990s to more than 1,000 by 2003. Today, these groups compete fiercely for research and operational funding, changing the dissemination of medical knowledge and the extent of scientific autonomy. Recognizing the influence of advocacy is crucial for the health community—our strongest duty lies not with the loudest voices, but the ones we may not otherwise hear.

Sabrina Wang, ’19, studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at s.d.wang@wustl.edu

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THE CONSPIRATOR-IN-CHIEF Garrett Cunningham, staff writer | Artwork by Avni Joshi

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n the weeks leading up to the 2018 midterms, the United States faced an onslaught of right-wing terror. Among these tragic events was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history, in which eleven were killed and seven were injured in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Within hours, it was clear that the shooter was motivated by not-sofringe right-wing conspiracy theories about the migrant caravan from Central America.

The shooter was an active member of Gab, an alternative social network for far-right extremists that is free from the supposed anti-conservative bias of Facebook and Twitter. The shooter’s posts on the website were frequently critical of HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit organization focused on refugee aid, accusing it of “bringing in hostile invaders.”

Hours before the attack, the shooter posted: “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

The theory that George Soros, a prominent Jewish, progressive philanthropist was funding the migrant caravan was not the shooter’s original idea. In fact, the theory was propagated throughout mainstream conservative circles. On October 17, House Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted: “Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time. Soros?”

Two days later, correspondent Chuck Holton of NRATV (yes, the television network of the National Rifle Association) told his viewers that Soros was sending the caravan to the United States so that the left-leaning migrants could vote.

This narrative was then picked up by PragerU, a conservative YouTube channel with nearly 2 million subscribers, which uploaded a video about the Democratic Party’s “open borders” plan to legalize millions of illegal immigrants—and thus millions of new Democratic voters. The video was narrated by none other than Fox News’ conservative poster boy, Tucker Carlson.

The conspiracy did not slow down from there.

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On CNN, guest Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union proclaimed: “Because of the liberal judges and other people that intercede, including George Soros, we have too much chaos at our southern border.” On Fox News, an ex-ICE agent said that the caravan would bring smallpox to America.

Instead of squashing these theories, President Trump was quick to amplify these messages as a play for the midterm elections (he admitted to this fact at a rally in Missoula, Montana, saying that the midterms will be “an election on the caravan”). On Twitter, Trump referred to the caravan as an “invasion” that contained “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners.”

By the time Americans were heading to the polls, the migrant caravan conspiracy theory represented a grand confluence of classic partisan, racist, and xenophobic conservative fears rolled into one package: globalist Jews were funding a caravan of disease-carrying Latino migrants and Muslim terrorists, and it was encouraged by the power-hungry Democratic Party.

Truly. Exhausting.

It is unclear whether this choose-your-own adventure conspiracy theory actually affected the midterm results. What is clearer is that Trump’s takes on the caravan were not out of step with his past behavior. Time and time again, Trump has never shied away from peddling conspiracy theories, and conservative media has always been happy to follow his lead.

It is reasonable to say that Trump began his political career as a conspiracy theorist. When announcing that he was seriously considering running for president, Trump claimed to be skeptical of then-President Obama’s citizenship on Good Morning America in 2011. The claim was rated “Pants-on-Fire” by PolitiFact.

Since then, Trump upped the ante on unsubstantiated claims. He implicated Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s father in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, claimed three to five million illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election, doubted the evidence of Russian interference in the

election, pandered to the anti-vaccination movement, said Muslims were celebrating on New Jersey roofs on 9/11, asserted that climate change was a hoax that China created to undermine the U.S. economy, claimed that it may not have been his voice on the Access Hollywood tape, and of course, continues to insist on the existence of a “deep state”—among others.

In some of these cases, conservative news outlets unflinchingly aired Trump’s theories as strong possibilities, an absolution tactic that attempts to preserve their vestiges of journalistic integrity. In other cases, these theories are openly endorsed.

When pipe bombs were found in the mail of Democratic leadership and Trump critics days before the midterms, a range of high-profile conservatives embraced a “false flag” narrative: intentionally faulty bombs were sent by a liberal to garner sympathy for Democrats.

On his self-titled, conservative AM radio show (and the number one commercial talk show since record keeping began in 1987), Rush Limbaugh asked, “would it make a lot of sense for a Democrat operative or Democratinculcated lunatic to do it? Because things are not working out the way they thought.”

A slew of tweets on conservative Twitter echoed a similar sentiment. Fox Business host Lou Dobbs posted, “Fake News – Fake Bombs. Who could possibly benefit from so much fakery?” Ann Coulter, another conservative political commentator, then added, “bombs are a liberal tactic.”

The speed with which these theories were accepted into mainstream conservative canon is alarming, but unfortunately unsurprising. For instance, Limbaugh and Sean Hannity of Fox News frequently talk about a left-wing cabal called the “Deep State” that is aimed at undermining Trump’s presidency.

Research by Michael Wood of the University of Winchester has shown that an individual’s past acceptance of conspiracy theories is highly predictive of their willingness to accept new ones.

By frequently discussing large-scale conspiracy

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theories like the deep state, conservative talk shows prime their viewers to be more accepting of breaking unsubstantiated news stories.

As evidenced by the Pittsburgh shooting and the mail bombs, the promulgation of these theories is far from harmless—especially when conspiracy theories evolve into greater societal threats.

In October 2017, the deep state theory developed into the QAnon movement, an alt-right family of conspiracy theories. QAnon began as a single post on 4chan by the account Q, an anonymous individual claiming to have classified, top-secret Q clearance in the U.S. government.

Q asserts the existence of a deep state and an international child sex trafficking ring that involves liberal politicians and Hollywood actors.

The theory also asserts that Trump faked collusion with the Russian government to enlist Robert Mueller in exposing the ring, and in doing so will prevent a deep state takeover of the government.

All of this nonsense would be hilarious if it was not believed by thousands, propagated by prominent conservatives, and threatening to the people it opposes.

In late 2017, Trump and Hannity began to retweet QAnon-related material, and Trump himself met with Michael Lebron, a prominent right-wing conspiracy theorist and QAnon-believer. By the summer of 2018, self-described followers of Q brandished T-shirts and cardboard Qs at Republican rallies across the country.

Q followers also made death threats against the Justice Department (for withholding information regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which was not true) and Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti (for his general opposition to Trump). Now that the movement is in the spotlight of the national media, news outlets like the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time, CNN, NBC, and ABC, all ran stories about it.

An unfortunate consequence of well-meaning news outlets covering these outlandish statements is that the misinformation is further

disseminated, and viewers, especially older ones, often lack the skills to differentiate fact from fiction. A study by the Pew Research Center in October 2018 found that younger Americans, ages 18 to 49, are much better than older Americans, over age 50, at discriminating factual news and opinions.

Other research by Jan-Willem van Prooijen of Vrije University Amsterdam found that political extremism, especially of the political right-wing, is predictive of belief in conspiracy theories.

It is no secret that older Americans are a key cohort of Trump’s support. According to the Brookings Institution, Americans aged 50 and over have consistently given Trump his highest approval ratings. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that Trump’s base of older conservatives is highly susceptible to conspiracy theories. That bodes well for Fox News hosts like Hannity, whose viewership consists of one of the oldest on television: according to Nielsen, the median viewer of Fox was 66 years old in 2016.

Conspiracy theories are no longer confined to the dark corners of YouTube or limited to cute

stories of extraterrestrial research at Area 51.

They have become mainstream and are actively used to disarm viewers of their understanding of the world around them. They are employed by ‘journalists’ and politicians alike. They are used to radicalize partisans and to cast doubt upon American institutions. They are a cause of domestic terrorism. They must now be taken seriously.

A president who receives most of his news from cable television and is inclined to spread conspiracy theories does not bode well for American discourse. As ideological polarization widens, the polity’s propensity to accept widely circulated conspiracy theories increases. And as long as Americans continue to exist in wholly separate factual universes, the proverbial ‘reaching across the aisle’ will continue to become a relic of the past.

Garrett Cunningham ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at cunningham.garrett@wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | National

SPLITTING THE TICKET:

THE GAP BETWEEN STATEWIDE RACES AND BALLOT INITIATIVES Michael Fogarty, editor-in-chief

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ooking past the top line numbers in the House and Senate, one of the most interesting results of the midterm elections is the gap between ballot initiatives and statewide races in red and purple states. The results of the statewide races clearly show the strength of partisan polarization. Incumbent Democratic senators lost in Missouri and Indiana, and Democrats missed pickup opportunities in Tennessee and Texas, all of which are red states.

At the same time, voters in similarly conservative states approved a wide variety of “liberal” policies. Voters in Utah, Idaho and Nebraska approved Medicare expansions. Florida—the ultimate swing state, where every election seems to be decided 50.1-49.9 percent—passed an amendment re-enfranchising felons by an overwhelming margin of 61-39 percent, as well as voting to ban offshore drilling. Missouri voters elected Republican Josh Hawley, defeating incumbent Claire McCaskill by 6 points, and approved a minimum wage increase, an independent redistricting committee, and the legalization of medical marijuana. Earlier this year, Missouri also voted to defeat a right-to-work law.

This contrast seems to imply a huge disconnect between the policies favored by Republican voters and the policies advanced by Republican politicians. On the national stage this can clearly be seen in the unpopularity of the two pieces of major legislation considered by Congress in 2017: the attempted repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act, and the tax reform bill, which passed. Republicans’ health care policy position is so unpopular that healthcare messaging helped drive Democrats to victory in the House, while conservative Republicans like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley had to lie to voters about their position on pre-existing conditions.

This difference in voting patterns is explained by two factors. First, voters’ positions across issue areas are not nearly as homogenous as those of political elites. Second, voters’ partisan identification overrides their policy preferences when

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Many Americans have a conflict between their ideological identities and their opinions on specific issues they are given partisan cues.

Conservative political elites (congresspeople, senators, pundits, donors, etc.) have very consistent conservative policy preferences across a wide variety of issue areas. If you’re given a senator’s position on the minimum wage, you have a pretty good idea of where that senator is likely to stand on issues like healthcare, gun control, or abortion. This isn’t true for voters.

Using issue-level data, political scientists Christopher Claassen, Patrick Tucker, and Steven S. Smith found that many Americans have a conflict between their ideological and partisan identities and their opinions on specific issues. They found that 30 percent of Americans identify as conservative but hold liberal policy positions, while 20 percent of Americans identify as liberals but hold conservative policy positions.

Claassen, Tucker, and Smith conclude that while the plurality of Americans identify as conservative, their issue positions create a liberal majority on policy issues. They remark that “one of the most puzzling features of ideology in the American public is the incongruence between the conservative majority, when ideology is viewed symbolically, and the liberal majority, when ideology is examined operationally.”

Voters are clearly more and more polarized on their symbolic, ingroup-outgroup partisan identities. However, American voters do not have the same degree of ideological consistency as political elites when you dig down to the issue level. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with an Uber driver who identified as Republican and voted for Josh Hawley, but also supported Medicaid expansion and a higher minimum wage, and the social safety net more broadly.

What is striking is that the activation of partisan identity at the top of the ballot does not seem to influence voting on ballot measures at the bottom. The letter “D” or “R” next to a candidate’s name on the ballot give voters a powerful cue that activates their symbolic partisan identity. The election results in Missouri, Utah, Florida, and elsewhere clearly show that the partisan activation didn’t prevent a large number of Republicans from voting to approve liberal policy measures across a wide variety of issue areas.

There are several explanations for why this might be the case. One is that voters simply have eclectic, inconsistent policy preferences, and vote on the referenda in accordance with their preferences. Another is that voters want to vote consistently with their party identification but are poorly informed and cannot identify issue positions with the two parties.

Either way, one obvious consequence of this vote splitting is that ballot initiatives are a viable path to achieve policy change that have majority support but are opposed by governing Republicans. Independent redistricting commissions, minimum wage increases, and Medicaid expansions are all policies that were successful on the ballot this year and could potentially be implemented successfully in other states via referendum. If liberals and progressives care more about policy outcomes than the political horserace, ballot measures are a way to notch wins in red states where the Democratic brand is a nonstarter at the statewide level.

Michael Fogarty ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at michael.fogarty@wustl.edu.

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Hypocrite-in-Chief Artwork by Michael Avery

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IS THERE A FREE SPEECH CRISIS AT COLLEGES? Conor Smyth, web editor | Photograph by Clem Onojeghuo from Unsplash

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ver the last few years, certain right-leaning public figures—including Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Carl Benjamin—have elevated the issue of free speech on college campuses to one of their top concerns. Searching any one of the four names listed above followed by “free speech” on YouTube, one will find an incredible number of videos dedicated to the “crisis” surrounding free speech on college campuses. Though there are major differences among these figures, they are unified by an extreme concern about threats to free speech, particularly from the left. Carl Benjamin, for instance, who is most well-known for his YouTube channel “Sargon of Akkad,” which boasts over 850,000 subscribers, remarked in a video earlier this year that the free speech “crisis” on college campuses “is the single most important issue in all of the West at the moment.” However, is that really the case? If not, to what extent is there a problem for free speech on college campuses? Further, how responsible is the left for the problem?

To answer these questions, we must first examine the extent of the “crisis.” A place to start is to look at the number of disinvitation attempts over recent years on college campuses. These are instances of de-platforming when a group of students, faculty members, or a cohort of both attempt to block a speaker from giving a speech on campus. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom (FIRE), a pro-free speech group with links to the Koch brothers, has assembled a Disinvitation Database with details of disinvitation attempts at colleges and universities across the U.S. According to an analysis of their data from Heterodox Academy, an organization working to increase viewpoint diversity, from 2000 through 2016 there were 200 attempts at disinvitation by people to the left of speakers—50 of which were successful—and 102 by people to the right—53 of which were successful. Given that 35 percent of incoming college freshmen identify as liberal while only 22 percent identify as conservative (according to a 2016 survey), there do appear to be a disproportionate

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number of disinvitation attempts from the left, but not by such an extreme margin.

There is, however, a more noticeable difference between the left and the right in data on disruptions during speeches. FIRE’s database counts ‘moderate’ disruptions—where a speech is significantly interrupted but the speaker is not prevented from finishing—and ‘substantial’ disruptions—where a speaker is prevented from finishing his or her speech due to the disruption.

From 2000 through 2016, there were 27 moderate and 21 substantial disruptions from the left during speeches but only two moderate and three substantial disruptions from the right.

An important consideration is how disinvitations have changed over time. Another Heterodox Academy analysis of FIRE’s data finds that from 2000 through 2014, there were roughly eight disinvitation attempts from the left per year and roughly two from the right per year.

However, in 2016 and 2017—eliminating disinvitation attempts against Milo Yiannopoulos, who accounted for 12 of the 43 disinvitation attempts in 2016—disinvitation attempts from the left shot up to an average of over 20 per year while disinvitation attempts from the right remained stagnant.

In addition to disinvitations, faculty terminations due to political speech are vital to this discussion.

Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Acadia University, created a data set of such terminations from 2015 through 2017, finding a total of 45 cases.

Of these, 28 were instances of professors being fired for liberal speech, 15 of professors fired for conservative speech, and two professors fired for neither. A 2016 analysis found that liberals outnumber conservatives on the faculty of colleges and universities by a factor of around six to one, so even though professors are fired more often for liberal speech in absolute terms, the rate at which conservative speech is punished is higher.

Looking at these numbers, it is obvious to those of us who value free speech that there is an issue on college campuses. However, it is just as obvious how much of a stretch it would be to characterize the problem as the most important issue in the U.S. today, or even to call it a major issue in the first place. After all, there are 4,583 colleges and universities across the U.S. A recent Georgetown University analysis, for instance, turned about 60 incidents in which free speech had been violated on college campuses since 2016. It would be an understatement to say that threats to free speech on college campuses are far from widespread. Furthermore, as Zack

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What turns out to be the most worrying aspect about the “crisis” of free speech is not the actions of a fringe minority of college students, but rather the way in which this real but wildly overhyped problem has been used by conservatives to advance their own interests.

Beauchamp points out in Vox, in the relatively small number of examples where free speech has been actively suppressed on college campuses, “a fairly large percentage of the targets [have been] liberals, and a fairly large percentage of the others were conservative speakers [like Milo Yiannopoulos] who seem to have come to campus with the intent of provoking students.”

There is another part of the debate regarding the free speech “crisis,” however, that warrants concern, albeit still nowhere near the level recommended by Carl Benjamin and his allies: the opinions of college students. Although there are not many students that take action against free speech, there are far too many who believe that such action is justified. In fact, a 2017 survey of college students found that 20 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of Republicans would endorse the use of violence to prevent a speaker from giving a speech. Notice, however, that the problem of lack of support for free speech in this case is actually more pronounced on the right than the left. There are other areas where the left harbors more hostility to free speech than the right—the same survey found that 62 percent of Democrats support what FIRE defines as substantial disruptions during speeches compared to only 39 percent of Republicans—but the issue is certainly not unique to one side of the political spectrum.

These opinions are worrying, but they do not reflect a generation that has completely abandoned free speech, nor do they signal that this generation of college students will maintain the same level of opposition to free speech in the

future. A large portion of the students who have rejected free speech in certain situations—by, say, de-platforming speakers they perceive as racist—are doing so out of a worthy concern about illiberal values. Given the commitment of these students to opposing illiberal values such as racism, it can at least be hoped that many of them are capable of being persuaded that illiberalism—in the form of censorship—is not a proper response to illiberalism—in the form of racism.

Even more hypocritically, some on the right are going so far as to advocate censorship on college campuses. Earlier this year, members of Congress introduced a bill aimed at censoring left wing critics of Israel by conflating criticism of Israeli policy with anti-Semitism. As the ACLU remarked in its critique of the bill, “Students and teachers who criticize the Israeli government or advocate for Palestinian rights are the obvious targets. But freedom of speech will be the loser.”

What turns out to be the most worrying aspect about the “crisis” of free speech is not the actions of a fringe minority of college students, but rather the way in which this real but wildly overhyped problem has been used by conservatives to advance their own interests. For one, conservatives have weaponized the issue not to protect free speech but to increase the presence of conservative voices on campuses. Such weaponization of the issue is evidenced, for instance, by a policy plan introduced in 2017 by a conservative think tank called the Goldwater Institute.

Reviewing the plan, The American Association of University Professors commented that “the highly specific measures advanced by Goldwater-inspired legislation suggest that its primary goal is not to enhance campus free speech but to protect conservative voices. It is ironic that, in insisting on outcome rather than process, so-called champions of campus free speech mirror the forms of political correctness they purport to denounce.” In their efforts to supposedly protect free speech, four states have adopted policies based off the Goldwater Institute’s proposals. At least seven other states are considering similar policies.

Most ridiculously and worryingly, the right has used the supposed “crisis” surrounding free speech in colleges to create a false image of the left. Rather than looking at the policy positions of those who constitute today’s mainstream left, such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and using those positions to develop an understanding of what the left stands for, many commentators have constructed an image of the left based on the actions of a tiny minority of college students who are overly obsessed with identity politics and are willing to use illiberal tactics to shelter themselves from opposing views. This caricature of the left has pushed far too many people—Dave Rubin and Carl Benjamin among them—to reject the left and move towards the right. By realistically evaluating the free speech “crisis” on college campuses, I hope it will be possible to effectively address threats to free speech on college campuses to the extent that they do in fact exist while at the same time preventing the right from weaponizing the “crisis” for their own ends.

Conor Smyth ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at c.smyth@wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | National

THE TRAGEDY OF THE SEXUAL ASSAULT DISCUSSION ON CAMPUS Johnathan Romero, staff writer

R

ecently Student Life published a frontpage article describing a new study by a team of Wash U students about the prevalence of sexual assault at Wash U’s fraternities, specifically as inflicted upon Wash U sorority members. Ignoring that this was not a comprehensive study it completely ignored sexual assault toward non-sorority female students, men or at non-fraternity parties, this article and the study it cites--radically distort the reality of sexual assault at this university. This isn’t to say that sexual assault does not occur at Wash U--it does and is beyond dispute. One sexual assault case is one too many, and for obvious reasons.

This is also not intended to discredit or invalidate the experiences of women at Wash U and elsewhere who have suffered the incalculable trauma and repercussions of sexual violence--it would be insensitive and absurd to do so. Rather, I assert that the notion of a rape culture at Wash U instills undo psychological harm while also discouraging women of our generation from enjoying college parties and college life more broadly.

The intended purpose of my argument is to implement what the architects of the recent study desired, as elucidated in the front-page article of Student Life on the October 29th release. That is, I wish “to create a first step” in a more open discussion of sexual violence in Greek life. My approach to this is to help ensure that the side which is so fervently calling for stricter policies and restrictions does not continue to dominate the discussion on this issue--as such a thing is hardly a discussion at all--but rather a constant, one-sided condemnation. Granted, some ideas from this new side of the discussion may, and likely will, be wholly unreasonable or even dangerous--and therefore those ideas (and not the people)-should be shot down wherever and whenever they arise, just as with any misleading and detrimental notion.

On that note, the article that I describe is from the October 29th release of Student Life

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called “WPA survey finds widespread sexual violence across fraternities” and includes a graphic showing results from a survey that asked respondents "have you ever experienced unwanted sexual contact from a member of any of the following Greek organizations?" 1

members, and by extension female Wash U students, who have dealt with unsolicited sexual contact.

Now, at first glance this bar graph is both tragic and horrifying. However, this image is grossly misleading: Firstly, there is response bias in this data. As is mentioned in the article, these percentages are based on a sample of 848 Wash U sorority students, not the entirety (or even a representative sample) of the Wash U female student population. More importantly, only 34% of respondents actually answered the question “have you ever experienced unwanted sexual contact from a member of any of the following Greek organizations?” This alone is problematic, as it almost certain that those who have had unwanted sexual contact are far more likely to answer the written question than those who are not. If you had an opportunity to share your experience anonymously and in an unpressured setting (like that of an anonymous survey), you would be more inclined to share it if it was terrible or traumatic.

The article states that “most respondents reported at least one instance of unwanted sexual contact.” If this statement was generalized to the entire Wash U female population, then that would imply that most female students experience some form of unwelcome sexual interaction. Unfortunately, the wording of the article seems to conflate “sexual violence” with “unwanted sexual contact” as the writers use the phrases interchangeably.

However, even the studies of college women that find the highest recorded rates of sexual assault (i.e. sexual violence) determine that about 1 in 4 female college students experience sexual assault on campus. Even those wellknown studies were conducted in such a way that they were also distorted by a response bias which would inflate the numbers from respondents. Nevertheless, this implies that the WPA’s data is skewed toward those who experience unwanted sexual contact, as 1 in 4 is far below 50+%. Again, while unacceptably high, this is far from a majority of female students.

Therefore, this study ensures that only a fraction of the surveyed students—and by extension the Wash U sorority population—are represented in this analysis. Combined with the psychological phenomenon of negativity bias, this exaggerates the true proportion of female students who experience “unwanted sexual contact” on campus. Consider the two likely extremes of sexual assault probability at these fraternities: At the high end, these numbers accurately represent the Wash U female population, and the average Wash U fraternity has therefore been the location of unwanted sexual contact for the majority of female Wash U students. At the low end, only the proportion who answered “Yes” out of the 34% who responded to the question of unwanted sexual contact actually experienced it. This would radically reduce the percentage of Wash U sorority

The Student Life article predominantly focused on fleeting instances of sexual contact, such as grinding, kissing, or touching/groping (which could often be attributed to misunderstandings or overconfidence on the part of the initiator).

For reported instances where consent would be more salient (when interactions are over a long stretch of time), the study found that 15% of respondents answered yes to the question: “did you have at least one experience of vaginal or anal sex with someone when [they] really did not want to...or … because the other person persistently tried to make moves even after [they] said no?” As with the other questions, the study conducted data analysis on responses to this question and broke-down the various situations that befell the female respondents (as reported in the Student Life article): About a 75% said that they had sex

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | National

“because they did not want to hurt the other person’s feelings,” “because they were hoping it would lead to something more romantically,” or “because they were in a relationship with the other person and they wanted to have sex.”

About 18% said they had sex “because they did not want to be judged negatively,” 14% said that they “had vaginal or anal sex at least one time because they did not want to be seen as inexperienced, 16% said that they “had wanted to have manual sex or oral sex and were pressured into vaginal or anal sex at least one time,” 6% said that they “had vaginal or anal sex because someone physically forced them to,” and 2% had vaginal or anal sex at least one time because they were drugged.”

Upon reading these situations it becomes apparent that many of these recorded instances are not anything akin to sexual assault.

Obviously, the final two statistics are horrifying as they do define characteristic cases of rape, however it is notable that together they comprise 8% of the 15% of the sorority students who reported having experienced any form of unwanted sexual contact (again sorority members are more likely to attend fraternity-hosted parties). It turns out that this fraction of the total surveyed population only represents 1.2% of the total surveyed Wash U sorority members. While obviously far from ideal given that percentage is not 0, it is far less frightening than the “15%” of women that the Student Life article presented.

Does it matter if the sexual assault numbers are inflated? What harm could come from increased caution and awareness at universities like Wash U? Inherent in any shocking and horrifying publication is the psychological harm which ensues. Given the gaping flaws of the study described above, the Student Life publication should shy away from definitive conclusions and serious speculation about potential implications. This is especially true for a topic as fraught as sexual assault at Wash U. This study was published on the front page of the

most circulated newspaper at Wash U, with the intent of raising awareness and “start[ing] a conversation,” which is an intent that should be foremost in the discussion. Unfortunately, Student Life was, at minimum, unfathomably irresponsible given the self-admitted implications that could be “devastating” to anyone who read the article or glanced at the massive graph on the front page.

The fact seems to be lost in this discussion that Wash U is perhaps the safest outdoor space in the entire state of Missouri, and thus the risk of sexual assault would be higher off-campus.

Yet in spite of this, there exists an ever-present apprehension to walking alone at night on campus. This is not restricted to Wash U, as many of the top universities across the country suffer from a harmful, ambient fear of sexual violence. This trend defies the leading statistics on this issue. The Obama-Era organization Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) collected data on the rates of sexual assault for women between the ages of 18-24 and found that these women—while more likely to experience sexual assault than other age groups—were actually less likely to experience sexual assault than their non-college peers of the same age. 2 The lower rate of sexual violence experienced by other age groups is attributable to the higher rates of marriage, lower exposure to parties (where individuals experience higher rates of sexual violence), less sexual activity, and less risk-taking behavior overall. Therefore, the lower rate of sexual violence for women outside of the 18-24 age bracket is not a result of a lower probability of sexual assault per encounter, but rather a lower probability of sexual assault due to fewer risky encounters in total.

and is, in any case, entirely manageable with a healthy dose of caution (e.g., always bring a vigilant friend to a party that features alcohol).

With that in mind, ask yourself the following: Which is more empowering for women (or any who fear sexual violence)—the thought that they are constantly at risk of being groped, assaulted or raped throughout their time on campus? Or the idea that they live in a generally safe environment in which they can explore their sexual identity and can learn how to navigate sexuality through education and personal experience in a fashion that would lead them to be better equipped for the real world?

The graph referenced can be found in the article "WPA survey finds widespread sexual violence across WU fraternities" on www.studlife.com 1

Visit www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence for the full graph and citations.

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In dispelling misconceptions about the threat of sexual assault against college women, imagine the relief and peace of mind in realizing that the danger is far lower than previously surmised

Johnathan Romero ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at johnathan.romero@wustl.edu

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | National

WHEN THE OTHER SIDE MAKES NO SENSE Jack Goldberg, staff writer

“C

onsider the possibility that you’re wrong” is something that very many people need to get into their heads and, consequently, it’s something that well-meaning and frustrated people find themselves saying more and more often. There are a few ‘add-ons’ implicit in that bit of advice, though. There’s a hidden “try to understand the other side, where they’re coming from.

Open your mind and see if you can see their point.”

And that is something that needs to be said, but I think people can and should go further than that.

I’d make the more radical statement: “Seriously consider the possibility that you’re wrong, even though the other side’s point, after long and serious reflection, makes absolutely zero sense to

to be discussing) has bad intentions are slim indeed. Acknowledge that when the disagreement is serious and widespread, there’re almost certainly smart and well-meaning people on the other side.

So now we’ve acknowledged that each side of issue X has plenty of intelligent, well-intentioned supporters (again, focusing on issues of genuine, widespread disagreement). You reexamine your views on the issue and you find them to be logically sound, perfectly solid from top to bottom. And yet, having accepted that the other side has plenty of supporters as smart as you are, they’ve surely done the same. There’s someone

Seriously consider the possibility that you’re wrong, even though the other side’s point, after long and serious reflection, makes absolutely zero sense to you—even when the other side’s point still strikes you as morally abhorrent. you—even when the other side’s point still strikes you as morally abhorrent.” Bear with me.

You are probably a smart person. There are probably many smart people that agree with you on any given issue (the specifics of the issue aren’t relevant). There are also probably many smart people on the opposite side of the issue, people whose beliefs make no logical sense to you at all. Feel free to call them “idiots” in idle conversation, but genuinely dismissing your opponents as stupid is the easy way out; it’s an intellectually lazy (and almost certainly inaccurate) way to view the debate. Calling them evil, racists, sexists, Nazis, or communists is just as much of a cop-out—it’s certainly true in some cases, but the odds that everyone who takes the opposite stance (on whatever issue we happen

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who totally disagrees with you who thinks their beliefs are perfectly sound, who has put in the same amount of mental effort. You think you see a bunch of little holes in their argument, but of course, they think they see a few in yours. You think you see a few biases that have led them astray, but they think you have a few as well.

What now?

The typical response is to stick with your own views, the ones for which you have logical arguments and justifications, and assume that the other person must be incorrect. Let me argue for an alternate, more sensible course of action: Imagine you and your friend have just eaten at a restaurant and you’re both calculating the tip.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that you’re

equally good at math, that you’re splitting the bill, and that neither of you is the type to deliberately shortchange the waiter. You both run the numbers and you get to different amounts.

Your math makes sense to you, but your friend’s math makes sense to him. His numbers seem wrong to you, but yours also seem wrong to him.

It seems to me that a reasonable third party in this situation (who hadn’t done the math himself) would reserve judgement on whose math is correct. You, despite your confidence in your arithmetic, should also reserve judgement. After all, from a detached perspective, you’re no more likely to be right than your friend is. I repeat: you should reserve judgement despite your own math making perfect sense to you, and despite your friend’s math making no sense to you at all.

If this is intuitive to you, apply the same line of reasoning to a political disagreement between intelligent, well-meaning people.

What now? What is to be done if we’re supposed to reserve judgement on certain political disagreements despite being unable to see a shred of logic on the other side? The answer, I think, is an increased justification for process over partisanship. A real ideological partisan can be tempted to prioritize political victories over the costs of achieving them, to claim that the ends justify the means. That’s how we rationalize gerrymandering, obstructionism, politically motivated fights over recounts. We say “I know democracy isn’t supposed to work this way, but I’m right and they’re wrong, and damn if the country won’t be better off with higher/ lower taxes, stricter/looser gun laws, expanded/ restricted abortion rights.” Doubt ourselves a little more, reserve judgement despite being wholly unable to comprehend the opposition’s arguments, and these excuses go out the window. Let’s have a sane democracy again.

Jack Goldberg ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at jackgoldberg@wustl.edu.

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | National

BRING BACK THE TRAINS Matthew Friedman | Artwork from Wikimedia Commons

I

had the New York City subway map memorized by the time I was four years old. I remember how I loved the spaghetti-like interconnections that the brightly colored lines made and how I would pore over my dad’s collections of old maps for hours and hours. I remember riding with my mom to the end of each and every subway line, craning my neck to see out the window as other trains sped by.

I remember sitting in the driver’s seat of the model bus at the transit museum, feeling powerful and in awe.

So many of my first friendships were based around trains. My friends and I would spend countless hours building sprawling models with our wooden toy tracks or coming up with schedules for trains that existed only in our head. It was all we could talk about. We were enthralled.

In recent years, I have realized how little we knew about how the transportation world works.

Few adults share that same feeling of childlike wonder and excitement at the thought of a bus or train, and even those who do are too quick to slip out their phones to order an Uber or a Lyft.

In some cases, the lack of childish glee goes far beyond that, morphing into racial animosity and stigmatization. In the 1970s, as Atlanta unveiled its new rail line, MARTA, opponents took to calling it “Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta.”

Even in just my first few months at Washington University, I have heard people make similarly reasoned (if less offensive) remarks about the buses and rail lines in St. Louis, with friends cautioning that the Metro is unsafe or full of vagabonds. I have run into juniors and seniors who have not even stepped foot onto the train before.

For too many people, the assumption is that people only use public transportation if they have no other option. In many cases, this assumption is flawed. Public transportation can benefit us all, even those who have other options. At home in New York City, we complain about the buses and subways with love and care, constantly challenging our elected officials to improve the system. The subway is a social equalizer. If a train gets delayed, everyone is on the same boat.

Angry Wall Street executives and Columbia professors stand crowded next to frustrated janitors

and fast food workers—no one has anywhere else to go.

In 2016, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger announced his staunch opposition to the proposed “Northside-Southside” MetroLink expansion, which would have brought immense benefit to underprivileged communities throughout the county. Stenger pontificated with rhetoric about extensive cost and lack of city-county cooperation, but it was clear that more was at stake than a simple disagreement between municipality executives. Residents in the Western, wealthier parts of the county, predominantly white, did not want their tax dollars going to assist poorer, mainly African-American people in the city and Northern parts of the county.

In some cases, there are good reasons why people have these predispositions against buses and trains. Weekend wait times for MetroLink trains are twenty minutes and the weekday waits are not much better. Bus lines run just two or three times per hour and often get stuck in woefully slow traffic. These are perfectly valid reasons to want to avoid public transportation. Yet, they do not mean that we should give up hope and simply abandon these alternatives.

Rather than abandoning public transportation, we should fight to make it better. There is no reason why we cannot find solutions that benefit both the West County business commuters and

the North County minimum wage commuters. I do not want to accept the way things are now as the reality for the entire future. I want to bring back that delight, the happy memories that once accompanied all things that moved.

One thing that we can do as Wash U students is destroy the stigma that surrounds the Metro. If you are going to Brentwood for the Galleria, take the Metro. If you are going to the Central West End for dinner, take the Metro. It is quick, and it is free for us. The best way to demonstrate that more funding should go to public transportation is to actually use it.

It is unreasonable to imagine that many people will rekindle their childhood love affairs with public transportation. It is reasonable, however, to expect that we can work toward public transportation systems that come closer to matching the realities that I once thought they did. Let’s invest more intelligently and efficiently in public transportation. Let’s spend more time and effort finding a way to make buses and trains work for as many people as possible. Let’s allow the next generation’s memories of childhood fascination with transportation to become the new reality.

Matthew Friedman ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences He can be reached at matthewfriedman@wustl.edu.

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