Age

Table of Contents 6

Age

National

International

The Generational Blame Game, and Why We Must Refuse to Play It Michael Powers

8

Young Activists: Fighting to Grow Up Hannah Grimes

10

Our Triggered Youth Meyme Nakash

11

Theme Art Caroline Weinstein

12

Digitial Dangers: Sharenting and Beyond Salil Uttarwar

13

Theme Art Arushee Agrawal

14

Boomers' Biggest Fear on Climate: Our Sincerity Elena Murray

16

8/24 Nkemjika Emenike

18

TikTok Takeover Sophia Conroy

19

Adulting Is Hard Frances Wu

20

Inside the Mind of a Young, Angry Leftist Benjamin de Jonge

22

The #MeToo Movement as a Desire Path Daria Locher

25

Theme Art Merry May Ma

26

Our Country's Medicare Crisis Hannah Richardson

27

No More Malarkey: Ditch Biden's Candidacy Jaden Lanza

28

Knocking Down the House Rohan Palacios

36

Racial Hiring in Hollywood Clare Grindinger

Editors' Note Executive Director Ishaan Shah Editors-in-Chief Hanna Khalil Sophie Attie Design Director Catherine Ju Staff Editors Jaden Lanza Max Lichtenstein Christian Monzon Rohan Palacios Features Editors Nick Massenburg Megan Orlanski Assistant Design Directors Leslie Liu Jinny Park Programming Director Liza Sivriver Treasurer Clare Grindinger Web Editor Adler Bowman

Dear Readers, From listening to dinner table political debates as children, to casting our first vote at 18, to qualifying for Social Security for the first time, our age constantly underpins our relationship to the state and to each other. Aging is natural and inevitable but also fraught with questions of power. Our presidential nominees justify their age on both ends of the spectrum—claiming wisdom from experience or a fresh perspective from youth. Scientists investigate the best ways to raise children. The media tells women that 40 is the new 20. As such, critically interrogating our perception of age is essential to understanding how we show up in our communities.

In this issue of WUPR, our writers explore the multitude of ways that age impacts our power as political subjects, in both conventional and unexpected ways. Hannah Grimes shows how young activists are often unjustly dismissed on the basis of age. Taking another angle, Michael Powers further explores the tensions between young people and the Boomer generation, arguing for a rejection of the generational “blame game,” and favoring solidarity instead. Various writers explore the intersection of age and social media, from Sophia Conroy tracking the rise of TikTok, to Salil Uttarwar’s investigation of the “sharenting” phenomenon. Meyme Nakash reflects on how gun violence has impacted a generation of children, and Frances Wu tackles how the concept of “adulting” shapes how we perceive growing up.

In addition to our theme, we also have writers covering a wide range of national topics. Clare Grindinger explores racist hiring practices in Hollywood. In her feature piece, Daria Locher provides a timeline of the #Metoo movement, showing the way it has grown and changed over time. Bringing it back to the local, Rohan Palacios provides an engaging interview with Wash U alumna Jessie Thornton, exploring her experience working for Cory Bush’s congressional campaign.

We hope that this issue helps spark some introspection on how age impacts our political presence—online, on election day, in protest marches, and beyond.

Warmly,

Web Assistant Editor Yanny Liang Front Cover Leslie Liu Back Cover Shonali Palacios Theme Spread: Thomas Fruhauf Feature Designs: Leslie Liu Jinny Park

Hanna Khalil & Sophie Attie Editors-in-Chief

WU Political Review

The Generational Blame Game, and Why We Must Refuse to Play It Michael Powers

I

f you asked me to pick the most tired political platitude of the last decade, I would have to respond with the trope of “Millennial murder.” In the mid-2010s, it was almost impossible to go a month without hearing a new story about how millennials were killing some industry —homeownership, diamonds, mayonnaise, you name it. The tale that millennials were responsible for the decline of a multitude of industries— all of which can be linked in some way with the image of American-brand capitalism—was easy to spin to a largely Generation X (1961-1981) and boomer (1946-1964) audience, ready to point fingers. In a way, the speed and ease with which the myth gripped the American public are indicative of a wider attitude held about generational differences. It implies the unfortunate existence of a strong propaganda machine, one that has successfully swindled many Americans into believing the issues that plague their society are the fault of their fellow citizens while distracting them from the real culprit: capitalism.

Since 1967, Time Magazine has published twenty separate magazines with covers calling out specific age groups. "The Generation That Forgot God." "Generation Disappointment."

"Generation Jihad." And perhaps most famously, plastered across the cover of a May 2013 edition, was "The Me, Me, Me Generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents." Yuck! The danger of these sorts of broad generalizations about certain generations is that even if they happened to be true— which, nine times out of ten, they aren't—they lack any nuance, depth, or real analysis into the conditions that might lead to some of the disadvantages people of certain age demographics face and the ways they respond to them. You don't need to be a biologist to realize that there is not some special allele that exclusively activates in people born in certain years that makes them more prone to living with their parents or not eating out every day of the week. In the case of millennials, their failure to buy houses as early as their grandparents did isn't because

6

We must realize that the many problems we as a society face today are not the fault of our fellow citizens; they are merely a result of the simple fact that capitalism is an inherently unsustainable economic system. they don't want to buy houses; in fact, the 2018 Homebuyer Insights Survey by Bank of America found 72% of millennials picked "owning a home" as a top priority in life—above "traveling the world" (61%) but below "being able to retire" (80%). Yet homeownership rates are down among millennials by 8% compared to previous generations. Thanks to a combination of crushing student loan debt and their possession of a mere 3% of America's wealth (boomers at similar ages had 21%) millennials simply can't afford homeownership.

The fact that this easily-debunked narrative has been entrenched into our cultural understanding of our economic struggles for so many years is quite upsetting. There are so many more pressing narratives deserving to be explored. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and breathtaking socioeconomic inequality all taint the fabric of American society. Yet, in an environment

where everything we consume is broken down to its most easily digested parts, commercialized, and commodified, discussing these issues simply isn't marketable. Instead, popular magazines, like Time, choose to sacrifice integrity in favor of accessibility. This isn't the fault of Time itself, which was owned by Meredith Corporation until it was purchased by tech billionaire Marc Benioff in 2018. Another popular publication, the Washington Post, is owned by Jeff Bezos, the richest of the rich, and perhaps the most wellknown of America's many billionaires. When corporations and billionaires fund media outlets, there will inevitably exist a tendency to produce stories that are more marketable than substantive. You can bet that someone like Bezos, whose wealth could not possibly be spent by a single person in even one thousand lifetimes, would be glad to have the public eye shift its gaze towards an arbitrary age group rather than towards the billionaires who are truly responsible for a majority of our world's woes.

Of course, the “millennials are killing” fable has been dismantled countless times. But now that the cliché has run its course, and many are disillusioned with the narrative that it presents; it is important to go one step further and recognize the danger in blaming any particular generation for the troubles faced by today’s youth. Yes, it is easiest to blame the boomers. A 2019 census of billionaires shows that 90% are over the age of 50. Near the end of 2019, the "OK boomer" slogan took the internet by storm, becoming a ubiquitous expression of anger against not only the group one might think of as "old people," but also the broader band of all those who hold racist, classist views, are pro-war, bigoted, voted for Trump, or generally don't align with progressive views. However, at its core, "OK boomer" was a blanket statement that, before it was co-opted out of the hands of zoomers and millennials by the very people it was meant to disarm, was a more modern version of the "millennials are killing" myth. It served as an easily digestible, accessible way to attack a generation that was

Age

(and still is) broadly perceived as responsible for many of society's issues. But it is of the utmost importance that we abandon our rage with boomers and instead realize that the many problems we as a society face today are a result of the simple fact that capitalism is an inherently unsustainable economic system.

The impending climate crisis that threatens to displace and destroy the lives of millions within just a few decades is a major example of capitalism’s unsustainability, which many young folks are actively, even desperately, campaigning to fix. A mere 100 companies have been responsible for 70% of carbon dioxide emissions since 1988, according to a 2017 study by the Carbon Disclosure Project. And the bottom 50% of countries by wealth account for 14% of emissions, while the top 50% emit 86%. The United States and China alone account for 47% of global emissions to date. These statistics all point to a harrowing trend: corporations in wealthy capitalist countries do not care about the impacts their operations have on the environment. Yes, this includes China, which, although its ruling party is still the Communist Party, long ago abandoned the Marxist-Leninist path Mao laid out in the late 1940s. In fact, Beijing has the most billionaires of any city in the world. The crucial fact of the matter is that the people who run these corporations do not actively destroy our world out of spite. Instead, capitalism enables these people to make destructive decisions in the name of maximizing capital gain. Capitalism is not concerned with morality. Capitalism, a system that functions through private ownership of the means of production and eschews the legitimate pursuit of the common good, is concerned only with one simple question: “What will increase profits?”

The fossil fuel industry provides insight into many of capitalism’s flaws, but let’s broaden this examination. The industrial complex, a broad concept that can be summed up as the interplay created between corporations and our operant

The crucial fact of the matter is that the people who run these corporations do not actively destroy our world out of spite or loathing for it.

Instead, capitalism enables these people to make destructive decisions in the name of maximizing capital gain. political system, is a frightening positive feedback loop that relies on a two-step mechanism to continue operating. First, profits grow when flimsy legislation allows billionaires to store profits off-shores in shell companies and dodge taxes.

Some of the largest corporations in the world like Apple and IBM use hundreds of shell companies in countries like the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes. This tax dodging costs the US approximately $111 billion every year, hindering economic growth and sapping investment in sectors like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Second, billionaires and corporations use their vast stores of illegitimate profits to pay off legislators through lobbying and campaign gifts to promote special interests.

In 2012 alone, business interests spent $2.57

billion lobbying Congress, which made up more than three-quarters of all spending by politically active organizations. These corporations use their wealth to restart the cycle, going back to step one and keeping the legislation, that allows them to garner that wealth in the first place, intact.

When spending thousands in the pursuit of legislative decisions favorable towards corporations is viable, everyday citizens who do not possess such wealth cannot be expected to take such a legislative process seriously. The average age of the members of Congress is 58.5. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders’s supporters tend to be younger than 45. Yet capitalism, which has its roots in the mercantilism and feudal societies characteristic of medieval Europe, is centuries old. When you see a news article slamming millennials for killing an industry, you are not seeing the disease.

You are witnessing a symptom. Falling prey to the idea that a single generation is at fault for the existence of a flawed system older than America itself serves only to divide the working class. The key to overcoming capitalism is first rejecting the narrative of the “generational blame game” and establishing solidarity among members of the working class. To paraphrase Che Guevara: “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, you are a comrade of mine. Including boomers.”

Michael Powers ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at m.c.powers@wustl. edu.

7

WU Political Review

Young Activists: Fighting to Grow Up Hannah Grimes Artwork (right) by Caroline Weinstein

I

had just gotten out of third period when my phone lit up with the notification I had been waiting for all day: my ACT score was available. It was raining hard outside, but I ran to my car across campus to open the email. With water dripping from my hair and hands shaking, I typed in my account password. It was my second try at the test, and I needed this score to be a win. It might sound silly, but when I saw my score, the one I was hoping for, I screamed loud enough to hurt my throat. I had worked hard for this, and it paid off. I rushed back into school to tell my teachers.

Months later, I found myself rushing to my car during the school day again. The scholarship program I applied to was releasing decisions at 2:00 P.M., and I wanted to be at home to open mine. The decisions were three hours late, so I sat at my computer and refreshed my screen every minute, waiting for a notification to pop up. When it finally did, my mom started crying before I could read the text. It was an acceptance letter. This time, I screamed loud enough to lose my voice.

When David Hogg, Parkland shooting survivor and gun control activist, announced his acceptance into Harvard, Twitter and major news sites were flooded with hate. A tweet from conservative political strategist Caleb Hull quickly went viral: “75% of Harvard students score over a 1470 on their SAT with the bottom 25% averaging just over 1400. You really need over a 1470 to be considered. David Hogg’s SAT score was 1270. He was denied to UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine, where a 1240 places you above average.”

Months before, TMZ had published Hogg’s test scores and GPA. They went viral, and many conservative voices on Twitter made fun of them.

Throughout his application process, Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked him when he was denied admission to a college. For weeks, David

8

For famous young activists, the mean girls in high school are millionaire corporate moguls.

Hogg’s notification screen was full of people mocking his test scores, his college rejections and acceptances, and his intelligence. He was eighteen at the time, and this was not long after he lost friends in the Stoneman Douglas shooting.

Young activists are so often put into the public spotlight as the leaders of movements. In the past five years, we have seen seventeenyear-old Greta Thunberg and nineteen-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Martinez forging paths to stop climate change, thirteen-year-old Mari Copeny fighting for clean water in Flint, twenty-year-old Emma González speaking at March for Our Lives protests, ten-year-old Bana Alabed advocating for peace in Syria, and so many more.

While doing amazing work that promotes peace, environmentalism, gun control, and racial justice, these activists are experiencing their formative years. They are growing up in the public eye, with conservative politicians, journalists, and even the president bullying them constantly.

Usually, these politicians are not targeting the young activists’ policies to insult them. Rather, conservatives are targeting young activists’ personal lives—they are exploiting, bullying, and targeting children.

These personal attacks on activists’ personalities and apolitical lives stands in stark difference to the policy-oriented scrutiny directed towards their older counterparts. Conservative

politicians already have an arsenal of insults to use against liberal activists, often involving their views and intelligence, but the young activist gives them one more thing to insult: age. These politicians see it as acceptable to put young activists in their place, as if they are children to be scolded and grounded at the dinner table for arguing with their parents.

Leslie Gibson, a former GOP candidate, said of Emma González: “There is nothing about this skinhead lesbian that impresses me and there is nothing that she has to say unless you're frothing at the mouth moonbat.” When Greta Thunberg was named Time’s 2019 Person of the Year, an honor Donald Trump reportedly pursued, he tweeted, “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”

Thunberg, sixteen at the time, responded by changing her Twitter bio: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.” In these situations, Thunberg has to add “gracefully subvert insults from the president” to her long daily schedule, already filled with climate change conferences, important meetings, and school.

Young activists cannot just let these comments go, especially when their audience wants a strong leader, but they also cannot respond with anger, which will be written off as a kid’s temper tantrum and will further the dialogue questioning their place in politics.

Now that young women are increasingly heard in the political sphere, Trump has more opportunity to target them and, in turn, influence the self-image of millions of girls across the nation. His commentary about women’s bodies has already made a lasting impact on young girls. In a New York Times poll just before the 2016 election, almost half of fourteen to

Age

seventeen-year-old girls responding said that Trump’s comments about women have affected the way they think about their bodies.

For famous young activists, the mean girls in high school are millionaire corporate moguls, and these moguls are now becoming major influences even in the lives of girls outside of the public eye.

The focus on girls here is interesting. David Hogg aside, conservatives usually target female activists. It is not surprising that girls are questioned and insulted more than boys, as we have already seen how women are treated in politics.

However, it is jarring that the extremely personal sexist comments are extended to children, especially when women are major sources of the scrutiny.

Women conservatives affront girl activists with the same misogynistic insults that they have experienced in their male-dominated field.

Referencing Greta Thunberg and her counterparts, Laura Ingraham said, “The adults who’ve brainwashed these kids should be brought up on charges of child abuse.” Tomi Lahren, Ainsley Earhardt, and Amy Kremer are also among the many women conservatives scrutinizing young women like Thunberg.

This degradation is even worse for young activists of color, who are excluded from mainstream media entirely, despite their efforts. In January, Vanessa Nakate, a young Ugandan climate activist, was cropped out of a published photo featuring Greta Thunberg and fellow activists Isabelle Axelsson, Loukina Tille, and Luisa Neubauer.

While young white activists are scrutinized, young activists of color are completely erased from the narrative. It is not often that an activist of color breaks the white narrative promoted by the media, which is why it is important to publicly support activists like Vanessa Nakate,

Feliquan Charlemagne, Anya Sastry, and their counterparts.

This erasure and criticism is, unsurprisingly, not given to young conservative activists. According to conservative politicians, when liberal activists speak up, they have been brainwashed, but when young conservatives voice their opinions, they are faces of the future.

Young Republicans like Breann Bates, Kassy Dillon, and Joshua DeFord have been consistently praised by conservative news outlets— their age is only mentioned as a hope for the future. Even young conservatives seen as the faces of large controversies are praised by older Republicans.

After the January 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation, a viral conflict between Native American activist Nathan Phillips and disruptive Covington Catholic High School students, Amy Kremer tweeted, “Honest to God, if Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all. Just look at treatment of Covington kids versus treatment of Gretchen [Thunberg].”

Here, we see a major conservative influencer standing up for young conservatives while critiquing young liberals. Kremer, a longtime Trump supporter, would likely question Thunberg’s age, but openly supports the Covington students.

These dynamics are terrifying. Conservative politicians are openly mocking young liberal activists about their personalities, appearances, and ages, while praising young conservatives without mentioning age.

It seems that age has become yet another weapon to yield against people trying to promote gun control, climate change activism, and human rights. In addition, youth has become an

added target on the backs of women.

Young girls are scrutinized even by women and are torn apart by older men, and this public mistreatment of girl activists is influencing the self-image of girls across the world, who now have to worry about politicians targeting their bodies, intelligence, personalities, and ages, in addition to their beliefs.

The field of politics has always been marketed as an adult world, but now more than ever, young people are being hurt by the adults meant to protect us. Politicians repeatedly ignore or push aside climate change, gun control, racial injustice, water crises, and all the other major problems that young people will now have to deal with in the future. Because those adults aren’t doing their jobs, young activists are stepping up to save the world before it is irreversibly damaged.

Conservative politicians are telling us to grow up before we speak up, while simultaneously pushing to arm teachers in our classrooms, funding fossil fuels, and silencing young and minority voices. They are telling us to grow up while destroying our chances of doing so without fighting for it.

Hannah Grimes ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at hannahgrimes@ wustl.edu.

9

WU Political Review

Our Triggered Youth Meyme Nakash

I

—like many students who were home over fall break—went to the mall. My sister and I spent a day at the mall because we were on a very specific mission: to find our mom a birthday gift. After an hour or so of no luck, we decided to split our efforts and go to different department stores.

I barely stepped into the store when I heard a swift shuffling of feet in the distance. I chose to ignore it. I then proceeded to ask the salesman, standing at the front, a question that I cannot seem to remember because of the call I got from my sister that interrupted it. I raised my phone to my ear only to hear my sister scream, “GET OUT OF THE MALL. THERE’S A SHOOTER.” Immediately, my fight or flight instincts kicked in. My response: flight.

Within minutes, I managed to run far away from the mall across large, busy streets to a fast-food chain restaurant. I alerted the manager of the restaurant about the scene I’d just fled, and he almost immediately reached for his cellphone to call his brother who works at a store in the mall. I remembered my sister, and then my eyes flooded with tears.

I have never felt so helpless and terrified than in those few moments when I waited for my sister to pick up my phone call; when she answered, she could only muster sobs in between telling me that she “saw blood.” I told her to leave the mall and go to a pharmacy. Thankfully, we both safely escaped before the mall went into lockdown.

Later that day, we sat with our eyes glued to the television, waiting for our nearby news station to fill us in on what had happened earlier that day. Finally, a police investigator showed up on the screen and reported that the shooting was a false alarm, triggered by “balloon popping,” leading to a mass exodus from the mall from which several individuals had sustained injuries. My sister and I were floored.

When the news had spread about the false alarm, many of my friends and family members were relieved. I, however, could not say the same

10

To this day, I think what baffles me the most about the falsealarm shooting at my mall is that I live in a red state that historically opposes strict gun laws. for myself. No matter what the circumstances turned out to be, I experienced a potentially lifeor-death situation.

To this day, I think what baffles me the most about the false-alarm shooting at my mall is that I live in a red state that historically opposes strict gun laws.

Yet despite the heavy burden of gun violence falling disproportionately among young people, few public health research dollars go towards understanding this epidemic and trying to solve it. Though we may have renewed public attention towards gun violence since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, we still have a long way to go. What’s holding us back?

Generally speaking, our leaders do not bear the same personal connection to gun violence as us younger people. We are the generation that grew up terrorized by the news of family members or friends who were victims of mass shootings. We are the generation that sacrificed class time to practice lockdown drills. We are the generation that is so quick to assume that the noise of a balloon popping is a gunshot.

We—the American youth—deserve better than this. While I believe that our generation of leaders will address the issue of gun violence more actively, we should not have to wait. It’s time to put our political identities aside, and demand that serious action be taken to ensure that the American youth’s future does not unfold the way that current trends predict.

More than ever, Americans are on edge after the string of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. Today, 59% of Americans say random acts of violence like mass shootings pose the biggest threat to them and 78% of Americans believe a similar attack will likely follow in the next three months, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after these backto-back shootings. Statistics aside, after experiencing the “shooting” at my mall, it is clear to me that the fear of being next is a prevalent thought among Americans—especially among youth.

Whether it is a young person pulling the trigger, or a young person having their life taken away from them by another, the impact of gun violence falls disproportionately on our youth. A Center for American Progress study found that 54% of people murdered with guns in 2010 were under the age of 30. It also found that every 70 minutes an American under the age of 25 dies by gunfire.

Meyme Nakash ’23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at mnakash@wustl. edu.

Age

Artwork by Caroline Weinstein

11

WU Political Review

Digital Dangers: Sharenting and Beyond Salil Uttarwar, staff writer

Y

ou open your Facebook newsfeed and mindlessly scroll. You browse news from your favorite sports teams and pictures of cute dogs, but soon you notice that everywhere you look, you see parents posting about their kids. As a new parent, you are confused and slightly worried. Will other parents judge you if you don’t share photos and stories about your children? Are you parenting correctly if you’re the only one not “sharenting”?

As the popularity of social media has grown throughout the last decade, the phenomenon of “sharenting” has grown with it. Sharenting refers to the recent trend of parents overusing social media platforms to share information about their kids, such as baby photos and news about their activities and whereabouts. Parents tend to share only the cutest pictures, funniest stories, and most impressive accomplishments of their children. The problems of sharenting, however, extend beyond comparison and expectations of perfection for children. Parents frequently engage in sharenting without the consent of their children and create an easily accessible and replicable digital footprint that can permanently damage a child.

Although parents often teach their children that the internet is a dangerous place and to not reveal their information online, those who post about their kids on public platforms are inadvertently revealing details about their children that can harm them. A study by the Australian government’s eSafety Commission revealed that around 50% of all images circulated on pedophilic networks were originally taken from social media sites. Along with this, children are a common victim of identity theft. Barclays, an investment bank based in Britain, has estimated that sharenting will result in over $879 million worth of data losses and be the primary cause of over two thirds of identity fraud facing youth by 2030.

Parents often share their children's birth dates, full names, and school addresses in their posts, along with seemingly irrelevant information

12

such as their mother’s maiden name and names of pets, which can be used to answer security questions. Sharenting also can leave digital footprints that can be accessed in the future. For example, sensitive information such as diagnosis of mental or physical diseases and adoption status have the potential to lead to bullying in the future. Children are becoming increasingly connected on social media platforms with each other, and with their friends’ parents. All it would take to find and share such information is a simple scroll through someone’s profile.

Despite the implementation of measures to protect the privacy of children online, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), they cannot protect any information revealed through sharenting. COPPA, for example, prohibits websites from using children's data without parental consent, which is assumed when parents post on social media; implications for consent are buried in pages of privacy policies that are rarely ever read. Parental consent is clearly not the best way to gauge child consent, but since it is given on behalf of children, it is not feasible to create a legal framework that prevents dangerous oversharing. A realistic way to keep people safe would involve mandatory education of the dangers of social media. If social media websites were required to include compulsory education about the risks of posting online on their platforms, inadvertently risky sharing could be reduced. Even with such changes, the onus would still be on parents to understand the permanence and publicity of digital posts.

The dangers of social media, though, are not limited to children. Though seemingly consisting of thousands of fleeting posts and pictures, social media has a digital permanence that cannot be understated. Every post, picture, or tweet contributes to a digital identity followed by social media companies, external corporations that scrape data, or even online users that screenshot posts. Anything that is posted online is accessible, whether through middlemen that are

your Facebook friends or Instagram followers or directly to the public. Because of this, people should do their best to limit access to their posts to people that they trust by making their social media accounts and posts as private as possible.

Alternatively, secure platforms of information sharing such as group chats or Google photo albums should be considered. Though children are more frequently targets of stalking, data theft, and identity theft, nobody is safe from such threats. The safest assumption to make is that anyone can access the information you post online.

Many precautions must be taken before posting online, but especially about children. People should reflect on whether the post could potentially harm or embarrass themselves or their children in the future and always act with prudence. Sharing information about one’s children, and oneself, can be a healthy and fun way to connect with others, but in today’s digital world, it is of the utmost importance that sharing is done in moderation and with proper precaution.

Salil Uttarwar ‘21 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at suttarwar@wustl. edu.

Age

Artwork by Arushee Agrawal, staff artist

13

WU Political Review

Boomers’ Biggest Fear on Climate: Our Sincerity Elena Murray, staff writer

I

n a coming-together of the world’s political and business leaders, the most recent World Economic Forum focused on climate change and sustainability, topics which not all attendees considered worthwhile to discuss.

Although 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg called for adherence to commitments made under the Paris Agreement, condemned the elites’ pattern of empty promises to reform, and demanded immediate climate action, her speech came after President Trump’s denunciation of climate activism as “alarmist” and “radical.” By urging the rejection of “perennial prophets of doom,” Trump made clear his skepticism toward the threat posed by climate change, emphasizing instead the strength of the American economy and its status as the number one exporter of oil and natural gas.

President Trump and Greta Thunberg have a history of antagonism, as seen in their December Twitter exchange in which the president claimed Thunberg should watch “a good old fashioned movie with a friend” in order to “work on her anger management problem.” In response, Thunberg then changed her Twitter biography to mockingly mimic the president’s complaint. The two did not clash outright at the forum; instead, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin dismissively commented on Thunberg’s lack of expertise, saying, “after she goes and studies economics at college, she can come back and explain to us.”

As anyone who has taken introductory economics would know, however, the cost of pollution and climate change is not accounted for by businesses unless an external force like the government compels them to consider it. There is no disincentive for businesses to produce environmentally-harmful products, not while such products remain profitable, unless governmental action is taken to make those goods more costly to produce. In other words, if the government doesn’t force businesses to adhere to environmental regulations, then no one will. Thunberg is

14

right, and most economists agree with her.

Mnuchin’s commentary is indicative of the Trump administration’s contemptuous attitude toward climate change and follows a more widespread pattern in which the older generation scoffs at the younger, emanating signals which proclaim you’re too young to be here and why don’t we leave this to the real adults, sweetie. But while intergenerational spats are certainly nothing new and those in power frequently sneer at others who would claim to do their job more effectively, the disdain toward the younger generation’s climate activism is nearly always forcefully harsh.

The boomers probably know they created and escalated the climate crisis, and don’t want to admit it. The politicians probably shy away from implementing policies that don’t market well to their base, caring more about re-election than pursuing the morally required solution to a crisis that’s already arrived.

Also probable is that fear permeates the hearts of those wealthy businessmen and politicians— fear at the outright sincerity with which the young organize in response to climate change.

The vast majority of us aren’t marching in a vain attempt to go viral or as a self-absorbed excuse to post on social media. We don’t demand change in order to advance our careers or make money. We protest because we are truly angry and afraid. We’ve inherited this completely unsolved existential threat everyone’s known about for decades, while those in power did nothing to stop it and even contributed to it.

Despite our action, our voting, our undeniable expression within the democratic system, the same complacent, money-corrupted dirtbags remain in power. It’s not a small thing, what we ask for—we know that. But here’s one you may have heard before, boomers: you can’t write this essay the night before it’s due. And you’ve known about this one for a long time.

they don’t want to take responsibility for solving. The issue’s more complicated than it seems. It’ll take years—not worth our precious time. The irony becomes obvious when other topics supposedly have plain-and-simple solutions, only prevented from realization by the stonewalling of the other side. Policy is simple, except when you don’t want to do it. Then it becomes too complicated for the average citizen to understand, much less for a 17-year-old girl to lecture world leaders about.

This is not to claim all political problems possess clear and obvious solutions. But the climate crisis is one area in which the expert opinion points to the clearest consensus science can provide.

The effects of climate change are here. There will be irreversible environmental damage if the 1.5 degree threshold is surpassed. And governmental intervention is the only way to effectively enforce environmental regulations. It doesn’t take an economics degree to see that.

The urgent sincerity of the young’s voice on climate change is the necessary reflection of the situation’s direness. In the words of Greta Thunberg, “We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021. We want this done now.”

Elena Murray ‘22 studies in the College of Arts &

Mnuchin’s comments toward Thunberg exemplify the position politicians take on problems

Sciences. She can be reached at elenamurray@wustl. edu.

Age

Social Media and Youth Activism Malar Muthukumar

T

he recent surge of youth-led social movements has led many to claim that youth activism is on the rise. Looking at history, it is clear that young people have often been on the forefront of social change. We can see examples of youth activism in the US by looking back to the 1960s. Students were an important part of the Civil Rights Movement, making their voices heard by organizing into groups such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and by protesting racism through demonstrative actions such as the sit-ins at the Greensboro Café. Students were also at the forefront of the antiwar movement protesting the Vietnam War. These people are now immortalized in history curricula across the country. So, while young people have always had an important voice and been catalysts for social change, the digital age has given us a new powerful tool that has changed the way we approach activism: social media.

Activist Greta Thunberg has had a massive impact on the fight against climate change.

Named Time’s Person of the Year, her popularity is indisputable. Thunberg has set herself apart in the climate change movement in that her activism is mostly driven by social media. Her rise to fame began when images of her protesting alone outside of the Swedish Parliament went viral. Later, as she became the face of the climate movement, her frank, to-the-point speaking style combined with her meme-worthy facial expressions caused her to have many other viral moments (for example, the image of her glaring at President Trump at the UN climate summit as

Young people have always been an important voice and catalyst for social change.

However, the digital age has given us a new, powerful tool that has changed the way we approach activism: social media. well as her fiery criticism of world leaders during her speech). Being a member of Generation Z, Thunberg has grown up with social media, and she knows how to use it effectively. Thunberg has been attacked publicly by many world leaders, but she always claps back in a way that makes her response get more attention from the media than the initial insult. She simply changes her Twitter bio.

The example of Greta Thunberg and her leadership in the Global Climate Strike, as well as other large-scale movements such as the March for Our Lives and the Women’s March, would seem to suggest that social media has been incredibly beneficial to social movements because it allows them to disseminate their message to so many more people and coordinate events on national or even global scales.

There are some who believe that social media is not changing activism for the better. The criticism mostly is against those who participate in what has been termed “slacktivism,” which is when people post on social media about issues but do not make the extra effort of protesting in person. However, the argument that social media is somehow lowering people’s incentive to protest in person seems flawed, especially in light of recent global and national movements that have only been possible because of social media. Actually, social media allows small groups to organize large numbers of people in

a way that commands the attention of the news media and politicians.

Social media is particularly important for marginalized groups. According to a Pew Research poll, “Certain groups of social media users—most notably, those who are black or Hispanic—view these platforms as an especially important tool for their own political engagement. For example, roughly half of black social media users say these platforms are at least somewhat personally important to them as a venue for expressing their political views or for getting involved with issues that are important to them. Those shares fall to around a third among white social media users.” The ability of social media to amplify an individual’s voice is empowering, and it is a place where the forces that silence people in everyday life do not apply. Also, I do not agree with the idea that only in-person protests are effective at creating change. While protests and strikes have their purpose, the social media post is an effective and impactful form of activism in and of itself. A political post from a celebrity, or even a 2:00 A.M. tweet from our president, is always considered interesting and newsworthy.

Social media has fundamentally changed the way activism is being conducted in the modern age. Young people are at the forefront of that change, having grown up with the technology and having the skill to use it effectively. Social media will continue to inspire large-scale movements across the globe. At present, politicians are forced to respond at least verbally to these movements when they occur, but it remains to be seen whether those words will be translated into concrete policy action.

Malar Muthukumar ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at malar.muthukumar@wustl.edu.

15

Nkemjika Emenike Design by Jinny Park, assistant design director Crumpled papers thrown into trashcans located in Awkward middle school classrooms Or noisy cafeterias Or anywhere you go, and every time you do it All while we shout his name At eighteen years With the number 8 stitched in purple The youngest person to ever start an NBA game And one year later The youngest to be on an All-Star team Age is a funny thing You get praised for doing it young Winning and succeeding and living your dream Doing it while you’re young But the praise takes a solemn tone when it comes in the form of eulogy If one asked you when you thought you would die I doubt many of us would give the answer forty-one years old And I guess if we were given the choice If we knew We’d be more prepared for people to leave us

When I think of age I think of milestones. For me, eighteen was the year that marked when I could vote in political elections. The twenty-first birthday is filled to the brim with champagne and late-night mistakes. Thirty is when it becomes socially acceptable to have your first mid-life crisis.

And sixty-five is when tickets to the movies become cheap again. For Kobe Bryant, it seemed like every age brought something greater than the age before it and something different than what that age would bring for most Americans. While most of us at eighteen were starting our first years of college or taking gap years, Kobe stepped into the realm of professional basketball playing for the Los Angeles Lakers.

As someone from Los Angeles, a city that had already suffered the loss of local legend Nipsey Hussle in 2019, the pain that tore through me and my fellow Los Angeles natives was unspeakable when we lost Kobe Bryant. At age thirty most of us will have just started in our careers; Kobe Bryant was at the height of his. At age sixty-five many of us will be retired, travelling, spending time with family and grandkids; Kobe Bryant will never have that chance. He did everything right; he worked hard, was a good father, and stood by our city and team.

He served as a role model for so many black boys and girls by serving as the epitome of success for black America. Kobe symbolized pride, confidence, determination—proving wrong time and time again anyone who doubted him. The importance of Kobe Bryant’s presence in black culture, American culture, and the basketball community was and continues to be immense.

But there are no words to describe the importance of his presence to his family, to his wife and to his daughters. His retirement from the NBA in 2016 was sad for the city, but he had done so much for Los Angeles that it wasn’t the type of sadness that was tinged with anger aimed at the fact that Kobe wasn’t going to play anymore. Rather, it was a sadness based on how much we were going to miss watching him play, coupled with a gratefulness that we got to see him play for as long as we did.

The impact that Kobe Bryant has had on not just the basketball community, but the entire world, is remarkable. There is currently a petition going around to change the NBA logo to a silhouette of Kobe Bryant. There is increasing demand for all NBA teams to retire the numbers 8 and 24 as a form of respect for Kobe’s legacy. The outpouring of love from other basketball players, fans, and America as a whole is truly telling of the man that Kobe Bryant was, and the memory of him that will persist in years to come. Kobe Bryant’s life was cut too short, in a way that words still cannot describe. As I and many others try to grapple with the reality of his passing, I keep my thoughts with those who loved him dearly and can no longer hold him close.

He died twenty-six days into the new decade And suddenly the world stopped turning I thought it was a hoax I think most of us did Or at least Most of us hoped Age is a funny thing When you’re constantly told to not rush To take your time in life When it's moments like these that serve to remind you that life isn’t that long at all But To have accomplished so much To have touched as many people To have inspired a generation To have lifted a city To have impacted a culture To have shaken a nation All at the age of forty-one years old Is a truly ageless life Nkemjika Emenike '23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences.

She can be reached at nemenike@wustl.edu.

WU Political Review

TikTok Takeover Sophia Conroy

“T

ikTok is the first thing that’s actually made me feel old,” a friend recently said to me, and I couldn’t help but agree. In the two years since its release, Tik Tok has become a viral sensation. It was the thirdmost downloaded app of 2019, surpassing Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat.

Vox called it “the defining social media app of Gen Z.” The app has been downloaded over 1.5 billion times worldwide, and at least 122 million times in the US. Given its rapid rise to fame, many wonder whether TikTok will replace other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.

Could a never-ending stream of one-minute video clips become the future of social media?

With the emergence of new apps and technology, social media use has shifted remarkably from one generation to the next. Not only do different generations vary in their usage of social media, but there is also a discrepancy among which platforms they access. For example, 96% of “Baby Boomers,” ages 56 to 74, use Facebook at least once a week, compared to only 36% of Generation Z, those born after 1995. One explanation is the emergence of new platforms that are more accessible to teens. In 2016, Snapchat surpassed Facebook as the most popular social network among US teens and it is predicted to grow among the 12 to 17 year-old demographic while Facebook continues to lose the teenage audience. As one article explains, “When Millennials were teenagers, social media was a place to check out what their friends were up to and update their status, for Gen Z, social media is a place for entertainment.” And if entertainment is what the younger generation is looking for, apps like Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, and

Could a never-ending stream of one-minute video clips become the future of social media?

18

It sounds like a bad dystopian novel: an endless stream of videos potentially being censored by the Chinese government and disseminated among the generation of the future.

TikTok are where to find it.

Because of this generational shift towards entertainment, it makes perfect sense that TikTok has been so successful among Gen Z—teens were their target audience all along. Everything about the platform caters to the entertainment-obsessed generation, intentionally pulling them in and making it easy to spend hours on the app. The home page of the app, “For You,” is an infinite, algorithm-based feed of video clips based on viewing history. This page eliminates the need to follow other people—instead, TikTok chooses content for you, and you’ll probably like it. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, and even Vine, on which you selectively follow people, Tik Tok is simple. It asks nothing of the user. In the words of Ankur Thakkar, the former editorial lead at Vine, “Apparently [to get people to engage] you just … show them things, and let a powerful artificial intelligence take notes.”

Furthermore, the “For You” page is unlimited.

To quote a recent New York Times article, “Stimulation is constant…The pool of content is enormous. Most of it is meaningless.”

But it’s possible that meaningful content, when it is produced, is being hidden from feeds or even deleted.

The concerning truth is that TikTok, the social media of the future, has a censoring problem.

In September, The Guardian published TikTok’s internal company guidelines instructing moderators to “ban videos and topics in line with Chinese-government censorship policies. This censorship is visible— for example, a search for #HongKongProtests on Twitter brings up an endless stream of results, while the same search on TikTok has only 9 posts. When called out for this discrepancy, TikTok justified the censorship by characterizing TikTok as “a place for entertainment, not politics,” and then outright denying that it censors political content.

However, there is more evidence to the contrary.

When seventeen year-old Feroza Aziz posted a clip criticizing China's persecution of Uygher Muslims in November, the app suspended her account in response. Furthermore, some of the content considered to be a violation of company guidelines is marked as “visible to self,” and limited in feeds but not outright deleted, making it impossible to know what how much content is being censored.

Given TikTok's influence as a growing social media platform, its policy of censorship has concerning ramifications. According to the Washington Post, “app experts believe it could grow into a formidable part of Americans’ online information food chain — much in the same way that Facebook, founded as an app for college students, transformed the arenas of news, politics and misinformation.” Could this app be, as the Washington Post suggests, “one of China’s most effective weapons in the global information war?” It sounds like a bad dystopian novel: an endless stream of videos potentially being censored by the Chinese government and disseminated to young people worldwide. But it’s real, and it’s here. What are we going to do about it?

Sophia Conroy ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at s.conroy@wustl.edu.

Age

Adulting Is Hard Frances Wu

A

s I’m scrolling endlessly on the timeline on whichever social media platform at 2:00 A.M., I’ll surely occasionally come across the phrase: “I’m finally adulting!” or alternatively, a twenty-something desperately scrambling to solve some comically mundane problem pleading that they “need a real adult!”

But what does it actually mean to be an adult?

Legally, we become adults at the ripe old age of eighteen, and for the next two years we have to grapple with the pains of newfound responsibility while still being teenagers. Really, though, what changes when we turn eighteen? I’m nineteen, but I’m completely reliant on my parents or other guardians for the vast majority of my life. I can vote, and I can die for my country, but I can neither drink nor rent a car. I can’t pay my own tuition, and my focus right now is still my education rather than finding a job and supporting myself. I’m lucky enough to still be in school, in a familiar environment, but not much has changed since I was seventeen and packing my bags for college. Realistically, it seems like we gain much more freedom at sixteen, if we are lucky enough to have a car and a driver’s license. We have the freedom to go where we want regardless of whether our parents permit it or not. In a sense, driving is America’s coming-of-age tradition, part one of a multi-step process of “adulting.”

But these milestones don’t make sense and are completely arbitrary. At sixteen, why am I old enough to drive a car every day—one of the most dangerous things we are exposed to in our normal lives—but not old enough to have a voice in choosing our nation’s leadership and the policies they’ll pass that will undoubtedly affect my life? At eighteen, how can I be old enough to make the decision to enlist and potentially die thousands of miles away from home, but not old

But, what does it actually mean to be an adult?

The biggest difference I faced turning eighteen is that older adults (more “adult” adults) pushed the responsibilities of adulthood onto me and took them away as they pleased. enough to drink? Why, when I am legally of age, are certain privileges still unavailable to me? If we can’t drink until we turn 21 because we worry about our developing brains, why does society consider us adults at eighteen when our minds aren’t matured yet? We just collectively agree on these ages to be milestones for unknown and unexplainable reasons.

adults do real adult things, like marrying, having kids, owning a house, and being able to construct IKEA furniture, among other examples. We have completely internalized this perfect conception of what every actual grown-up should be able to do, never mind that finding anyone this put-together is impossible. “Adulthood” is a collective figment of imagination, but its impacts aren’t. It created the meme of “adulting,” where people celebrate instances of good decision-making or productivity and label it as such. On a less lighthearted note, it has created real pressure for late-teens and twenty-somethings, where we always need to look put together and worry about falling behind. No one knows what they’re doing when they reach these milestones, and that should be okay. Our lives do not need to come together like a perfectly crafted puzzle when we are at the ripe old age of 25 The lack of a solid definition for what “adulting” means culturally has caused us to come up with one, for better or for worse. But we stress too much on processes of getting there, and what to do once we suddenly find ourselves thrust into the shoes of responsibility. Adulthood isn’t a choice—it’s a lifestyle, and we all will just have to deal with it the best way we can.

The biggest difference I faced turning eighteen is that older adults (more “adult” adults) pushed the responsibilities of adulthood onto me and took them away as they pleased.

We’re told that we need to take responsibility and be self-reliant, but we’re too young and lack enough experience to get hired. We need to start thinking for ourselves, but we’re naïve and foolish if we’re too radical in our ideas. We need to grow up, but youth is a virtue! These hypocritical messages tell me and others that our “adulthood” is infeasible. Society constantly challenges or ignores our validity. We grow up but we aren’t real adults, even by our own admission. But what are “real adults?”

Real adults, as we like to call them, are an ambiguous colloquial term employed by those who passed the legal age but do not consider themselves responsible enough for adulthood. Real

Frances Wu ‘22 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at frances.w.wu@wustl. edu.

19

WU Political Review

Inside the Mind of a Young, Angry Leftist Benjamin de Jonge Artwork (right) by Shonali Palacios

T

he status quo has shifted dramatically over the past four or five decades to one where inequality is rampant but ignored.

Illegal wars are declared and immeasurable lives are lost but are dismissed for the sake of ‘national security.’ The destruction of our planet remains on most governments’ peripheries despite fires encroaching on backyards. Undoubtedly, if we were to step out of our ivory towers, we would see that the world is in shambles. Given this, to me and many others, the older generation’s dismissive attitude towards our cries for a remedy is infuriating.

Increasingly, young activists have either had the awareness to look beyond their privilege and recognize the problems plaguing the world or been directly harmed by them. For instance, Greta Thunberg champions the international movement against climate change. Malala Yousafzai defies the Taliban through her advocacy for female education. Many of the Parkland survivors challenged the National Rifle Association when numerous adults wouldn’t. Young people have picked the torch up off the ground where our preceding generations left it smoldering.

They haven’t done so because they like the attention or the power that being a prominent figure has given them. They have done so because they must. It is in no way the youth’s responsibility to lead the world, yet in many instances that duty falls on us due to the failure of the ruling class.

Our leaders have shown a sincere lack of leadership, courage, and commitment to ideas, unlike many of these young reformers. Thunberg’s recent speech at the United Nations epitomized this frustration when she lambasted the world’s ruling class and declared that “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words… People are suffering. People are dying…

How dare you.” Greta’s tone is full of fury, and it’s justified. The state of the world compared to its rate of change is far too underwhelming to take the backseat and trust the status quo.

20

Greta’s anger is paralleled in the American left, many of whose members are similarly as young.

Just as Thunberg’s anger is dismissed as radical posturing from a child that doesn’t know better, Bernie Sanders supporters are characterized as ‘toxic,’ ‘nasty,’ and ‘naïve’ in order to discredit their message. In truth, many of the most outspoken supporters of Sanders are toxic and nasty to political opponents, but are far from naïve. Given the level of oppression and neglect felt by much of the working class, as well as the older generation’s general apathy towards such oppression and neglect, this attitude is more than understandable.

Interestingly, this group of infuriated leftists feels a lot, and perhaps a majority, of its outwards animosity towards members of their own political party. This hasn’t always been the case though.

Since the disenfranchisement of Southern Democrats in the election of 1960, there were decades of relative unity among the Democrats.

More recently, Obama offered someone to rally around to combat the destructive legacy of the Bush administration. However, Obama fell flat on his progressive promise, which enabled a certain Vermont Senator to build a movement demanding more substantial change. The claustrophobic nature of our two-party system opened the door for this disagreement among partisans. The Democratic party is growing a class-conscious tumor that threatens to destroy its modern conception. This party is characterized no longer as a platform but instead as an amalgam of non-Trumpian politicians. The result of this has been an especially tumultuous primary season. The presidential primary’s obviously combative nature can be extended to a lot of the more invisible congressional and local elections. Bernie’s relative success in 2016 and the elections of young progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar in 2018 have motivated many to challenge the Democratic Party establishment.

Even Nancy Pelosi’s seat is being challenged this

election cycle by Shahid Buttar, who has been no stranger to calling out Pelosi’s conservative positions. This revolt from the Democratic Left isn’t just some power grab either. These leftist candidates are tired of being unrewarded for their support of the supposed left wing of the United States. The Democratic establishment’s inaction over the decades has posited young people to rage and rebellion. Akin to activists such as Thunberg and Yousafzai, young people aren’t becoming active or prominent for personal advancement, but instead because of an inability of the center left to challenge the strong and mobilized right. It should be no surprise, then, that almost all of these far-left challengers constitute a young and diverse group. By virtue of their youth, they feel no allegiance to the Clintons, Bidens, and Pelosis of the world. Many politicians’ prestige comes from before we were even born, and thus warrants little respect. Just as the old dismiss the young as inexperienced, the young dismiss the old for their experience.

This anger is compounded when moderate Democrats pretend that they do represent the left’s interests. For young people to be so engaged and involved only to have people like Joe Biden pretend that he has “the most progressive record” among the presidential hopefuls overestimates our gullibility. Elites such as Biden notice the wind changing and are attempting to capitalize on its growing popularity. Democrats opposed gay marriage while it was unpopular only to co-opt the movement as it became more favorable to seem more progressive. Our elected officials should be enacting change, not responding to it.

It appears most people running for president are far detached from the problems many endure, such as inadequate health care, gross inequality, and a broken criminal justice system. And the consequences of not acknowledging this detachment are severe. For one, the United States has been at war for nearly my entire life.

Age

When people were complacent about which Democrats they let win primaries in the early 2000’s, we got Hillary Clintons and Joe Bidens that stood in Congress giving fervent commitment to the president’s unlawful war in Iraq—a war which has directly killed a minimum of hundreds of thousands of civilians. To make matters more frustrating, the architects of this unjust war, figures like George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Dick Cheney, are celebrated as doing the honorable job of public service to this great nation and now get to be cheered on Ellen’s show. And this is just one single event.

Even within the subject of American empire and imperialism, we haven’t mentioned all the other post-World War II wars we have instigated. Politics up until recent years has grown acclimated to apathy about our leader’s actions and the system they have become complicit in.

But the anger at fence-sitting and bipartisanship with war criminals goes much farther, whether it be directed at needless deaths from not being able to afford life-saving drugs or treatments, displacement from global warming, excruciating inequality from the billionaire class as well as neoliberal exploitation of the Global South, police violence, mass shootings—the list goes on.

Obama, the ever-romanticized hero of the Democratic Party, is often fawned over in misguided nostalgia, despite never directly confronting a lot of these foundational problems.

Yes, he was undoubtedly better than Trump. He made decent progress in areas such as healthcare and the environment. However, it should be noted that he was not the champion of progressive values he had promised to be. His presidency began with a bailout of Wall Street and an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts. Obama also created an inhumane drone program that has killed thousands of civilians, also establishing a precedent for increased usage under the Trump administration. Moreover, Obama very aggressively deported undocumented immigrants. He

even said in a 2012 interview that “in the 1980’s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”

He is saying, quite explicitly, what leftists believe. Often, it feels like we don’t truly live in a two-party state. We live in a one-party state that likes to take sides and play politics for fun. That’s why individuals like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t even consider themselves in the same party as people like Nancy Pelosi if we lived in a multi-party country. The Democrats represent such little deviation from the status quo that from a ‘radical’ point of view, the difference between Republicans and Democrats, while it does exist, hardly feels substantial.

And when dissent does occur within the ranks of the Democratic Party, it faces a constant uphill battle. There is an obvious standard and decorum to politics that is afraid of being usurped by a new generation of voters. This is all too obvious with rule changes such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee stating that it “will not conduct business with…any consultant that works with an opponent of a sitting Member of the House Democratic Caucus.”

What’s more is that several DNC elites have floated the idea of reestablishing the role of the superdelegates in the first round of voting at the Democratic Convention so try and subvert Bernie Sanders’ momentum. The Democratic establishment is scared by the growing wave of dissidents within its party and aims to utilize the two-party system to force new voices into a disadvantageous position. If you want to change anything, you must take on those who still cling to power.

Like Thunberg said, “People are dying,” and presidential hopefuls have the gall to say that we can’t do anything bold. From their ivory towers, they can’t make out the death and suffering that their inaction is responsible for. It isn’t a choice.

There is no room for political calculation. There is only the moral necessity to do something drastic and uproot this murderous foundation that has plagued my short life.

Benjamin de Jonge ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at bdejonge@wustl. edu.

21

MAY 2014 #yesallwomen launches conversation between women about their experiences with sexism and sexual harassment. within 4 days #yesallwomen was used 1.2 million times

OCT 5, 2017 NYT prints first allegations against film executive Harvey Weinstein

OCT 15, 2017 Alyssa Milano's original #MeToo tweet

DARIA LOCHER Design by Leslie Liu, ASSISTANT DESIGN DIRECTOR

We find ourselves in the midst of the

this hashtag would simply give people

assortment of communities than any

dozens of allegations of sexual mis-

wouldn’t gain traction through measur-

to a Bustle article by JR Thorpe. In the

Harvey Weinstein trial, stemming from

transient “hope and inspiration” and

conduct and ultimately producing five

able action off Twitter. The world saw

years, these women, and many more

enthusiasm shown in the ALS Ice Buck-

counts of criminal sexual abuse. For

survivors, silently harbored these criminal acts taken against them. That is,

this in 2014 with the viral but surface et Challenge.

until October 2017 opened a floodgate

At the time, neither #metoo’s architect

words that began a remarkable, yet

tributor Abby Ohlheiser could fathom

with the viral hashtag #MeToo—two harrowing, movement.

On October 19, 2017, Chicago Tribune published an article written by Abby Ohlheiser discussing how “#MeToo, the

Tarana Burke nor Chicago Tribune conthis longstanding, continuously grow-

ing movement that is changing laws and taking down predatory men two and a half years later.

viral hashtag, seemed to gain traction

#MeToo showed that this incredibly iso-

it brought new meaning to an important

event of people’s life stories was an ex-

as if by magic. It appeared, it spread, issue, and in a week, it will no longer be news.” This was how Twitter hashtags demanding social change usually ended (a notable further exception being #blacklivesmatter).

So, why else

would this movement be any different?

Even Tarana Burke, the original coiner of the term “me too,” predicted that

viral hashtag ever before, according first 24 hours, twelve million posts and

comments from 85 countries revolved around this topic. Fast forward one year

later and Pew’s research found that the hashtag #MeToo had been used more

than 19 million times on Twitter. Twitter users were naming their abusers in the hopes of destroying their careers so they couldn’t take advantage of anyone else ever again. This movement— still going on today—started as a viral

digital trend, but its effects have been acute and long-lasting.

lating, violating, and often most private

Now, let me introduce you to the idea

perience shared by millions. Statistics

path that develops across the grass in

from the Pew Research Center indicate that half a million people replied to the original #MeToo tweet within 24 hours;

over 1.7 million tweets came out within

45 days. On Facebook, 45% of American users had a friend who posted #MeToo—coming from a more diverse

of a “desire path.” This is the type of Mudd Field because inefficient paved walkways don’t account for running to

class from the DUC to Bauer. Wikipedia

defines it as the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin

and destination. 99% Invisible writer, Kurt Kohlstedt, explains that “informal

within 45 days: 1.7 million associated tweets

OCT 19, 2017 Chicago Tribune article by Abby Ohleiser about #MeToo

45% American Facebook users see a friend post about #MeToo

within a year: #MeToo used more than 19 million times on Twitter

within 24 hrs: half a million replies

beyond the US, international movements in 85 countries have used and translated #MeToo

in the first 24 hrs: 12 million posts and comments from 85 countries about #MeToo

‘desire paths’ can form with as few as

Sometimes people try to block desire

ganically using them.

creating spontaneous new trails shaped

Field in the spring) but often these in-

Now, the hashtag is an example of

fifteen traversals of an unpaved route, by pedestrians effectively voting with their feet.” This voting could indicate

that the official path isn’t the quickest or most pleasant route, or that regional

superstitions keep people from following it. In Europe and the Middle East, semi-subterranean routes have formed

over hundreds or even thousands of

years with individual footfalls pushing down earth ever so slightly as to sink a frequented trail into the ground.

In this age of social media, desire paths

having similarly deep impact can develop without footfall and over the course

of a single night. A a tweet or hashtag like #MeToo going viral follows the same trajectory that causes oft-used

stone staircases to have dips in the middle from centuries of footfalls. This is a result of rational choice theory—

the idea that individual choices made

by discrete individuals amass to define societal behavior.

paths (think: the fences around Mudd terventions result in additional, replace-

ment desire paths (think: the well-worn

paths around the fences on Mudd Field in the spring). This blockage of desire

paths is often a safety intervention, keeping

pedestrians

within

security

camera coverage or making sure foot-

paths in state forests are staying on stable ground. Other times, administrators

validate desire paths. In Finland, city planners take note of the lines people’s

footfalls make after the first snow, when formal paths are not visible, to make

Finnish parks more responsive to pedestrian behavior. Michigan State University, Virginia Tech, UC Berkeley, and even

Central Park in Manhattan paved their

walking paths based on desire paths. In

fact, the hashtag #MeToo could not have existed without an earlier virtual desire path: as a 2014 podcast episode of 99%

Invisible explains, hashtags and @-signs were incorporated officially in 2007 only

after Twitter saw its user community or-

what scholar Laura Nichols calls a “social desire path”—a trend that emerg-

es when formal structures fall short of

individual or group needs. Similar to physical desire paths, people are of-

ten neither consciously nor collectively protesting. Rather they organically ful-

fill their personal needs in a patterned way that is then repeated by others.

This fulfillment of needs is on a micro

level: individuals analyze the oppor-

tunities available to them and, finding them inadequate, follow an available alternative. Nichols identifies an addi-

tional characteristic shared by all social desire paths: they often conflict formal structures in a way that causes issues

for the continuation of the status quo.

The continuation of the status quo in this situation was the continued acceptance that sexual harassment and other

abuses were acceptable and expected in the workplace.

So, how did #MeToo’s social desire

81 for three to ten years for his sex-

Men of (Her) Life”—and by far not the

rana Burke coined the phrase "Me Too"

losing their jobs and livelihoods when

uals speaking up in the most publicized

path begin? It was in 2006, when Ta-

as a way to help women of color who had survived sexual violence. It didn’t

go viral immediately, but the first foot-

ual crimes, and countless executives faced with the consequences of their previously endured sexual misconduct.

steps had now forged the path. In 2014,

#MeToo has given a voice to the si-

between women about their experienc-

that it can’t fade from the public’s con-

#yesallwomen began the conversation es with sexism and sexual harassment, as explained by a 2017 CBS news article. At the time, Twitter had fewer us-

ers, and still the hashtag was used 1.2 million times over the course of its viral four days.

But this path wasn’t going to be left un-trampled:

actress

Alyssa

Milano

blazed the trail when she tweeted "If

you've been sexually harassed or as-

saulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet”. That was October 15, 2017, ten

days after The New York Times printed the first allegations against film executive Harvey Weinstein. Google search-

es for the definition of sexual assault, harassment, and specifically workplace harassment, began growing, as Thorpe explains in her Bustle article.

Days later, Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney tweeted about her sexual as-

sault by doctor Lawrence Nassar. And

fast-forward two months, Time Maga-

zine named “Silence Breakers” as the

advantage of them is not uncommon.

lation has been passed in Washington,

Illinois, New York, and more states as a direct result of this movement. One tweet—“If you've been sexually ha-

rassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet”—was one of the

first step of the millions who brought

this movement to fruition. Tarana Burke was wrong: people took the steps past

Twitter to make the movement stick

and establish institutional change. Beyond the United States, international movements in 85 countries have used and translated the hashtag. In June

2019, Reuters announced that a treaty explicitly against workplace violence

and harassment was adopted by the International Labor Organization. Beyond

ment movement Times Up. At this point, the status quo was not going to cut it —this movement had become too influ-

ential. However, there were highs and lows, such as when the Senate Judicia-

ry Committee dismissed sexual assault

allegations against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The modest triumphs were equally well-publicized:

Bill Cosby being sentenced at age

ries of hideous people who’ve taken #MeToo began by giving people the platform to compare their experiences and their lists. The movement re-

vealed the alarming extent to which

people are sexually assaulted and the numerous times perpetuators have re-

peated these acts of sexual violence.

Now the world knows: #Metoo created

the legal framework, social awareness,

and conversation that the paved path

lacked. One by one, people stepped off the path, following the footprints

of Tarana Burke and Alyssa Milano. A stampede of brave individuals ensued overnight. And now, a newly paved

walkway stands where there was once only a desire.

decrees, though, a sexual harassment case against the mayor of Brus, Serbia, resulted in a trial and his resignation

from office. His accuser, Marija Lukic, was highlighted in a Balkan Insight article describing the “Heroes of 2019.”

Donald Trump had forced himself on

came together to create the anti-harass-

son’s, as well.

sciousness. Across the country, legis-

up about sexual misconduct and began 2018, hundreds of women in Hollywood

eous person is probably another per-

This concept of a person having a se-

On June 27, 2019, Elizabeth Jean Car-

this global conversation. At the turn of

trials show that one person’s most hid-

lenced; it has progressed to a point

2017 Person of the Year. This represented all the women and men who spoke

worst. However, the numerous individ-

roll reported to the New York Times that her in the 1990s. In a June 2019 inter-

view with the podcast The Daily’s host Michael Barbaro, she explained why

she chose to not speak up earlier. In a counternarrative to previous #MeToo stories, she worried that going public about her experience during the 2016

presidential election campaign season would help Donald Trump’s campaign since it would make “Mr. Trump appear strong in the eyes of his supporters.”

Additionally, he was simply one of many

in a long series of “The Most Hideous

Daria Locher ’20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at daria.locher@wustl.edu.

Age

Artwork by Merry May Ma, staff artist

25

WU Political Review

Our Country’s Medicare Crisis Hannah Richardson

A

ging: an inevitable process that is happening to each and every one of us as we are reading this very sentence. There is no way to stop the march of time, but there are definitely many actions our country and our government could be taking to help care for those who are elderly and of age, especially those with serious illnesses.

I want you to take a second and imagine your loved one, 65-years-old and suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease or one of the many other common forms of dementia. This is an aroundthe-clock disease that requires 24/7 watch, and your loved one is on Medicare—which sadly barely scratches the surface of what adequate support and care should look like. This is dolefully the reality for the approximately 5.8 million Americans suffering from Alzheimer’ disease and dementia.

This lack of acceptable and accessible healthcare within the Alzheimer’s community is manifested in many ways. For instance, one woman who was 55-years-old and was on Medicare, was denied hospice care three separate times in the last year of her life for the sole reason that she was able to continually walk, and when diagnosed with dementia, if ambulatory, hospice is off the table. Her daughter showed the extremity of the illness with personal food logs, but it was too late; she died nine days after she was approved.

Another woman was a resident of an overworked and derelict dementia ward, and she forgot how to brush her own teeth. Dental care was not provided under her Medicare plan. The workers in this less than sufficient dementia ward did not help her with this, and she therefore suffered from extreme gingivitis and continued to suffer in pain and with diseased gums until she passed away. I could continue to tell you horror story after horror story of everyday American citizens being wrongfully treated and cared for under the current US Medicare system, but that would turn this short article into an entire anthology of books.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association,

26

This is a huge step for those in the Alzheimer’s community, but there is still so much to be done for those who are fighting the ticking clock of time. every 65 seconds an American citizen is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, and the death rate associated with this disease has increased by a whopping 145% from 2000 to 2017. The Alzheimer’s Association has also claimed that in 2019, Alzheimer’s cost the United States 290 billion dollars, and by 2050 this number is expected to increase to 1.1 trillion. With the intricacy of care patients with dementia or Alzheimer’s require, this disease is beginning to cause a national healthcare crisis, and it cannot be ignored any longer by the US government or spotlight politicians.

Our aging citizens who are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia are not being properly covered and taken care of under the current Medicare legislation, and drastic reformation is needed.

Under Medicare right now, Alzheimer’s patients are eligible for only 100 days of in-home skilled nursing care. Alzheimer’s is not a 100-day-disease. It is a grueling and long-lasting process that can span anywhere from two to twenty years. Much more than 100 days if you ask me.

Patients are also eligible for in-home or inpatient hospice care if and only if they have been determined by a doctor to be near the end of life. This is ridiculous and inhumane. Under current Medicare, patients can also have some of their hospital and doctor appointments, and

sometimes medications covered, but again, it barely scratches the surface of what is adequately considered “care.”

This Medicare coverage is extremely inadequate, but it is even more dire for people who face early-onset Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

Being diagnosed typically before the age of 50 but experiencing the same exact symptoms, and sometimes even more aggressive forms of common symptoms, these people do not qualify for Medicare—causing them to have even less coverage and care when it comes to medication, caregivers, and doctors’ visits. In Congress right now, a new piece of legislation has been introduced. It is titled the “YoungerOnset Alzheimer’s Disease Act,” and it would allow people under the age of 60 diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia to receive the benefits of programs and aid directed towards those with the disease. This is a huge step for those in the Alzheimer’s community, but there is still so much to be done for those who are fighting the ticking clock of time.

Our government needs to reassess and reallocate more funding towards our country’s current Medicare and healthcare programs, because as of right now, it is ineffective and inept. With the popular call for healthcare reform in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, what needs to come is a major improvement of Medicare and how it aids those who suffer from extreme and incurable diseases. By ignoring this issue and brushing it under the rug, as many of our incumbent politicians are doing right now, we are essentially leaving our own citizens behind to die.

Hannah Richardson ‘ 23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at hrichardson@ wustl.edu.

National

No More Malarkey: Ditch Biden’s Candidacy Jaden Lanza, staff editor

W

e are at a crossroads in American politics at which the country will determine its future trajectory. There is, of course, the general election in November in which Democrats will angle to unseat incumbent President Donald Trump. But before then is an electoral contest of perhaps equal consequence—the Democratic primaries. Whoever the nominee is in 2020 will have enormous power over the future of the party’s politics, and whether that means democratic socialism triumphs or if the establishment will continue to quash all challengers.

The face of the old Democratic establishment in this race is Joe Biden. A prospective Biden nomination, whether or not he goes on to win the general election, would be disastrous for several reasons. The choice of Biden is a choice for the same age-old establishment brand of politics that is precisely what got us a Trump presidency in the first place. Frequently forgotten is that powerful Democratic party leaders such as Biden have led the charge on regressive policies.

It’s extremely worrying that Biden has led the primary field thus far despite having perhaps the most alarming record of all the candidates.

Biden’s long history of dealings and legislative achievements in the Senate are unforgivable, and his consistent record of engaging in corrupt or immoral actions and then lying about doing them are deal-breakers. His worst, most glaring mistakes include cooperating on legislation with segregationists, architecting the devastating 1994 Crime Bill, and voting for the Iraq War. These were not minor mistakes or actions Biden was forced into; he celebrated the provisions of the crime bill with glee, according to Vox writer German Lopez: “Biden reveled in the politics of the 1994 law, bragging after it passed that ‘the liberal wing of the Democratic Party’ was now for ‘60 new death penalties,’ ‘70 enhanced penalties,’ ‘100,000 cops,’ and ‘125,000 new state

prison cells.’” He frequently called for tougher laws on violent drug crimes along with longer sentencing, contributing to mass incarceration’s racialized expansion across the country.

Biden’s record on criminal justice only scratches the surface of his problematic stances but is useful to illustrate why he’s so untrustworthy, and why nominating him would be dangerous.

His response to criticism of the bill was simply that most prisoners are not in federal prisons, but this doesn’t change anything whatsoever about the heartless and reprehensive rhetoric he joyfully peddled in for political gain.

As of the time this was written, the likely alternative for the nomination is Bernie Sanders. For those with qualms about Sanders, he is nonetheless unquestionably superior to Biden in conscience and consistency. Biden is a man who stands for nothing and is quite likely to flounder in a matchup against Donald Trump given his gaffe-filled, deleterious campaign that is only showing more cracks as time goes by. Biden frequently fails to answer basic questions, and when he does answer, he’s made it crystal clear that he won’t “fundamentally change” anything from the Obama presidency—and in fact, has “no empathy” for struggling young voters at all.

There is not a solitary part of Biden’s candidacy that inspires any confidence.

neoliberal elites. A Biden presidency would merely result in more Bush-style tax cuts like under Obama, inequality will continue to widen, endless American wars will proceed interminably, and far too little will be done to tackle climate change. If current Democratic leadership is willing to fast-track conservative judicial appointments to the federal courts, vote for historically large military budgets, and rubber stamp Trump’s USMCA trade deal that fixes virtually nothing wrong with NAFTA, just imagine what a similarly hawkish Biden administration would pass.

In comparison, Bernie Sanders has spent the last four decades fighting the forces that decimated the working class. Wars, tax and social welfare cuts, and anti-labor trade agreements have devastated countless communities, but Sanders has consistently fought for the welfare of regular working people. Love him or hate him, there must be no equivocation among progressives that Bernie Sanders is far preferable to Joe Biden.

To be a bystander in this decision is not only reticent but criminally so. After the Iowa Caucuses, Sanders holds a tentative lead in almost every state; this is the chance to ditch the nefarious predilections of Biden and his campaign. We should take that chance.

Biden’s slogan ‘No Malarkey’ is an empty promise. In fact, it’s hard to find another national Democratic politician with more malarkey.

If you believe in pushing for real change—in ending disastrous wars engineered by the military-industrial complex, in fostering racial and economic justice, then Joe Biden is not your candidate.

The grotesque levels of inequality and despair in the world today is a tragedy. Biden has helped advance the forces responsible for decades, cooperating with racist demagogues and

Jaden A. Lanza ‘23 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at jadenlanza@wustl. edu.

27

WU Political Review

Knocking Down the House Rohan Palacios staff editor

W

ith the 2020 presidential campaign well underway, many students are following electoral storylines closely, engaging in Twitter wars, and even volunteering their time. Perhaps lost in the desire to connect to the national political moment are the multitude of opportunities to get involved in our community. A number of Wash U students have ambitions to get involved in politics and activism, but pathways offered or marketed at Wash U are very limited, skewing towards big campaigns and think tanks rather than local politics or grassroots organizations. Part of the responsibility to diversify political engagement lies with groups like the Gephardt Institute or Career Center. However, the onus is also on students step outside their comfort zones and take advantage of the many available opportunities. I talked to Jessie Thornton ’19 to learn about how working on Cori Bush’s grassroots congressional campaign here in St. Louis has inspired her development as an activist.

How is this campaign different from what people might imagine a political campaign to be?

Jessie Thornton: In popular media and imagination, [campaigning] is a lot of browbeating supervisors and control freak policy wonks. It’s a lot of white men. It’s a lot of the candidate’s ego. That could not be farther from my experience with Cori. I met Cori for the first time at a presidential debate watch party. I was completely starstruck. I told her about my interests, and she said “Great, can I sit down with you for a couple of hours? I want to hear more about what you care about.” I was stunned. That was so different from the ego-driven image of politicians and candidates that I had held. Immediately they onboarded me to help with town halls and they’ve remained very transparent with me and with all volunteers, which I think is an integral part of the campaign.

What is your role with the campaign?

JT: I am the Communications Lead, meaning that I’m empowered to make decisions about our Comms strategy. I have also recruited, maintained, and supervised a volunteer team of

28

My voice is heard, and my skill set is valued. That’s a work experience that some people don’t have for years and years. researchers and writers who contribute to the content that we put out. I work very closely with Cori and her campaign manager on social media.

I've been able to create significant portions of campaign strategy and messaging, and I think that’s the experience that a lot of people working on bigger campaigns are missing out on. My voice is heard, and my skill set is valued. That’s a work experience that some people don’t have for years and years.

About 50% of my work is conceptual. What are we doing and why? Who are we telling stories about and who are we talking to? It has been so cool to combine my passionate support for Cori’s candidacy with my passion for storytelling. I get to write persuasive narratives, collaborate with people and supervise the volunteers.

It’s also a lot of rapid response and a lot of close communication with Cori and that’s something I’m really grateful for.

How did you come to be interested in activism?

JT: Both my parents are environmentalists, so I was kind of indoctrinated into environmental ethics, which I really embraced. I went to public school for the first half of my life before getting financial aid to go to a private middle school.

That was a huge shift from a diverse student population, and one in which my family had more money than most, to being in an environment that was characterized by extreme wealth and whiteness. My experiences with politics for a long time were associated with elitism, and I actually shied away from it. I was sick of the idea

of working in politics being about power. That just didn’t sit well with me.

Seriously engaging with how I could affect change in my community. Engaging with feminism. Coming out in high school and finding my queer community. Michael Brown’s murder in Ferguson. These events motivated me to come to Wash U, so I get a great education but also learn outside of the classroom.

What experiences shaped your desire to work in American politics?

JT: I very much thought of myself as an activist from outside “the system,” but my decision to study abroad in Scotland changed a lot for me. I was so disempowered [by American politics], but going to Scotland completely changed my life. I witnessed a government that actually cared about its constituents. People were not just repeating talking points. Instead, they were actively bringing up stories of their constituents and responding to their needs. I respect them more than people who get into Congress in the United States and hold their seats while repeating the same things. Following Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign has also been really important in terms of understanding the value of grassroots and non-corporate campaigns.

How would you describe Wash U as an environment for activism?

JT: There is an abundance of on-campus groups, many of which are dedicated to service and social and civic engagement. They’re very much done through these lines that are implicitly endorsed by Wash U. When you work through those lines, you get school funding and resources. That means you have more consistent membership; certain things like convenience or the availability of free food draw students in. I think it is also about comfort. How comfortable are people leaving campus and going to a neighborhood they have never been to? How comfortable are you taking up space on campus in a protest? Sometimes it takes people years to get comfortable with that, so then what about marching in St. Louis? Or driving your car

National

somewhere off-campus? Accessibility is a big barrier for people.

In grassroots activism it’s not about that professional veneer of official positions and formal professional development.

And then, what if there is something you can’t necessarily put on your resume? Maybe you’re a volunteer and you know you do a lot, but you don’t have a specific title because that’s not something the organization is concerned with?

In grassroots activism it’s not about that professional veneer of official positions and formal professional development. It’s hard for Wash U students to leave their zone of comfort. I think a lot of Wash U students see themselves as benefitting from the status quo in politics. I also think it’s easier to choose a paid political internship. There are a lot of people who are ready and excited to offer their skills to a campaign like Cori’s, but other campaigns have more resources.

programs, getting people certified for jobs that are already available in St. Louis, which would be huge for this people in the region.

What are the issues that animate voters you talk to in St. Louis?

How is Cori’s campaign different from other campaigns?

JT: Medicare for All. A lot of people we talk to are underinsured or uninsured or they have insurance but are paying extremely high premiums. Also the Green New Deal because it is the only way we’ll get to a positive and sustainable future, but it also comes with jobs training

JT: There are a lot of “progressive” politicians and non-profits that claim to run grassroots campaigns but still take corporate donations.

Cori does not, and it's not from a lack of offers.

Companies do come to the campaign and say “let us donate to you,” and the way she [Cori Bush] put it was, “on the 1% chance they think I can win the election, they want to know they can buy me,” and she says “hell no!”

My experiences with politics for a long time were associated with elitism, and I actually shied away from it. I was sick of the idea of working in politics being about power.

from Lacy Clay is the homegrown nature of her activism. She started out on the sidelines at the protests in Ferguson, helping people injured by tear gas and rubber bullets. She kept going back day after day and eventually started organizing protests on her own. That level of determination and sacrifice has never existed with Lacy Clay.

In the last decade her opponent, Lacy Clay, had fewer than 1,000 individual donations. In this past calendar year alone, Cori has 7,000. That speaks to the magnitude of popular support that she has. It also highlights the emotional and literal financial investment that people are making in her. Most people donating to the campaign are not rich, they’re working people. Clay gets donations from major corporations and their executives; payday loan companies, pharmaceuticals, Monsanto, etc.

Lacy Clay is still telling his constituents that things have gotten better in the last 50 years. I don’t know how you can say that. Things are not “good” in St. Louis. In my opinion, he’s extremely out of touch. It is difficult because people here are very loyal, which I think is a positive thing, but people are getting hurt by his inaction.

Update: A week after this interview, the Cori Bush campaign hired Jessie full-time to help lead their communications team.

What differentiates Cori Bush from her opponent, Congressman Lacy Clay?

JT: Cori’s a nurse, a mother, and an activist. She’s also a pastor. These are all things that form the pillars of who she is and inform her policy positions. Not only was she a single mother, but she was also a homeless single mother. She works with a lot of communities in need of hope as they struggle to put food on the table or to stay financially solvent. As a nurse, she sees people who are insured, uninsured, underinsured every day. She works with people coming out of prison so she’s really passionate about criminal justice reform.

Rohan Palacios ’21 studies in the College of Arts &

The fundamental thing that differentiates her

Sciences. He can be reached at rpalacios@wustl.edu.

29

WU Political Review

Racial Hiring in Hollywood Clare Grindinger, treasurer Artwork (right), "Softer, Smoother Skin" by Natalie Snyder, staff artist

W

henever I walk across campus, I like to call my sister to check in. She’s in her thirties, has two kids, and is an actor.

She is bilingual in French and English and is a thin, average height, white woman. Recently, she hasn’t gotten many chances to audition. I asked her why and she told me it was because casting directors are looking for women of color to play the primary roles she wants and she feels excluded, as if there is prejudice against white women in the field. This made me feel uncomfortable because she seemed to be ignoring her privilege, so I decided to dive deeper into what racial casting means for people like my sister and our overarching.

Traditionally (and even now), Hollywood has been #SoWhite. People of color were given minor roles that tended to reflect stereotypes, while white people were not only dominant onscreen, but offscreen too, in the director’s room, writing the scripts, and producing the shows. In the middle of the 2010s, there seemed to be a switch. Race in history was challenged through Broadway shows like “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, casting actors of colors in roles that white people previously held. This seemed like a good thing, but it was not enough.

Last semester in my AMCS class, Visual Culture Studies, we learned about Plastic Representation, when white actors are replaced with actors of color without factoring in a personalized racial history into the role. This is like when black people replace white people in traditional white roles, like in the beginning of Jay Z’s music video, “Moonlight”, or when famous black actors like Lil Rel Howery, Lakeith Stanfield, Jerrod Carmichael, Issa Rae, Tiffany Haddish, Tessa Thompson, and Hannibal Buress replicate, word for word, a short clip of a “Friends” episode. The music video brings up the question of representation for actors of color. The plasticity reflects merely switching out white actors for black actors, and erasing their racial identity.

Meaningful diversity is not when films represent people of color, but when their diversity

30

is multi-dimensional; their script written for a character of their race, produced for them, and shaped with the conscious care of keeping in mind their racial experience. Furthermore, actors like Eddie Redmayne, a famous able-bodied cisgender man, have played a differently abled person (Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything”) and a transgender person (Lili in “The Danish Girl”). There are many actors with the motor neuron disease Stephen Hawking had and other trans actors who are rarely cast because there are no opportunities for roles that fit their identities. When those opportunities come to fruition, they are snatched by people who have the ability and privilege to assume any other role.

In a lot of shows, there also appears to be a “token minority,” when people of color are casted solely for their racial diversity. For example, the TV show, “Girls”, has a predominately white cast, although set in Brooklyn where only one third of the population is white. Additionally, when “The Hunger Games” was cast, the creators announced they wanted “a Caucasian girl” for Katniss. Meanwhile, Shonda Rhimes casted “Grey’s Anatomy” specifically avoiding labelling characters’ racial identities. Many things come together behind screen without us noticing, meanwhile casting directors are consciously specifying or, more rarely, going in blind, to create the racial identities, gender, age, ability, body type, and accents of the characters.

There are also legal considerations, like antidiscrimination laws, actors’ unions, and bargaining agreements, to make sure to specify the character, not the actor. Even when race is not specified for the character, actors can read between the lines, or judge based off racial stereotypes.

In casting “Girls”, both casting directors and the creator were white, and neglected proper representation in the hiring process, allowing for mistakes like relying on racial stereotypes. Casting that reinforces racial stereotypes comes when the people creating the characters do not represent the diversity of the actors they want to hire.

TV and film creators for a long time feared that more diverse shows would not sell as well, but new hits like “Black Panther”, “Atlanta”, and “Get Out,” reflect the success possible when all stages of the industry consider diversity.

When there are no racial specificities for casting, directors typically hire white actors. There are plenty of people of color applying to be actors, casting directors, writers, producers, and directors, like Jordan Peele, Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler. Hollywood’s historical whiteness is making diversifying the TV and film industry difficult. One step towards progress is changing the people who shape what the characters look like to make them multi-dimensional. Hopefully, actors will soon be able to encompass their role not through plastic representation or tokenization, but through authentic, thought-out representation. In the past, getting a role as a white woman was easier than it is now because slowly, Hollywood is diversifying. I see this as progress and thus, I think that my sister’s struggles grabbing a role, though tough for her, reflect a positive change for the bigger picture: more diverse representation in Hollywood. We want to hear stories that reflect America’s diversity, not another “Gilmore Girls.”

Clare Grindinger ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at cgrindinger@wustl. edu.

National

31