Borders

Washington U niversity

POLITICAL REVIEW 26.4 | Summer 2017 | wupr.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS 6

BORDERS

I Was on the Border

20

Katelyn Taira

Lizzie Francklemont

7

Unable to go, Not Allowed to Stay

24

Discovering the Green Line

25

10

Borders, From Bengurion to

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Bethlehem Hanna Khalil

INTERNATIONAL

12

Progress in Energy Cooperation

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Empathy Laura Cornell Israel's Legacy of Humanitarianism Nate Turk

Age Never Matters Luke Voyles

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Enough About the White Working Class Reuben Siegman

34

Mushroom Wars

The Borders Around our Own

Screw the Discourse Max Handler

A Cultural Separation

Sophie Tegenu

19

29

We're Not Ready for a Borderless

Liz Sivriver

18

United We Oppose, Divided We Michael Fogarty

Hannah Sinrich

16

28

Govern

Dan Sicorsky

15

Ryan Mendelson

Too?

World

14

The Puerto Rico Dilemma

Are Nurse Practioners, Practioners Ishaan Shah

13

Texas vs. Texas, the Senate Won't Stop Arno Goetz

Rachel Butler

NATIONAL

Art Can Only Imitate Life Sabrina Wang

Erica Huerta Huerta

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Being Human

Addressing Democracy Jack Goldberg

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The Case for Foreign Policy Regulations Nichloas Kinberg

EDITORS' NOTE Editors-in-Chief: Rachel Butler Dan Sicorsky Executive Director: Sam Klein

Dear Reader, Threatening or welcomed, perceived versus real, big and small, borders surround us. Legal borders, like those demarcating states, lead nations into wars and gerrymander districts. Physical borders—think Berlin's, China's, or conceivably Trump's—come to mind. Symbolic borders also exist between socioeconomic classes or estranged family members.

Staff Editors: Michael Fogarty Max Handler Katelyn Taira Sabrina Wang Features Editors: Hanna Khalil Ryan Mendelson Finance Director: Adya Jain

With (proposed) walls, partisan divides, and county lines dominating headlines as of late, borders both geographical and otherwise were central to this summer’s politics. In the past months, our writers and artists pondered these literal borders, as well as the more ephemeral ones: those between generations, disciplines of study, and cultures.

It’s those very borders that we explore in this issue of the Washington University Political Review. In the pages that follow, our writers examine the lines drawn across our world, the consequential pen strokes that divide nations, peoples, and civilizations. The gaps we find among these lines, the desires to sometimes erase them altogether, and the forces insisting on their enforcement—all are topics considered.

Director of Design: Dominique Senteza Web Editor: Nick Kinberg Director of External Operations: Jack Goldberg Programming Director: Liza Sivriver Front Cover:

Therefore, the topics inside are borderless. Laura Cornell, for instance, writes about the borders around our empathy when it comes to certain tragedies.

Sabrina Wang discusses the conflation of artists’ work with their lives in the public’s eye. Erica Huerta Huerta shares her experience as a child of undocumented immigrants. Katelyn Taira argues that the humanities are integral to social consciousness in the modern age. And, as always, we have articles discussing a broad array of national and international topics.

As the new semester begins, we hope this issue of the Washington University Political Review incites thoughts and discussions around the borders that surround you, leading you, perhaps, to cross a few.

Thomas Fruhauf Theme Spread: Dominique Senteza

Warmly, Rachel Butler and Dan Sicorsky Editors-in-Chief

Build a portfolio.

Express yourself.

Be heard.

WUPR.ORG/CONTRIBUTE WUPR is always seeking submissions from Wash U undergraduates.

“Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. Aborder is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague andundetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.”

Gloria E. Anzaldúa | Chicano Activist and Author, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza “A key part of your sovereignty is the ability to control the influx and outflow of your people and is the ability to secure your border.”

Marco Rubio | Senator for Florida

“The dividing line is not between left and right but globalists and patriots.”

Marine Le Pen | Former French Presidential Candidate

THOUGHTS ON BORDERS & IDENTITY Comments from Writers, Politicians, and Thinkers

“Maybe we are all prospective migrants.

The lines of national borders on maps are artificial constructs, as unnatural to us as they are to birds flying overhead. Our first impulse is to ignore them.”

Mohsin Hamid | Pakistani Author

“Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific islands and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about a sustainable development.”

Angela Merkel | Chancellor of Germany

“Globalism began as a vision of a world with free trade, shared prosperity, and open borders.

These are good, even noble things to aim for.”

Deepak Chopra | Author, Speaker, and New Age Figure

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I WAS ON THE BORDER Lizzie Franclemont

D

ictionary.com defines a border as the edge or boundary of something, or the part near it

**** I was born on the border of black or just physically passing Skin brown enough that the earth calls it mother That old white women still move their grocery carts away from me Their husbands scraping the leather on purses to move them quickly enough I am “white enough” that more often than not I am not human I am an oreo Artificial, disposable I live on the edge of being wanted and unloved The border marks my skin Between those who America loves and those of us who she doesn’t The others look at me the way the police do Like I’m always within a block of an unlocked car Brushing past a woman with loose purse strings I am the gray area between criminal and black woman The receptionist at my high school thought I was lost, in the wrong place A woman at J Crew followed me until she heard me speak She said I sounded white, eloquent I think she means that while living on the border your money speaks for you I was born into a family with white men that I call kin Father Brother I was born just brown enough that the white boy’s Mom still doesn’t like me The college police still check my ID I speak about luxuries in the future tense, like I can write away years of these oppressions I was born by a border that knows too many fires to start another flame Too many ashes have kissed the pavement I live in the overlap Where my neighbors call the noises fireworks And I have friends who mistake them for gunshots I was born on the inside of wire fences and so I still know very few white picket fences that let my people in I’m from a town where Jesus isn’t a myth only his blackness is Where they cover up years of discrimination with the calloused palms of landscapers They say racism is over but I see the perpetrator’s now gray hair and realize it hasn’t missed a generation

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I was born in the split between my ancestor’s hopes and our realities There are no reparations even for Picking cotton off of shelves that appropriate us, mocking us picking it until fingers bleed, pools of blood around black hands Some who I love are dead, they are cracked black bones I was born into the land of the free home of the brave My parents raised me to love America Even when she doesn't love me back To proclaim admiration for a flag I can’t wave back to To love a woman that can’t define intersectional feminism I border the whites and blacks Sitting in class in elementary school so many black names were said that taking attendance in school sounds like speaking in tongues I was born in the crevice of hope Or that’s all I allow myself to remember When my president was black And the streets were filled with milk and honey Doesn't America love the underdog because we say we see ourselves in them?

Like rags to riches story I mean black to human story Like brown boy misses slavery by a handful of generations and goes to Harvard Brown boy becomes President and is no longer South Side Brown Boy No longer sprinkled ashes of little brown boys in the south side We live on the border of progress Of history using my people to cleanse itself of its sins I live on the edge of my future I can feel it’s heart beating It’s teeth tugs away at my clothing, chewing on my skin I can feel it Bordering who I am and should be

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UNABLE TO GO, NOT ALLOWED TO STAY Erica Huerta Huerta

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y parents are undocumented Mexicans.

They came to the United States 20 years ago with very little, and have gone back only once since, 13 years ago. They crossed the border and established their lives in Porterville, California, and have raised me and my three (soon to be four) siblings here. Their lives in Mexico were difficult, and they came to the US to give their children a better future.

When I think about their lives in rural Mexico and compare them to my life here, I realize that they have succeeded, even if my life has been more difficult than those of most other people at Wash U. Despite the opportunities that my parents have had in the U.S. since they crossed the border together in 1997, and the better lives that they have built for themselves here, I’ve realized that the border that was meant to keep them out also serves to trap them in. This becomes more apparent when tragedy strikes back in Mexico.

One of my cousins died in March of last year. I don’t think I’ll ever forget comforting my mom with my siblings, and hearing her say as she cried how much she wished to be in Mexico with her sister, to be there for her in her loss.

Instead, all she could do was talk to her sister on the phone and long to be with her family in their time of need.

In December 2015, my abuelita came to the U.S. after a long visa process, and her arrival was an unforgettable moment for me. My dad and five uncles were in my living room, and the moment they saw her and hugged her, they all broke down crying. It was their first time seeing their mom, and only living parent, in years.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand the emotions they felt in that moment. As I stood in the back of the room waiting for my turn to hug her, it hit me that my family is effectively trapped in the U.S. Although they came here voluntarily and have built their lives and grown their families here, my aunts and uncles live without the freedom to move and live freely.

Instead, they live knowing that they could easily be sent to a home they haven’t seen in years and lose the lives they’ve built here.

As I stood in the back of the room waiting for my turn to hug my grandma, it hit me that my family is effectively trapped in the U.S. This past summer I spent two weeks in my family’s small hometown. The last time I saw my family there was 13 years ago, when I was five.

Meeting my family was amazing, and I didn’t want to leave after such a short time there.

However, being there also served as a reminder of the insurmountable barriers that exist between the U.S. and Mexico for my parents. I was told by family and strangers alike that I look, talk, and laugh just like my mom, somebody they haven’t seen in over a decade. When I left, my little cousins told me to say 'hi' for them to my parents, aunts, and uncles—people they’ve never met. My time there made me realize to an even greater extent how privileged I am as a citizen in my ability to exist freely.

Although the fact that my family is undocumented influences nearly every aspect of my life, I don’t know when I learned of my parents’ undocumented status. I just know that it has always been a source of anxiety for me. I remember being maybe nine or ten years old and wondering if something happened to my dad any time he came home late at night. Even now, when my parents work and come home every day at the same time, a half-hour or hour delay to this schedule always leaves me wondering, “Is today the day they get taken away? What will me and my siblings do if it is?” Thankfully, they have never been deported, but my heart hurts every time I go online and see yet another video of a child seeing their parent robbed from them

by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Because of the limited freedom and constant fear this country has given my parents, the 2,000 miles between them at home and me at Wash U feels crushing. After finishing my first year here and seeing the Class of 2017 graduate, I started thinking about my own graduation three years from now. The thought of my parents not being there to cheer me on as I receive my diploma is incredibly saddening. However, this scenario is most likely the one that will play out since they can’t fly because of their undocumented status, and since a two-thousand-mile drive seems impossible for two non-English-speaking Latinos. On move-in day, I flew for the first time since I was five, alone. On Parents’ Weekend, I couldn’t help but feel sad and jealous seeing so many families walking through campus.

Coming to college alone has been difficult, and I’m incredibly grateful for the friends who have helped me feel more at home being two thousand long miles away from my family. I feel angry at the injustices that this country's borders have created for families like mine that are trapped inside, and I hope that stories like ours are heard.

Erica Huerta Huerta '20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at ehuertahuerta@wustl.edu.

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DISCOVERING THE GREEN LINE Rachel Butler | Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

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n kindergarten at my Jewish elementary school, my class took a “trip to Israel.” Our miniature chairs were arranged in two columns split by an aisle, and a TV was rolled in front of them, prompting hushed excitement.

The lights were dimmed; a tape was slid into the VCR, and a blue sky dotted with clouds appeared on the screen, with the wing of a plane in the foreground. Our two teachers told us to buckle up in Hebrew, and we clipped imaginary seatbelts over our waists, giggling. They then walked down the aisle, offering us snacks and cups of juice, in Hebrew as well. We watched as the wing of the plane onscreen grew closer to brown and green earth, the sparkle of Tel Aviv’s buildings coming into view. When it landed, the teachers began singing and clapping, as many do when they actually land in Israel, and we sang and clapped too. In Hebrew, they told us to exit the plane.

The rest of the day consisted of us touring the country by way of special activities around the classroom and playground. We went on an archeological dig in the flower garden, went swimming at an oasis at the sprinkler, visited the spice market set up on the plastic-topped tables.

We wrote notes to place in a cardboard Western Wall and ate falafel and Israeli salad in the cafeteria for lunch.

It’s clear why my five-year-old self thought of Israel as a paradise. Though that imaginary trip to Israel is the clearest example of how we were taught to love the country, that love was reinforced every day in Hebrew class. Beyond merely learning to speak and write the language, we learned about Israeli culture, trying new and delicious foods and singing modern Israeli songs.

Hebrew class was like that at my school even as I got older. Though the vocabulary and grammar lessons grew more advanced, the culture and history lessons remained simple and sunny, and we still had a class completely devoted to singing on one day every week. In sixth grade,

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It’s rare to have something so central to your identity, something you feel that you know to be true, get flipped on its head so suddenly.

I took a pre-Bat Mitzvah trip to Israel, and even actually being in the country did not challenge my idea of Israel as a perfect paradise, as the real oases and spice markets and Western Wall were even more picture-perfect than what I had learned about in school.

Our class’s real eighth grade trip to Israel even further reinforced my idealized notions of the country. We stayed with Israeli families who fed us such Israeli delicacies as Bamba and passion fruit, and visited beaches and beautiful kibbutzim. Summers spent at a Jewish overnight camp reinforced that idealized vision of the country, as we sang the same Israeli songs and lived in cabins with cool Israeli counselors who taught us Hebrew slang.

I did not realize what was lacking in my understanding of Israel until I was a sophomore at a Jewish high school. In retrospect, this seems exceedingly late, given that I had already travelled there twice, had learned about the country since pre-school, and was by the age of fifteen certainly old enough to be cognizant of current affairs. Yet, I did not know there was such a thing as the Green Line until my tenth grade history class.

The first unit was on Israeli history. The narrative of Israel’s initial founding felt relatively familiar: a small, brave group of Zionists fighting against

much greater powers, from Britain to Egypt to Jordan, to name a few, though my high school class gave me a more nuanced view of those events than I had had before. But then we got to the Six-Day War of 1967. Up until that point in my education, the narrative I had learned of that war was straightforward: every Arab nation surrounding Israel had united to attempt to destroy the country, and Israel had miraculously fended them off. I remember no mention of pre- and post-war borders until that day in tenth grade, when my teacher mentioned the pre-1967 borders, commonly called the “Green Line.” When the teacher brought it up in class, it was with the assumption that we knew, at least at some basic level, what it was. I don’t know if I was the only student who had no memory of hearing that term before, as I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else.

It’s rare to have something so central to your identity, something you feel that you know to be true, get flipped on its head so suddenly.

Through the rest of that unit in history class and countless Google searches, my understanding of Israel, which I had felt was complete, shifted and expanded and fractured into complexities that I had never thought about for a second before.

What made discovering the Green Line, more than any other fact about Israel, so consequential for me is the combination of its vital importance in understanding Israel coupled with the sense that it was intentionally hidden from me. As for their vital importance, the borders are central to all the major peace talks that have taken place between the two sides, to their futures, and to the current dynamics of life oneither side of the line. And to some extent, the Green Line’s concealment really is intentional. Attempts to blur it physically are well documented. Israel has built on either side of the Green Line, and it doesn’t exist in most Israeli textbooks and weather maps, in addition to the materials used in American classrooms like mine. The main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem crisscrosses the line, though

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | BORDERS

one wouldn’t notice while driving over it. The Green Line is also blurred on the part of many Palestinians, who still harbor claims to the land on the Israeli side of the line. Understanding the Green Line and the ways in which it is blurred is an essential starting point for understanding the complexities and conflicts of modern Israel.

I was lucky to go to a Jewish high school that fostered and encouraged dialogue about these issues, and by the next fall when my class spent a semester in Israel the next year and actually crossed the Green Line to speak to Arab residents on the other side, my understanding of Israel had grown immeasurably. We heard from him about the very real, daily difficulties that the Green Line imposed on his life, including long checks at the line every day when he crossed it to get to and from work and the separation of members of his family by the line which made it difficult to visit each other. I felt that I was finally seeing the full picture, and at the same time the magic that I had felt on that kindergarten “trip” disappeared, as I felt that I could no longer trust the memories I had of that feeling.

I don’t blame my elementary school teachers for wanting to instill that kind of wholehearted love of Israel in us. I still do have a little bit of that pure love for Israel in me, and I’m glad it’s there. But the shock of suddenly realizing how incomplete my understanding of the country was in high school definitely marred that feeling, and for a while I felt that my elementary school teachers had lied to me. Much of the blame for my lengthy ignorance of the darker nuances of the country’s history is my own – I could have done some Googling much earlier. And yet I do wish that my teachers back in elementary school had found a way to instill a love of Israel while simultaneously making us aware of its faults and the multiple facets of its history, so that my tenth grade realization would not have been so shocking or disheartening.

I believe that the way to nurture American Jews’ relationships with Israel is to encourage engagement in tough issues from a young age, so that the realization of its complexity does not feel sudden and crushing. One simple change in elementary school classrooms that I feel could make a difference is the introduction of maps that include the Green Line. All of my classrooms in elementary school included a big map

My understanding of Israel, which I had felt was complete, shifted and expanded and fractured into complexities that I had never thought about for a second before.

we are to build a future for Israel and our place within it, and not just remain in the past.

of Israel. Sometimes there were even multiple, such as topographical maps or maps with pictures of landmarks or biblical sites. But none of the maps included the Green Line. That left no physical marker to engender kids’ questions and first discussions of such issues as the country’s borders and the two-state solution.

Some organizations, most notably J-Street, are advocating to place these types of maps in Jewish institutions. I know it would be a hard sell to try and get teachers to talk about these issues among young kids, for whom the classic Zionist narrative that I was taught is so appealing and almost magical. But I believe that’s what Jewish educators, in America and beyond, need to do if

Rachel Butler ‘18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at rachelkbutler@ wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | BORDERS

BORDERS, FROM BEN-GURION TO BETHLEHEM Hanna Khalil

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he stares at me one last time before stamping my visa, a flimsy piece of paper separate from my passport, and signals me to move ahead. I let go of a breath I had not realized I was holding. I’m greeted with smiles from my peers, and then look around and realize

- we were four for five.

All of us, 15 undergraduate students participating in the Ibrahim Leadership and Dialogue program — a national fellowship focusing on strengthening intercultural dialogue and conflict resolution skills of students engaged with the Middle East — had tried to decipher the unspoken rules of Israel’s airport security before our infamous border crossing. We tried to profile ourselves. Between a Yemeni-born American citizen, two Palestinian-Americans and two Americans of Egyptian descent, we were five red flags. Detention happened nearly every year on this program, usually to students that a) looked brown or visibly Muslim; b) had Arab names (Khalil, Reffat, Omar, Ali); or c) an unlucky combination of both.

This year I was “lucky.” I only know of my fellow Arab-Americans’ ordeal based on what they shared days later: an officer that refused to look at the paperwork we had spent weeks acquiring from the Israeli foreign ministry, my PalestinianAmerican peers forced to sign deportation papers on the basis of “attempted illegal immigration.” This decision only being reversed after a high official in the Situation Room saw what was happening through security camera footage and understood that they were holding up our professor, named one of the “50 most influential Jews in America.” Four more hours of interrogation, “failed” background checks, and a lack of cooperation. Taunting, laughing, humiliation.

Feeling utterly helpless because by withholding your (American!) passports, they withheld your mobility and agency.

Worrying about my friends as we waited for baggage claim, I felt the most unproductive

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It became clear that borders were more than geo-political lines on a map. How a nation interacts with, represents, and discusses what lays on its peripheries is extremely telling of the character that lays at its core. survivor’s guilt. I guess that day the officer didn’t recognize my last name as the Palestinian name for what is now Hebron. I later found out that the guards had angrily argued about why “Khalil” hadn’t been questioned more. The simultaneously arbitrary and purposeful nature of the entire process made me realize that this border crossing said much more about Israel than it did about me. Borders are a mechanism of control.

Through a convoluted bureaucratic system thriving on prejudice, the Israeli government flaunted its impunity.

For some students, it was the first time they had experienced, even if so indirectly, this side of a state that had previously only been presented as a birthright. To see a fellow peer, American, friend, child of parents born on this same land, be treated otherwise was “eye-opening.” But for some of us, our eyes had come in already alert and anxious. This experience confirmed perceptions we wished could have been proven wrong, as we were instantly met with indisputable proof

of systematic and institutionalized racism.

This racism and profiling is far from unique to Israel - we all have heard the horror stories from TSA lines. But in the U.S., there appears to be an underlying shame to the practice. We see it in the advocacy to end stop and frisk laws, in the movements to counter Islamophobia and xenophobia and in the appeals made by civil liberty groups. In Israel, by and large, there is no such public understanding. What occurred to our group on that day wasn’t a fluke; it was business as usual. The system was functioning impeccably.

Some will argue that what we experienced in Ben-Gurion was excusable because it was done in the name of safety. Indeed, many deem BenGurion the safest airport in the world, having not experienced a single terrorist attack since 1972 through adopting the most thorough security practices. Nobody can deny a country its right to protect itself from threat. But when a country that occupies territories decides that those who they occupy are such a threat that they are not allowed into their airport, whose selective safety are they ensuring? What cycle of abuse, fear, abuse do they fall into? And how do they construct a path forward towards peace when every detention fuels a resentment that anyone denied their humanity and equality would feel? I can say that none of us with names like Khalil and Reffat felt any safer, but, yet again, we were not the ones intended to be made safe. No, for those profiled it is hoped that their experience will be so unpleasant they simply won’t come back.

I left that airport feeling angry for my friends and resenting that strangers had the power to make me feel so insignificant. But as time passed, that hurt evolved into a desire to contextualize my anecdote. Why were things this way? How does a country that calls itself the only democracy in the Middle East get away with actions that are so undemocratic? I wanted a better framework to make sense of it.

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Reflecting on my journey through the region, having crossed into five societies in four weeks, that framework was one of borders. It became clear that borders were more than geo-political lines on a map. How a nation interacts with, represents, and discusses what lays on its peripheries is extremely telling of the character that lies at its core.

In Israel, our experience at the airport reflected a deep national insecurity which became clearer as our journey continued. With every meeting we had, we could not escape the questions of borders and the ongoing process of definition, inclusion, and exclusion. On our tour with Peace Now, a leftist Israeli group protesting the growth of illegal settlements, we could see how settlements tried to redefine borders by putting “facts on the ground,” making the two state solution increasingly impossible. With every new growth of Jewish presence in the West Bank, the hypothetical Palestinian state lost a sense of continuity and feasibility.

When talking to Palestinians living in Jalazone Refugee camp, we heard stories of people aching to have the right to return to homes that stood on the wrong side of the border. Crossing from the West Bank into Israel proper meant hours at checkpoints that our bus, branded with a (yellow) Israeli license plate, passed with ease.

In talking to Rabbi Yossi Klein Halevi, we heard from a leader in the Jewish community and an expert in interfaith dialogue, why defining borders was central to a Jewish sense of safety. It is not until borders form two states and the Occupation ends can either side feel as though their claim to indigeneity is being heard. As imperfect a peace as this would be, with either side feeling as though they had lost a piece that was theirs, the current status quo is simply not a solution. It is not real safety.

And finally, when visiting Bethlehem in the West Bank and the religious sight of Rachel’s Tomb in Israel proper, we saw on two separate occasions two sides of the same border wall. This barrier was constructed as a means of security following the Second Intifada. While seen as an insurer of self-defense, it was ironically a response to violence that acted as a “shaking off” (the meaning of intifada) of the borders defining Palestinian occupation. These borders were now

being made even more solidly permanent, and symbolized the ongoing occupation that most Israelis believe to be the biggest security threat of all. Amongst the images of resistance found in Banksy’s famous protest street art, one graffiti sentence stood out: “This wall may take care of the present but it has no future.”

For me, this summed up Israel’s relations to its borders. It made sense of the detention.

Currently, Israel justifies its policies from profiling at airports to human rights abuses at checkpoints within a mindset of immediate survival. It is taking care of the present. But every instance that it chooses to sacrifice its supposed democratic values chips away at a possibility for true long-term peace and security. They may allow Israel to survive the next ten years, maybe the next hundred, but people do not stop fighting for their humanity that easily. Eventually, Israel, a small, isolated, country in a rapidly changing region, will have to do better.

borders become symbolic of a future of long lasting peace, as imperfect as it is, rather than as a temporary mechanism of oppression, degradation, and hostility.

I hope that one day people find the courage to look past the fears that make them want to build walls high, and instead open doors to a future of dignity where everybody has the right of mobility and safety. And where that is not decided by the color of your skin, the sound of your last name, the length of your beard, or the fabric on your head. Until then, security is merely an illusion.

Those who control borders control a country’s character and identity. They can define themselves as leaders or tyrants. As Israel undergoes its own identity crisis, it must ask itself how it plans to use its power to construct an identity

Amongst the images of resistance found in Banksy’s famous street art, one graffiti sentence stood out: “This wall my take care of the present but it has no future.” that is not rooted in fear and exclusion, but one that seeks to recognize the indigenous claims of those it has pushed into “occupied territories” as equal to theirs. Not until its leadership is willing to make a true and genuine recognition of this claim, and a recognition of the uneven power and influence that Israel brings to the negotiation table as an enforcer of occupation, can its

Hanna Khalil ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at hannakhalil@wustl.edu

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ARE NURSE PRACTIONERS PRACTIONERS, TOO? Ishaan Shah

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n Butte County, Idaho, there is one full-time doctor serving the county’s 2,501 residents.

While the Lost Rivers Hospital makes ends meet with innovative care delivery, this reality begs the question: Are we delivering sufficient primary care to those in need? According to the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (NCHWA), the country will have a deficit of 23,000 primary care physicians (PCP) by 2025 due to aging and population growth, a deficit which will disproportionately hurt those who already have limited access to coverage. PCPs are the first physicians to see patients on a regular basis, teach patients about healthy living practices, and diagnose any serious medical issues. Even though the shortage of PCPs is dire, there seems to be little effort to address this problem. According to the NCHWA, demand for PCPs will increase by 17 percent by 2025 while supply will only grow 11 percent.

Lower costs, increased access to care, what more could a desperate state legislature ask for?

To address this shortage, hospitals and healthcare networks have looked to deal with the problem in a different way: by integrating care with other mid-level providers and shifting primary care away from PCPs. One position whose role is being expanded in healthcare is that of the nurse practitioner. Nurse practitioners (NP) play a role similar to physicians: promoting good health practices, treating illness, and providing patient education. Currently, 21 states and the District of Columbia allow NPs full practice rights

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without physician supervision. The Veteran’s Administration has moved its hospital network in this direction as well to address its own shortages. While the PCP population dwindles, NP supply is projected to increase by 93 percent by 2025 greatly outpacing projected demand (NCHWA, 2013).

While NPs clearly have the potential to address the deficit in primary care with their substantial addition to the workforce, there are still areas of concern. Notably, PCPs receive approximately 21,000 hours of training while NPs receive 5,000 hours. NP training is also not standardized and regulated in the same way medical education is. There is concern from physicians and the American Medical Association (AMA) that quality of care would decrease with more referrals and unnecessary billing. Regardless, the topic is still widely debated and it is unclear whether there is a significant difference in care between the two. While quality of care remains under discussion, one thing is clear. NPs are cheaper. They are billed a maximum of 85% of a physician’s cost for a service on Medicare and there are similar deductions with other insurers.

For states knee-deep in a healthcare shortage crisis and facing increasing costs and hordes of angry voters, giving more power to NPs seems like an easy solution to a complicated problem. Lower costs, increased access to care, what more could a desperate state legislature ask for? Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. The majority of healthcare shortage occurs in rural areas, an area where family practice by physicians provides the majority of care. Furthermore, the lack of agreement over the autonomy of NPs at the federal level keeps them dependent on physician supervision in their practice. This means that the limited supply of PCPs will still restrict the ability of NPs to extend their care to the areas of America with the lowest health coverage.

This is a problem we can solve. To simultaneously address shortages in healthcare and

concerns with NPs, we can standardize scope of care at the federal level. There are many areas where NPs can provide care beyond the scope of PCPs. A study in Health Affairs has shown essentially equal performance in a system where a PCP manages a group of NPs and other advanced practice nurses and in a physician-only practice for managing diabetic patients (2013). Another study demonstrated that allowing NPs to independently operate in rural, underserved areas would provide access to primary care where PCPs don’t practice (Health Affairs, 2013). Recently, the federal government made headway in involving NPs in substance abuse management by allowing them to prescribe buprenorphine, an opiate addiction treatment, to address the burgeoning opiate addiction crisis (American Society of Addiction Medicine, 2016). Clearly, there are many ways NPs can extend quality care.

Instead of requiring states to decide whether to grant NPs independent practice rights based on immediate demand, the federal government should proactively increase the scope of care of NPs in areas such as chronic illness management, rural health care, and addiction treatment where primary care is in urgent need. On Capitol Hill, however, there is fierce opposition from the AMA against expansion of scope of practice of NPs because of the fear that NPs will cut into the care already provided by PCPs. While this fear is not unfounded, it is undeniable that there is room to expand for both groups. The healthcare system established doesn’t have to pit different health care providers against each other; it can work together to provide better care for Americans with the right mindset. For Butte County, the struggle to serve the farthest reaches of the American population is a daily battle; the least we can do is give them the tools to succeed.

Ishaan Shah ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ishaanshah@wustl.edu.

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WE’RE NOT READY FOR A BORDERLESS WORLD Dan Sicorsky

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balding yet bearded white man, large and tall with jeans tight around his belly, would visit my grade school once a year or so and bring a long, blank banner. Without the help of even an index card, he would outline with a Sharpie every corner, boundary, and detail of land and sea, every cookie-cutter and irregular border of our almost 200 countries.

It was always a good time when Map Man was in town. He would ask us trivia questions about geography and nations’ capitals, and we would answer them to earn Fruit Roll-Ups. He didn’t get into the negative side of borders, though. There was no blood drawn on the Map Man’s banner, no references to border wars or nationalist spite.

Much to the Map Man’s dismay, a movement calling for the end to country boundaries is growing throughout the political spectrum. Its points are not as extreme as some would expect, but rather respectable, well-researched, and compelling arguments. However, until the global community addresses the many downsides of open borders, our national divisors — and the Map Man’s craft — will need to remain.

Borders have historically caused much damage.

Territorial disputes in 2017 might not be at the scale of the first half of the twentieth century — a time when invasions were common during two world wars — but today’s borders still bring tensions. In just the past four years, Russia has claimed Ukrainian territory, China and India have bickered over Bhutan, and India and Pakistan have spilled blood over Kashmir. Given this, are borders worth the trouble?

Many still swear by borders’ effectiveness despite the harm they cause. Supporters of closed borders argue, for instance, that national boundaries help preserve the native cultures and identities of each country. The spread of crime, terrorism, and disease, closed-borders advocates say, are also unavoidable side effects of open borders.

The hefty open-borders movement, though, believes that dropping barriers entirely would

yield positive results. Not least of these is the prospect of greater global economic productivity owing to more efficient labor markets.

Scholars estimate that open borders would lead to a 50% to 150% jump in world GDP, a boost that would disproportionately affect the world’s poorest and lead to a global reduction in poverty.

Libertarian, utilitarian, and egalitarian arguments for the morality of looser borders are plentiful, such as the libertarian claim that no state should hinder the free movement of people, since people are their own masters. Open-borders advocates also note that both immigrant-receiving and immigrant-sending countries would benefit from open borders: Nations losing population would be able to better support their remaining residents (many of whom will also be receiving remittances from their family members abroad), and nations accepting immigrants would benefit from a knowledge and business boost that would extend to local economies.

Until the global community addresses the many shortcomings of open borders, our national divisors will need to remain.

One of the goals of dropping national boundaries, for instance, is to alleviate world poverty. But the arrival of a high number of needy people into a country would overwhelm the system. “A vast influx of immigrants would bankrupt the welfare state, as newcomers would not be able to pay enough in taxes to finance the benefits to which they would be entitled,” Nathan Smith, a prominent open-borders advocate, acknowledged in a Foreign Affairs article.

Nationalism is another limitation. While the practical case for open borders is strong, unless receiving countries are welcoming to foreigners, immigration will not go smoothly. Frequent hate crimes against immigrants make it hard to envision open borders leading to love and acceptance of the other.

There is also the concern that the free movement of people would inevitably engender the free movement of drugs, terrorism, and human trafficking. When Ecuador in 2008 made the pioneering decision to, in the words of its president, “dismantle that 20th-century invention of passports and visas,” it caused problems for its Western Hemisphere neighbors — including the United States, which saw increasing numbers of terrorist and smuggling cells in Quito that were now suddenly closer to the United States.

Open borders would bring many advantages, including less poverty and a global community.

But idealizations can lead to rash decisions when consequences have not been well-measured. Until we can also prevent the damaging effects of open borders, boundaries between nations, no matter how harmful, should hold.

These are not radically progressive, hippie arguments for dropping walls and singing songs of joy and inclusion. To be sure, liberals are often associated with lax immigration policy and cultural fusion. But it’s the libertarians who are identifying the practical, as opposed to emotional, appeal for open borders.

A people able to move freely worldwide is an alluring idea, but also one with serious shortcomings, especially in the current political climate.

Dan Sicorsky ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at dan.sicorsky@wustl.edu.

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PROGRESS IN ENERGY COOPERATION Hannah Sinrich | Illustration by Avni Joshi

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srael, Cyprus and Greece are experiencing unprecedented positive diplomatic relations, particularly in energy cooperation.

This summer, on June 15, these three former adversaries participated in a trilateral summit—the third of its kind. In a joint declaration, the parties affirmed their commitment to working on “energy efficiency, alternative fuel for transportation and smart mobility… protection of the marine environment, water and wastewater management, as well as adaptation to climate change impacts.” Moving forward, the parties agreed to increase the number of exchange programs among themselves to foster innovation and project development in this sector.

Indeed, while the trilateral summit also covered issues such as economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship, energy is and will continue to be the pinnacle of Eastern Mediterranean cooperation. In 2013, the three nations signed a tripartite energy Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Nicosia, Cyprus, after roughly a year of negotiations. This MOU initiated the EuroAsia Interconnector, a 3-billion-euro cable which would connect the electric grids of the three nations. Additionally, and perhaps of greater significance, over the last decade and a half, there have been numerous discoveries of natural gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. These discoveries have been specifically in the Levant basin, or the area surrounding Cyprus and Israel. In response, on April 3, 2017, the three nations—and Italy—agreed to oversee the development of an Eastern Mediterranean pipeline. At 2,000 kilometers in length, the pipeline is set to be the world’s longest underwater gas pipeline.

It will be privately funded, costing roughly 6.7 billion U.S. dollars and would be able to transport 10-16 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Energy ministers from all three nations hope to see it functional as early as 2025. The EastMed pipeline will be designed to connect the natural gas reserves of Israel and Cyprus to Europe, allowing European nations to become less dependent upon Russian energy. Thus, another outcome of

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the project will be changing the geopolitical landscape of the region.

United States representatives have offered their unsolicited support for this trilateral partnership. American backing was demonstrated in February 2017, with the establishment of the Congressional Hellenic-Israeli Alliance (CHIA), co-chaired by Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL). In an op-ed published in the Washington Times, the two declared that the trilateral partnership, “will help strengthen our shared democratic values in the region” and that “[t]he countries’ strategic location, natural resources and intellectual capital bring issues, such as economic development, energy production and counterterrorism, to the forefront”.

Furthermore, it’s notable that Cyprus, Greece and Israel have experienced such success in terms of cooperation, given their complicated pasts. In the immediate years after World War II, Britain detained roughly 50,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors on the Island of Cyprus, which was under British control at the time, to prevent them from entering The Land of Israel. Though this detention did not involve Cypriots directly, the event’s affiliation with Cyprus has left a mark on the collective memory of many Jews and Israelis.

Additionally, shortly after Cyprus gained independence, she became a member of the non-aligned movement, which arouse during the Cold War and comprised of states which rejected the Western Block. The non-aligned movement is generally seen in opposition to the existence of Israel and Greece as a member of NATO. It was not until 2003 when Cyprus left the movement. At the same time, while Israel and Greece were both in opposition to the non-aligned movement, this is not to say that Hellenic-Israeli relations developed without their own set of issues. In 1947, Greece’s U.N. envoy voted against the proposed creation of a Jewish state, and Greece was also the last Western European nation to formally recognize the state of Israel.

Despite their complicated histories, today

Greece is a self-declared friend of Israel, and Cyprus remains on the frontline of the fight against modern day anti-Semitism. President Anastasiades of Cyprus has gone on the record saying, “Cyprus will continue to be an uncompromising shield against anti-Semitism.” How remarkable, if not encouraging, to see the degree to which these nations’ attitudes have changed towards one another.

There is tremendous opportunity for these Eastern Mediterranean nations to explore potential areas for cooperation. The next trilateral summit is set to take place in the final trimester of 2017 in Nicosia and the countries have agreed to continue meeting on a biannual basis. With development on EastMed pipeline underway as an outcome of a previous summit, there will certainly be precedent for this upcoming fourth meeting.

Hannah Sinrich '19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at hsinrich@wustl.edu.

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A CULTURAL SEPARATION Liza Sivriver

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erry Christmas!" I proudly exclaimed to a fellow four-year-old at the local public pool on a hot and humid July day. At the time, I couldn't speak English, but desperately wanted to communicate and feel included. So, I tried to communicate with the only “American” phrase I knew. Although I don’t attempt to communicate through inappropriately timed phrases anymore, this exchange fifteen years ago is emblematic of my experience as a first-generation American.

I am fluent in English now, but still miss the nuance and unspoken rules that are inextricable with successfully participating in American life.

I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

However, my parents and the rest of my family grew up in the former Soviet Union. My mother and my grandparents moved from what is now Ukraine to the US in 1993, making me a first-generation American. They fled their country due to religious persecution against Jews, and settled in a tiny apartment in the Highland neighborhood of St. Paul. They work hard jobs requiring manual labor and save every penny at any given opportunity, all in an effort to give me a better chance at success. According to the Center for Children of Immigrants, nearly one-fourth of children in the U.S. are children of immigrants. Although many in this country share my background, I have become increasingly aware of my status as a first-generation American at Wash U because of how few people I meet here with this family circumstance. The border that guards traditional American experience feels impenetrable to those who are children of immigrants.

My second language at home caused a cultural barrier between my American classmates and me. As a little kindergartener, I remember answering vocabulary and reading questions on the Minnesota mandated standardized test, and bursting into tears after not knowing how to answer questions about a mysterious dish called casserole. I only knew of blini and pelmeni. I brought school lunches of stinky fish that my classmates considered

strange; my parents made me wear slippers in the house; I spoke Russian at home. I felt like the odd one out everywhere I went. My superstitious, loud, frugal mom and grandparents with thick accents and broken English were not the typical family my American

We constitute our own class of experience — ­­ children expected to assimilate into American life, but also assumed to retain culture, language, and customs of our countries of origin. friends saw on a Disney Channel sitcom.

Throughout grade school, popular culture contributed to a significant separation between my peers and me. I felt isolated from those who grew up with parents who could pass down staples of American culture, like classic movies, music, and books. While my classmates raved to me about an incredible song their parents played on the car ride home from school, I was left wondering why they were listening to some singing band of beetles. The United States presented knowledge of culture as hereditary. As I was left with fawning over old rock stars virtually unknown outside of Ukraine, I had no pop culture references deemed American enough to contribute to daily conversation.

The cultural separation between me and my friends felt insignificant by the time I reached

my junior and senior years of high school. As I was preparing for college applications, tangible barriers were now affecting my future.

Since none of my family attended college in the United States, I felt that I had to do twice the amount of research and preparation just to know half the information my classmates knew about the application process and college life. This disconnect feels more palpable now that I am actually at WashU, with no one at home to share their experiences with the intricacies of college life.

After nineteen years of living in the United States and nowhere else, I still don't feel like an included member of American society. Many of the values, especially regarding money, travel, and leisure, feel especially foreign to me. Although my background intersects with being lower class, even across different cultures and countries, I relate to children of immigrants the best. We constitute our own class of experience—children expected to assimilate into American life, but also assumed to retain culture, language, and customs of our countries of origin. Balancing Russian traditions and mindset while striving for success in the U.S. feels unmanageable and contradictory. After a year of being at Wash U and only speaking Russian on phone calls home, I now speak a hybrid of English and Russian at home that only seems interpretable to people stuck between two worlds, like me. Despite these obstacles, I’m learning to take the best of both parts of my identity and create a wholly new outlook towards American life.

However hard it might be to feel like an outsider, I feel incredibly proud of my family, of our customs and traditions, and of my unique Russian-American perspective.

Liza Sivriver ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at lizasivriver@wustl.edu.

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MUSHROOM WARS Sophie Tegenu | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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nionville High School and Kennett High School are bitter rivals. The two schools are 3.2 miles apart. Both are located in the town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. If a driver were to travel the 3.2 miles between the two, he would encounter two Landhope gas stations, three developments, plenty of trees, a country club, a graveyard and a formerly haunted house. If the driver entered Kennett High, he would notice that KHS’ student body includes 900% more Hispanic students than UHS’. Unionville is ranked #5 Best High School in Pennsylvania by US News.

Don’t you dare forget it. Kennett is ranked #45. Unionville would not dare let them forget it.

In January of 2014, Kennett played Unionville in a basketball game on the Unionville courts.

The intensity of the match, the filth of the rivalry, and the prejudice of the community led a group of Unionville students to chant racist taunts at their rival. They yelled about the inferiority of Kennett’s diverse class, of the “illegal” Mexican population. The taunts were built around the ideas of Mexico and Mexicans, of Us and America. The students sneered that such conflicting identities could not exist without a clear class hierarchy, a hierarchy that needed to be reinforced in every social setting.

Kennett won.

After the fact, both schools decided to take the never-ending feud to twitter. Kennett

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students boasted of besting the rich white snobs of Unionville. Unionville complained about the unjustified pride Kennett students felt for their school. As one Unionville student tweeted, “Kennett logic: we won a basketball game! The fact we are illegal, poor, and dumb no longer matters.” Other tweets mentioned sombreros and lower SAT scores. The Unionville-Kennett Twitter war of 2014 was crass, violent, and legendary. Both schools were needlessly cruel, driven to vulgarity by in-group bias and teenage immaturity.

Students at both schools tweeted out grossly hateful taunts and didn’t care to think of consequences before pressing the baby blue send button. However, only the UHS students’ taunts extended past petty sports rivalries.

Their rigid belief in class and race order led to the largest, most involved online war the town of Kennett Square has ever seen.

The town of Kennett Square, located 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia, claims mild fame as the mushroom capital of the world. In 2012, NPR explained “How A Sleepy Pennsylvania Town Grew Into America’s Mushroom Capital.” Kennett Square takes this title very seriously. A Mushroom Festival is held every year in the downtown square, and the tourist shop The Mushroom Cap offers various mushroom-themed souvenirs. On New Year’s Eve of 2013, a giant mushroom made of glowing crystal was installed in the town square, inspired by the crystal ball that drops in Times Square. In 2016, Joe Biden visited.

Both UHS and KHS take pride in the quirky nature of their town. The majestic Longwood Gardens sits in the white part of town and attracts visitors from all across the East Coast.

La Michoacana ice cream, in the Mexican part of town, is often listed on Philadelphia’s best eats and was ranked “Best Ice Cream in Philly” in 2009. Still, Kennett students hold more pride for the town—as seen in both their name and the location of their homes.

Kennett High School is part of the Kennett School District, while Unionville High School is part of the Unionville-Chadds Ford school district. No Unionville students live in the downtown “Historic Kennett Square,” as it is out of district lines. This victory in pride for Kennett is reinforced by the fact that the tourist shop only sends out post cards with pictures of Kennett High on the back. Still, many Unionville students do not see this as a major loss, as the house sizes increase the further you travel into the Unionville-Chadds Ford district.

According to both the NPR article and local town lore, the original mushroom farmers were Quakers, who hired Italians, who hired Mexicans. The mushroom farms are located throughout the wider Kennett Square area, offering an unbelievably unpleasant stench to which the locals grow immune. The odor and sludge surrounding mushroom farming help color the insults flung at sports events, contributing to Unionville’s school-wide culture of superiority, classism, and racism. Twitter

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feuds over sports inevitably end in dirty Mexican jokes. Parents are left to frown complacently at the school-wide emails detailing student incidents and misconduct.

Nonetheless, small groups are growing more vocal about that negative culture that has fermented in Unionville for years. Marginal progress has been made with Unionville’s Student of Color Association, instated in direct response to the 2016 election. As a sophomore member of the group matter-of-factly informed the district’s Superintendent, “People outside of our district view Unionville as a joke because of how racist and privileged it is.”

A long, snaking border travels from East to West State Street, marking the white parts of town from the Mexican parts. The Mexican market Fritangas Snacks sits to the south of State Street, a few feet away from KHS. The market is surrounded by similarly-themed shops, visited almost exclusively by Mexican families. The shops lay to the side of the main road, State Street, as most of the Mexican shops do. If a student were to walk from the Fritangas Snacks on South Union Street to the juice bar on West State Street she would pass, in order: La Michoacana grill, a used book store, and a community center called The Garage, primarily serving Kennett students.

Once she turned onto West State, she would stroll by a French bakery, a sushi restaurant, a window replacement store, a café, a mushroom gift shop, a small Mexican bakery, and a pie shop.

The small, bare Mexican bakery, Panaderia Lara, is one of few Mexican-owned shops on State Street. The shop hides nestled between a renowned restaurant and an ultra-hip café.

Residents and visitors of Kennett Square sometimes wander out of the town’s single parking garage and pause with their noses tilted up. They usually only stop for a few seconds, sniffing around aimlessly for the sweet scent before giving up and heading into one of the trendier shops. Few trace the smell back to Panaderia Lara. Those who do startle at the mere 75 cents charged for a pastry and wonder if that little shop had been there all along. The other Mexican owned shop is La Michoacana, a regionally revered ice-cream shop and grill visited by the likes of Joe Biden.

La Michoacana is a popular spot respected

for authentic Mexican food. It provides palatable ethnic spice to the mild town, and adds a bit of intrigue and culture. Panaderia Lara has neither the respect nor the popularity of La Michoacana. Its services are beat by chic sweets in a wildly popular cafe, Talula’s.

Never mind that Talula’s does not offer treats as warm or as sweet as those in Panaderia Lara. It cannot belong.

White Unionville and Hispanic Kennett students rarely interact outside of a sporting context. Mexican students can sometimes be seen walking from The Garage to The Marketplace, an area where Unionville students are found. The YMCA is also visited in considerable numbers by both schools. Few other spaces (the Giant on Baltimore Pike being another location) allow for sustained interaction between white Unionville and Hispanic Kennett students. The YMCA is the closest thing to interracial utopia that Kennett Square has to offer. Still, if a gym-goer were to walk through the Y, she would find that white and Hispanic students are rarely found in the same spot. Though located south of our border, the Y is still dominated by white students. The rivalry reaches into every aspect of town life, with Unionville winning a partial victory over Kennett High by claiming enemy territory.

Their rigid belief in class and race order led to the largest, most involved online war the town of Kennett Square has ever seen.

Nationwide talk of “building the wall” is further agitating this quiet farming community.

Racism against Mexicans existed in Kennett Square long before the 2016 election. But the increasingly open hostility that has mounted against Mexicans ever since has done the town no favors. Nonetheless, this new political climate has elevated the taunts of those

Unionville students and turned them into a presidential platform. In May 2017, an ICE raid resulted in the arrest of 12 Kennett mushroom farmers, the first raid of its kind in remembered history. The raid signals this new era’s desire to strengthen our borders, to send back those who somehow managed to trick them. The understandable desire to maintain law and order clashes with the reality of a town’s, and a country’s, history.

Kennett Square maintains its fame and its status through the labor of illegal immigrants.

This fact complicates the weight of the phrase “illegal immigrant” when comparing it to the phrase “world-famous mushroom capitol.”

Kennett Square is not unique so much as it is symptomatic of this country’s conflicting desire to strengthen borders (and the working class) while also maintaining a cheap, desperate labor force.

It must be noted that Chester County township, which houses both schools, voted against the current president (though the state of Pennsylvania did not). There is outrage and fear present in families of all colors throughout the community. Not all are complacent, and there are clear, active proponents of tolerance. Still, many Unionville families have found little reason for alarm in this new era because many have yet to consider: What exactly would Unionville be without its greatest rival?

Sophie Tegenu ’20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at s.tegenu@wustl.edu.

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THE BORDERS AROUND OUR OWN EMPATHY Laura Cornell | Illustration by Neema Samawi

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hen a suicide bomber detonated at an arena concert in Manchester in May 2017, it shook America to its bones. A little more than a week later, when a car bomb exploded at a busy market in Kabul, Afghanistan, America merely shivered. Terrorist attacks are ubiquitous and hard to keep up with, and an individual’s capacity for compassion has its limits.

So, which tragedies receive the empathy of an American news consumer? For one, people may have racial borders around their ability to be compassionate. A 2010 study for Current Biology by Joan Chiao and Vani Mathur showed that brain regions responsible for empathy were more activated when watching a hand of a subject’s own race being poked by a needle and less activated when watching the same procedure on a hand of a different race. This may demonstrate that people feel more empathy towards those of their own race. In the case of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, the fact that African-Americans were primarily affected may have played a role in the delay in them receiving aid from the mostly white Michigan legislature. Although the Flint water crisis is far from being solved, media reporting and donations have declined starkly in the past year since the crisis was in the spotlight.

For those who don’t recognize themselves in the victims, once the story is out of sight, the problem is out of mind.

Racial borders often go hand in hand with socioeconomic borders. It’s easier to find empathy towards those with similar socioeconomic status to us because status determines situations we can imagine ourselves in. For example, it may be easier for a student at Wash U who has gone to several big arena concerts to imagine themselves as a victim of the Manchester bombing than as a victim of a bombing in a war zone. In the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks, Americans reacted by superimposing the French flag over their Facebook profile pictures, lighting up important buildings in the red, white, and blue stripes of the flag, and covering social media with hashtags and images of solidarity. In the

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same year, after Baga was ravaged by militants, leaving 2,000 people dead, American outpouring of empathy was notably more subdued – perhaps because France is much more like America than Nigeria, both racially and economically.

The “mainstream media” isn’t entirely to blame for the way that upper middle to upper class Americans and people of similar standing in other powerful countries react to events around the world. This group of news consumers, though not the largest faction, have the most consequential empathetic reactions because they have the most donating and political power.

Like any industry, the news media’s product depends on the preferences of the consumer.

Attention towards an event is partially an effect of how much coverage it receives, but visibility depends on traction, which depends on how much people care. Empathy is hard to quantify, but attention to news stories about a tragedy can be seen as an informal way to measure concern. News stories get more attention the more shock value they have. To the upper-class consumer of news, attacks in a war-ravaged place like Syria or the misfortunes of the citizens of poor cities like Flint are not newsworthy because it’s “normal” for those things to happen there; 126 people dead in Paris garners a more extreme reaction than 2,000 people dead in Baga from Boko Haram. In a 2015 article in the Huffington Post, Daniel Gastfriend reported that “between January 7th and January 12th, the highest reporting days for [the Charlie Hebdo attack and the Baga attack], the top mainstream U.S. news outlets mentioned Charlie Hebdo in 4,349 sentences. Baga: 131” The lack of an audience for news about poor areas comes back to the wealth and power disparities between the traditional colonizers of the Global North and the traditional colonized of less developed countries, and between the ruling class of a country and the citizens of its economically disadvantaged regions.

It is natural for people to have these borders around their own empathy; what matters is

what actions people take in the wake of a tragedy. Although tragedies affecting those most like us can hit closest to our hearts, our priorities still need to be on preventing crises in the most vulnerable areas of the world. Only spreading news of first world tragedies and expressing solidarity for those victims ensures the continual isolation of victims in areas that already get less support. The existing empathetic divide means we need to try harder to bring victims of crises in underserved areas relief, and take an inward look at ourselves and the way we react to world events. The actions that we take out of empathy are the first steps to creating positive change.

Laura Cornell ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at lauracornell@wustl.edu.

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ISRAEL’S LEGACY OF HUMANITARIANISM Nate Turk

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espite the rocky relationship between Israel and Syria, Israel is committed to helping the other in its humanitarian crisis, treating refugees and sending supplies to communities in the war-torn nation. The two countries have no diplomatic relations, but Israel still operates an extensive humanitarian effort in Syria nearly every day.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently revealed the scope of its humanitarian project in Syria, named Operation Good Neighbor.

Since 2013, Israel has quietly treated around 3,000 wounded Syrian refugees in its hospitals, and the government is preparing to treat many more Syrians in the wake of more chemical attacks. Furthermore, in the last year, the IDF has secretly helped 200,000 Syrians living in villages controlled by rebel groups by transporting 360 tons of food, 77 tons of clothing, and many generators, in addition to antibiotics, construction materials, and baby formula.

Though these figures are just a fraction of the number of displaced people in Syria, the efforts are remarkable because of Israel’s unique relationship with the other nation.

Syria has never recognized Israel as a country, yet Israel is treating its people. Israel and Syria have technically been at war with each other since Israel’s founding in 1948, mainly because Syria calls for the destruction of a Jewish state and has rejected Israeli peace offers of returning the Golan Heights to Syria.

Yet Israel is still looking for ways to help with the country’s humanitarian crisis.

Israel’s extraordinary humanitarian efforts are nothing new. In 1958, only a decade after its founding, Israel created its official humanitarian agenda after Foreign Minister (and later, Prime Minister) Golda Meir’s first visit to Africa. Since then, Israel has assisted over 140 other countries with humanitarian efforts.

Israel was first to set up emergency hospitals in Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake and quickly sent water-purification experts to Japan after the March 2011 tsunami. In 2007, Israel also donated $5 million in aid to

refugees from the Darfur Genocide, becoming one of the top 10 donors in the world.

Vietnamese refugees fleeing communist takeover between 1977 and 1979 found home in Israel, where they were granted citizenship and government-subsidized apartments.

Israel has also helped countless countries develop desalination and sustainable water technologies, some of which do not even recognize Israel as a state. But why has Israel been so quick to help other countries in need?

In the last year, the IDF has secretly helped 200,000 Syrians living in villages controlled by rebel groups.

One aspect may be the country’s experience with terrorism and war. Since the country is a world leader in dealing with emergency relief and mass casualty situations, it may feel obliged to use its expertise in these situations to help other nations.

Perhaps it is also because the Jewish people feel an inherent connection with refugees and those suffering through genocide and traumatic experiences. Jews were stateless for 2,000 years, and until the 1800s, the vast majority of Jews did not have citizenship or basic rights where they lived. Israel was built by refugees. In 1948, at its founding, the country had 802,000 people, but accepted around 700,000 Holocaust refugees and around 850,000 Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa in the next decade. This would be the equivalent of the US, which has a population of 323 million people, accepting around 620 million refugees today. Many Holocaust survivors, until Israel’s founding, were living in European displacement camps with no home or

belongings. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, most Arab countries kicked Jews out of their homes, robbed them of their belongings, and forced them to leave places where their families had lived for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years. Israel, again, accepted nearly one million Jewish refugees from the former USSR in the 1990s—people who were denied the right to practice their religion for decades.

As a country built of refugees that has experienced many mass casualty situations in its short history, Israel feels an obligation to assist other countries around the world, even countries such as Syria, which calls for Israel’s destruction. Unfortunately, the US—a country similarly built by immigrants, but with 313 million more people—does not do its part in assisting refugees. Some Americans view Syrian refugees as a threat to American national security. Yet Syria poses a significantly larger threat to Israel than the United States, and Israel still sees Syrian refugees and displaced civilians as people desperate for food and safety rather than as a threat. To Americans who support President Trump’s indefinite ban on Syrian refugees: look to Israel as an example of a country that mitigates the risks of aiding refugees instead of outright denying the help. With the largest economy in the world, America has so much potential to ease the Syrian refugee crisis.

Hopefully, Israel can serve as an example to the American government on how to maintain a commitment to humanitarian efforts in Syria.

Nate Turk ‘19 studies in the Olin Business School. He can be reached at nateturk@wustl.edu.

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BEING HUMAN Katelyn Taira | Image courtesy of Flickr Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum My senior year of high school, my AP English Literature teacher assigned The Handmaid’s Tale as the very last book we would ever read together. I didn’t expect much. Thirteen years of Catholic education tempered my expectations of what would be read in the classroom—probably a “canonical” classic (written by a Caucasian man, but sometimes a woman; usually British, occasionally American; consistently having some thematic relation to sin). The Handmaid’s Tale shocked me. It was about women—the patriarchal, theocratic, governmental control of women’s bodies—and chronicled the collapse of a nation and the exploitation of citizens. Offred, deprived of even her name and known only by her connection to a man, reveals her frustrations with the system and her resolution to subvert it. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a woman’s protest.

It makes sense that Margaret Atwood’s novel is re-emerging to the forefront of our social consciousness. In a government that is increasingly challenging access to women’s healthcare and bodily autonomy, The Handmaid’s Tale is the adopted symbol of contemporary resistance. Across the nation this summer, women protested state legislatures in the iconic red robes and white bonnets of Atwood’s dystopia, forcibly drawing the parallel between the fictional authoritarian regime and the current administration.

But why The Handmaid’s Tale? Why use a Canadian novel as a tool for American resistance? Why a novel at all?

A Case for the Humanities This is my case for the humanities. Good literature—stories not only about the human condition, but those that themselves inspire humanity—remains integral to our society and must be intently consumed, studied, and critiqued. It is crucial to our contemporary world that is growing ever more globalized; technology-dependent; and disparate in economic outcomes, racial and gender inequality, and political ideology. For these purposes,

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I define literature broadly, as any medium that evokes a narrative of humanity—the humanities.

Just as The Handmaid’s Tale has inspired a movement in America, one of the largest benefits of literature is its ability to capture the human condition and spur social awareness and activism. Good literature doesn’t just reflect our world, but actively proposes or ignites a change in it. Namely, it inspires.

It thrives on imagination and human connection, motivating people to action.

To take a step back and survey literature that has inspired past social movements—before identifying any that is formative to current activism—is helpful here. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, though famously problematized by Baldwin for its portrayal of slaves, tremendously expanded upon the abolitionist pamphlets of the time, offering a literature that sympathetically revealed the moral atrocities of slavery.

It became a rallying cry for abolitionists, a source of emotion, outrage, and a cry for freedom. Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln is credited for having said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle famously exposed the horrifying processes of the meatpacking industry, revealing the unsanitary conditions and practices surrounding urban meatpacking plants and their products, as well as the exploitation of immigrant laborers. Public outrage ran loud and deep, garnering so many collective outcries that President Roosevelt signed the Meat Inspection Act into law in 1906, the very same year The Jungle was published. Writers like Sinclair played a significant role in shaping progressive ideas of the time and the social movements that proposed reforms for the social ills of the era.

A vast trove of literature dedicated to a variety of causes has fundamentally shifted social movements, forever altering how people relate to themselves, their surroundings, and each other. Thoreau’s Walden targets material excess, damaging social conventions, and the

exploitation of laborers, beautifully blending poetry and economy. Environmental activists credit Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and her warnings about pesticides’ adverse effects on the environment. The list continues today, including more media, more causes, and more people coming together. Wonder Woman— first published in 1941 and revamped in a film release this year—continues its legacy of empowering girls to be both unbelievably strong and loving, riding the momentum of huge movements like the Women’s March.

Captain America, created by Jewish cartoonists during the height of WWII, was a direct counterpoint to Hitler’s fascism and recently paralleled a trend of dismantling Neo-Nazism.

Kendrick Lamar amplifies the voices that speak out against police brutality and racial inequalities. Beyoncé echoes this message while also uplifting young black women.

A formula emerges. A writer sees something in the world or discovers something that haunts society’s unconsciousness and then writes about it. People consume it. They think, they observe, they discuss, they act.

Sometimes it fundamentally changes their individual worldview. Sometimes it even changes the world.

This is why the humanities are essential. It is not a brush at sentimentality, nothing like reading books somehow equates to being an expert in humanity. It is because literature, at its best, makes us better people. It is a practice in empathy, in experiencing others’ lives, in inhabiting a world that is unfamiliar to you.

It is a prompt to actively understand the world, admire it, and improve it. Art is often an individual experience and motivator—different pieces will change in meaning depending on who is consuming it. But the humanities also transcend fabricated social divides and connect people together. And this is the crux: bringing people together via the humanities in a world that is becoming more globalized with technology yet simultaneously divided.

To Be in Community This summer, Mark Zuckerberg released a

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piece that proposes how Facebook—social media as a whole, really—can better integrate into the social structures of the world.

His keyword is community, and his vision is to create one that is supportive, safe, informed, civically-engaged, and inclusive. With nearly two billion users across the world—spanning generations, genders, races, ideologies, and economic stations—building any sense of community aside from a requisite internet access is, at best, extremely difficult, and, at worst, probably impossible. Still, he suggests this change at a basic level that gradually moves outward. He emphasizes the values of communication, of continually sharing new ideas to keep informed of a common understanding that will “amplify the good effects and mitigate the bad.” He acknowledges that “Facebook is not just technology or media, but a community of people.” He encourages connection on the personal level, uniting disparate segments of populations that otherwise would not come together. And focusing on that personal bond, that string that ties us to others and weaves in and out of countless lives, is the real point. What better way to tap into these lives than by sharing our own stories?

Zuckerberg nails it in understanding that while his comments specifically pertain to connecting a global community, this vision can very well apply to individual countries, local communities, and even groups of strangers

who share like-minded ideals. Consider both the local and global movements made possible by social media. A worldwide stage has been produced and nourished, a platform to share stories in solidarity, to put a name and a face to people’s experiences. Standing Rock refused to be silenced, with social media facilitating carpool matching, videos, and updates for protesters. The Women’s March garnered the participation of an estimated five million individuals worldwide. Pantsuit Nation, originally an ordinary Facebook group for Hillary supporters, now boasts nearly four million members. It transformed into a place where people could share their stories and struggles with the solidarity and empathy of total strangers. These contemporary movements are all organized around feelings of being individually moved, of wanting to be part of something larger, of a visceral humanity that strives for connection and social justice.

Literature, too, depends on these feelings.

Our lives are just collective stories we tell ourselves, and the emergent media for them reside in social media technologies.

social media. Literature is connective. When you're finally done reading, you inevitably consider how it relates to your world and all the other people who have shared this reading experience with you. Literature has staying power.

But can't social media capture the same things that the humanities do without clogging up feeds with book reviews and philosophical arguments? Sure. Literature and its media are always changing. What remains immutable are the values underlying it and how they intersect in our daily lives. The humanities are often written off because they are not hard sciences, not immediately visible or quantifiable in their complexity, impact, or perceived worth to society. But there is inherent poetry in the lives we lead, and this is the kind of thing that the humanities document: what makes us human. This strain of ourselves—who we are and what makes us— needs to remain vibrant. This is worth sharing, and this is what brings us together.

Doing More with Technology While technology is a remarkable tool that can rapidly connect a globalized world and foster social relationships, it is just that—a tool. We, the people, furnish the content, provide the stories worth telling. The humanities foster exactly what Zuckerberg envisions for

Katelyn Taira ’18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at ktaira@wustl.edu.

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A CLOSER LOOK AT THE GREEN LINE What is the Green Line?

The Green Line was originally the armistice line that was in place when Israel became a state in 1948. Now, the line represents the border between the State of Israel and the modern-day Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank, which were annexed by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Why is it controversial?

Israel argues that it needs to maintain control over the Green Line region to protect its citizens from threats of military attacks and terrorism coming from surrounding areas. However, the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied land leads many to believe that Israel is trying to blur the line and intrude on Palestinian territory, obscuring any chance for a twostate solution.

42% of land in the West Bank is zoned for Israeli settlements.

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

400,000 12.6% is the approximate number of Israelis currently residing in West Bank settlements.

of residents living in the West Bank are Israeli settlers.

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ART CAN ONLY IMITATE LIFE Sabrina Wang

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oing to Whole Foods, want me to pick you up anything?” This Tinder message— courtesy of Matt, 21—lit up Victoria’s phone, and we both immediately burst out laughing. I was visiting Victoria in her sunny California hometown, and we’d spent the day playing tourist and gorging on acai bowls. Now exhausted and uncomfortably full, we were slumped together on her couch.

“Did he actually just use the ‘Whole Foods’ pick up line on me?” Victoria exclaimed, once our laughter had calmed.

“Okay but the real question is,” I replied, “did it work?”

Like Matt, 21, I avidly watched the new season of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, the hit Netflix TV show that featured the aforementioned ‘Whole Foods’ pick up line. Though I’ve been an Aziz Ansari fan since his Parks and Recreation days, Master of None is bit of a departure from the actor/comedian’s typical work. His trademark exuberant humor is still there, of course, but it’s tempered by a seriousness and a willingness to engage with more profound topics. In the series, Ansari plays Dev Shah—an actor and essentially less-successful version of the real Aziz—while many of Ansari’s friends and family members (including Aziz’s parents!) play fictionalized versions of themselves as well.

The extent to which Master of None resembles Aziz’s own life, through both its casting and its storylines, makes it a memoir of sorts, a sitcom that feels at once highly personal and full of humor. And it’s this confessional quality that draws me to the show, lending it a sense of authenticity in a world where the entertainment industry seems like a monolithic black box. Watching the on-screen Dev deal with girl troubles and his immigrant identity feels almost like I’m watching Ansari stumble through these issues himself. But while the intimacy apparent in Master of None is part of what makes it compelling, it’s also a little deceiving. It may feel like we know Ansari, but we’ve never met him—and the complexity of life cannot be reduced to a 20-minute sitcom episode.

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Ansari isn’t alone in creating this personal, memoir-esque type of art. Many musicians— from Childish Gambino to The 1975 to Kendrick Lamar—incorporate intimate stories in their music, detailing seminal childhood experiences (the outro story from Gambino’s “That Power”); post-partum depression and drug addiction (The 1975’s “She Lays Down,” about front man Matt Healy’s mother); and selfishness and economic mobility (Lamar’s “How Much a Dollar Cost?”). Meanwhile, there are comics like Hasan Minhaj, who famously spoke at the 2017 White House Correspondent’s Dinner, recounting truly horrifying stories about his earliest experiences with racism in his comedy special Homecoming King. Even less formally defined "creators" share intimate details about themselves online regularly. YouTube personalities vlog every day for entire weeks or months, often posting 30 or 45 minute videos of ‘unscripted’ glimpses into their daily lives. Instagram accounts like @hiddenheartbreak and @180daysof_not_dating post anonymous illustrations and detailed stories about their breakups as a method of therapy.

With the use of such personal stories and the increasing accessibility of art, the borders between artist and audience seem to have thinned: Ansari’s show, for example, is immediately broadcast to Netflix’s 98 million users worldwide, while many musicians release their albums across multiple platforms—like Spotify and Apple Music—all at once. But this accessibility itself reveals a bit of the contradiction: if your favorite artist shares their most intimate truths with everyone, how intimate can these truths really be? With social media creators in particular, this illusion of intimacy can be even further heightened due to the inherent democracy and sense of spontaneity of internet platforms. Many YouTubers do little to dispel this myth—referring to their fan base of millions as a “community” and passively projecting the image of a one-person production company regardless of the truth.

This is not to say that art informed by personal experience is bad, or that artists are being disingenuous when they create in this way; quite the opposite, actually. I’ve truly enjoyed and

resonated with the works of each of the artists I’ve referenced—and considering the fact that Master of None won an Emmy, I’m not the only one. In a sense, audiences really do get to know creators through their content: people make art as a way of communication, to both be understood and understand the world. While I’m no Aziz Ansari, a few of my past articles for this magazine have centered around my experiences with cultural identity as a first-generation Asian American. These experiences, even if at points exaggerated or shifted to fit the article’s thesis, are a part of who I am, and have shaped the way I see myself and my world. And though I felt confident in my decision to publish these personal stories, I still felt more than a little uncomfortable when acquaintances told me they’d read my articles.

But at the same time, my experiences haven’t been limited to the few that I chose to share in my articles—and the same goes for the far more seasoned creators that have achieved commercial success and social media clout.

This is a fundamental feature of creation: as all people live lives that cannot possibly be shared in total detail, storytelling is a way of picking experiences to make a point. I don’t doubt that there’s truth in Ansari’s depiction of Dev in Master of None; the inclusion of truth is part of what makes the show’s exploration of topics like love and religion so earnest and meaningful. But I also believe that the amount of truth shown onscreen is far outweighed by the amount that is left unseen. The need to understand artists through their content is a reasonable one, but we cannot productively engage with art until we realize that it is impossible to know a creator in totality, and that art is both creation and interpretation. Ultimately, art is much more about its effect on the audience—and the meaning it creates in impacting us—than the accuracy with which it represents its creator. The borders between artist and audience may have thinned, but they still exist.

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

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TEXAS VS. TEXAS: THE SENATE THAT WON’T STOP Arno Goetz

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allas is a divided city. It was divided before President Trump was elected. It was divided before President Obama was elected. It was divided before President Kennedy was assassinated. Dallas is a divided city—that much is obvious.

Texas, as a whole, is less fractured. In the sweltering red heat of Republican dominance, only a few splotches of blue stand out. These blue dots are tiny points that come from cities like Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas.

With the overwhelming amount of red counties in Texas, it was unsurprising when Senate Bills 4 and 6 were passed in Texas over the summer.

Senate Bill 4 lines up perfectly with President Trump’s agenda to deport immigrants and shore up our borders. The bill authorizes local law enforcement to question the legal status of any person they stop or arrest. While this doesn’t seem especially drastic, the bill goes further. According to The Nation, the bill “requires that law enforcement officers become extensions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” adding that any officer who does not comply with the bill is subject to criminal penalties.

It might seem obvious to some of us, but it turns out when people enter a restroom, they tend to prefer to, quite simply, go to the restroom.

Essentially, local law enforcement officers can be deputized by the ICE to carry out orders, dramatically increasing the agency’s reach and power. This diminishes the police’s ability to protect cities, for immigration offenses now take precedence over other crimes. Critics of the bill call it the “Show-Me-Your-Papers” bill and describe it as being an important step in dismantling sanctuary cities. Senate Bill 4 is locally known as the “Sanctuary Cities Bill” because of its power to gut the protection sanctuary cities give to its residents.

gender that appears on their birth certificates.

The bill has been targeted by many corners of Texas because it restricts transgendered citizens from entering the bathroom that they feel more comfortable using. Major businesses have spoken out, some calling the bill discriminatory and threatening to move their business outside of Texas, taking jobs and money with them. According to Fox News, debate surrounding the bill has already cost the state $66 million in convention business, and that figure could rise to roughly $1.4 billion if more sports, conventions and other events are canceled. Dallas and Texas companies, combined with national companies, are protesting the bill. Some of the companies publically protesting the bill are AT&T, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Texas Instruments, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.

Texas is known for its economic prowess and being good to businesses, so these major companies protesting the bill would ideally be a strong motivator to kill the bill.

Another bill to glide through Texas’s Senate is the Senate Bill 6, or “The Bathroom Bill.”

Senate Bill 6 is a controversial bill that only allows citizens to use the bathroom for the

Yet Governor Greg Abbott staunchly defends the bill, saying that Texas needs it to protect “the privacy of women and children.”

Austin’s Police Chief had a very clear and

evidence-backed retort for the Senate and Governor, making it clear that this bill is a solution for a problem that does not exist.

There have been no incidents of men posing as women or transgender citizens entering a bathroom to commit a crime. It might seem obvious to some of us, but it turns out when people enter a restroom, they tend to prefer to, quite simply, go to the restroom.

Dallas, while flawed and divided, is a proud city. While Senate Bills 4 and 6 are creating quite a ruckus these days, I am proud of the actions Texas and Dallas citizens and businesses are taking against these discriminatory bills. Dallas is a sanctuary city, so with the support of the Dallas City Council, Mayor Mike Rawlings joined San Antonio in suing Texas over Senate Bill 4, citing the unconstitutionality of the bill. The suit was filed on June 1. Protestors will continue to voice their dissent, but only the future knows the outcome of Senate Bill 4. Senate Bill 6’s future hangs more in the air. A very similar bill was brought forward about a year ago, but died in the House after passing in the Senate. The bill passed through the Senate on July 25th, but has a tough road ahead. Regardless of the outcome, this Dallasite is proud of Dallas’s citizens, Mayor Rawlings, and the City Council for protecting the city I am proud to call home. ¡Viva Dallas!

Arno Goetz ‘20 studies in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. He can be reached at arnogoetz@wustl.edu.

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THE PUERTO RICO DILEMMA Ryan Mendelson | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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arlier this year, the United States celebrated its 241st birthday, and while our nation has seen great progress throughout its history, it is as important to acknowledge the shortcomings of our democracy as it is to celebrate its promises. Reflecting on the politically turbulent past few years, we must take a second look at our system, which claims to value freedom over all else, and recognize some of its pitfalls.

Despite the national rhetoric of liberty and opportunity, not all Americans have been able to reap the benefits promised by this rhetoric, and expansions of freedom and power for some parties can often impair the lives of others. The lives of Native Americans were neglected in favor of Westward expansion, the humanity of African Americans was neglected in favor of slavery, and now the well-being of Puerto Ricans has been neglected in favor of using exploitative cheap labor to promote crude macroeconomic growth and capital gains.

Puerto Rico is in the midst of a massive financial crisis that has no end in sight. The island’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and median household income are significantly below that of all 50 states. And while it may be easy for one to label Puerto Rico as merely a poor territory, this assertion represents a gross oversimplification of its debt crisis, which was largely introduced by US federal policy. While the US Government enacted policies in Puerto Rico in order to spur economic growth, they have ultimately resulted in debilitating ramifications for the people there instead.

There are two legal reasons for Puerto Rico’s road to ruin. First, the foundations began in the 1980s with the establishment of Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, which granted tax breaks to both American companies and their foreign counterparts for implementing operations in Puerto Rico instead of overseas. With this law, Puerto Rico became a hub of manufacturing, particularly for the pharmaceutical industry. By 1993, the

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manufacturing industry on the island contributed greatly to its economic performance and employed roughly 165,000 workers. However, Section 936 made foreign investment artificially favorable on the island, creating a bubble. In order to prevent the bubble from bursting, in 1996, the Clinton administration established legislation to phase out the exemptions over a 10-year period. However, the legislation failed, and the expiration of these exemptions in 2006 caused businesses to outsource production, leaving Puerto Rico with decreased employment opportunities and a feeble economy. As a result of policies such as this, even though Puerto Rico is part of the United States, Puerto Rican citizens are substantially worse off economically than most mainland Americans.

The second major reason for Puerto Rico’s struggles is the fact that bonds issued by Puerto Rico are triple-tax exempt, meaning that they cannot be taxed at a federal, state, or local level. As a result, bonds from the island are given high ratings and are exceptionally attractive for investors. However, because the exemptions remain valid in all 50 states, Puerto Rico does not reap the benefits of its own bonds. Although promoting investment in Puerto Rican assets should theoretically bolster the island’s economy, these triple-tax exempt bonds have done just the opposite. By favoring the bond owner over the citizen, lawmakers have left Puerto Rico with poor economic infrastructure and a crippled government that lacks sufficient funding to serve its constituents effectively.

Taken together, these two processes have yielded profound effects. Bond debt is up 87% since 2006. Because of high government spending without sufficient opportunities for tax collection, government debt in Puerto Rico now measures a whopping $74 billion. Payrolls have contracted by 8% since the recession, and the island’s unemployment rate is around 12%, more than twice the rate of the mainland. This absence of quality wages and job opportunities has prompted hundreds of thousands to leave the island,

and this exodus – coupled with a decreased fertility rate due to economic and health concerns – has resulted in a 2% decrease in the island’s population for each of the past three years. The freedom for investors from outside of Puerto Rico to own tax-free Puerto Rican bonds has caused a striking shortage of tax revenue, leaving the government unable to hold its own. Thus, the freedom of investors to own tax-free bonds is resulting in the citizens’ demise.

When Puerto Ricans arrive on the mainland seeking new lives, the economic and social struggle continues. Mainland Puerto Rican residents face cultural barriers and limited opportunities for economic advancement once they arrive in their new mainland communities. Mike Schneider of the Associated Press described how even the most qualified and highly educated Puerto Ricans – lawyers, scholars, nurses, and more – often lack sufficient language skills and certifications to find jobs in their respective fields on the mainland.

This process is extremely problematic. Puerto Ricans are not immigrants moving overseas but Americans moving to a new place in America. And yet, Puerto Ricans relocating to the mainland are essentially living the immigrant experience in their own country. Like immigrants, these citizens suffer economic immobility in their hometowns, flock to new places to find better opportunities, and too often are left isolated within the new societies into which they enter. Economics aside, how can we be a truly United States if we neglect a territory that is home to over 3 million Americans?

But the issue of neglect isn’t even that simple.

Americans throughout the nation often feel neglected economically or politically. Donald Trump, for example, was able to gain tremendous support during the presidential race by capitalizing on this sentiment, campaigning in rural areas whose residents felt ignored by politicians and whose economic situations were bleak. But the case of Puerto Rico is far different. Whereas rural communities throughout

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the country have suffered textbook cases of economic and industrial decline, Puerto Rico has been the subject of government and economic policies that create wealth at the expense of the Puerto Rican people. Puerto Rico, then, is by no means a neglected territory. The federal government does not merely neglect the interests of the island; it takes advantage of the Puerto Rican people in order to create prosperity elsewhere.

This cycle leaves us with a troublesome conclusion. Although traditional colonialism is long gone, the current relationship between Puerto Rico and the mainland United States is all too colonial. Resource exploitation has become legislative exploitation; as Puerto Rico Governor Ricky Rosselló declared after his November election victory, “[Puerto Rico has] been a colony for 500 years, and we have had US citizenship for 100 years, but it’s been a second-class one.” Puerto Rico should not be America’s investment factory, and Puerto Ricans should not have to leave their island to pursue their own American dreams elsewhere. If the United States claims to be the most powerful country on Earth, it should at least have the ability to empower Puerto Ricans just as it would any other citizens.

The issue of the well-being of Puerto Rico and those who live there is both an economic and

an ethical one. Puerto Rico’s economic situation will not improve on its own. The federal government needs to either provide Puerto Rico with monetary relief, promote free market activities that still allow for adequate collection of taxes, or a combination of both.

Although free market and incentive-based profit-maximizing systems do not have to be deliberately exploitative, in Puerto Rico’s case they have proven to be just that. While there may be a variety of strategies with which to battle the crisis, it is first necessary for the Puerto Rican government to have the funds to invest in imperatives like jobs, education, and healthcare. Even to promote free-market policies, the government of Puerto Rico must have the basic capability to function in the interest of the people, and while tax collection may create inefficiencies in the market, it is an essential aspect of what makes the government function. Holding Puerto Rico at fault for its debt crisis both oversimplifies and distracts from the problem, and if valuable change is to be brought, the federal government must take the lead to empower the Puerto Rican government.

To sum up, the problem here is that government policy made Puerto Rico a playground for large corporations, creating a temporary influx of opportunities for islanders that ground to a halt once the laws changed and

left the island in a persistently depressed state. Economically, if the government seeks to promote free market activities on the island as a means of lifting Puerto Rico from its ongoing recession, it must promote investment on the island without creating an artificial bubble.

Furthermore, the federal government must fulfill its ethical obligation to its own people. Discussions of Puerto Rican statehood and sovereignty must be taken seriously, and the government should promote policies that bring opportunities to the island rather than push its people away. While the preservation of economic liberty is vital, the American government is also fundamentally responsible for the interests of all Americans. By exploiting Puerto Rico, the United States neglects the American people as well.

Ryan Mendelson ’19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ryanmendelson@wustl.edu.

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UNITED WE OPPOSE, DIVIDED WE GOVERN Michael Fogarty

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nyone can tell you that Republicans are on the right and Democrats are on the left. But the left and right of what, exactly? The ubiquitous left-right dichotomy assumes that political parties can be placed along a one-dimensional ideological spectrum. This political fiction underlies most partisan political rhetoric; at the same time, it is becoming less and less true. Both Republicans and Democrats are largely unified on social issues, but are increasingly divided on the direction of proper economic policy.

Recent events in the United States highlight growing divides in both the political right and the political left. On the right, last year’s presidential election signaled the arrival of the alt-right and ethno-nationalism to the political mainstream. Since the Reagan Revolution, the Republican party has comprised a coalition between social conservatives and small-government economic conservatives. The essence of Republican coalition was reciprocity: each component of the coalition would support the other’s agenda, and received support for its own in return.

There is a growing rift between the party establishment and the Trump wing. Trump’s ideological coalition is distinct from the traditional social conservative-fiscal conservative marriage of convenience. Trump won with the support of Rust Belt swing voters more concerned with the relative decline of the white middle class in former manufacturing hubs than ideological commitments to “starve the beast” of the federal welfare state. In fact, many of these voters are beneficiaries of the welfare programs movement conservatives so wish to destroy. Are they, as a group, willing to give up Medicare and Social Security benefits in return for a lower top marginal tax rate?

Republicans’ failure to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act illustrates this

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dynamic perfectly. Even though Republicans have unified control over the Executive and Legislative branches, they have so far been unable to fulfill one of their central campaign promises. The reason for this is quite simple: Congressional leaders and Trump want different things.

Trump’s healthcare plans do not match those of the Republican mainstream. Although the White House has largely stayed quiet on the issue, his campaign positions included promises not to cut benefit programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and a pledge to devote resources to fight the opioid epidemic. Additionally, he derided the House version of the repeal and replace legislation as “mean”. Clearly, this is not the standard Republican health care platform.

Trump’s base is not composed of small government fiscal conservatives.

Neither the House nor the Senate bills bore much resemblance to Trump’s professed policy positions. Trump let the more experienced Congressional Republicans draft his healthcare legislation, and the result is even less popular than Trump himself. Congressional Republicans came up against a central dilemma in healthcare policy: the most popular provisions of the ACA, such as coverage for pre-existing conditions, only work with government intervention in the healthcare market. McConnell and Ryan had a choice, and the Republican orthodox positions won out: the new bills nakedly cut taxes on the rich, and pays for those cuts with extensive benefit reductions to Medicaid and reduced subsidies to lower-income Americans to let them buy health insurance.

The Republican party is divided on economic issues. With the party in unified control of the federal government, it should be in a strong position to implement its platform. However, the Trump and establishment wings of the party want different things. Although both are

conservative on social issues, establishment Republicans are laser-focused on cutting the size of the federal government, while Trump is more concerned with “America First,” restoring an idealized version of the country built on a strong, manufacturing-based middle class.

There is an intrinsic tension between these two goals – the white middle class Trump seeks to restore relies upon government entitlements that fiscal conservatives aspire to eviscerate.

The beginnings of a similar divide could be seen in the Democratic party during the primary campaign, but the party has appeared unified since the election by its anti-Trump stance. There is growing dissension between the progressive and centrist wings of the Democratic Party. Both largely agree on social issues like guns and LGBTQ rights. However, there is a growing debate over economic policy. Centrists advocate for regulated capitalism and incremental change to the current system, while the party’s progressive wing advocates for a Northern-European style social welfare state with programs such as universal healthcare and free college tuition.

The Republican party’s transition to power after eight years as the opposition may foreshadow the future dynamics of the Democratic Party. While Democrats’ divisions may not be at the center of the political debate now, they won’t go away. The 2020 Democratic primary will be a contentious debate over the direction of the party, despite the appearance of unity in opposition to Trump.

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

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SCREW THE DISCOURSE Max Handler

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or roughly the past six months, I’ve been telling everyone I know to listen to the socialist podcast Chapo Trap House.

I’ve done this partially to annoy people, but mostly because it’s great, equal parts incisive and laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Many of my more moderate friends—and certainly my conservative ones—will be skeptical.

Rapidly increasing partisanship has led many of them to look upon those on the political extremes with disdain. But on the contrary, it’s important now more than ever to listen to what the far left has to say. Ignoring people for the sake of maintaining “The Discourse” will have disastrous effects.

In an interview recorded during last year’s election, Chapo co-host Felix Biederman, discussed the concept of “The Discourse.”

Biederman made the point that the norms we have around political discussion are worthless, and only serve to insulate the powerful and maintain the current status quo. Our discourse is strangely obsessed with the idea of respect; in order to have Serious Political Discussion™, we must respect the other side and its ideas, and above all else, maintain civility.

For supporting evidence, consider the debate over the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), the long-awaited Republican proposal to replace Obamacare. The BCRA has sparked outrage from Democrats, who have argued that if implemented, it will kill countless Americans.

Republicans have not taken kindly to these sorts of critiques, arguing that they degrade the discourse. The right became obsessed with “The Discourse” following James Hodgkinson’s attempt to murder Republican Congressmen at a practice for the Congressional Baseball Game. In National Review, Tiana Lowe expressed her disapproval, claiming that the real violence was not the GOP’s healthcare proposal but rather Hodgkinson’s actions. This was representative of the general Republican response to the critique of them as killers: such a criticism is

not worthy of a response because it is “disrespectful” and therefore not helpful in the political discourse.

The problem with these sorts of responses is that they ignore the actual views of many Americans, deeming them as being unworthy of being treated seriously. The opposition to the BCRA legitimately believes that the bill will kill millions of people. While there are many reasons, such as supposedly lower costs, that people have for supporting universal healthcare, the heart of the issue is a moral one. Universal healthcare supporters believe that without healthcare, people will die avoidable deaths, and thus any system that does not provide universal coverage is fundamentally immoral. By dismissing these critics as rude and ejecting them from mainstream politics, the GOP silences millions of Americans on a vital issue.

To quote Biederman, “Politics is life and death. Why would you not have your full range of expression involved in it?”

The only ones benefitting from ignoring those who call BCRA supporters killers are GOP politicians. Excluding their most effective critics from “The Discourse” makes it easier for them to stay in power and to defend—and subsequently enact—their preferred policies. By silencing their critics, the GOP gets to keep America’s Overton Window—the range of ideas acceptable to the public—narrow. Universal alternatives can be deemed unacceptably radical and thus not worthy of engagement.

However, Republicans are not alone in their desire to squash dissent by invoking

“The Discourse.” This tactic is commonly seen from the left on the issue of abortion.

Democrats claim that Republican rhetoric on abortion is beyond the pale. A representative example comes from last July, when CNN pundit Sally Kohn tweeted, “Calling abortion clinics ‘baby killers’ is rhetoric that incites violence.” This is a line that the left often trots out in the abortion debate. Calling pro-choice people “baby killers” is supposedly uncivil and prevents Americans from having serious discussions about abortion.

But just as with the GOP on healthcare, what the Democrats are really doing is seeking to marginalize their critics. Being pro-choice is an easy position to defend when the opposition is opposed to the bodily autonomy of women. The position becomes much harder when the opposition is instead opposed to murder. By policing the right’s rhetoric, Democrats remove the most powerful and sincere argument there is against abortion. The people who oppose abortion really do believe that it kills babies, just as those opposed to the BCRA honestly believe that it will kill innocents.

All of this is not to say that we should be rude to each other. Rather, we should start being open with our harshest criticisms. We must not be obsequious towards those in power; we must not silence ourselves on their behalf.

If we actually want productive conversations, we must be allowed to honestly express our beliefs. If those beliefs are dumb—or worse, evil—then they ought to be labeled as such.

To quote Biederman, “Politics is life and death.

Why would you not have your full range of expression involved in it?”

Max Handler ‘18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at handlermax@gmail.com.

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AGE NEVER MATTERS Luke Voyles | Illustration by Chirstina Lu

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ommentators have a habit of describing a certain generation of people as sharing common characteristics by placing them in the same generational set. For example, people in their 20s and younger are known as millennials. The commentators called people born between 1946 and 1964 “baby boomers,” and people of a later generation “Generation X.” Critics described baby boomers as being too leftist and too willing to let the government to take care of them because they never went through the Great Depression and World War II like their parents underwent. Meanwhile, millennials have mobile phones and access to the Internet, which provides them a massive amount of freedom to pursue useful (and sometimes harmful) information on the Internet while being monitored by “helicopter parents.”

Kitschy Internet memes and tacky birthday cards have a habit of telling people that their age is “just a number.” While that is certainly true, age affects perceptions of people as being homogeneous within their constructed generational set.

My experience is perhaps exceptional among American young adults in that my paternal grandfather was a staunch Democrat and my father a firm Republican. I cannot adequately stress what polar opposites they represented. My grandfather spent his retirement years working his property, watching Westerns, and faithfully consuming MSNBC programming. My father listens to Rush Limbaugh and watches Fox News and the Fox Business Network sporadically. Yet they were extremely jovial in their conversation, while engaging in lively and heated political discussions. The popular stereotype is that their positions should have been switched, so how did they get along so well?

Each understood the other. My grandfather was born in 1945 and migrated to Colorado at 11 to find a job as his mother could not afford to maintain him and his numerous siblings.

After he passed away in 2016, my grandmother told me a fact that my grandfather kept secret from the rest of the family. Before quitting cigarettes around a decade ago, he

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had smoked since he was a small child. He smoked cigarettes because they suppressed hunger. A church expelled him and his family for being too unkempt. As a result, my father and I spent decades urging him to accept Christianity. He did, but we never held out hope and never particularly cared about him ever joining a church and moving toward organized religion. My grandfather understood the importance of the government providing basic welfare for its citizens when the citizens’ local community was too pompous and callous to provide for them.

Age never matters, but experience always matters.

My father had a decidedly different upbringing.

He never really wanted for anything as a child.

He even saw the benefits of a having a father that belonged to a union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1.

During a particularly heated union election, my grandfather and his compatriots brought guns to intimidate voters into voting for their candidate who would allow them to keep their jobs. He saw the frustration of his own father at President Reagan’s union-busting tactics.

It remains his main critique of the Reagan administration. He joined the military to earn a college degree and served as a Morse Code operator for the Air Force. He left the military in the early 1990s and obtained a job as a postal carrier. Dad treats all people older than him with respect, something with which my grandfather understandably struggled because of his past experiences with authority figures. My father had a respectable authority figure that provided for his family’s needs by driving three hours to and from St. Louis every day for decades. He values hard work and local initiatives above the dictates of an overarching federal bureaucracy for which he continues to work. In short, the ages of my father and my grandfather did not affect

their beliefs or their attitudes toward life and interpersonal relationships, but their upbringing certainly did.

I do not believe that age is the ultimate determinant of someone’s personality, but there are numerous instances where age factors into political analysis. Candidates for executive authority are rarely elderly, but can be perceived to be so. In the United Kingdom in 2006, Mock the Week comedians lambasted Liberal Democrat Leader Menzies “Ming” Campbell for looking like “a corpse” and for being the founder of the historical Ming Dynasty of China (which lasted from 1368 to 1644)! Nick Clegg replaced him as leader in 2007 as Campbell turned 66 years old. For context, he would have been younger than the two main candidates of the 2016 presidential election had he ran at that age. For an American example of the “aged” stereotype, Bob Dole ran as the Republican nominee in the 1996 presidential election. The popular sitcom The Simpsons mocked the 73-yearold Dole for his supposedly advanced age by having a caricature of him recite his own name repeatedly. Twelve years later, another Republican nominee for president, 72-yearold John McCain, received his fair share of jests on the point of his age. However, McCain was only two years older and Dole three years older than President Trump, who turned 70 during the 2016 presidential election. Additionally, Campbell, Dole, and McCain are all still alive at the time I am writing this article.

Why were the ages of Bob Dole and John McCain such a significant obstacle for their public images while the public image of Donald Trump did not suffer as much? They may have had the problem of competing with considerably younger candidates. Bill Clinton was 23 years younger than Dole and McCain was 25 years older than Barack Obama. By contrast, Trump was only one year older than Hillary Clinton. Admittedly, Trump was quite a bit louder and cultivated a more energetic persona than either Dole or McCain. That being said, the presence of an age disparity probably harmed their campaigns more than

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matters, but experience always matters.

Humans can overcome unfortunate actions being committed against them by doing good actions, but that does not mean that the pleasant and the tragic circumstances they went through did not irrevocably affect them.

their campaign style.

The age of members of the legislative branch does not correspond to ideologies either. In the British parliament, the longest serving Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons receives the title of “Father of the House.” Both members of the Conservative Party (the main party of the political right) and the Labour Party (the main party of the political left) have held the position.

In 2015, the final two WWII veterans retired from the House of Representatives. One was Republican Ralph Hall and the other was Democrat John Dingell, Jr. The stereotype of old conservatives and young leftists does not always correspond to reality in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. If the stereotype were true, then Nancy Pelosi would be a Republican stalwart and Ted Cruz would be a staunch Democrat.

Even in the judiciary, age does not convincingly correspond to ideology. The most obvious example of the lack of age’s importance is the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade. Seven of the nine Supreme Court justices in Roe v. Wade voted to overturn

abortion bans.Of them, William O. Douglas was born in 1898, William Brennan in 1906, Chief Justice Warren Burger and Lewis Powell in 1907, Harry Blackmun and Thurgood Marshall in 1908, and Potter Stewart in 1915.

In contrast, the two dissenters were both born later than all seven justices in the majority. Byron White was born in 1917 and William Rehnquist in 1924. The younger justices were actually more conservative on social issues than the older justices, who experienced the Great Depression and the Second World War as more full-fledged individuals.

A famous quote by French politician Anselme Batbie goes, “He who is not a republican at twenty compels one to doubt the generosity of his heart; but he who, after thirty, persists, compels one to doubt the soundness of his mind.” Batbie’s quote does not contain a self-evident truth. It hardly contains any truth at all. While people may change their ideologies significantly after experiencing certain circumstances or reading a particular book or books, such changes usually take much longer and react to various experiences. Which leads to my main alternative to age as an explanation for someone’s beliefs. Age never

A final case to consider is the Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia that briefly ended the death penalty in the United States due to its arbitrary application by the state judicial systems. The justices were the same as in the Roe v. Wade decision, but the makeup of the majority and the dissenters was markedly different. Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, White, and Marshall were in the majority while Burger, Blackmun, Rehnquist, and Powell dissented. The four dissenters all started their tenure during the Burger Court that began in 1969. The other five, while having wildly different judicial philosophies from others in their camp, all served during Chief Justice Earl Warren’s court during the 1960s.

Despite White’s conservatism, he wrote the opinion for the court in McLaughlin v. Florida in 1964 that ended state bans on cohabitation between interracial couples. The five justices in the majority saw the most terrible sides of state governments and did not want them to run roughshod over the rights of Americans.

Their age did not matter, but their length of tenure and their experiences during that tenure affected them profoundly for the remainder of their service on the Court. All people can ponder the example of the Furman Court and how it signifies the insignificant role that age plays as a motivating factor in people’s decision-making.

Luke Voyles '18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at lrvoyles@wustl.edu .

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | NATIONAL

ENOUGH ABOUT THE WHITE WORKING CLASS Reuben Siegman

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n emerging theme from the media’s analysis of the 2016 election is that the Democrats failed to connect with the white working class voters in the heartlands that voted in large droves for President Trump. That is, Hillary Clinton should have spent more time in the Rust Belt.

There has been a borderline obsession with this theory in the media, as television personalities and op-ed columnists alike have pontificated about the importance of this segment of the population. Books like J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy have become increasingly popular in Democratic circles, with progressive thinkers heaping praise on the book for giving the “liberal coastal elites” an insight into Appalachian culture—depicted as the holy grail of all rural, white, working class voters that the party has seen slip from their grasp as globalization and green energy have stolen their livelihoods.

This commentary, however, is missing a crucial point. Although there was a failure to reach these voters, and Trump’s success with them cannot be denied, there has been too much emphasis placed on the need to understand this segment of the electorate and win back their vote. Instead, the real focus of the Democratic Party should be on gaining a keener understanding of the plight of the poor, in order to secure and turn out this critical voting bloc.

Far too often, it seems that the poor—who are disproportionately people of color­—are overlooked. While Democrats often ask us to empathize with the coal miner in West Virginia who lost his job, they often fail to ask us to empathize with the black or brown mother who must work two jobs, often day and night, in order to feed her family, all the while worrying that her children will not make it home from school safely.

The poor face many struggles unfamiliar to the rest of society that are not nearly as well covered in the media.

Sadly, these voters are not discussed very often.

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Far too often, it seems that the poor, or people who live around or below the poverty line, and are disproportionately people of color, are overlooked.

Part of the reason for the disproportionate focus of media coverage is because the poor have a much lower voting rate than the rest of America, including the white working class. This, despite the fact that the poor have the most on the line when health care policy is discussed, school funding is brought up, and labor regulations are negotiated. These voters do not need to be lectured about the stakes of any given election— they live it every day. The reason they fail to vote is not because they do not care, but is rather because of the many systems in place which serve to disenfranchise them.

While some may argue that this is also in part due to the fact that there isn’t a large enough gap between Republican and Democrat policy or that the Democratic message does not appeal to them, those arguments are unfounded. There is in fact a huge difference between those in the GOP, who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act and take away coverage from millions­—primarily poor folks who rely on Medicaid­—and Democrats, some of whom even support single-payer universal healthcare. The difference between a Republican who wants to strip away your health care and a Democrat who does not in and of itself ought to be enough of a difference to motivate the poor to vote. However, that

Democrats could improve their messaging by talking more about issues that affect the poor, particularly those like criminal justice reform that have bipartisan support.

When examining the relationship between voter turnout and poverty, there are a few major points that stand out. The first is the actual number of Americans who live in poverty. According to the US Census Bureau, the official poverty rate in 2015 was 13.5%, or more than 44.1 million Americans. That is a huge segment of the population, millions more than the number of Americans living in Appalachia, who number at 25.2 million (note: there is overlap between these groups).

Furthermore, the poor live all over America.

They are rural voters in the Midwest, urban voters on the coast, and everywhere in between.

In fact, poverty is more prevalent in non-urban areas, particularly in the South, an area where Democrats are weak (not to mention the coveted Midwest!). The Democratic Party simply cannot write off the South and all the black Democrats who have been let down since Reconstruction. This is a powerful and far-reaching message.

Another sobering statistic: those who live in poverty vote in presidential elections at a rate of approximately 40%, while the national average is closer to 60%. In fact, according to data from the US Census Bureau, the wealthiest citizens vote at close to a rate of 100%. This shows that there is indeed a correlation between getting to the polls to vote and one’s wealth and resources.

Sadly, voting is inaccessible for millions of people, especially the poor. Holding elections on a weekday makes it even more difficult to vote for those who cannot miss work or work multiple jobs—both of which are circumstances more likely to be faced by poor people. Moreover, states are increasingly passing stricter photo ID requirements for voting, yet another barrier to both low-income folks and people of color.

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Research shows that both ethnic minorities and poor people are less likely to own a photo-ID. These laws have been proven to reduce turnout of people of color in the name of preventing voter fraud, which is an almost nonexistent problem (less than 50 cases in over 1 billion votes since 2000). There are a multitude of other laws and regulations aimed at restricting the poor from voting, including: cutting short the early voting period, restricting voter registration drives, banning former felons from voting, requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, making it harder to offer voter assistance, reducing early voting and weekend voting hours, restricting absentee and provisional ballot rules, and limiting voter registration.

This is a problem that is only getting worse, as states are increasingly attempting to pass even more restrictive voting laws aimed at disenfranchising the poor and people of color. A little over ten years ago, in 2006, there wasn’t a single state that required Election Day photo-ID, while today there are ten. Overall, 33 state have some form of voter ID laws and in this past legislative session ten different states looked at creating some form of stricter ID requirements (and another ten looked at other ways to make voting more difficult, like limiting early voting).

Additionally, the Trump administration recently created a voter fraud commission requesting private personal data like social security numbers, leading many people to deregister out of fear of their state giving away their private information to the federal government.

Liberal pundits have discussed how close Hillary came to winning the election, postulating that if the party had just convinced a few thousand more working class white folks to vote Democrat, the party would have won. That is not the future though, nor is it especially strategic. According to Pew Research there is increasing income inequality in our country. In addition, according to Pew the country is only becoming more and more diverse, and will eventually be a minority-majority country sometime in the next 30 to 50 years if demographic trends continue. These trends show the strategic importance of crafting a platform and message that appeals to the poor and the ethnically and racially diverse in this country. Looking at the census and voting data, if Democrats could just increase the percentage of poor people who vote to the national average,

Democrats should now focus on getting out the vote amongst low-income citizens. To do this, they must enact voting rights reforms and stop the current assault on voting rights going on in states across the country. there would be 6.7 million more voters, a huge increase.* Research by Demos, a public policy organization, and professors Jen E. Leighley of University of Arizona and Jonathan Nagler of NYU show that those in poverty are much more likely to hold liberal policy views in general, and specifically in regards to healthcare, labor, and economics. This means that Democrats would likely benefit electorally from increased voting amongst this demographic. And of course, expanding voting rights is, quite simply, the morally right thing to do.

*This is based on there being 44.1 million people in poverty, and that 76 percent of Americans are older than 18 ( assuming this number holds the same for those in poverty), so 33.5 million poor people who should be able to vote. Currently the voting rate for the poor is 40 percent and the national average is 60 percent, so increasing it by 20 percent would get you to the national average. 20 percent of 33.5 is 6.7 million.

Democrats should focus on getting out the vote amongst low-income citizens. To do this, they must enact voting rights reforms and stop the current assault on voting rights occurring across the country. Democrats must make it easier for the poor and people of color to exercise their right to vote. They must focus on understanding the conditions of the poor, and concentrate on the issues that matter to them.

There should be discussions about affordable housing, childcare, access to education, healthcare, and labor organizing.

This does not mean the Democratic Party should stop attracting other voters, but instead must merely focus more of their energy on the low-income voters that have been ignored for too long.

The Democratic Party must have a message that appeals to voters across the board: justice, fairness, equality, and compassion. They must put energy into turning out low-income voters. Not only do these citizens deserve better representation, but this strategy is most certainly in the party’s best interest.

Reuben Siegman ‘18 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at reuben.siegman@wustl.edu.

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WU POLITICAL REVIEW | NATIONAL

ADDRESSING DEMOCRACY

Jack Goldberg | Image courtesy of Wikiedia

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ack: “Hey, come on, come get pizza with Rob and me.”

Jack: “Nah, I’ll pass. I’m not hungry right now.”

Zack: “But we want you to.”

Jack: “I’m deciding not to.”

Zack: “Too bad. There’s two of us and one of you, so you’re outvoted. Majority rules. You have to come and get pizza with us.”

Democracy. The people get together and vote on how their society should be run. Maybe there’s discussion and debate first, maybe we’re voting for a candidate rather than for the policies they stand for, or maybe the system is organized in any number of different ways, but at the end of the day, we vote. For a given issue, the vote decides the outcome, and whichever way you voted, you’re bound by the decision the same as anyone else.

Every person receives one vote, and an equal, participatory citizenship is owed to each and every American. The ability to choose our own leaders and pass our own laws is what makes those laws binding and those leaders legitimate. This whole process is common understanding in the United States, an assumption that goes beyond political alignment. It’s the foundation for all our other political discussion, and so we rarely question it.

I think it’s fun to question the things that people rarely question, and I’m curious about the “people get together and vote” part of this basic idea of democracy. What I’m wondering is this: who decides who the “people” are? Who decides which people constitute the voting body? Who decides who can vote and who can’t? If democracy is the most legitimate form of government, then surely a decision as important as who can and cannot vote has to be made democratically. But we’d need to know who can and cannot vote in order to vote on that issue!

The easiest, least arbitrary line to draw is to say that everybody gets to vote. Everybody gets to participate in a democracy, because

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that’s how democracy works. And maybe “everybody gets to vote” can serve as a coherent foundation for democracy. Maybe not. But a global democracy isn’t really what we’re looking for. In order to justify anything close to the current, common understanding of what democracy is, we must consider the concept of nations, each with their own independently justified democratic governments.

“Everybody within the borders of the United States gets to vote” unfortunately doesn’t work as neatly. Let’s go back a few centuries to a time when the United States did not yet exist. Let’s ask ourselves: how can we create a United States with clearly defined borders if we haven’t got a voting body to vote on them yet? Defined borders should be necessary to determine who can vote, but we can’t have defined borders until we’ve voted on them!

“All United States citizens can vote” works no better; laws establishing citizenship need to be voted on by citizens, and we can’t have defined citizens to vote on those laws until the laws are already made.

Let’s say we resolve this issue somehow, and we figure out a fundamental rule about who can vote and who can’t. Another problem arises when we examine voting procedure. Are decisions to be made by majority, or plurality, or unanimous decision? It’s the same sort of issue. The decision to govern by majority vote is a political decision in its own right—does that decision itself get made by majority vote?

In theory, the people would need to democratically decide the procedures for passing a vote, but a democratic vote to establish those procedures would need to be done according to

some sort of procedure!

To recap: we have a country established by a vote that, conceptually, could not have been legitimate, passed according to a procedure that, conceptually, could not have been legitimate. Within that new democracy, formed undemocratically and almost arbitrarily, there will inevitably be people who never wanted to be a part of it. Going forward, those individuals will be bound by the voters’ decisions even when they disagree with those decisions. Like Jack in our opening dialogue, these involuntary citizens are forced to comply with decisions with which they disagree, a type of coercion supposedly justified by their inclusion in a voting body that they did not consent to join. This problem cannot be easily or simply resolved.

Please don’t misinterpret my point. The purpose of this article isn’t to argue that we shouldn’t be democratic. It’s that conversations about American political values can’t simply begin and end with “Democracy!

America!” Even a value as fundamental as democracy, an idea as basic as who gets to vote, has its own share of philosophical complexities. Who’s to say whether these problems have solutions, or what those solutions are. Plenty of theorists have tried to figure that out. At the end of the day, knowing that these questions exist gets us that much closer to finding the answers.

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

WU POLITICAL REVIEW | INTERNATIONAL

THE CASE FOR FOREIGN POLICY REGULATIONS Nicholas Kinberg | Photo courtesy of Obama White House Archives

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nyone specializing in any field of policy will tell you that theirs is the most important. In the case of foreign policy, that argument might hold some weight. Since the end of the Second World War, an activist foreign policy on the part of the United States has coincided with the elimination of great-power conflict, the reduction of global poverty by half, and the recognition of human rights on a scale unmatched in human history.

What countries do matters. What the United States does matters. That’s why its foreign policy must not be in the hands of an official chosen by an electorate that thinks foreign policy should be dictated through avoiding “entangling alliances,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Now, this proposal seems radical. After all, it’s enshrined in our Constitution that the President, as the head diplomat, dictate foreign policy. Yet this has landed us in trouble in the very recent past: consider President Trump’s near-torpedoing of the “One-China” policy in December, his immediate acquiescence to Saudi Arabia in the recent row against Qatar (which endangers our Al-Udeid airbase in the latter state, used to stage operations in the Persian Gulf), and his failure to come up with a strategy to guide American forces in eastern Syria, who are now caught in a dangerously escalatory proxy war with

Iranian militias while also trying to train the Syrian Democratic Forces to battle the Islamic State.

If these were just mistakes in domestic policy, they would be more easily fixed because the actors with whom the President dealt would be local, nonlethal, and nonthreatening. Each of these attributes contrasts with the stakes that are constantly on the line in foreign policy; the most basic of problems is a potential hegemon looking to dominate a region. If the U.S. doesn’t stop that challenger from becoming a regional power, that state can threaten American interests and, by extension, the interests of its allies. And in the 20th century, this rise would take decades. Now, it can take years—less time than the Obama administration was in office. When the US disengages, other actors fill the void.

There is a reason why Iraqi casualties steadily decreased following the surge of troops introduced by President Bush in 2007. There is a reason why Panama could hold elections subsequently following the U.S.-led overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989. There is a reason why the Malian government might now stand a chance of defeating Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. When the United States is serious about defending its interests, all opponents take note.

As such, Congress should pass legislation that allows the State Department to regulate what the President does, to avoid slip-ups.

According to Foreign Policy, this is already happening in two ways. One is the legislation passed by the Senate to keep the President from unilaterally lifting sanctions on Russia, and the other is the House amendment to legislation to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force. The latter piece refers to the power Congress gave the President to act unilaterally against threats to national security in the wake of the September 11th attacks.

Beyond that, the Department of State should be brought under the purview of the legislative branch, with the Secretary of State nominated and confirmed by the Senate. Should military action become necessary for an issue regarding foreign policy, that Secretary should submit a report to the President arguing why that military use is needed. If the President disagrees, the issue is referred to Congress, where the issue will be voted on. If authorization is granted, the President will be required to, within sixty days, take some type of military action regarding the original issue.

Regarding crises, the issue should immediately be thrown back to the President. Events that require a swift and strong response should have one head at the helm instead of two. With these reforms, not only will American foreign policy be fast, but also effective.

The United States can and should be serious about the power it wields, and it can achieve this seriousness with a foreign policy led by seasoned diplomats who know more about US-China relations than the opinion that “China is ripping us off in trade.”

Nicholas Kinberg '20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at nicholaskinberg@wustl.edu.

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