I came home after my first day of classes, sat down on the floor in my common room hallway and called my parents to tell them I wanted to be an English major. And boy, do I remember their reaction. Looking back, I think we can all laugh at the emotions that night, crying as I registered for new classes and kept one biology course in my back pocket at my dad’s advice. I considered transferring, because I feared that Binghamton University was not the school for English. I was wrong.

Of course, it wasn’t just the classes that defined my college years. It was everything outside of it.

I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Pipe Dream. I am tempted to give credit to the English Listserv. I remember sending my application, only to hear back from the Opinions Editor at the time, Sarah, saying they liked my column so much they wanted to publish it the very next day. I was nearly peeing my pants from excitement. I will never forget what it was like to see my headshot, though unflattering, on the front page of a newspaper in every Pipe Dream stand on campus. Terrifying, but thrilling.

Getting to write for Pipe Dream helped me realize I had a voice, and that voice could be powerful. Once I started writing columns on social activism, I never wanted to stop. That’s also probably what led me to create Change of Tone.

When I was a freshman, I told my mom that I would never join an a cappella group because it was super lame. To no one’s surprise, I joined literally as soon as I could. I guess my mom got me on that one. I spent three years in a very talented group until May 2020, when things started to change. Between the Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 sending me home packing, my spring semester of sophomore year was difficult. I wanted to make a difference, but struggled finding the right way to channel those emotions. I was angry with the police, with politicians, with BU. But I was most angry with my friends.

I think one of the hardest realizations I have ever come to was that spring, when I noticed that my closest friends throughout college would never care about diversity and inclusivity as much as I did. And that even if they did care, they would never make it a priority. It broke my heart. So, I left the group.

After quitting, I questioned a lot about my life. I had effectively burned bridges with at least 15 people or more. I had all this hurt and all this anger and all this passion. What the hell was I supposed to do with it now?

Making a new a cappella group was actually my parents’ idea. In fact, my mom came up with the name, “Change of Tone.” I took my closest friends with me and just got to work. One year later, we’re chartered by the Student Association, have nine new members, arranged over 20 songs by Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) and LGBTQ+ artists and fundraised around $1,500 for charities that support marginalized communities.

I think a lot of people saw Change of Tone as a product of personal spite or revenge, but it wasn’t that. It was just that after so many unproductive conversations hearing excuse after excuse as to why we couldn’t diversify a cappella, or that “a cappella would always be white,” I needed something good to come out of one of the darkest times in my college career.

My first-ever Opinions Editor, Sarah Molano, actually wrote a senior column in 2019 that perfectly describes my feelings here. Like Sarah, I still worry about being known as the “annoying, angry activist girl.” But also like Sarah, I’ve realized I could make a whole damn career out of it. What exactly that career is, we’ll have to see, but I’m hoping two more years of graduate studies in English at New York University will show me. If I’m confident about one thing, it’s the power of books to inspire me in new ways.

I’m still learning how to be confident in my beliefs, but I have so many people who are there to help me through it. On that note, let’s get to the most important part of my last column: the thank-you’s.

To my professors, who consistently inspire me to do amazing things inside and outside of the classroom. You are all what makes the BU English department shine. Jennifer Stoever, I can’t thank you enough for all the opportunities and support you’ve given me. Vanessa Jaeger, thank you for encouraging me to apply for publication as a freshman and showing me what college writing meant. Jessie Reeder, thank you for introducing me to apocalyptic fiction, which kickstarted my interest in ecocriticism. John Kuhn, thank you for making Shakespeare fun, encouraging me to speak up more in classes and for helping me and Laura DeLuca when we were in full Ph.D. panic mode this fall. Joe Schatz, I promise I probably would have joined the debate team had I taken your classes earlier in my academic career. Dave Archer, thank you for getting to know me when I was too shy to speak up, because I have absolutely loved every second with the education minor. And, of course, thank you to Joe Keith. Had I not spent my entire sophomore year taking your classes, I never would have found the books which inspire me most. Writing my thesis with you was an absolute honor, and it will always be the academic accomplishment I’m proudest of. You’re in my thoughts.

To my Pipe Dream friends, who made this job so, so worth the crappy pay. Let me first thank the legacy of talented Opinions editors before me: Sarah, Evan and Liz. You three were some kick-ass writers. Liz, I love you so much, and I can’t wait to live closer next year and catch up. Thank you for showing me the ropes. Alexis and Jenna, you guys are truly the backbone of this paper. I’m so glad I got to sit next to you both this year and get to know such talented Copy queens.

To my Editorial Board, thank you for always being patient with me and supporting my rage-filled writing. Ric and Hamza, you guys did work I always admired with News. Hamza, you’ll make a killer Editor-in-Chief. Joe, thank you for always bringing some much-needed humor to our back room meetings. You should think about becoming a food critic. Lakhsmi, you were one of my very first friends beyond Liz. I’ll never forget our “screaming into the void” group chat. Sarah and Ciara, thank you guys for inviting me out that first weekend in September with Nicole, even if we did all get COVID-19. I love you both so much, and you both are responsible for all of Pipe Dream’s success this year. This is your formal invitation to come be city girlz with me and Nicole next year.

To Doris and Desmond, I couldn’t have left the Opinions section in better hands. I can’t wait to support you guys and your writing from afar. You are both so insanely talented, and I am just so excited for all that you do. FaceTime me whenever you want to complain about the newest hot take from a columnist.

To Change of Tone, I’m so proud of you all. Singing with you guys was the best.

To my best friends, Hannah, Haley, Kaitlyn and Ryan, I just love you all so much more than I can put into words.

To Paul, I love you, and thank you for making my senior year a million times better than I expected.

To my family: Mike, it was so awesome spending my four years at college with you. Kristen, I know you love my random FaceTimes. Jason, you’re cool, I guess. Gram and Pop, I love you so much, and thanks for surprising me at my last show. Finally, to Mom and Dad. I quite literally couldn’t have done any of this without you, but thank you for always supporting me and inspiring me to be fearless, brave and bold. You showed me I can take over the world, and take my word for it, I will.

Kaitlyn Liu is a senior majoring in English and is Opinions Editor. She was Assistant Opinions Editor from 2020-2021.

This spring’s Restaurant Week menu offered a three-course meal for $35, with the option to replace either the appetizer, entree or dessert with a house wine or Spring Grove martini. Although Social on State is a bit pricier than the average Restaurant Week cost, the food is well worth the cost — not to mention the fact that we were given all three courses in addition to the martini at no extra cost.

I always tend to go for sweeter drinks, so the Spring Grove martini was a great option for both me and my friend, Kaitlyn. With orange vodka, grapefruit juice and elderflower, the Spring Grove martini was just sweet enough without the tinge of artificial sweeteners you may get at a cheaper bar. It was just the right balance between sweet and strong, making for a light start to a very filling meal.

For appetizers, Kaitlyn and I both gravitated toward the cheesier options. Fitting for a former Cheese Club president, if you ask me. While Kaitlyn went for the burrata caprese, a longtime favorite between the two of us, I opted for the cheese and charcuterie. Kaitlyn’s burrata caprese was carefully placed on top of red and green heirloom tomatoes and arugula, with balsamic vinegar and basil pesto to top it off. Meanwhile, my charcuterie plate had three types of cheeses ranging in sharpness. Other pairings included a couple of fruity compotes, crostini and prosciutto. If I had to choose again, I would opt for the burrata caprese, which I thought had bolder flavors than the cheese and charcuterie.

The entrees were brought out only a couple of minutes after the appetizer, which was a bit surprising. I was torn between the Jail Island salmon and the New York strip steak, which had a $10 surcharge. I was lucky enough to see both dishes thanks to the two men seated next to us at the bar, and I ended up choosing the New York strip. Now, let me preface by saying I rarely eat meat — especially red meats. But this 12-ounce strip steak was something else. Cooked medium, it was just the right amount of pink and drizzled with bleu cheese fondue to make for one of the most flavorful, tender steaks I have had in a very long time. I personally hate when steaks have chunks of fat on the ends, but this one barely had any. On the side was a little arugula and a twice-baked potato with bits of cherrywood bacon. Kaitlyn and I are both not huge bacon fans, but we both attested to how good it tasted nevertheless.

For vegetarians, Kaitlyn went for the orecchiette pasta. Though the dish usually comes with hot Italian sausage, Kaitlyn requested to do without it, leaving broccoli rabe and Grana Padano cheese as the two toppings. Our server grated the cheese in front of Kaitlyn to her liking. One of Kaitlyn’s first remarks was that she loved how the orecchiette looked like “little ears.” Biting into the pasta, you’ll immediately taste the ricotta cheese inside. I liked that there was no overpowering sauce on top of the dish, letting the cheesy flavors truly take center stage. As a very avid pasta lover, this would undoubtedly make for a wonderful comfort meal.

We did have to wait quite a while between our entrees and desserts due to what seemed like some confusion behind the bar, but it’s hard to complain about a free, tasty meal. When we did get a new server’s attention, she very quickly brought out one of each dessert option. I started with the strawberries and cream, which was a very light, layered dessert. The strawberries tasted fresh and not at all like the sticky, sweet syrup most restaurants use for strawberry desserts. The shortbread was super crumbly, and the basil leaf made for a very aesthetic presentation. However, my favorite part was the lemon-flavored whipped cream. The flavor was surprising but subtle.

Kaitlyn’s chocolate peanut butter ice cream was definitely a bit heavier than the strawberries and cream, but not in a bad way. The whole dessert was dairy-free and vegan, and the peanut butter was laid on thick. The ice cream was topped with peanuts and shaved dark chocolate, resulting in a very decadent and sweet dessert. Both desserts were amazing, but I preferred the lightness of the strawberries and cream when going for a third course.

I am wholly unsurprised to be writing a glowing review for Social on State, but I still want to emphasize how impressed I am with all of the options offered for Restaurant Week. While some restaurants may skimp out on appetizers, with many restaurants offering smaller portions, or easy soup and salad options, most of the Social on State appetizers could be entrees themselves. Not only that, but each food option is equally unique. Additionally, I was excited to see that there were vegan options for both entrees and desserts, and plenty of vegetarian options if you were to modify a dish like Kaitlyn did.

All in all, this meal solidified Social on State as one of the top choices for a night out in Binghamton. While it is definitely not somewhere students could afford to go each week, it should absolutely be a contender for celebratory occasions: birthdays, holidays and maybe even graduation weekend when your parents can grab the bill. Be sure to check out this Downtown Binghamton specialty during Restaurant Week while this deal lasts!

It’s fairly easy to see why fantastical books are trending in the fiction genre. With all that’s going on recently, people want the escape of a good book more than ever. Young adult fiction in particular had grown an alleged 68 percent from 2020 to 2021. Book sales in the United Kingdom reflect that of the United States, with crime, science fiction and romance novels driving fiction sales to the highest point of the decade.

This surge in reading is a result of another pandemic-related trend: BookTok. A niche community of avid young readers on TikTok, BookTok has launched several young adult novels into bestseller lists. Nellie Kurtzman, vice president of marketing and publicity at HarperCollins, says “BookTok comes along at a time when the pandemic has closed off many of the traditional ways of reaching readers, such as book signings.” In fact, four of the top-five fiction bestsellers trended on BookTok before seeing newfound popularity. Of the top five on the Jan. 23 list, two are romance novels by Colleen Hoover, two describe popular movie stars and the last is a retelling of the myth of the Greek hero Achilles.

However, among this rise in fantasy novels is a simultaneous desire to indulge in those serious investigative works of nonfiction. In utter opposition to the far-fetched worlds of fiction, the top-five nonfiction works dive deep into important problems facing our nation today. On the Jan. 23 list, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin’s (D-MD) “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy.” A leader of the impeachment process against former President Donald Trump, Raskin writes of his struggle with both personal and political trauma after the loss of his only son to suicide only one week before the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol is at number one.

Up next is Bessel van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma,” which discusses the physical transformations of the body following traumatic events. Third in nonfiction is Nikole Hannah-Jones’ groundbreaking expansion of The New York Times Magazine’s “The 1619 Project,” placing slavery at the center of our nation’s very origin.

Although these books are absolutely and undeniably deserving of such accolades, they all share a unique and binding desire to break open some of the deepest, darkest matters of today’s nation. Still, nonfiction need not deal with such serious matters in order to achieve greatness. There are indeed happier nonfiction works to be found much further down the bestseller list. Why, then, such emphasis on tragedy?

Perhaps it is simply a reflection of the times. As much as I hate to be repetitive, these past few years have certainly earned the title of “unprecedented.” Maybe these nonfiction works can help people find their footing at a time when it seems like every coming day shakes the very ground we stand on. When our nation’s very understanding of democracy and history is threatened, the works of Hannah-Jones and Raskin are there to offer information where all previous education has failed.

In fact, perhaps I should have expected such intense changes in reading habits to mirror intense social change. This is not to say I did not sense a greater change in literature consumption earlier, but instead that I suspected it to come in the short-lived fame of anti-racist reading lists — a trend whose faults I wrote about in a previous article from 2020. For me, these lists, although faulty, were the start of my adventure into nonfiction. In the midst of movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Hate, I wanted to diversify my bookshelves like many other readers at the time.

Yet, I do not wish to imply that bestselling fiction cannot offer just as powerful an account of real-world issues as nonfiction. Though whimsical, even the Jan. 23 top-five fiction bestsellers I described earlier are absolutely capable of offering social commentary. Madeline Miller’s “The Song of Achilles” is wonderful as not just an artistic retelling of Greek mythology, but also one that centers around the same-sex romance between Achilles and his partner Patroclus. Third in fiction, “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” features a bisexual protagonist who prominently declares her sexuality with much-appreciated nuance.

At the same time, diverse authors like those topping the nonfiction genre can also compose the feel-good fantasies audiences desire. As I’ve written before, nonwhite authors deserve recognition for works outside of those which solely center racial trauma. There are seemingly no nonwhite authors in the week of Jan. 23’s top-15 fiction bestsellers, and a concentration in genre does not excuse the lack of representation. This is especially true when there are entire BookTok accounts within the same community that seek to promote diverse romance or fantasy novels written by authors like Morgan Rogers, Mary H.K. Choi or Casey McQuiston.

So, to set out on my initial question: why the huge difference in topic for fiction and nonfiction bestsellers? Author Noah Hawley, like many others, believes that the greatest thing about fiction is that it serves as an “empathy delivery device” for readers to begin understanding characters unlike themselves. Yet, some of the top nonfiction works surely set out to create bridges of understanding as well. Still, only 17 percent of readers read both genres equally. Fiction may provide the fantastical escape that readers long for, but it is just as important for readers to give credence to the years of research and first-person accounts that nonfiction provides.

Maybe this interest will come with age as young adult readers grow and continue exploring their love of literature in new genres. If so, they will find that there is much more crossover between the two genres than they may have expected. If readers wish to learn more about politics and organization, they can reach not only for nonfiction authors like Raskin, but also the fiction novels of someone like Richard Powers, who seems to write one bestseller after another. Similarly, if readers seek out a diverse character with dry humor and a passion for change, they can read the nonfiction of authors like Cathy Park Hong instead of reaching for a fictional protagonist.

Above all, while it is important to seek out release and keep reading enjoyable during hard times, we must also be sure to support as many different authors as we can. Because topics like grief, romance, race or mystery are not confined to one type of author. And they are most definitely not confined to one genre.

Kaitlyn Liu is a senior majoring in English and is Opinions Editor.

Even though I have lived in Downtown Binghamton and attended Binghamton Univeristy for four years now, both Doris and I had never been to Sake-Tumi before. When we arrived for lunch, the outdoor seating was decorated with pink flowers and green vines that looked so pretty in the sunlight. Upon walking in, Doris was quick to say, “It smells so good!” We were quickly seated by a very friendly server.

For lunch, Sake-Tumi offered a three-course meal for only $10. You could either pick two starters along with a sushi or kitchen entree, or you could pick one starter along with a bento box. We decided to share everything between the two of us and really see how the different food options were.

First we ordered the miso soup, spring roll and house salad starters. The miso soup was a classic, with plenty of scallions, tofu and green onions mixed into the somewhat salty broth. Though I expected a vegetarian spring roll, the one we had included pork and vegetables with a sweet chili sauce. We personally thought the sauce tasted a bit more like barbecue than sweet chili, but it tasted good nevertheless.

Onto the entrees — I ordered the JB roll, which had asparagus tempura, salmon, cream cheese and sesame seeds. I love tempura, but I had never seen asparagus in the dish as opposed to a more popular protein like shrimp. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the crunchy vegetable paired with the salmon and cream cheese. Doris, who admitted she has not tried very many different types of sushi, said she enjoyed the roll more than she thought she would after initially doubting the cream cheese when reading the menu.

Doris ordered the lunch bento box, which included two pieces of shrimp shumai, four pieces of a California roll and a choice of teriyaki chicken, shrimp, tofu or beef with jasmine rice. Of the choices, she went with the teriyaki chicken.

When the servers first brought our food, we were amazed at just how much was in the bento box. An entire half of the box was dedicated to the teriyaki chicken and jasmine rice. The chicken was cooked perfectly, and the green peppers and cucumbers that came with it tasted great in the teriyaki sauce. The rice was a bit chewy, but the chicken truly made up for it. As for the rest of the box, the two shrimp shumai were small and sweet, making for a great steamed dumpling. California rolls are always a bit basic for me, but this is no fault of theirs, and the roll was made perfectly.

Overall, Doris and I both had a wonderful first experience at Sake-Tumi. The two of us both left the restaurant saying we knew we’d be back. With specials almost every night of the week, I encourage everyone to stop by for the great food and cozy environment.

Broadway has long been dominated by white actors, directors and audiences. In June 2020, around 300 prominent creators of color published and signed an open letter addressed to “White American Theater” that denounced exclusive theaters for having “rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences, while relegating a token, if any, slot for a [Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC)] play.” While this fall’s lineup may indicate the start of positive change, the inclusion of Black writers does not solve for other barriers to theatre, such as economic inaccessibility. The average price paid for a Broadway ticket during the 2018-19 season totaled $122.73, which is even less than the starting cost of more popular musicals like “Hamilton.” The cost of tickets alone creates a plethora of wealthier, elder, whiter audiences while closing doors off to everyone else.

Nevertheless, there is increasing hope for accessibility in theatre communities. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many theatre companies to adapt typical production styles in order to create and release meaningful work at a distance. One of the most impactful of these adaptations is streaming — live, recorded or on-demand musicals that audiences can watch on their own devices. Streaming live theatre presents multiple opportunities for increased access to a world of theatre previously only accessible to the privileged few.

In fact, the United States falls behind in comparison to several European countries, where sustainable and equitable “digital [theatre] initiatives were made a condition for state funding,” according to The New York Times. Streaming theatre opens up a multitude of avenues to equitability, starting with closed captions. Whereas live theatre privileges hearing communities, streaming services can easily offer accurate captioning with image and auditory descriptions for differently abled audiences. Closed captions can also be offered in multiple languages, expanding American theatre to international crowds. Additionally, streaming services make Broadway much more accessible to crowds who may not have been able to afford the cost of travel, lodging or tickets to see an in-person Broadway production.

Streaming services can also provide opportunities for up-and-coming actors, offering exposure to a wide range of audiences. The upcoming movie adaptation of Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen” has recently come under fire for its casting of Ben Platt, a 28-year-old, to play the titular role of Evan Hansen, who is only 17 years old. Though Platt originated the role back in 2015, many people were quick to question the decision to rehire Platt, an established older actor, over someone like Andrew Barth Feldman, a lesser-known 19-year-old who played the role of Evan from 2019 to 2020. The trailer has also led to criticisms about the musical or movie’s representation of suicide or mental health.

“Hamilton,” another streamed musical that is arguably the most popular of the pandemic, broke streaming records for Disney+, with 80 percent of Disney+ users having watched the dramatic retelling of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. The musical’s July streaming release came at a time when Broadway tickets for the show could cost as much as $849. The streaming of “Hamilton” in particular is especially meaningful considering its colorblind casting, which allowed actors of all races to play the part of white historical figures. In bringing this diversity to TV screens across the world, “Hamilton” ignited several conversations surrounding the musical’s representation of Founding Fathers, slavery and nationalism. Many young BIPOC crowds sparked “Hamilton” discussions on apps like TikTok and Twitter, debating the idealization of historically racist and sexist politicians as well as the ethics of casting Black, Asian and Latinx actors to play these white historical figures. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the hip-hop musical’s creator, even commented on the debate, saying “all the criticisms are valid.”

The release of these musicals on popular streaming services is important because it has markedly altered the discourse surrounding theatre. By expanding the reach of theatrical performances, Broadway gives a voice to younger, more diverse generations with different priorities and perspectives than typical theatergoers. “Hamilton” to the 2016 viewer is nothing compared to the 2021 viewer — how one could possibly listen to lyrics like “This is not a moment, it’s a movement” without recalling the Black Lives Matter movement is unknown to me. The use of social media in “Dear Evan Hansen” is also entirely unique to younger generations like Gen Z, and yet the average theatergoer is over 40 years old.

All this to say, theatre may be a delicacy, but it should not be a rarity. Young, nonwhite, disabled, lower-class, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities have so much to contribute to theatrical discourse that can and will change the very way musicals are written. As Broadway reopens, it must too restructure in order to make the arts widely accessible to the public for good. Until then, I feel it best to leave this off with one more “Hamilton” lyric for Broadway and theatre in general: “History has its eyes on you.”

Kaitlyn Liu is a senior majoring in English and is Opinions Editor.

While the essay topic was somewhat of a coincidence, the sentiment itself was not. If the 18th-century novels I was reading had enough of these prejudices in their fictional stories about pandemics, I wasn’t far off to predict that places like the United States and United Kingdom would selfishly aim to protect their own. I also wasn’t wrong when I surmised that this selfishness would affect us for the worse, allowing any potential virus to spread further. At this very moment, COVID-19 is ravaging the population of India. Although President Joe Biden has made promising initial steps to assist India at this time, the United States needs to export vaccines quickly to put a stop to this mass death.

Currently, there are extreme shortages of testing kits, hospital supplies and vaccines in India. These shortages are in part caused by a sudden resurgence of COVID-19 infections and deaths due to viral mutations which are increasingly pathogenic and resistant to vaccines. This variant is worrisome for many scientists, as its continued spread could lead to a resistance to existing vaccines and a second wave of outbreaks globally. If not for basic morals, this is yet another reason the United States needs to export ready-to-use vaccines to India as soon as possible.

Though the Biden administration highlights a redirection of vaccine-manufacturing supplies originally intended for the United States to India, which they claim is enough to manufacture “over 20 million doses,” providing readily available vials of COVID-19 vaccines is the faster and necessary option. Each vial takes approximately three days to manufacture and quality control takes weeks, while packaging can take another two days. With upwards of 386,000 new infections and 2,000 deaths each day, this process is not fast enough.

On top of this record-breaking daily infection rate, the number of deaths and infections is grossly underestimated. Multiple health care and cremation workers have attested to the fact that they face pressure from politicians or hospital administrators to manipulate or underreport testing and death numbers. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in April when the pandemic appeared to be coming to an end, politicians like Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted several massive rallies without proper social distancing or masks. With an estimated peak infection rate approaching within the next week, India is in dire need of assistance.

The United States should especially be willing to export a greater number of vaccines given India’s initial assistance when American hospitals were strained earlier in the pandemic. Biden has tweeted acknowledging this repayment, stating “India was there for us, and we will be there for them.” Prime Minister Modi has also come under fire for India’s original vaccine diplomacy, which involved the exportation of 11 million doses of vaccines between January and April of this year, despite the crisis within his own country. This critique may be valid, but it is not an excuse for the U.S. to withhold vaccine exportation. If anything, Americans should empathize with India and recall our own experience regarding former President Donald Trump’s gross mishandling of a deadly pandemic.

My call for increased assistance on behalf of the United States is shared by several political leaders. I am surprised by Biden’s recent decision to waive patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines, but agree with Charles Michel, European Council president, that this is not the “magic bullet” for a short-term solution. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, also claims that a debate on the property rights surrounding vaccines should not be our current priority — it should be saving lives. Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, says, “We invite all those who engage in the debate of a waiver for [intellectual property] rights also … to be willing to export a large share of what is being produced in that region.”

Clearly, European Union leaders are in agreement. Vaccine exportation is the only way to end this pandemic for good. Failing to send immediate assistance threatens our country as much as India, but this should not be the only motivating factor for exportation. The United States needs to enact empathetic and preemptive measures in this pandemic, which necessitates global cooperation. I echo the words of several world leaders when I say that “Nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English and is assistant Opinions editor.

Alongside the disturbing videos of violence, I recently saw a video of a Black content creator raising a question about the Stop Asian Hate movement. In the video, the creator inquires about the lack of a “Stop All Hate” response to the Stop Asian Hate movement. This is in comparison to the “All Lives Matter” response to multiple Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. Whereas the creator implies the varying responses to such movements have to do with the different forms of racism between Asian and Black movements, I believe it has more to do with the nature behind the movements.

The reason why the Stop Asian Hate movement does not merit such elicit responses as the Black Lives Matter movement is because Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hate does not outwardly target the root problem: the state. Black Lives Matter was founded as a direct response to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence toward Black people. The movement’s resurgence was a direct response to police officer Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd. This is why we not only see “All Lives Matter,” but “Blue Lives Matter” as a rebuttal to Black Lives Matter protests.

On the other hand, Stop Asian Hate was founded as a direct response to hate crimes as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Shootings, stabbings, curb-stomping, verbal harassment — it’s all individuals committing these so-called “isolated” attacks on Asian people throughout the nation. The difference between these two movements was even observable among the different chants at the rallies and protests I attended. At the Stop Asian Hate rally, we shouted things like “I am not a virus” or “silence is violence.” At Black Lives Matter protests, it was “I can’t breathe,” “hands up, don’t shoot” or “no justice, no peace, no racist police.” Of course, there were others, but these chants alone evoke very different images of their target audience.

Because of this difference, the Stop Asian Hate movement is often viewed more simplistically; if a person believes they are not actively committing a hate crime, they believe they are exempt. I can’t say strongly enough that this isn’t true. Anti-Asian violence stems from the same bastardized system as anti-Black violence — both are rooted in white supremacy. Though police brutality is a large part of state violence, so too are the exclusionary acts toward Asian immigrants I mentioned in my last column, sexual violence caused by U.S. militarism in East Asia and the economy’s reliance on exploitable Asian labor. All of these are led by the state — the state is simply able to better hide these acts of anti-Asian violence due to the model minority myth which insists Asians do not struggle as a result of racism in the United States.

Now, the creator’s video still has merit and I do not wish to discredit them completely. Varying reactions to these two movements may very likely stem from a more visceral presence of anti-Black racism than anti-Asian racism. There are definitely important, worthwhile conversations to be had about anti-Blackness within the Asian community. I am a firm believer that every non-Black person benefits from the pervasive anti-Blackness in our country, whether willingly or not. I am included in this and I wish to add to the conversation at hand.

The mischaracterization of anti-Asian racism needs to be addressed. I will continually work on being an active ally to the Black Lives Matter movement, and I can only hope they will do the same in return. Our struggles are unique but ultimately shared. For that reason, these movements call for unity.

I fear the momentum will be lost as the pandemic nears an end. When this pandemic ends, anti-Asian racism will not. The media may not share as many stories of the attacks we face and the model minority myth may persist. I ask all of you to assist me in ensuring otherwise by continuing to advocate for the Asian community when no one is around to watch.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English and is assistant Opinions editor.

Given the recent coverage of sexual violence in the media, ranging from allegations against Cuomo, to Sarah Everard, to the Atlanta shootings, a debate seems to have ensued among the public in regards to a UN Women United Kingdom study further popularized on TikTok. The study showed that 97 percent of women ages 18 to 24 experienced a variety of sexual harassment in public. Respondent experiences included “unwelcome sexual advances, comments or jokes, indecent exposure, being catcalled, groped, touched, physically followed and receiving suggestive content online or in person.” Holli Fisher, who works as a program manager for the Sexual Assault Center of Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin, also said this statistic is likely similar for women in the United States.

Ever since Sarah Everard’s death, my feed has been filled with videos of women and men discussing this statistic. Among these videos is also the rise of the hashtag #NotAllMen, which has become an increasingly common rebuttal to the 97 percent statistic by implying that not all men are sexual predators. The type of deflective victim-blaming reactions under this hashtag are disgusting, to say the least. Even Cuomo has downplayed calls to resign in light of the allegations as simply a part of “cancel culture.” Just a few weeks ago, Gov. Cuomo rejected calls to step down, saying “people know the difference between playing politics, bowing to cancel culture and the truth.” It is important to note that Cuomo has yet to deny touching the women coming forward. Instead he repeatedly claims that if he did touch anyone, it was not inappropriately.

What I think men like Cuomo need to realize is that sexual harassment and violence is a spectrum. Saying 97 percent of women have experienced sexual harassment is not saying 97 percent of women have been raped. Nevertheless, the actual statistic for rape victims is still too high — one out of every six women have been victims of rape or attempted rape. Given this spectrum, men need to reconsider the fact that a majority of their physical contact with women in the workplace may be inappropriate, despite what they may believe.

I work in food service and have both appropriate and inappropriate male coworkers. I have multiple male managers who I feel more than comfortable with when they invite physical contact. It’s a matter of how men touch women in the workplace and if they would ever touch a man the same way. I fist bump and high-five my managers all the time, and it makes for a fun work environment. The important part is that I see them initiate the same contact with men. When other male co-workers in the same environment feel the need to press my back, or side, or pull my hair, or caress my arm whenever they walk past me and my other young, female coworkers without ever doing the same to a man, it becomes an issue. That is not the same as my manager drawing on my hand to be funny.

All this to say, the fact that so many men are accused of sexual harassment is not representative of false accusations being made on behalf of women. At Northeastern University, a 10-year study indicates that false reports make up somewhere between two to 10 percent of total allegations, and rates of false reporting are frequently inflated due to weak understandings of sexual assault. Instead, high rates of sexual misconduct, especially in politics, are a cultural issue.

Sexual harassment and politics coexist. After all, is it truly shocking that men who seek careers wielding absurd amounts of power, dominance and control over less powerful people in public are the same ones who do so in private? Sexual assault is not about how attractive, old, skinny, sexy or vulnerable women are. Women and young girls from all kinds of backgrounds have been assaulted. Sexual assault is entirely about maintaining a power dynamic in which the perpetrator can dominate another person for their own benefit.

Still, instead of addressing rampant sexual harassment in the workplace, specifically in the political world, society makes excuses. Rather than addressing unfair and predatory power dynamics male politicians withhold, reporters like Tomi Lahren speak of women in politics like Kamala Harris “sleeping to the top.” Harris was called a gold digger and prostitute in the previous presidential election, despite having dated former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown over 25 years ago. In fact, few people outside of San Francisco have a clue who Willie Brown is — perhaps conservatives are simply incapable of believing that a woman could outperform a man in politics.

The fact that Gov. Cuomo dismissed his calls for resignation by saying he will not “bow down” to cancel culture is truly disheartening. While I’m sure that some Republicans may take advantage of such allegations to potentially advocate for his removal, the fact that Democrats led the impeachment process should have implied that this is a call for accountability. This is not an overreaction to Cuomo “flirting with a few women,” as commentator Matt Walsh suggests. No one has “canceled” Gov. Cuomo. People have simply seen the allegations and called for a proper response. Dismissing sexual harassment allegations as “cancel culture” shows how little Cuomo cares about the women he harassed or for correcting his actions.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English and is assistant Opinions editor.

It’s been a hard week.

On Tuesday, March 16, a man shot and killed eight people in three different Asian-owned spas in Atlanta, Georgia. Six of the eight victims were Asian women, and another man survived being shot. Reading the headlines felt like a stab to the chest. The shootings didn’t happen near me, but it almost felt as if they were happening through me — I am a half-Chinese woman, and my people are in danger.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, 3,795 hate incidents targeted toward Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have been reported to the nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate. Nearly 70 percent of the reports were filed by women, and the majority of respondents are Chinese. At 42.2 percent, Chinese respondents nearly triple the amount of Koreans, who are the second-most frequent respondents. New York also comes in second for having the most reports of hate incidents, with California in first place.

Despite this, investigators have yet to declare whether or not the shootings were a hate crime. Even if the victims had been only white women, targeting members of a certain sex should constitute a hate crime in itself. The same call was made, to designate a shooting as a hate crime, after the Tallahassee yoga studio shooting, carried out by a fascist “incel” — a name used by men who call themselves “involuntarily celibate” — who openly hated and targeted women. If that wasn’t enough, a local news report said the shooter yelled, “I want to kill all Asians” as he fired at the victims in Atlanta.

When I read headlines about anti-Asian hate crime across the United States, I often see words like “rising,” “escalates” or “fueling” used to describe the impact of the pandemic on these incidents. I can’t deny the inextricable tie between the two — still, I am bound to question whether these hate crimes are increasing, or are just becoming increasingly visible. While they have not entirely ruled it out, the failure to deem the Atlanta shootings a hate crime outright is representative of a history of erasing anti-Asian racism.

Asian Americans experience a unique form of racism unlike that of other minority groups. We are often subject to what is called the “model minority myth.” This myth champions Asians as the polite, law-abiding minorities who possess an innate talent and work ethic which allows them to reach higher levels of success than white people. On the surface, it doesn’t seem too bad that we assume intelligence and success of all Asian people — after all, those are admirable qualities. However, the model minority myth is incredibly detrimental to Asian communities.

By assuming greatness of all Asian communities, the model minority myth erases the huge disparities among varying Asian ethnicities. It is also used to pit the Asian community against Black communities by conflating anti-Asian racism with anti-Black racism when the two are not at all the same. Lastly, the model minority myth dismisses the racism Asian people endure due to the assumption that we are equally, if not more, as successful and free as compared to white people. It is this kind of dismissal that creates doubt as to whether the shootings were a hate crime.

The shooter’s claim that he was not racially motivated is simply untrue. In fact, his other excuse that he shot these Asian women to eliminate “temptation” to indulge in his sex addiction only perpetuates his racial bias. The historical fetishization of Asian women as exotic, hypersexual and submissive leads to staggering rates of physical and sexual violence. Even before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, there was the Page Act of 1875, which prohibited Asian, particularly Chinese, women from immigrating to the United States due to the assumption they were prostitutes who would promote polygamy and potentially reproduce with white men. Our bodies have long been colonized for, as Rachel Ramirez puts it, the “Western men’s taking.”

Hearing the descriptions of these innocent, Asian women as mere temptations to be “eliminated” is harrowing. These were people. I want to hear about their lives, their families, their dreams. I don’t give a damn about the 21-year-old incel mass murderer being a “good Christian” who “had a really bad day.” I condemn every media outlet attempting to humanize someone who heartlessly took the lives of eight humans who deserved to live. They deserve a story. Not him.

In the aftermath of the shootings, I want readers to know that one cannot look at these shootings without analyzing the racism, sexism, misogyny and white male supremacy at hand. They cannot be separated. I am Asian and a woman. I see myself in both Xiaojie Tan and Sarah Everard. I am not one or the other. I am not a temptation. I am not a threat. I am not yours, and I am most definitely not OK.

As I said, it’s been a hard week.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English and is assistant Opinions editor

Under the guise of “dark” humor, Barstool Sports has created what sports writer Robert Silverman at The Daily Beast calls a vector of “white male grievance culture” — a haven in which white men can whine about how hard it is to be called out for discriminatory behavior while chalking it up to an issue of the politically correct or “PC” police coming to ruin all the fun. Or as Barstool Sports founder, Keith Markovich, himself so adequately puts it, an internet culture where “simple misunderstanding” leads to “so many vocal minorities stomping their feet and yelling about shit.” This quote of Markovich’s was pulled from from his article titled “How Dumb People Write Hit Pieces on Barstool Sports,” where he discusses how many of the writers who criticize Barstool in these “hit pieces” just don’t understand the context of the jokes Barstool makes. All this is coming from a self-proclaimed journalism school dropout.

Given Barstool Sports’ widespread popularity, this grievance culture has become extremely pervasive, especially on college campuses. The official Barstool Sports Instagram has nearly 10 million followers, and its college affiliates easily reach tens of thousands of their own. Here at BU, the follower count almost reaches 23,000, but more popular schools like Syracuse University can total followers twice that amount. The popularity that Barstool Sports has with college students is evident: according to John Dick of civicscience.com, “a whopping 67 percent” of daily Barstool Sports users are under 30 years old, which explains their overwhelmingly college-related content. This content ranges anywhere from sports, to typical college frat parties, to — and I use the same endearing title listed on Barstool Sports’ website — chicks.

It is perhaps surprising to no one that the overwhelming amount of participants in the white male grievance culture Silverman describes are mostly conservative. Not only are 74 percent of Barstool Sports fans male, but they are also more Republican and more politically involved than the general public. This is no coincidence. In fact, the core attitudes and beliefs shared among Barstool Sports employees and fans are essential to the success of the alt-right pipeline.

The alt-right pipeline can be defined as “the individual journey to extremism online,” in the words of an academic journal article by Luke Munn. It is a gradual indoctrination process which preys upon young people. Although one of the defining factors of the alt-right is racism and xenophobia, the true gateway drug to extremism is sexism. Young men are becoming more likely to turn to social media after facing rejection and isolation, and social media giants like YouTube are there to provide validation in their vulnerable state. Barstool Sports’ own YouTube channel amasses 803,000 subscribers. Its home page prominently displays a video called, “What is Barstool Sports? The Best of Barstool in 2020.” In the first 30 seconds, the mostly white men and women of Barstool Sports describe their work as “authentic,” “unfiltered” and “real.” These words are vital to the “awakening” that alt-right organizations and groups, like Reddit’s r/TheRedPill, describe. In this so-called awakening, men are exposed to the “reality” of feminism. Rather than a fight for women’s equality, feminism is painted as a movement which “disempowers” men and ruins society for everyone, according to Aja Romano of Vox. It’s not a matter of convincing these men to be sexist — in fact, it is actually a matter of convincing men they are not at all sexist but rather, they are just being “real” and honest.

Once this notion of reality is constructed, Barstool Sports’ most prominent employees saying things like “subtle sexual harassment is fine and dandy” can be painted as irony and satire. The indoctrination process lays the groundwork for all of Barstool Sports’ discrimination to be dismissed with a simple claim that us leftists take things too seriously. Barstool Sports can especially dismiss claims of sexism by touting podcasts like “Call Her Daddy” as a resource for women when, at best, it is feminism for men. The very first description of the podcast in the aforementioned highlight video is simply one of the hosts saying she “eat[s] hot Cheetos for a living and likes to talk about getting fucked.” This wouldn’t be an issue, but the podcast consistently conflates sex-positivity with misogyny and toxic relationship advice. Not to mention, this is just at the hands of two female hosts. When male Barstool Sports employees discuss feminism, the conversation takes an even darker turn, as shown by founder Dave Portnoy saying, “Just to make friends with the feminists, I’d like to reiterate that we don’t condone rape of any kind at our Blackout Parties in mid-January. However, if a chick passes out, that’s a grey area.” The bar for their feminist content is at rock bottom.

What Barstool Sports has done is monetize and digitize rape culture. Their massive audience, combined with their popularity among college students, is not an invisible force. It is the reason behind the Barstool Sports flags in all your local fraternities or the “Saturdays Are For The Boys” signs in apartments or dorms. By posting content that is made to evoke collegiate pride, such as the recent “Best Bar Bracket” on the @barstoolsuny Instagram page, Barstool Sports even has the power to lure in viewers who don’t necessarily align themselves with conservative views or sports media. Barstool Sports’ powerful and pervasive nature allows them to continually brush off important issues of consent, sexism and racism in the name of “fun.”

Barstool Sports rape culture poses a huge threat to a campus in which almost 90 percent of BU survey respondents do not report sexual violence — a statistic which has much to do with survivors’ fear of slut shaming or disbelief on behalf of the University or its Greek life, both of which have histories of such responses detailed by outlets such as the Instagram page @shareyourstorybing. This threat shows clearly that Barstool Sports fans are not under attack for merely being held accountable, especially when they are asked to be held accountable for their oppressive actions toward marginalized groups. The mere suggestion that conservative white men could ever be the victims of a white supremacist nation is laughable. We must see through Barstool Sports’ dismissive evasion tactics in order to finally hold the company and their supporters accountable for their active perpetuation of alt-right policies.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English.

The article also made sure to mention Chilton’s creation of a new cluster hiring initiative. The official Harpur College of Arts and Sciences website touts a multiyear initiative meant to attract scholars in the field of critical studies in race and equality. In doing so, Harpur College states it seeks to attract scholars dedicated to studies of race, social justice and structural inequality as part of the 2019 SUNY PRODiG program dedicated to hiring 1,000 historically underrepresented faculty members to the SUNY system in the next 10 years. Harpur College also notes its particular interest in appointing researchers and faculty members “who are deeply connected to and integrated into the communities that they study, as a means to build on the strong tradition of engaged scholarship at [BU].”

Where the BU administration was once loud and clear about the creation of this hiring cluster, they have so far been silent in reporting that it has stopped. When Harpur College first announced the creation of this initiative, it contained the promise of two allocations in the previous academic year, 2019-2020, and at least one in the current year, 2020-2021. As of today, the two allocations from 2019-2020 have been filled, but one appointee will not start until fall 2021.

While BU is quick to blame this delay on the $11 million deficit and hiring freeze as a result of the pandemic, the delay remains a clear signal of the University’s longstanding refusal to discuss or combat racism on campus. In an open letter to BU President Harvey Stenger written on June 12 signed by over 200 students, faculty, student groups and alumni, demands were clear: “We ask that you ensure that any searches remaining from Dean Chilton’s cluster hire initiative — developed specifically to increase Black faculty — that were stopped due to the [COVID-19] shutdown recommence, fully funded, in 2020-2021.” Included in the list of demands was diversity training for all staff, counselors of color in the University Counseling Center, University-wide curriculum on Black and Brown history and Stenger’s public addressing of those students and student groups which he has continually ignored.

Rather than implement any of these demands — which garnered over 200 signatures from faculty, students, student groups and alumni — Stenger instead implemented a Campus Citizens Review Board, a $200,000 reallocation toward the Clifford D. Clark Diversity Fellowships for Graduate Students and the $1.5 million creation of the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship. While these steps are welcomed, they are just that: steps. Not to mention, they are not steps that students and staff have continually and explicitly asked for. SUNY Distinguished Professor Nkiru Nzegwu’s individual letter to Stenger also addressed the malleability of the policy shifts behind such scholarships and review boards, all of which unjustly trivialize student demands or protests. Nzegwu also highlights the failure of several current services to adequately serve Black and Brown students explaining, “It would be sad if again black students’ experiences of racial injustice and brutality become the basis of progressive initiatives while they continue to face racism and discrimination in receiving those essential services.” Clearly, these actions are miles away from the true, systemic change needed in the University’s curriculum and faculty.

For BU to halt the vital and explicit demand to hire more Black faculty is unacceptable. Even further, for BU to halt the appointment of two Black faculty members in the name of a hiring freeze while simultaneously hiring eight new assistant professors in Watson College of Engineering and Applied Sciences is plainly inexcusable.

To stand in front of our staff and attempt to silently rescind a crucial promise to hire tenure-track research professors dedicated to critical race studies in the name of money only to turn around and hire eight professors is a slap in the face to those who put their time and effort into these competitive nominations. More importantly, students and staff set their hopes on these potential hires, and our administration has yet again exploited them in a fit of performative activism. Such blatant display of our administrative priorities speaks volumes, and it is just one of several instances of the University’s, and Stenger’s, virtue signaling.

In keeping with multiple Pipe Dream editorials, including the most recent discussing these eight new hires, I again call for greater transparency from our administration. Not only do students deserve to know where the money to hire these professors came from, but also the reasons for prioritizing such hires over the cluster we were already promised. As Chilton wrote herself in an article promoting cluster hires, “we cannot wait for an influx of resources in higher education in order to recruit, retain and support a diverse cohort of faculty, staff and students.”

I take pieces from the open letters written by English faculty last summer when I say now that Harvey Stenger’s persistent silence is damning. I, as well as every other nonwhite person on campus, know my worth. Though I have grown immensely through the illustrious relationships formed with other people of color or allies on campus, I know that for all the faith and labor I give BU inside and out of my studies, I am getting little to no effort in return. To refuse discussion at every turn is a direct reflection of Stenger’s privilege and lack of commitment to the diversity and inclusion statements he makes. Until our administration makes a reliable, transparent effort to uplift marginalized voices, our community will continue to call for change.

And to Stenger, if you ever read this, I ask for the second time since my unanswered letter to you in June: What are you really going to do to help students like me?

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English.

As younger voters become more and more progressive, leftists are gaining more traction. Politicians such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are some of the progressive movement’s most prominent leaders, often being mentioned through name or policy in passing presidential debates. The issue arises when these leftist voters refuse to vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, in favor of a write-in candidate like Sanders or refuse to vote at all. Recently, the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America officially voted to decline encouraging residents in swing states to even “grapple with the question of voting for Biden.”

Allow me to concede that leftist and socialist parties have the right to criticize Biden’s candidacy. We all do. With a number of sexual assault allegations, right-leaning policies and simply his old age, young voters are undeniably concerned about his fitness for office. The problem lies in the fact that this leftist stance is rooted in Biden’s problems while failing to assess Trump’s. Biden and Harris admittedly have problematic histories, but in a presidential election, we as voters have a responsibility to acknowledge the vast disparity between Harris’ history of cannabis prosecution or Biden’s role in the Iraq War and the history of Trump and Pence. Just to quickly brief readers on Trump’s history, it spans over 45 years of documented racism, dozens of his own sexual assault allegations, ongoing attacks against the LGBTQ+ community and, of course, rampant disbelief in science that led to his abysmal COVID-19 treatment plan.

Choosing to write in your preferred candidate is a lofty ideal under our current two-party system. And I’m not saying that is right. Looking at our current candidates, I am often ashamed of how our country has made it so that these two men, in all their defects, are somehow presented as the best our country has to offer. As a young Asian student, I want what many leftists want. I want a woman in charge, a ballot that has more than one nonwhite candidate and a president that cares about climate change not because they want my vote, but simply because they should. Our two-party system doesn’t give me that.

Despite all of that, I recognize that now is not the time to express my disdain for our system with a write-in candidate or a refusal to vote. I choose to both support women like Tara Reade while voting for Biden because I cannot allow myself to give any leeway to the current administration, whose racism, sexism and scientific views are irrefutably worse. A write-in may not sway the historically blue state of New York, but the importance of voting for Biden and other progressive candidates remains extremely important in swing states. For example, the recent favoring of Democratic candidates in Colorado and Arizona could, according to CNN, “give them control over all eight Senate seats from those states plus New Mexico and Nevada for the first time since 1941.” My vote for Biden is for progress. Painfully, resentfully slow progress.

For those who remain adamant about abstaining from this year’s presidential election or writing in your candidate, I strongly urge you to reflect on how that decision is a direct reflection on your position of power in a hierarchical society. Additionally, if you, especially as a white person, are encouraging people not to vote for Biden with the claim that it is not what Black, Indigenous and people of color want, you should question why you feel qualified to speak on our behalf. Because if millions of nonwhite people are telling you it’s not about Joe Biden, it’s not about Joe Biden.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English.

As it stands, students living off campus remain one of the biggest threats to the Binghamton community during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are not required to undergo testing to the same extent as on-campus students, and with little to no regulation within our houses or apartment complexes, Binghamton is forced to rely heavily on other students to file noncompliance reports. The most recent email from Brian Rose, vice president for student affairs, states that noncompliance reports have come from a mix of students and community members. Still, the super-spreader events cited in this email must be visible enough for community members to report. Houses may be subject to this surveillance, but apartment complexes make it nearly impossible to discern the size of a social gathering or its hosts.

With COVID-19 being the largest threat to both BU and the Binghamton community, it would be fitting to provide off-campus students with an incentive to leave the area and quarantine at home should an outbreak occur. Social ordinances may be in place, but punitive measures are clearly insufficient when students feel as if they can escape them. A refund, even if not a full one, is likely enough motivation for many students to return home willingly. Not to mention, an empathetic stance would likely encourage students to renew a lease more than the standing fear tactics of signing before someone else takes your home out from under you.

Not only has the stress to renew leases begun, but some apartment complexes are now failing to communicate an increase in price for the next academic year. At the Chenango Place apartments in Downtown Binghamton, some residents are only given 24 hours notice to sign or renew a lease if someone else has expressed their intent to sign before them. Some residents stated that it was only once they decided to resign their lease that they were made aware of a $40 increase in their monthly rent.

Private facilities and landlords alike exploit this state of vulnerability and fear by allotting one day to consider a yearlong lease. While apartments understandably want to fill spots for the upcoming year comfortably, it remains important to consider current residents’ needs and stresses. Given the current pandemic, this pressure will adversely affect students who are increasingly unsure of what they will be able to afford in terms of rent or schooling, students whose family members are not easily accessible during business hours, students without reliable internet access to check their email with this information and all those students who are already facing disproportionate challenges to their semester.

A popular dissent to these refunds would obviously be a budget cut for these landlords and apartment complexes. This would potentially be a larger issue if it was not common knowledge that off-campus housing, while cheaper than BU dormitories, is still grossly overpriced. Since students pay for leases by the room, landlords can charge more per square foot. For apartments like Twin River Commons, this means that a four bedroom, four bathroom apartment comes to nearly $4000 per month. For comparison, the typical cost of the same apartment in Albany, New York, would be anywhere from $1000 to $2000. This doesn’t include Twin River Commons’ $75 per month parking, which accounts for a yearly total around $760 more than an annual parking pass on campus.

With this level of excess, landlords have every reason to be forgiving of their residents’ situation and offer them some level of financial relief. Freeing up Binghamton housing can also encourage better neighborhood upkeep. In 2016, Liberty Street had only four owner-occupied homes, with the remaining 31 presumably being owned by landlords. In renting these houses to student tenants who care little about house maintenance, students create a domino effect in which unattractive and older homes are scattered across Binghamton, leaving few fair housing options for permanent Binghamton residents. Not only will a refund contribute to communal health and proper social distancing, but it shows the level of compassion and empathy that both BU students and Binghamton community members deserve during this time.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English.

The term “anti-racist” is loaded, but it mostly has to do with the fact that allyship must be more of a verb than a noun. The allyship of anti-racism implies ongoing and meaningful action toward dismantling racism and supporting Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). Therefore, an anti-racist reading list is meant to provide a list of books to read that will educate readers on race relations.

Although anti-racist reading lists are published with the best intentions, they have become part of a broader system which generalizes and compartmentalizes Black authorship into perpetual voices of trauma and pain. Rarely do the books listed support the overlooked stories of Black joy, love or success without mandating a hardship among it. Instead, author L.L. McKinney writes that the overwhelming message from publishers to Black authors, and Black people in general, is that their stories are worth little if they are not “bleed[ing] on the page” for everyone to see. This fetishization of Black trauma is echoed in the lack of recognition for Black roles other than slaves or nannies, the trending of white savior movies on Netflix and the grossly republished videos of police murdering Black men on social media.

In looking at the books on these lists, one can question what the qualifications are to become an “anti-racist” novel. Must Black authors “bleed on the page,” as McKinney writes, or can they write happily about race and culture? Also, what does it mean when a white woman’s book tops these lists? Whereas some books may show up every so often on an anti-racist reading list, Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility” appears across the board. DiAngelo describes “White Fragility” as a “state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.” DiAngelo encourages an embrace of discomfort when discussing whiteness in all its privilege.

In one book review, author and sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson claims DiAngelo “joins the front ranks of white anti-racist thinkers,” calling “White Fragility” a “truly generative idea.” However, people of color have confronted white denial for hundreds of years. This type of review begs the question: is anti-racist work only generative when it is made by and for white people?

While there is something undeniably admirable about DiAngelo’s intense examination of whiteness, to say “White Fragility” is a generative idea ignores centuries of white guilt, and suggests that only through DiAngelo’s work can we now fully understand long-standing patterns of deflection. Though DiAngelo may have evoked a pedagogical breakthrough for many white readers, this discussion altogether was not unique for people of color prior to its publishing.

Additionally, despite DiAngelo’s desire for white people to reflect inward on their own supremacist behaviors, Black professors like John McWhorter at Columbia University feel as if she herself speaks over Black people throughout the entirety of her book. McWhorter specifically highlights DiAngelo’s claims that “when white women cry upon being called racists, Black people are reminded of white women crying as they lied about being raped by Black men eons ago. But how would she know?”

As a white woman, DiAngelo makes broad claims about Black experience. It is important to note that rather than liken two situations, DiAngelo’s word choice directly states that Black people indeed react how she says they do. Yet to repeat McWhorter’s blunt statement, as a white woman, how would DiAngelo know? And what qualifies her to speak on Black experience this way?

None of this is to discourage white educators or white people from discussing whiteness or even the concept of white fragility. Rather, it should again highlight what exactly anti-racist novels are meant to do. To go back to my earlier statement, it seems as if anti-racist reading lists are meant to provide a list of books to read — an action — in order to educate readers on race — a solution, or the start of one. It is a naive promise of allyship to suggest that reading one book can alleviate centuries of white supremacy, and it is, as told by Melissa Phruksachart, the literature of white liberalism. Literature that yet again makes anti-racism a privileged and noteworthy task for elites who want to emphasize their presence in the fight against white supremacy in a fit of performance while expelling Black voices from the conversation.

This type of literature necessitates pedagogy from all Black novels, creating what Lauren Michele Jackson calls an irresponsible approach to literature which reinforces the idea that “Black writers are just a means for white people to be better at being white people.” It is disrespectful to all Black authors to continue placing their work into that which is anti-racist and that which is not, and it stems from what still appears to be a misunderstanding of race relations. Jackson notes the presence of Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,” on anti-racist reading lists to explain that the novel has to do with racism in that racism is everywhere — the environment, for starters. Yet all of Morrison’s artistry is lost when one simply reads “The Bluest Eye,” a novel centered on a young Black girl’s understanding of racialized beauty, in an attempt to examine and alleviate their own inner biases.

The Black authorship behind books on these lists is illustrious, laudable and before anything, worthwhile. The challenge is to view them as such without describing their worth in terms of whiteness — more specifically the benefits that white people get when reading this book. If one truly wants to engage in allyship, they can learn to appreciate Black art outside of the confines of anti-racism and white fragility. Learn to diversify your bookshelf not only with stories of struggle, but of joy. Success. Love. Black literature should be appreciated in its artistry and its Blackness — not one removed from the other.

Kaitlyn Liu is a junior majoring in English.

In fact, such sentiments were promoted by President Donald Trump in his refusal to defer from the term “Chinese virus,” claiming that this term was not racist, but factually accurate. Chinese restaurants have been heavily impacted by discriminatory evasion, with advocates warning that targeted government intervention is the only way for such businesses to survive. Of course, there have also been forms of physical violence and hate, as seen in the stabbing of three Asian family members in a Texas supermarket.

These frightfully recurring acts of discrimination are extremely concerning and seem to finally make federally encouraged anti-Asian racism recognizable on a scale similar to that of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This is important because despite lingering anti-Asian sentiments, these systemic forms of racism are not as visible as, say, the Japanese internment camps created during World War II. Still, this is not to say that all visibility is beneficial; to say such a thing would be a disgrace to all Asians today facing debilitating forms of racism.

What I do want to say is that the highlighting of such negative interactions can work to show us that racism toward Asians has never gone away, it has simply changed. We have a long way to go before Asians are treated as equals, and this is only perpetuated by the “model minority” myth which links high Asian economic status to equality. The myth is rooted in the ideal characterization of Asians as a polite, law-abiding racial minority who have achieved success equal to or higher than their white counterparts because of innate intelligence and perseverance.

Now that the conditions in Wuhan and other areas of China are improving so much that the city can be reopened, the next fear is a second wave. Ben Cowling, a professor of public health at the University of Hong Kong, said imported cases can significantly affect local epidemic control, citing Singapore as a country with initial success in a test-and-trace method and a sudden increase in cases due to travel. In an attempt to prevent this, more localized traveling restrictions have been set in place, including the use of a government-sanctioned app which tracks users and determines contagion risks.

However, Chinese citizens still fear the possibility of resurgence, especially at the hands of migration. The fear of infection has manifested into a new racial targeting of Africans in China. Guangzhou, a Chinese city with an estimated 320,000 Africans traveling to and from China on short-term business visas, has repeatedly made headlines for blaming Africans for the spread of COVID-19. The belief that black communities are responsible for a continuation of the pandemic has led to actions barring black people from entering restaurants, evicting black tenants and mandating testing or quarantine. African students have also been unable to leave their universities, and many black people have been forced to sleep on the streets. There have been very little to no reports of perpetrators facing charges, as Guangzhou police initially placed the order to bar African customers from restaurants and other establishments.

Given the racist attacks on Asians throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, one would reasonably assume that Asians would be less inclined to inflict such discriminatory practices on another minority group. However, issues in Guangzhou continually prove this not to be true. Lisa Marie Cacho, an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, suggests that actions similar to those observed between Asians and Africans now are linked to the idea of social death. She defines social death as the result of certain minority groups being ineligible for personhood, as race is understood through categories of devaluation. This devaluation allows not only white people to understand themselves as people that are not black, but also perpetuates a system in which minority groups understand each other by degrading the other.

Devaluation is not completely the same as intersectionality, which involves the interrelations and overlapping between social categorizations and the discrimination practices it creates. Instead, there is a comparative analytic which we can observe in Asians literally and metaphorically distancing themselves from Africans — one that suggests Asians have a higher social value as dictated by society because they claim to be somehow better than the other: the allegedly infected African. Cacho writes that “the most vulnerable populations … are often represented as if they are the primary sources of the others’ social denigration. And because they are represented this way, they are recruited to participate in their own and others’ devaluation.” Therefore, there is a detrimental and cyclical process of recuperating social value by degrading other minority groups, so as to reach some greater level of personhood. This is what Cacho means when she says certain populations’ humanities are represented as something that one can eventually become or achieve.

Though overwhelmingly negative, the process of social denigration can be improved by forcing ourselves to evaluate the mechanisms behind racial minority groups’ perceived social values. For example, although research shows that COVID-19 kills more black Americans than white, we must consider how our racially exclusive economic system has created this state of vulnerability. Under the current system of capitalism, African Americans are repeatedly forced to live in areas of systemic housing crises, work the minimum wage jobs we have now deemed essential and experience decreased access to health care.

We also must reconsider our understanding of anti-Asian racism to be present and tangible. Although the “model minority” myth encourages Americans to view Asians as a somewhat “less” oppressed racial minority, the xenophobia cited here proves Asians are not any closer to racial equality. There is no nonracist method to claiming Asians or Africans are responsible for COVID-19, whether they live abroad or in the United States. By examining our determinants of social value and the lawful enforcement of racism, minority groups can be encouraged to dismantle the cycle of devaluation.

Kaitlyn Liu is a sophomore majoring in English.

Following these protests, the protesters, largely racial minorities, faced intense discrimination. On social media, comments in support of TPUSA repeatedly called these protesters animals, aggressive and described them as racist toward white people. All of these labels are historically racist and essential components of what N. Jeremi Duru, a professor of law at American University, calls the myth of the “Bestial Black Man.” One student also told WBNG that “people should be respectful other than loud.” This loudness is yet another component of the stereotypical racial minority, and racialized sound has another long history of oppression.

Though the scale of protests on BU’s campus has decreased since the two protests against College Republicans and TPUSA last semester, underlying racial tensions remain. When hate speech occurs on campus, it can be extremely difficult for students of color to find adequate resources to cope. To start, the University Counseling Center (UCC) is notoriously overbooked and unavailable to students. Although UCC does mention the potential barriers diverse students may face when attempting to use their services, there are only 14 counselors available for a student body that BU President Harvey Stenger says could soon reach 20,000. These constraints make it nearly impossible to schedule nonemergency appointments, let alone with one of the very few counselors who are not white or white passing. This pattern repeats in the advising staff for the largest college at BU, Harpur College, which employs only two visibly nonwhite advisers. When protests like these leave students of color feeling victimized, confidential counseling with someone who understands their experiences could alleviate the intense fears many students face.

Outside of the counseling center, BU also offers very few professors of color for minority students to look up to and learn from. Only 16 percent of BU’s faculty is nonwhite, and in a 2014-15 year report, Harpur College outlined some of the main issues it faces in maintaining an inclusive work environment. Among the 11 issues listed, three had to do with the obstacles faced by women — particularly women of color. These issues included the issue of women being “stuck” at the associate rank, dealing with bullying and harassment of women and faculty of color and the disproportionate resigning rates of female faculty and faculty of color. With underwhelming counselor availability, these professors can often be very helpful mentors for students. However, students may struggle to discuss issues stemming from racial identity with professors who they feel cannot understand their issues on a personal level. One of the largest populations of international students at BU are from China, and they may also struggle when they are told to rely on the English Language Institute for help, which is entirely white or white passing.

With adult figures of color largely unavailable, students may begin to turn to fellow minority students for guidance. Though personal relationships and discussions can be fruitful, it can also be helpful for students to have certain spaces set aside for them. One example of such a space is the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), whose office in the University Union offers multiple services to increase academic success, cultural awareness and social responsibility among students of color. Through the EOP tutoring program and other student administrative positions, students can look up to and confide in other students who look like them. Although the Multicultural Resource Center may serve similar purposes to the EOP, its services are mostly run by adult faculty members, with undergraduate interns assisting these upper faculty members. Still, the University could benefit greatly from more student-focused resources, given that minority students outside of the EOP program may feel less inclined to visit its office.

BU has stated its commitment to diversity through a multitude of platforms, but students today are observing very little positive change on campus. Students are repeatedly taking classes with primarily white students and white professors, told to seek assistance from white counselors and advisers or struggling to find undergraduate mentors. In the aftermath of such intense hate speech as seen last semester, it is crucial that BU steps up the availability of and diversity within on-campus services.

Kaitlyn Liu is a sophomore majoring in English.

The fact that these wildfires are started by humans doesn’t mean that the fires are in no way affected by global climate change. Fires are fueled by record-high seasonal winds, drying of forest vegetation and increasing temperatures. Several news articles highlight the benefits of controlled burning and undermine the seriousness of environmental refugees by pointing to a similar, unavoidable climate disaster of the future. These articles simply serve to belittle the true gravity of our changing environment.

The political controversy of climate change stems from a misunderstanding of the term “nature,” which is popularly regarded as all that is not man-made. There are often phrases in support of man “becoming one with nature” as opposed to respecting its boundaries. For this, we can thank a historical appraisal of philosophers such as Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. While these interpretations are seemingly innocuous, they remain largely ignorant of a relationship with nature that has been anything but peaceful.

In order to better understand and combat climate change, we must first reconsider the definition of nature. When we regard nature as the entities that humanity does not encroach upon, we promote the idea that humans have not consistently made devastating and life-altering changes to their surroundings for capitalist gain. Looking at nature as an equally respectable body in comparison to humanity opens up a reconsideration of agency, which is not solely obtainable by humans. Agency can primarily be defined as a potential for influential action, but its connotation involves a human-specific cognitive process. However, nature is fully capable of acting and reacting as humans do. This inclusive perspective of agency also better allows us to connect causal human activity to these milestone events within our climate.

Although combating the climate crisis depends heavily on protective and preventive measures, it is also important to take caution before acting in conservationist efforts. Activists frequently appear eager to protect areas of land they view as subject to exploitation, but conservation efforts can also harm those living around these areas. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are notorious for preserving large estates without regard to those who may heavily rely on access to such areas for sustenance or protection. These organizations run independently from any government influence and are not-for-profit, so it should not come as a surprise that NGOs are often run at the hands of donors — including those who have little experience with the disparity among the rich and poor during the climate crisis. Rob Nixon, Currie C. and Thomas A. Baron family professor in the humanities and the environment at Princeton University, calls these magnified effects of climate change and ecological racism “environmentalism of the poor.” Many of the organizations are motivated by the Enlightenment ideas of nature as innately violent and in need of governance or protection, which is observed in the heavy reliance on Thomas Hobbes and John Locke’s violent definition of a “state of nature” in political settings.

By highlighting the dangers of certain conservation efforts, I am not suggesting we refrain from acting on local climate crises or condemning all protections set thus far. There are certainly several regulations in place that do much to protect areas that would be otherwise vulnerable to manipulation. However, I am advocating for a shift in attention from communal impacts to corporate ones. The communities that are most affected by climate change often contribute the least to it, and it is essential to place criticism correctly in a time where very few key players are willing to accept fault. Starting the new election year, I am hopeful for fewer misleading headlines and larger voter turnout because with our climate’s current condition, there is quite literally no time for denial.

Kaitlyn Liu is a sophomore majoring in English.

Across a multitude of news articles, there is an extreme emphasis on the misplaced students who were forced to relocate amid the protests, following the death of Alex Chow, a Hong Kong student who died after falling from the ledge of a parking garage. Reports state that Chow was likely attempting to escape from tear gas thrown by police. Reports on Hong Kong specifically quote students who are upset about relocation. One article interviews Jay Thuluri, an exchange student originally from Babson College in Massachusetts, who states, “I came here to study … There is no point for me to stay here with the potential of dangerous situations.”

Although students’ reactions are important to the stories of the protests, by highlighting the tragedy of their relocation, reporters are causing readers in the United States to look unfavorably upon the protests. Similar to the Chinese government, reporters are encouraging us to judge these protests solely by appearance. Geng Shuang, Foreign Ministry spokesperson for China, claims that “Hong Kong’s problem is not about human rights or democracy; rather, it’s about stopping violence and chaos, restoring order.” There are endless descriptions of The Chinese University of Hong Kong as a volatile, graffiti-covered fortress, combat zone or citadel in The Washington Post’s coverage. These descriptions are purposeful and targeted toward the apprehensive outsiders who perceive Hong Kong as an unnecessarily dangerous area. The focus on the looks of the university creates a subsequent focus on the students within it, who are then associated more with violence than the police, despite the police consistently displaying outright brutality by firing tear gas and shooting protesters dead when they face only makeshift weapons in return.

However, when we look to Hong Kong, we shouldn’t simply focus on the dangers of violence. This reporting tactic leads us to view Hong Kong’s protests as disturbances rather than an essential organization that characterizes a bottom-up democratization process. Weak protests lead only to a broadened dictatorship; it is only when the soft-liners of an administration underestimate the strength of protesters that democratization occurs, and the incessant protests in Hong Kong suggest that liberalization processes are likely. Of course students are struggling at this time, but by omitting quotes from students or professors that may feel empowered by their bravery, reporters are contributing to the perception of Hong Kong pro-democracy protests as excessive violence on both sides. The most supportive quote from students in The Washington Post article referenced above only stated that the campus should be a safe space, which also implies responsibility on behalf of both parties. There are undoubtedly students who feel pride in what they perceive as civic duty, yet their voices are missing from these narratives. The protests must be understood as the mistreatment of protesters who refuse to settle for less than their basic civil rights.

Beyond portraying the protests as annoyances and disruptions, these articles also contribute to the popular idea that political discussion is not for younger generations. The quote from Jay Thuluri earlier on portrays an innocent student who was simply trying to study — an admirable pursuit of the American dream. Police describe The Chinese University of Hong Kong as a weapons factory, condemning professors and students for spreading pro-democracy ideals.

The opinion that the youth is too inexperienced or unintelligent to take part in meaningful political discussion has long been used to exclude younger generations from a seat at the table. Older generations today view the United States’ success in World War II and the overcoming of the Great Depression as feats younger generations could never surpass with their so-called entitled attitudes. Jason Feifer writes, “What monsters we become. We bring a new generation into this world, only to convince them of their shortcomings … We send children off into the future, telling them the greatest moments have already passed.” However, young students today demand greater respect, fighting back against the generational and conservative dismissal of climate change, women’s rights, racism, homophobia and other forms of marginalization with a dismissal of their own: OK, boomer. These articles go to students for quotes only to achieve ageist tokenism with the sole purpose of evoking a preference for a non-protested normalcy, which, we should remember, is oppressive by nature.

The belief that young students are incapable of forming intelligible, autonomous political opinions is simply an excuse to rationalize conservative agendas and preserve the generational disparity in political processes, especially voting. Left-leaning students aren’t being brainwashed by professors, as the Chinese police would like you to believe. The youth in Hong Kong are pioneering for inclusivity and respect by calling attention to the autocratic behavior of the Chinese government. Therefore, we should respect their efforts by writing about their protests more analytically by better describing the reasons behind the demonstrations and placing clear blame on riot police rather than student protesters.

Kaitlyn Liu is a sophomore majoring in English.

I most strongly disagree with Huang’s claim that the term Asian American is better suited for “a time in history when Americans of Asian descent needed to band together under an umbrella term that washed away individual differences” rather than what she calls the “modern American.” By saying this, I assume that the historical period Huang references is one in which she presumes racism toward Asians was somehow worse. This plays into the myth that racism is not as bad as many claim it to be, given the ability of Asian Americans to heroically and admirably overcome racial obstacles.

Huang’s article highlights the wealth and intelligence of Asian Americans, specifically Chinese Americans. She calls this idolized trope of the ability to supposedly overcome racial discrimination a “pivotal leap from minority to majority,” yet this transition is impossible in the world we live in, where the majority will always, without fail, be Caucasian. It is merely an idea implanted by those who employ the “model minority” myth, which relies on the statistical economic success of Asian Americans compared to whites to undermine the existence of institutional racism. Research actually implies that the notorious social mobility of Asian Americans is only a result of a declining labor discrimination against them as compared to other racial minorities following World War II. As legal discrimination became more difficult, it became harder for companies to pay less based on prejudice rather than productivity, with Army General Classification Test scores from the 1940s suggesting near-equal intelligence levels among Asian and white populations while scores from black Americans fell behind. The popularization of this trope makes what Huang calls the “pivotal leap” seem easily acquirable and admirable when it is not. Therefore, to imply that Asian Americans no longer need this label is to ignore the fact that institutional discrimination has remained just as restrictive, even if it is perhaps less observable.

Furthermore, Huang’s brief concession to the discrimination Asian Americans still face regarding poverty in New York City deserves much more attention than it was given. Many arguments against racism cite the higher-average income for Asian Americans than whites, but 2017 Census data shows that the poverty rate for Asian Americans is actually 1.5 percent higher than non-Hispanic whites. It’s extremely important to note these poverty rates as they exemplify the unmoving discriminatory practices society participates in, whether it’s done consciously or not. In fact, Asian job applicants with names typically associated with whiteness were found to receive a 7 percent higher callback rate than those with names that could be easily associated with Asian ethnicities. While it is unlikely that these employers consciously turned down applicants because of their names, it is a clear demonstration of how racism is a systemic practice, even though many believe it is no more than the conscious decision to sabotage racial minorities.

In supporting affirmative action, despite being Chinese American, I do not feel as if I am betraying other Asian Americans by supporting a policy that is becoming infamous for its so-called “Asian tax.” While race-blind admissions processes are admirable at first glance, there are multiple studies that suggest the popularized idea that color blindness combats racism is actually quite harmful to racial minorities. For example, sociologist Ruth Frankenberg defines what we know to be color blindness as color evasion, arguing it is simply another method of “rejecting the idea of white racial superiority.” Furthermore, the popular claim that Asians would make up the majority of prestigious college campuses most often fails to acknowledge the lack of ethnic representation among this majority. For example, the University of California, Berkeley, which does not regard race in their admissions process, has an overwhelming 40 percent of Asian Americans enrolled. However, Chinese Americans and South Asian Americans make up 69 percent of that Asian American student population. In this sense, how fair can race-blind admissions be if they only benefit specific Asian ethnicities?

I, of course, recognize how affirmative action can obviously hurt the enrollment opportunities for Asian Americans, just how I recognize how they can obviously hurt enrollment opportunities for white applicants. However, I believe there is a way to acknowledge our intersectional privilege as a minority, and that is by supporting affirmative action policies without disregarding the label of Asian American. Stereotypes of Asian Americans, although undoubtedly hurtful, are not nearly as derogatory as those of other minorities. While it is not ideal to have to place minorities on a spectrum based on the amount of racism they endure, I find it impossible to ignore intersectionality at a time when the odds of a young black man being killed by the police are higher than the odds of winning scratch-off lottery games, and when one in three members of the Latino community report job and housing discrimination.

In writing this column, I hope to make clear that my opinions on affirmative action do not stem from confusion or miscommunication, as the NPR interview Huang referenced may suggest. I acknowledge the sacrificial aspect of affirmative action and choose to support it despite these consequences, knowing that Asian Americans who face the “Asian tax” are still very likely to get into multiple reputable schools, which other minorities struggle much more to accomplish. The idea of most colleges being Asian American is obviously appealing to me at the surface level. I have never been in an educational setting in which I feel I am equally represented, let alone the 74 percent majority Huang referenced in regard to Stuyvesant High School. Still, as awakening an experience with a majority-Asian university may be, I would not prefer it if it meant even further diminishment of other racial demographics.

Kaitlyn Liu is a sophomore majoring in English.

While rainforest fires are not atypical, with many farmers burning vegetation for agricultural purposes, deforestation has increased by 80 percent this year, denoting a serious change in typical fire patterns. Many view Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s current president, as the person to blame for this change in deforestation rates. Bolsonaro’s notoriously pro-business attitude toward the Brazilian agriculture industry has undoubtedly contributed to this dangerous trend. Farmers invigorated by this support have begun to use self-declared “fire days” to purposely set fire to the Amazon in order to make space for grazing cattle. The president’s unabashed support has earned him the name of “Captain Chainsaw.” Therefore, the burning Amazon means something that conservationists have long attempted to express: Conservative politicians will stop at nothing to further their corporate greed.

The global interest in climate change has seen a sharp increase in recent years. Eighty-two percent of Democratic respondents in a CNN poll claim it is very important that presidential candidates for the 2020 election take “aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.” While Democrats seemingly agree on the importance of delaying climate change, Republicans rarely support environmentalism with the same ardor. As climate change discussion has risen in political debates, so has the politicization of the climate crisis itself. While Democrats such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have thrown their support toward the “aggressive action” Democrats seek, Republicans are quick to call policy proposals such as Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal “radical.” In fact, many Republicans openly deny the climate crisis at all, with Trump himself once claiming it was entirely a hoax created by China.

The denial or ignorance of climate change, specifically on behalf of conservative politicians, is most likely due to the typical pro-business stance Republicans are known for. Similar to Bolsonaro, many conservatives are unlikely to support ethical business policies because of the accompanying profit loss they bring. For example, Bolsonaro declared during his election campaign that Brazilian-protected lands were an “obstacle” to economic growth. In a similar vein, Bolsonaro recently denied a $20 million pledge from the G-7 to fight the Amazonian fires without an apology from Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, for his previous statements condemning Bolsonaro’s lack of action.

Although climate change awareness in the political scene appears to have greatly increased, French scientific historians Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz boldly claim that “this story of awakening is a fable.” What Bonneuil and Fressoz claim to be the false “story” of climate change in their book, “The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us” is one that many of us have learned and unknowingly assented to — one of an unknowing past and a suddenly conscious present. While CNN’s poll, along with popular opinion, serves to suggest that awareness will aid in the slowing of climate change effects, environmental activists have opposed industrialization for much longer than this story insinuates, with written dissent dating back to the 1850s. Bonneuil and Fressoz then claim that this story only serves to depoliticize what atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen calls the Anthropocene: our current geological age. Prior to this term, many geologists believed that humans were still in the previous age, the Holocene. In saying this, Crutzen then suggested that human impact had propelled our planet into an entirely new geological epoch than before. This epoch — the Anthropocene — is dominated by humans, characterized by industrialization and precariously influential on Earth’s geological cycles.

Bonneuil and Fressoz’s book states that humans, with our destructive and political industrialization efforts, must be understood as a massive geological force if we are to delay climate change. Therefore, Bolsonaro’s decision to endorse business practices that dismantle the entire globe’s ecological stability must be condemned. Bolsonaro’s encouraged infringement on such vital rainforest grounds sets an extremely dangerous precedent for future political and corporate business practices. This may truly only be called a “precedent” because of the Amazon’s importance on a worldwide scale, given that smaller acts of corporate greed all add up to our current climate in dismay.

The unnecessary division of climate change into a Democratic or Republican issue only further delays the improvement of Earth’s climate crisis. In order to create meaningful and progressive change, the myth of our late awakening to environmental degradation must be dismantled so that Earth’s most pressing issue can finally garner bipartisan support. In taking universal responsibility for our greed, we take the first essential step to mending our broken planet.

Kaitlyn Liu is a sophomore majoring in English.

The system works well in that it allows for flexibility in options, with services such as the pasta station and La Montaña in Mountainview’s Appalachian Collegiate Center, allowing students to completely customize their food. Customization is beneficial in that it offers a wider array of dining options to students with food restrictions or allergies. However, the flexibility and customization that this system allows for necessitates accommodation when paying for items that have been customized or items that do not have preset serving sizes. This flexibility is accounted for by weighing these food items on scales placed at each register.

Weighed food, however, often costs much more than food options, which have set portion sizes. This becomes an issue when most of students’ healthier food options need to be weighed. The fruit and salad bar contains most fruit and vegetable options throughout dining halls, and the price of buying these foods is a large deterrent to healthy eating habits. In November, B-Healthy, part of BU’s Healthy Campus Initiative, tabled in BU dining halls with free carrots and hummus in an attempt to educate and survey students about their eating habits. A survey asked students to list how many servings of fruit and vegetables they got each day and the reasoning behind their answer. I noticed that the survey collected in Appalachian Collegiate Center saw consistent answers of one or fewer servings of fruit and vegetables per day, and every student response under the reasoning column read, “too expensive.”

Students then seem to be in agreement on the overpriced fruit options at the salad bar, all of which cost 22 cents per ounce. The “median” meal plan which most students use is Meal Plan C, which gives students $910 per semester and a recommended spending of $56.37 per week. Should students consume the recommended two cups, or 16 ounces, of fruit per day from the salad bar, they would then be spending $24.64 per week on fruit alone — spending that equates to roughly 44 percent of their recommended budget for the week. This percentage does not account for students who may opt to choose fruit from the “premium” fruit selection, which costs nearly twice as much. Eating fruit can easily double the cost of meals on campus.

The cost of healthy food options is a large problem at BU for two reasons: Health issues continue to rise in America and the costs of healthy food options discriminate against low-income students. Healthy food options need to be accessible at a time when our society is seeing a consistent rise in childhood obesity, with percentages tripling from a 1976-1980 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to another conducted from 1999-2016. Weight gain among freshmen in college is 5.5 times greater than that experienced by the general population. This issue is further reinforced when BU gym membership, unlike many other colleges, is not included in tuition.

When fried foods are cheapest in a collegiate setting, all students are likely to gravitate toward unhealthy eating habits; it is low-income students, however, who will suffer the most from this system. Although the “average” meal plan option for most students is Meal Plan C ($910 per semester), it is very likely that lower-income students will choose cheaper meal plans. The 44 percent of the weekly budget spent on fruit in Meal Plan C would increase to a whopping 83 percent for students on the lowest meal plan, Meal Plan F. Even if students on Meal Plan F bought whole fruits instead of fruit from the salad bar, it could equate to nearly a quarter of their recommended expenditures for the week. Students with lower incomes are then most drastically affected by the system, facing recommended portion sizes that are impossible to uphold.

Overall, college campuses need to do a better job of offering healthy food options to students. When meal plan fees total to over $2,000, students feel rightful entitlement to healthy and affordable food options. If B-Healthy wants to make a bigger impact on daily student health decisions, BU dining needs to be examined more closely for insufficient options and potential solutions to BU’s increasing semblance of a food desert.

Kaitlyn Liu is a freshman majoring in English.

Smart speaker technology has proven to be extremely successful, with an estimated one in four households owning at least one smart speaker. However, the increased production of speakers has brought an important issue in representation to light. As each company unveils its speakers, all of them have female voices.

Of course, one could argue that the popular representation of femininity in association with intelligence is a success in today’s largely patriarchal society, but there is something about the nature of a smart speaker’s purpose that offsets this claim. Smart speakers are made with the intention to serve its consumers; Siri is officially defined as a “voice assistant” with such subservience in mind.

Deference and obedience have a long-standing connotation to womanhood, and smart speakers are corroborating a history filled with gender-based marginalization in their lack of equal representation. Defaulting to female voices is disadvantageous for many reasons. To start, examine the popularized association of females in secretarial and assistant job positions. Female voices for smart speakers relay the message that women are wonderful assistants, but incapable individuals.

Female voices are heavily policed with sexist filters working against the ability of feminine voices to communicate to the same extent as men. Society comes to think that certain intersectional associations with intelligence, gender, race, class and more are “right” due in part to these filters. In the case of gender and sound, the most common misconception is that of women being less intelligent than men. There have been multiple sound studies proving that society views deeper and subsequently more masculine voices to be more authoritative, often causing women to speak in lower registers.

Double standards between men and women are not uncommon in the slightest. The viewing of women as less trustworthy than men is most blatantly displayed in the colossal breakthrough in sexual assault confessions resulting from the viral #MeToo movement of 2017. The movement was so successful that women flooded the gates, sharing their stories to show just how frequently women endure sexual assault in today’s world. The goal? Captivation. #MeToo helped to bring down at least 200 perpetrators in the industry, the most famous being Harvey Weinstein, an extremely successful yet vile film producer.

In all its success, #MeToo has also brought about greater degradation of women in the midst of its aims of empowerment. With each allegation, more people step forward to discredit the truth of women’s claims. The epitome of such distrust of women exists in Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual allegation case by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

Ford first came forward publicly with a Washington Post article in September 2018, stepping forward during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings on Sept. 27. The result of her confession, though heartbreaking, was not unexpected. While Ford endured polygraphs, death threats and defamation of character, Kavanaugh received a nomination to the highest court of the land.

It’s worth being said that smart speakers can be helpful in the home. However, the technology smart speakers provide is not groundbreaking. After all, there are an estimated 700 million iPhone users worldwide that have Siri installed on their phones, yet iPhone users still buy smart speakers with extremely similar technology for the home. Why, then, are smart speakers so attractive? The answer is simple: The idea of an all-encompassing assistant is compelling. Smart speakers offer a quick solution to daily inconveniences, questions and demands.

But why else do people buy smart speakers? Easy: They finally allow us to possess a woman who cannot say “no.”

Kaitlyn Liu is a freshman majoring in English.