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(04/24/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This is my final week of classes as an undergraduate. I’m not willing to say my time at IU passed in the blink of an eye, because four years actually felt like quite a long time, but there is a unique feeling of nauseous dread that comes from knowing that 16 years in the bosom of the educational system are coming to an end.Most of that dread stems from the impending reality of paying back my student loans.I’m far from alone in that fear. The majority of IU graduates have student loan debt, averaging more than $28,000 each per student.Nationally, two-thirds of students graduating in 2011 had student loan debt. The national average was a little more than $26,000 per student, making IU above average in at least one regard.All that debt adds up, and there is now more student loan debt in the U.S. than there is credit card debt or auto loan debt. Of course, the student loan situation wouldn’t seem so dire if there were plenty of jobs for recent college graduates.Unfortunately, there aren’t. In 2012, a study released by the Associated Press and based on data from the Census Bureau and the federal Department of Labor found that 53.6 percent of bachelor degree holders under 25 years old were unemployed or underemployed. The sheer amount of student debt in this country, coupled with a job market that makes repaying one’s loans a hazy dream, has made college graduation a source of existential terror rather than a warm rite of passage into complete adulthood.The student debt crisis is not a moral failing on the part of students or their families.It is a systemic failure that stems from the underfunding of public universities and the sickening complicity of school administrators with the loan industry.While picketing outside of Ballantine during the IU strike, I had a conversation with a woman who asked me how much student debt I had accrued. I told her, and she replied she had bounced between a few schools and was now more than $100,000 in debt. I wasn’t surprised.Students need to be having more conversations like that. The student debt crisis affects all of us, and we need to stop treating our debt like a dirty secret. There are only a few days left until I’m no longer a student and a few months left until my loan payments begin. I’ll be trudging off into the gray wasteland to find whatever work I can. The odds are good that I’ll be strapping on a barista’s apron or a temp’s nametag, but at least I’ll know I’m in good company.Usually, opinion columnists take this opportunity to reflect on what they’ve learned during four years of college. Two lessons seem pertinent here: if you’re pissed off about student debt — and you should be — or the way the University is run, you’re not alone. But most importantly, I’ve learned that nothing feels better than fighting back.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/11/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A broad coalition of IU students, faculty and staff have been working together for months to build momentum for a strike on campus. This week, our efforts will finally come to fruition.Our demands are simple and pragmatic. We want a freeze on tuition, fair wages for employees, a real commitment to diversity on campus, a stop to harmful privatization of campus services and a guarantee that faculty and workers participating in the strike will not be punished at their jobs.Many have suggested that a strike is unnecessary and that we should simply begin calm, measured negotiations with the administration.We argue that negotiations cannot succeed without a show of force. If we remain divided and continue to quietly submit petitions and pleas for small changes year after year, we will never see substantive change on our campus.There will be many ways to get involved in the strike.If you are a student, the smallest way you can participate is by skipping class.If you are an instructor, you can cancel class. Many have already done so. You could also take your class to a strike event or facilitate an alternate class open to the public.If you are a worker, the administration has already tried to limit your options. Legally, IU employees cannot strike. I would encourage all IU employees to seek out a letter published in the Herald Times this week, written by Bryce Smedley, the former president of the Communications Workers of America at IU. Smedley enthusiastically endorsed the strike and reminded all workers they have the right to use accumulated sick days at their own discretion when they feel ill. All participants in the strike are encouraged to head to Woodburn Hall.There will be dozens of free workshops and teach-ins by striking faculty in Woodburn Hall. This will be the central location for anyone who wants to plug in to strike activities.Pickets will be scattered across campus starting at 7 a.m. If you are willing to join a picket, coordinators at Woodburn Hall will be able to find a spot for you on campus.Beginning at 10:30 a.m., a march will assemble outside Woodburn Hall. This march will move through campus, arriving at the School of Education by 11:30 a.m. and returning to Woodburn Hall around 12:30 p.m. We hope that students who have not already done so will walk out of their classes and join the march as it moves through campus.After the march, there will be a mass assembly by the statue of Herman B Wells near the Sample Gates. There, we will decide how to interact with the Board of Trustees meeting Thursday.Strike activities will continue into the night and include a dance party and free dinner at Woodburn Hall.These are only the plans for Thursday. What happens Friday will be decided by those who have joined the strike on Thursday.If you care about public education or about the faculty and staff who make it possible, then I’ll see you on the picket line.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/10/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I have been employed as a peer tutor at Writing Tutorial Services, which provides free services to all IU students, for the past year.I enjoy my job most of the time, but working at WTS has exposed me to a serious failure in IU policy.I do not have access to the raw data, but in my anecdotal experience at WTS, more than half the students I see are international students who are not proficient in English.When I ask these students what their specific concerns are with their writing, they almost always reply that grammar is one of their primary concerns.This puts me in an awkward position. WTS exists to create better writers, not better writing, meaning we do not proofread papers for grammatical mistakes. WTS tutors are trained to focus on the structure of a piece of writing and how effectively a writer communicates their ideas. Grammar undoubtedly affects communication, but simply correcting someone’s mistakes does nothing to improve their overall skill at writing.We are allowed to identify patterns of grammatical error and to teach students how to recognize and correct these types of errors, but ultimately we are not trained as grammar instructors.But how are we supposed to decide where “patterns of error” start and stop in papers written by international students who are not entirely fluent in English?Furthermore, many professors do not understand the mission of WTS and send their international students to us with the expectation that we will churn out grammatically perfect essays.But whatever criticisms I have of professors pale before those I have of the administration. Regardless of the current admissions standards for international students, which require one of four different demonstrations of English proficiency, there are obviously huge swathes of students being admitted who are not proficient in spoken or written English. I do not believe all students must be proficient in English when they first arrive at IU, but these students are not receiving the assistance they need. Instead, they’re being thrown into classes, including W131 and other basic writing classes, where they cannot be reasonably compared to their American peers.WTS tutors do their best to help the international students who come to us, but the level of instruction many of these students require in basic grammar falls outside our stated purpose.WTS is not the ideal service for many of the students we see, but international students continue to make appointments with us precisely because no other service on campus even approximates what we do.If IU is going to continue to admit students who are not proficient in English, then it must begin providing those students with the intimate English instruction they require. This means offering not just remedial English courses for the least proficient students, but also continuing and flexible instruction that is responsive to student needs.Essentially, rather than treating WTS as the singular form of tutoring on campus, IU needs an international student tutoring service modeled on WTS but adjusted to the specific language needs of these students.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/03/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Earlier this week, I participated in the latest noise demonstration in support of the IU Strike. We marched through campus to raise awareness about the imminent strike on campus.While I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of the Indiana Daily Student article about the demonstration, “Protesters raise concerns about state funding, tuition,” I was disappointed to find the article did not describe the full length of our protest.Monday’s noise demonstration did not merely end with us marching to the provost’s office, but instead with the majority of protesters entering Provost Lauren Robel’s office and confronting her with our demands.In particular, we were attempting to extract a promise from Robel that faculty and staff participating in the strike would not face retaliation from the administration.Those of us planning the strike have understood from the beginning that retaliation against strikers is a serious concern. This is why our list of demands includes as its final point, “no retaliation for participating in or organizing the strike.”Undergraduate students have a privileged position in this regard. They are unlikely to face any notable consequences for abandoning class in favor of the strike.The strike, however, has not been organized exclusively by undergraduate students and has never been conceived of as addressing only their concerns. We are as angry about the wage freeze for IU employees as we are about tuition hikes. We know that the pressure of student debt is as painful for graduate students as it is for undergraduates.This is why we marched to Robel’s office. Faculty and staff have as much at stake in the strike effort as undergraduates, but it is the former who are most threatened by retaliation. This is not an idle threat. The administration has already made moves to quash participation in the strike by faculty.Two weeks ago, Executive Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Larry Singell sent an email to all faculty in the college warning them that using their university email addresses to organize around the strike was prohibited.Singell was forced to withdraw that statement after the circulation of a letter in defense of faculty rights signed by 46 professors.The only appropriate response to intimidation and retaliation from the administration is to stand together in solidarity while refusing to back down.We were unable to reach an accord with Robel. She continually refused to promise that there would be no retaliation for participation in the strike. She insisted that a moral decision to strike without the potential for consequences would be an empty gesture.Apparently, in the provost’s eyes, if you threaten someone into submission, that reflects on the other person’s moral character and not your own. As we left the provost’s office, we promised that if there was retaliation against any striker we would return in larger numbers. We stand by that promise. Anyone who wants to strike but feels scared by the administration should know we will stand by you and do whatever is necessary to protect you.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(03/27/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Indiana Daily Student recently reported that white supremacist messages reading “#WhiteGenocide” were found on campus.For those not in the know, “white genocide” is a term used by contemporary racists to explain their opposition to immigration. They believe that the growing non-white population of America and Europe constitutes a threat to the very existence of white people. Rather than recognizing the continuing economic marginalization of non-white populations, these racists prefer to froth at the mouth over the loss of an illusory all-white past, as if America hadn’t been built on the backs of slaves and the graves of Native Americans.I knew about the messages that had been left on campus before the IDS article was released, because I had been tearing down the fliers whenever I saw them.I don’t think this was an overreaction. In the United States, we’re raised to view freedom of speech as sacred, but we only need to glance at the world around us to see how dangerous it is to tolerate white supremacy.Greece is facing an economic situation far worse than that we face in the U.S. More than one in four Greeks is currently unemployed.This situation has allowed the neo-nazi Golden Dawn Party to force its way into the Greek mainstream. The Golden Dawn blames the economic situation in Greece on immigration and has been blamed for numerous assaults on immigrants and leftists. Despite brandishing flags which resemble Nazi swastikas and frequently giving Nazi-like salutes, the Golden Dawn was able to capture nearly 7 percent of the vote in the last Greek election. It would be easy to discount the Golden Dawn as a uniquely Greek phenomenon, but they have already begun campaigning in the U.S., targeting historically Greek neighborhoods in New York. If we return to IU, we might recall that last year a neo-Confederate preacher, Douglas Wilson, was allowed to give a well-publicized speech on campus despite his well-publicized antipathy for women, queers and blacks.To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, when fascism comes to IU, it will come wrapped in a free-speech policy.I was one of many people who did our best to disrupt Wilson’s speech and to make clear that racists, homophobes and bigots are not welcome on IU’s campus.To be clear, I am not suggesting that a few slips of paper and some chalk scrawled on a wall are a threat on the level of the Golden Dawn.I am, however, suggesting that dangerous movements grow from small seeds. As the U.S. economy continues to stagnate, there will be an ever-increasing number of racist demagogues ready to harness people’s anger.We have a responsibility to stop racism and white nationalism whenever they rear their ugly heads. Free speech does not include hate speech.If you see a “#WhiteGenocide” flier, tear it down. If you see a chalking, smudge it or write over it. If you see someone leaving this filth on our campus, make sure they understand that their racist fear mongering isn’t needed or wanted here.— atcrane@indiana,edu
(03/20/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last month the Indiana Daily Student opinion pages carried a column titled “Suite, Suite Protest.” In that column, the author expressed his sympathy for and reservations about the upcoming IU Strike.The author claimed “the strike’s goals are too radical to actually change anything” and suggested strikers lack pragmatism. I suspect there are a lot of potential strikers on campus who feel the same, whether they’re students, workers or faculty.It’s very easy to fall into the habit of labeling any demand for change as extreme and impractical. After years of listening to the administration trot out the rhetoric of necessary sacrifices and shared belt-tightening, many of us have come to believe it.The reality, however, is that the strikers are the pragmatists on campus. Let’s consider a few examples.Recently, Purdue University announced it would freeze tuition and most student fees for two years. This dramatic decision will be at least partially financed by a pay freeze for Purdue employees making more than $50,000 a year. It is clearly possible for public universities in Indiana to freeze tuition and to finance that decision by living up to the tired promise that the administration will share in any belt-tightening.Further, one need not go too far afield from Indiana to find struggles similar to ours occurring right now.Members of the Service Employees International Union at the University of Illinois just ended a three-day strike for higher wages.SEIU is reporting that fewer than 3 percent of its members decided to cross their picket-lines. The university was forced to call in volunteers to maintain the facade of normal functioning. The workers will now resume negotiations with their university’s administration after forcefully demanding a living wage. Would anyone be willing to call the men and women of SEIU silly idealists who simply don’t understand the harsh reality confronting the modern university?The true idealism is to believe that any public university can continue along a trajectory of higher tuition for students, lower wages for workers, exorbitant course loads for faculty and continual pay raises for administrators.If we continue to follow that course, our University will become public in name only, a bastion for rich students built on the backs of underpaid and overworked staff and faculty.Those of us planning to strike are not demanding anything radical. There is nothing radical about a plan for tuition so inoffensive that a conservative like Mitch Daniels could endorse it. There is nothing idealistic about continuing the centuries-long struggle for higher pay for workers.At this point, there is nothing more pragmatic than to strike. There is no other way to force the administration to recognize our demands. Idealists will tell you to sign petitions, to trust in the administration and to hope for the best. They have failed.We’re telling you to take over your campus, to stop trusting in an administration which has failed again and again and to create your own future.That’s real pragmatism.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(03/06/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Usually, when I talk about my childhood I say I was raised by a single mother. Whenever someone asks about my parents, I discuss my mother and leave it at that.But that isn’t the full story. I was raised by a single mother, but I had two parents.My father is dead. I was 6 years old when I watched a brain tumor rot him from the inside.My mother once told me our lives were like a cup with a small hole, and he slowly drained out.But I was too young for that metaphor. Instead, I remember a series of still images: a wheelchair ramp in front of our house, car rides to the hospital, drinking lemonade at the funeral. A white face with bruised blue lips.My father was many things. He was an actor, a pilot and a volunteer firefighter. He was also a counselor who worked with rape victims. I never had the opportunity to ask how or why he came to that work. I can scarcely imagine the drive and will that would set a man on that path.In the novel “Blood Meridian,” Cormac McCarthy writes that a boy whose father dies “is broken before a frozen god.” I identified with that line for a long time. I felt disfigured by my grief. The hole inside me was ragged and raw. In my own petty and selfish way, I tried to make other people hurt like I did.I couldn’t sustain my anger forever. Something had to change.After they cut open my father’s brain, a futile gesture in the end, he lost the ability to speak. Still, he knew sign language and would twist fleshless fingers into the sign for love while watching my mother and their two sons.We live in an ugly world. Sooner or later, it leaves its bloody fingerprint on all of us.Indulging my own anger at the world was unbelievably selfish. My father’s life was a testament to love, a love which he took to the end, to a place beyond time, language or limit.He knew, and I wish that I had learned sooner, that we heal together or not at all.I don’t know if this is a confession, a eulogy or a sermon, but if you need something to take away, there it is. What use is it to stand around arguing about whose wound is larger when we’re all bleeding?I still admire the emotion in that McCarthy quote, but it no longer describes me. I don’t feel cold. I feel heat: a deep burn on the edges of the hole inside me, a wet rim around my eyes when I see pain in others, and the prickly warmth of my father’s beard and long-gone kisses. There are times when the heat pulls all the air from my lungs and I can’t speak, moments of loneliness and shame, but they come less frequently than they once did.Maybe that’s the lesson here. Healing takes a lifetime, however long that is.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(02/27/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If you’re a regular reader of the IDS, you probably noticed last week’s 120-point headline about the proposed merger between the School of Journalism and the departments of Telecommunications and Communication and Culture.Last week, Provost Lauren Robel confirmed she will recommend the merger to the Board of Trustees, who will have to approve the plan. Robel claims that merging the three units will better serve students by consolidating the resources of each area to create a new school better suited to the rapidly shifting media landscape. The plan would also place the merged department under the control of the College of Arts and Sciences, a dramatic shift away from the independent status of the J-School. Accompanying the IDS article that explained the situation was a statement from our editor-in-chief, Michael Auslen.In his editorial, Auslen condemned the merger as a threat to the independence of both the J-School and IU Student Media. He linked the merger to the closings of the Office for Women’s Affairs and the Leo R. Dowling International Center as examples of the IU administration ignoring students’ voices.He also acknowledged the IDS’s “complacent” acceptance of past decisions by the administration. While I think the IDS did a fine job of outlining the details of the situation, and I applaud Auslen’s re-commitment to holding the administration accountable, I think students who oppose the merger must go further than asking hard questions.Robel has met with faculty and administrators, but it seems little attention has been paid to the concerns of students.This failure is glaring, because it is the students who have the most to lose during any merger. It is difficult to imagine a merger of three radically different units that does anything but harm the quality of the education received by students.Further, it is difficult to disentangle the independent prestige of the J-School from the value of an IU journalism degree. The merger not only threatens current students but also the entire future of journalism at IU.As Auslen points out, this is only the latest example of the administration making decisions for students rather than with students.The future of journalism, telecommunications and communication and culture ought to be decided by students and faculty working together in a democratic manner, not by an unapproachable administration. Of course, Provost Robel and the Board of Trustees have no interest in such a solution. It would compromise their authority over the student body.Fortunately for students in the threatened departments, there has never been a better time to fight back.Students who oppose the merger must join the IU Strike effort. For too long students have been split apart, appealing to the administration in small, easily ignored groups. The opposition to the merger will also be ignored if threatened students rely only on themselves.The strike effort has always been open to new groups and new demands. If you oppose the merger, now is the time to join us.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(02/20/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In an Indiana Daily Student article titled “Student protests not likely to affect tuition” published last week, IU Student Association President Kyle Straub was quoted at length questioning the efficacy of the proposed campus-wide strike.Straub said, “It’s not at all the intent of administrators to raise costs and put pressure on students,” and “the real policy that’s going to affect a change in student tuition is at a state level.”Straub also suggested that students must remember the University “operates like a business.” Straub’s comments demonstrate not only a misunderstanding of the intent of the campus-wide strike, but an unquestioning acceptance of the administration’s self-serving policies.No one involved in the strike effort believes that two short days of protest will result in a complete reformation of IU.The strike is merely the next battle in the long-running struggle of workers and students against the administration. We also recognize that our struggle does not stop with the Board of Trustees but extends to the statehouse.There is no end in sight to this struggle, precisely because there is no end in sight to the policies that have unfairly targeted students and workers with tuition hikes and wage freezes.A strike is a disruption and a show of force, a moment when individuals who are all suffering recognize their common grievances. Together, they find strength in fighting for their demands.The average IU student is more than $27,000 in debt upon graduation. At the same time, our administration continues to raise tuition and expenses. Just last week the Board of Trustees approved a 3.48 percent increase in dorm rates. Workers on campus are facing a continuing wage freeze, forcing them to continuing working long hours for minimal compensation. The administration and its supporters might suggest that tuition hikes and the wage freeze are necessary evils, but they are doing no belt-tightening of their own. In 2011, President Michael McRobbie’s salary rose to more than half a million dollars. There has been no wage freeze for administrators, only for rank and file workers.If the IU administration actually cared about its students and workers, it could easily meet many of our demands without the approval of the statehouse.Slashing the salaries of the administration and halting the construction of expensive university apartments would be small steps toward lowering tuition and unfreezing employee wages. It would take no extra money for the administration to finally meet its promise to increase African-American enrollment to 8 percent.Straub is correct on one point: our University is run like a business. The owners of this business, the administration, continue to profit off of the debt-ridden students and the labor of the workers and faculty.But while Straub seems content to accept the corporate model of the University, we reject it. The University is a place of learning, not of profit. It belongs to the students and the workers, not the administrators.A strike is, above all, a movement to take back what is ours.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(02/13/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I’ve written for the Indiana Daily Student Opinion pages for two years. In that time, I’ve read many columns with which I disagreed, often vehemently. It wasn’t until last week, however, that I was left completely stunned by how much a column aggravated me.In a column titled “From Occupy Wall Street to IU Strikes” a fellow opinion columnist tried to argue that the Occupy Wall Street movement was dominated by “rich white guys with advanced degrees” and that these men were “committed to crippling the American economy.”Simultaneously, he claimed that occupiers were “dirty and disruptive, using drugs and committing rape.”I could talk about my own experience with the Occupy movement, how it brought me together with people of all genders and races willing to struggle for a better world.I could also point out that we live in a country obscenely rife with sexual assaults, reported and unreported. Using the rapes of women in OWS camps to paint the movement as somehow distinctly dangerous is not only illogical, but offensive to both the women assaulted and to the survivors of sexual assault who took part in the movement. I could discuss these things at length, but I don’t believe his argument deserves such a rebuttal.In reality, last week’s column only served to distract from the real issues raised by the proposed IU strike.While my fellow columnist was busy tilting at leftist windmills, the organizers of the strike were circulating a list of demands which addresses the concerns of IU students, workers and faculty.We are demanding an end to the constant tuition hikes that have driven so many of us into devastating debt and have kept others from attending the University at all.Simultaneously, we are demanding that the administration un-freeze the wages of IU staff who are being forced to work long hours for minimal compensation. We know there can be no victory for students without a victory for workers.Strikers of all races are together demanding the administration meet its promise to increase African-American enrollment. Further, IU must offer in-state tuition to all Indiana residents, including undocumented residents.These demands were not written behind closed doors. They were not conceived of by a secret society of rich white men as part of a plot to “cripple the American economy.”The IU Strike demands emerged from long discussions between students, workers and faculty. We came together to take back a university which has been hijacked by a self-interested and out of touch administration.It speaks volumes that my fellow columnist was forced to caricature the organizers of the strike as drug-addled rapists in order to discredit the movement. After all, how can anyone argue against demands for affordable education, a diverse campus and fair wages for workers?I doubt that my fellow columnist will join the strike in April, but no matter what he thinks, we’ll be fighting for every member of the IU community.If you agree, then I’ll see you on the picket line.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(02/06/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As I come to the end of my four years at IU, I suppose it’s only natural I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on my college experience. It might be premature, but even the hazy nights evoke some nostalgia.In particular, I’ve been looking back on my experience with gender studies.I started college as a biochemistry student. I wasn’t terrible at science, but I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I’d thought I would. All my high school boasting about my adoration for the scientific method started to look quaint, and I spent my second semester experimenting with the most dangerous of controlled substances: the humanities.I added “Intro to Gender Studies” on a whim.I’m a straight cisgendered man, so I was never forced to do much serious thinking about gender and sexuality when I was growing up. In my mind, I was just “normal.”Still, there were some things that pushed me to be open to different ideas. I was raised by a single mother, so strong, independent women didn’t surprise me.My first relationship was with a woman from a home so controlling and abusive that our relationship was carried out entirely in secret. I knew that patriarchy was real, even if I lacked the word for it.On the first day of my G101 class, the professor gave us all slips of pink and blue paper. Then he showed us a PowerPoint of different images, asking us to hold up the pink or blue slip for each image. It started simply, with men and women. Then we moved to objects: cars, ovens, guns, dresses. It ended with weirder things, like the moon. For every slide, the class was able to respond intuitively and unanimously. He was showing us how our sense of gender pervades all our thinking.After that, I was hooked. I wanted to learn everything I possibly could about gender. I was inspired by the history of feminist and queer struggle and shamed that it was people like me who were still brutalizing anyone different from ourselves. I had never imagined that a subject in school could so radically alter my worldview.Of course, gender studies courses weren’t a panacea. No classroom experience could immediately undo an upbringing in a society that lauds men and degrades women.It took me longer than I want to admit to turn my new analytic tools on myself and see my patriarchal habits. I had to learn, again and again, how to interact with others as an equal. I still don’t think my journey is over.There are many things I would change about my time in college, but I’ll never regret my time with the gender studies department.Our world is still hostile to women and sexual minorities. To change it, we need to understand it, and gender studies courses are a great place to start learning.I encourage anyone even slightly interested in gender or sexuality to take the plunge. You won’t regret it.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(01/30/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Early last semester I took part in a horrendous classroom discussion. The class was theoretically about disability, but we found ourselves in a broader conversation about homelessness.Our professor was curious what we really thought about persons experiencing homelessness. I wasn’t prepared for the vitriol which quickly spilled from my classmates’ mouths.The homeless are filthy, they said. They’re always around, annoying everyone. They’re dangerous. They’re terrifying.No one gave any thought to what people experiencing homelessness might think of these descriptions.When I asked if any of my classmates had ever spoken to one of these people, there was no reply.It was the early afternoon only a few weeks later when I watched a pair of IU Police Department officers eject a man and his young daughter from Herman B Wells Library. They had been sitting quietly, using a computer. The only conceivable crime they could have committed was looking poor.It’s time we admit Bloomington is becoming a very hostile place for people experiencing homelessness, and the prejudices of privileged IU students are at the heart of the matter.Let’s consider a less anecdotal example.Last week two police cars were parked outside the Shalom Community Center, which provides services for Bloomington’s homeless population. The police officers began issuing tickets for comically minor infractions, ranging from jaywalking to deflated bike tires. When confronted, the police officers said they were under orders to hand out infractions until the normal gathering in front of Shalom disappeared. While the mayor and the chief of police have both issued apologies for the incident, the reasoning behind the harassment is clear. Many in Bloomington, including students like my classmates, consider persons experiencing homelessness an eyesore at best. At worst, they see them as a dangerous infestation.Bloomington’s leaders want a thriving commercial city with a gleaming ivory tower at its center, but they’ll settle for masking the evidence that Bloomington is anything but prosperous.Our students want not only a cloistered campus, but a sanitized city where they can skip down Kirkwood without being reminded that their privilege comes from the same system that grinds others into the dirt.But we can’t just make these people disappear. No matter how hard Bloomington Police Department and IUPD struggle to keep the peasants out of the castle, they’re still alive and have every right to be here.If Bloomington’s government really cared about persons experiencing homelessness, it wouldn’t be paying cops to prey on the vulnerable. It would be funneling that money into housing programs and job training.If IU really cared for these people, it would be offering free educational resources to them, including unrestricted use of our libraries.If the students really cared for our brothers and sisters, we wouldn’t be mocking them in classrooms and ignoring them on sidewalks. We would be out in the streets, having honest conversations with people different from ourselves. We’d be doing what students are supposed to be doing: learning.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(01/23/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last semester an anonymous proposal was issued calling for a state-wide strike against the administration of IU on April 11-12. In early December, a mass assembly took place in the Indiana Memorial Union to discuss the proposal and to air the grievances of students, workers and faculty. Chief among the concerns was the rising cost of tuition. Following the mass assembly, the administration rushed to do damage control.Departing Chief Financial Officer Neil Theobald met with the Board of Trustees to publicly discuss the efforts he has overseen to control tuition.Theobald emphasized the administration’s plan to freeze tuition for juniors and seniors in good academic standing who are on track to graduate in four years.This plan is nothing but a cynical ploy to advance what seems to be the administration’s long-term goal: the conversion of IU into an elite and exclusive institution.A recent report in “The New York Times” confirmed there is a clear correlation between economic status and academic success. Students from poor backgrounds often lack the familial safety nets and material support which wealthier students rely on. The difference is not a manifestation of “intrinsic brightness” but evidence of class-based barriers to success.A tuition freeze premised on academic success would only further penalize students from poor backgrounds. How can anyone reasonably expect students working one to three jobs to pay their way through school to perform as well as their wealthier, more secure classmates? Where is the sense in making the poorest students pay the highest tuition? A plan like this only makes sense if the administration’s goal is to force out poorer students while quieting discontent about skyrocketing tuition.Further, this type of plan does practically nothing to address the perpetual tuition hikes already plaguing IU students. Tuition at IU has increased by 5 percent every year since 2007, driving students into obscene amounts of debt.The average IU graduate is now $27,000 in debt. Are we supposed to drool over the opportunity to graduate with a debt load frozen between one tuition hike and the next?Of course, the administration knows the grade-linked freeze won’t be enough to dissolve our anger. They’re trying to turn us against one another.At the same meeting, Theobald directly connected the grade-linked freeze to the wage freeze for IU employees. This was a blatant attempt to manipulate the students and workers into fighting each other.But we aren’t that stupid. The students who have seen their tuition explode know we can’t blame the workers who are praying their pay will keep up with inflation. The real enemy has always been the administration, who want nothing more than to freeze wages and increase tuition while lining their own pockets.It’s time for the students and workers of this school to join together.If we want real change on this campus, we can’t rely on the administration to give it to us. If we want fair tuition and livable wages, we’ll have to fight for them.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(01/16/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This summer I experienced a loss. A member of a small leftist Internet forum that I belong to committed suicide. His name was Trey.I don’t think it would be fair to say we were friends. I simply hadn’t been a member of the forum long enough. But Trey was a key member of the community, and his sense of humor was an everyday presence in my life. His passion for understanding others was inspiring, and his fury at the injustices of the world was palpable.I know that Trey’s loss was harder on those who had known him longer. The community was devastated.Trey’s death forced me to recall my own history with depression and suicidal ideation.I spent the second half of my freshman year in a dark place. I had been depressed for a long time, but everything felt magnified by college.I thought the death of my father when I was a child had gouged a deep hole in me and that I had seen death too early for it to ever be filled. I was convinced everyone around me was blissfully unaware of pain.Worst of all, I was addicted to the idea that my anguish made me special. No matter how much I hurt, how could I ever look for a cure for the thing that made me unique?Instead of taking notes in class, I would sit quietly and mentally draft different versions of my suicide note. I spent my nights fantasizing about an X-Acto knife lurking in my desk.Somehow I found the courage to enroll in therapy. The first time I snuck into the IU Health Center I thought I would throw up in the lobby, but it saved my life. Many people aren’t so lucky. I can remember at least two suicides at IU during my time here. There are nearly one million suicide attempts in America every year, and someone successfully takes their own life every 13.7 minutes.Trey was a survivor of sexual assault, and in the note he left he lashed out at those who trivialize rape through comedy and then hide behind the veil of free speech. He knew that the words we use reverberate outwards and affect our entire society.It’s time we acknowledge the damage we do when we discount the pain of depression and suicide. All too often we ignore the obvious warning signs in others or simply tell them to cheer up. Jokes about suicide are used to express frustration or for crude shock value, but there’s nothing shocking to them. There’s only the banality of hurting others. Before we speak we must consider what those around us might be feeling and hiding.I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to Trey than for his life and his words to echo through our campus and to change the way we live with and love one another.If you are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, please call Counseling and Psychological Services at 812-855-5711.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(01/11/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last February, IU Board of Trustees member William Strong proposed the privatization of the IU parking system. The proposed changes would affect both the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses. Though a proposal has yet to be presented to the trustees, several factions have already expressed their opposition to the proposed change, including the Bloomington Faculty Council and the Bloomington chapter of the Communications Workers of America.Bloomington Faculty Council president Carolyn Calloway-Thomas listed the three primary concerns her group has with the proposal. First, they believe parking operations in Bloomington are already well-managed and privatization jeopardizes this. Second, they believe the trustees are trading long-term benefits for short-term gain. Finally, they believe outsourcing the management of IU’s parking system will destroy the sense of community that exists between IU workers, students and faculty.The concerns of the Communications Workers of America are more visceral. The IU plan is based on the successful privatization of the Ohio State University parking system, a transition which included “minimal job losses.” This is, of course, not the same as no job losses.Finally, many students are concerned that the privatization of parking would raise prices for both parking passes and parking fines, prices which are already a burden on students paying for tuition and housing. The potential privatization of parking was listed as one grievance in the anonymous “IU on Strike” proposal published late last year, reflecting student concern with the proposal.Students on the Indianapolis campus have even more cause for alarm at the proposal. The majority of students commute to IU-Purdue University Indianapolis’ campus, which is located in downtown Indianapolis and includes minimal student housing. Any increases in parking costs would amount to a de facto tuition hike for these students, who do not have the option to avoid any new parking regulations and costs.There is no reason to believe the board’s assertion that they will listen to community concerns during the review process. The majority of the board members were appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels, who oversaw the privatization of an Indiana prison, a major toll road and, most savagely, Indiana’s public assistance program. Daniels and his underlings on the Board are loyal only to dollar signs.The proposed privatization is the latest example of the Board of Trustees’ complete disregard for the concerns of students, faculty and workers at IU. If the board was truly worried about budget shortfalls, they would consider cutting the obscene salaries of the empty suits in the University administration. They might also consider ceasing the endless construction of high-cost apartment buildings for wealthy students. The reality of the situation is the board is not concerned with making the University better for its students and workers. They are concerned with turning the University into a profit-making venture which will continue to exploit students through perpetually rising tuition, exploit its faculty through ever increasing class sizes and course loads and exploit its workers through firings, privatization and stagnant wages.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/26/12 12:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Earlier this week I made a disturbing discovery in a stairwell at the Collins Living-Learning Center.If you haven’t noticed, members of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center have been putting up posters that proclaim, “Trayvon Martin is...” followed by a list of possibilities, including brother, sister and “Me.” The poster is clearly meant to evoke solidarity and communal support in the wake of Martin’s murder.However, under one such poster in Collins, a staggeringly ignorant person had scrawled, “(George) Zimmerman was acting in self-defense. Get over it!”I’m not particularly interested in debating the facts of the shooting. I believe that the murder of an unarmed minor by a gun-wielding, self-appointed neighborhood watchman speaks for itself. In the words of the Crunk Feminist Collective, “If this were 1912 and not 2012, we would call a Black man killed by a one-man firing squad with no just cause what it is: a lynching.” What I’m more interested in discussing is my own shock at discovering such an ignorant comment on our campus.Perhaps some of my shock stems from my upbringing. While I didn’t grow up in a utopia of racial harmony, I did attend a school district where the majority of students are black. I’m not one of those unfortunate IU students who come from towns where there’s one non-white family, if that.While I’m not suggesting I graduated high school with a savant-like knowledge of Critical Race Theory or a full understanding of my own privilege, I did grow up thinking of black people as people, not haunting figures on the edges of a white flight enclave.Perhaps my shock came from Collins’ obviously unearned reputation for being a more progressive dorm. The stereotypical residents of Collins are a bunch of hippies, nerds, leftists and stoners sitting in a drum circle. But if you look around any of those drum circles, you’re likely to see only white faces.Of course, I’m not suggesting Collins is a uniquely segregated environment on campus. After all, only 7.3 percent of students at IU identify as black.This is a sobering statistic but shouldn’t come as a surprise. Attending college is a path open to the privileged, and our country does a great deal to privilege whites while pushing blacks back down.While attending a cloistered majority-white university, it’s easy to remain unaware of the reality of race in our country.How many of us know that in January 2012, black unemployment was at 14.2 percent, compared to a white unemployment rate of only 8 percent? Who here knows that the median household income of white families in 2009 was 20 times higher than that of black families? While we’re busy with classes, we’re also ignoring that more black men are in prison, on probation, or on parole now than there were slaves in the antebellum South.The material conditions for blacks in our country are abysmal, even before we begin to consider the constant threat of violence that lingers in black communities, as manifested in Martin’s murder.I fear that the murder of Martin and the ongoing trial of Zimmerman will only reveal the ignorance and latent racism in many whites at our University. I see a dreadful period ahead for those of us, black and white, who long for a more just and equal world.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/19/12 10:01pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I think it’s safe to say that I have a contentious relationship with the readership of the IDS Opinion Page. My articles regularly climb into the top 10 most commented articles on the IDS website, and I receive more hate mail than I have time to read.Some of this is no doubt due to my extreme views. Few other writers for this page have endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or waxed nostalgic for the execution of the Russian Tsar.I also think that the current political climate contributes to the negative attention my writing receives. A year ago, there was little protest culture at IU. There were no sit-ins, mic checks or occupations. I’ve repeatedly endorsed these actions or outed myself as a participant in various protests. Though I would never claim to speak for anyone else in the movement, I think many reactionary readers have treated me as a convenient stand-in for the wider culture of resistance.I would like to put a human face on my politics. Some feminist theorists argue that all political perspectives are shaped by the subjective experiences and sociopolitical standpoint of individuals. Let me share my standpoint.I was born in Indianapolis. My mother was, and is, a nurse at the poorest hospital in the city. My father was a rape crisis counselor at the same hospital.The example set by my parents still inspires me — two exceedingly bright and driven people who chose to spend their lives helping others, even if it meant making far less money than others.My father was killed by a brain tumor when I was 6 years old. After his death, my mother raised her two sons on her own.Growing up, I saw the strain put on my mother by the pressure to work full-time while also raising two children. There was no government-funded day care to which she could send us, and all childcare expenses came out of her own pocket until we were old enough to be alone while she worked.Of course, I recognize that my mother had a college education and that we lived in a majority white suburb. How much harder would our lives have been if we lived in a racial ghetto or if my mother had no education? How could I look at those in similar or worse situations and not be filled with rage that those better off than us do nothing to help?Yet there are people on this campus who grew up in better situations than mine and feel contempt when they look at those worse off than themselves.I think I learned better from my parents. When I was very young, my mother explained to me that intelligence and talent are not gifts, but responsibilities. I doubt she even remembers saying so, but her words stayed with me.That’s why I feel so proud to be a part of the movement for justice on our campus. I’m surrounded by fiercely intelligent and incredibly talented people, students and non-students, all working to make this University and the wider world a better place. I can’t think of a better tribute to my parents.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/13/12 12:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I am writing this having just been evicted, along with many of my close friends and allies, from Fine Arts 015. We occupied the room Tuesday evening and held it until an overwhelming number of police officers arrived in the early morning. Our action is already being slandered. Some have suggested, online and in personal conversation, that our action was immature and aimless. This is false. The occupation grew out of mass assembly held Tuesday afternoon. That meeting was called to discuss student debt, tuition hikes and control of the University. These are necessary conversations. Tuition has increased nearly 5 percent every year since 2007. Simultaneously, IU President Michael McRobbie received a 12 percent increase in his salary last year alone. He now makes more than half a million dollars a year. Tuition increases are driving students deep into debt while McRobbie and his administration grow rich. The average IU graduate in 2010 owed $27,752 in student loan debt. McRobbie’s salary and our tuition are both under the control of the IU Board of Trustees. This nine-member board has final authority over the governance of IU. However, only three members are elected, and only alumni can vote in that election. The Indiana governor also handpicks one student member to serve as a puppet for their anti-student agenda. This is the situation. A largely un-elected and entirely unaccountable Board of Trustees controls our University and drives students further into debt every year while stuffing the pockets of administrators like McRobbie.We reject their authority. A university is a place of learning, not a money-making venture. Learning is a right, not a privilege for the wealthy.The occupation was meant to provide a space of discussion and resistance to the illegitimate regime overseeing IU. Symbolically, taking the space was meant to spit in the face of the administration. Their authority means nothing to us. This is the students’ University, not theirs.We used the space to plan future actions and events, as well as information campaigns to raise awareness of these issues. We were not idle. We were not playing.Remember that the occupation was completely nonviolent, yet Dean of Students Harold “Pete” Goldsmith swaggered into a classroom with armed police officers trailing him. The implicit threat was clear. The learning was over. Resistance would not be tolerated.There is a story in the New Testament in which Christ finds moneylenders in the temple of God and drives them out with a whip (John 2:13-16). I am not religious, but I find this story inspiring.I believe knowledge to be sacred and education to be a divine experience. By rights, the University freely belongs to all who would learn. It is a temple of learning.But the moneylenders are among us. Predatory student loans are crushing our generation while the administration gets wealthier and wealthier. Now is the time to drive the moneylenders out of our University.Listen up, Trustees, Presidents and Deans. You didn’t scare us, and you can’t hurt us. We’re just getting started.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/11/12 12:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Douglas Wilson’s impending visit to Indiana University is raising the specter of one of our nation’s oldest debates: What is the limit to freedom of speech? Even those who are otherwise repulsed by Wilson’s hateful message seem paralyzed with the fear of violating his supposed right to speak wherever he pleases.But the debate about freedom of speech is a red herring, a distraction from the real issue. Douglas Wilson is one of the most spiteful, bigoted men in the United States. His visit to our campus is being billed as a discussion about the legacy of Alfred Kinsey and the nature of sexuality, but Wilson’s true message is being left out of the advertising.Wilson’s hateful views run the gamut from racism to homophobia. In an interview with “Christianity Today,” when asked about executing gays, he replied, “You can’t apply Scripture woodenly. You might exile some homosexuals, depending on the circumstances and the age of the victim.” In the same interview, he advocated executing adulterers. Wilson is also the author of “Southern Slavery as it Was,” in which he describes the relationship between whites and blacks in the antebellum South as “based upon mutual affection and confidence.” Remember that the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct, which binds every student at this University, forbids any activity with “an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment for academic pursuits, housing, or participation in university activities.” If Wilson were a student, would his bigotry be tolerated? Why then should we tolerate it from a guest speaker?But the reasons to reject freedom of speech defenses of Douglas Wilson’s visit run deeper than bureaucratic quibbling about codes of conduct. For many students, hate speech is not a theoretical concept but a real force in their lives. How must black students feel to see a self-described “paleo-Confederate” invited to our campus only weeks after Trayvon Martin was murdered in the streets for the crime of being black? How must female students feel when a man who argues that “men will always be dominant in marriage” is invited to speak on their campus? With Wilson’s attack on Kinsey and homosexuality, how must gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans students feel to be personally attacked in their own home — a University that is often a refuge from a hostile world?Remember that it was the suicide of a gay teen from Indiana that inspired the “It Gets Better Project.” Remember the loss of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman who killed himself after suffering homophobic harassment. Remember the GLBT teens and adults who live every day in a nation that hates them. Remember the potential of this University to be a place of healing and safety.This is not a choice between freedom of speech and censorship. This is a choice between hate and love.— atcrane@indiana.edu
(04/05/12 10:50pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As we inch ever closer to the November election, President Barack Obama is busy honing his stump speech. He’s eager to convince America that he deserves a second term.It has become apparent that Osama bin Laden’s death will be a key talking point for the Obama campaign. “The Road We’ve Travelled,” a short film released by the Obama campaign, highlights the importance of the killing.Recent speeches by both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have evoked the successful “targeted operation” as a reason to re-elect Obama.The effort might be paying off. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of proposed bumper stickers and T-shirts that proudly declare, “My president killed Osama bin Laden! How about yours?”Obviously, some people are convinced that the killing represents a real reason to re-elect Obama. But why should Obama supporters stop with the killing of Osama bin Laden? Allow me to propose a few additional bumper stickers.In September 2011, a drone strike ordered by President Obama killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen the Obama administration labeled a terrorist and a threat. No effort was made to arrest al-Awlaki, and he was executed without a trial.How about a bumper sticker that reads, “My president kills his own citizens without trials!”While we’re discussing drone strikes, why not make a sticker to celebrate the 268 drone strikes in Pakistan ordered by Obama? There’s plenty to brag about. Obama’s drone strikes have killed between 479 and 811 Pakistani civilians, 174 of whom were children.The sticker could read, “My president shreds the bodies of children with hellfire missiles!” It’s not succinct, but it’s true.But maybe Pakistan is too boring. Let’s look at Afghanistan. After all, Obama has more than doubled the number of U.S. soldiers occupying that nation. That would explain why nearly two-thirds of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan were killed during Obama’s presidency. It would also explain why more than 10,000 Afghan civilians have been killed during the Obama administration. That means thousands of men, women and children would still be alive if Obama hadn’t needlessly accelerated the war. Let’s print stickers that read, “My president butchers his own soldiers!” and “My president kills innocent Afghans every day!”That last sticker might be too vague. It lacks the punch of the Osama bin Laden sticker. We need specific names. So let’s use the names of those killed by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales during his recent rampage in Afghanistan. Without Obama’s commitment to the war, Bales’ murderous rampage never would have happened. That makes our president responsible for those deaths. Let’s print a sticker that reads, “My president helped kill Mohamed Dawood, Khudaydad, Nazar Mohamed, Payendo, Robeena, Shatarina, Zahra, Nazia, Masooma, Farida, Palwasha, Nabia, Esmatullah, Faizullah, Essa Mohamed and Akhtar Mohamed!”Any Obama supporter who cheers for the bin Laden sticker but flinches away from these equally valid stickers is a coward. We should feel deep shame about Obama’s actions, not pride. We owe Obama’s victims that, at the very least.— atcrane@indiana.edu