The Rice Thresher, Vol. 98, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 12, 2010 Page: 3 of 24
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Op-Ed
Societal intolerance of gays unfounded
In September, a Rutgers Univer-
sity student named Tyler Clementi
jumped off of a bridge and fell to
his death because his roommate in-
vaded his privacy and transmitted
a live broadcast from a webcam of
Clementi having a sexual encounter
with a man in order to humiliate and
degrade him. Clementi was 18, with
all the normal worries of school, ac-
tivities in college and desires to live
his life.
Cody Shilling
In the same month, Seth Walsh
died from injuries sustained while
trying to hang himself in his family's
garden in a town in California after
being harassed and bullied by both
peers at school and neighbors. He
was 13.
In 2006, Megan Meiser hung her-
self after receiving bullying and de-
rogatory messages on MySpace. She
was 13.
Two years ago, Romel Sucu-
zhanay, 31, and his brother were
walking in Brooklyn, N.Y. with arms
linked — as is common for brothers
in Ecuadorian culture — and were
attacked for appearing to be gay.
RomeFs brother died from his injuries
soon thereafter.
In September 2008, 37-year-old
Tony Hunter and an alleged part-
ner were beaten outside a D.C. gay
bar. Hunter died a week later from
his injuries.
According to the FBI, in 2008,
there were 1,617 hate crimes com-
mitted because of sexual orienta-
tion bias reported by law enforce-
ment agencies, to say nothing of
the number of incidences that
went unreported. In 2007, there
were 1,265 reported. In 2006, there
were 1,415.
We are witnessing a rise not only
in intolerance toward the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
movement, but also a rise in physi-
cal attacks toward them. Whether it
is simply because we are becoming
more aware of this issue or if crimes
motivated by hate are actually on
the rise is unimportant. What is im-
portant is the fact that this is a ma-
jor issue that our society does not
seem to want to seriously sit down
and fix. Currently only five states
and Washington, D.C. allow same-
sex couples to marry. Only 13 states
explicitly allow same-sex couples
to adopt children. Only 20 states
have anti-discrimination laws about
sexual orientation.
Religious bases against homo-
sexuality are numerous, yet closer
examination shows that they do
not hold up. Numerous churches
around the country preach every
week that homosexuality is un-
natural and against God's law. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church
even states that homosexual acts
"do not proceed from a genuine af-
fective and sexual complementar-
ity. Under no circumstances can they
be approved."
The idea that couples who are gay
cannot have as loving and fulfilling a
relationship as heterosexual couples
is absurd; couples have waited years,
staying committed to one partner
just the same as a straight couple,
for states to recognize their unions
and marriages as fully and legally
binding. And yes, Leviticus does pro-
claim it is wrong for a man to lie with
a man. But in chapter 21, verse 14, it
also states that it is wrong to marry a
widow or divorced woman. Leviticus
19:19 says we cannot wear clothing
made of more than one cloth. Deuter-
onomy 17:2-5 tells us to stone anyone
who practices a different religion.
Why is it that we accept some of the
tenets as still morally binding, but
others are discarded as differences
in culture?
How is it that in a country where
we pride ourselves on being accept- I
ing and open-minded, we still dis-
criminate based on a biological char-
acteristic that people cannot control?
Arguments against equal rights for
people with different skin colors or
female genitalia have been around for
hundreds, if not thousands of years:
They have smaller brains; they are
morally inferior; they cannot handle
the rights to vote and own property,
and so on. How much longer will it
take until we begin to treat all people
as people? How much longer will it be
before we can finally look at ourselves
as a society and say that we truly treat
all people as created equal?
Cody Shilling
is a Will Rice College sophomore.
Define your own pattern of healthy eating
"Healthy" is a common buzz-
word these days. I can't count the
number of times I've heard things
like: "I shouldn't be eating this; it is
so unhealthy," or "This frozen waf-
fle is made with whole grains, so it
must be healthy!" But what exactly
is "healthy?"
Kelle Kampa
It seems like most of the time this
word is thrown around arbitrarily
without much thought as to what it
actually means to live a healthy life-
style. Too many people readily accept
what others — friends, family, the
media, the food industry — tell them
is healthy, rather than figuring out
what it means to be healthy for them-
selves. In my opinion, being healthy
is a matter of lifestyle choices that,
as a whole, suit you best and allow
you to be the kind of person you want
to be.
Take food, for example. Ameri-
cans have a tortured relationship
with food. We get all kinds of mixed
messages about what we should
be eating and how much and how
often. Some diet plans say to eat
five small meals a day; some say
not to eat four hours before you go
to sleep; some say raw foods are
the best way to go. With so many
"food rules" out there, some of
which even contradict each other,
it is impossible for any person to
observe them all. And why should
we? The very phrase "going on a
diet" implies that one will soon
be going off of that diet, so any
gains (or losses) from the experi-
ence are likely to be temporary.
What's more important is to figure
out one's own food philosophy that
satisfies his or her needs as an in-
dividual and stick with it for the
long term.
And all too often, food and
eating become associated with
feelings of guilt. Often when I sit
down for lunch or dinner at Rice,
it seems someone will say some-
thing like, "This pasta has SO many
calories," or "I'm such a fatty for
eating this cinnamon roll." State-
ments like this serve no purpose
at all. Feeling guilty or bad about
yourself for what you're eating,
or worse, making others feel bad
about themselves for what they're
eating is unproductive and ridicu-
lous. If you are truly interested in
eating "healthier" foods, you're
entirely capable of changing how
you eat to suit your needs. Instead
of commenting on the unhealthi-
ness of your meal and feeling
the guilt associated with it, you
could opt for a more nutritionally
balanced meal.
However, it may not even be
necessary to change how you eat,
but rather to change your attitude
toward eating. If you're eating
something that satisfies your per-
sonal food needs at the moment,
there is no need to proclaim how
unhealthy it is because you chose
it, and therefore you made the deci-
sion that this food was best for your
overall health at that moment.
The truth is, no food is inher-
ently unhealthy; it is the way one
approaches food that is healthy
or unhealthy, Starving yourself,
binge eating and cutting out entire
food groups are all examples of un-
healthy approaches toward food.
As long as you practice modera-
tion and eat a balanced diet with
many different types of food, there
is nothing wrong with enjoying a
decadent dessert every now and
then. Some foods are just plain de-
licious, and it would be a shame to
deprive yourself.
If you have feelings of guilt when
eating certain foods, you should
examine why you are feeling guilty
and, if necessary, make positive
lifestyle changes that will address
your guilt and thereby benefit you
in the long run. This could involve
changing what you eat, but it could
also involve getting more exercise,
talking to a nutritionist about your
concerns with food, or maybe even
getting to know new people whose
influence will improve your attitude
toward eating. It is no fun to sit at
a table where people judge you for
what you're eating, and if someone
says something like: "Wow, I can't
believe you're eating that," there
is absolutely no shame in speaking
up about how comments like that
are unnecessary and rude — you'd
be doing the whole table a service.
Health science, the food in-
dustry, the media, your friends,
your family and a myriad of other
influences affect your lifestyle
choices and your attitude toward
food and eating. However, in the
end, you are the one who decides
what is "healthy" for yourself as
a unique individual. Everyone
has their own life philosophy and
food philosophy, and what mat-
ters most is that you are satis-
fied and happy with your life as
a whole.
Kelle Kampa
is a Hanszen College junior.
America's educational system
requires a hero's rescue
As we see in the new movie Wait-
ing for Superman, there's no ques-
tion that too many schools in the
U.S. are failing or under-perform-
ing and that in many places, the
"system" is broken. What really
ails public education in America
is the fact that the distribution of
these schools is not simply uneven,
but rather easy to predict. With a
map and some census data, it's not
difficult to locate where the best
and worst schools are most likely
to be.
Melissa Marschall
Like many problems in the
world, one of the fundamental
problems with the education sys-
tem in the U.S. is inequality — of
both opportunity and outcomes.
It's not that all of our schools are
failing or that all of our children
are not meeting academic stan-
dards, but the fact that failure
and low performance are concen-
trated — in our urban school sys-
tems and in our schools that serve
underprivileged, low-income and
minority students.
Segregation in our schools —
along race, ethnicity and class — is
on the rise. African-American and
Latino students are more racially
segregated in American schools
today than they have been since
the Civil Rights Act was passed in
1965. In addition, they are more
concentrated in high-poverty
schools today than they were in the
past. Data from 2008 indicate that
roughly 40 percent of Latino and
African-American students attend
high-poverty schools. Other data
show that, on average, more class-
mates of minority students qual-
ify for free/reduced lunch today
(59 percent) than they did in the
previous decade (43 percent).
In other words, Latino and Af-
rican-American students are now
more likely to attend segregated
schools, and these schools have
higher concentrations of low-in-
come students. In light of the per-
sistent achievement gap across mi-
nority and non-minority students,
this trend is extremely worrisome.
Within education circles, the
achievement gap between minority
and non-minority students is in-
creasingly referred to as the biggest
civil rights issue of this generation.
But this time, there's no Martin
Luther King Jr., no rallies and very
little fanfare. Instead, it's individ-
ual parents and communities and
schools working hard every day
to make a difference, to help their
children, under incredibly difficult
conditions, and in some cases with
little hope. These children, parents,
schools and communities are in-
deed waiting for Superman.
In the film Waiting for Super-
man, director Davis Guggenheim
shares his perspective that the so-
lutions to our educational problems
lie in employing better teachers.
That hinges on reducing the power
of teachers' unions and allowing
teachers' pay and job security to be
tied to performance and creating
more quality choices like the exem-
plary charter schools — Knowledge
is Power Prep (KIPP) and Harlem
Children Zone (HCZ) — that are
featured in the film. Clearly more
schools like these are needed. But
would they attenuate the over-
whelming sense of injustice that
the current lottery system for seats
in these schools creates? Or would
they just increase demand?
Parents and students have more
educational choices today than at
any point in history. The number
of charter schools in the U.S. has
tripled in the last decade. Charter
schools now enroll about 3 percent
of all U.S. public school students
and represent about 5 percent of all
public schools.
But as anyone who studies the
data on charter schools knows, this
is an extremely heterogeneous set
of schools with considerable vari-
ance in mission and performance.
And as the recent New York Times
article ("In Harlem Children's Zone
Schools Have Their Own Problems,"
Oct. 13) pointed out, even Geoffrey
Canada's HCZ schools have their
problems: Not all have achieved
exemplary status. The same is true
for the beloved KIPP schools. In
fact, in Houston, home to the first
KIPP academy, only four of the 16
KIPP schools were rated exem-
plary in the 2010 Texas Education
Agency accountability system (six
were rated recognized and six aca-
demically acceptable). Lack of op-
tions may therefore not be th>1 real
problem in our educational system
today — but lack of good options
certainly is.
U
Latino and African-
American students
are now more likely
to attend segregated
schools, and these
schools have higher
concentrations of low-
income students.
99
I am sympathetic to arguments in
favor of choice and the underlying
premise that parents will instinctive-
ly do what they think is best for their
children. But creating good schools is
more of an art than a science and, in
the decentralized system of school-
ing in America, many charter schools
haven't gotten it right. Is it fair to kids
to experiment with their education in
this way? And is it fair to make par-
ents work so hard to figure out what
the options are and which ones are
viable? The array of choices is dizzy-
ing and even those of us who study
schools have trouble navigating
the terrain.
At the end of the day, the problems
confronting our schools and our educa-
tional system extend beyond the schools
or the people and institutions that gov-
ern them. The problems are deeper and
more structural in nature. Thus, while
enhancing teacher quality and creating
thousands of KIPP academies will cer-
tainly help, real solutions lie in changes
outside the schools themselves. And
for these changes to occur, it really will
take a man of steel — or an entire army
of them.
Melissa Marschall is an
associate professor of
political science.
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Wilde, Anna. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 98, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 12, 2010, newspaper, November 12, 2010; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth398477/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.