4 - Friday, December 4, 2009 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com E-MAIL BELLA AT BELLZ@UMICH.EDU Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. i Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu GARY GRACA ROBERT SOAVE COURTNEY RATKOWIAK EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of theirauthors. Majoring inmarijuana Med Grow is succeeding where government has failed In the 2008 election, Michigan voters legalized medical mari- juana. Though a positive development for suffering patients who can use marijuana to ease their pain, the new law left many unanswered questions about how eligible persons would obtain the drug. But one way to get those answers is to enroll in the new Med Grow Cannabis College in Southfield. Educating Michi- gan residents about how to grow and use marijuana in conjunc- tion with this law is important, and other institutions, both public and private, should follow Med Grow's example. This includes the state government, which has an obligation to provide a forum for education on medical marijuana use. BELLA SHAH lp N Iaew yeaIS arpltidip5resolUtIol LOSE WEIG HT tips to stayiing keep in rnind,- Warm this you have to Not a fleec ej season0 no shav-December? find one fit Northface I Stop Exercising 2. Grow out your hair 3, Shave a wolverine 4. Buy a new co A walk in someone else's shoes 0 While not a college in the traditional sense, Med Grow offers a six-week cur- riculum that teaches students about the history of cannabis, methods of horticul- ture and legal regulations of the treat- ment. The program, which launched last April and costs about $475, is intended for caregivers - those who grow and sell marijuana to patients - and the patients themselves. Med Grow is even receiving national attention - earlier this week, The New York Times wrote a story about the college. Med Grow is a useful tool for people who want to take advantage of the one- year-old law, because even though medical marijuana is suddenly legal doesn't mean people know how to use or grow it. This is a behavior that has only been permissible in secret by a limited group of individuals who are knowledgeable about the drug. Bringing medical marijuana use aboveg- round requires education.' And educating people on how to use and grow-medical marijuana canonly be good for the people of Michigan. For one thing, marijuana relieves the suffering of sick people. As a pain reliever, marijuana benefits injured and sick people who may not react well to other pain relievers and shouldn't feel discouraged about obtain- ing relief. This is, after all, the reason that medical marijuana was placed on the bal- lot and approved in 2008. That primary purpose .aside, increased medical marijuana growth is also an eco- nomic opportunity for the state. This is important because the state's promis- ing industries have begun to dwindle as of late. But like California, another state with progressive marijuana laws, Michi- gan has the chance to pioneer an industry that will likely grow across the country as laws continue to become less restrictive. People should feel empowered to partici- pate in this up-and-coming sector of the state economy. But while Med Grow is leading the way in the private sector, it's filling a void that the state government created by failing to deal with the legal ramifications of medi- cal marijuana when it was approved last year. The fact that there hasn't been any direction coming from state government is a shame. State authorities should be offering classes and training sessions. The government needs to follow Med Grow's example and fulfill its role as an educator for the public good. With the state economy in such trouble, national news outlets haven't had particu- larly good things to say about Michigan lately. But the fact that this state is leading the way on marijuana reform is attract- ing attention of a more progressive kind - something unusually refreshing. As marijuana laws continue to head toward greater permissiveness, the state will ben- efit from keeping ahead of the curve. Concerns may exist that increased gov- ernment advocacy of marijuana will one day snowball into the total legalization of marijuana. With any hope, these concerns will prove true and marijuana usage will finally become a universally accepted legal activity. ver Thanksgiving break, I had an argument with a white woman - let's call her "Susan." She made an off-hand comment refer- ring to Mexicans crosing the bor- der: "We should blow them all up with bazookas." If I had been wise, I would have retreated some- MATTHEW where far, far away. But instead, HUNTER I spent the next two hours trying to convince her that this viewpoint is destructive to humanity. She claimed that she wasn't racist because she had a few close black friends, but that Mexi- cans are taking over with their dirty criminality. In vain, I attempted to describe to Susan the process by which whites white men and their ideologies have dominated our world's most prominent social spaces. The real- ity of those who have actually "taken over" throughout history is that that they have colonized, forced entire countries into poverty and corrup- tion, enslaved millions, tortured civilians, women and children and committed war crimes. For exam- ple, President John F. Kennedy was notoriously decorated for supporting human rights, but authorized chemi- cal warfare in Vietnam. I left Susan with one question: What if you were one the oppressed? Over the past few months, I have addressed the linked modern oppression of blacks, gays, Mexi- cans and the disabled. That is not to say that racial struggles are really class struggles, or that gays' issues should only be discussed in the con- text of feminism. Rather, it means we share a common ground in which the essence of what it means to be human is challenged by the frame- work of our physical, mental, sex- ual or social characteristics. I am reminded the refrain from a song titled "Dead Man's Party:" "Wel- come to a dead man's party, who can ask for more, everybody's coming, leave your body at the door." None of these characteristics, none of these "bodies," measure value as a human. In his article, "Transgender Rhet- orics," teacher and self-identified queer feminist compositionist Jona- than Alexander reveals one of his techniques of teaching gender issues to his "traditionally" gendered stu- dents. He knows that while some peo- ple can relate to the movingstories of transgender and feminist literature, others' sentiments are less tolerant. They ask insensitive questions like, "Who cares ifa few freaks have trou- ble using public toilets?" That's the same as asking who cares that a few disabled people need to search for a ramp or access for a few extra min- utes, who cares if gays do not have access to the same rights as married straights and who cares if blacks and women don't have equal opportunity of access to education. Alexander designed a writing exercise in which students must write in the voice of one's opposite sex within a plot designed by a part- ner. He wanted students to virtually reflect on the process of gender/sex switching to see what it might tell us about the construction of gender in our society. After it was over, the discussion that followed conspicu- ously revealed reliance on sexist ste- reotypes to understand the opposite sex. He was asking the same ques- tion I asked Susan, who also relied on racist stereotypes to understand Mexicans. Similarly, we must begin to ques- tion our own stereotypical notions of other groups that shape our inaccu- rate and often offensive understand- ings. We must consider ourselves gay before we oppose equal right for gays; or women, before we decide when, where, why and how they birth a child. What would we want for ourselves, if we were in their place? When looking at vast social disparities that still exist, we must remember 500 years of slavery and a system that has segregated blacks into our poorest cities. Imagine you are an unemployed, poor black man in Detroit, where there are no jobs and your family is starving. The only option available for money was sell- ing drugs. Wouldn't you do it? Or would you let your family go hun- gry? For oppressed social minori- ties, gaining basic human rights is about a struggle to survive. 0 Getting to the roots of racial oppression. 6 Rather than identify with some external characteristic with which our identities have been defined by society's dominant forces, we can transform society by understanding what is means to be human. As bell hooks tells us in her book, "Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black," we must be "challenging the politics of domination on all fronts." By leaving our bodies at the door and identifying with minorities who our society as a whole does not under- stand, we can find the common ground that makes us all human and begin to oppose the dominant forces that corrupt the notion of a common humanity. - Matthew Hunter can be reached at maIjam@umich.edu. 6 EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Nina Amilineni, Emad Ansari, Emily Barton, Jamie Block, Will Butler, Ben Caleca, Nicholas Clift, Michelle DeWitt, Brian Flaherty, Emma Jeszke, Raghu Kainkaryam, Sutha K Kanagasingam, Erika Mayer, Edward McPhee, Harsha Panduranga, Alex Schiff, Asa Smith, Brittany Smith, Radhika Upadhyaya, Rachel Van Gilder, Laura Veith ABIGAIL BARNARD, ALEX KULICK, CHLOE ZHANG, HOLLY STEHLIN Stereotypes of sexual violence The Daily is looking for a diverse group of strong, informed, passionate writers to be columnists for the winter semester. Columnists write a 700-800 word column every other week on a topic of their choosing. If you are an opinionated and talented writer, consider applying. E-MAIL RACHEL VAN GILDER AT RACHELVG@UMICH.EDU FOR MORE INFORMATION. Laughing at the holidays When Rihanna went on Good MorningAmer- ica on November 5th to talk about her relation- ship with Chris Brown and the infamous night he beat her, televisions across America were filled with messages to teenage girls about pro- tecting themselves. But these messages lacked important questions like, "What if it's the girl- friend who's abusive?" or "What if someone isn't in a heterosexual relationship? What about that kind of abuse?" It is from the lack of these kinds of questions that the idea for our Women's Studies Activism Project was born. We wanted to investigate sexual violence on our campus - including rape, sexual assault, verbal and physi- cal abuse and sexual harassment. We initially sought to critique the inclusive- ness of resources on campus, but we discovered that - contrary to our expectations - many of the resources are actively seeking to be inclu- sive of all kinds of sexual violence: men against women, men against men, queer, straight, trans, etc. While investigating campus resources, we interviewed two campus organizations, Coun- seling and Psychological Services and Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, both of which we felt dealt directly with sexual violence and its consequences. We found that both use gender neutral language when talk- ing to victims and that their staff members are trained to handle violence in same-sex partner- ships and heterosexual couples. Our University is not lacking in resources for victims of sexual violence outside the perceived "norm." Rather it is we, the students, who need to be more open- minded when discussing this sensitive topic. After discovering this, we sought to under- stand why the resources on campus were so different from our expectations. Drawing on our personal experiences as individuals in vari- ous student organizations, social groups and classes, we realized that although the institu- tional resources are adopting a more inclusive view of sexual violence, the conversations we have in our day-to-day lives reinforce norma- tive narratives about sexuality and gender. As a campus, we need to engage in conversations about non-normative sexual violence. By ignor- ing the fact that sexual violence occurs in queer relationships or at the hands of a girl againsther boyfriend, we are assuming that our campus is made up of pairings in which the man always possesses physical dominance over his female significant other. Assumptions like these fuel a sexist culture. While we were happy to learn that our cam- pus resources can accommodate and help sur- vivors of sexual violence regardless of sexual orientation and gender, we were saddened to realize just how little attention these issues receive in our daily lives. The University is a diverse place and it is up to the students to make sure that conversations, especially those about something as sensitive as sexual violence, include all identities and people. If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual violence, there are many resources on campus. The SAPAC website has a comprehen- sive list of many resources on campus, locally, statewide and nationally: http://www.umich. edu/-sapac/. Additionally, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network Crisis Hotline is available: 1-800-656-HOPE. This viewpoint was written by LSA sophomore Abigail Barnard, LSA freshman Alex Kulick, LSA freshman Holly Stehlin and LSA sophomore Chloe Zhang. he ABS light clicked on and no more than five minutes later, my brother's car broke down in the Bronx right before the George Wash- ington Bridge on Thanksgiving eve. Although he had to wait three hours for AAA, pee on the side of the road and fend off a man with LEAH an aluminum bat POTKIN (yes, this is all true), he was for- tunate enough to be with his college roommate and only a short distance from our extended family. So, while my moth- er sat anxiously between calls to my brother, his roommate and AAA, I couldn't help but smile and laugh about the whole situation. And that led me to this conclusion: everyone should watch the Thanksgiving epi- sodes of "Friends." Thanksgiving inevitably brings with it some sort of grand-scale calamity, whether it be altered travel plans, insufferable in-laws or burnt turkeys. After all, whose families haven't sparred over which relatives to visit or invite over? But what if we didn't view any of this obligatory trav- el and forced family time as potential- ly disastrous, but rather as comical? Here's where the million dollar-per- episode cast of "Friends" have some- thing on all of us - and we should learn from their (though admittedly contrived) remarkable ability to make light of any situation. To state the obvious, there are few comedies in history that rival this 10-year-phenomenon in universal appeal. I laughed at Joey when I was 10 and understood more ofChandler's jokes at 19. But why the Thanksgiving episodes? From cameos by Brad Pitt to a turkey stuck on Joey's head, the absurdity of these tension- and disas- ter-filled episodes, with the addition of an audience laugh track, manage to lighten the mood and help us appre- ciate the commonality of our own experiences. In honor of David Schwimmer's presence on campus (he's directing a new movie called "Trust"), I picked a few of my favorite Thanksgiving episodes as examples. The situa- tions may be fictional, butI would bet nearly everyone can see a bit of their lives through this classic 30-minute comedy - and learn something from it, too. "The One With The Football" epi- sode revolves around the cherished Geller Cup, a trophy awarded to the winner of a Thanksgiving football rivalry of the Geller family. With Ross and Monica pitted against each other, needless to say, the competi- tion is fierce. But instead of crying (this is always my main tactic), pos- turing and complaining, the Gellers duke it out in what I find one of the most entertaining sports games I've ever viewed (sorry Wolverines, "Friends" outdid you). Another favorite, "The One With All The Thanksgivings," shows flash- backs of past Thanksgiving disas- ters and manages to make light of all of them. Most notable is the one where Monica unintentionally drops a knife, severing Chandler's toe. In my household, this type of disaster would be synonymous with tears and chaos, rather than laughter and amusement as is the case with the "Friends." Even years later as they reminisce, they still manage to laugh about it. Yes, maybe if you drop a knife on someone's toe it won'tend in marriage, but there certainly are lessons to learn from similar misfortunes of life. My brother's broken-down car provides a perfect example. After waiting in the Bronx, my brother ultimately had to sleep at myuncle's house in New York, which enabled him to spend time with family he wouldn't have other- wise seen. We should appreciate these types of situations because the time my brother got to spend with family is truly something to be thankful for, and is more important than the time he could have spent stressing over his poor luck.., "Friends" showed me the value of a sense of humor. And even more importantly, watching these episodes reinforces my own personal goal to lighten up. Many of us are consumed with stress over what we perceive as cri- ses, whether it be stressing over tests, relationships, the current economic situation or prospects for employment. But why not adopt this "Friends"-inspired attitude and, despite luckless situations, smile and laugh at our own problems? Because we unfortunately can no longer rely on the Central Perk gang to relieve our pre- or post-holiday stress, we need to take matters into . our own hands. Without the help of NBC this Thanksgiving, I took it upon myself to smile at my brother's bad luck, just as the cast laughed about Chandler's severed toe. And as a result, I will fondly remember this past Thanksgiving as "The One Where The Car Broke Down." - Leah Potkin can be reached at lpotkin@umich.edu. I I