4A - Thursday, April 1, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom 0
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JACOB SMILOVITZ
EDITOR IN CHIEF
RACHEL VAN GILDER
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
MATT AARONSON
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 their authors.
Assisting mental health
Campus community must build culture of support
This is not a decision that I've made lightly:'
- President Barack Obama, referring to his decision to allow offshore oil drilling along the East Coast, Alaska
and the Gulf of Mexico, as reported yesterday by Politico.com.
CHRIS KOSLOWSKI j E-MAIL CHRIS AT CSKOSLOW@UMICH.EDU
Y"b Obama good. Obama drill.
driling for il Black gold Wae Youesupporting this? 0 good. Ya Obama.
Trexasngeoro YeeBlac What about all those I
environmental consequences orry you hadtosec
Yes. Drillgoad.A you were worried about? * him like this, folks.
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t home at the University
0I
ach year, there are roughly two suicides for every 20,000
university students, according to The New York Times.
Unfortunately, in the last month alone, three students in
this country took their lives by jumping off bridges at Cornell Uni-
versity into the campus's famed deep gorges. There is no doubt that
these events are tragic. As such, they must serve as a reminder to
the students, faculty, staff and administrators here at the Universi-
ty of Michigan - and to university community members across the
country - that the ample availability of mental health resources is
paramount to students' health and safety. Students and staff must
be vigilant in preventing the occurrence of such tragedies.
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As reported by the Times last week,
Cornell University hadn't registered any
confirmed suicides since the beginning of
2006. In the current academic year, there
have been six. The suicides have caused
concern on the part of the institution and
community. Cornell officials have con-
structed temporary fences around the
bridges, which they hope will prevent
more suicides. Security guards have also
been stationed at each of the bridges. Cor-
nell officials have been drastically increas-
ing their support of mental health outreach
programs.
The University of Michigan is fortunate
that it isn't experiencing what Cornell is
now going through. But given the simi-
larities between Cornell and our school,
the University should take measures to
increase its mental health resources and
outreach to students.
Students at prestigious institutions like
Cornell and the University of Michigan
are under constant pressure to perform.
And the competitive atmosphere of college
has increased as the economy has suffered
and students feel more pressure to be the
very best in order to secure a place in the
difficult job market. College students are
becoming more vulnerable and stressed. To
combat this, the University should become
more proactive in helping students cope.
The University's Counseling and Psycho-
logical Services (more commonly known as
CAPS) has been an excellent resource on
campus for students to seek help. Accord-
ing to a February report by the Daily, CAPS
saw a significant rise in demand in 2009.
The University responded appropriately by
increasing funding to CAPS last semester,
which resulted in larger offices, increased
counseling and the creation of workshops
that make counseling more available. The
University must continue to ensure that
CAPS receives the resources it needs to
make help available to every student who
asks for it.
And, as Cornell did, the University
should train all of its employees to be on
the lookout for warning signs that may
demonstrate that a student is in need of
support. Students should also be watchful
of friends and classmates. With students
far from home, the University commu-
nity should serve as a substitute family to
students, and community members must
watch out for each other. And, most impor-
tantly, students who feel unwell must
remember that there is no shame in asking
for help. They shouldn't feel any hesitation
take advantage of the resources that the
University and CAPS provide.
The recent suicides have deeply shaken
our peers at Cornell. And given our uni-
versity's resemblance to Cornell, students
and University officials should make every
effort to prevent a similar tragedy from
occurring here.
ver the past year, I've learned
something from the Ann
Arbor and campus commu-
nity that can't be
taughtin anyclass-
room or by any
professor. And it's'
a lesson that will r
endure long after I
forget how to take
the derivative of a
function or conju-
gate French verbs.
The Univer- ALEX
sity student body SCHIFF
draws from all
across the state,
the country and
even the world. For many of you, this
is your first time spending the major-
ity of your year away from the place
you had previously called "home."
Before moving to Ann Arbor, you
knew the streets of your old home-
town like the back of your hand, you
had grown accustomed to the sights
and sounds of a typical day and you
frequently passed places that housed
memories from years past - where
you made mistakes, where you con-
quered your fears and where you
experienced your greatest accom-
plishments.
But then you were dropped here, in
the middle of this energetic, sprawl-
ing mini metropolis. All around you
were streets with unfamiliar names,
buildings and locations that held no
memories or significance and a mass
of people you had never met asking
you to support this cause, vote for
this person or donate to this charity
- if they even spoke to you at all.
After growing up in Farmington
Hills, Michigan (a suburb outside
Detroit) for 15 years, I discovered
what it was like to be dropped into
a strange new area with different
types of people, cultures and social
norms when I moved to Palm Harbor,
Florida in 2006.I contracted the typi-
cal "Transplanted Child Syndrome,"
and I looked at everything through
the lens of "this place isn't like where
I'm from, why aren't things like they
were where I grew up, why can't I
go back, etc." In a sense, I placed
my hometown on a pedestal it didn't
really deserve justbecause it was that
familiar place I could call "home."
Even though I had always wanted
to attend the University, I also saw
it as my way to get back home. This
summer, I packed up all my belong-
ings in my oversized Buick Century
and drove 2,000 miles to come here
with my favorite desk chair block-
ing my rear window the entire way.
I spent the rest of the summer liv-
ing in my grandma's basement, only
three miles from the houseI grew up
in. But, still, something was missing.
Despite being back where I grew up,
just as I thought I had wanted, I felt
constrained.
And then I came here. Instantly,
everything clicked. This campus has
a liveliness that those of us from the
suburbs have never experienced. It's
not just the exuberance of the city on
football Saturdays - it's the vibrancy
this campus breathes every day. It's
the rallies on street corners by people
on every side of the political spec-
trum. It's the hustle and bustle of stu-
dents rushing to class all throughout
the day - even though we already run
on Michigan time. It's the cars driv-
ing on overflowing streets honking
at people spilling over into their path.
It's the crowded sidewalks at 2 a.m. on
a Saturday night and the 3 a.m. crav-
ings for crappy Mexican food.
My time at the University has
taught me a valuable lesson that took
place not in Dennison or Angell Hall,
but amid the unmistakeable vigor
of the Diag on the first warm, sunny
day of this semester. After spending
the past several months trudging
through slush and snow and won-
dering why on earth I came here,
I took a brief moment to pause and
look around as people passed me by.
A gentle complacency washed over
me. It was at that moment that I real-
ized that home isn't where you grew
up - home is simply where you feel
at home. And here, without a doubt, I
feel at home.
A lesson that can't
be taught inAngell
Hall or Dennison.
Now, as summer nears, everyone's
looking forward to spending four
months "back home." Despite the
stresses of classes, homework, exams,
etc., there's going to bea lot I'm going
to miss when I return to the suburbs.
Sure, I'll see lots of places that hold
memories - but something will be
missing. I won't see people partying
on rooftops at 9 a.m. on a football
Saturday or a moonwalk set up on
the Diag on a random Tuesday after-
noon. I'll even miss playingmakeshift
games of putt-putt in the hallways of
East Quad.
Students, we come from a diverse
array of communities, but I'm will-
ing to bet that most of you spent the
majority of your life relatively near
where you graduated high school.
Lacking the familiarity of your home-
town, I am sure many of you have
probably felt lonely, isolated or home-
sick in some way over the course of
your time at the University. Butmost
of us will attest to the fact that that
feeling ebbs as you begin to real-
ize that no matter what city, state or
country you hail from, we all need to
step out of the comfort of our home-
town to grow as individuals.
- Alex Schiff is an assistant
editorial page editor. He can be
reached at aschiff@umich.edu.
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Nina Amilineni, Jordan Birnholtz, William Butler, Nicholas Clift,
Michelle DeWitt, Brian Flaherty, Jeremy Levy, Erika Mayer, Edward McPhee,
Emily Orley, Harsha Panduranga, Alex Schiff, Asa Smith, Brittany Smith,
Robert Soave, Radhika Upadhyaya, Laura Veith
HAMDAN AZHAR|
Patriotism in perspective
DAVID BENNETTri
Working toward equal rights
Last week, the Daily printed a column in
which Brittany Smith heralded the passage
of President Barack Obama's health care bill
as the point when.she no longer felt ashamed
to be an American (Reforming patriotism,
03/26/2010). Smith went on to defend progres-
sive values in a manner that left many of us gri-
macing in discomfort.
Smith failed to understand that ideals may
be praiseworthy and profound, while their
actual application may fail to live up to that
standard. More egregiously, she argued from
one isolated incident that our nation had taken
a bold leap towards fulfilling our ideals.
I was therefore pleased to come across
Christopher Johnson's response, entitled (I
don't live in Smith's America, 03/29/2010).
Unfortunately, the title is the only endear-
ing quality of Johnson's viewpoint. He takes
Smith's caricature of the "ugly American" to
the extreme and presents violent jingoistic
rhetoric as a substitute for "patriotism." "Most
citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan are thankful
for their liberation," he remarks snidely. "Just
ask any soldier." Any reasonable person would
be at a loss for words when confronted with
such ignorance.
This, then, is the unfortunate state of politi-
cal discourse in the opinion pages of the Daily
today. One side argues that everything is fine
with America because Obama is committed to
"creating a baseline level of equality for every-
one." (I won't enumerate everything that's
wrong with that sentence.) The other side
responds that everything is fine with America
because we go around the world invading coun-
tries that have never attacked us. The end result
of either mindset is the same - the true prin-
ciples that make America great are obscured
as well as the sad fact that we have failed to
uphold the sanctity of those principles.
America was founded as the "city upon a
hill," meant to be a shining beacon of liberty
and justice, a light unto the rest of the world.
Thatadream is indeed elusive today, lost amid
war and oppression, imperialism, racism and
carpet bosmbs, red alerts and Guantanamo Bay.
Some of us have never seen that dream because
our vision is clogged with the blood and sweat
of all those - at home and abroad - for whom
that dream has turned into a nightmare.
But it's called a dream for a reason - it
doesn't exist, indeed, it cannot exist unless we
work to make it real. Anything worth achiev-
ing requires effort. The American dream is a
problematic dream. But what a dream it is.
The nature of an individual's love or hatred
for America can be understood as a function
of two variables: their understanding of what
America represents and their expectations for
what America ought to be. Some of those who
see potential for good in "America" - what-
ever that means - will blindly wave the flag of
"patriotism" and passively accept the reality
with which they are presented. Others, mean-
while, will dedicate their lives to maximizing
that potential and to transforming our nation
into a living embodiment of the ideals that it
purports to represent.
Many Americans are ashamed at and jus-
tifiably angered by irresponsible actions our
government has undertaken over the years.
But to conflate those actions with the essence
of America is an absurd and undyingly cynical
leap in reasoning. On the other hand, to pro-
claim that since, in theory, our values are great,
we are automatically "superior to the rest of
the world" is a similarly defeatist and danger-
ous mindset. To hold such a view is to sell the
greatness of America for far less than what it is
worth. It borders on the edge of being unpatri-
otic in the extent to which it ascribes an inher-
ent entitlement to our nation, independent of
our conduct and our faithfulness to our values.
At the end of the day, it was perhaps a
Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, who said
it best. "America," he said, "is great as long as
America is good. When America ceases to be
good, America ceases to be great." If we can
understand that much, then perhaps we can
aspire to a richer and more fulfilling vision of
patriotism.
Hamdan Azhar is a Rackham student.
Unlike your local carwash, where worker exploitation
is laid bare on street corners in broad daylight, injustice
in the restaurant industry occurs behind the scenes. So
you have to, well, go behind the kitchen door to see what
really happens.
That is precisely what the Restaurant Opportunities Cen-
ter of Michigan (more commonly known as ROC-MI) and
the Southeast Michigan Restaurant Industry Coalition did.
This past February, they published "Behind the Kitchen
Door: Inequality & Opportunity in Metro Detroit's Grow-
ing Restaurant Industry," a report that exposed the extent
to which restaurant malpractice in the Metro Detroit area
really occurs.
Based on data from 37 interviews with employers, 32
interviews with restaurant workers and 501 worker sur-
veys, the study found that workers of color are dispro-
portionately affected with respect to wage violations and
other abuses. 31 percent of employees reported working
overtime without being compensated and 81.4 percent
of workers didn't receive health insurance through their
employers. Similar studies were conducted across the
nation, highlighting the prevalence of restaurant worker
exploitation.
Andiamo, an Italian restaurant in Dearborn, Mich., is the
poster child of restaurant worker abuse in the Metro Detroit
area. The Metro Times reported in January that Andiamo
failed to meet with eight workers to address their grievanc-
es - including $125,000 worth of back wages and discrimi-
nation based on race, gender and national origin, followed
by illegal retaliation. In response, the workers, with the sup-
port of ROC-MI, turned to protesting and lawsuits.
Despite rampant exploitation, though, there are steps
that canbe taken to improve the plight of workers in the res-
taurant industry and elsewhere.
First, the minimum wage must be increased. Currently,
the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25. Minimum wage
for tipped employees, meanwhile, is only $2.13 per hour.
Relying on tips to compensate for a dearth of wages is risky
business - especially since tips vary "depending on broader
economic trends, from season to season and from shift to
shift," according to the National Employment Law Project.
While the federal minimum wage was slightly raised in
2009, the tipping wage has remained frozen since 1991.
In addition to raising wages, "Behind the Kitchen Door"
delivers sound proposals, like providing paid sick days,
granting workers the right to organize and penalizing
employer discrimination while promoting model employer
practices.
In terms of policy, passage of the Employee Free Choice
Act, which supports workers' right to unionize, and the
Dream Act, which is a step toward a more humane immi-
gration policy, are in order, as well as legislation that makes
education and occupational training - and by extension,
upward mobility - more accessible.
Clearly, the restaurant industry must reform, but we
know that real change will not come out of thin air. We must
fight for it. Organizations like ROC-MI - with its research,
rallies and, in due course, justice for'the workers at Andiamo
- illustrate the steps that can be taken to fight for change in
the industry.In the end, change willonly come if we demand
it. It's incumbent on us as college students, voters and citi-
zens (and yes, at times, as consumers) to tell the restaurant
industry that it has crossed the line and that we won't yield
in our struggle for workers' rights.
Whether those workers stand on our neighborhood
street corners washing cars or are tucked away toiling in an
anonymous factory, farm or kitchen, let us do what we can
to make their lives better. This week, from March 28th to
April 4th, is the Student Labor Week of Action - the perfect
time to reflect on what we have done and to envision what
we can do to fight for worker justice and, in turn, a better
society for all.
If you're up for it, go to the Cube any Friday atS5:45 p.m. -
until justice is served, anyway - and get a ride to the protest
at Andiamo. Or talk to the janitors on campus to see what's
ailing them (trust me, it won't take long) and then stage a
protest against the administration. Join SOLE in their fight
for sweat-free University apparel. Or work with a union
over the summer and help organize workers yourself. Craft
policy recommendations through the Roosevelt Institu-
tion and then lobby your representatives like hell until they
push those measures through. Do it yourself, if you have to.
Just remember that there has never been a better time than
now, here at the University, to act on what you believe in, to
stand up against injustice and to be sure there's plenty to go
around.
David Bennett is an LSA senior and co-director
of the Roosevelt Institution's Center on Urban
Planning and Community Development.
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