4A - Thursday, April1, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 0 C 4 4MI tian Batlu Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@umich.edu 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 I E-MAIL CHRIS AT CSKOSLOW@UMICH.EDU You hear? Obama s Obama good. Obama drilL. drilling for oil3 Black goldl Wait. You're supporting this? Drill good. Y'Obarna. What about all those environmental consequences Sorry you had to see Yes. Drill o you were worried about? e. him like this. ik * *0 A t U es o o 0 q Athome at the Universit E 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. 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 taught in any class- room or by any professor. And it's a lesson that will 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 just because 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 houseJl 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'lleven missplayingmakeshift 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. Lackingthe 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. But most of us will attest to the fact that that feeling ebbs as you begin to real- ize that no mattef 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. 0 0 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 0 DAVID BENNETT I 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. That dream is indeed elusive today, lost amid war and oppression, imperialism, racism and carpet bombs, 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 eightworkers 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 can betaken 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. Inthe 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 awaytoiling 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 at 5:45 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 ityourself, 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 againstinjustice 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. 6 0 6 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. All submissions become property of the Daily. We do not print anonymous letters. Send letters to tothedaily@umich.edu.