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4A -Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
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MICHELLE DEWITT
STEPHANIE STEINBERG and EMILY ORLEY NICK SPAR
EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position oftthe Daily's editorial board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views ofttheir authors.
Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com.
F ROM T HE DA ILY
Decreasing degree debt
Loan forgiveness benefits students and economy
The familiar image of recent college graduates struggling
under a pile of debt is being recast. A new student loan
policy recently announced by President Barack Obama will
lower the percentage of annual income debtors have to pay on their
loans and shorten the loan repayment period by five years. College
is becoming increasingly expensive, but a college degree is a neces-
sity in today's job market. Obama's new plan is a great relief for stu-
dents with loans and shows his dedication to students and higher
education.
The most racist day of the year
et me preface this column by
saying that I don't care about
Hallow-
een. I can appre-
ciate the fact that
this faux holiday
gives people a "
reason to have
parties, and -I
certainly enjoy
free keg beer as
much as the next JOE
guy. But after SUGIYAMA
my elementary
school years that
were filled with Power Ranger cos-
tumes and sugar-highs, I came to the
realization that the whole concept of
playing dress up is stupid. Iam rarely
seen dressed in anything other than
Michigan T-shirts and basketball
shorts, so a weekend that revolves
entirely around what one is wearing
isbasicallymyworst nightmare.
I've spent every Halloween of my
adult life trying to resist the societal
notion that I have to put an incred-
ible amount of thought and time
into a costume. But despite my ever-
growing disdain for Halloween, I
have to admit that the holiday does
create a good forum to discuss larger
societal issues that may otherwise
be neglected.
I don't think I'm alone in describ-
ing some of the female costume
choices around campus as some-
what, ahem, risque. I've never really
given the tradition of bearing it all
on Halloween a second thought. It's
as American as apple pie. But some
don't see it that way. In an Oct. 26
article in Consider magazine, Katie
Sauter pointed out a few reasons
why racy costumes for women are a
result of a male dominated society.
Sauter places the blame mainly
on the male CEOs of various cos-
tume hot spots for their patriarchal
tendencies that serve to "police the
acts of women." Though Sauter
does have a point that many cos-
tume stores offer an overwhelming
variety of sexy nurse/nun/teacher/
angel/devil outfits, young women
who purchase these costumes ulti-
mately, for one reason or another,
make their own decision to do so.
The question is, why?
I don't have the answer, but the
danger in this discussion is to over-
simplify these decisions by making
them solely about a patriarchal soci-
ety or to oversimplify issues of femi-
nism by making them exclusively
about how women dress. There are
issues facing women all around the
world, such as wage disparities and
sexual violence, that don't get half
the attention that sexy kitten cos-
tumes get on Halloween.
And feminism is not the only
social issue that gets its moment in
the sun on Halloween. Racist cos-
tumes are also a hot button issue.
Most would agree that costumes
like dressing in blackface is racist
and nothing else, butstudents at The
Ohio University have brought other
cultural insensitivities to light.
In a recent movement by an orga-
nization called Students Teaching
About Racism in Society, advertise-
ments have been created that show
minority students holding pictures
of racist costumes with captions
reading, "We're a culture, not a cos-
tume." One of the flyers displays a
disheartened Asian student holding
a picture of a caricature-like Geisha.
Another shows a Middle Eastern
student holding a picture of a sui-
cide bomber with a detonator in one
hand and a beer in the other. These
are just two examples of a seemingly
unlimited supply of racist outfits.
Halloween is supposed to be a fun
and harmless holiday, but many who
don offensive costumes will use this
mentality as an excuse to defend
their bigoted choices.
As a Japanese American, I find
it difficult to write off these racial
insensitivities as harmless cos-
tumes. Racist Halloween costumes
cause a once a year regression into
our segregated past. They magnify
our country's inability to move for-
ward, while putting our cultural
ignorance on full display.
Halloween is a
forum for
societal issues.
The STARS flyers aren't the first
brush with racism that I've experi-
enced, nor do Iexpect themto be the
last. But such strong images high-
light that racism is a problem that
still exists in the country. While the
flyers were successful in generat-
ing conversation, it shouldn't take
costumes to make people acknowl-
edge true racial issues. Issues such
as minority underrepresentation
in government, deep-seeded racial
divides in the South and economic
inequality should be a part of a
daily dialogue.
I don't think that everyone who
dresses up for Halloween is a racist,
anti-feminist idiot -- the idiots of the
world certainly don't need costumes
to show their ignorance. However,
I do take issue with how the old
Celtic celebration of summer's end -
which everyone knows is where the
celebration of Halloween originates
from - seems to be one of the only
times that certain issues are brought
to the forefront of conversation.
Racism and feminism are issues that
arise in our daily lives, not just our
costume selection, and young people
need to think about them in a larger
context, not just once a year.
-Joe Sugiyama can be reached
at jmsugi@umich.edu.
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The reforms tothe income-based repayment
program, which the president announced last
week as the "Pay-As-You-Earn" plan, will take
effect next year. They reduce the percentage of
annual discretionary income that debtors have
to pay from 15 percent to 10 percent. Student
loans will be forgiven after 20 years under the
new policy - five years earlier than the old
system. The new policy will also ease the debt
burden for the 450,000 borrowers currently
enrolled in the loan program nationwide.
Tuition rises every year, and with the dif-
ficulty in finding jobs, it is becoming increas-
ingly challenging for students to pay off their
loansontime.Accordingto the College Board,
college tuition and fees have risen by an aver-
age of5.6 percent each year in the past decade.
Protests have taken place at many universi-
ties,:yet tuition continues to climb. At the Uni-
versity, in-state tuition increased 6.7 percent
this year.
Rising tuition'costs have forced many stu-
dents to borrow money with the hope that
their decision will pay off in the future with a
good job. Under the former policy of 25 years
of loan repayment before forgiveness, student
borrowers could still be paying off their debt
when sending their kids to college.
With a nationwide unemployment rate of
9.1 percent, students with large loans face even
greater .challenges after graduation. Many
recent graduates take low-paying jobs, attend
graduate school or simply face unemployment,
which makes it hard for them to make timely
payments on student loans. These recent grad-
uates need assistance, or many will be forced
into dire financial straits.
Some criticize Obama's relief policy
because there is a concern that unpaid loans
could greatly increase other taxpayers' bur-
den. While these are valid concerns, the real-
ity is that if a massive number of graduates
default on their loans, the results could be
economically disastrous. However, the reform
will monitor payments to ensure this doesn't
happen. Student loan repayment reform will
greatly relieve struggling recent graduates
and will ultimately help the ecorAomy because
these individuals will be able to contribute
positively to the economy after they pay back
their debts.
As students, we appreciate the president's
new policy. It lessens the burden on borrowers
who are struggling with increased tuition and
a poor job market. The policy also encourages
more students to attend college who otherwise
may not have because of the large financial
burden. Obama's policy shows a commitment
to the future of young people in America and
will likely prove tobe economically beneficial.
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Aida Ali, Michelle DeWitt, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Patrick Maillet,
Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Emily Orley, Teddy Papes, Timothy Rabb,
Vanessa Rychlinski, Caroline Sims, Seth Soderborg, Andrew Weiner
ALLIE GOLDSTEIN I
a
The next billion women
ALEXANDER HEPPERLE |VEWPONT
Stay classy, Ann Arbor
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The University was fortunate enough to host
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Monday
for a lecture on his view of the problems the
nation faces, especially our economic hard-
ships, and how best to address them in today's
day and age. I was excited to see a speaker of
this magnitude in person. Not being a very
political man myself, I went in pretty much
unbiased. I don't define myself as a Democrat
nor a Republican, but rather a middleman who
sways with the wind of respective issues based
on my own personal issues.
As soon as I approached the Michigan
League, I saw what was unmistakably a mob
of protesters picketing and yelling things like
"R.I.P. Middle Class!" Generally being a pretty
level-headed, non-aggressive person, I felt a
bit uncomfortable. I prefer to avoid a fight if
I can, so I began wondering just what kind
of political tension I was getting myself into.
I absolutely support free speech, however,
even in its most extreme forms, and it's noth-
ing new to see people voicing their opinion in
every kind of venue you can imagine on and
around the campus.
Though on this day, I can't say I was too
supportive of what I saw take place. Let's start
with a short biopic: At first sight, Cantor looks
like your average political guy. He's white,
middle aged, Ivy League educated, Southern
and conservative. But one can't Sparknote this
man and get the full story. He's not your aver-
age white, Southern lawyer.
To begin with, Cantor is Jewish. He repre-
sents a vastly under-represented religion in
terms of the political spectrum in this country.
In fact, Cantor is the only Jewish Republican
member in all of Congress. Does he come from
old Southern money? No, that'd be assum-
ing too much. Cantor's grandparents escaped
religious persecution in Hungary at the turn
of the 20th century and came to the U.S.
with few possessions but high hopes - like so
many other families in search of the American
Dream. Oh yeah, and his daughter is a student
here. Just like us.
Now let me say I consider this University to
be a classy school. A school of gentlemen and
ladies, alike. This event was sponsored by the
Ford School of Public Policy, which is named
after a certain alum who we refer to today as
the late, great President Gerald Ford. While
attending this school, not only did Ford make
it work coming from a local, broken family -
he rose through the ranks of the social strata,
became captain of the football team, state
politician and, of course, later the President
of the United States. A man of class. A true
Michigan victor.
The behavior I witnessed at this event was
generallynot classy or respectful, and certainly
not behavior Ford would condone. We already
know why, don't we? It's pretty much undeni-
able that Ann Arbor, on occasion, is simply too
liberal for its own good. Too much of anything
turns into a bad thing. Students cheered on
every cutting, far-left-leaning question like
"How is the American dream alive in Scandi-
navia?" and "Do charter schools mean the end
of public education?" with whistles and yells
before the congressman was even given the
chance to respond.
People, can you imagine how this man must
have felt? He is a Republican politician from
Richmond, Va. who took the time out of his
insane schedule to talk to us. Before you make
some snide comment at a public speaking event,
think about what you're really saying. Yes, I
know how smart you are with your sophisticat-
ed Philosophy 400 level class. But do you hold a
J.D. from William and Mary Law? How closely
doyou work with President Barack Obama?
This isn't a question of right and wrong,
demented opinions or even corrupt politicians
who could be interested in hurting national
interest. This is a question of tolerance. Please
do voice your opinion, but do it appropriately. It
is simply not OK to invite a middle-aged father
of three, who is far more educated and more
experienced than most of us will probably ever
be, to speak at your school and then attack him
for expressinghis ideas on how bestto help this
country. That is not only rude and disturbing,
it's downright embarrassing conduct for any
Michigan Wolverine.
Expect Respect. Give it. Get it. That state-
ment is the University's new motto, so follow
suit. Voice your opinion, but in the words of
Eric Cantor himself, "It is a fact that at some
pointswe must agree to disagree to get through
this life together." Watch your words guys, and
please continue to stay classy Ann Arbor.
Alexander Hepperle is an LSA sophomore.
The human population was set to hit the 7 billion
mark on Halloween this week, and for many, the timing
is appropriately spooky. Demographers are projecting
the world population will level off by the 21st century,
but in the meantime, 2 billion people will join us on the
planet. The media has long been equating population
growth with apocalypse - employing the logic that
more people means resource scarcity which means con-
flict. And, until recently, I had more or less been drink-
ing that Kool-Aid.
The "slice of the pie" metaphor is a captivating pne:
In a world of finite resources, it makes sense that more
resource users would deplete the metaphorical pie,
which would lead to fighting over the scraps. What's
the solution? Women, of course! If women have fewer
babies, there will be fewer pie gobblers and more scraps
to go peacefully around. Right?
Well, not quite. The metaphor is superficially logical
but, as I will explain, fundamentally flawed. Though
women are indeed keyto preventing population chaos, it's
for an entirely different reason than you might assume.
Let's tear down the equation piece by piece. First,
stating more people leads to resource scarcity ignores
the reality of per capita consumption. According to the
New York Times, Americans consume 32 times more
than those living in the developing world. Also, as geog-
rapher William Moseley points out, the conception of
people as a drain on resources ignores much of the truth
on the ground. In Machakos, Kenya, agriculture has
flourished rather than perished as population density
increases, since more people are working the land. The
same is true in many other parts of the world.
As for the second part of the equation - resource
scarcity leads to conflict - real world examples indicate
that resource abundance leads to conflict just as often
as resource scarcity does. Oil conflict in Nigeria didn't
exist until the oil started flowing. In many cases, it is the
production of resources that channels violence. The can-
cer that runs rampant in 48217, the zip code in Michigan
home of a Marathon oil refinery, among other polluting
industries, is an example of resource production leading
to slow but brutal suffering. As is the recent earthquake
in Japan, which released radiation in the landscape.
So, despite its glaring flaws, why is the assumed equa-
tion still so hypnotizing? Perhaps it's because the other
option - more rich people leads to resource overpro-
duction/overconsumption leads to conflict - hits too
close to home.
When it comes to driving conflict, how people pro-
duce and consume resources is a lot more important
than how many people there are, which iswhere women
come back in. Conflict - whether driven by resource
scarcity, abundance or production - is often perpetu-
ated by men and endured by women. As the United
Nations' 2010 State of the World's Population reports,
"Women rarely wage war, but they too often suffer the
worst of its consequences," from rape to economic hard-
ship to the inability to go to school.
A recent study by political scientists Mary Caprioli
and Mark Boyer found that nations with greater
domestic gender equality were less likely to resort
to violence in an international crisis. And women's
organizations - though often excluded from formal
negotiations - have been critical in peace-building
processes both post and during conflict, according to
the Peace Research Institute.
When I think of female peacekeepers, I think of Sil-
via Ventancourt, the woman I lived with this summer in
Intag, Ecuador. Silvia is one of 10 children; her partner
Jos4 is one of nine. They have a single child, Mattias, and
plans for exactly two more. Following the trajectory of
many developing countries, Ecuador's fertility rate has
declined significantly in recent decades, and many par-
ents are finding themselves in nuclear families a fraction
of the size of the ones they grew up in.
But Silvia's peacekeeping power is not derived from
her skillful family planning. It comes from her promi-
nent role in her community. She is a leader in Mujer y
Medioambiente, a women's group that makes handbags
out of a local Andean plant and sells them to interna-
tional markets.
There are several women's groups in Intag, all of
which work on creating alternative economies to min-
ing - an industry that has caused contamination and
conflict in their subtropical forest home. As one man
admitted to me, while the men are busy plundering
nonrenewable resources, the women of Intag "are more
interested in having water for their children." Put-
ting women like Silvia at the helm will lead to savvier
resource use and mitigated violence on an increasingly
populated planet.
Women are still a pivotal variable in the conflict equa-
tion, but because of their value as people, rather than
vessels for population growth. We should all keep this
in mind when deciding to lament - or celebrate-the 7
billion milestone.
Allie Goldstein is a first-year Rackham student.
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