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2B Wednesday, January 25, 2012 The Statement
THE JUNK DRAWER
random student interview
1A .. ... 1by laura argintar/ illustrations by jeff zuschlag
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Welcome to the Random Student
Interview, where there's plenty
of alcohol, porn and illegal activ-
ity.
What are you doing on Saturdays
now that there aren't any football
games?
Well most Saturdays I sleep in, head
to the gym for an hour or two and
then I'll do some work before going
out - usually dinner with some
friends and then out to some clubs
or bars.
Touch4. Do you have a hot date or
something?
More like Ijust came from a really
gross one.
Ew. Although I'd normally not
ask you this,because truly I don't
think I want to know, this is the
RSI... so ... what happened?
(Laughs) It wasn't really a date.
More like a conversation that
included bad breath and hand
germs.
You actually go to the gym! You,
literally look like you have the
metabolism ofa4thgrader.
(Laughs) Every day! .
I'm impressed. But um, why do
you smell like alcohol?
'Cause I've been drinking, duh.
On a Thursday at 1p.m.? Getting
into the game early, I see. I like
where your head's at. Got any
more?
It helps me talk more in my discus-
sion class.
Then I'mnot surprised you're
agreeing to talk to me now!
I'm totally messing with you. I
just used some mouthwash and
Purell-ed my hands. It's a deadly
combo.
Oh, a"conversation?" That's
what we're calling it, OK. What
do youthink of SOPA?
To be honest, I can't say that I am
fully aware of every single stipula-
tion within the legislation.
Yeah, um, me either. That's why
I'm asking you. That was a very
eloquent answer, by the way.
But I can certainly say that I am
not in favor of it. In general, I am
against government censorship.
People describe these "slippery
slopes," and I think censoringthe
Internet can send us falling.
Well, what if you like to watch
porn?
Then you should have every right
to do that. Recently, there have
been issues with X-rated material
being watched in public, which
I think can be regulated, but if
someone wants to watch porn in
the privacy of their own home,
the government should have no
right to tell them no.
I agree! It's no different than
streaming Netflix. What about
illegally downloading music?
I don't illegally download music.
With YouTube, it's all free any-
way.
I illegally download music all the
time.
I just don't seea reason to.
I don't want to pay iTunes for it.
I don't pay iTunes for it; I just watch
it on YouTube.
Ah, butwhat happens whenyou
leave your computer?
If I love a.song enough, I'll pay for
it, so I can put it on my iPod.
YouTube is like your taste tester.
I guess. The 30-second clip that.
iTunes gives you is kind of stupid. I
can see the whole thing somewhere
else.
It's so stupid. It doesn't even give
you the good parts of the song.
Yeah, I think it's more to make sure
you're buying the song you want.
I think you're right, my B. Well,
hopefully you'll still be allowed
to watch porn considering your
date didn't work out.
- Jake is an LSA sophomore
he tension on the Diag was so
* palpable it seemed to tighten
the slack lines tied to trees
surrounding the horrifying
display. Pictures of suppos-
edly aborted fetuses werejuxtaposed next
to the graphic, blown-up pictures of Holo-
caust victims, the body of a dead African
child and a bolded textbook definition of
genocide.
As a proud pro-choicer, I went home to
change into my stylishly cut "I Stand With
Planned Parenthood" American Apparel
t-shirt, crafting a scathing opinion piece in
my head to write for The Michigan Daily. I
loudly ridiculed the pro-lifers, whom I char-
acterized as having "crazy eyes," with my
friends and huffed and puffed and worst of
all I dismissed the students huddled around
tables on the edge of the Diag, so frustrated
they weren't being heard that they enlisted
full color graphics that screamed.
At the time it seemed like the pro-lifers
were seriously screwing themselves over.
But I do remember seeing one young
woman, a student, standing nervously
behind the display, pro-life pamphlets in
hand. I wish I had talked to her, instead of
openly laughing at what I perceived at the
time to be really poor activism.
So months after the inflammatory dis-
play, just in time for the 39th anniversary of
Roe v. Wade, I visited the group behind the
Genocide Awareness Project - the Univer-
sity of Michigan Students for Life.
To some extent I got what I expected.
Some of the students I talked to described.
abortion as murder, genocide or killing
babies, and they referred to the clinics as
"abortion mills."
But on the other hand, the students were
rational and passionate, quick with statis-
tics. These were students accustomed to
defending their position.
LSA junior Carmen Allen, the articulate
president of Students for Life, gained noto-
riety after she helped bring the Genocide
Awareness Project to campus. When her
classmates realized she was the fiercely
pro-life Carmen who helped organize the
controversial display, she said she felt huge
walls go up in classes.
"When you do something like that, it's
one easy step to become a name instead of a
number," Allen said.
Wearing a controversial belief on your
sleeve isn't always going to win you friends.
Allen recalled one time when she was
standing in Liberty Plaza with a piece of
duct tape over her mouth to represent the
voices of "the unborn" and a pro-choice
man told her she didn't have a right to talk
about women's rights.
I know what it's like to be screamed at for
your beliefs. Standing behind a pro-choice
booth in the sweltering July heat, I bit my
tongue while one old man screamed, "How
can you as a young woman support killing
children?" I reached for one of my statis-
tics, for one of those talking points to refute
him. But it's not easy to think clearly when
someone is personally attacking you, using
your own identity to silence you.
Allen says she grew up vaguely pro-life
in line with her Christian beliefs, but when
she came to college, she finally understood
where her beliefs originated after someone
close to her had an abortion.
"It became more personal - it's not text-
book anymore," she said. "It's not even a
debate or an argument anymore. It's, 'Oh
my gosh, I know what this is.'"
I found this to be a trend among most of
the Students for Life members - they had
come to these political decisions on their
own. LSA junior Anna Paone said she came
from a liberal family and didn't become
When Allen's
classmates realized
she was fiercel y pro -
li fe, she said she! felt
huge walls go up.
pro-life until right before she came to col-
lege. Allen said her family warned her that
being too involved in the pro-life movement
could mar her chances for employment.
. As Allen recalled her father telling her
to get back to "real stuff," I could hear my
own father sighing in exasperation when he
looked at my lefty, activist-heavy resume.
The same condescending tone, the same
dismissiveness of youthful engagement.
Watching people trash flyers for a cause
that keeps you awake at night.
I was surprised by how relaxed the atmo-
Stepping across the protest line:
\1
-11
?IR0OCIi'
What happens when a pro-choice student
attends a Students for Life meeting.
by Cassie Balfour
sphere at the meeting was. I'd pictured the
students behind the Genocide Awareness
Project display as fervent and self-righteous
- almost foaming at the mouth. But every-
one was casual, breaking into committees
to discuss an upcoming fundraising gala.
LSA sophomore and Students for Life
public relations chair Joe Lipa said the
reason he's pro-life is because he wants to
"save lives."
When Lipa described how Students for
Life held vigils outside of a local Planned
Parenthood buildings and handed out pam-
phlets containing information on the "truth
about abortion," I had to stifle an instinctu-
al groan. But it was impossible not be taken
in by an engrossing story Lipa told about
witnessing one woman forgo an abortion.
More important than the story was how
he told it.
"It took place in the dead of winter," Lipa
started with a flourish.
Breathlessly, he explained how he and
another student saw the anxious young man
whose girlfriend was planning on having
an abortion smoking outside the Planned
Parenthood facility. How after talking to
the two representatives, the young man
resolved to change his girlfriend's mind.
How the girl knelt to pray in the snow. How
the girlfriend, as Lipa told it, changed her
mind.
And though I don't thinka woman should
be talked into or out of what I view as a pri-
vate choice, I was taken in. My instincts
told me to question the story. I thought that
it was too perfect, but the cynic in me was
quieted by Lipa's smile. This was the story
that he probably drew on when people were
telling him again and again to shut up.
Which brings me back to the Genocide
Awareness Project situation.
It got us angry, but it also got us talking
(albeit in raised voices) about a topic that
for a lot of people is just another item on the
political agenda. The abortion issue period-
ically garners national attention, like when
pro-lifers attempted to defund Planned
Parenthoods across the country last year.
But in an era when people are constantly
bemoaning the lack of student activism,
look no further than the intense, ongoing
pro-life/pro-choice debate, which is less
about politics and more about deciding
what we value as a society.
I can't pinpoint exactly when I became
pro-choice. But it was probably around the
time I was peer pressured to sign a virgin-
ity pledge in my eighth grade health class,
when I realized my body was public prop-
erty and my sister's, my friends' and my
choices were fodder for national debate.
It's pretty easy to be pro-choice at the
University. I may have been raised in the,
religious west side of the state, but I grew
up in East Quad, where being pro-choice
is as ubiquitous as the Bob Marley posters
pasted on dorm room walls.
It's easy to get trapped in an echo cham-
ber when you think the Truth belongs to
your side. And even if we can't agree, wev.
can occasionally step across the protest
line, stop the chanting, and listen.