Opinion

JENNIFER CALFAS

EDITOR IN CHIEF

AARICA MARSH 

and DEREK WOLFE 

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS

LEV FACHER

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

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.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Exploiting social justice

N

o more please, I’ve had 
enough social justice for 
this week. I can’t consume 

another bite.

Social 
justice 

warriors are easy 
to find at the Uni-
versity. 
They’re 

big-hearted oppo-
nents of systemic 
oppression, who 
chase out discrim-
ination wherever 
it crops up and 
strive to uphold 
the 
politically 

correct. They are 
idealistic (never a 
bad trait) and heartfelt, but they have 
become a gang of extremists.

The nickname itself isn’t my 

own creation. It’s definition isn’t 
concrete, but it’s a term being widely 
used to characterize the modern 
do-gooder and was just added to 
Oxford Dictionaries. Nothing is ever 
progressive enough in the eyes of a 
social justice warrior. Masses of these 
pro-everything protesters fight for 
social justice with the dedication and 
energy of soldiers on the front line.

The collective passion for social 

fairness has been growing rapidly and 
unconfined to the point of backlash — 
it’s too much of a good thing. There’s 
no function of the social justice 
movement that discriminates between 
serious issues and the absurd. 

There are real issues at the Univer-

sity, where the pursuit of social justice 
brings about solutions. In 2014, pro-
tests by the Black Student Union led to 
negotiations with University adminis-
trators to address campus diversity. I 
don’t need to congratulate the BSU for 
the progress it’s achieved, but it stands 
out as an act of effective activism.

Used in this way, calls for social 

justice can be a constructive element 
of 
campus 
discourse. 
However, 

tireless efforts to sustain political 
correctness, inclusion and a safe space 
for everyone, sometimes get applied to 

other topics of discussion.

In the past week, two articles 

about meat have been published in 
this paper. While I personally never 
gazed across a dining hall menu for 
intrigue, perhaps I was wrong not 
to do so. The first meat-gate column 
and the subsequent response each 
garnered vocal discussion on social 
media. Though it would lack tact to 
reference any particular student’s 
thoughts on meat-gate, it was a sub-
ject plenty of social justice warriors 
were ready to battle over.

The details of meat-gate aren’t 

worth delving into, but it remains a 
prime example of how social justice 
is overplayed.

Pro-meat, anti-meat — it doesn’t 

matter which stance to take because 
it’s 
an 
inane 
and 
meaningless 

conversation altogether. If these 
are the types of discussions we as a 
student body decide to have in public 
forum, then we should remember to 
take breaks to laugh at ourselves.

The core values of social justice 

— 
inclusion, 
diversity, 
freedom 

from discrimination, etc. — are 
important issues, and should be 
taken seriously. Yet, they have been 
applied in ridiculous circumstances 
that undermine the reputation of the 
entire social movement.

Almost by definition, social jus-

tice warriors are emphatically lib-
eral. After all, expanding social 
programs and the welfare state are 
classic liberal ideas. However, the 
needless policing of political cor-
rectness, on social media in partic-
ular, by social justice warriors, in 
social media in particular, has gone 
too far. A movement meant to unite 
is causing diversion, and social jus-
tice warriors are making the left 
wing of politics look bad.

In the same way that millions of 

Americans are moderate voters, most 
people are moral moderates as well. 
Most people aren’t homophobes or 
racists, but they aren’t archangels 
of social justice either. None of us 

can expect to always be perfectly 
refined in our social lives, and we 
all carry prejudices. Failing to 
acknowledge these truisms grinds 
any 
conversations 
about 
social 

rights and justice to a halt, because 
prescriptive social justice wants 
humans to act as something they can 
never be — creatures without bias.

Social justice warriors have proud-

ly claimed their place at the helm of 
human morality, taking offense with 
any action that hasn’t been bleached 
clean by political correctness. Life on 
campus is sometimes like an episode 
of South Park. But not everything 
needs to be examined through a crys-
tallized lens of social idealism.

Kanye gifted us with the wisdom-

bomb “the art ain’t always gonna 
be polite” during his vanguard 
acceptance speech at this year’s 
VMAs. And indeed, it’s interesting 
to imagine what the landscape of art 
might look like if someone tried to 
restrict Kanye’s choice of words.

Social 
justice 
is 
clearly 
a 

positive and important cause, but 
in a microcosm like Ann Arbor’s 
University 
community, 
it 
has, 

ironically, become somewhat difficult 
to practice self-expression without 
having to consider the infinite ways 
words might be misinterpreted to 
betray the intended meaning. A bland 
statement of opinion can ignite a fiery 
debate about dining hall menus.

We should forgive people who 

cause offense or ignorance in our 
communities today, not digitally 
tar and feather them with Facebook 
comments. It needs to be accepted 
that people aren’t perfect, and we 
should stop heralding social justice 
buzzwords to such extreme lengths. 
If the tendency to force-feed political 
correctness goes unchecked, we might 
start suffocating our collective ability 
to have any meaningful conversation 
at all.

— Tyler Scott can be reached 

at tylscott@umich.edu.

TYLER
SCOTT
Treat yo’ self

M

aybe it was Princess Barbie or 
Ballerina Barbie who prompted 
me to cast my eyes downward to 

my stomach only to realize 
that it was no longer as flat 
or toned as I remembered. 
Maybe 
I 
was 
10? 
 

Maybe sooner?

Ten-year-old 
Megan 

didn’t have to worry too 
much about having a stom-
ach like Lizzy McGuire; 
she was more preoccupied 
singing an off-key “What 
Dreams Are Made Of.” My 
first exposure to the word 
“diet” was when a class-
mate’s mother packed her a “Diet Sunny-D” 
for lunch.

But with the Kardashians ruling social media 

and the pressures on young girls to always look 
their best in today’s society, it’s hard not to envi-
sion a future made up of anorexic supermodels 
and super-super-super skinny jeans. However, 
there’s a glimmer of hope for confidence, and 
her name is Amy Schumer.

Weight has been a problem that, for most 

of my life, I’ve struggled with — even if I’ve 
learned how to expertly hide my insecurities. 
If a conversation involving weight comes up, I 
usually joke that my stomach currently looks 
like the topographic map of Colorado. The 
comment receives some laughs, distracting 
me from the fact that I’ve just unintentionally 
put myself down. I’ve never felt very comfort-
able in my body for long, constantly fluctuating 
between the “fat” and “skinny” standards, but 
never staying on one long enough to accept my 
weight and move on. With a wardrobe consist-
ing of jeans bigger and smaller than my current 
size and shirts capable of stretching easily, it’s 
hard not to look at the numbers.

Last year, the pressures of beginning my 

time as a University student in difficult courses 
created low confidence in my academic abili-
ties, which led to eating habits ranging from 
skipping meals to midnight pantry visits for 
a fourth meal. I was paranoid of gaining the 
dreaded “freshman 15” and letting the number 
on the tag multiply as my meals fluctuated.

I stayed in that funk for almost an entire 

year until a fellow resident commented that I 
reminded him or her of Amy Schumer because 
of my blasé comments about my own size. At the 
time, I thanked him or her for picking my favor-
ite comedian to represent me and moved back 
to working on my bowl of sliced pineapple. But 
recently, Schumer has drawn national attention 
for her open and honest comments about her 
relationship with weight (I’m not talking about 
that Kardashian comment).

My younger sister, Kellen, remains at a size 

0 despite the amount of food she practically 

inhales. (I used to have a theory that our stom-
achs were swapped when we were younger.) 
So naturally, shopping was always hard on my 
self-image when we inevitably headed to the 
dressing rooms. Outfits I found beautiful would 
often not fit, and almost anything Kellen tried 
on would result in a solid “yes” as my “no” pile 
steadily grew. I was often unable to find cloth-
ing that both flattered my body and did justice 
to my personality. Wanting to look as fashion-
ably savvy as the models on those magazines 
but without the body for those clothes, I felt 
like I should fix myself first rather than go up 
that size or two. Most times, I pulled my sweat-
er back around my shoulders and slid down 
the mirror of the dressing room, plastering on 
a fake smile to tell the assistant, “Nope, didn’t 
find anything.”

The first steps toward fixing this problem for 

future generations has begun with comedians 
like Amy Schumer and Rebel Wilson paving 
the way for style and clothing tailored to fit the 
person, not the image.

In a serious moment not typical of the criti-

cally acclaimed comedian, Schumer becomes 
emotional, recalling her struggles with self-
image in Hollywood and finding clothing that 
made her feel as confident on the outside as 
she was on the inside. That is, until the “Train-
wreck” star met Leesa Evans on the set, who 
dressed Schumer in more flattering clothes 
tailored to compliment her looks, not hide 
them. Soon, she felt like a professional, beau-
tiful young woman and regained the humor 
she’s most well known for, referring to her body 
recently as a “lava lamp.”

Yeah, maybe now I can see the similarities. 
Nowadays, I still find myself looking down 

at my thighs in those tiny lecture seats think-
ing “Shit, guys. What’s the deal?! You were sup-
posed to stay in those size fives!” And though 
these thoughts are ever-present, the humor 
wipes away insecurities as I find the ability to 
laugh at myself in a positive, healthy way.

Self-image is a problem in today’s progres-

sive society that won’t be fixed by one comedi-
an admitting to her struggles with weight, and 
I know that. Though we can’t very well expose 
children to the Schumer’s skits, we could do 
well to teach confidence and self-respect to 
young girls, using Schumer as the face behind 
the revolution, not those that promote weight 
loss and plasticity. The focus should shift 
toward being healthy and feeling good on the 
inside. You can run a mile a day and eat salad 
all you want, but sometimes, you’ve just gotta 
treat yo’ self.

And Amy’s right. Khloe should learn to 

compromise and eat a bagel every once and a 
while, too.

— Megan Mitchell can be 

reached at umeg@umich.edu.

MEGAN
MITCHELL

Ending the stigma around abortion

STUDENTS FOR CHOICE | VIEWPOINT

Despite 
the 
deep 
political 

entrenchment of the abortion debate 
in American politics, we never seem 
to talk about the fact that abortion 
is a common experience among 
American women. According to 
2008 research from the Guttmacher 
Institute, one in three women* will 
have an abortion in her lifetime. 
Yet, we don’t talk about abortion: 
We legislate it, regulate it, define 
what it is and isn’t and what it 
should and shouldn’t mean.

Rather than being looked at as an 

individual experience, abortion is 
too often examined and dissected 
through a framework of politics and 
cultural standards that trap women 
who have had abortions in a double 
bind. When a woman feels relieved 
after having an abortion, she is vili-
fied as an individual, then treated 
as the representative for all women 
who have had abortion, accused 
as being heartless or accused of 
repressing her “true feelings.” On 
the other hand, if a woman expe-
riences even the slightest regret 
of her abortion, anti-choice activ-
ists will use her narrative as a tool 
to advance restrictive policies that 
police women’s access to abortion 
care. In the midst of this political 
trivialization and cultural classi-
fication of a person’s lived experi-
ence, individuals’ abortion stories 
are effectively silenced.

Stigma exists on all levels: indi-

vidual, community, institutional, 
legal and in the media. This stigma 
is pervasive, as we can identify it 
at all of these levels. For example, 
myths of the danger of abortion 
circulate and women who have had 

abortions experience shame, guilt, 
marginalization and are labeled 
either victims or promiscuous. 
Likewise, abortion providers are 
stigmatized. Research conducted at 
this very university has linked con-
sciousness clauses — which permit 
doctors to opt out of performing 
abortions — to the stigmatization 
of abortion providers who are often 
stereotyped as incompetent physi-
cians. Providers may also fear for 
their physical safety as a result of 
the stigma: Since 1993, eight clinic 
workers have been murdered.

As you can see, this stigma 

affects people’s lives. These people 
are women in our University 
community. One in three isn’t just 
a statistic; it’s a representation of 
all the women in your life who have 
had abortions but have not been 
given the opportunity to talk about 
them. Every time an anti-abortion 
law is proposed and every time a 
group of anti-abortion activists 
stands in front of a clinic entrance 
with signs that shame individuals 
who have abortions, we’re shaming 
one-third of our nation’s women for 
a choice that they made about their 
lives. This shaming effectively tells 
women who have had abortions — 
and women who are going to have 
abortions — that their experience 
is invalid, and that the choice 
they made about their pregnancy 
 

is shameful.

It’s our duty as young people who 

care about the safety and wellbeing 
of our community to amplify the 
voices of individuals who have 
had abortions by creating a space 
for them to share their stories 

free of the shame and stigma that 
currently 
surrounds 
abortion. 

We’re reclaiming our voices and 
telling our stories so that women 
around the nation can tell theirs, 
too. Not only do we hope that 
the sharing of personal abortion 
stories finally puts an end to the 
stigmatization of abortion, but we 
hope that it mobilizes abortion 
supporters to advocate for safe, 
legal and affordable abortion care.

This Thursday, Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. 

in the Anderson Room of the Michi-
gan Union, Students for Choice will 
be holding its third annual Abortion 
Speak Out. The Abortion Speak Out 
is an opportunity for members of 
our campus community who have 
had an abortion(s) to share their 
experience in a safe, supportive and 
judgment-free space. Afterward, the 
Speak Out will be open for anyone to 
share their personal abortion story. 
While we encourage all University 
community members to join us in 
listening to the stories of friends and 
peers, only individuals who have 
had an abortion will have the oppor-
tunity to speak.

It’s 
time 
to 
come 
together 
 

to end the stigma and shame 
 

around abortion.

*We recognize that not all people 

who have abortions identify as 
women; transgender men and gender-
nonconforming individuals also opt 
to terminate pregnancies. However, 
available 
statistical 
data 
only 

measures the prevalence of abortion 
among cisgender women.

Wrriten by LSA junior Meg Rattani 

on behalf of Students for Choice.

Revitalizing nationalism

A

s a collective, Americans have grown 
less patriotic. In the last 16 years, the 
amount of “very proud” American citi-

zens has dropped from 77 
percent to 56 percent.

Americans have openly 

admitted to the drop in 
national pride. According 
to a poll by The Atlantic 
and The Aspen Institute 
for the Aspen Ideas Festi-
val, “More than two-thirds 
(of the public) believe that 
American 
values 
have 

declined.” 
Reportedly, 

these values — freedom of 
speech and individual lib-
erties, equality under the law and free enter-
prise — are seen to be deteriorating, as many 
believe these values only apply to the wealth-
iest Americans. Specifically, the majority of 
Americans “believe that an obsession with 
money and material things, the influence of 
money in politics” have weakened core val-
ues, making them relevant to individuals of 
the highest socioeconomic status.

Our lost national pride is likely due to a 

general distaste for our political leaders and 
institutions. Approximately 64 percent of 
Americans don’t want their kids pursuing a 
political career, according to Gallup. Similarly, 
people’s trust in Congress ranks 16th (last) 
behind institutions like churches, the military, 
public schools, etc. Furthermore, most teens 
don’t want to grow up to be president. In gen-
eral, we’ve become disattisfied with American 
representatives, institutions and values.

The proliferation of media sites constantly 

covering power holders in Washington, D.C., 
has influenced this general decline in national-
ism. With the rise of digital media sites, people 
have more exposure to news events than ever 
before. This coverage often unveils corruption, 

deceit, and ignorance of and general disappoint-
ment in our political leaders. While there isn’t 
necessarily more corruption or malfeasance 
today than before, there are more organizations 
attempting to hold our leaders accountable. 

As a growing body of journalists uncovers 

unfortunate truths within our political 
leadership and institutions, Americans have 
turned to themselves for inspiration. About 
70 percent of Americans have stated that they 
can get anything they want in this country if 
they work hard enough. More depressing, 
though, 
is 
that 
Americans’ 
personal 

narcissism has climbed to higher rates.

According to a cross-temporal study of Ameri-

can college students, two-thirds of students’ nar-
cissism scores (measured by psychologists) have 
risen 30 percent over the mean since 1982. Addi-
tionally, a Pew Research Center poll found that 
59 percent of millennials admitted to being more 
self-absorbed than previous generations.

Considering the decline in nationalism and 

trust in political leadership, it should come 
as no surprise that Americans believe them-
selves to be more important than previous 
generations. Who else can they trust but their 
families, friends and selves?

Unfortunately, the decline in nationalism 

and rising individualist mentality is corre-
lated with lower civic participation. Since 
people are less dedicated to the goals of 
America, they’re less willing to volunteer or 
make sacrifices for their country. Over the 
past few decades, volunteerism has declined 
significantly. According to Robert Putnam, 
participation in the Boy Scouts has dropped 
26 percent since 1970, and activity in the Red 
Cross has fallen 61 percent in the same time 
period. While youth involvement rose sig-
nificantly just after 9/11, the general trend of 
decreased volunteerism has remained consis-
tent, as of 2014, according to the U.S. News & 
World Report.

SAM
COREY

Curiously, these stats raise an 

interesting question: Should the 
increased exposure of political cor-
ruption influence us to become less 
appreciative of (and therefore less 
service-oriented toward) America?

Personally, I don’t think so.
The fact that America is not the 

idealistic nation we want to reside 
in now doesn’t mean it can’t be more 
like that place tomorrow. In fact, our 
recognition of problems and failures 
in our political system provide us all 
with an opportunity to make it bet-
ter. These circumstances are par-
ticularly inspiring in a democratic 
society. The identification of our 
opportunities should galvanize us to 
be more grateful for America; more 
thankful, more selfless and more 
service-oriented for what we have 
and for understanding our possibil-
ity to become better nationally and 

individually.

One particular satirical news 

anchor has adopted this think-
ing. Jon Stewart, the former host of 
“The Daily Show” and an avid critic 
of American politics and the dirty 
incentives that drive our political 
leaders, has harped on the impor-
tance of civic duty. He believes 
national service, as long as it doesn’t 
stray from one’s critical understand-
ing of our leaders’ goals and one’s per-
sonal goals, is beneficial for everyone.

In other words, he believes we 

should be critically proud of America 
for what is has given us, and for what 
it can give us, because we are citi-
zens with the capacity to change it. 
That opportunity implicitly demands 
responsibility from everyone con-
tinuing to question our leaders and 
then improving America’s standing 
in our world. In this context, former 

president John F. Kennedy’s words 
ring true: “Ask not what your country 
can do for you — ask what you can do 
for your country.”

And while it’s necessary to rec-

ognize the possible xenophobia, 
discrimination and genocide that 
groupthink patriotism creates, a 
strong dose of critical nationalism 
provides our country and our com-
munities with a stronger civil society 
and a more participatory democ-
racy. In rather obvious terms, it’s 
beneficial for everyone to dedicate 
themselves to their fellow citizens. 
Without doing so, we’ll continue 
losing a sense of selflessness, a duty 
to something greater and a com-
mitment to giving back to what and 
whom we’ve benefited from. 

— Sam Corey can be reached 

at samcorey@umich.edu.

