Responses to Cosby allegations shape rape culture

News that legendary comic and self-proclaimed family man Bill Cosby has been accused of raping numerous women should not be easily forgotten. When a beloved celebrity commits such an egregious act, it should be enough to end that celebrity’s career. This has not been the case for Bill Cosby, however, nor has it been with Woody Allen or John Travolta. There are countless celebrities whose alleged crimes have been forgotten in lieu of their public successes.

Celebrity status should not be a cover for crimes like rape. When celebrities are absolved of their rape crimes, it gives the impression that rape is something that can be forgiven and forgotten. This creates a culture where rape is seen as something normal.

The most vocal of Bill Cosby’s alleged victims, Barbara Bowman, first brought her case to the public eye eight years ago. It has taken eight years for this woman’s attack to finally be taken seriously by the media. Since 2005, numerous women have made similar claims to Bowman and Cosby has repeatedly denied them all. “Innocent until proven guilty” is the law, and because the allegations have been settled outside of court, there is no way for the public to know whether or not these allegations are true.

Similar stories have played out with different male celebrities in the past. Celebrity allegedly rapes woman, case is settled out of court or said celebrity does time for the crime. Said celebrity goes on to continue his successful career and the public essentially forgets the incident altogether.

Celebrities like John Travolta, Mike Tyson and Woody Allen have all been accused of sexual assault against on e or many men and women. Travolta waits a scheduled court date with his alleged victims. Tyson served a prison sentence for his crime. While the case against Allen was dropped, his alleged victim and adopted daughter Dylan Farrow stands by her story.

When thinking about these celebrities, one might associate them with adjectives like “talented,” “handsome” or “successful.” “Alleged rapist,” however, is probably not the first phrase that comes to mind. That is where the problem lies––these individuals are famous, but we cannot let their celebrity cloud our judgment.

If someone in your community––even one whom you were close with––was accused of the same crimes as these celebrities, surely you would see the accused person differently than you had seen him or her before. We must treat these celebrities the same way that any other individual would be treated.

The treatment of these issues has an enormous effect on our society’s perception of rape and this cannot be underestimated. In our culture, the first question a person is asked when they are raped is more frequently “What were you wearing?” than not. Anonymous Internet users think it is OK to use threats of rape to silence women who are vocal feminists.

We cannot immediately control the preponderance of rape culture. Choosing which celebrities to support critically and commercially, however, is something that we can control. When celebrities commit or are accused of sexual assault, these accusations should be remembered. When these crimes are forgotten, their silent acceptance becomes a societal acceptance of all rape crimes.

As legal marijuana use blazes the country, political stakes have never been higher

With recreational marijuana use newly legalized in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia, it is time to reevaluate society’s view of marijuana use. Recreational marijuana is now a viable political platform and the future will only see more states legalize recreational marijuana use. Federal laws hold marijuana possession as a misdemeanor. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, medical marijuana has been legalized in 22 states in the past 18 years. Only two states had legalized the recreational use of marijuana in 2012 and in two years, that number doubled.

Discussions about legalizing recreational marijuana have only recently entered the political sphere, let alone been advocated for or voted on. Along with the rise in legalization, the increase in favorable public opinion is astounding and cannot be ignored by its opponents.

Without a doubt, the elections in 2016 will see even more states legalize recreational marijuana use. The cities of Portland and South Portland, Maine have both become “test communities” for recreational cannabis, and signatures are already being collected for the issue to appear on the 2016 state ballot. Massachusetts, Nevada and Arizona have all started similar campaigns, while Delaware, Rhode Island and New Mexico have each attempted to pass legislation to allow recreational marijuana––only losing by slim margins.

The case for the legalization of recreational marijuana is a strong one. One need not be reminded that while tens of thousands of Americans die each year from alcohol poisoning and hundreds of thousands die as a result of tobacco smoking, there have been no recorded cases of death due to overdose of marijuana.

Many of the arguments against legalized marijuana have been overwhelmingly debunked. Most anti-drug public service announcements rely on the argument that marijuana is a gateway drug to harder drugs like cocaine and heroin. A 2010 study by the University of New Hampshire showed, however, that this is not the case.

While many are worried that the legalization of marijuana would cause more automobile incidents due to people driving while high, this seems to be an unfounded concern. After Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, highway fatalities for the next year actually reached near-historic lows.

Now that recreational marijuana is becoming a hot topic in state legislation, the fight must focus on protecting those who can legally use it. There has been significant controversy over employees being fired for failing work-administered drug tests in states where marijuana use is legal. Military personnel are prohibited from smoking marijuana in states where it is legalized and cadets are given frequent drug tests to enforce this. Neither of these groups should be punished for participating in a perfectly legal act.

Just as same-sex marriage was also once considered to be politically taboo, recreational marijuana use was once seen as a fringe-group issue. If a politician were to vocally support same-sex marriage less than 20 years ago, it would have been considered political suicide. The same change in opinion is going to take over regarding marijuana use. As the country watches the continued success of states that have legalized recreational marijuana, it will gain popularity and be passed in even more states.

Fast food companies: America’s new leading health advocates?

When junk food companies utilize advertising campaigns that promote healthy living, something isn’t right. Multiple advertising campaigns from big companies like Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s and McDonald’s use America’s obsession with healthy living as a marketing tool in their advertising campaigns—most of which are targeted toward children. If junk food companies are the ones teaching kids how to be healthy, it will inevitably give kids false ideas about healthy eating. Ronald McDonald––the red-haired, constantly cheerful, utterly terrifying brand character for the McDonald’s Corporation––is also its "ambassador for an active, balanced lifestyle," according to McDonald's former chief creative officer Marlena Peleo-Lazar. McDonald’s has been sued in the past due to claims that the company hid the health risks associated with its food, yet this did not appear to be an issue when Ronald McDonald toured schools to promote exercise. Clearly, Ronald McDonald has proven himself to be the country’s best resource for knowledge on leading a healthy life.

A recent campaign from the makers of Dr. Pepper called “Let’s Play” aims to encourage kids to exercise by constructing neighborhood playgrounds. While building playgrounds for children is certainly a great marketing strategy, putting the emphasis on exercising away calories instead of eating healthily slyly diverts attention from the fact that the message is coming from a soda company. A single soda can contains nearly 10 teaspoons of sugar, significantly more than the six teaspoons of sugar that the United States Department of Agriculture recommends an adult should consume daily, let alone a child.

Today’s children are learning more about healthy eating habits from junk food commercials than school. While the average American child watches more than four hours of television per day, only 29 percent of high school-aged Americans participate in daily physical education classes. Clearly, our school system is lacking in health education and has been for some time now. It is morally wrong for fast food and junk food companies to step in where schools should be leading.

Food companies that promote healthy eating and exercise have shown that they cannot be trusted. “Healthy living” campaigns have come from so many different junk food and fast food companies that it is unlikely that they all centered their campaigns on this issue by coincidence. Promoting healthy eating has become nothing more than another successful advertising trend.

Everyone knows the television commercials for breakfast cereals like Trix and Lucky Charms. These cereals are overwhelmingly high in sugar, yet each of these commercials end with a shot of a cereal bowl next to a glass of orange juice and the message, “Part of a balanced breakfast.” In today’s advertising climate, this claim seems tame, if not believable.

Cartoon characters should not be teaching kids what healthy eating is. With so many children experiencing childhood obesity, do we really want Ronald McDonald and Tony the Tiger teaching our kids how to be healthy? The healthy eating campaigns seen on television commercials exploit children for their lack of knowledge of healthy eating, as well as adults who are obsessed with America’s weight-loss-obsessed culture and are taught to be fearful of every calorie that they and their children consume.

Costly postgraduate education promotes classism rather than social mobility

Higher education is an expected privilege for many young adults. Most college-aged individuals can say that they have at least considered continuing their education past their bachelor’s degree. Mulling this over requires students to consider how mentally capable they are of going to school for another two-to-four years and whether they are ready to stop being a student and enter the workforce. On the long list of things to consider regarding what to do after college, the costs of applying for further education should be low on that list. The high combined costs of applying to graduate schools, however, has created a system that favors the rich and takes away the possibility of economic mobility for those who cannot afford it.

For students who live in the United States, taking the GMAT costs $250, the LSAT $170 and the GRE $160. While many universities offer fee waivers to those who cannot afford to apply, there are still many costs that come with applying for grad schools. Applicants are responsible for financing everything; from the books––which can cost between $30-$80––to the study courses they take––between $500-$2,500––to the $30 cost of sending their scores to a single additional school.

All of these costs are undertaken with the risk that should the applicant do poorly on this one exam, they could have to pay these costs again. These costs may seem small individually but when combined, they can be very steep.

Test like the LSATs, GREs and GMATs are not fail-safe tests of intellectual ability. Graduate and professional school tests favor those who have studied the best. Thus, those that do the best on these tests are able to pay for the best test-prep books and courses.

If you cannot afford to spend $2,500 on a test prep course such as one offered by Kaplan or The Princeton Review, then you are already behind. These companies have become so knowledgeable about different entrance exams that they guarantee that their students who take their course will do better than those who do not. Herein lies the inherent inequality of the application system.

People who come from low-income or middle-income households are already fighting a flawed system when they attend universities. They must devote a far greater percentage of their family’s income to their education than those who come from high-income households. Middle-income and low-income students should not be obligated to face these challenges as they apply for graduate and professional degree programs.

In the grand scheme of things, paying a few hundred dollars now should not be a big expense for someone who wants a career that requires further schooling. For a college student, however, a few hundred dollars means a lot, especially for those students who are financially independent. When the costs of preparing for entrance exams are so enormously high that only those who can afford better practice are guaranteed the best results, a corrupt system is created where only the richest can succeed.

“Pinkwashed” breast cancer campaigns alienating, unhelpful to many women

When breast cancer foundations first started in the 1970s, their goal was to bring awareness to the public about this “taboo” disease and to work together to find a cure. They have been successful in making breast cancer a public issue—so public that breast cancer awareness has become a product sold by every football team, grocery store and media outlet across the country. The breast cancer industry has become a deeply flawed, yet incredibly successful enterprise whose funds are being used in ways that no longer deserve support. Together, companies like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and the Avon Foundation make hundreds of millions of dollars each year, along with hundreds of smaller companies who also raise money for breast cancer research.

Despite the amazing financial success of these companies, the documentary film Pink Ribbons, Inc. reports that only about 15 percent of all the money raised is spent on researching prevention, and 5 percent is spent on researching environmental causes of breast cancer. Furthermore, the lack of coordination among competing foundations means that thousands of dollars are being spent by multiple organizations to fund needless repetition of the same research.

With so little money going toward research, it is hard to say where the rest of the funds are going. It is clear, however, that a great deal of money is being spent on campaigns that seek to raise “awareness” of breast cancer by placing the pink ribbon on everything from teddy bears to Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets. As the activist group Breast Cancer Action points out, many of the companies that stamp their products with pink ribbons and promise to donate to breast cancer foundations––such as Ford Motors, Yoplait and Avon Products, Inc.––are actually producing carcinogens themselves.

The pink ribbon sells the message of hope, survivorship and finding a cure. The truth of the matter is that many of those diagnosed with breast cancer will not live to become breast cancer survivors. According to American Cancer Society’s figures, a woman’s chance of getting breast cancer is about one in eight. This rate has only increased by roughly 10 percent since the 1940s.

When my aunt’s breast cancer progressed through the first stage all the way to the fourth––where the cancer spreads to other organs––she felt completely abandoned by the breast cancer movement. Every commercialized pink ribbon she saw was just another reminder that there was no hope of her becoming a breast cancer survivor. As the focus for her treatment turned to elongating her life, she and every other person in the later stages of breast cancer were dropped from the movement’s rhetoric of cheerfulness.

Cancer kills people. Most adults are aware of this, yet this is where breast cancer “awareness” campaigns fail. The problem is not that people don’t know about breast cancer or how to detect it—the movement has done an excellent job increasing women’s mammography rates in recent years. When these foundations place their pink ribbons on every piece of merchandise, however, their focus turns to commercialization rather than finding a cure.

Making breast cancer pink, pretty and feminine does not help find a cure. We should not support companies that exploit the pink ribbon while failing to truly support those suffering with breast cancer.

As Ferguson protests continue, lacking news coverage persists

Protests in Ferguson, Missouri have yet to cease since the deadly police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in August. Police have continued to meet the protests with the same overly-aggressive force that they used immediately following Brown’s death. The awful events in Ferguson could have brought about real change in our country. Because the media has underreported these continued acts of police brutality in Ferguson, however, we cannot reprimand the police officers that use their power to harm innocent people.

Over 12 arrests were made on the particularly tense night of Sept. 26., when multiple Ferguson residents took to Twitter to document instances of police brutality. On Sept. 28, eight people were arrested outside the Ferguson Police Department when their protest apparently turned violent. On Oct. 2, at least six people were arrested outside of the police department, including a female freelance journalist working for CNN.

Though the astonishing images of protesters being attacked by police with tear gas and rubber bullets are not as prevalent in recent protests, this does not mean that the story is over. Ferguson police continue to use force when no force is needed and side-step the law in order to make arrests under bogus conditions.

The protesters have shown again and again just how caring and united they are as a community; this makes hearing about these police brutalities all the more difficult. When the protests first started, few news outlets reported on the protester giving out free milk to those who had been shot with tear gas or the protesters cheering and dancing to keep momentum going.

Similarly, the media has failed to adequately report on the protest that occurred Saturday Oct. 4  at the St. Louis Symphony. Crowd members stood at intermission to sing a requiem for Michael Brown and displayed banners with slogans like “Black Lives Matter” in a beautiful display of continuing solidarity.

If you are getting tired of hearing about Ferguson, then you should definitely be reading this. The events in Ferguson are a microcosm of the countless threats to equality and safety that African-Americans face on a daily basis. This is a story that we cannot lose to our fast-paced news cycle and low attention spans.

Ferguson was––and still is––a story of race, despite how some conservative networks have framed it. Eighty-six percent of police stops and 92 percent of police searches are made on black individuals despite the fact that the population of Ferguson is only 67 percent black, according to the 2010 United States Census. Given that black residents of this town face constant harassment from police while white residents do not, it is difficult to argue that this story is not about race.

The passion and publicity of the protests that followed Brown’s death led many to believe that Americans had finally recognized just how dire the climate of racial tensions has become. Some even called Ferguson the beginning of a second wave of the civil rights movement—a wave that would finally address racial inequalities in our society.

In order to face the issues of race brought up by the shooting of Michael Brown, the media must continue to inform the public of the injustices being faced by the protesters in Ferguson.

Geneseo pledges funds for student projects with Global Initiative

With Geneseo’s admittance into the Clinton Global Initiative, the school pledges to spend $10,000 annually toward funding student projects. These projects are designed to positively affect global economic development, health and climate change. The Clinton Global Initiative is part of the Clinton Foundation, a non-profit company created by former President Bill Clinton, which aims to address pressing global issues. Membership into the Clinton Global Initiative gives Geneseo students a chance to gain further funding by participating in the Clinton Foundation’s yearly University Conference.

Interim President Carol Long and the Director of the Center for Inquiry, Discovery and Development Cynthia Oswald filled out Geneseo’s application for admittance into the Global Initiative.

“Our primary reason for wanting to get into the Clinton Global Initiative was that even though we have programs that fund student projects and research, once these projects are finished, we don’t have place to go with them,” Long said.

With the Clinton Global Initiative’s requirement that $10,000 be allocated toward student project funding comes the stipulation that $5,000 may be used for traveling expenses, while the other $5,000 must be directly allocated to funding student projects.

One such program that funds student projects is the Center for Inquiry, Discovery and Development. Current projects from the CIDD include a learning program targeted toward low-income children at a free preschool in Mount Morris, New York and the Geneseo Valley Cooperative, an off-campus housing program encouraging collaboration between Geneseo students and residents. Based on the strength of the projects currently receiving funding from CIDD, Oswald and Long are certain that Geneseo students will be accepted to participate at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative University Conference.

“What this does for us is it makes Geneseo part of a network of universities that carry out transformational projects that are making a significant impact on the world,” Oswald said. “The Clinton Initiative University Conference will be a great networking opportunity for those selected to participate.”

The 2015 Clinton Global Initiative University Conference will be held March 6 to 8 at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The deadline for those applying to participate in the conference and who seek travel assistance is October 17. The final deadline is December 1.

CIDD, however, plans on setting an earlier application deadline so that the center’s cabinet may review applications before applications are submitted to the Global Initiative. There are no limits on how many applications Geneseo may submit, but individual students or groups may only submit one application. Geneseo’s inclusion in the Global Initiative marks the first time that any SUNY school has gained acceptance into the program.

“This shows the commitments we have made toward supporting students have made a real impact,” Oswald said. “I know we will have students that will be accepted to the conference—I know it.”

Letchworth reopening brings reductions to CAS grants

With the completion of Letchworth Dining Hall comes a decrease in available funding for Campus Auxiliary Service grants for student organizations. Approximately one-third fewer organizations will receive funding this school year. The completion of Letchworth took $14,000 out of the CAS budget, which is why they now only fund 100 organizations as opposed to the 160 funded last year. CAS grants are used by student organizations to provide food and catering services for events that benefit the campus community.

Administrative Assistant at CAS Impressions Catering Catherine Cieri said that the decrease in CAS grant funds is simply a return to previous standards.

“Because we weren’t paying for rent on Letchworth during its construction, CAS had saved that money to be used for organization grants,” she said. “Now that construction is complete, available funds are back to what they have been for years.”

CAS grants have become increasingly popular among organizations on campus. In order for an organization to serve food at an event held on campus it must go through CAS, and as Cieri herself admitted, the best way to get people to come to events is with free food.

With CAS being the only option for these organizations, the decrease in funding to the CAS grant program will make this year more competitive for grant applicants. Despite CAS Executive Director Mark Scott’s promise last year to change the application process for CAS grants in order to prioritize events that “do some sort of legitimate work out in the community,” CAS plans on continuing to award grants on a first-come-first-serve basis.

“A lot of people already applied at the very beginning of the semester,” Cieri said. “I recommend that organizations apply for grants as soon as their event date is set. Even if their event is in the spring, they can still apply now.”

Application forms are not currently available online, but Cieri says that she plans on putting the form on the CAS Impressions Catering website in the next few days. For the time being, students may either email her at cieri@geneseo.edu with their event details or come to the CAS catering offices in Blake Hall B to speak to her directly.

Applications for CAS grants require applicants to describe details about the event such as how the event benefits its organization and the college community and how CAS can enhance their event. Organizations must be recognized by the school and applications must be received at least 10 business days before the event’s scheduled date.

The only new requirement according to Cieri is that if the event was a charity fundraiser, the organization must now report back to CAS the amount of money it raised. This information will be used to help CAS plan for future events.

“A lot of organizations do philanthropic events,” she said. “This shows that Geneseo’s clubs are thinking about the community and CAS is here to help with that.”