Disaster or Tea Party?

            Civil Liberties are a huge focus for my American Studies class. Recently we’ve spent a lot of time talking about our freedoms and when, if ever, they should be limited. We’ve been thinking the amount of control the government has over the media and how that can effect what the public knows. I had never really realized before how huge this impact was until I stumbled across this story about what Russians are being told about Putin's military invasion of Ukraine.

            Instead of “Ukraine readies for an invasion by Russia” and “PM says Ukraine on the brink of disaster” (headlines from US and Western Europe), the Russian headlines read, “Tea, sandwiches, music, photos with self-defense forces mark peaceful Sunday in Simferopol”.

            The above image was accompanied by the live pro-Russia Rally being held in Simferopol, Ukraine. The media chose to focus solely on this one pro-Russia event instead of Putin's military intervention that took place in Crimea, Ukraine, not Simferopol. In showing this instead of the pictures of the burnings or of the wounded, Russia is morphing the situation into something that can only reassure the Russian people that the invasion is going well and is remaining peaceful.

I believe that in showing this only positive viewpoint the media is unfairly hiding this serious situation in Crimea. Although this is a perilous time, by highlighting the pro-Russia rally instead of the negative sides of the invasion, they are in no way protecting the Russian citizens and therefore they should be showing the negative aspects as well. There are two sides to every story, and shouldn’t the people of Russia be entitled to both?

America the Beautiful

            Many people in America think that our country is becoming more accepting of diversity. It’s obvious that in some ways we are, I mean we now have an African American president and there are gay couples on network TV. However, the backlash from Coca Cola’s “It’s Beautiful” super bowl commercial proved that we may not be as progressive as we think we are.

            This commercial features Americans of all different ethnicities and backgrounds singing “America The Beautiful” in 7 different languages.

            After this commercial aired during the super bowl people took to twitter immediately. One viewer wrote, “ Well.. I won't be drinking #coke anymore. We speak English in the #USA. Get over it”. Another even said, “Some terrorist were singing our song in that coke commercial #superbowl”.

            The backlash that Coca Cola got from this commercial shows the ignorance of some Americans. To call one of the people singing in the commercial a terrorist is not only extremely racist and offensive, but also blatantly incorrect. As for the “We speak English” comment, according to the United States Census, 60.6 million people in the US speak a language other than English in the home. I think that this response shows that America still has a lot of room to grow when it comes to accepting diversity.

Illness or Fashion Statement?

            Mental illness and eating disorders are both very serious topics, which is why there was such a big uproar when Urban Outfitter released this shirt that has the word “depression” written all over it. This shirt was compared to another shirt they released a few years earlier with the words “eat less” on it.

According to an article in the New York Daily News, many online shoppers, who saw the “depression” shirt on their website, immediately went to twitter to start the criticism of the shirt. Shoppers like Courtney Crider and Emmy Blackery even vowed to never step foot in the store again.

            Personally, I think that these shirts show how stores in America contribute to problems such as depression and eating disorders, especially in young girls. Urban Outfitters is a popular store among this demographic and by glorifying depression and eating disorders, they are in no way helping young girls who are struggling with these issues. In fact, they are doing quite the opposite. By writing “eat less” on a girl’s shirt, they are telling girls that they aren’t beautiful unless they are skinny, like the models in the picture. Instead they should be encouraging a positive self- image and not glorifying an illness like depression. 

Money Makes You Mean

            My American Studies class has recently been reading The Crucible. In the Crucible, some reoccurring themes are greed, power, and lying. Since this book is set during the 1600s, this caused me to wonder about just how much these themes are still prominent and how they connect to one another in today’s society.            

            In my search, I stumbled across a Ted Talk by Paul Piff called Does Money Make YouMean? Turns out, the answer is yes. This is not to be interpreted as all wealthy people are mean, but some recent studies have shown that when a person is given wealth, their attitudes can change.  Piff starts by sharing the results of a study they conducted in which they had two strangers play Monopoly. In this game, they gave one player twice as much money, more dice to role, and a higher salary. Clearly, this player was set up to win the game, but that wasn’t the question.

            Instead of the outcome, they were watching the privileged player’s behavior. As the game went on, this player began to gloat and felt the right to eat the pretzels left on the table for the two players. So once this player established that they were the one with the power, they started to get greedy and rude.

            Later they brought in adults and gave them ten dollars. They then told them that they could give a portion of their ten dollars to a complete stranger. People who earned less than 25-50 thousand dollars gave 44 percent more to the stranger than people who made over 100-200 thousand dollars a year. Ten dollars isn’t very significant to someone who makes over 200 thousand dollars a year, so why were they more greedy when offered to give it away? Is it because they don’t want to give up their power?

            Finally, they had adults come and play a game that involved rolling dice. They rigged the computer so it was impossible to roll any number over twelve. But sure enough, the wealthier the person was, the more likely they would record a score over twelve. So why did the wealthy people feel more inclined to lie? Again, I think that like in The Crucible, everything comes back to power. In today’s society, wealth is often associated with power, so is that why wealthier people feel more entitled and less hesitant to lie?

Rights vs. Safety

Most people don’t realize that when you are on the phone or you send an email it is automatically stored by the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA was developed after 9/11 to prevent terrorist and other attacks. Some people have taken issue with the NSA because they feel they are being unjustly violated. As it turns out, a federal judge agrees with them.

According to an article in The Guardian, Federal Judge Richard Leon believes that the collection of America’s metadata goes against the fourth amendment. This amendment states that it is illegal for unreasonable searches and seizures to take place. That being said, the NSA isn’t there just to listen to you and your friend gossip on the phone.

In a 60 Minutes piece last Sunday Keith Alexander, leader of the NSA and US Cyber Command, along with other members of the NSA revealed some of the things the NSA has done to protect the US. One attack they did see coming was called the BIOS Plot. The BIOS Plot was a system (allegedly by China) that could destroy computers. It would get the operating system to turn on the computer and essentially turn it into a brick or a paperweight. An attack like this has to potential to take down the US economy. The NSA was able to stop this catastrophe before it became a national issue.

This issue reminded me of the question we’ve been thinking about in my American Studies class. This question is: When, if ever, and to what degree, should civil liberties be limited during wartime? Although I am not talking about a war, I think this question still applies in this situation with some minor alterations. So my question is: When, if ever, and to what degree, should the NSA be able to compromise some of our rights as Americans in order to protect the US?

Good Guys and Bad Guys

In my American Studies class we’ve been talking about how on TV there are often “token” characters that are only there to make the show more diverse. My teachers have made it clear that this applies to dramas, so that left me wondering about other forms of TV. Since I generally prefer sitcoms to dramas, I decided to look up the top sitcoms to see if they follow a similar system of having “token” characters.

            According to TV Guide, these three were top in the ratings for sitcoms in 2013.

The Big Bang Theory

Two and A Half Men

How I Met Your Mother

The Big Bang Theory features Kunal Nayyar as Raj Koothrappali. Raj is the only non-white main character out of these three shows. Clearly, making sure the shows are diverse is a lot less of a concern for the producers of sitcoms than dramas, but why?

            These shows do draw fewer viewers than the dramas, but they still have around 16 million viewers each episode. In my opinion, I think that dramas are more concerned with having their “token” characters because in dramas there are often “good guys” and “bad guys”. For example, in class the vast majority of dramas we talked about were crime shows. In these shows the main characters are typically trying to solve a new case or arrest a new criminal each show. If all of the main characters on the show are the “good guys” and if they’re all white than the only characters left for minorities to play are the roles of the “bad guys”. Therefore, it is important for the main casts of dramas to seem more diverse, even if they are just tokens, so that all of the “good guys” aren’t strictly white.

            Sitcoms, on the other hand, are usually more light-hearted and don’t usually have a lot of criminals or “bad guys”.  Therefore, the networks might not view it as important to make sure their cast is diverse. Personally, I think this is an issue that should be addressed because I think that TV shows shouldn’t only be diverse so that they don’t generalize certain groups as the “bad guys”. Why do you think that top rated sitcoms are less diverse than the dramas?  

$25 for Catching an Illegal Immigrant

Believe it or not, there was an event scheduled for last Wednesday called “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” at University of Texas at Austin. The Young Conservatives of Texas, a group of college students at University of Texas, planned to have people walking around the campus with “Illegal Immigrant” on their clothing. Any student to catch one of these people would win a $25 gift card. The group said the purpose of this event was to start a campus-wide discussion about the topic of illegal immigrants but they had to cancel the event when the school threatened to expel any participants.

This event reminded me of a picture in a Zine by Billy Dee that we looked at in my American Studies class last week.

This picture had the caption “The Prison Industrial Complex criminalizes immigrants”. We learned in class that this means that immigrants are often being arrested and contained in prisons until they are deported back to their home countries. Since the object of the game was to “catch an immigrant”, isn’t it doing the same thing as the Prison Industrial Complex?