44 Days event focuses on the Catholic Church’s relationship with the Black community and the Black Lives Matter movement, hoping to show allyship and solidarity.
By Lenin O’Mahony Opinion Columnist On March 3 students will have the opportunity to attend an online discussion and Q&A that focuses on Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church. The event is titled “The Voice of the Shepherd: A Dialogue on Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church.” It is described on the Saint Mary’s website as a “conversation with three national Catholic leaders, followed by SMC student responses and audience Q & A, moderated by President James Donahue.” The panelists present are Most Reverend Michael C. Barber, S.J, Bishop of Oakland, California, Pam Harris who is the Director of the Office of Ethnic Ministries at the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, and DeKarlos Blackmon the Director of the Secretariat of Life, Charity and Justice, from the Diocese of Austin, Texas. I had the opportunity to discuss this event with Brother Charles Hilken, who as a member of the Bishop John S. Cummins Institute for Catholic Thought, Culture, and Action, felt moved to “explore the urgent spiritual and social needs of the day” with the hope that those needs can be met on our Saint Mary’s campus. Brother Charles believes that religious organizations like the Catholic Church belongs side by side with movements like BLM, as long as those social movements work towards human solidarity and community, and “can stand under the healing light of religious founding charisms.” Brother Charles mentions how the most oppressed and marginalized people are themselves the focus of the saving power of Christ, and are obligated to be with those people, as well as alongside the social movements that might seek to uplift those same peoples. The hope is that events like this will encourage conversation across divides. That Catholics who support BLM will be able to interact with and converse with Catholics who might struggle with accepting parts of the BLM movement and organization. As well as deeping inter-Catholic conversation, there is a desire for more communication with people of other faiths to discuss the common aims of humanity and how we can move our cultures and habits away from institutionalized racism. Brother Charles is excited about this event's ability to do those very things, and how we have brought together a diverse panel of individuals in order to set the foundation for real conversations and real change. Events such as these are becoming more common and more important across college campuses, especially among universities of faith. More events like this are planned, with Saint Mary’s hosting a panel focused on women leadership in the Catholic Church on Saturday April 17th, 2021. This event is taking place online on Zoom, on March 3 at 1:00 pm pacific time. More information is available on the SMC website.
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In California, and nationwide hate crimes against Asian Americans have skyrocketed due to previous propaganda surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. President Joe Biden has condemned the rhetoric used by the former president Donald Trump, yet activists encourage more condemnation.
By Annika Henthorn News Reporter On January 28, Vichar Ratanapakdee, an 84 year-old immigrant from Thailand, was on his regular morning walk through San Francisco when he was brutally shoved to the ground. Suffering a brain hemorrhage from the incident, he never regained consciousness, according to CNN. A 19-year old man was arrested as a suspect of his murder as well as elder abuse. Ratanapakdee’s family strongly believes this was not simply an attack on the elderly, but a hate crime. The spike in violence directed against Asian Americans has continued to rise since the pandemic began. According to Eric Lawson, Ratanapakdee’s son-in-law, he too believes this act was no different and “driven by hate.” Others who identify as Asian-Americans have shared their experience with this festering issue rooted in racism. Residing in Medford, Oregon, Charlie Garland, self-identified as Korean American, recounted a sign outside a bar in his hometown that read “China Virus hours.” He said he has “always been very uncomfortable with people referring to [the pandemic] that way — just because basically putting blame on somebody who has no hand in that whatsoever,” according to PBS. Some people in his own town would shout racial slurs at Garland, causing him to feel uncomfortable and unsafe in his own community. Based on these occurrences, Garland has attributed people’s comfortability with saying such hateful things to Trump, and having “somebody in office who was doing that and making it a normal thing to be heard.” This anti-Asian narrative plaguing America was propelled through Trump’s rhetoric of calling COVID-19 the “China Virus.” Over 2,800 first-hand cases of hate crime in over 47 states and Washington DC have been reported since March 19, according to CNN. Noticing "the rapid increase in criminal acts targeted against members of the Asian community, particularly Chinese Americans, who live and work in Alameda County,"Alameda District Attorney, Nancy O’ Malley designed a special response unit that targets crimes against Asian-Americans. President Joe Biden has condemned this hateful narrative with an official memorandum, according to PBS. He addresses the danger that such hateful rhetoric perpetuates, contributing to the“increasing rates of bullying, harassment and hate crimes against AAPI persons,” says President Biden. However, many activists believe that although this is a step in the right direction, more action needs to follow in the form of legislation, protest, and conversations, the memo was simply a jumping off point. Author’s Note: If you have been harassed or discriminated against, call 911 if you’re in immediate danger, or access the provided links below to report the incident. Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council - https://stopaapihate.typeform.com/to/zhMP3fUx Communities Against Hate - https://communitiesagainsthate.org/report Facing Race in Seminar event focuses on students’ experiences discussing and addressing race in seminar settings.
By Kiera O’Hara-Heinz News Reporter On Wednesday February 24, at 1:00pm, Saint Mary’s hosted Facing Race in Seminar. The event was a part of the Seminar Informal Curriculum program and was hosted by Rashaan Meneses, Megan Flynn (‘21), and Kulia Osborne (‘22), as a collaboration between the Student Coalition Against Abuse and Rape (SCAAR) and the Black Student Union. Through a mixture of presentation and group discussion, the event explored race, representation, and power in the seminar texts and gave students and faculty tools on how to navigate future discussions. The idea for the event came from Megan Flynn, who was inspired by the events of Summer 2020 surrounding racial justice after the death of George Floyd. The event was created as a sister event to Facing the Canon: Women and Violence in Seminar Texts, an Informal Curriculum event that took place in October and was also led by Rashaan Menses and Megan Flynn. The presentation portion of the event began by defining tokenism as the process of using a person (especially of a minority status) as a representation of the community they are a part of. The presentation gave the example of tokenism in Seminar as existing “in the authors seminar uses and how the author’s text is handled in class.” Community guidelines were also established with respecting each other and practicing “controversy with civility” being emphasized. The meeting was then opened up to dialogue about personal experiences surrounding race and tokenism in Seminar. Sophomore transfer student Collin Fisher spoke deeply about his experience as one of only two Black students in his seminar class. Fisher found the event both helpful because it was a space for people to share their experiences around race in seminar, but was disheartened about the experiences that were shared. He later reflected in part that “hearing the experiences that people have faced in seminars is most definitely disheartening. A class that can strengthen students' analysis skills, collaboration, discussion abilities, and taking in perspectives that don't match their own only to face traumatic and problematic situations that they shouldn't have to face.” He was also disappointed in the lack of action that events like Facing Race in Seminar lead to, “I have been at this school for almost a full year, and I have been to a few of these seminar discussions. The commonality that I have noticed in each of these events was that the students are constantly expressing their distress, uncomfortably, and even traumatic experiences that they have had with seminars. All these experiences and stories being told and heard, but nothing has significantly changed for students.” However, overall he is glad that he attended the event and is hopeful that the experiences students shared will lead to a meaningful change in seminar in the future. Other students also talked about the constraints of the seminar canon that they view as lacking in diversity and instead using tokenism. After students shared their own experiences surrounding discussing race in Seminar, Flynn and Osborne offered tips and tools for students to navigate the topic of race in seminar and how to de-escalate discussions that have turned toxic or harmful. Flynn and Osborne also gave background on the readings up for discussion, Langston Hughes’ Theme from English B, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and Malcom X’s The Ballot and the Bullet. Flynn gave an example of how to analyze the text in a way that centers the text instead of centering personal opinion. Students were then given the opportunity to analyze the texts in small groups, practicing what had been discussed during the event. Discussion Tips for FACING RACE IN SEMINAR:
The discussion tips provided by Flynn and Osborne provide a starting point for approaching texts centered around topics like race as well as how to keep conversations civil. The goal of the event as a whole was to have students look critically at depictions of race in seminar texts, and to learn how to decenter Western Tradition and reframe harmful narratives. As a part of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, President Biden proposes a change in immigration terminology, hoping to replace the term “alien” with “noncitizen.”
By Evan Rodrigues News Reporter Following the Trump administration, President Biden is pushing for changes in immigration policies. On January 20th, 2021, President Biden’s first day in office, the proposed U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 was shared with the public. The whitehouse.gov fact sheet for the bill reads: “The legislation modernizes our immigration system, and prioritizes keeping families together, growing our economy, responsibly managing the border with smart investments, addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, and ensuring that the United States remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution.” The fact sheet goes on, and within the first section, describes a proposed change in language. This change would replace the current legal term “alien” with “noncitizen”. The official definition of “alien”, according to section 8 of the U.S. Code is “any person not a citizen or national of the United States” (U.S. Code, Section 8, 1101 a.3). According to the White House fact sheet, on top of other changes proposed, this change “further recognizes America as a nation of immigrants.” The problematic nature of the term “alien” has to do with the imagery evoked by the word. Jose Antonio Vargas from Define American, an organization with the goal of eliminating and reimagining harmful rhetoric in the media, is quoted in a recent CNN article on the topic: "How we describe people really sticks. It affects how we treat [immigrants]. How we talk about immigrants shapes the policies. It frames what are the issues really at stake here. It acknowledges that we're talking about human beings and families." The undeniable fact that immigrants are humans is challenged, for Jose, by rhetoric that brings to mind images of non-human beings. In the same article, Vargas goes on, saying “If you call them 'alien,' of course you're going to put them in jail, of course you're going to lock them up, of course you're not going to care that you're separating little kids from their parents.” Seeing the consequences of word choice as very real, supporters of this change hope that it will take power away from xenophobic ideologies and practices that have traditionally been supported by dehumanizing rhetoric. A NBC news story from November 6th, 2020 reads: “Reports of hate crimes against Latinos, including last year's shooting massacre in El Paso, Texas, increased in 2019, while the overall number of reports of hate-motivated killings hit its highest level since data began being collected in the early 1990s”. Reporter Suzanne Gamboa cites the 2019 El Paso massacre.“Most of the victims were Latinos,” reports Gamboa, “Authorities have said the gunman was targeting Hispanics when he drove hundreds of miles to El Paso and shot multiple people at a Walmart.” The article goes on to connect word choice to acts of violence, noting “authorities said that before the attack, the gunman had posted a hate-filled racist statement decrying the ‘invasion’ of Mexican immigrants in the United States.” Before the suspension of his account earlier this year, Donald Trump made frequent use of the social media platform twitter. A 2018 tweet from @realDonaldTrump reads: “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.” The use of words like “invasion”, accompanied with the dehumanizing nature of the word “alien”, creates a narrative that sets the stage for individuals to respond and act from a place of hate or fear. It seems, with the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, Biden hopes to shift the narrative and work towards restoring “humanity and American values to our immigration system” (Citizenship Act of 2021 Fact Sheet, whitehouse.gov). Author’s Note: For more information please follow the links below: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/politics/alien-biden-immigration-law/index.html https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1101&num=0&edition=prelim https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/rise-hate-crimes-against-latinos-pushes-overall-number-highest-over-n1247932 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-sends-immigration-bill-to-congress-as-part-of-his-commitment-to-modernize-our-immigration-system/ Texas storms bring freezing temperatures affecting residents’ electrical, and water lines. Many deaths have occurred as a result, leaving Texans in vulnerable positions.
By Ally Sullivan News Reporter A winter storm occurs when wind coincides with precipitation, only forming during freezing temperatures. In the sunny state of Texas this kind of weather is not often heard of, and certainly not expected. Roughly ranging from February 13-17th, Texans battled the disastrous winter storms that battered their state and surrounding regions. One disastrous event led to another beginning to strand people and take lives of the unfortunate few. The New York Times covered that the first wave came as a power grid failure, leaving millions without power and heat. The states power plants were not equipped to handle the freezing conditions, and natural gas was hit the hardest. It was previously reported that, “During the blackouts, the state's grid lost roughly five times as much power from natural gas as it did from wind. As demand hit a record high winter, the grid operator instructed utilities to begin controlled power outages to avoid long-term damage.” Subsequently, as power was starting to be restored citizens began to find out that their taps had run dry, frozen pipes burst, the water treatment plants had been devastated. Generators became a necessity for many, but came with gruesome consequences for some. In Conroe, police reported that carbon monoxide gas let off from a generator killed an 11-year-old boy in his bed. However, the lives claimed by the winter storms did not all happen within a home. The homeless population was greatly impacted although the extent of all the casualties is still unknown. Advocates of the homelessness crisis drove around Housten picking up homeless individuals and dropping them at shelters, although a displaced and unfortunate 6 lost their lives. According to Harris County Sheriff deputies, a 60 year-old man was found dead in his van under an overpass, they presumed he froze to death. The homelessness crisis stretches beyond just the winter storm, it only acted as a reminder of the millions of displaced and homeless people that exist in America today as part of a national epidemic. As the storm persisted, the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts were unable to reach the storm areas, including Texas. Food became scarce, as delivery trucks were unable to reach stores to restock, including a shortage provided to food pantries. As Texas and the surrounding regions are beginning to thaw government action is being taken. The unexpected disaster caused President Biden to sign a disaster declaration, helping the government to provide more aid to Texas. Government relief is flooding to Texas and other regions, but there are ways we can get involved too. Specifically in Texas, the Austin Disaster Relief Network is accepting donations to help people with housing, gift cards and supplies for short-term needs, according to The New York Times. Front Steps, another Austin based organization, is helping with a blanket drive for the homeless. You can visit both of the websites to find out more about helping out. Author’s Note: For more information about the storms in Texas and ways to help, please visit the links below: Austin Disaster Relief Network https://adrn.org Front Steps https://frontsteps.org |
StaffMadison Sciba '24, Archives
November 2023
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