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The Spectator Valdosta State University's Independent Student Newspaper. Special Race Edition
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Is it just a black and white issue?
A Special Edition April 23, 2015
A hands-on approach to
RACE
April 23, 2015 Page 1
Although segregation was outlawed in the 1960s, students sometimes tend to segregate themselves from people outside of their race. However, this ac-tion may be caused by sociolog-ical factors rather than personal choice.
When looking at the statistics, VSU can be called a diverse college. According to Niche, 35 percent of VSU students are Af-rican-American, 54 percent are white, 4 percent are Hispanic, 2 percent are international, and the other 1 percent is Asian.
Despite the wide range of backgrounds and cultures at VSU, students can sometimes be found to normally associate with people of the same color. However, there are some organi-zations on campus that demon-strate a diverse group of stu-dents, such as the Gay-Straight Alliance, Anime & Manga, Tau Kappa Epsilon and Women of Diversity.
The Women of Diversity president, Kandice Smith, fi nds joy that her organization is able to break past the differences in skin color.
“The main reason I love my organization so much is that I learn about them as individuals, but I also learn about their cul-ture through their conversation, their experiences,” Smith said. “We represent over 20 nationali-ties, but at the end of the day we see each other as human beings,
with feelings, dreams, ideas, and goals. We see each other as sisters. It just so happens that some of us have more or less mela-nin that the other.”
Smith believes that the separa-tion between races that may occur is not always intentional and that society plays a major role in the way people view racial differences.
“I believe that people have the tendency to stick to their own race because it’s comfortable, it’s familiar,” Smith said. “It’s so much easier to think to yourself, ‘she and I have something in common because she and I have the same skin; we must have experienced the same things growing up. We must have the same culture, the same heritage, (and) the same ideals.’ I think it’s a subconscious method of survival (in) a way. It is both a psychological and sociological thing.”
Smith is correct — it is a so-ciological factor. Thomas Hoch-schild, VSU sociology professor, has studied race for years.
“You’ve heard the phrase ‘birds of a feather fl ock togeth-er,’ right?” Hochschild said.
“Sociologists call this tendency for people who are similar to stick together the ‘homophily effect.’ Race, ethnicity, social class, gender, religion and po-litical affi liation are but several characteristics that people use to organize themselves. People are generally more comfortable being around others with similar values, attitudes and behaviors.”
According to Hochschild, the way people view race begins at a very early age and starts in the home.
“Parents can counteract the homophily effect by seeking out a diverse group of playmates, as well as a home in a diverse neighborhood, for their chil-dren,” Hochschild said. “These children are more likely to be open-minded about others when they become adults.”
Hochschild feels that despite the fact that many people are more comfortable being around
people who are more similar to them, many students at VSU don’t let differ-ences in skin color change who they socialize with.
“One thing that I love about
Valdosta State University is that students of different races and ethnicities can be seen interacting through-out the campus,” Hochschild said. “At other universities I have taught at, I typically saw ‘co-presence without co-min-gling.’ In other words, people of different races and ethnicities would be in the same room or geographic area, but they rarely interacted with each other.”
While some teachers believe that race does not affect our campus, some students feel otherwise.
“I personally believe that (race) does (affect) VSU,” Smith said. “It affects many campuses across the United States. We are the nation’s future. Many of the students on campus are the result of interracial/intercultural relationships. To have such a clear divide, to see each group
hang out with their own can be diffi cult for those students, and it can also be challenging for those students who desire to reach out to others who are unlike them. I feel as though it causes a ‘them vs. us’ mentality.
“In the United States, society dictates that you should stick with ‘your own kind.’ A lot of people see an interracial couple or even a group of diverse ladies, such as the ladies in my organi-zation, hanging out…and it’s an anomaly to them. It is an anoma-ly because we are taught to stick with our own,” Smith said.
Hochschild said people are all too quick to say race isn’t an issue in our world.
“It is fashionable for people to say that ‘a person’s race doesn’t matter to me,’ or ‘we should just ignore race and it will go away,’” Hochschild said. “The problem with this line of think-ing is that there are signifi cant racial disparities in the United States in regards to the criminal justice system, socio-economic status, educational outcomes, political representation, health outcomes and media depictions. To ignore race is to ignore the harm currently being infl icted on millions of people because of their race. Sociologists refer to these pleas to ignore race as a form of ‘color-blind racism.’
“As good Americans and re-sponsible citizens, we need to be informed about racial data, and mature enough to address these disparities in a meaningful way,” Hochschild said.
Weather
Tatyana PhelpsCOPY EDITOR
TodayPartly Cloudy
FridayMostly Sunny
SaturdayScattered thunderstorms
David Johnson/THE SPECTATOR
The science behind sticking to your race
John Preer/THE SPECTATOR
April 23, 2015 Page 2NEWS
The SGA elections have come to a close and it was a highly anticipated race, with the candi-dates having strong viewpoints for the advancement of SGA and VSU.
Current SGA President Tyler Barker announced the winners of the election on Monday in the Student Union.
The winners of the election were candidates from “The Gold-en Ticket” campaign, which in-cluded David Burdette for pres-ident, Colleen Kavanaugh for vice president, and Jarius Leavy for secretary. Seqouia Kirby won the position of comptroller.
Burdette has many clear ideas for the future of the school.
“I’m focused on innovating ideas that will target students that are present, the students that plan
to attend this prestigious univer-sity and alumni as well,” Bur-dette said. “While innovating, I am coming up with a plan to elevate pride, tradition, and unity that has already been instilled…so that we can operate to increase the retention rate to ultimately graduate.”
David Burdette spoke on be-half of his team, Kavanaugh and Leavy, when talking about the effects of leadership.
“Leadership means you know how to follow, but you are ready to take off the training wheels and control your destiny as others see you try,” Burdette said. “While you are on that path, you must listen to the guidance behind you and in front of you in order to reach the fi nish line.”
Burdette, Kavanaugh, Leavy and Kirby will lead the student body for a full year. Tyler Barker will remain SGA president until the end of the spring semester.
The results are in
Jamel ShorterSTAFF WRITER
President
David Burdette 619
Christopher Hellams 368Vice President
Matthew Cowan 419
Colleen Kavanaugh 607
SGA Senators for 2015-2016 Year SGA Senators for 2015-2016 Year Maya BramlettaMaya Bramletta
Kelan BlashKelan BlashDamon BrownDamon BrownMichael DanielMichael DanielTi� any DelgadoTi� any Delgado
Alexis FarleyAlexis FarleyJennifer HollowayJennifer Holloway
Dzigbode LimehouseDzigbode LimehouseJasmine JacksonJasmine Jackson
Maya MappMaya MappJoseph MooreJoseph MooreNicole NjokuNicole NjokuAmirrah NurAmirrah NurJoel PollackJoel Pollack
Joshua RiversJoshua RiversJayson RossJayson Ross
Shayla SlappyShayla SlappyDaria � omasDaria � omas
Brittany TransouBrittany TransouDeythan WaltonDeythan Walton
Lethia WashingtonLethia WashingtonNydrah WrightNydrah Wright
Secretary
Jarius Leavy 918
Comptroller
Othellious Cato 472
Sequoia Kirby 476
‘The Golden Ticket’ campaign candidates win SGA
VSU is in the red, and not in the money sense.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) cate-gorizes VSU as a Red Light Uni-versity, which means that VSU has at least one policy that FIRE says clearly and signifi cantly restricts freedom of speech.
FIRE’s grading system for these policies is Red Light for super restrictive, Yellow Light for somewhat restrictive, and Green Light for barely restric-tive.
Valdosta’s Red Light Policy is about internet usage. This policy prohibits the use of the universi-ty’s email to send anything that might tarnish the university.
“Any students or faculty who are critical of the university over email are potentially subject to punishment under this policy,”
Samantha Harris, FIRE’s director of policy research, said. “It is a totally inappropriate limitation on their right to free speech.”
The Red Light Policy also bans emails with offensive ma-terial, chain letters, unauthorized mass mailings, email hoaxes and malicious code.
“The policy does not defi ne ‘offensive’ in any way, giving the university essentially total discretion to punish email users for engaging in controversial or unpopular speech over email,” Harris said.
VSU’s Yellow Light policies cover bullying, protest and demonstration, and harassment. The protest and demonstration policy states that VSU has the right to decide the time, manner, and place of demonstrations or protests.
The Green Light policy pro-hibits using the computing sys-tems to make terroristic threats, unsolicited sexual advances and harassment, and obscenity that is
offensive. In 2007, VSU’s former Pres-
ident Ronald Zaccari academi-cally withdrew student Hayden Barnes from the school after Barnes protested the construction of new parking garages. Barnes fi led a lawsuit against Zaccari, claiming that his due process and freedom of speech rights had been violated.
FIRE wrote to the Board of Regents various times, asking them to reverse Barnes’ ex-pulsion. The board eventually reinstated Barnes in 2008.
FIRE also wrote to VSU in the past to express their concern over the “Free Expression Area” policy, which restricted the area for free speech to one stage and only gave students access to it for two hours a day. VSU was briefl y taken off the Red Light list after they did away with this policy, but it was put back on the list due to the strict internet usage policy.
Kailee L KivettSTAFF WRITER
Freedom of speech at VSU on FIREKayla Stroud/THE SPECTATOR
Stella Henderson/THE SPECTATOR
Trevor Conway, a former VSU student now � re-� ghter was walking around peacfully carrying an American � ag around the front of Odum Library. “I don’t want people to be afraid to come to school and get their education. I don’t want people to be afraid. I’m not carrying, I don’t have any weapons on me, it’s just myself and this � ag,” he said.
VSU’s Student Government Association approved of a series of resolutions Monday night, including consideration for stu-dent parking on Georgia Avenue and a position statement on the current fl ag controversy.
Several of the resolutions were in reaction to last week’s protest in which several students stepped on the American fl ag and a veteran was detained by police for trying to take the fl ag.
The most direct resolution was approved by a vote of 36 to 2 stating that while SGA respects a person’s right to protest, they disapprove of the actions taken
during the events on April 17.“We respect a person’s right
to protest,” SGA Vice President Nicholas Buford said. “The Supreme Court made it clear in 1989 that those who were protesting were using their free speech rights.”
Another resolution was passed unanimously to show the VSU student body’s appreciation of
our country’s armed forces.Buford was pleased of the
events during the second demon-stration held on Monday.
“It was a great display of Blazers from all backgrounds uniting behind the fl ag,” Buford said. “I want to commend Kalin Allen and Mia Rawls for their leadership during the student-led protest on Monday.”
SGA also dealt with the over-whelming issues of parking by recommending VSU’s Parking and Transportation to re-exam-ine parking spaces. Resolutions were also passed thanking President William McKinney and congratulating graduating seniors.
Kayla StroudWEB EDITOR
SGA passes a series of resoultions based on recent campus events
With protests breaking out at Valdo-sta State, a Blazer may be beginning to question what is going on with our beloved campus. Students have been stepping on fl ags, veterans coming on campus allegedly “armed” in protest of it, black lives matter campaigners joining the march and many students inserting their opinions and adding to the mayhem.
Social media has been on fi re this week; students are voicing their opinions as well as people who don’t even attend Valdosta State University and have no intentions of ever even coming to this city. For some students, the recent turn of events has given some the idea to leave. For others, this has brought out their Blazer Pride.
This past Monday, countless people were on the pedestrian walk, yelling, cry-ing, recording and watching the numer-ous demonstrations happening. It seemed as though there were a lot of different groups of people with different agendas, passionately wanting to be heard and understood.
I understood those who came out to show their patriotic feelings about the fl ags. I spoke with and listened to many veterans and soldiers who felt the protestors who walked on the fl ags were being disrespectful. This is completely understandable because they put their lives on the line for this country.
To me, the defi nition of a fl ag is a cloth used as an emblem or symbol of a country or institution used as decoration during public fes-tivities. I feel as though both parties are inserting too much symbolism into this object. The initial protestors who stepped on the fl ag felt as if the fl ag represented injus-tices and prejudices put upon African Americans in this country. I’m assuming the
opposing protestors probably felt that the fl ag represented those who died fi ghting for this country and those who risk their lives and give their lives for the citizens of this country.
The fl ag is a piece of cloth; that represents the United States of America, not what has happened in this country or what our military stands for. Soldiers do not fi ght for a piece of cloth, they fi ght for the citizens of this nation and to protect this country, so protesting against the very citizens of this nation is contradictory. Soldiers fi ght to protect the citizens of this nation so that they can speak freely and be protected under this government. Though the soldiers and veterans may not agree with it, protestors have a constitutional right to walk on any fl ag they want.
Again, I completely understand why someone would be upset about people walking over our fl ag. I just question why no one is upset that Michelle Man-hart posed nude and completely sexual-ized the fl ag. The same woman who was arrested for trying to “protect” a fl ag, draped the same fl ag around her body and posed nude with it. Sexualizing the fl ag seems just about equal to walking on it to me, and yet there has been no protest against her.
Ultimately, the community of Valdosta needs to calm down and take a breather.
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The temperature of racial tension in this country is reaching a boiling point. The lid that was the civil rights movement is struggling to contain the bubbling mixing pot of race relations. The mounting pressure of police brutality has many Americans steaming over the injustices that seem to be perpetrated on a daily basis. Anyone with television or Internet access knows that these are turbulent times and signifi cant changes need to be made if this country is to persevere. In lieu of recent events, politicians and community leaders alike are call-ing for policy changes for citizens and law enforcement. Granted, certain policy changes are necessary if we are to progress as a nation, but policy alone won’t solve this country’s problems.
There are deeply ingrained social constructs that feed the ongoing hostility between minority citizens and law enforcement. These social constructs coupled with many cultural misconceptions have brought us to where we are now. The minority population distrusts the police be-cause of repeated instances of misconduct on the part of law enforcement, and the police fear backlash from the minority population because of skewed media depic-tions. If both parties are stricken with fear before they even come into contact with each other, then of course there will be confl ict. Police offi cers, no matter how
well-trained, are still human, and therefore will respond to stress or danger as any person would — irrationally. An innocent man may still run from police if he truly believes his life is in danger. A trained offi cer of the law will still react in self-defense if he or she believes a suspect to be hostile.
These are the facts that all police and citizens face when law enforcement is needed. They are facts that won’t change simply because of the nature of most en-counters that require law enforcement. However, what can be changed is the mindset of the police and citizens coming into the situation.
FBI census data states that whites commit the majority of crimes in America, but minorities are consistently charged more frequently for crimes. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, numbers from a 2005 study revealed that blacks have a consistently higher rate of prison and jail incarceration. How is this possible? From a logical standpoint, if one group is largely respon-sible for an issue, shouldn’t that group be penalized for it? Recent internal investigations in cities all over the country have found that police disproportionately target minorities, even though they make up a smaller percent-age of the population.
This, along with the increasingly militarized law
enforcement in the country, has many citizens in major cities protesting.
As with any issue, there are people on both sides of the argument, but everybody should be able to agree that there is a glaring need for change.
Valdosta State University is home to a lot of different things, but diversity may not be one of them.
According to the VSU 2013-14 profi le, there were about 9, 328 undergradu-ate students last year. Of those students, 51.9 percent are listed as White, 35.8 percent as Black or Afri-can American, 4.9 percent Hispanic, 3.0 percent Multiracial, and less than fi ve percent listed as Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian or Pacifi c Island-er, and unknown.
The City of Valdosta displays similar demo-graphics with a majority of residents being listed as White, followed by African American, then Hispanic, and so on.
In terms of the ratio of Caucasian to African American students, VSU has a pretty standard mix of race for the location, but the realms of diversity extend far beyond black and white, or even race and ethnic-ity in general. There are many other factors to take into consideration such as religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc. These factors all play an important part in making our campus more diverse.
There are students here who are different from the majority. They come from different places and have different experiences that matter and are worth under-standing. However, people often fear or stay away from “different” and what they don’t understand, so
the bigger question is whether culture and diversi-ty is being nurtured at VSU and in the Valdosta area?
There are several factors to be considered that may suggest a larger need for diversity. As an observa-tion, students don’t seem to be extremely encouraged to intermingle and go to events or join organizations that put them outside of their cultural and social norms, or their “comfort zone.” While there are some organizations that promote diversity or consist of people from different backgrounds, there could be a lot more done by many organizations to encourage students to join who may differ from the status quo.
The other problem may lie within the school’s location. VSU is a college located in the South, an area that historically values tradition and “keeping things the way they are” in regards to race, politics and other factors.
While the university is supposed to be considered a
society within a society— creating a different environ-ment than the surrounding region— often the beliefs and characteristics of the area bleed over into the university. The overall environment can certainly have an impact on diversity and the type of students that apply to and attend VSU.
If more international students and minorities were encouraged to attend, integrated well into VSU, and the students and faculty promoted a more diverse environment, more minori-ties and more international students would come to the school.
College can be a com-pletely different society on its own. It allows students who may not come from very diverse places to meet people from different backgrounds. In order to promote an atmosphere of acceptance and cultural awareness, VSU has to be more open to embracing di-versity and making sure all students feel comfortable, appreciated and accepted.
Follow us on Twitter for on-the-go news! @vsuspectator
Tyra MillsPHOTO EDITOR
Valdosta community, take a breath and calm down
VSU needs more diversity
Photo illustration by Tyra Mills/THE SPECTATOR
April 23, 2015 Page 3
Tyra Mills/SPECTATORStudents joined together on Monday, April 20 to express their opinions regarding the protest that took place on Friday, April 17.
Photo illustration by Tyra Mills/SPECTATOR
Zenobia HarrisASST. FEATURES EDITOR
The defi nition of diversity extends beyond black and white or race and ethnicity.
Racism has no over-night solution Our point of view...
Michael T. Slager, the South Carolina police offi cer who was arrested and fi red after shooting and killing an unarmed man, has apparently become a cause worth supporting.
Go Fund Me, a crowdfunding site that allows people to raise money for various causes, shut down a page that was gathering money in support of Slager.
A Go Fund Me representative issued a statement explaining that the page was shut down be-cause it violated the site’s terms and conditions. The campaign was moved to another crowd-funding site, Indiegogo.
Go Fund Me was right to take down the page, but the issue of the Slager campaign page exists far beyond the terms and condi-tions of the site. The unidentifi ed campaign organizer posted on the Indiegogo campaign page that the campaign is about Slager’s right to a fair trial.
While everyone has that right, it has become clear to many people who have viewed the hor-rifi c video that Slager is guilty of a senseless murder and whatever punishment he receives will surely fi t the crime.
In the video, Slager can be seen handcuffi ng Scott after he shoots him. Slager then returns
to the spot where he shot Scott to retrieve an object that appears to be his taser. He runs back to the spot where Scott lay and drops the object beside his body.
So not only did Slager shoot an unarmed man, he tampered with a crime scene in order to corroborate his story. The sad part is that up until the day the video was released, Scott’s alibi may have checked out in court and Scott’s family wouldn’t have gotten the justice they deserved.
Of all of the cases that have
popped up through the past few months that involved a civilian and an offi cer of the law, this is probably be the fi rst time evi-dence was released that shows, unarguably, that an offi cer aban-doned police protocol to protect his own agenda.
Not only is Slager guilty of murder, but he has also manip-ulated the people who had the most faith in him to do the right thing. From the police depart-ment where Slager worked, to his family and even the people he vowed to “protect and serve,” he violated that trust by attempt-ing to abuse the system for his own personal gain.
Everyone has a right to sup-
port whatever causes they feel are important, but supporting a man who is clearly a murderer and has no sense of integrity is ridiculous.
While the real reason the cam-paign organizer is trying to raise money for Slager is not clear, any American who truly believes in justice and the meaning be-hind “protect and serve” should think twice before supporting any campaign associated with Slager.
The beauty of being in Ameri-
ca is that everyone is supposed to have the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression. However, there is a time when politics have to be set aside and morals are called into question. Crowdfund-ing sites are a great way to raise money for noble causes, but it can also be home to some offen-sive and undeserving campaigns.
Raising money for Slager won’t change what happened and it probably won’t change the course of the case no matter how much money is raised. Despite anyone’s opinion, the evidence will speak for itself. Slager will have his day in court and he will surely get just what he deserves.
Starbucks declared its longing for Americans to “race together,” but not all coffee drinkers seem thrilled about the idea.
It’s not that Americans are op-posed to talking about race, but many don’t seem to want to at 8 a.m. over a tall skinny vanilla latte.
The campaign launched by Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz premiered in a full-page ad in the New York Times in the middle of March. The ad was simple and featured the words “race together” with the Starbucks logo underneath.
Schultz told Fortune the reason he feels America needs to start talking about race in an interview soon after the promotion began.
“It’s an emotional issue,” Schultz said. “But it is so vitally important to the country.”
One would think Starbucks
would be the perfect company to kick start such a controversial campaign. The company has spoken out about other hot topics in the past and according to Fortune, out of all 200,000 peo-ple employed by Starbucks, 40 percent are members of a racial minority.
According to CNN and the U.S Census, America is at a peak of racial diversity with 13 percent of the population being African American and 17 percent being Hispanic. It would seem that now is as good a time as any to talk about racial diversity in America, but Starbucks goers and experts don’t quite agree.
“Ever since the #RaceTogether fi asco, I get really self-conscious at Starbucks when they ask me if I want light or dark roast,” said writer and comedian Dana Schwartz via Twitter.
Matt Glowacki, a diversity expert who teaches students and leaders how to properly handle and celebrate diversity through
a seminar called “Diversity Ac-cording to Family Guy and South Park,” expressed his thoughts on Starbucks’ movement during a seminar at the South Eastern Panhellenic Conference at the end of March.
“In the context of appropriate-ness, I don’t know you, I have no emotional investment in you, you’re handing me a coffee, and then there’s 50 people behind me, so you have an invested interest in getting me out of the way,” Glowacki said.
“I don’t like that they were try-ing to do this in a really impos-sible situation,” Glowacki said. “Also, the more I hear about it, the more it sounds like they were just trying to get their brand out there instead of improving this controversy.”
The issue of racial tensions in America is not something that ended in the 1960s. It is noble of Starbucks to try to contribute to the healing people need in re-gards to race, but a coffee house
is not an ideal place to have conversation about race issues in our country.
Starbucks should be applaud-ed for its attempt at spicing up a morning coffee run with a dose of reality, but a little more forethought could have gone a
long way. It is highly unlikely that
Starbucks will back down from confronting tough issues head-on in the future, but Americans don’t seem to be quite ready for this tall order.
April 23, 2015 Page 4OPINIONS
Lia Armistead ASSITANT SPORTS EDITOR
Kenzie KesselringASST. OPINIONS EDITOR
“Slager is guilty of a senseless murder.”
GoFund Me closes cop’s page Cosmo publishes trends, exemplifies racism
MCT Campus Starbucks wants customers to begin to talk about race with their baris-tas.
BuzzFeed
Cosmopolitan magazine published beauty trends featuring minority races with trends that “need to die” and majority races with “gorgeous” trends.
Zenobia HarrisSTAFF WRITER
Starbucks heats up race conversation:Franchise tries to get customers to talk about race with baristas
Racism is a topic that is tender to bring up. However, in a recent article that Cosmopolitan published on its online magazine, racism was defi -nitely prevalent.
The article discussed recent trends that were either “gorgeous” or “need to die. “ The 21 trends that were considered “gorgeous” had white models showing the trend.
However, those trends that “need to die” had women of color. According to Buzzfeed, the article received more than 80,000
across the Internet due to the controversial photos. Racism is already a diffi cult and argumentative subject to discuss.
The fact that such a huge and popular magazine, both online and in print for women of all races, published such a discriminatory article is unacceptable.
Whether it just so happened to be that those trends that “need to die” were trending with women of color, the magazine should have recognized this and found a way to integrate women of color into the “gorgeous” trends and vice versa.
The title “trends that need to die” is just as harsh as the racism that Cosmo published in its issue.
Anyone who saw his/her picture on a website under “trends that need to die” would feel offended, no matter their skin color.
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Visit www.vsuspectator.com for more stories!
April 23, 2015 Page 5
Currently Under Construction
It’s easy to put together your own map-based guide to favorite hot spots, whether you’re collect-ing as you travel or planning for a trip.
Details include contact info, price rating, hours, reservations where applicable, and directions for those walking, driving or taking a bus.
Use the “Explore” feature to find collections, featured mappers and what’s being pinned near you.
I particularly liked the “Stream” function to find travel inspiration. Make sure you fol-low more people than you know.
What’s not: You can connect with other people through the app’s list of Citymaps users, your friends on Facebook, Google Plus and your own contact list.
Despite what I think is a
fairly tech-savvy group in my networks, I couldn’t find any Citymaps users (yet).
Because I couldn’t ask a Face-book friend to help me grow my collection, I had to email or text a friend to add Citymaps in their “Friends” section.
Slightly annoying, but not the end of the world.
A global map app that enables you to collect and share points of interest.
AWARDSBANDBEATLESBILL WITHERSDRUMSFAME
GREENDAYGUITARRINGO STARROLLING STONESTARS
Rock N Roll Hall of Fame
Web Buzz: Citymaps app helps users collect, share points of interest
Name: Citymaps
Available: iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch with iOS 7.0 or later, Android 4.0.2 and up.
Cost: Free
MCT CAMPUS
Elan Waite/ THE SPECTATOR
The Daily Strange:
Spray on skin is reality.A prototype medical device has
turned the science fiction notion of spray-on skin to a reality. This device literally sprays skin cells directly onto burn victims and enables the body to re-grow skin. The traditional methods like skin grafts were far more invasive and took weeks and sometimes months to heal, whereas this spray gun takes only about an hour and creates less scarring
while using less skin.Though this device is still
technically in an experimental stage, it has already successfully treated dozens of burn victims. The way in which it works it quite astounding. The spray gun uses a swath of stem cells from a patient’s healthy skin and mixes them with a small amount of skin that has been broken down by enzymes. This concoction creates a solution that is in turn sprayed directly onto the burned area of the victim.
This spray has already been approved in Europe, Australia, China and Canada, but the U.S.
is yet to jump on board. Recell is the Australian product, and it is under clinical testing on 106 patients at 15 locations in the U.S. The testing began in May 2010 and is funded by the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine.
This form of skin treatment has the potential to save lives as well as decrease a patient’s length of stay at a hospital and the number of operations they need. The skin that is healing after the spray is also smoother and more regular looking than the results of a skin graft.
Spray on skin coming to you soonIvey Ingalls- Rubin
Staff [email protected]
Ivey Ingalls-Rubin/ THE SPECTATOR
Fun Fact:The Hubble Space Telescope turned 25 this month.
April 23, 2015 Page 6
Minority superheroes: More than just a trusty sidekickEnd of
Semester Events
Earth Day FestivalApril 251-4 p.m.
Drexel Park
Art by the Water
April 2510-12 a.m.
2316 Clyattville
Rd.
Emerging Artists
ShowcaseApril 23-26
7:30pmSawyer Theatre
Blazefest Music Festi-
valApril 252-8 p.m.
Front Lawn
RHA Movie ScreeningApril 24
8:30 p.m.Front Lawn
End of year Bash
April 306 p.m.Baptist
Collegiate Ministry
If I asked you to name five minority super-heroes, could you do it? Probably not, and you’re not alone.
When the average person thinks of a su-perhero, a few come to mind like Superman, Batman or Ironman. What do these classic comic book heroes have in common? They are all white males. For years, minorities have not exactly shared the spotlight with their white counterparts. Aside from a few honorable mentions such as the Green Lan-tern or Cyborg, minority superheroes haven’t gotten the same attention as the more famous
characters. The major comic book companies such as
Marvel and DC have been trying to break this cycle and inject a little more color into their comics. However, Marvel seems to have taken the lead in this area leaving DC to play catch up. Marvel recently released a statement claiming that Falcon, Captain America’s black sidekick, would be taking on the Captain’s role. This comes after news of a female Thor joining the fray.
There have been rumors of the Human Torch, Black Panther and even Spiderman being portrayed by black actors in upcoming live adaptations of the series. The most no-table DC live adaptation rumor has been the casting of actor Tyrese Gibson as the Green
Lantern. This is great and all, but what about all of the other minorities out there that aren’t being represented?
In the last installment of the live action Batman trilogy, there was no mention of Bane’s, a historically Hispanic character, eth-nicity. Although his ethnicity wasn’t crucial to the movie’s storyline, it is still a defining characteristic for the character that was com-pletely left out.
There is still hope for the genre. Iron-Fist, a Chinese superhero, has a leading role in the new animated Spiderman series.
There has been another win for minorities in comics. The Marvel character, Iceman from the X-men series, is supposedly coming out as gay in a new installment of the comic.
DNA Films
Three characters trapped in a house debating human con-sciousness may not sound like the most exciting backbone for a movie. Yet in “Ex Machina,” the directing debut for writer Alex Garland, that dry-sounding concept becomes the basis for a sci-fi thriller of sleek, gleaming surfaces and impressive intellec-tual depth, somehow managing to feel modern, futuristic and classical all at once.“The challenge is — and this is such a bad way to sell a movie — the challenge is how do you make a movie which is basically a film of ideas?” Garland said. “And then part of the challenge is making those ideas accessible and dramatically interesting and trying to understand them.”Opening Friday, the film begins with young computer program-mer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) winning an internal company contest for a private visit with the reclusive tech industrialist Na-than (Oscar Isaac) — think Mark Zuckerberg plus Steve Jobs plus Howard Hughes — on his remote nature preserve estate. There, Caleb discovers that Nathan has created Ava (Alicia Vikander), a lifelike and beautiful robot with artificial intelligence, strength-ened with data from the compa-
ny’s online search engines.What begins as Caleb adminis-tering a series of tests designed to determine whether Ava has gained sentient self-awareness becomes a twisting game of wills and wits as the three charac-ters battle for dominance and survival.“One of the big things for me to figure out for my character was what’s he doing on purpose, what’s he accidentally doing, what’s he in control of, what is he not in control of and then feel-ing all that,” Isaac said. “Really we’d talk about the script as a whole and then look at it from every single angle to make sure it sticks together.”“There’s a lot of misdirection in the film,” Garland added.The London-born Garland, 45, has had an intriguing path to his first directing credit. After his debut novel, the backpacking adventure “The Beach,” was adapted into a movie, he reinvig-orated the zombie story with his first screenplay, “28 Days Later.” Alongside two more novels, he followed this up with scripts to the space drama “Sunshine” and adaptations of the novel “Never Let Me Go” and comic “Dredd.” Taken together, it now appears as a consistently inventive body of work, full of big ideas, sharp storytelling and a complicated view of technology’s interface with society.
For all its high-tech filigree, there is something elemental in the drama of “Ex Machina:” a grounding in the basic forces of desire and power alongside head-ier ideas of consciousness and artificial intelligence. The film’s serious ideas are relieved by its escalating tension, and Garland was also aware of baiting the trap in how the gender dynamics between Caleb, Ava and Nathan would all play out. “If you look at issues of strong A.I. that is self-aware, you inevitably are talking about consciousness,” Garland said. “And when you’re talking about consciousness, you are talking about lies, jealousy, attraction, sexuality.”“The great science-fiction movies are human dramas also,” Gleeson added. “They’re not sep-arate in my mind. Just because something is science fiction doesn’t make it just spaceships. In my head, they tell you more about people than they do about machines.”Garland, Gleeson and Isaac were speaking while sitting together around a conference table in a room overlooking downtown Austin, Texas, during the recent South by Southwest Film Festi-val. Introducing the film’s North American premiere a few hours later, the festival’s senior pro-grammer, Jarod Neece, declared, “This might be one of the best
films we’ve ever played at South by Southwest.”The film was shot in just six weeks on a budget of less than $15 million, with a healthy percentage of it spent on visual effects to create Ava. Four weeks were spent at Britain’s Pinewood Studios, the production leaving just ahead of the arrival of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” in which both Isaac and Gleeson will appear. The organic mod-ernism and untouched nature of Nathan’s estate were captured at a boutique hotel and private residence in Norway.Garland, serious but friendly, is quick to highlight the collabora-tive nature of filmmaking with a team that included cinematog-rapher Rob Hardy, editor Mark Day, production designer Mark Digby, costumes by Sammy Sheldon Differ, visual effects supervisor Andrew Whitehurst and music by Ben Salisbury and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow. His cast includes three rising stars—Isaac, Gleeson and Vikander will each be seen in numerous other films this year.On making the transition to directing with his original script for “Ex Machina” — “I love this question,” Garland dryly said before it was even fully asked — Garland gave a brief disclaimer to something he has now been asked many times.
‘Ex Machina’ director: ‘I like the machines. I have problems with humans’
John PreerCollege life editor
Mark Olsenlos Angeles times
MCTCampus
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This day in Sports History• 1954-Hammerin’ Hank Aaron hits 1st of his 755 homers
Blazer softball holds on to the No. 1 spot in GSC
Stella Henderson/THESPECTATOR
Blazer softball will celebrate senior day as they prepare to chop down. Mississippi College Choctaws in the last game of the regular season before Gulf South Tournament starts on April 30.
The Lady Blazers will face off against MC in a double-header on Saturday starting at 1 p.m.
The Lady Blazers have not played a game since their big wins, 8-0, 19-3 in a double header against Albany State University on April 14.
The Lady Blazers hit a whopping nine homers over the Albany State Rams, with Kiley Rusen and Fran Johnson both accounting for two home runs apiece in the first game.
Rusen kept in stride, connecting for the long ball an extra three times and recording seven RBIs in the second game.
The Lady Blazers have been on a seven game winning streak since they were defeated by Alabama-Huntsville on April 4 and had hoped to keep things rolling against Lee University,
but were unable to play due to rain.
Though they have not played a game in over a week, the Lady Blazers hope to pick up where they left off against the Choctaws.
The Lady Blazers are currently 44-4 on the season and 25-3 in the conference play, placing them in the No.1 position.
The Lady Choctaws are currently 23-17 on the season and 13-13 in the GSC making them stand in the No. 6 spot.
Heavy hitters for the Lady Choctaws are Tori Bankston and Karla Beth both with career high three home runs on the season. Megan Everett has a total of 33 RBIs recorded on the season and Brooke Smitherman is not far behind with 23 of her own.
The Lady Blazers will also be honoring seniors Fran Johnson and Courtney Albritton as they celebrate Senior Day.
The Blazers have won six consecutive GSC tournaments and have been NCAA South Regional Champions for three consecutive seasons.
Senior outfielder Fran Johnson puts a big swing on the ball against Georgia Southwestern on April 8. The Blazers won both ends of the doubleheader, 6-1 and 8-0. The Blazers go into the last game of the regular season with a 44-4 overall record and 25-3 in the conference play, putting them in the No.1 position. The Blazers have won six consectutive GSC titles and three NCAA South Regional Championships.
Frank FitzpatrickMTC CaMpus
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Last games of the regular season against No. 6 Mississippi College
59 years ago, discrimination law and sports intersected
The national controversy that clouded the run-up to a Final Four that concluded April 6, in Indianapolis wasn’t the first collision between basketball and civil-rights politics.
In Louisiana in 1956, as in Indiana 59 years later, a four-team basketball tournament involving a favored Kentucky team was engulfed in a political storm, though the divisive issue then was race and not sexual preference.
And as in Indiana, where a recent religious-freedom law was widely seen as discriminatory against homosexuals, the Loui-siana dispute involved changing cultural mores, a conservative legislature, worried civic and business leaders and, ultimately, government intervention that saved the event.
The turmoil surrounding the 1956 Sugar Bowl, a Christmas basketball tournament run by the organizers of the better-known New Year’s football game, had been triggered two years earlier by the Supreme Court’s historic
ruling outlawing segregation.In the tumultuous southern
reaction to Brown V. Board of Education, many cities and states responded by transforming long-standing Jim Crow customs into hardened law.
Louisiana’s legislature passed a flurry of such bills in 1956. One, Act 579, widely known as the Athletic Events Bill, outlawed all public interaction between blacks and whites.
“All persons, firms and corpo-rations,” it read, “are prohibited from sponsoring, arranging, participating in, or permitting on premises under their control any dancing, social functions, entertainments, athletic training, games, sports or contests and other such activities involving personal and social contacts, in which the participants or contes-tants are members of the white and negro races.”
Powerful interests in New Orleans immediately foresaw fi-nancial consequences, though the only civic entity initially willing to speak out in opposition was the Mid-Winter Sports Associa-tion (MWSA), organizers of the popular football and basketball
Sugar Bowls.That group prodded Gov. Earl
Long to veto the legislation. But the son of populist politician Huey Long refused.
“My mail,” he told reporters, “is running 4-to-1 in favor of the legislation.”
Next, Sugar Bowl organizers sought to water down the bill, proposing an exemption for New Orleans. When lawmakers rejected that, the group devised a failed plan that essentially would have created tiny integrated islands within an otherwise seg-regated arena and stadium.
Racial restrictions in college sports were loosening slow-ly in the 1950s, but not in the South. The region’s three largest conferences the Atlantic Coast, Southeastern and Southwest remained segregated and would be for another decade.
The 1956 Sugar Bowl field was comprised of three Catholic schools Dayton, St. Louis and Notre Dame and the most dom-inant team in college basketball, Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky.
When action to invalidate or weaken the Louisiana law failed, Notre Dame and St. Louis, each
of whom had black players, with-drew. Dayton, though it had no blacks at the time, did the same.
“If we went to the tournament as it now stands,” said Dayton athletic director Harry Baujan, “we’d be condoning the law.”
Kentucky Gov. Happy Chan-dler, assuming the event would be canceled, hastily made plans for a new Christmas tournament in Louisville, the Blue Grass Classic, that would feature the Wildcats.
Rupp’s Kentucky team was all-white. He wouldn’t add his first black player, Tom Payne, until the 1970-71 season, well after most SEC teams had integrated.
Some Kentucky alumni saw the Sugar Bowl controversy as a chance for the border-state school with national ambitions to make a positive statement on race. They urged UK to join the other schools in withdrawing.
“Here is a situation where the University of Kentucky could courageously show that principle is more important to it than the ‘sugar’ in the Sugar Bowl,” Her-schel Weil, a 1922 grad, wrote to UK president Frank Dickey.
But as Rupp himself had done
so often when questioned about racial issues, Dickey used con-tractual obligations as an excuse. The school had promised the or-ganizers it would appear, Dickey said, and it intended to honor that commitment.
“I agree with you that the problem of the religious and moral implications in this situ-ation is a difficult one,” wrote Dickey in response to Weil. “However [I] feel that the moral values of integrity and honesty are also involved.”
Rupp’s influence on the deci-sion can’t be determined, but he and Kentucky helped round up three southern schools Houston, Virginia Tech and Alabama as replacements and the 1956 Sugar Bowl, which the Wildcats won easily, went on.
Asked for his reaction to Act 579’s impact on what had been one of the nation’s premier holiday tournaments, MWSA president Paul DeBlanc said: “That’s the law and we will try to live under it.”
Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that law unconstitutional.
Niamani Carlyle-HollissporTs WriTer
April 23, 2015 Page 7
