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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2014
PAGE 4A
opinion
TEXT
FREE FOR ALL
That feeling of loathing when the GTA says, "Shall I put on some music?" and proceeds to play the music you most despise.
Overheard a phone call and the person didn't know where Allen Fieldhouse was. Umm, leave, just leave.
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KU does double-sided printing but still charges you for 2 sheets ... Smh everyone print single sided, you get your money worth.
We need benches in front of Snow.
ROCK CHALK WOMEN'S SOCCER!
You girls are my heroes.
Just overheard a guy on campus say that girls are too dumb to think for themselves and that's why they get raped. You sir are the reason KU is unsafe.
Can we get a difficulty level on the sudoku? At the very least just tell me that they are "hard" for a confidence boost.
We're finally getting plants on Jayhawk Boulevard! :)
Does ANYONE else on campus play Magic; the Gathering? I expected it to be a lot more popular among college students.
The maintenance guys at Oliver rock.
Dear campus Wi-Fi: it's tearing up my heart when I'm with you, but when we are apart I feel it too. No matter what I do I feel the pain with or without you!
Just saw a girl wearing a Full House style scrunchie. Is that a thing again?
I try so hard to be a good student but then professors don't post the homework so fine I won't do it.
Vegans wanting a couple meal options doesn't equal wanting everyone "to cater their every will."
Steak and shake has really good water.
I feel the most like #ONETEAM when the football players come over to the student section and sing the alma mater with us at the end of the game. ROCK CHALK!
Like a bandaid on a gun shot wound? No, rape prevention products are like wearing a bullet proof vest every time you go outside on the off chance you get shot.
KU should create an app that shows where your bus is at in real time ... Could save some lives.
Frankamp just sat down next to me. Is it acceptable to give him a high five? I keep replaying "the shot" over and in my head.
Sexual assault awareness falling on deaf ears
W when I saw the protesters outside Strong
protesters outside Strong Hall last Tuesday, I was excited to see engaged students who were standing up for what they believed in. I thought that by now enough information and attention had been brought to the issue of sexual assault
— that most would be informed about what was going on and understand why it was a problem. Apparently, that is not
Apparently, that is not the case.
Throughout the day, several people walking along Jayhawk Boulevard chimed in about the protests over a popular social media app called "Yik Yak," an anonymous KU chat room that requires a location within five miles to post.
What they had to say
"I'm protesting the protest on sexual assault by raping one person every hour on the hour," said one post. Another said, "I hate these blurred lines they make it harder to rape."
was sickening.
Other statements showed a clear lack of understanding about what rape is.
"Why are girls complaining about being raped?? I would love to get raped!" one person stated.
Another user said, "I got raped and it was awesome!"
Rape is non-consensual, meaning that by definition it is a physical action you do not want done to you. It is a terrifying, traumatizing moment of violence in a person's life
- not a sexual fantasy.
To anyone who wrote.
or agreed with these comments, I encourage you to really think about what you're saying. You're saying that you would enjoy having someone put you in a completely powerless position and force themselves on you. You're saying that if someone took away all of your agency whenever they felt like it and used your body as a thing to be controlled that you would enjoy it. If you still think that's true, I assure you, you're the only one.
Although all of the
posts were horrible, the ones that bothered me most were the ones aimed directly at the protesters. "Sounds like someone needs a good raping ;)" one said, while another said, "Double points if you rape a feminist."
These perhaps show what is so wrong with the rape culture we live in. If people stand up for what they believe in, or show bravery by sitting with a sign on Jayhawk Boulevard, the response is to threaten them with violence to silence their voice. And in case you're unclear, yes, both of those statements are indirectly threatening the protesters. Both of those statements are wrong in so many ways, I can't possibly go into all of them here.
Every time I read these Yik Yak posts they make
me physically nauseated. They show flippant attitudes toward a very serious subject, and they do so in extremely offensive ways. More than anything else that has come up so far in the past few weeks, these posts show me just how far our campus has to go before we really understand what rape is and take it seriously.
Anna Wenner is a senior from Topeka studying english and history
Details
I'm protesting the protest on sexual assault by raping one person every hour on the hour
Screenshot courtesy of Allison Crist
Details
Why are girls complaining about being raped?? I would love to get raped!
NFL, fans cannot turn blind eye to abuse charges
The past few weeks in sports have been trying ones. The National Football League came out the clear loser with several of its players being accused of domestic and child abuse. The nightmare began when an elevator video emerged of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking his then-fiancee unconscious in an elevator.
The bad PR continued when Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson turned himself in on charges of child abuse. Last October Peterson's 2-year-old son passed away due to injuries from abuse by the mother's boyfriend, Joseph Robert Pattinson, which makes Peterson's actions even more inexplicable. The Carolina Panthers' Greg Hardy is under fire as well for "assaulting his former girlfriend and threatening to kill her," according to the Charlotte Observer. More cases of domestic abuse seem to be flooding out as Ray McDonald of the San Francisco 49ers is accused of hitting his pregnant fiancée and Arizona Cardinals player Jonathan Dwyer was arrested after reportedly headbutting his girlfriend and breaking her nose, according to ABC News.
The NFL seems to be sending the message that appropriate punishment will only occur when
Screenshot courtesy of Allison Crist
there is physical evidence. But what are the fans supposed to think? Rice was originally given a meager two-game suspension before the infamous video was made available to the public, but now the NFL has banned him indefinitely. McDonald is still able to play on the field until more evidence arises in his case, and Hardy has been removed from the roster. In another belated move, Peterson has been banned from all team activities.
Hannah Storm, an ESPN anchor, delivered a monologue on-air explaining her two daughters' responses to the Rice incident. Storm's daughters asked questions that many people are asking: Why did he do this? Why isn't he in jail?
It's possible the NFL can take a hit for banning Rice, whom some call the best running back in football, but sometimes we need to put the wellbeing of society over the well-being of a sport. Talent is not an excuse for misbehavior or a renewable "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Talent is something that deserves to be applauded when it's used correctly and should be disregarded when judging a person's role in culpability for any and all crimes.
I believe that in the United States — and throughout the rest of the world — talent is seen as an excuse. Along with fans asking "why?" others are asking "why not?"
Though the NFL should be criticized for its inaction, the origin of its "forgive and forget" mentality isn't hard to pinpoint. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the rest of the league's administration were raised on the same mentality we still raise our kids with today: Sports are supreme.
Sports appeal to all of us and this appeal sometimes comes at the cost of our ability to discern right from wrong. We make athletes believe in this world where rules seldom apply, and we enforce it by refusing to punish them when they've broken those rules. I believe this is the root of our problem and is something we should all keep in mind.
Maddy Minkinski is a sophomore from Linwood studying journalism
How the heck is it the Underground if I have to climb half of Everest to get there?
FFA OF THE DAY
Scotland should have chosen independence
Scotland has officially voted on preserving the blue and white background of the Union Jack.
In the weeks leading up to Thursday's Scottish independence referendum, I wondered what factors mattered the most to the Scots. The "No" campaign seemed to care most about economic consequences of the divorce, while the "Yes" campaign seemed more focused on cultural and political identity. Although these generalizations do injustice to the many factors that were important for this landmark vote, I think they can be used to ask some questions about the purpose of nations and independence in modern times.
Last week when I was reading about the possible divorce, it seemed that major arguments from the "No" campaign were only weak emotional appeals to a past friendship. Slogans such as "Better Together" appeared, along with arguments on the importance of its economic partnership. It's as if they were trying to hold on to a friendship it knew hadn't been maintained very well.
The "Yes" campaign, on the other hand, seemed to have had a more upbeat program, drawing on the cultural excitement of possible independence from the older-brother figure of England — sort of like, "Yes, We Can."
What was most fascinating was how neck- and-neck the polls were throughout the campaign, though the final tally was 55 percent voting no.
Since the polls depicted a close tie, I wondered whether the half of Scotland that voted no were truly happy with belonging to the U.K., or whether they were solely interested in the economic security that came along with their partnership.
If the majority of Scotland voted no for
I try to understand, from the perspective of a welloff university student in the U.S., how important the economy may be for people's well-being.I try to justify voting based on economic considerations, putting myself in the position of someone who may lose a job or other such opportunities if the divorce ended up happening. Nevertheless, at the level we are talking about, independence should have been much more than an economic matter.
the sake of economic prosperity, does that make cultural independence (for example, creating a legal system based on your culture's values) less important than economic factors when deciding on independence?
Scotland would have definitely been able to survive on its own economically, making it able to consider independence without having to worry about economic dependence. What's more important for a large group of people with the same values is that they should have been able to decide for themselves how they ought to operate their society. Independence is a question of cultural self-determination; economic factors should have been secondary.
Sebastian Schoneich is a senior from Lawrence studying biochemistry and philosophy
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