Monday, December 29, 2014

Shaming American Values

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee recently uncovered the hidden horrors of what the C.I.A has been doing overseas: brutally torturing terrorism suspects during interrogations through practices including water boarding and prolonged sleep deprivation. The C.I.A committed immoral and inhumane crimes that disregarded American values, and polluted the image of the United States.

According to a New York Times article by Mark Mazzetti, the Senate looked at a series of reports from a C.I.A facility in Thailand. The reports say that "the [torture] sessions became so extreme that some officers were 'to the point of tears and choking up,' and several said they would elect to be transferred out of the facility if the the brutal interrogations continued". The C.I.A did not give in to the humane requests of its officers and "rejected [their] questions" regarding the "utility" and "legality" of the torture practices. I found this particularly shocking. I would not guess that this was the U.S. government based off of these actions.

However, what is arguably more concerning than the C.I.A brutalizing its detainees is that the C.I.A deceived the U.S. government and hid from the American people what it was truly doing. This deception was not limited to the interrogations, "The report also said that the C.I.A's leadership for years gave false information about the total number of prisoners held by the C.I.A., saying that there had been 98 prisoners when the C.I.A records show that 119 men had been held" (New York Times). The report also concluded that at least 26 of these men were wrongfully held. This sounds almost like part of the U.S. government has gone rogue.

Apart from the fact that the C.I.A's victims were not on U.S. soil, they were still treated in ways which the U. S. Constitution explicitly forbids. And all Americans should believe that everyone is deserving of the basic human rights that Americans receive everyday. Nobody should face excessively cruel punishment or be unrightfully held captive. The US must monitor what it is doing over seas more closely to avoid creating this image for itself, one that makes the country appear weak by showing that it cannot stick to a strict set of values.

What should be done to punish/correct the CIA? What can be done to prevent the U.S. from committing crimes in foreign territory in the future?

The Murders That Are Ignored

I know as much about the gang violence in Chicago as anyone who pays any attention to the evening news. I know that Chicago does have a gun control problem and more murders than any other city in the United States. However, as one of my older relatives recently brought to my attention, Chicago is not even in the top ten U.S. cities in terms of highest murder rate when adjusted for population. This statistic got me thinking that maybe the city is relatively not so violent. Maybe the city has been misjudged, and is merely typical for a city in a country that loves to give citizens firearms. Then, on Facebook this past week, I came across a startling thirteen minute documentary about violence in Chicago, specifically the city's South Side. The video quickly ended the debate in my mind over whether people have the right idea about Chicago's violence issue. (I would highly recommend watching at least a few minutes of it).

According to the video, in 2012 alone, more than 440 school age children were shot. The narrator explains that "this can be attributed to the city's one-hundred thousand gang members" who are constantly battling- literally fighting- for control of different "territories". The narrator then proceeds to interview and follow around some gang members. Those interviewed explained how shockingly easy it is to acquire handguns, and then, after some persuading, reveal that they are in fact armed while walking around their neighborhood. They have grown up in an area where one needs to be prepared to fight for their life at a moments notice.

The narrator also explains that the gun issue does not originate in the city itself, which does actually have very strict gun laws. The real problem come from the suburbs, he explains, where guns can easily be legitimately purchased before being sold on the streets illegally. The superintendent of the Chicago police supports this (at 7:00) saying that guns are what puts Chicago ahead of other cities in terms of violence. He then shows a collection of 125 firearms, ranging from pistols to assault rifles, all of which were taken off the street in one given week. Regardless of whether Chicago ranks first or fiftieth in terms of murders, hundreds of children are shot each year because of the accessibility of these lethal weapons.

The narrator opens with the line, "Chicago is in bad shape", generalizing that the whole city is a bad place based off of particular areas, the ones explored in the documentary. The opening line reveals something particularly problematic with how "we", as a society, deal with issues, in this case gun violence. The very fact that the narrator opens with such a line indicates that he feels a need to convince his audience that there is a problem in their city that demands attention. The assumption there is that it would otherwise be ignored for the most part. This made me realize how typical it is in our society to wait for tragic events (e.g. Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin) to work towards change. Does Chicago need it own version of a Michael Brown tragedy (one involving simply a gun issue, not a police issue) to spark a change, to inspire people to react to the 440 school children who were shot in 2012, to help the citizens fearing the war zone they must call their neighborhood? Or will people finally choose to be proactive, correcting the gun problem before it is too late?



Sunday, December 7, 2014

The Complexity of College Admissions

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A recent New York times article entitled, "Is Harvard Unfair to Asian Americans?", accused Harvard University of being just that. The article explains the surprising truth that Asian American students require "SAT scores that are about 140 points higher than those of their white peers, and that the university is supposedly "balancing" the number of Asian American undergraduates admitted due to their race. The article further evidences this trend by showing that the percentage of Asian American undergraduates "has been flat for two decades", despite the fact that Asians are "the fastest growing racial group
in America".

Harvard's alleged defense to this injustice: Asian-American applicants often lack intangible qualities such as "leadership" and "originality". This sounds unfair, even racist. I thought at first that these qualities were too subjective to be heavily weighted in admissions. However, if Harvard were to base admissions entirely on academic (test scores, class difficulty, GPAs) merit, as the NYT article proposes, would that truly fix the problem? Would all races receive equal treatment from admissions officers?

The clear-cut, concrete evaluations of a prospective student, such as SAT and ACT scores- though they may appear perfectly fair- actually tend to differ between various socioeconomic statuses. And consequently, because of the correlation between socioeconomic status and race in America, standardized test scores differ based on race. Therefore, Harvard giving Asian American test scores more attention wouldn't just increase Asian American rates of admission. It would also also decrease the rate of admission for African Americans and Latin Americans.

Harvard does not want to be forced into such a situation. Denying students of lower income families admission because they cannot afford to achieve higher test scores is exactly what the increasingly liberal school is trying to move away from. Whichever way the school decides to weight standardized testing in admissions, somebody is going to be negatively affected. And Harvard has chosen to de-emphasize traditional tests scores, intending to diversify its student body and put applicants on a more level playing field. 

If anyone is truly to blame for the inequality in elite education at this moment in time, it should be the system through which high-achieving students are created. There is no reason to single one school out. That will not solve the bigger issue of unequal education in the United States. 

Is there a way for Harvard, and all highly selective colleges for that matter, to make everyone happy? Is it truly possible for the U.S. to become a place of equal opportunity in terms of education?





The Bigger Issue Behind Protest in Ferguson

After the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to indict Michael Brown's killer, Officer Darren Wilson, one thing that grabbed my attention- apart from the massive, even destructive, protesting- was the flood of stories* I saw of police killing unarmed white people. People were posting with intent to show that the tragedy in Ferguson was not an issue of race and also not uncommon as one may think, revealed to me what I believe to be the bigger issue behind the Michael Brown killing: gun control.

The truth is that there are a similar proportion (accounting for population differences) of whites killed by police to blacks killed by police: 326 whites to 123 blacks in 2012 (The O'Reilly Factor, 2:20). This means that race is not what is causing police to kill people. Everyone is being similarly harmed. The most effective way to protect people from police violence in the future would be to take away their guns, like in countries such as Britain and New Zealand.

However, of course, that would be impossible because of the insanely high number of regular citizens that carry guns. Unarmed police would be in greater danger themselves, and, in some situations, useless in protecting others from violence. Therefore, gun control must be significantly increased for everyone, in order to begin the process towards a less violent nation. Ideally, we will live in a nation where police can assume citizens are unarmed, and citizens would never have to think of an officer using his firearm during an interaction.

Unfortunately, the main defense of guns is the fairly strong: the second amendment right, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms". Guns have been engrained in our nation from the beginning. Luckily, our constitution also says that it was designed to be changed with time, both in the elastic clause and the fifth article, in order to best serve our ever-evolving country. It is called an amendment. And never has one been more called for than when guns- something legal for civilians to carry on their person- are responsible for facilitating thousands and thousands of homicides each year, over 11,000 in 2013.

By gradually decreasing the prevalence of firearms, whether it be through a strict amendment or decreasing their accessibility, hopefully police will once again be viewed as those sworn to protect, and young men such as Michael Brown will not be "legally" killed by their sidearms.




*Many stories of those who have been killed by police violence are documented on the website: www.innocentdown.org

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

America's Sleeping Tortoise

Courtesy of The Economist
In this week's edition of The Economist, the US capitol building was depicted as an old, sleeping tortoise with American citizens waiting while it lay motionless. It represented the extreme unproductiveness of Congress recently, that they have been pretty much doing nothing
but arguing.  The Economist article,
"Powering Down", attributes this mainly to the unprecedented (except for following the Civil War) difference between the views of the Republican and Democratic parties. And also the fact that, "over the past 20 years, the share of Americans who express consistently liberal or consistently conservative opinions has doubled, according to a study by the Pew Research Centre" (26). This combination basically means that it is harder than ever for the government to compromise (which is unfortunately essential to a functioning democracy). And subsequently, "trust in Congress has tumbled to seven percent".

However, after this recent election there is hope: Republicans have gained majority control in both the senate and the house. With greater numbers, Republicans should have an easier time passing their bills. Ideally, this should promise greater progress. But similarly to how Republicans worked against Democratic bills in the past, some rules may allow the stalemate between parties to continue, this time with the Democrats impeding things.

Republicans claiming the majority in both chambers might not be so significant due to flaws in the distribution of power within Congress. One flaw that may impede progression is a result of a "filibuster rule" in the Senate, which requires any bill to gain a 60-vote majority. This enables a group of 41 senators to "halt almost any piece of legislation". This may not seem that bad, however, the true flaw is that those senators may represent as little as eleven percent of Americans because of the equal representation that even the smallest states receive. 

Because of this, one of America's greatest treasures, its fairness, may be holding it back. When the government tries to focus on meeting everyone's views, no one's views can truly be met. Therefore, a better representation of the state of Congress may be two pick-up trucks tied together by a length of chain, constantly spinning their wheels and burning fuel in attempt to pull the other to their side. The Republican side may have appeared to gain the edge however the absurdity of this gas-guzzling tug of war may continue.