Editor’s picks: The top opinion stories of 2021

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This year writers for the Daily Orange Opinion section accompanied the nation and SU community in tackling many tough but important topics. In this list of must-read stories, columnists examine racism on campus and on the national scale, how to make a more disability-friendly learning environment, Islamophobia, rape culture on campus, being an LGBTQ student and COVID-19 in the prison system.

Here are the Opinion section’s top stories of 2021.

Emily Steinberger | Editor-in-Chief

To be seen and heard in Newhouse is a protest of injustice

Being a Black student at Syracuse University can be isolating. Columnist Chelsea Brown said this is exemplified in her experience as a student in the Newhouse School of Public Communications. She asks the question, “If Newhouse is the center for communicating stories, how well can I communicate my story if I am forced to limit my Blackness to appease the comfort of my white peers?”

For the first time, Brown found herself as the only non-white person in a classroom in Newhouse as a freshman at SU after moving from Miami to Syracuse. She said that although many Newhouse professors preach inclusivity, it rarely is the reality. Classes are filled with microaggressions and limitations to Black students, and Brown continues to look out for herself and her entire community so that all stories from people of color can be told.

Nabeeha Anwar | Senior Staff Illustrator

Stop normalizing rape culture on college campuses

Syracuse University’s popular party culture has led to the normalization of rape on campus, guest columnist Ava Notkin said. Greek life on campus has made rape almost unavoidable for girls at SU, including Notkin, who shares her own experience with sexual assault.

Notkin said that rape culture is just Greek culture and party culture, and college campuses normalize sexual assault and harassment. She recalls what one older girl told her after she confided in her that she had been sexually assaulted: “Welcome to college.”

Anya Wijeweera | Senior Staff Photographer

Me and Breonna Taylor are not that different

When calling one of her friends on FaceTime after trying a new hairstyle, Charlene Masona saw Breonna Taylor in herself. For Masona, the comparisons go farther than the physical resemblance of a similar hairstyle.

Taylor was only a year older than Masona when police murdered Taylor in her sleep. Additionally, Masona said true justice was never found for Taylor which is horrifically the story of many Black women robbed of their life by police officers. Masona said she is honored to see Taylor when she looks in the mirror, and she hopes her community will make the world a better place for women like her.

Wendy Wang | Staff Photographer

The harm of LGBTQ community claiming African American Vernacular English

Kit Radley used phrases “slay” and “queen” without really knowing where they came from. They later realized that this “slang” adopted by the LGBTQ community is taken from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) after being introduced by Black LGBTQ members. Then it is commodified by the white members of the community to meet the needs of the community overtaking it.

The phrases used by white members of the LGBTQ community quickly become casual in nature, often transforming these words into “buzzwords.” This can take away from a culturally significant dialect while also pushing the narrative that AAVE is less proper than standardized English, Radley said, which is damaging to the Black community.

Emily Steinberger | Editor-in-Chief

Being sent home during COVID-19 made me hide my true identity

Columnist Sourov Rayhan tells their story of moving back home to Bangladesh during the pandemic. While Rayhan was removing their nail polish to return home they realized he would have to begin hiding his identity again. In Bangladesh homosexuality can put individuals at risk of being imprisoned for life or even lynched.

Syracuse University’s campus was a safe haven for Rayhan, along with many other members of the LGBTQ community. The pandemic forced many students to move back to potentially dangerous situations, and the SU administration should have realized the negative mental health impacts this can cause and better supported their students, Rayhan said.

Wendy Wang | Staff Photographer

Disability isn’t a fixed identity, it’s a limitation society creates

Renci Mercy Xie was only four years old when she lost her leg in a car accident. From that point on she spent her early years adapting to a new way of life.

She found during her first year at SU she had a much easier time coping with her disability than throughout her educational experience in China. “The barriers between me and society were removed by the robust and effective implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Xie said.

She soon learned, however, that people with disabilities different than her own, such as students who use wheelchairs, do not find SU as easy to navigate as she did. Disabilities vary greatly between individuals and a solution for one will not be a solution for all, but others, including SU, need to take these differences into account when designing everything from buildings to clothing.

Elizabeth Billman | Senior Staff Photographer

We didn’t need Loretta Lynch’s report to tell us DPS is anti-Black

The Department of Public Safety’s tense relationship with Black students was prevalent and known long before the former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch released her report, guest columnist Tayla Myree said. It’s no secret that DPS’ interaction with students of color is wildly different from their contact with white students.

DPS shuts down Black and Latinx parties while ignoring predominately white parties, especially disregarding parties associated with Greek life, Myree said. And DPS, as well as the administration, actively partake in anti-Blackness by continuously gaslighting Black students about their lived experiences on campus and not institutionally addressing the issues.

“Black students have experienced the full range of micro to macroaggressions, including but not limited to the N-word being used in class by professors, racist graffiti and racially motivated physical attacks, all of which have historically either been ignored or poorly handled by both the administration and DPS,” Myree said. It was obvious long before Lynch got involved that DPS needs to change.

Elizabeth Billman | Senior Staff Photographer

Microaggressions I faced at Juice Jam reflect Islamophobia at SU

Zainab Altuma Almatwari spent days excitedly preparing for Juice Jam, which came to an abrupt end when they faced Islamophobic microagressions at the concert’s security checkpoint.

After being body scanned at the concert’s security checkpoint, a security guard tried to reveal Almatwari’s Hijab by removing their bucket hat, which was holding their Hijab in place. After Almatwari explained this to the security guard, the guard laughed and reached underneath Hijab to touch Almatwari’s hair.

“Without any justification, people see their Hijab and activate all of their predetermined prejudices and Islamophobia,” Almatwari said. This unacceptable incident is unfortunately all too familiar for some SU students.

Courtesy of Tracy White’s family

What it’s like quarantined in a prison dorm

Tracy White is incarcerated at Wyoming Correctional Facility, an hour east of Buffalo, New York. White, who is serving a 13-year sentence, was quarantined in February for 16 days. During his quarantine and through the entire pandemic, he has found the prison system to be negligent in reducing the spread.

“Some people in here still think they don’t have it, because of these people lying and covering stuff up. I mean, you got people at the highest level deceiving people about the number of deaths in the nursing homes. So they could lie about people here. Because we don’t even matter to society. If 8,000 of us died, who would really care?” White said.

White’s story shows exactly why it’s necessary to care about COVID-19 and health care in general within the prison system. The health of incarcerated individuals is often overlooked and this pandemic should not be another example of that.

Courtesy of Chelsea Brown

SU Campus Store is guilty of engaging in performative activism

For SU junior Chelsea Brown, this past Coming Back Together — an event SU has put on every three years since 1983 — was a beautiful signifier of the promise SU made to their students of color to create a safe space for them. This feeling was quickly overshadowed by false representation perpetuated by the SU Campus Store.

On the second day of CBT the campus store decorated their mannequins with merchandise representing Kappa Alpha Psi, a Black fraternity on campus. This merchandise was removed quickly after CBT ended, revealing the performative nature of SU’s allyship.

“What this incident shows to students of color is that, like the mannequin, our time on this campus is only temporary compared to our white counterparts, that we are only fiberglass displays, modeling the university’s counterfeit ideology of cross culturalism,” Brown said. “Instead of people, we are replaceable once SU’s ability to produce a profit is complete.”