Election Aftermath (put opinion pieces here)

I don’t feel like I need to reiterate everything that has been said by every Trump-opposer, but I do feel like I can articulate it in a different way.

I grew up in a bubble, as did many other privileged white people. I will acknowledge my privilege-I was raised in a small suburban town with great schools just outside the city where I would later attend one of the most reputable universities in the country.

Lucky for me, I’ve always been an open-minded individual, but attending NYU has taught me more than I ever knew about the world we live in.

The sad truth is that some people have either not had the opportunity, or taken advantage of chances they have to stray outside of that bubble.

Donald Trumps election to presidency poured a bucket of cold water on a sleeping portion of America.

Conservatives and liberals have different ideals. That’s why we have these two major political parties. There are major differences. But I do not oppose Donald Trump simply because I don’t agree with his political views. I don’t oppose Donald Trump simply because he is a celebrity with little political experience. I don’t oppose him because of the color of his skin or his hair. What I am in opposition of, is having the leader, the face of our country, someone with so much power, being an individual who has demonstrated blatant racism and sexism. This isn’t my opinion-it is fact.

A fact is by definition a truth known by actual experience or observation. And Trump has made his views and values more than apparent through his speech and actions, of which all Americans have had the opportunity to observe over the last year and a half.

He showed us, unabashed, that this is who he is and this is what he stands for. No one needs to teach him the grade school lesson that if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. He wanted to vocalize his opinions and he has every right to.

The problem with his opinions, is that they go against the basic values and morals that our country has worked hundreds of years to bring to the forefront of people’s minds, to encourage equality and freedom for every citizen, to not let people live in fear because of their differences.

International relations are of utmost importance to our country, especially in this time of terrorism. How can we have the president of our country being discriminatory against other races and nationalities, when it is vital that we work together during this strenuous time?

So maybe this doesn’t affect you. Maybe your life won’t be that much different for the next for years. But it will undoubtedly affect someone else’s.

I am fortunate enough to go to a school where I see firsthand how this impacts people’s lives. Not only in the diverse students and staff, but also in the diversity that surrounds me in New York City. In the days since election night I have seen tears, I have heard cries, I have been caught in the middle of protests. And I can empathize with every individual in that crowd.

Donald Trump’s election has shown me that what our country is truly lacking, is empathy.

I am not afraid to share my political views anymore because I take pride in them. I take pride in my values and morals and beliefs, and for the first time in my life I have truly been encouraged to share that with others. There will always be those who disagree. We all were raised different ways in different places, experiencing and not experiencing certain things.

But instead of shoving our opinions down the throats of those who disagree, perhaps it is more beneficial to explain how we feel and listen to the feelings of others.

Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.-Daniel H. Pink

When you show deep empathy toward others, their defensive energy goes down, and positive energy replaces it.-Stephen Covey

 

 

Reaction to a Trump Presidency

I pushed around some nachos on my plate and tried to tell myself that everything would be ok. It was about 9:00pm on election night, and Trump was leading in electoral votes. Not enough to predict what the outcome of the election would eventually be, but enough to make me a little bit nervous. “Feeling pretty good about the fact that I have an Irish passport right now,” I said to my boyfriend, who was sitting at the bar with me watching the election results come in. I said it jokingly, completely unaware that in just a few hours, Canada’s immigration website would crash and the reality of Donald Trump as a president would sink in.

A few hours earlier, I was sitting in the library working on a presentation for the next day. I wasn’t paying much attention to the election results: it was still early, and everything and everyone around me indicated that I had no need to worry about the election. It was only when my boyfriend texted me to ask how the election was looking that I googled “election results” and saw for the first time that Trump was ahead. “It looks bad right now, but it’s just because only the results from Southern states have come through so far, and we knew Trump would win those. She’ll probably take the lead in a little bit,” was what I texted my boyfriend along with a picture of the map of the US, the middle part of it covered in red.

Later that night, as I started to get worried at the bar, my boyfriend reassured me: “There’s no way. Why are you even worrying?” We didn’t have any concrete reason to think this, but we believed in it. I had just spent the weekend with my father, whose opinion I value more than just about anyone’s. He called Trump a “maniac” and acknowledged the support he has in America but said that there was no way he would be elected. My father has never voted Democrat in his entire life, and on the Monday before the election, he cast his ballot for Hillary Clinton. I reminded myself of my father’s words as the votes continued to roll in. Maybe I’m more naive than I realized.

I woke up the next morning feeling like someone had died. I managed to stay up until around 12:45 am, when Hillary’s chance to win relied on Philadelphia, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. I knew it was looking bad, but I also knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep once they had officially announced that Donald Trump was our new president. I had work at 9 the next morning and needed to sleep, so I shut off the TV. I felt disgusted and afraid. I shut my eyes and prayed to God to please pick the right candidate for our country. I’m a Catholic, but I don’t regularly pray. But as I saw Trump’s number of electoral college votes rise and rise, I could think of nothing else to do.

I felt my phone buzzing underneath my head the entire night, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at it. I couldn’t bear to read the CNN and New York Times notification that informed that a racist, sexist, mysoginistic man who had spent his entire campaign bringing other people down was my new president.

I have never felt ashamed of being American. I have never truly felt ashamed of my country, despite some of the horrible things that have happened in my lifetime here. The next morning, my boyfriend, who is from India and quite proud of the bushy beard he’s been growing for the last month, joked to me that “Now that Trump’s president, I’ll have to shave off this beard.” I laughed for a split second before feeling a sharp pang of sadness. I was ashamed of my country.

I don’t know what more proof we need that the accomplishments of women, no matter how smart and qualified they are, will continue to be overshadowed by men. Today, America took about 50,000 steps backwards. My journalism professor told me later that day that “as a woman, [i] would have less control over my body than ever before.” My accomplishments, my salary, and my body are at the whims of the government. Two white males are going to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body.

The day Trump was elected, I watched people openly weep on the subway. One of my peers teared up as she asked our professor, “what now? Where do we go from here?” I exchanged soft, sad smiles with random women on the street. My professor ended class that day by telling us to go home and be with people — that we shouldn’t be alone during a time like this. We had to be with friends and try to remember why we love this city so much.

I felt the same way the day that Trump was nominated president as I did the days after the Boston marathon bombing. People talked to each other very carefully and my teachers reminded me that they were always there if I wanted to talk. The entire Greater Boston Area smiled at each other a little bit more: in a sad, commiserative way. The Boston marathon bombings injured over 250 people and killed 3. I should not be reminded of this day on the day my country elects a new president.

I want to raise children in a place where the leader of the country has not repeatedly made women, immigrants, LGBTQ, and people of color feel that their voice isn’t worth hearing. I want my little girl — if I have one — to grow up knowing that her voice matters just as much as all the men and she is beautiful and strong. I want my little boy — if I have one — to know that he is strong and capable and to accept people who are different from him. I feel so grateful I don’t have any children to explain trumps candidacy to.

My boyfriend called his friend to speak to him about the election the day Trump was nominated. Through his half Gujarati, half English conversation I caught the following bits of phrases: “US super power” and “US is a joke.” The night before, when I knew Trump would be elected, I asked my half asleep boyfriend if he would stay in US with me even though trump would be our leader. I know I would think twice about it if I were him. He told me “of course I will” and went back to sleep, while my mind nervously tried to come to terms with a Trump presidency.

Over the next 4 years, my voice will be silenced. My boyfriend’s, as an immigrant and a brown man, voice will be silenced. So many of my best friends, as people of color and various sexualities, will have their voices silenced. But you can be damn sure we aren’t going down without a fight.

It’s November 9, 2016 and Donald Trump has been the announced president for less than 24 hours. But just 30 blocks uptown from me, outside the Trump Towers, are people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, sexualities, and socio-economic backgrounds that are protesting and fighting for our rights. My voice might be silenced, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be heard. For the next four years, I plan on loving and screaming so loud that no one has a choice but to listen. Trump’s candidacy does not mean we have to be silent. This might be a step back for America, but this is not the end for us. I will hang on to the faith I have for my country with everything I’ve got. This is a country worth fighting for, filled with people that are willing to fight. So let’s fight together.

Interview with the CEO of the Fashion Consulting Firm: Britt Bivens

As the founder of the Ace of Swords, a fashion consulting companies which focuses on the forecasting of lifestyle trends and retail strategy, Britt Bivens is also actively involved in politics. As a liberal, she decides to vote for Hillary and explains the reason behind the fashion industry’s overt support for a female president. 1

“I think in this election because it is so polarizing, we see a lot of publications coming forward and say they support Hillary,” said Britt Bivens, “A lot of these publications have been fashion publications which has been surprising to me because it goes back to the conversation of looking at what people are wearing versus what their policies are. Donald Trump has put them in a position that they really want to say I don’t want anything to do with them.”

Publications and social media are constantly talking about the messages delivered through the pantsuits she wear and how her gender-neutral style has been representing powerful women and feminine ideals.
When Britt was asked about this ongoing discussion about Hillary’s pantsuits in the three presidential debates, she strongly condemned this kind of conversations and argued it’s anti-feminism. Britt thinks it is a very unfair and unbalanced discussion because people rarely talk about what the male politicians are wearing and the price tags and colors of their suits and ties.

“Nobody talks about what president Obama was wearing,” said Britt, “I really detest that discussion. Hillary chooses to wear pantsuits for most of her political career. I don’t think their clothing have anything to do with how they are going to run the country. If we want to consider ourselves as feminists, we need to not join in these kind of conversations and make it about us being equal.”

Ready To Go: The Life of an NYU Student Senator

by Sam Senini 

After spending a morning watching re-runs of Parks & Recreation on Netflix, it was refreshing to meet with a young women involved in local government as down-to earth and un-Leslie Knope like as Tara Ready.

Ready, 22, an NYU senior studying at the Silver School of Social Work got involved in student politics because of her strong desire to help improve the lives of her peers at the Silver school who’s issues she feels are underrepresented in the NYU community. What really inspired her to run for a position on the Student Senate, was inspiration from her predecessor, _(name of girl)__ a positive female role model who worked to get funding and programs approved to aid students whose academic experience studying social work are much different those of students at the other NYU colleges. “many spend their junior and senior years of campus working on hands-on projects, and have to travel around the city which can be very expensive,” says Ready. Once she was elected she was quick to carry out her predecessor’s proposal to get subsidized metro cards for eligible students in need of financial aid.

While unfortunately this bill did not pass through the hierarchy of the staff approval committees, she squick to note that NYU’s alternate solution of providing more free shuttle services to students ended up being more costly to the University than the subsidized Metro Card plan. This however is no deterrent to Ready who was quick to pull out of a highly annotated personal copy of her and her fellow senator’s new “Affordable Task Force Steering Committee” proposal. At the heart of all her work is a (quote about what she likes about student government.)

The upcoming presidential election stand is stark contrast to her experience running for student senate. Ready says the way Trump and Hillary treat each other “shocking disrespectful” and “you can see how they rant and aren’t actually listening to each other in debates. They are just trying to formulate their next response.” In regards to Trump’s comment in the final debate calling Hillary a “nasty woman” not once but twice, Ready says it is (insert quote from tape) and she appreciates how lucky she is to “work in an environment where everyone truly try their best to listen to the ideas of on another.” Ready is poised to vote for Clinton come election day November 6th, but concedes that Hillary wouldn’t be her first choice for president either. “I hate Donald Trump. He is ignorant and his views are simple minded and don’t touch on American issues as deep as they truly go.” While Trump has said he will “leave us in suspense” about whether he will except the results of the election (assuming the Hillary has won based on all major polls), defying one of the cornerstones of America’s democratic traditions, Ready says the U.S. government could take a note from the student government she works with and practice a bit of open-mindedness and empathy. “The best kind of compromise is when both parties feel a little bit uncomfortable and less like victors of a competition.”

While she retains more liberally oriented political viewpoint Ready considers herself an Independent and dislikes the two party system in America that creates such partisan disputes throughout the country. Running against two other Silver students for the school’s representative position, she admits that she ”admired the values of both the other candidates.” I would have been ok with the other had they won the election. However, finding the campaign process both “nerve racking and very exciting,” she was honored to have won the election. “I just hoped I would get to be a part of the process, and now I am.”

As the time for Ready to leave our interview to attend her Student Senate meeting, I ask if she foreseeing pursuing politics in her future. “It is defiantly not out of the question. Politics may defiantly be in my future, hopefully when I am more experienced.” As for a young woman growing up in New York, Ready says she is grateful that she has never felt any discrimination based on her gender or ethnicity as the first generation American daughter of Latin American parents. Nonetheless “It would be exciting to see Hillary become the first female president. it was clear that politics were becoming much more diverse when Obama won the election in 2008, and since then women from both parties have run for president. But it is exciting to see if she starts a motion where women will not only run, but win.”