Author: Gabriela Simone

Categories
Opinions

Speaking your mind in the spotlight

Graphic by Wednesday Laplante.

Kanye West’s support for Donald Trump highlights a larger conversation about famous people’s opinions

We all have a right to voice our opinions. In fact, I’ll be voicing mine throughout this article. It doesn’t mean you need to agree with it, but it’s always nice to open our minds to a different perspective. Oftentimes, I think people say things without expecting repercussions. But if your words were more powerful than other people’s, would you be more careful about what you said?

In my opinion, a celebrity’s words have a big impact on their fans. People can be easily influenced by their role models and, therefore, swayed to agree with something solely because of the person who said it. Or, people can also completely disagree with any statements made by celebrities and withdraw their support as a result.

When rapper Kanye West tweeted a picture of his “Make America Great Again” cap in April, people did not react well. West later tweeted, “You don’t have to agree with Trump, but the mob can’t make me not love him.” Although West has the right to be a Trump supporter, there are obvious reasons why so many people do not support the President and were so shocked when West revealed he did. I believe Trump is blatantly racist, sexist and quite childish. It’s obvious to me that this isn’t someone who should be spoken highly of by other famous people.

Although West said on Twitter that he wants to be open about his opinions and thoughts rather than be controlled by the popular opinion, it can be argued that he should be more cautious about the things he says because of his influence on the public. If he openly states that he supports Trump or supports a specific statement Trump has made, this may sway West supporters to think something that’s problematic is not so bad if West supports it.

Things can often be misread or taken out of context, so celebrities should be used to thinking twice about anything they say. We all have a right to express our opinions, but when your words have a larger impact on the public, that right needs to be exercised with more caution. I’m not saying things should be purposely left unsaid, but words travel fast, and with the popularity of social media nowadays, it’s easy for something to be seen or read by many more people than anticipated and for its impact to be far-reaching.

Kanye also argued in a tweet, “I don’t agree with everything anyone does. That’s what makes us individuals. And we have the right to independent thought.” Though this is true, being a celebrity does come with the responsibility of keeping in mind how your words influence your fans. Explanations must often be given to justify words and actions. If you give your opinion with no justification, it can be taken the wrong way. With an explanation, people can at least understand the reasoning behind your thinking and be considerate of it.

We do not have to agree with everything a person says, but we can respect their words. Or, if we do not want to accept them, we can at least acknowledge the fact that there is a reasonable explanation behind their opinions. Whether our words will be heard by one person or thousands, we should always be aware of the possible repercussions. Everyone can disagree with something or be disagreed with.

Everyone has a right to their opinion, and to speak it, no matter the size of their audience. However, those in the public eye should always be more conscious of how their words and actions will be received.

Graphic by Wednesday Laplante

 

Categories
News

Unconventional grocery shopping

The Concordia Student Union hosted a free dumpster diving workshop on March 12. Workshop participants prepared a meal together after their dive. Photo by Gabriela Simone.
Article by Catherine Hansen and Gabriela Simone

CSU workshop shares tips and resources for dumpster diving

The Concordia Student Union organized a free dumpster diving workshop on March 12 as part of their weekly DIY series. The two-part event kicked off with a dumpster diving theory class, which encompasses proper etiquette, health risks, legal aspects and a reflection on the eating habits of today’s society. The second half of the event had participants dumpster diving for food and making a meal with their findings.

The event was hosted by Isabella Leone and Coco Graziani of Les Échelles, a collective living space in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood that organizes free cultural events and encourages the sharing of food and resources. The majority of the food found in their fridge is gathered from dumpster diving. Residents of Les Échelles rarely spend money on food because they often find perfectly good produce that has been thrown away.

Graziani was raised in Italy and has been living in Montreal for four years. She spent the last two years living at Les Échelles and has taken up dumpster diving.

“Having dumpster diving as an option makes me feel less horrible when I eat food,” Graziani said. Dumpster diving allows her to “avoid going to grocery stores and buying things whose production rests on the exploitation of other humans and animals, and contributes to the further degradation of the environment.”

Leone and Graziani said dumpster diving is a viable option for people who want to save money on food and prevent food from being wasted, but it’s often trickier than it seems. While large quantities of edible food can be found in dumpsters, many building owners do not appreciate people rummaging through their garbage without permission.

To have a successful dumpster diving experience, Leone and Graziani said there is some important preparation involved, such as finding dumpsters ahead of time and making sure they are in a public space. Usually, if they are located in parking lots or behind buildings, they are considered private property. Other dumpsters, like those in alleyways, are considered public and can be looked through by anyone.

According to Graziani, proper diving etiquette includes not taking all the produce when large quantities are available and leaving the extras in a box outside of the dumpster.

The main health tip highlighted in the workshop was to make sure to soak produce in a bowl with water and a tablespoon of vinegar to disinfect it. As for moldy produce, Graziani and her friends have a rhyme they use to identify potentially dangerous mold: “Pink and black, put it back; blue and white, you’re alright.”

There are multiple resources dumpster divers can use to find the perfect diving spots, such as food drop-off and pick-up locations, the Health Canada recall website and a dumpster diving map available online. The map shows where dumpsters are located throughout the city, and are marked in either green or red. Pierre-Olivier Jourdenais, a workshop participant, wrote on the Dumpster Diving Workshop Facebook event page: ‘’The red dumpsters tend to be rarely fruitful, according to map markers, while the green ones are more likely to have things to dumpster dive. So, you’re avantaged to go for the green ones whenever possible, for efficiency reasons.’’

Jourdenais is a frequent dumpster diver who follows diving-related pages on Facebook, such as Free Food for Free People, a group created to inform people of drop-off points around Montreal where divers can collect food that would otherwise go to waste. “I often go to the drop-offs in Rosemont,” Jourdenais said.

One of the participants, Marina Kuneva, travelled all the way from Sherbrooke to attend the dumpster diving workshop with her friend, Valerie-Anne Codina-Fauteux, a student at the Université de Montréal. Codina-Fauteux said she likes how dumpster divers “don’t consider the standard way of consuming food as the only good way.”

Photo by Gabriela Simone

Categories
Opinions

We race for success, but what’s at the finish line?

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

University culture encourages competition and stress among students in their 20s

​Trying to be successful in a short amount of time definitely comes with a lot of stress. As university students, many of us feel the need to accomplish as much as we can as fast as we can. The pressure we put on ourselves to succeed creates a stressful environment for us to live in, knowing very well there are more important things to worry about.

I don’t believe there’s an approaching deadline for success, seeing as so many well-known people became successful later in life. However, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and pressured to accomplish “success” in school when you hear your classmates talk about their achievements.

We often hear stories of young adults who have already accomplished so much. For example, Chloe Kim is a 17-year-old American who won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics for the women’s snowboard halfpipe. It can be tough to watch a bunch of fit 20-somethings achieve the highest level in their field. It reminds us of how unaccomplished we are in our own lives. Although there is no time limit for success, especially not in yours 20s, it can certainly feel that way sometimes.
​University culture plays a big part in the pressure to amount to something. We should be focused on our schoolwork and nothing more, but many of us can’t help but feel the need to get a headstart on our careers. Whether that means starting a blog or getting an internship, any step we can take to get closer to “success,” we take it.

The majority of university students I talk to usually say they’re stressed almost all the time during the school year. Although some stress is normal, our overthinking about success causes a large amount of unnecessary stress. Our 20s is when we start to figure out what we really want from a career and build our way up from there. We can’t expect to accomplish all our goals in such a short amount of time.

​In 2013, a study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that almost 50 per cent of students listed anxiety as the main reason for seeking help from a school counsellor. Even though there can be many reasons for having anxiety, I believe a major factor is school-related stress. In the same year, another study revealed that 55 per cent of Canadian post-secondary students feel stressed because of health, relationships and academics, according to The Globe and Mail.

Countless articles discuss the pressure students face to feel accomplished; it affects our health and self-esteem, and it sabotages our academic experience. However, I believe very few of these articles discuss why we feel this pressure in the first place. Maybe we don’t quite know all the reasons behind it. What I believe is that putting students in such competitive environments creates a pressure to be better.

The other students in your program are generally striving for the same career as you and can, therefore, be seen as competitors. This level of competitiveness is too often seen as positive because educational systems have emphasized that competitiveness is one of the ways someone can be successful. But there is no race to success. We have our whole lives to be able to accomplish everything we want to, so we shouldn’t rush through our younger years, always feeling stressed out.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

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