Live theater is an amazing creation. It allows actors bring stories to life right in front of an audience. Live theater creates and displays these scenes without any editing, just with a lot of practice. It is truly a great experience, but high ticket prices and inaccessibility to theater has caused a gap between live theater and the general public.

The average theater ticket for a Broadway show can be purchased for around $100, and that is only under the assumption that the show has not gained a ton of popularity. Such fame would cause ticket costs to skyrocket.  For example, a ticket to one of Broadway’s most sought-after show, “Hamilton,” has the potential to cost over $800. A lot of people would deem even the $100 too much to spend on a one time show in addition to the cost of traveling to New York. It is no wonder that a good portion of the population will not let themselves get into theater.

UMBC students actually have a bit of an advantage when it comes to our ability to access live theater. The campus is close to several theaters in Baltimore that offer professional grade theater as well as student discounts. For some theater kids at UMBC and in Maryland in general, it can feel like theater is everywhere, but when you think about people who live in states further away, you realize the obstacles that separate some individuals from the theater experience.

Something else that often comes up when talking about accessibility to theater is the controversial practice of watching bootlegs, illegally taped versions of a show that are put online for others to enjoy without having to purchase a ticket to the actual show. Many people are really opposed to bootlegs, but for many others, it is their only way to experience professional theater.

When asked about her opinion on bootlegs UMBC junior social work and psychology major Shayna Greenblatt said, “I can’t afford to go see a bunch of shows live, so they seem like the only way.”

However, UMBC senior media and communications major Andrew Grabowski was a little more hesitant on the issue, stating, “Inherently I’m against piracy of media, but in some circumstances, I think it’s harmless. ‘Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark’ is probably never going to return to Broadway or tour, so it’s not like anyone’s making money off of it, so what’s the harm in finding a bootleg? On a different end of the spectrum, Hamilton is likely not going anywhere anytime soon, but with the average ticket price consistently staying at hundreds and hundreds of dollars, some people may have zero means of seeing it if they don’t find a bootleg. I think in that circumstance, it’s also relatively harmless. When I would be opposed to bootlegs is circumstances in which you have the option to go see a show. If you know that tickets are affordable, whether on Broadway or your local theater, you should make the effort to support them before going immediately to piracy.”

Grabowski also offered some advice for people who want to experience theater but are unable to attend professional productions by saying, “Go to local productions whenever possible. If even that is impossible, the other forms of experiencing theatre are all digital. Listening to soundtracks, watching bootlegs, reading scripts.”

Seeing live theater in any setting can be expensive and sometimes difficult. Hopefully that will not detour any one from perusing an interest in theater. There are many ways to experience live theater without putting a dent in your pockets.

It is certainly no secret that the Student Government Association is widely considered something of a joke around campus. With a history full of scandals and a tendency to only be noticed when implementing policies that negatively affect the student body, this was bound to be the case. However, it does not have to be this way.

The image and policies of the SGA are decided by the philosophy the organization adopts with regards to its place and purpose on campus. In recent history it seems that the SGA has decided that they are an arm of the larger body of university administration and have been acting on that, separating themselves partially from the student body on the whole.

This can very easily be seen in the most recent budget proposed by the SGA. In this budget, funding for SGA outreach and advertising will be slashed across the board. All while almost $20,000 will be allocated to a somewhat obscure new initiative that would run programs designed to train a smaller, more select group of individuals for future roles in the SGA making the organization comprised less of student leaders and more of trained student administrators.

Another element of the SGA that reveals this philosophy is how they engage with students outside of their organization. As many theater groups on campus recently found out the SGA takes the policy of campus administration as practically unassailable.

Indeed, a policy from the Student Affairs Business Services Center has been repeatedly cited as the reason these orgs cannot use SGA money to buy props or costumes. Regardless of the validity of this explanation, the fact that the policy of administration is considered nonnegotiable rather than the needs of the orgs the SGA is representing shows the true affiliation of the SGA.

Yet this administrative focus is not the only SGA philosophy on campus, or even in the SGA. I would argue the most popular SGA philosophy around campus is one that would see the SGA less as a tool of administration and more as a union of students representing the interests of the student body at large. To this end, the SGA would push back against administrative policies that ran counter to student interests on terms determined by the students, not administration.

I believe this disconnect in philosophy is a large part of what ruined the reputation of the SGA. Since on one hand, the student body could not understand why the SGA was not standing up for them, leading them to believe and criticize the organization as incompetent. On the other hand, the SGA could not effectively deal with this criticism since being more competent administrators was not really what the student body wanted in the first place.

Thus a sort of loop was formed. The SGA would be criticized and in being criticized they would pull back and become increasingly detached from the student body overall by distancing themselves from issues or dissident voices that would hurt their “image.” This naturally would lead to more and more criticism as the needs of the student body were met less and less by the SGA.

It does not have to remain this way. To begin with, most of the students in the SGA mean very well and many of them even disagree with or are otherwise unaware of the philosophy that dominates their organization. If the present organization was challenged by a wave of candidates who advocated for the more student-oriented philosophy we could certainly see an SGA in the future with a diversity of opinion that could serve all parts of campus, student and administration, much better than it can currently.

Our planet is dying. Everyday, a combination of individual actions and the choices of institutions and world governments to ignore those actions allows our planet to slip closer to the point of no return. Our carelessness damns future generations to suffer the consequences of our refusal to take responsibility and take action. It is time to face these facts and make changes accordingly.

On Feb. 7, freshman United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a resolution nicknamed the “Green New Deal” which is meant to combat climate change, as well as create new jobs. The resolution includes proposals to meet all of the power needs of the U.S. with renewable energy, to use smart power grids and to upgrade buildings in the U.S. so that they achieve maximum energy efficiency, among other radical goals.

Some of the proposals may seem extreme, but we need to take extreme measures if we want to prevent the planet from becoming one large garbage can. While new policies are being decided upon in our government, we can and should take care of our individual actions as well. Buying and actually using reusable water bottles, walking or biking or skateboarding when we can, instead of driving, using recyclable and compostable materials and actually disposing of them in the proper way are all good steps to take.

When I was a kid, I had dreams of being a hero like the people I watched on TV and in movies, flying around saving people from fires or turning invisible or using my ridiculous wealth and free time to don a mask and fight crime. I have had to accept that these things are not likely to happen for me or for most people. But that does not mean that we cannot be heroes or that we cannot do the right thing and save people.

If there is anything that I have learned from media surrounding heroism, it is that sometimes heroes fail, but they keep trying. The other day I realized that I have put compostable containers from Hissho into the garbage in the Commons an inexcusable number of times, but now I am committed to paying attention and being more careful. We can all try to find and fix our mistakes.

No one should be discouraged by the thought that they have already done so much damage that they may as well not change anything, new ideas and resources are coming up everyday and we can start taking advantage. Now is the time to take steps and make changes, because we know better, so we need to do better.

People may say that individual actions will not make a difference to the health of the planet, but masses of people are made of individuals. We have to start somewhere. Thinking that what you do does not matter and will not change anything can be detrimental, because if everyone thinks that way, then change truly is out of reach.

Netflix has been attempting to expand its foreign language content, especially within the last year. The most recent addition is “Siempre Bruja”, otherwise known as “Always a Witch” to American audiences. The show made its debut on Netflix on the first day of Black History Month, February 1, 2019. It is about a young woman, Carmen Eguiluz, a slave and a witch, who falls in love with the son of her slave owner, Cristobal.

The show opens with Carmen being forced to trial and burned at the stake for her crimes until she is shown mercy by a wizard who transports her to the future to complete a mission that would allow her to save her lover. In modern-day Cartagena, Colombia, she meets new friends and attends college, all while trying to better understand herself and her powers.

A show that was widely anticipated by many since the trailer was released looks great on the outside: A young Afro-Latina lead playing a powerful witch in modern-day Cartagena. This in and of itself is a step forward for Latin American TV which has been known for its lack of black actors.

Historically, the Afro-descendant population in the Americas has been overlooked for centuries due to racism, which has led to a preference for white or lighter skin and an erasure of Black identity and culture. The fact that Netflix has produced a show in which the main character is a dark-skinned Afro-Colombian with thick curly hair shows society that there should not just be one standard of strength and beauty.

After watching the first episode, viewers can immediately begin to unpack why the show’s storyline is very problematic. Carmen begins as a slave living in the 17^th century who immediately falls in love with the son of a slave owner. The show automatically focuses on this instantaneous “romantic connection” Carmen and Cristobal have while they are at a slave auction, which is historically inaccurate.

Being a female slave had its own challenges on top of the physical, psychological and emotional pain slaves suffered. Black women experienced extreme sexism and were often subjected to exploitation by white men through sexual abuse. Because “Siempre Bruja” concentrates deeply on the slave romance storyline and glamorizing on this idea, it erases the pain and history slaves had to endure.

After being transported to the 21st century, Carmen never questioned the substantial differences in the modern world compared to the one she grew up in. The only thing she was concerned about is how Instagram works, and how phones work, but not the obvious. Carmen never addresses changes to gender roles and racial and ethnic relations in Colombia and South America.

Another aspect of the storyline is the lack of celebration of Carmen’s lineage, even though her family and culture are the reasons she is so powerful in the first place.  Halfway through the season, viewers then get a glimpse of her family when flashbacks show pictures of her mother who was burned at the stake and her uncle who helped raise her.

These scenes indicate that they had a huge influence on her upbringing, but the show seems to only want to connect everything back to her romantic relationship with Cristobal. Many stories about blacks have been rewritten or condensed to focus solely on their connections to white people.

“Siempre Bruja” lacks in many areas, including accentuating on Carmen’s healing powers, telling the history of slavery without watering it down and introducing more of Carmen’s Afro-Colombian culture and lineage. All of the things that are lacking makes the show lose its magic.

We have an undeniable problem with hypocrisy in this country when it comes to traditions like the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem. For example, an 11 year old boy was arrested in Florida on Feb. 4 after refusing to stand for the pledge in an incident with his teacher that escalated beyond belief.

This event is just the newest example in a series of conversations about respect for this country, its history, soldiers and veterans in the face of protests that involve a refusal to participate in traditions like standing for and reciting the national anthem.

This conversation has been discussed at length particularly when it comes to football due to the leadership of Colin Kaepernick who was equally respected and reviled for taking a knee during the national anthem in 2016. The point is, people are taking these age-old traditions far too seriously. These things do not represent the country and everyone in it.

A choice not to stand for the national anthem, or not to recite the pledge of allegiance is not a statement that a person hates America. For many people it is quite the opposite, they believe in America enough to believe that it can be better than it has been and that our nation can work harder to address mistakes of the past and present.

People who claim that dissatisfied citizens should just leave if they think the country is so flawed are communicating something dangerous. They are saying that rather than attempting to fix what is broken in the country, people should ignore problems, silence dissent, and force others to accept unjust life circumstances. Progress cannot be achieved without listening.

If Americans are willing to gloss over history and ignore atrocities and injustices happening in front of their eyes right now, then nothing separates the US from countries that the self-righteous citizenry deems corrupt and founded on unjust systems.

Even more important than these points is the fact that we live in a country that was founded upon the US Constitution and the very first amendment in that document asserts that people have freedom of speech. Why then, are people who claim to love America so determined to undermine one of its strongest principles when people choose not to express undying loyalty to a country that could be doing better?

Those who claim to be defending veterans are misguided at best, if not deluded. It is not as if soldiers went to war for the American flag itself, nor the national anthem, nor the pledge of allegiance. In theory, they went to war for the ideals that these symbols claimed to represent. The same ideals that are undermined when people condemn others for protesting unacceptable conditions.

If people really want to honor veterans and soldiers they should sign up to be part of the Veterans Affairs Volunteer Service, not spend their time attacking others for their dissatisfaction. If people want to honor the country they should do so by striving to make it a better place, and a place where the rights and freedoms that are offered are offered equally to all. Then perhaps people would not have a reason to protest the country’s institutions in the first place.

The Student Government Association announced recently that they were proposing changes to their funds-allocation process. To ensure student organizations were aware of certain changes, a presentation was held on Monday, Feb. 22 during free hour where Daniel Wang, the chair of their Finance Board and financial economics major, discussed these new implementations that will affect fund distributions starting in the fall of 2019.

“The overall goal of the Finance Board is to distribute $275,000 to all of the student organizations on campus,” said Wang. In terms of the recent changes they are planning on pursuing, he noted, “We’re focusing on shifting planning budgets earlier; instead of coming to us a month before a scheduled event, organizations will submit a budget for the upcoming semester.”

Wang says that the Finance Board going over budgets through this process will ensure the money is properly allocated. It also allows student groups to spend their funds however they see fit, which means the Association will not put as much input into what organizations are placing their funds towards. Wang emphasized this Monday by explaining that the board will allow for groups to spend their funds however they wish so long as they meet university and SGA policies.

The leader of the Finance Board explained that in the past, information was passed down between members, which allowed for interpretations of policies to become muddied over time. An example of such is a university policy stating that non-exhaustible items cannot be purchased, because each purchase will need to be stored, which the SGA does not have room for. “The Finance Board used to let this policy slide, but now we can’t continue to let it go anymore.”

A crucial step Wang wants to take is to ensure that no student organizations get more money than they need to the point where other campus organizations are deprived. “Ten year ago, there was something called the House of Organizations, which did what the Finance Board does today – allocate money. However, student organizations would stack the Finance Committee of the house of Organizations.”

While the Board normally decides upon important decisions occasionally, from past experience of student organizations trying to lobby the Committee, the chair explains the Finance Board will implement “norms into the budgetary statues.” This ensures that paper trail follows organization’s spending while allowing for “legislation to pass for changes to occur.”

While that form of allocating money has since ceased, Wang notices some of those parallels today. In order to nip this in the bud, he is planning on setting forth a requirement that prevents the chair of the Finance Board from sitting on any Executive Boards within SGA.

At the financial presentation, Wang also discussed that 65% of funds will be guaranteed for on-campus activities while up to 25% will be directed towards off-campus events. The rest of the funding will go towards a Secondary Allocation System, which is currently planned to be used for emergencies and will then be considered for those of newer organization status and those with unforeseen funding issues.

Important dates discussed during the free-hour meeting include May 15, 2019, the deadline for groups turning in their Budget Request Packet for fall 2019. Meanwhile, July 1, 2019 is when student organizations can have access to their allocated funds.

In general, seven weeks after the commencing of a semester, deadlines are to be turned in for considering of spring 2020 funds; 30 days after the new semester, the Finance Board will get back in contact with organizations about their planned budget.

Wang stated he is planning for organizations to also have a liaison within the Finance Board in order to ensure that the groups are keeping in line with policies. “We’re looking to implement a liaison program, so every group would receive a Finance Board contact fund.” He also encourages people to apply to the Finance Board to help ensure that process, such as reforming the budgeting process, can run more smoothly.

There is a disturbing tendency emerging around instances of public acts of racism. Essentially, an act of racism will be captured, shared and condemned immediately, only to then be redacted and obscured as more “context” emerges around the act. News media will go to significant lengths to share this additional “context” until the matter is obscured entirely by useless side facts and tangents.

The most notable instance of this so far is perhaps the incident that occurred when a group of students harassed a group of Native Americans after the March for Life in Washington D.C. However, the first time I noticed it was a few weeks prior to that when two students made and presented a “KKK jingle” for a class project in my hometown of Dover, New Hampshire.

This incident initially sparked outrage, leading to the students being suspended and the teacher being put on paid leave. Almost immediately following that, however, the local paper was flooded with letters and comments insisting that the incident was taken out of context. This outcry eventually led to the students returning to class and the teacher being reinstated with no real consequences.

So what exactly is this context that changed the perception of these two seemingly clear-cut instances of racism? In both cases little more than unrelated facts that muddy the waters and appeals to the “character” of the individuals committing the racist acts.

Take for example the sudden shift of focus in the D.C. incident to the presence of a group of Black Hebrew Israelites who had clashed with the students earlier in the day. What did that have to do with anything the students did in response to the Native American activists? Nothing at all, really. Yet the media painted that earlier conflict as an essential part of the later conflict, associating the group of Native Americans with the Black Hebrew Israelites despite the two groups having nothing to do with each other.

In the case of the Dover incident much was made about the individual who had originally filmed and shared the KKK jingle. Many claimed that the student had a history of seeking attention or poor behavior. Many brought up that the student had disobeyed a request by the teacher to not film the presentations. Yet this does not at all address the root of the issue, it instead creates the idea that exposing racism is somehow as bad as committing acts of racism.

The second common thread in these incidents is the attempts to try and show instances of the perpetrators of these racist acts not being “racist people.” In the Dover case, many tried to focus on how the song was intended to go over the history of the KKK during Reconstruction after the Civil War, and that many of the verses in isolation are not racist at all.

Yet this ignores the fact that the chorus of the song is clearly quite racist, going “KKK, KKK, let’s kill all the blacks.” The educational intention of the song or project does not excuse the racism present in the execution of the project, even if attention is drawn to those parts after the fact.

A similar argument was made about the students in D.C., claiming that the incident was not as racist as it once appeared. In particular, one student was filmed staring down a Native American activist. In full context it seems he had not gone up to the man but was instead approached and refused to move.

That does not address much of anything at all. Refusing to get out of the way of someone is clearly rude. Given the further context of students whooping, chanting, “tomahawk chopping” and generally mocking Native Americans, a racist motivation can certainly be implied from that rudeness.

Overall it seems that a narrative is being pushed that seems to indicate that no one is really racist unless they are cartoonishly evil and single-mindedly so. Showing that the people who commit acts of racism are normal people who are not constantly striving to be as racist as possible says less about their acts of racism and more about a prevalent social discomfort with the idea that racism is perpetuated by otherwise normal people.

That discomfort is at the root of this obsession with context. The real intention of “adding context” to either of these stories was to resolve that discomfort. If it was not, then certainly we would have heard more about the connections between the far-right agenda of the March for Life and the history of racism from the students that attended it. We similarly would have seen how the teacher who assigned the KKK jingle project had a history of insensitivity and complaints from marginalized students.

The uncomfortable reality of these racist acts is that normal people can be and often are racist and furthermore, that racism is not always a stereotypical cross-burning hatred, but could instead be rooted in anything from a cold condescension to simple ignorance.

That should not be normalized or defended. Rather it should be confronted head-on, as we deal with racism as it does exist, not as we would like it to exist. The reality of racism in America is and likely always will be messy, thus requiring an honest attempt to identify and solve the underlying threads of oppression. Dishonest smoke screens of supposed context might make some people more comfortable but will do nothing to solve anything.