Voices

Voices is the Op-Ed and personal essay section of The Georgetown Voice. It features the real narratives of diverse students from nearly every corner on campus, seeking to tell some of the incredibly important and yet oft-unheard stories that affect life in and out of Georgetown.

Voices

Carrying On: Believing in disbelief

Last semester, I found myself surrounded by waves of nonbelievers at the Reason Rally, a forum for secular thought held at the National Mall. As the virulent freethinkers indulged themselves... Read more

By September 5, 2012

Voices

The hair-raising tale of a razor-averse Hoya woman

During recent years, I’ve been called many things.  I’ve been called a boy, a dirty hippie, a hairy mountain woman, a bearded lady, and, most affectionately by my parents, a... Read more

By August 30, 2012

Voices

Confessions of a library junkie: I just can’t get enough

On a whim this summer, I bought the newest Game of Thrones book. 35 dollars later, I was sitting in my apartment staring at the cover and debating how to... Read more

By August 30, 2012

Voices

Poverty is everywhere, except on the campaign trail

American elections suffer from a number of sad realities, but few are as disheartening as the absence of poverty from the mainstream political discourse. For how little the two main... Read more

By August 30, 2012

Voices

Study Abroad in Dupont

It’s strange coming back to a place I’ve called “home” for the past two years, only to feel like a freshman all over again. I don’t know or recognize anyone... Read more

By August 30, 2012

Voices

New South, old memories

Due to a slight Housing Office mix-up, when I arrived on campus for early move-in a few days ago I was informed that my apartment was not quite ready, and... Read more

By August 24, 2012

Voices

Pre-med devotee adjusts to life after organic chemistry

This summer was the worst of my life. No one I know died, I didn’t contract the Black Death, and America kicked ass at the Olympics, but something far worse... Read more

By August 24, 2012

Voices

Where are the jobs? Ask the Republican legislatures

If you want to find the single biggest drag on job growth in the United States, don’t look to the president. Don’t look to Congress, or at least not directly.... Read more

By August 24, 2012

Voices

Hunger Games obsession helps ease post-graduation fears

Sophomore year is coming to an end, and the dreaded slump has set in. Combined with the recent streak of bad weather, this has lead to a complete and utter lack of desire to do anything. I’ve found other ways to occupy my time, like thinking about how I’m pursuing a degree that, especially in these tough economic times, isn’t exactly practical—it’s sometimes pretty difficult to see how the skills the SFS has taught me can translate into a career. Still, one cannot spend hours dwelling on insecurities without going insane, so I have turned to my favorite fictional world for solace—Panem.

By April 26, 2012

Voices

Religious plurality at Georgetown inspires contemplation

At Georgetown, religion is everywhere. And for me, whose only religious experience pre-college was a third-grade Christmas gift exchange in which I gave a teacher a Barbie I didn’t like, a Jesuit university was quite the jump. And while my Catholic friends here might remind me that this is “barely Catholic” in comparison to their private high schools, I feel the strength of faith everywhere I go.

By April 26, 2012

Voices

Carrying On: Down, but never out

It’s an all too common conversation opener at NSO: “Well, my dad’s from Singapore, my mom is French and Japanese, but I grew up in South Africa and then went to high school in New York City…” In these situations, quite a few Georgetown students can rattle off impressive and exotic responses about their own backgrounds, very often in several languages. I’m not one of them. After the cosmopolitan Hoya has recited a laundry list of enviable places of origin, it’s my turn to declare that I hail from Michigan—more specifically, from the Detroit area. My interlocutor usually responds with something to the effect of, “Ouch,” or “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

By April 26, 2012

Voices

Gay-dar culture doesn’t encompass range of sexuality

About 16 months ago, Michael, my best friend since age six, told me that he was gay. He knew I had no problem with gay people in the abstract, but he also knew that I, 16 years old and from Georgia, had scarcely interacted with anyone of alternate sexual orientations. Nothing changed; Michael is still my best friend. What troubled me, however, were the stories of bigotry he experienced growing up, of which I had only been peripherally aware. Only with his reminder did I realize just how liberally the word “faggot” was used all throughout elementary and middle school. In eighth grade, our health teacher basically told us that LSD would turn you gay, as it would make you suddenly want to make out with other men. The class responded with the requisite disgust and mutterings of “so gross,” thoroughly alienating the kids who might actually be attracted to the same sex.

By April 26, 2012

Voices

Carrying On: Holy mole-y!

When I first heard there was a mole at Fox News, I was pretty damn excited. For years I have hoped for a popular backlash against not only Fox News, with its blatantly fear-mongering conservative agenda, but all the major American news networks, which consistently embellish, distort, and manipulate facts to boost both network ratings and the political stances they subscribe to. But after a week of behind-the-scenes leaks from “America’s most trusted news network,” I feel little more than disappointment for a lost opportunity to instigate a desperately needed change in the culture of news.

By April 19, 2012

Voices

You may be able to pay for school, but you can’t buy class

When the recession began in the United States in the fall of 2008, American universities felt the hit in all of their main sources of revenue—fewer students able to pay high tuition, attendance down at sporting events, and donors contributing significantly less to endowments. Georgetown, for one, set priorities based on financial constraints by attempting to stifle staff layoffs and focusing alumni money on financial aid.

By April 19, 2012

Voices

A misunderstood mission: U.S. charitywork misses the mark

Growing up in an evangelical Christian household and attending a fundamentalist Christian high school, charity and service were held next to godliness. Each year our school sent off groups of students to preach the gospel and do charity work. Whether in Thailand, the Dominican Republic, or South Africa, we had God’s work to do—charity wasn’t a suggestion, it was a command. To aid us in this imperative, our school worked closely with local San Diego missionaries who were doing inspiring work building houses in Mexico or spreading literacy in Mauritania. Usually after a brief video showing starving babies covered in flies, these missionaries would teach us the tools of the trade—mosquito nets, ministry, and moral absolutism. One of these motivational speakers was a young man named Jason Russell, founder of Invisible Children and the filmmaker behind the Kony 2012 viral video that blew up this March and has been viewed over 100 million times since.

By April 19, 2012

Voices

Emotions and self-expression should not be taboo

I was stalking my brother on Facebook last week when I came across a photo of him in stage make-up, posted by a girl who was working on the school musical. She clearly had too much free time. I nearly clicked past it, until I saw the comment that someone had left: “gay homo fag.”

By April 18, 2012

Voices

As president, Romney would not govern as a moderate

Although Rick Santorum’s withdrawal from the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday may have liberals cheering, the most dangerous candidate is still in the race. Although Mitt Romney is perceived as a moderate, he has given the American people more than enough reason to believe that as president, he would act in a way that would appease the conservative Right, allowing for a narrow ideology to take control of the executive branch.

By April 12, 2012

Voices

Study abroad: Vacation disguised as intellectual expansion

Before you dismiss this piece as a personal gripe coming from a homesick, Hilltop-crazy Hoya, a disclaimer: my semester in Strasbourg, France, was fine. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Like any student abroad, I met interesting people from all over the world, I got to know a little bit about my host region’s culture, I ate way too much delicious local food, and most importantly, my French improved in ways it simply couldn’t have at home. I reenacted some of the tamer scenes from In Bruges on a trip to Belgium, and made some awful puns in the south of France (I couldn’t help myself, the weather was just so “Nice”). Memories of bike rides along picturesque canals and picnics in verdant parks remind me that I’m incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to go abroad.

By April 12, 2012

Voices

Carrying On:Twilight takes it all off

I was recently tasked to suffer through all 400-something pages of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight for my Young Adult Literature class. That’s 400-something pages of “Edward’s piercing golden eyes” and “smoldering stares” and “Bella’s aching pull to be with him,” which makes for 400-something pages of my own smirking. But for one generation of Twihards, the Twilight trilogy leaves a certain carnal stone unturned.

By April 12, 2012

Voices

Martin protestors challenge corporate domination of politics

By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about it: on Feb. 26, George Zimmerman fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin just 70 feet from the boy’s home. In response, President Obama promised an investigation and remarked that if he “had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” At the same time, Republicans have accused Obama of “race-baiting,” as they either dismiss the plausibility of prejudice or avoid the subject entirely. During a radio interview, Newt Gingrich claimed that “it’s not a question of who that young man looked like.” Mitt Romney, on not quite the other hand, dodged journalists’ questions about the incident in a manner that reinforces Dr. King’s timeless adage, “There comes a time ewhen silence is betrayal.” Yet in vitriol or reticence, the G.O.P. has not dealt a betrayal as much as a perpetuation of grand ole American racism.

By April 12, 2012