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: A reasonable affirmation

Affirmative action, it would seem, is on its way out. Once embraced by liberals as a way to ensure equality established as a goal by the civil rights movements of the ‘60’s and ‘70s, it now has waning support across demographics and political ideologies. The fight is increasingly polarized as people take sides for or against affirmative action with such personally and politically-charged fervor that compromise seems impossible. Ironically, this passion is often supported only by anecdotal evidence and a profound ignorance of what affirmative action actually is.

By January 11, 2007

Voices

Barackin’ in the free world

I worked in the Senate with Mercy, a tall, pretty senior from UMass who lived for movie stars. The interns had a game inspired by Kevin Bacon’s six degrees of separation in which we’d name an actor and a movie as dissimilar as possible (try James Dean and National Treasure) and Mercy would have to connect them from memory. After two weeks of the game, it was Mercy: 46, interns: 0.

By December 7, 2006

Voices

Carrying On: From the sidelines: across the desert and far away

Last Thursday, during halftime of the Men’s basketball game against Oregon, ten individuals—men and women—filed onto the court. Some walked with a limp, some with a cane, all were veterans of the Iraq war. Most of them looked to be in their early 20s. I distinctly remember one of them, a young man with crutches and a missing leg.

By December 7, 2006

Voices

Georgetown can’t handle the truth

After half a semester of backyard noise, late night weekend parties and one living room rock concert, an anonymous neighbor complained about a radio station event at my house to the University as well as the police in the early hours of Sunday, Oct. 12. Two days later, my housemates and I trudged into the Office of Off Campus Student Life to meet with Chuck VanSant about the incident, and were summarily punished for our honesty.

By December 7, 2006

Voices

Negating affirmative action

Last Monday night I felt like the white kid from a black school in a white state sitting in a room full of black students at a white university. Issues of race, usually lurking in the unspeakable shadows, were then front and center in a panel discussion that dealt with whether the historically ivory tower of academics would be able to keep embracing students of color through affirmative action in the future, a possibility that I, apparently alone in my stand, look at with dismay. I see a legitimate alternative: class-based affirmative action, unfairly discounted by backward-looking ideology at American universities.

By December 7, 2006

Voices

The good, the bad and the ugly

I rode the escalator into the subway station. “Gray? or Gorgeous?” the older woman in the first poster asked.

By November 30, 2006

Voices

Rainboots: bringing kindergarten sexy back

I was that girl who stood outside the RHO at 10:13 watching time pass with impatient anticipation.

By November 30, 2006

Voices

Swiping your card, stealing your heart

Carrying On: A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

By November 30, 2006

Voices

Ask Annabelle

Ask Annabelle: the Voice’s new advice column

By November 30, 2006

Voices

Tracking down the dream

It’s hard to know how to start an Op-Ed about streetcar tracks.

By November 16, 2006

Voices

Turkey and tanning: Thanksgiving in July

My cousins were born and bred in Italy.

By November 16, 2006

Voices

Grades schmades: why the GPA system stinks

Carrying On: A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

By November 16, 2006

Voices

The stairway down to heaven

I can jump off the 10th stair and land on my feet in my grandpa’s basement.

By November 16, 2006

Voices

Me write pretty one day

It is unfortunate that the Writing Center has developed such a pejorative reputation and we admit that a majority of the misconceptions about the Writing Center are attributable to our failure to explain who we are and what we’re all about.

By November 9, 2006

Voices

Running on nothing but fumes

For the last eight days of September and the first 29 days of October I smoked like a fiend. A chimney, if you will. I probably went through three packs a week, perhaps more. If I became frustrated with myself and threw my cigarettes away, I would only discover 18 hours later that I was desperately in need of a dry, rolled-up leaf, laced with toxins, producing a rich and foul-smelling smoke whose calm effluvience so artfully destroyed my lungs.

By November 9, 2006

Voices

Crossing Over: adventures at the Syrian border

Carrying On: A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

By November 9, 2006

Voices

Time doesn’t heal all wounds

After visiting India and Senegal this past year, the question I got most often was, “What was it like? Was it hard seeing such abject poverty?”

By November 2, 2006

Voices

Biting the hand that feeds us

Carrying On: A rotating column by Voice senior staffers

By November 2, 2006

Voices

Single and ready to mingle

“Where do you live?” It’s a question that I am met with daily.

By November 2, 2006

Voices

What are you doing about Iraq?

Examining the role of students in protests against the war.

By October 26, 2006