ideas, trends, and open dialogue
icetheridge
This user hasn't shared any biographical information
Posts by icetheridge
To Whom It May Concern…
Aug 3rd
To Whom it May Concern,
My name is Icee Etheridge and I have had the pleasure of living in South Campus this summer. It’s been great! The panneling is pretty outdated, but it creates a sort of cave that I’ve learned to love for its homey effect. And even though my refrigerator and oven are in two different rooms, I think that cooking has become a real adventure in discovering how many times I can travel back and forth between them before my meal is ready. Instead of dwelling on the possibility of my food being infested with God knows what critters, I like to maintain the ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ outlook. All in all, I’ve been living the good life. There’s only one problem. Now, I don’t wanna sound like a whiner or anything, but it’d make me so much happier if you could manage to keep it down juuuuust a bit. You see, just as facing the alleyway means almost perpetual darkness due to the lack sunlight (helps keep me cool), it also means that I have to hear a lot more than I’d like.
It started off innocent enough. Earlier in the summer, my room was oft times filled with the joyous laughter, threats and cursing of the delinquent middle schoolers across the way. Changing was always a problem as I was never super confident that they couldn’t see through the grates from the schoolyard, but I got by. And just as I was getting used to them whistling out of the short yellow school bus as I passed each morning, school ended. I thought things would quite down now when the little darlings went on summer vacation.
LikeBlame It On The Alcohol
Jul 22nd
During the latter half of each week, I always like to watch the incoming freshmen and their families come onto campus for orientation. I am always both amused and saddened by the sight: amused because they all look so young and remind me so much of myself just a few short years ago. However, the larger part of me is saddened because, as I’m sure all the rising seniors will agree, a new class means that we get closer to the top of the food chain…and thereby closer to graduation. Nonetheless, I often think back to my freshmen year, how I’ve changed and what I’ve learned. Some lessons came easier and quicker (GO TO CLASS), while others took a lot longer for me absorb.
One of the first non-academic lessons I ever learned is that college is not an excuse or a reason to binge drink on the weekends like most of us tend to do. Admittedly, it is a large part of college, and sometimes it’s kind of appropriate to let loose, but it’s only supposed to occupy a minimal amount of your time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for celebratory drinks (EDITORS NOTE: IF YOUR 21) after a particularly stressful exam or long boring week; it does the human soul some good to get out every now and again. The problem is that we usually get out of control—we will find our comfortable limit…and then knowingly exceed it. In general, I consider this only half of the problem: we drink too much and make a fool of ourselves, but for the most part its all in “good fun”. The more serious half of the problem is that we use the excuse of being drunk to do things we would otherwise not do.
That is altogether more worrisome, because there’s a reason we don’t do certain things in everyday life. Too often, people justify their actions by blaming it on the alcohol (thank you, Jamie Foxx). But in reality, when does ‘liquid courage’ become ‘liquid recklessness’? We’ve all done something stupid and woken up the next morning with a screeching headache and raging guilt. It ranges from drunk dialing the ex you never got over to doing questionable things with even more questionable people. Why do we knowingly risk our physical and emotional health for a few hours of bar hopping, dancing and a random hook-up?
Dance for Forgiveness
Jun 30th
These days, everytime I go to CVS, there’s a new magazine cover documenting the latest celebrity scandal. I can’t help but wonder, “Why should I care?” I mean, I’d much rather worry over my own problems than how Lindsay Lohan may or may not be able to get out of her anklet. However, I’ve recently had a revelation: in some strange way, we SHOULD care because, as members of our society, we need to hold them accountable for their offenses and treat them accordingly.
How did I come to this conlusion? This whole thing started Sunday night when, every four seconds, someone in my news feed on Facebook was updating about the BET Awards. For a while, I monitored the status updates without really caring what was going on, but when people started posting about Chris Brown, I started paying attention. People’s statuses ranged from commending him on his tribute to Michael Jackson to how he’s making a great comeback.
Uh…HELLO PEOPLE?! Was it not just a year ago he was going through major fallout about abusing a woman, and not just any woman, a woman that has quite a bit of status in the entertainment world. I’m surprised at how easy it’s been for him to just slide back into his former life as if he didn’t commit a serious crime. Yeah, he got punished: probation and community service. Jail time? Don’t bet on it. To add insult to injury, he’d been quoted saying, having come from a home where his own mother was abused, that he hated any person that disrespected or mistreated a woman. Really?
Where is the accountability? Why do young girls continue to fawn over a person that has admittedly committed one of the more sensitive crimes against women? Better yet, why are their parents not telling them that it is NOT okay to support his music? Just because he happens to know his way around the dance floor and can record catchy songs, he can just skate by on picking up trash on the side of the road and issuing a hardly believable apology online? Everybody wants to end Tiger Woods’ career because he cheated on his wife, but Chris Brown abuses Rihanna, and we welcome him back with open arms?! I don’t understand the scale here.
All that being said, do I think he’s not endured backlash and had to deal with his own personal demons since the incident? No. I certainly think that he’s suffered both publicly and privately for what he’s done. However, I don’t know that we’ve really let him have it, to put it frankly. What is an appropriate response and how long should we stonewall? Has he suffered enough? Should I buy his new CD (the answer to this is a resounding NO. I’ve never been a big fan)? I can’t answer these questions because it’s a sticky, tangled up mess of a situation. All I know is that one Michael Jackson does not equal exoneration of any kind.
Recent Comments