Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Aug. 31, 2016, edition 1 / Page 4
Part of University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
4 AUGUST 31,2016 THEBLUEBANNER.NET OPINION Section Editor: iaselomunca.edu The Blue Banner, not its staff, is your voice. 4s much as we endeavor to inform you, would never presume to speak for you. But we can ensure that you have the right to speak uncensored within legal limits. Voice is your section, without dedicated staff writers, to speak, to disagree, to be sure that even the most minor voice has a platform to be heard. Submissions from students, faculty, staff and the community can be sent to jmallow@unca.edu : 1 'i. S/ • _ pr-' m Xi ■11 Florida Governor Malloy visits the site of June’s shooting at Pulse nightclub. Photo courtesy of Florida Governor Daniel Malloy Reflecting on the Orlando shooting and its aftermath RPRPK^AH r;RAY do not think I will be able to forget that Certain politicians usM the shooting as hate on a religion that has nothing to di REBEKAH GRAY Opinion Staff Writer rgray1@unca.edu Over two months passed since the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Forty-nine people were shot dead and 53 more were injured on June 12. It is the deadliest shooting thus far in Unit ed States history and one that shook the LGBT community to its core.’ The nightclub was supposed to be a safe place, yet it was invaded. So many lost their lives and many more lost loved ones, friends and family. I vividly remember the day after, when 1 heard the news of the shooting. 1 do not think I will be able to forget that day, either. It is burned into my memo ry, along with all the emotions that came along with it. I remember the fear I felt most of all. I am pansexual. I am non-binary. This was the wake up call that there are people who want me, and people like me, dead. I am faced with the very real possibility that me or my friends could be murdered for simply being the way we are. Someone, filled with hatred, took up a gun and killed people like me. The bigger news outlets reporting on the shooting even hid the fact that the nightclub was a gay nightclub at first. shooting as a platform, when previously they were trying to pass bills allowing discrimina tion against the very victims who were the target of the shooting. Two months later and not much has changed. Politicians and governors who expressed sympathy returned to passing bills that oppress the LGBT commu nity. Gun control laws have not been strengthened. What’s more, people have used the Pulse shooting as a platform to blame the Muslim community. They have pointed fingers at Islam, even though the shoot er was by no means devout. They smear hate on a religion that has nothing to do with the act that claimed so many lives, They tried to turn the fight for justice onto Islam, rather than onto homopho bia. When nothing is changing, when the blame is placed where it does not belong, when the real problems are avoided, how are we supposed to stay safe? We can not be safe. We are not safe. Not when the real issues are not being addressed such as gun control and the rampant oppres sion against both the LGBT community and the Muslim community. Not unless something changes soon. Fight for your right to be a Socialist in contemporary America Uqc rQn,:in -Far cTinW- r,F \x7ViQt Tiqc Kmiiatit mir \x/nrtr1 to r^thpr ttifin tiOi^rrtpH Ttv ^ Qmtill ownin JACOB COOK Contributor mrjacobacook@gmail. com Socialism is at the center of U.S. pol itics after the campaign of Bernie Sand ers inspired millions of people to unite around the promise of having their voic es heard in an electoral arena dominated by elites. Yet, the promise of capitalist democracy has fallen far short of what it is actually able to deliver. This is seen in sharp inequality between the 1 percent and the 99 percent. The growing use of militarized police are used to suppress the growing resistance to inequality and the constriction of democracy in order to exclude ordinary people in desperate need of change; and to ensure the tools of government and the state remain in the hands of the elite. Capitalism has brought our world to the brink with inequality, racism, war and environmental devastation. It is clear to a new generation of people that the current system is working for some, as it’s meant to, but it is not working for the vast majority of us here in the U.S. or abroad. Socialism is the alternative system in which the wealth working people create is distributed equitably and efficiently rather than hoarded by a small owning class that uses the police and military tc protect and expand their privilege. So cialism provides a democratic society in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” The International Socialist Organiza tion will be holding a public forum on Wednesday at 6:30 in Highsmith Student Union room 102.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Aug. 31, 2016, edition 1
4
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75