During the past few years, there has been plenty of talk about the increasing prevalence of obesity in this country. Not surprisingly, dozens of industries are trying to capitalize on this epidemic. It seems like every other week, a new ”miracle drug“ is put on the market to help consumers lose dozens of pounds in a matter of days. Gyms, yoga studios, and people who produce workout videos are making a fortune off of this phenomenon as well. And, of course, there’s Jared the Subway guy, who has taught us all that if we just eat Subway sandwiches every day, we too can drop a significant amount of weight.  

Given these developments, you’d probably guess that Americans were buying into a new cult of thinness rather than one of obesity. Given the number of people suffering from anorexia and bulemia, there is no doubt that there is some validity to this statement. But as Americans continue to buy into new weight-loss fads, the statistics seem to suggest that high rates of obesity and obesity-related health problems (and deaths) continue to skyrocket. Part of this can be explained by the fact that these fads rarely keep weight off long-term, if at all.

But there are other questions that need to be asked. Why is it that despite an obsession with thinness, we can’t seem to keep the obesity statistics down? Do we just eat too much? Do Americans lack the willpower to just say ”no“ to spending more money and eating more food than necessary for sustenance? There’s certainly no question that, on the whole, people in the U.S. tend to consumer considerably more than people in other countries do.

But consider the way in which the Bush administration is providing life-support for the obesity epidemic. As Jonathan Rowe and Gary Ruskin point out, the Bush administration, which has talked quite a bit about personal responsibility and staying in shape, has rejected the World Health Organization’s plan to combat obesity, diabetes, and other related illnesses.

One of the Bush administration’s primary justifications for rejecting this plan is that individuals should take responsibility for their own actions and for their food and diet. For most opponents of government regulation of our bodies, there is quite a bit of validity to this argument. But there is another side to this story that the government isn’t articulating. As Rowe and Ruskin explain:

Note that the Bush Administration is not demanding some personal responsibility from
junk food bigwigs such as sugar magnate Jose ’Pepe‘ Fanjul, Safeway CEO Steven Burd, and Richard F. Hohlt, a lobbyist for Altria (formerly Philip Morris), which is majority owner of Kraft. It is not asking them to take responsibility for the billions of dollars they and other junk food marketers spend seducing our kids with saturation ads, nor for the obvious and predictable consequences of these actions — i.e. the diseases
associated with the consumption of junk food.

Each of these fat cats has purchased an indulgence in the form of bundled $200,000 contributions to the 2004 Bush campaign. So the Administration points the finger instead at parents and their children …

The sugar industry has wanted to hobble WHO since the organization said that free sugars should comprise less than 10% of total daily calories. Last April, the Sugar Association actually threatened WHO that it would sic its allies in Congress on the U.S.’s annual $406 million contributions.

Now, we agree that people do need to take more responsibility for the junk they put into their mouths, and for their failure to get off their behinds. But the global obesity lobby has to take some responsibility too, for its nonstop propaganda campaign, especially when it is aimed at children. That includes Henry Kravis, founding partner of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which is majority owner of Channel One, an in-school meeting service that bombards schoolchildren with ads for soda pop and junk food. True, Mr. Kravis has bundled $100,000 to the Bush 2004 campaign. But surely President Bush understands that sometimes, we just have to say “No.”

Executives such as Mr. Kravis seem to have a hard time grasping another Administration nostrum – that parents are the proper guides to their children’s behavior. They persist in injecting themselves into the relationship between parents and children. They seduce kids with ads crafted by psychologists to turn the kids into relentless nags for junk food that many parents do not want their kids to have. These executives have got to take some responsibility for the way they disrupt the home …

Forgotten in the daily barrage of junk food ads is the way the government actually encourages these very corporations. Under U.S. tax law, for example, most corporate advertising is tax deductible. So next time your kid throws a tantrum because you don’t want to buy her another Big Mac, you might recall that your tax dollars are helping
to pay for the ads that induced your child’s snit …

Eighteen months ago, President Bush himself said ”when I talk about personal responsibility in America, I expect there to be corporate responsibility as well, and we will hold those to account who do not uphold those high standards in  
America.“

Such corporate responsibility remains to be seen, of course. And something tells me that Bush won’t be asking much of corporations like Altria before next November. Until then, millions of lives will be at stake as a result of overconsumption. The problem doesn’t merely have repercussions in the U.S. either. Many of those lives will be at stake because someone else — often in the U.S. — was consuming too much, leaving them a dearth of food to consume.

Laura Nathan-Garner

In today’s issue of The New York Times, Professor Rhonda Garelick writes, “While my own college days in the 1980’s overflowed with heated debates about women’s rights and cultural politics in general, such fervor now seems absent from campus life. Although virtually all of my female students expect to pursue careers, this is where their enlightenment seems to end. For them, the reassuring power of a college degree to unlock professional doors seems to have rendered ‘feminism’ obsolete. In other words, the fires of feminism may have burned down to the ashes of careerism.” But is this really the case?

Writing as a recent college graduate, I find Garelick’s concern about the growing apathy regarding the other “f-word”—feminism—in higher education classrooms to be shortsighted. While Garelick correctly points out that there are many students—and though she doesn’t mention them, professors—who either have no interest in advancing progressive notions of gender and sexual politics, her application of this characteristic to an entire generation of students is unjustified for a couple of reasons.

First, though I was merely a child in the 1980s, I suspect that Garelick perceived a general fervor about these issues during that time because she surrounded herself with relatively like-minded individuals. My own circle of friends and acquaintances, of course, begins to explain why I disagree with Garelick. That being said, I find it difficult to imagine that there were not plenty of students—male and female—who were more concerned with passing their classes, getting  a date, or getting a job than with advocating progressive causes such as women’s rights.

Today’s college students are no different. While there are those who are more concerned with what they’ll wear to the next frat party or whether they’ll work for one corporation or another when they graduate, many students can be seen protesting the war in Iraq and the harms of globalization, marching in Washington, D.C. to demand continued protection of reproductive  rights, majoring in women’s studies or gender studies (a discipline that didn’t exist in the academy until quite recently), campaigning to get Bush out of office, dating members of the same sex, or engaging in heated philosophical, cultural, and political discussions both inside and outside the classroom. Some read progressive books and periodicals and listen to music with progressive lyrics, and many volunteer at rape hotlines, Planned Parenthood, and other progressive organizations. These students may not be in the majority at many universities, but their presence is quite noticeable. And their presence, believe it or not, transcends the question of careerism.

Second, Garelick’s characterization of feminism is outdated and oversimplified. Perhaps Garelick should have said that today’s college students don’t embrace her conception of feminism. However, even then, this doesn’t mean that students don’t embrace some sort progressive notion of gender and sexual politics that they may or may not dub “feminism.” Defining feminism in terms of equal access and equal opportunity seems like a good idea in theory, but inevitably the push for so-called “women’s rights” doesn’t  address the unique experiences and more pressing interests and needs of women of color, queer women, women who lack a Judeo-Christian background, queer men, lower-class women, women with physical disabilities or learning disabilities, mentally ill individuals, immigrant women , women in the developing world, and women and men who occupy more than one of these minority statuses. For such people, their chief concerns aren’t necessarily based on their gender, and even if they are, their experiences often necessitate addressing the complex causes of their oppression rather than trying to explain it in terms of the patriarchy.

Why aren’t these concerns being discussed in colleges across the country? While my own first-hand experience tells me that they are, it is also worth noting that many of the people who experience these more complex forms of discrimination and oppression aren’t in American universities. Some can’t afford such an education. Some don’t speak English and consequently can’t engage in these discussions with their peers. Some feel that they have no place in higher education settings—or in school in general—because they feel excluded by the majority or feel that this type of learning environment has nothing to offer them.

Perhaps the question that we need to be asking, then, is how we can make higher education more inclusive. Part of the solution must begin with school administrations and professors reaching out to a broader array of students and encouraging them to offer up their opinions, even if those opinions are drastically different from our own.

But much of this change must begin long before students attend college. While college transforms the ways that many of us think about the world and socialize, if parents, teachers, political figures, writers, and even pop stars aren’t raising questions concerning the discrimination and exclusion experienced by many people in this country, then most students won’t have the incentive, confidence, or knowledge to inspire them to partake in such discussions in college. Moreover, if we treat school as a chore rather than a place for active engagement in our own microcosms prior to college, there’s no reason why apathetic students will enjoy going to class or will want to speak up and engage in heated discussions once they get to college.

Laura Nathan-Garner

Despite the potential for a drastic overhaul of politics in the Middle East this summer when Iraqis are scheduled to elect a new government, the White House appears to be far more concerned with the re-election campaign of President Bush than with promoting representative democracy in Iraq. It’s no secret that many Iraqis aren’t happy with the way the U.S. is running the show in their country. Months of guerilla violence and protests  have illuminated an overwhelming sentiment of frustration and skepticism regarding the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

Why does this sentiment continue to reign in Iraq when the U.S. is scheduled to cease its political control and allow the Iraqis to elect a new government in less than six months? Rightfully so, the Iraqis fear that the Bush administration plans to continue to influence Iraq  through what Robert Scheer calls “an opaque process of caucuses designed, implemented and run by Washington and its Iraqi appointees. It is just colonial politics as usual. That’s why the conservative Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the revered cleric of Iraq’s Shiites (who make up 60% of the country), is requesting a transparent one-person, one-vote election.”

The U.S. refuses to allow such an election. Initially, the Bush administration argued that this would be too dangerous since weapons of mass destruction were floating around Iraq. The U.S. didn’t want to take the risk that the people elected to the new Iraqi government had access to these weapons. But last week, the search party was called off, and Bush conceded that there did not appear to be any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

So what is the Bush administration’s excuse now?  But Iraqis have surmised that the Bush administration fears giving the Iraqis too much of a voice in their government out of fear that they might elect a government that demanded the U.S. remove its troops and oil companies from Iraq. They have also surmised that Bush fears the prospect that the war he launched could result in a new Iraqi government as oppressive of that of Saddam Hussein, hurting Bush’s own chances of reelection. Bush, of course, has not actually offered up these excuses publicly.

Rather, according to the Bush administration’s official excuse, a free election is impossible because there is no consensus among Iraqis that they want a free election. It’s not quite clear, though, that Iraqis have ever been asked how they would like to elect their new government. Nevertheless, we’re told that “key Iraqis” have approved Bush’s election-by-caucaus plan. There are two problems with this, however. First, “key Iraqis” translates into something along the lines of “a few Iraqis hand-picked by the U.S. government because they will go along with Bush’s plans.” Second, as Scheer discloses, “The Washington Post writes that ‘there is no precise equivalent in Arabic for ‘caucus’ nor any history of caucuses in the Arab world, U.S. officials say.’ Perhaps a format Iraqis might better understand could have been generated by, say, Iraqis?”

It is impossible to predict whether the officials elected by Iraqis in a free election would be more benevolent than the last. But at least it would more closely resemble a representative government than the one that the U.S. seeks to put in place, which may represent U.S. interests but few of the democratic principlies that the U.S. government claims to stand for.

Laura Nathan-Garner

The racial dimensions of sexual assault cases involving the likes of Kobe Bryant and O.J. Simpson are no secret. But there’s a world of difference when it comes to trying a powerful, privileged black man in a relatively diverse area versus trying a lower-middle-class black male in a predominately white locale such as Rome, Georgia.

Eighteen-year-old Marcus Dixon is learning this the hard way. Dixon had a 3.96 grade-point average, a football scholarship to Vanderbilt University, and the adoration of many teachers and students at Pepperell High School, but he is also black. And he slept with a fellow student, who was just shy of her sixteenth birthday—and white.

While Dixon has acknowledged that he should’ve simply been punished for statutory rape, he never anticipated receiving ten years in prison for having what he claims was consensual sex with a classmate. But upon taking the witness stand, the young woman, who feared being seen with Dixon because her ‘daddy was a racist and . . . would kill both of us if he knew she was with a black man,’ claimed that she had been raped by Dixon. Prosecutors corroborated the young woman’s characterization of Dixon, referring to him as a ‘sexual predator,’ thereby bolstering a stereotype that black males have struggled to overcome for centuries.

Although a jury acquitted Dixon of rape, sexual battery, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment charges, they found him guilty of statutory rape, a misdemeanor. But due to injuries to the girl’s body, which were never proven to have been caused by foul play, Dixon was also charged with aggravated child molestation. The result, thanks to Georgia’s sentencing laws, was the minimum sentence of ten years in prison.

Many people are now insisting that the trial would have had a very different outcome—and that the prosecution would have had a very different strategy—if Dixon had been white and the young woman had been black. This, of course, is something we can never know for certain.

Regardless of whether Dixon is guilty of child molestation or rape, the characterization of this case by both the prosecution, defense, and the people of Rome, Georgia, suggests that race continues to play a paramount role in the U.S. justice system and that racial stereotypes continue to pervade much of our society. The question now is: Can we find a way to discuss and try alleged crimes such as this one without the issue of race, rather than hard facts, being a—if not the—deciding factor? And if so, how can we go about doing so?

Laura Nathan-Garner

When I sat down to write my post for today, I was planning to use the example of the Lingerie Bowl, a women vs. women (scantily clad, of course) football match that will air on pay-per-view during half-time of the Superbowl, to discuss the way that sex—particularly female sex—sells in American culture. But as I perused The New York Times, I changed my mind. Nicholas D. Kristof’s Op-Ed “Girls for Sale” helped me put my criticism of the sale of female homoeroticism to a predominately male audience in context. While I think that the cultural criticism I originally intended to write might have been useful for interrogating gender and sexual norms in the U.S. context, I think that centering my discussion on a group of women whom aren’t starving (unless perhaps by choice, which is an issue that certainly deserves attention) and probably get paid thousands of dollars to model was neither the most compelling nor the most politically useful dialogue regarding the exploitation of female sexuality.

As Kristof’s article reminded me, thousands of women—many of them mere youth—are trafficked around the world each year, bought and sold as sexual slaves. As Cynthia Enloe’s extensive research on the subject reveals, these brothels aren’t unique to Cambodia. They also exist around U.S. military bases in Japan and South Korea, as well as in a host of other countries.

If you, like former Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, think, “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it,” think again. Women such as the ones that Kristof and Enloe discuss aren’t simply paid to have sex. Many of them are kidnapped, taken to brothels, and pimped to have sex with anyone their owners tell them to.

Rarely do the women get paid for their services, and even when they do, the amount is meager compared to what their owners get paid, particularly considering their predicament. Many of the women contract HIV from their clients and die of AIDS before they even reach their twenties. Some of them might consider escaping, but they are almost certain to be brutally tortured or beaten since they are not permitted to go anywhere alone. In fact, many women are so frightened of the consequences of questioning or criticizing their predicament that they remain silent, perhaps hoping for a miracle.

But, as Kristof implies, that miracle doesn’t usually arrive. Seeking help from local authorities is generally futile. They too are bribed by the brothel owners to remain complicit in an economic structure that keeps brothel towns booming off of the bodies of these women (and men, in some cases).

What can be done then? These brothels won’t go away overnight, and drastic change is unlikely to come from within. If change is to occur, there must be pressure from the outside. And the lack of dialogue regarding the persistence of sex trafficking and slavery in the mainstream media and Western activist circles  must be the first thing to go.

While it seems promising that this issue received coverage in The New York Times, the fact that it was discussed in an Op-Ed rather than a news report is unsettling. Not only do I suspect that fewer people read the editorial section than the front page, but the lack of coverage in other sections or at other times suggests that the issue probably received exposure only as a result of Kristof’s initiative.  Although the narrative that Kristof tells about Cambodian sex slaves may not seem newsworthy since it doesn’t discuss any new developments, the lack of developments is precisely the problem.

We might be able to wait until the sexual trafficking problem gets worse if it doesn’t directly affect our daily lives. But should the trafficked women and men have to wait until things get much worse for someone to speak up? Can they even afford to wait? In many cases, things probably cannot get much worse. Continuing and expanding this dialogue on sex trafficking is essential, then, to facilitate concrete change. Hopefully, in the process, we can find a means to secure a second chance at life for thousands of enslaved men and women around the world and problematize the treatment of female sexuality as a commodity in many cultures.

Laura Nathan-Garner

On Thursday, President Bush visited Dr. Martin Luther King’s grave in Atlanta on the way to a fundraising event. While the President may have sincerely sought to honor Dr. King on the 75th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birth, his visit provoked deep skepticism among blacks. As Lance Grimes, a black social worker from Decatur, Georgia, told The New York Times, “‘Bush was not invited . . . It is a desecration for him to lay a wreath at the tomb of Dr. King. He is diametrically opposed to everything Dr. King stood for.’”

For those who have suffered the brunt of Bush’s presidency, a brief fifteen minute visit to MLK’s grave couldn’t excuse the administration’s slighting of minorities the other 364 days of the year. With Bush making little concrete effort to improve the plight of minorities in the U.S. the rest of the year, protesters across the Southeast construed Bush’s visits to MLK’s grave in Atlanta and to a predominately black church in New Orleans on the same day as nothing more than a public relations move.

Last year, right around MLK’s birthday, Bush took a stand against affirmative action in college admissions at the University of Michigan. With the help of the Right’s depiction of MLK as an opponent of affirmative action and a proponent of colorblindness, Bush characterized his agenda as a fulfillment of the civil rights leader’s political vision.

One year later, Bush is at it again, exploiting King’s legacy for his own political gain. Less than ten months before the presidential election, Bush, the self-declared “compassionate conservative,” is still struggling to garner support from blacks and other minorities, who have statistically higher unemployment rates under the Bush administration than whites. Much like Bush’s proposal for immigration reform, which many people—regardless of party line—see as nothing more than a political ploy to win the support of Latino swing voters, Bush’s attempts to honor MLK and appeal to black religious leaders to win support for his faith-based social welfare proposals appeared to be a last-ditch effort to secure votes from black voters. According to The New York Times, only about eight percent of black voters voted for Bush in 2000. Despite a lack of support from racial minorities, polls suggest that Bush would get re-elected if the election were held today. Bush doesn’t want to take any chances, though. If the opposition to Bush’s visits to MLK’s grave and a New Orleans church yesterday are any indication, many blacks don’t seem too keen on taking a chance on Bush either.

Laura Nathan-Garner