2018 Year in Review: The best from Opinion


2018 Year in Review


Deconstructing whiteness from a multiracial perspective
Laura Carther reflected on her multiracial identity, from what it means to be potentially passing for white to a search for recognition and solidarity with other multiracial Asian Americans. Read more here.

Blackness in royal wedding does not discount history
When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry in the wedding of the year, she began to represent more than herself as a black American woman. Ruby Phillips wrote about what Markle’s biracial identity means when she entered British royalty, a system that has historically been unkind to people of color. Read more here.

Off Script: The queer environmentalism of ‘Call Me By Your Name’
The film “Call Me by Your Name,” Alex Schwartz wrote, shows that nature is where queer people exist most visibly, radically and unapologetically. “In a sense, it implies that we can live both sustainably and richly. It’s off the beaten path but not uncivilized — it is supremely paradisiacal. It seems to say: Live simply, and love greatly.” Read more here.

Off Script: What “Nappily Ever After” gets right — and wrong — about black hair
Cassidy Jackson saw “Nappily Ever After” as a movie that had an opportunity to dismantle the common black female obsession with Eurocentric hair, but instead it “barely dived into the topic of black hair, taking too comedic of an approach.” Read more here.

Hey journalists, be human
Being a journalist requires balancing many responsibilities, but sometimes the line between the source’s wellbeing and the story the reporter wants to tell gets blurred. Heena Srivastava wrote about how journalism’s purpose gets misinterpreted — it is not about giving a voice to the voiceless, like many say, but about “giving the voiceless a microphone.” Read more here.

Affording NU: Family Weekend isn’t accessible for everyone
“Family Weekend is meant to bring families and friends together for a great weekend in Evanston,” Allie Goulding wrote in October as part of her series on being a low-income student at Northwestern. “Money shouldn’t be a barrier to this, but unfortunately, it is.” Read more here.

Ending mental illness stigma shouldn’t require me to relive my trauma
Victims of trauma, mentally ill folks and survivors of all kinds should not be asked or required to open up their lives and relive their suffering, wrote Katie Pach. “We are more than our suffering. Listen to us when we speak, be open when we’re ready, but do not demand to know our pain.” Read more here.

The real problem with college admissions isn’t Affirmative Action; it’s legacies
With Harvard University on trial for discriminating against Asian applicants, Andrea Bian found herself thinking more and more about her strategy of getting into college and what it made her believe about Asian discrimination. Legacy students should be held to higher standards because they usually grew up with additional privilege, she wrote. Read more here.

Voting will not solve all our problems
The 2018 midterm elections had a lot riding on them for both parties, and Northwestern students voted in high numbers this year. But voting is not the sole solution, Martinez argued. Because so much of the American population is still disenfranchised, it’s important to uplift all voices and fight for a fully representative democracy. Read more here.

Marginalized journalists don’t need additional rules
Marginalized journalists are often placed under harsh double standards when reporting, forced into undue roles and schools of thought by their peers in the name of maintaining “objectivity.” Marissa Martinez broke down some of these assumptions and practices that continue to hold back underrepresented reporters. Read more here.

My high school teacher sexually harassed his students. Students took his side.
The #MeToo movement shook up the entertainment, reporting and political fields in 2018 and sparked a long public conversation about the persistent problem of sexual harassment. Melania Hidalgo wrote about her experience with harassment in high school, and how easy it was for other students to stick up for the accused. Read more here.

Editorial: Satoshi Kanazawa does not belong on Northwestern’s campus
The Daily Northwestern Editorial Board calls for the removal of researcher Satoshi Kanazawa from his year-long guest scholarship at the University. Kanazawa was hired despite having a long list of racist articles denounced by others in his field, and now gets to benefit from the Northwestern name in the interest of “intellectual freedom.” Read more here.